It is late January and that means it is cold outside. Single digits below zero fahrenheit (in the -20s C) are the norm. Today we are a bit on the warm side - low 20s above zero fahrenheit (-6 C). Even with chilly outside, inside, we are starting to get moving on spring plans. The ground is rock-solid and frozen with several feet of frost, but garden and yard layout can still be imagined with something as simple as pencil and paper. For now, though, I am attempting to root a grape vine.
We have two basset hound puppies that for all practical purposes, are like nematodes with legs. I do not mean this in a pejorative sense, but more a physiological sense: nematodes have a strong digestive tract with openings on each end.
We did (past tense) have a lovely, four year old riverbank grape vine growing up the side of our shed. This was until the youngest nematode, err, puppy, discovered it was a large "stitch". The lovely vine was reduced to a stump. I did manage to save a length of vine. Wrapped in wet paper towel and placed in the refrigerator, the length rested.
Rooting a clipping or piece of stem is the process where you help or force roots to develop; basically it is a simple form of cloning. I am by no means a rooting expert. But, you will basically need:
- A dormant, vine cutting with a few bud-points
- Root powder/hormone
- A heat mat
- Potting soil mixed with a little sand
- A pot
- Stiff wire
- A sheet of heavy, clear plastic
Start by trimming both ends; identify which way the buds are pointing, pointing up - that is your top (bottom is the opposite end if you were wondering). Cut the top at an angle and the bottom straight. Between the top and bottom, you will want several bud-points and little leaf scarring.
Prepare your potting soil mix by mixing in a little bit of sand. The sand helps to lessen the moisture slightly and, in theory, helps to lessen bad molds. Whether this is true or not, I am not sure. It sounds sensible, though.
Dampen the bottom end and dip into the rooting powder/hormone. Tap off any excess. Push the cutting, bottom first, into the soil closer to the pot's edge than the middle. With two pieces of wire make a hoop-cage that goes up and over the cutting. Drape your clear plastic over after having watered a bit. Rubber band around the pot, and set the whole thing on a heat mat. And now wait. You will want to water the pot now and again if the soil is looking dry, but do not over water.
You have probably driven by millions of tansies if traveling through much of the north east part of Minnesota. In fact, you have probably driven past stands of them in many US regions. In our corner of Minnesota, in August, the tansy in ditches and roadside hills is as ubiquitous as the sound of cicadas and advertisements for the Minnesota State Fair (but far less noticed than the State Fair or advertisements for it). Colloquially, they are known as golden buttons, cow bitter, bitter buttons and several likewise-goofy sounding names and like the common dandelion, the tansy is not native to this side of the Atlantic. Like a large swath of the US population, tansies can be traced back to Europe (and Asia).
Like the Irish, at one time in the United States, the tansy is considered to be a nuisance. Here in Minnesota, the Department of Agriculture lists it as a "bad plant" This basically means there is no net positive economic benefit from this plant. If you could make flour from it, or it cured herpes, there would be fields of cultivated tansies throughout the upper midwest and many other places. But, it is not magic and does not produce flour. It has been found, however, to be a viable deterrent for the Colorado potato beetle. We actually left the wild stands of tansies around the potatoes this year; anecdotally, things turned out very well. It is looking to be a good potato-year.
It still does not leave much love for the lowly tansy, though. I think Ralph Waldo Emerson summed things up nicely; "What is a weed? [It is just] a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered."
Summers, while growing up in Hibbing, Minnesota, meant many things throughout my twenty years there. As a young teenager, prior to being able to [legally] drive, summer meant hopping my Raleigh mountain bike and riding from the moment the sun broke over the horizon until it was just a fading orange thumbnail on the opposite horizon. Stepping back to when I was a grade school-aged child, summers meant relatives from Colorado visiting and trips to a lake north of Chisholm where my family were the caretakers of a cabin.
Along with the cousins from Colorado, my grandparents, Charlie and Clarice, were ever-present during the summer. The two of them lived only about a ⅓ of a mile from my family in Hibbing. They even still lived in the same house my mother grew up in; I had little concern with the house, its age, or whether my mother had grown up there - it had always simply been my grandparents' house. In their yard, my grandmother gardened and took great pride in it, along with the flower and vegetable gardens, there were raspberries. They skirted nearly the entire perimeter of their fenced in backyard. My sister and I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house as children. Charlie and Clarice were the patriarch and matriarch of the family, and my sister and I were the grandchildren who lived the closest; we were obviously their favorites.
Raspberries and my cousins seemed an inseparable part of summer when I was a child. I can still see my grandfather, sitting in his armchair with a glass of "CC & water" (Canadian Club whiskey and water), he would turn to my cousin Jon and I, and say, "Why don't you two go pick some berries for Baby..." ("Baby" was and continues to be nickname of choice for my grandmother). Jonathan and I would each grab a green, plastic-mesh basket from the back porch and head out into the yard. We would eat as many if not more than what we would put into the baskets. Our mouths and fingers would be stained red and sticky when we finally were called in for supper. We would wash up, have supper, and finish up the meal-time with a slice of homemade raspberry cheesecake. The berries we had picked would go into the next day's pie.
Summer time, to me, is a red raspberry freshly plucked. Raspberries remind me of a bygone era where I was kid and my cousins were kids and our only summer goal was to spend time with family.
It was sometime during the late fall that Melissa (my wife) decided that our ¼ acre farm needed chickens. Where to put this future-flock? The original idea was a stand alone building, located near the front of our property. That idea was scrapped partway through the winter when we decided that we should not draw attention to our coop - even though chickens and their tending are perfectly legal in our little hamlet-of-a-town. The backyard seemed more fitting, but the land has a nice slope.
I like a challenge. I like a problem with a learning curve. These are not my usual learning curve issues that I have with my day-job. Those involve data structures, asynchronous problem solving and various other coding/programming things. The coop involves ventilation - to prevent ammonia buildup, the pros and cons of a wood floor or a concrete floor, calculating what load the roof could hold - whether conventional shingle or a dirt/plant roof.
We decided upon locating the coop directly against the south-facing wall of the garage. We broke ground for the pilings/supports on April 24, 2011. With the use of a two-stroke engined earth auger, generic Sonotubes, steel reinforcing bars, and concrete, we successfully installed the four supports in the ground in just a single afternoon. It was a very cold day with a likelihood of rain and sleet; we were concerned that the concrete was going to freeze during the night if it was unable to cure quickly enough.
Eventually, the weather turned from fall-like to more spring-like. The subfloor went on easily; then more rain came. We obtained used pallets obtained from Loll Designs; 12' x 5' - 200 pounds (91 kilos) of ring-shank-nailed, double 2' x 4'-lumbered goodness. With the help of a reciprocating saw and a circular saw, we made short-work of the pallets and turned them into usably sized wall and roof sections. With pallet walls and roof on, it was time for more rain. Lots of rain. But not before we were able to pour the concrete floor. Over the subfloor, we installed concrete backer board, and then poured a 3/4" (2 cm) thick layer of latex-reinforced floor cement.
Much like how we dress in the winter - in layers - the roof is constructed from many layers. Pallet decking, oriented strand board (OSB), ice & water barrier, fibered foundation & roofing cement, landscaping plastic, potting soil and finally, plants.
Plants are the fun part (in addition to the residence of the coop, as well). All of the plants we purchased are low growing (height-wise) and sun loving. You will not get much shade on this roof. What is on the roof? Emerald Blue & Candy Striped Phlox, Creeping Mazus, Scotch Moss, Creeping Thyme, Hairy Thyme, and Sedum (orange stonecrop).
Phlox subulata 'Emerald Blue' / 'Candy Stripe'
Phlox subulata (Moss Phlox, Moss Pink, Mountain Phlox) is a perennial creeper growing to a height of 6 inches and covering a 20-inch-wide (510 mm) area. The small, five-petaled flowers bloom in rose, mauve, blue, white, or pink in late spring to early summer. It is native to North America.
Mazus reptans "creeping mazus"
Mazus reptans is a herbaceous plant with alternate, simple leaves, on creeping stems. The flowers are blue or white, borne in spring and summer. The plant is a persevering herbaceous plant which reaches growth heights of about 2 inches (5 centimeters).
Sagina subulata 'Aurea' "Scotch Moss" (Heath Pearlwort)
Heath Pearlwort is a low-growing prostrate perennial plant forming a thick, dense mat with stems less than 10 cm long, and slender subulate (awl-shaped) leaves up to 1 cm long. The flowers are 4–5 mm diameter, with five white petals the same length as the green sepals; they are produced singly on erect stems 2–4 cm long. The seeds are smooth, brown, triangular shaped, 0.4–0.5 mm, produced in a capsule 2.5–3 mm long.
Thymus serpyllum 'Pink Chintz'
Thymus serpyllum, known by the common names of Breckland Thyme,[1] Wild Thyme or Creeping Thyme is a species of thyme native to most of Europe and North Africa. It is a low, usually prostrate subshrub growing to 2 cm tall with creeping stems up to 10 cm long, with oval evergreen leaves 3–8 mm long. The strongly scented flowers are either lilac, pink-purple, magenta, or a rare white, all 4–6 mm long and produced in clusters. The hardy plant tolerates some pedestrian traffic and produces odors ranging from heavily herbal to lightly lemon, depending on the plant.
It is part of the Lamiaceae family, and is related to the mint and Dead Nettle plants.
It is an important nectar source plant for honeybees as well as the large blue butterfly which feeds exclusively on wild thyme. All thyme species are nectar sources, but wild thyme covers large areas of droughty, rocky soils in southern Europe. Croatia, Macedonia, Greece, North Africa, Malta, the Berkshire Mountains and Catskill Mountains of the northeastern United States, and New Zealand are especially famous for wild thyme honey.
Thymus pseudolanuginosus
The low growing creeping thyme with hairy or wooolly leaves and stems, formerly known as Thymus pseudolanuginosus and also known as T. lanuginosus and commonly called woolly thyme, should now be regarded as T. serpyllum, as it is next to impossible to delineate between hairy and non-hairy creeping thymes. The leaves in wild creeping thyme vary from slightly glabrous, to sparsely covered in white hairs, or thickly covered on both surfaces, with the margins ciliate, or just ciliate at the base. Leaf hairiness could be an adaptation to climatic conditions particularly in mountainous regions. It is often grown in rock gardens where it can form extensive mats.
Sedum kamtschaticum "Kamschatca Stonecrop" - Orange Stonecrop
Sedum is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Crassulaceae, members of which are commonly known as stonecrops. It contains around 400 species of leaf succulents that are found throughout the Northern Hemisphere, varying from annual and creeping herbs to shrubs. The plants have water-storing leaves. The flowers usually have five petals, seldom four or six. There are typically twice as many stamens as petals.
(Plant details obtained from Wikipedia.org)
Throughout the first decade and a half of the 1900s, the University of Minnesota established six experimental agriculture research stations throughout the state of Minnesota. One such station was established in Duluth, in 1912. The Northeast Experiment Station, as it was called, had the mission to develop cold-climate crops and animals; things like cherries, plums, apples, rutabagas, hogs and chickens - all suited to be well adapted to our long winter and short summer growing seasons. Prior to the development of productivist agriculture, which started in the 1950s in the United States, the emphasis for agriculture was grow it locally. By the late 1960s, having an agricultural research station in the "red drift" zone (heavy, red clay) where Duluth is located was deemed "superfluous" and the station was shuttered. Recently, efforts have been made by Cindy Hale of the University of Minnesota Duluth's Natural Resources Research Institute to revive the remaining five acre orchard.
It seems somewhat ironic to me that, although I enjoy researching, planting and growing tomatoes, I do not like to eat them. Melissa, my wife, enjoys just about any type of tomato; from a green zebra or tiny siberian to a beefy big boy; if it is a tomato, she will probably eat it. I grow them, and she eats them - it works out to be a low-waste working arrangement. I have two tomato plants that seem to be carryovers from the summer time. I planted both mid-summer, but never brought them outside. One is a large, siberian heirloom (pictured) and the other is a black prince (from fedco seeds).
With winter settling in on northern Minnesota - the wood floors seem to creak more - and, I have switched from doing things to planning things. Planning gardens, planning beehives, looking at seed catalogs, attempting to make soap, and going as far as contacting a realtor or two about empty parcels of land in the area. Trying to keep busy seems to be a bit of a challenge and a case of blues has settled in on me - nothing new, mind you, I have dealt with depression for a long while; it is part of me, so I will make peace with it, settle in, and ride it out.
With the recent snow fall staying on the ground, and the air temperature staying in the region of below the freezing point of water, I can say with a weatherman's confidence, winter is here. Hound Sarge has also informed us on several occasions that "it is winter; it is cold; I would rather poop in the living room." With my thumb healing up, I was able to get the hives winterized only two weeks after I had wanted to get them buttoned up. The Hygienic Italians (in the photo, the one on the left) will need to be checked on mid-winter. The Carniolans swindled them out of honey, and I am concerned they might run low. Other than that, the bees will be left to their own devices for the winter.
I probably first hit my fingers with a hammer when I was about four years old. It never deterred me from continuing to tinker, and later, making significant items like clocks, tables, and other furniture. I have also roofed buildings, remodeled houses and built outbuilding all before being able to legally drive. In the last two years, I have had twenty-two stitches. Seventeen in my leg from an angle grinder accident that nearly clipped my shinbone. My latest accident involved a table saw and my thumb. The resulting injury will leave a nasty scar and permanent nerve damage in my thumb. To the detractors who jokingly suggest that, when I injure myself while wood working, or metal working, that I should "stick to my day job as a computer programmer," I will say, "No, I am going to continue to make things."
