We (my family) are gonna die!

[jmh]

Maybe it's because I'm a bit depressed about health issues, BUT these challenges have made me realize I am doomed in a real crisis.

I started with 16 buff orphington chicks in April. Down to 11. One just died and four disappeared! I let them out in their little yard and only got 11 back. Sigh.

My garden is overgrown. My strawberry beds are thick with grass. I guess I should have just dug them up early this spring, rototilled and replanted but it didn't happen.

Tent catapillers ate my blueberry bushes. They didn't get the raspberries themselves (not yet ripe) but they did eat alot of the leaves as well as my strawberry leaves.

My sugar snap peas got blown over in our torrental wind/rain/storms and only one zucchini seed has sprouted.

How depressing.

On a positive note, I just picked my first sugar snap pea when I went out to the garden before dark. I have one volunteer potato plant, lots of volunteer cosmos, and I have one zucchini plant. My herbs rosemary, chamomil, and mint are thriving.

My grapes are starting to grow. I picked a bouquet of daisies, Canturbary bells, and a couple of other perennial flowers from my flower beds.

I was going to say that the 11 chicks left are thriving but our puppy slipped between my legs and rushed into the chicken coop and scared us all to death. Hopefully the chicks aren't too traumatized.

The ground is really saturated so planting and working outside is difficult. Torrental rains today.

Oh well. It was nice knowing you.

jmh

 

[Kathy in WV]

Cheer up! It's just a warning to you to look at your garden and think of new things to try!! We've been getting dumped on with the rain too and also wind so I know what you're going through! Every morning I'm afraid to look out at my little garden because I figure its been beat to death by the rain. We did raised beds this year and I think it keeps the plants from being so water-logged. My beans are a local heirloom variety that we planted to get some fresh seed and they arent coming up too well. Does anybody out there grow the "Fat Horse" pole beans?

Ididn't have room for chicks this year so I envy you! I wonder what got the ones you lost?? My grandma told me that big black crows will eat baby chicks if they can get to them. PS- I don't think you're gonna die-- but you might have to eat a lot of beans and rice along with some of the rest of us
Kathy (who needs coffee to be able to think coherently)

 

[Gingergirl]

Our Season starts later than some, so it was April before I openned up the garden.

We have spent 7 years transforming an old 40' X 60' veg garden that had been overrun with sunflowers. There was already a line of concord grapes.

The first year we dug the sunflowers out of the clay. Took all summer.

The second year we dug beds and added lots of compost. Mounded beds for and planted rasphberries and asparagus. Planted just enough for the table.

The third year we framed the beds for the grapes, berries and asparagus. Added enough tomates to can some.

Fourth year I lost most of the garden to drought and mildew.

Fifth year we framed beds between the berries and asparagus, filling the beds with our compost. We dug and laid in an irrigation system for the beds. This took most the summer, so planting was limited. Had a most excellent crop of pumpkins.

The sixth year, we hauled in dirt to fill the framed beds that had melted back to clay. Heavily mulched the walkways. Lost the grapes to a late frost.

We have now finished rehabing 2/3 of the garden. Everything grows well though the season is still early and fraught with peril. I only spend 1 1/2 hours a day working in there.
It is doing so well that the bunnies are having a wonderful brunch, lunch, and dinner everyday.

I like to garden, and enjoy the harvest. But I have serious doubts that without modern equipment I could feed my family.

 

[gonewacky]

jmh

it don’t sound so bad to me. For the chick thing it is not uncommon to lose chicks. The best have a 10% loss, and a 50% loss is common place for the average person that has not done it before. Unless you raise chickens from chicks every year, and know all the in and outs about them you are doing fine. We have lost many over the years, and we think we know what we are doing. (I think?)

As for your garden you are lucky to be that far along. We just started ours this week. Too much chance of a freeze to plant before June 1. Having a garden is a thing of patents. It takes time. Things happen slowly, and if something dose not come up. Plant it again there is still a lot of time to get it going. We plant things two weeks apart then it don’t all come at the same time. Make the canning easier that way.

Hope you get filling better I think we all have been through this. Chen up and keep at it you are doing fine.

With love from our home to yours

 

[jmh]

Well, maybe we'll just starve to death slowly.

I got my framed raised bed finished today. Filled with dirt and planted. Peas/green beans, carrots, kale, gourmet lettuce, pumpkin. It's a big bed 4' x 10'.

I also dug up, weeded and planted two 4x4 beds. Yesterday, I gathered alder saplings. Today, I tied them into a teepee and planted green beans around the base plus pumpkins.

The other bed I planted broccoli, gourmet lettuce, 2 tomato plants, and something else I can't remember, oh, yeah, Italian basil.

I also moved my compost bin and found about 6 inches deep, about 2'x2' wide of black compost! Yea! I added that to my new raise bed, and made four container gardens about 14" round with half compost/half dirt. I haven't planted those yet.

My 10 mo kitten got into the chicken coop but she just played. Didn't kill anything. I threw dirt clods at her to get her away. URGGG.

I am SOOOO tired now.

jmh

 

[Pogonip]

I've learned that there's no use even -trying- to plant stuff here till the soil warms up--seeds will just rot and transplants sit huddled sullenly with their leaves wrapped around them, turning blue. But when the soil's warm, you have to drop in seeds, then jump back so you don't get hit in the eye when the plants pop up...

Anyway, we'll never starve in the PNW--we can always live off blackberries and the zillions of pounds of apples nobody ever bothers to pick...

 

[jmh]

That's so true Pogonip!

My sister who lives on Whidbey Island said her zucchini are already being harvested. Of course, she, being the pro, started hers inside. Me, I've got one little plant without the second set of leaves.

I did get a couple pints of strawberries today

Tomorrow I will harvest a handful of sugar snap peas for hubby's stirfry.

Gotta go.

jmh