August 1st, 2010 by Marc Opperman

I have a 5.5 horsepower chipper-shredder made by Craftsman in probably the 80s. My dad acquired it when a neighbor of his decided to sell or give it away – not sure which. I had to replace some rubber aprts of the air intake, and the starter cord, but that was pretty easy and cheap. It’s a solid machine, and does a very good job of turning bits of organic matter into smaller bits of organic matter. On the minus side, however, it uses a lot of gasoline and spews pollution like nobody’s business. And it’s loud. I have to use ear protection with it.

Still, it’s a great piece of the composting arsenal at my disposal. It does take some prep to break down stuff to be shredded – branches and other materials generally need to be trimmed down so they don’t get hung in the chutes, but once you get things to that stage, it’s wonderful to use. Oh, and it helps if branches aren’t too green. If they are, they tend to – sometimes – bend more than shred and get stuck in the blades.

This past weekend I hauled it out, parked it in the shade, and managed to get it started with the first pull of the cord. That impressed me. I have so much material in the yard I knew I wouldn’t finish the job, but I did make a two-hour dent in it. I took a substantial pile of branches from the ash tree in front and turned those into a whole wheelbarrow of mulch. Next up, a bunch of partially-rotten cedar fence slats. Those make wonderful, arromatic mulch. Lastly, I made a decent dent in the Chinese tallow branches I’d stacked up. Much of that material is 1″ – 3″ inches in diameter, so I had to use the secondary chute for those.

All said, I made three wheelbarrows of mulch, some of which went in beds, and some the compost heap. Though, considering how much gas usage and pollution this thing is responsible for, and how much time it takes, I’m not sure making my own mulch balances out all that well. Still, I like using this thing, It reminds me of my grandfathers (though there’s no real connection I can discern) AND that end scene of Fargo. Okay, maybe that’s disturbing.

There’s still much more to do, but it was a great start.

From this:

to this:

chinese tallow, chipper-shredder, craftsman, mulch

July 24th, 2010 by Marc Opperman

Well, it’s a little ghetto – the poles are crooked and covered with mildew, and the lashing is sloppy. But I recently had a minor epiphany about this simple, two-hour project I started back in, oh, May. The passion vine and trumpet vine are growing so quickly and prolifically the whole trellis will be completely covered in, what, 3 days?? So who cares if it’s ugly. It just needs to be strong.

A few of the lashings are done with wire for strength, and the rest are tied with normal cotton string. As the vines eventually cover the structure, they’ll begin to hold the bamboo poles in place. If the cotton string gets all fancy and biodegrades, it won’t matter much. Besides, the whole vine structure will die back if it freezes this winter.

With any luck, the top will begin to look like the bottom. Before long, the view of the neighbors and their South Florida back yard will disappear, and the fragrant passion vine will give us a little privacy on our back deck.

And just in case you missed it before, a gratuitous shot of wild sex:

July 23rd, 2010 by Marc Opperman

Since I’m not doing a whole lot of actual gardening these days due to heat and a tree having crushed my yard, I figured I’d post a few photos here that begin to explain where my gardening genetics come from:

That’s my mom’s dad hoisting me into one of the apple trees at the home of my dad’s parents. My maternal grandfather was an old-World gardener. In addition to regular food crops in his extensive gardens, he grafted fruit tree stocks to other trees. Typically he did this with apples, and I remember him having one apple tree with five varieties of apple on it.

Apparently it was all the rage to place the baby on a giant squash of some sort:

Both of those were also taken at the Opperman homestead, and the adults in the photos are my mom and grandfather. My dad’s dad had aspirations of being a big farmer through the 40s and 50s, though the world took a different direction as I understand it and food became an industrial product. Nevertheless, Grandpa O. had marvelous beds of flowers – zinnias, tiger lilies, chrysanthemums, peonies. He also grew corn (an extremely sweet white corn), many types of squash and melons, apples, and I remember a hazelnut tree in there, too.

As an aside, my parents visited the old Opperman homestead earlier this month, and my grandpa’s flowers are still in bloom next to the barn.

July 15th, 2010 by Marc Opperman

Saw these while we were in Fredericksburg a couple weekends ago. Very groovy:

I’d skip the succulents, though. Someone was missing the point here. I think they’d make the perfect addition to a foodie-gardener’s space… planted with sun-tolerant herbs like thyme, rosemary, oregano.

These pots (the empty ones) were obviously new, and were very expensive ($175). But I wonder if a trip to a pawn shop or second-hand store might yield good results. Maybe even Ace Mart (though they are pretty expensive). Once you decide to plant in something like this, you’d have to drill holes in the bottom for drainage, so going back to cooking with them would be impossible.

Update:
My mom pointed out that metal in Texas heat bakes the roots of a lot of plants. Appropriate for cookware, but not so much for plants. She lines containers like this with plastic pots or simply plants a slightly smaller pot and places it inside the metal container.

July 15th, 2010 by Marc Opperman

This happens to me every year. Faced with drought, heat and bugs, I retreat from gardening and hide in an air-conditioned cave until Fall. And yet I get restless and bored not gardening or landscaping. Some people get cabin fever in Winter, I get it in the Summer.

This year has been worse, though. Financial hardship beyond what we’ve experienced means spending absolutely no money on anything frivolous. Having an infant has meant little to no spare time beyond the most basic of maintenance, which, in my case, seems to amount to a couple hours of mowing per week. And the fall of the Chinese tallow was probably the death rattle of my Summer gardening ambitions. Not only has it taken lots of effort just to clean up in any basic way, it trashed so much of the garden space – plants, brickwork and small structures – that apathy was almost a foregone conclusion before the tree even settled, however chipper I tried to remain about it afterward. Considering I probably need two solid weekend days alone just to grind up all the fallen branches and crushed plants, time I can’t seem to muster these days. I know this sounds rather defeatist, but dropping off the gardening map in Summer just seems to be how I’m built.

It’s rarely all that permanent though. Once the weather cools down a bit, I start to plan and build landscaping features. I rip out plants that didn’t work and start learning new ones I want to plant for next year. I start to scrounge Craigslist, Freecycle and empty lots for new (to me) building materials. I build new beds, walkways and other structures.

July 7th, 2010 by Marc Opperman

Did enough work with the chainsaw over the weekend to realize the cherry tomato vine was not salvageable. It was tangled in the mangled metal cage, and so I pulled the entire mess out. One of my larges autumn sage bushes was pretty much crushed. I used the chainsaw to cut it up. A number of large coneflowers were broken and mangled to the point I just pulled them out, too. I also discovered a large limb from our mimosa tree came down sometime Saturday, and I’ve yet to cut that up. So much else is just crushed, broken or laying over that I’m feeling pretty discouraged and wanting to avoid the whole mess. Gardening through the summer months has always been hard for me, and this has made it worse.

I pulled out a second tomato vine, too. Not because it was damaged, but because it is just past its time. It’s also looking like the porter tomato is past time, too. Essentially it’s just a haven for leaf-footed bugs and worms now.

In short, the back yard is such a disaster, I’m close to avoiding the whole thing until Fall.

I planted green beans on the side of the house  a week ago and they are 4 inches tall. I really need to hook up water on that side before things just wither away. Remembering to hand-water is not my forte.

July 4th, 2010 by Marc Opperman

My dad and I have email conversations about various garden topics all the time, and a recent one seemed to be full of a lot of good advice on the subject of tomatoes. I’ve taken a couple of his emails and combined them for posting here.

Tomatoes are the most planted garden vegetable (fruit).  In Texas, it is important to plant them at the precise time the calendar says they should be planted.  They must be big, strong and blooming before the very hot temperatures hit in June or they will not bear fruit. The grower’s job is to find the biggest, most healthy plants to plop in the ground as soon as hard frost warnings are over.  Be prepared to cover them if a light frost comes along.  After that, pour on the organic fertilizer and water to get them to grow as fast as possible.  Seldom will the plants set many tomatoes after the first of June as it is too hot.  So, we sit and wait watching every day to make sure some critter does not run off with or eat our prizes.

Every tomato plant starts declining as soon as the high heat arrives. Concentrate on protecting and harvesting what the plant sets.  If a few leaves at the bottom start to die back, cut them off with a scissors or your finger nail and put them in the trash—not the compost. The plant will last and put on some new leaves and branches while it is setting fruit. After the last tomato has been harvested you might as well pull the whole thing out and put it in the trash, too. I have tried to save tomato plants through the summer and have never been successful. There may be sprays and all sorts of things to try to hold down the viruses and fungi, but if you want Fall tomatoes, a new plant is the best and cheapest solution. Tomatoes are very sensitive to not getting enough water, a so a plant grown in a container might suffer if the container is not big enough.

Fall tomatoes:  In my estimation they are harder than Spring tomatoes.  Again, the timing has to be just right.  The nursery business does not cooperate. They usually do not have the plants until it is really too late to plant them.  Proper time is about July 15th to July 31st.  The problem then is daylight conditions decrease dramatically by mid September when the first cool front thinks of coming though which will allow the tomatoes to set fruit. Most tomatoes will not set unless the temperature at night is below 70 degrees.  Small-fruit varieties and cherry tomatoes will sometimes set above that level.  So, if they set around the middle to end of September, you then have to get the tomatoes to grow up and begin ripening  before frost.  With the shorter days and cooler nights, it is tough to get large tomatoes to ripen.  Compared to Spring it is like slow motion.  So, a smaller variety is better.  Unless you start plants from seeds about the beginning of June—which for some reason I never do–you are at the mercy of what you find in the garden centers.  I have had some success with Cherry, Donna, and Juliet.  For a larger one, I usually try the Early Girl/Boy or Celebrity.  I did have some test plants from the Extension Service one year called a 444, I think.  It is a tennis ball sized tomato.  It did well, but I have never seen it in a garden center.  Of course the other challenge is tending and keeping the plants healthy and properly irrigated during the hot days of July and August.  Sometimes they require a bit of improvised shade over them during the hottest part of the day at least until they get established.

One could say my dad has had a lifetime of experience in gardening, and these days helps a Houston-area public school maintain organic vegetable gardens he and the school established for the students to have some experience with growing food.

tomatoes

July 3rd, 2010 by Marc Opperman

We’re off to get peaches at Burg’s Corner in Stonewall with friends, but I thought I’d post this photo of sex on the vines.

July 3rd, 2010 by Marc Opperman

I guess they can. That and other tidbits about keeping chickens are revealed here for chicken-raising neophytes:

http://www.ethicurean.com/2010/06/30/gail-damerow/

chickens, eggs

July 2nd, 2010 by Marc Opperman

Now that I look at it in the daylight, the tree, while not doing any structural damage to our house or porch, affected every planting area I have in the back yard. It crushed nearly all of my native wildflowers, flattened a bed of native grasses, and took out one tomato vine completely. A rather large flame acanthus and very healthy rose pavonia were both shredded and broken near their bases. I found pieces of the tree in my container herb garden. They broke a number of those plants. A small border structure I made out of pieces of a crepe myrtle is almost directly under the tree, flattened. Somewhere under the trunk, too, are the twisted remnants of a tomato cage.

The trunk of the tree, with a diameter of somewhere around a foot, is laying across the two paths I use to access the compost heap and an area that needs mowing. And with this rain – forecast to last another 10 days or so – it’ll be tough to get in and clean things up. Though what wasn’t broken will certainly grow like mad with all the rain.

Yet somehow, I’m still excited by all this. It really does give me a chance to start with an almost-clean slate. Once the heavy clean-up is done, I can reassess what plants should stay and what should go, and create more openness in the back yard. For some time now, the space back there has been too dense, too crowded. I’ve let too many plants come up from seed for the spaces they are in. In a year, the back yard will look completely different, I’m convinced.

chinese tallow, damage, storm, tree