I’ve been playing catch-up on the yard work for the last couple of days but don’t think I’ll be ahead of the curve until mid-June or so. The unpredictability of the weather is the cause of some of this and letting some areas around the farm go without tending at the close of last year has created challenges where I really didn’t need to be challenged.
Yesterday I knocked out half of the trimming that needed to be done along a deep drainage area that intersects with the road in to my house. Because I didn’t hit it at the end of last summer the chainsaw was needed to knock some of it down. A large tree (about 6 feet in diameter) fell across a portion of it last year so I’ve been cutting on it in prep for a burn later this year. I brush-hogged the back field this morning and trimmed along the houses and drainage areas leading to the creeks a couple of days ago so when this round of weather moves out (Monday?) I can finish the ditch area (a day’s work), mow and trim along the fence on the front of the property (a day’s work), clear, mow, and trim along the spring and creek (three days of effort).
My little mini-garden is in. Tomatoes, peppers, okra, cucumbers, beans, melon and zucchini mostly. I know I’m not going to have the time to maintain much more than this and finish moving the fencing and other garden related infrastructure and play catch-up around the place. I’ve got another 40 pepper seedlings I need to get into the ground in the next couple of days. I’ve got to do better at recording what goes/went where though; the annotated diagram I had for the 7 varieties of tomatoes and 9 varieties of peppers already in the ground has disappeared. Tomatoes won’t be a problem because two varieties are weird: Atomic and Lemon
I’m growing advanced in years, but still know the difference between a Roma and a Beefsteak and the two varieties of cherry tomatoes (Besser and Tiny Tim) are easily distinguishable. The last variety is a F1 slicer.
Peppers are another story altogether. It’s going to be fun figuring out which of the three yellow peppers (aji lemon, Hungarian hot yellow, and banana) are which. Also, given that an immature habanero and pepperoncini look much the same, caution is warranted.
All twelve of my apple grafts survived and they need to be planted/staked and caged. All 10 of my pear grafts failed. The root-stock appears to be good and is growing its own leaves/shoots so I think I may have cut the scion wood off of my three varieties to late in the year (I should have cut in December and did cut in late Feb). I’ll plant the root-stock and then re-graft next winter. All four of my existing pear trees are bearing fruit. Of the 4 older apple trees (2x Yellow Delicious, 1 Fuji, 1 Red Delicious) three are fruiting. Of the twelve new apple trees I grafted and planted last year, 11 survived. True to form however, half the labels I placed on the tree have faded away and the annotated diagram of what was planted where has pass into oblivion. The good news is I know what was planted! I just don’t know where it was planted. If this is what 70 is like, 80 is going to be a real adventure.
Everything hinges on the weather and the weather looks pretty friggin frightening for the next couple of days. They are predicting bad ju-ju for Saturday and Sunday. The last couple of times they projected bad blows this far out they materialized with a vengeance. I’ll be alright, I’ll just walk around all puckered up.
Before I retired and moved out into God’s country the weather didn’t play a big part in my life. Even when I was in the Infantry the weather just ‘was’. It didn’t really matter what it was or was going to be, when you’re a grunt all you can do is shrug and keep on keeping on. Keep your heads down and your eyes open folks cause that bad weather looks to be running south of the Macon-Dixon line and packing a real punch.