Trying to take care of my little piece of the planet
Yeah, I know. Cultural overload to channel Kirk and Kangaroo in the same sentence, but it fits the bill. All crazy on the western front. Work is insanely busy, spring is a month early. We have two new ‘rescue’ dogs, and my wife is squeezing ten years worth of out-of-town travel into six months. So, [...]
Posted on April 16th, 2012 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Gardening | 4 Comments »
Crazy warm late winter here in central NC. It resulted in our fruit trees making it through without a late hard frost whackin’ the blossoms, as often happens. Below is a bit of video of the variety of pollinators busy on one of the plum trees. That clip merges in to another, showing what is [...]
Posted on March 20th, 2012 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Gardening, Nature Diary | 4 Comments »
Yesterday, was the first full day with a fire in the woodstove, with the floor filled with re-located houseplants and the chairs full of cats, both seeking respite from the chilly wind. The counter was also filled with a premature pepper harvest, since there’s no good way to convince these cold-sensitive plants not to call [...]
Posted on October 30th, 2011 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Gardening, Rants and Musings | 2 Comments »
For years we’ve (thanks to my wife) managed to grow our own greens into the early winter, using some wire hoops over our raised beds. But it’s really difficult to cover and uncover each day, when you leave home before sunrise and get home after sunset. So we’re usually successful into early winter, but then [...]
Posted on October 23rd, 2011 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Gardening, Rants and Musings | 4 Comments »
Finally got an inch and a half of much-needed rain. The cisterns are now full, and the flowers are much happier.
Posted on July 10th, 2011 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Gardening, Rainwater Collection | 1 Comment »
Just finished reviewing my notes for tomorrow’s lectures and needed to switch gears before bedtime. We have a pretty cocky crop of crows (pardon the pun) who are used to having the run of the garden orchard. So when I saw this year’s blackberries get close to ripe, I was saddened by the thought that [...]
Posted on June 8th, 2011 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Gardening | 3 Comments »
When I started all this a couple of years ago, I came clean with the concept that one purpose of this blog was simply to help me keep track of stuff. So after it took me a couple of hours this past snowy weekend to track down some orchard records of what varieties I planted [...]
Posted on February 2nd, 2010 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Gardening | 3 Comments »
Over the last thirty years, I remember a number of early December snowfalls; pretty serious combinations of rain moving up from the Gulf and cold air sliding down from the Arctic during the first few days of this month. Then, for whatever reason, we’d have pretty quiet weather until the second half of January at [...]
Posted on December 5th, 2009 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Gardening | 4 Comments »
A few minutes ago when I checked the rain gauge we’d picked up four inches from Tropical Storm Ida, and we filled the 5000 gallon tanks to overflowing several hours ago, probably about noon. So, last night’s filter tweaking was in plenty of time. As they say, ‘when it rains, it ….’ Well, you know. [...]
Posted on November 11th, 2009 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Gardening | No Comments »
This is Fall Break week at the university, which means that my work schedule is more flexible than usual. So, since today was supposed to include nice weather, I planned on taking the day off to work outside. And gorgeous it was: sunny and chilly this morning gave way to mid seventies by sunset. Perfect [...]
Posted on October 21st, 2009 by jack-of-all-thumbs
Filed under: Gardening, Meat, Eggs, etc. | 5 Comments »