no irrigation

so it is still spring,

and just rained quite a bit,
so I declare that the drought is over, but others may not agree...

the grain crop is doing well and seems like it only has to dry now, but maybe it has more growing to do now that it rained

this is the pastella and it seems very happy

this is the sprouting zucca melon, and it was not till I looked at this picture that I saw the other one just sprouting on the right side of the picture

this is my apple tree, it is growing fast and straight

this is where I grew the onions last year,
look at the strip of mostly bare dirt to the left side,
that is where I did not add organic matter to the soil, and that green patch to the right is where I tilled in a bale of straw...

here is the sugar pea patch !

this is the first and largest pea, and I hope to save seeds form it

and there are more peas growing

here is a mountain yam, it managed to get over a foot tall before I noticed it growing,
I have 2 out of 10 left still growing, and hope one reproduces soon.

I failed to take pictures of the potatoes that are ready to harvest,
and of the apricot trees( by the way they are doing very well )
and all of it was grown with no irrigation at all,
the winter is plenty wet enough to grow things with no irrigation around here
the trick of mixing organic matter into the soil to get the ground to hold more water got the peas and potatoes through months of no rain,
and that means that I don't need hoses,
and I don't need the well pump,
and all the pipes out to the garden plots,
and to go out watering all the time, 
next winter I will be growing lots of grain in the isolated areas,

now the summer garden that I will have to water has been planted,
and I will have to water it,
but it is just not that big this year,
so far I planted the best squash seeds from last year, a hulless seeded squash, peanuts, sorghum, black eyed peas, basil, cucumbers, and more to get planted later (like rice tomorrow, 2 types)

on another note,
my laptop is not having it's hard drive start to fail, and it is the only thing that can read my camera SD card,
so I either have no more pictures, or I get a smaller SD card that my other computers can read (I have one in an old camera that I might find at some point),
or I replace the hard drive...

I knew the day would show up that my hardware started to break,
but at least it is not a needed farm hardware item,
or a radio I talk on all the time,
sad it is messing up, but not sure need to fix it,

now time to get back to my kombucha tea making,
and I am going to try making miso out of chickpeas,
I got some at the store and want my own now
glad I have this book
http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Fermentation-Flavor-Nutrition-Live-Culture/dp/1931498237
I keep making things out of it

cooking is my new fascination,
and trying to get clean water I can drink.

toxic and update

have you ever has someone around that is toxic,
they will rot out everything you have worked for on a whim,
they destroy out if ignorance, belligerence, and insanity,
if everyone here needed to actually live on the food I grow,
this person would ruin it and then blame everyone else for messing it up,
they will drag an entire village down if given the chance,
and in case anyone is wondering, most of the summer garden is not planted yet,
it is warm enough and past the last frost date, I have the seeds, I have the water,
but the toxic person apparently hates me (or just hates everyone)
I hope I get to plant things before it gets to late in the season,
but if not I do have other things I can be doing...
only 2 long season things can't be planted this year from it,

now for the update,

40 % chance of rain in a few days,
the grain is almost ready to harvest (yes I know rain can mess that up)

the sugar podded sweet peas are growing quite well

it is still spring, or at least the miners lettuce thinks so

and one of the zucca melons sprouted !
I am excited

history

think about what has happened in the past,
http://thewatchers.adorraeli.com/2014/04/10/199-years-ago-the-largest-eruption-in-known-history-and-the-year-without-a-summer/
and ask yourself if you can forget the lessons of the past,
nature can be unforgiving

happy easter !

it consumes from below

gophers are everywhere

hopefully it will not bother me this year,
I will find out in a few months

links

http://soilandhealth.org/

http://www.ksre.ksu.edu/historicpublications/

https://archive.org/details/cu31924003695636

chamomile

chamomile grows wild here,
it is pretty
it grows in the hard compacted soil where almost nothing else does, like in driveways and walking paths,
I use to eat it all the time as a kid, my mom would always say it was peed on by the cats, so I eventually quit eating it,

I have yet to see a cat pee on any of it now that I am watching for it, cats pee in the sand, not on hard dirt with plants.

by the way, many things in spring around here have pretty flowers

and I am watching cooking shows lately,
it is the other half of gardening after all.

still spring

it is still spring here

and I found where all the mosquitoes are growing

yes, it is the spring,
I need to go cover it,
will add a pump in it if I get the time.

blog going to seed

I figure it is time this blog goes to seed,

everything has a life cycle,
even this blog,
over the last year I have tried to teach everyone how to garden by showing what I have done,
and I know that most of you already have a garden, even if it is very tiny,
but you learn lots by growing things even if it is pots in your window,

it is spring time
and time to start your gardens soon,
good luck all,

I have spent over a year on learning how to garden to grow all my own food,
now that I know how to do it, it is just not that hard and does not take that much time (if done correctly),
it is time to move on in life, I have other things I have been wanting to do anyway,
I am going to try to keep growing my food (and by try, crop failures may still happen),
but it will not be the main focus of my life anymore,
(maybe it is a bad time to change focus, click for details )

I am going to quit daily posts here,
I have covered almost all the topics I can think of already, repeats are annoying,
and it is easy to go look through the archives here, I might make an index to find it all easier,
or repost the most critical info,
I do plan on posting every monday to show what I have been up to (if I remember),
and if I find something fun to share, 
but past that, I am kind of done with blogging, or at least doing it daily.

have fun with your own gardens !

best wishes,
space~

message

if I could send myself a message back in time to myself to last year when I started the garden what would I send back ?
it might read something like this:
forget about irrigating crops, you have to trust a well and the power grid, and it salts your fields eventually.
grow grains when the weeds grow in spring,

grow cool season crops in the winter to go with it,

doing it that way also gets you way less gophers causing you issues,

have a small kitchen garden that you water in the summer just for variation, and only if you are board, but don't trust it for your calories,

if you can't eat the barley that grows because you are gluten intolerant, then feed it to chickens and eat the eggs

you will wear yourself out with summer gardening, irrigated annual crops are the hardest way to grow your food, use trees if at all possible.

I could have saved a year of time with that info,

now here is some pretty grass

trying to see like a bee

so I am trying to figure out how bees see flowers,
and I took my camera and some filters and tried

here is a regular full color picture of the cute flower how we see it

color on the screen just messes up things, so I got rid of it for all the others,

here is that same color picture, but without all the annoying color

here it is with the infrared only

here it is with no filters at all, infrared, UV, and regular visible

and here it is with only the UV (likely the way bees see the flower)

there are small differences, but they all look pretty close to me,
so either all my filters are not that good,
or I picked the wrong flower to take pictures of,
I will try again with another flower later.

if that was a disappointing post, here is something that could be useful...
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/real-self-reliance-a-model-for-profitable-micro-farming-on-just-1-5-acres_04022014

eye patch

now this helps me with gardening some,
and helps me with all kinds of other things as well,

when you are working outside in full sun light and then have to go inside a darkish place (like a root cellar),
you usually can't see anything for a few min.
you can save your self lots of time by using an eye patch,
just put an eye patch on about 5 min. before you need night vision,
then when you walk into the dark place just take the eye patch off (or move it to the other eye)
and then you can see with no delay,

also good for being inside with lights on at night and then going outside to go garden in the cooler night weather, on a moon lit night you likely don't need any lights at all.

tomorrow I will have pictures of likely how bees see flowers...
I am to tired tonight to do all the image processing

edit:
go look at how cute the finger monkeys are
http://www.zuzafun.com/finger-monkeys

klein bottle

today should be klein bottle awareness day, 
not sure if it already has an awareness day or not, 
but for my 10 daily readers, it is today
kleinbottle.com

road side wheat

you have to love a domesticated plant that escapes and plants it's self,

I am keeping my eye on this one,
and will be collecting seeds when it is ready,
I just hope the current rain storm and maybe snow tomorrow does not hurt it,

in other news I got a cordless phone,
so I can answer my phone when out working,

and there is likely enough water now to grow what ever I want this summer,
time to find the zucca melon seeds.