Sunday, November 23, 2008

Tidying up

Sunday 23rd November

Rising at 8-30am.
A pleasant sunny start with temperatures in the mid 40's.
Today will be a day of tidying up with general house chores to be faced and completed in the run up to the Thanksgiving break.
I am assigned bathroom and window cleaning duties after which I take out the kitchen waste for the compost heap.
Amongst it I notice these...........................

.....sprouting red potatoes. I have nothing to lose so I plant them in Plot 5.
Although we've had some very low nighttime temperatures and heavy frosts..........

...the Garlic in Plot 1 is still standing.
Here's something that's not been standing since last year.................

....a large tree limb, brought down by the last ice storm. It's unsafe, untidy and annoys me.
I call in.............................

.......the heavy gang!!

..........and transform it into something more useful.
Then add it.................

.....to the pile.
On the way back to the house the sky is filled.........................

......with thousands of migrating Starlings or "Shebbies" as we used to call them back in England.
When they land at the bottom of our property the ground becomes a mass of movement.
I've never seen so many on the move before.
As I enter the house I'm greeted by a delightful aroma wafting from the kitchen.
My wife has also been busy. Baking...................

Cranberry and Walnut Bars and writing.......................


......Christmas cards for mailing to friends and family back in England.

Evening skies.
Enough!!

3 comments:

Dan said...

It will be interesting to see if the potatoes produce.

I have been trying to decide weather to plant some lettuce in my cold frame. The cold has set in so early I'm not sure if they will hold up.

Anonymous said...

Hi Mick

I came across your blog because I was googling row cover and it came up with your hoop house photo in May of this year.

If you have a look at our site (url below) you will see that we use 25mm (1") agricultural irrigation pipe for our hoops. Is that available where you are and is it price competitive with the pvc piping?

Over the long term it is better because it is uv stabilised and so will last much longer. We also use 8mm (1/4")galvanised metal rods instead of rebar. I found the rebar to be more expensive (here in Oz) and it rusts which makes it harder to remove when you want to re-arrange your hoop houses. Incidentally we found that we can normally get away with galv rods about 16" long unless we are are using very big hoops when we might go to 20". It does depend on the soil though. If you have very light sandy soil you would need to use the longer rods.

Our web site url is http://www.veggiepatch.com.au.

Be interested to get your views!

Cheers

Mick said...

Dan

Those spuds will just have to take their chances. :-)

John

Can't remember the exact cost of the pipe, probably around $4 for a 20ft length. I cut them into 3 pieces. Most of the rebar I already had so I just bought more of the same.

Thanks to you both for calling in.