Category: Latest From High Reaches

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Latest From High Reaches

Rain Inducement

Ozark rains have taken on a new form. Several months will have lots of clouds, rain several days a week. No rain inducement is needed, only overwatering protection for the garden.

Then clouds roll by dropping small showers, enough for seedlings only, for a couple of months. Larger plants need watering even with mulch.

Watering My Garden

The only well near my garden is a hand dug one. It has a hand pump on it and is reliable for watering the animals, but not for watering the garden.

Four rain barrels are full in the garden. One is full of tadpoles. Other tadpoles get moved into this one. This year it takes two full barrels to water my garden once.

tomato plants need a gallon of water a day once they start producing
The mulch helps hold moisture in the ground and keeps the tomato plant roots cool. The mulch also makes it harder to judge how much water is needed, attracts worms which attract moles and raccoons.

My Solution

The creek runs all year. We set up a pump near the creek and pump water up to the garden to fill the barrels.

Once the plants get big enough, the pump sill water them too. But discharge hoses tend to dig up seedlings.

Rain Inducement

Today the pump got set up. The hoses are laid out. The creek bed is dug out for a nice pool under the intake for the pump.

operating the water pump sometimes works as a rain inducement
The pump draws water from a creek. this makes it necessary to dig out a hole to make sure the intake is low enough to stay submerged. The screen over the intake is to keep small creatures like that fish from being pulled into the pump.

And today the clouds are rolling in teasing me with indications of rain. This is after spending two hours yesterday lugging watering cans around to water the seedlings and transplants.

Will I Gripe?

If the clouds decide to drop an inch of rain on my garden, I will definitely not complain. The pump may be set up and ready, but it will still be there in a few days, after the rain has gone by and gotten used up by the plants. Gardening season is just getting going and water will be needed a couple of times a week for several months.

And spending hours watering is the only other rain inducement I have left for now.

Note: The pump worked. A shower came by dropping a half inch.

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Leftover Seedlings

Much of my garden is planted. The seedlings I raised are settled in. And now I look at the leftover seedlings looking so good, begging for a chance.

Brave Tomato Seedlings

There are the tomato seedlings. I presently have a dozen purchased plants and two dozen growing in designated spaces. That totals three dozen plants for two people, two older people who don’t eat that much.

And there are the leftover seedlings. Over a dozen of them sit in their little cups doing their best to make me feel guilty. Surely there is room for us they seem to say.

Leftover tomato seedlings
All of my tomato seedlings are indeterminent types so much of the long stem can be buried. These will develop adventicious roots to create sturdier plants and provide additional water and nutients. They just need a chance and a spot in a garden.

Determined Peppers

My garden has a double line of bell peppers along with eight more in two containers. Luckily that is all the bell pepper seedlings I had, all forty-four of them.

However I also have my long sweet peppers. These are confined to containers, four to a container. That adds another thirty-two plants.

My leftover seedlings look so good. I’m considering buying a couple more containers to plant a few more.

leftover pepper seedling
These pepper seedlings are getting too big. Their roots are starting to get pot bound. This will stunt the plants. I’m searching for places to put some of them. Maybe someone will want to take them home and plant them.

And All the Rest

How many parsley and Chinese celery plants do I need? How much room is there left in my garden? Then there are the pot marigolds or calendulas.

There are numerous seeds to put in as well. Already the okra, lima beans, several squashes and sunflowers have germinated. Maybe I can tuck a few leftover seedlings between their rows.

Size Matters

As I look around my garden wondering where I can tuck in yet another seedling, I have to remind myself about these small plants. They do not stay small.

That little tomato seedling a foot tall will become a six-foot tall mass of vine. Those little squash seedlings putting out their first leaves will have vines forty feet long plus. Inch tall basil plants will turn into three foot bushes.

Those leftover seedlings plus my planned vegetables will turn my garden into its usual jungle. But that great tasting produce makes it worthwhile.

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Resident Black Snakes

All winter the mice living under my barn floor have been living the high life as I presently have no barn cat. This ends in the spring when the resident black snakes return for the summer.

I had resorted to setting mouse traps as the mice were skittering across the barn floor as I milked. One was eating in the feed bucket while I milked, leaving when I walked over and returning to eat when I walked away. Several fled from the chicken feeder every time I opened the door.

What Are Black Snakes Worth?

The first of these black snakes arrived when rats had invaded the barn. It took a couple of years, but the snakes got rid of the rats.

Now the mice are disappearing for the summer. They are still there, but their populations are going down. They only come out at night.

One of the returning resident black snakes
Most people living here would drive over this old black snake. I usually appreciate having my resident black snakes. The gravel is just wide enough for two cars to pass and this snake stretches out almost two thirds of the road. Its body is as thick as my forearm. It is one of two this size living under my barn over the summer.

How Big Is That Snake?

Some of the resident black snakes were already under the barn. I’d seen them. So it was a surprise to find one of my big ones stretched out across the road when I pulled up to unload feed.

The snake was between me and my parking spot. It had to move. It had no intention of moving.

Small, up to about three feet long, will vanish quickly if prodded. Larger ones start defying the urging to move. This one, at around seven feet, ignored the car, ignored stomping on the road and coiled up when prodded.

The snake put on a display, beating its tail on the gravel, opening its mouth and refusing to budge. I used a stick to flip it over and over getting it closer to the side of the road.

defensive black snake
This snake was relaxing in warmth and didn’t want to move. When urged, the snake coiled in a defensive posture. It never tried to strike, only intimidate. Having inhabited my barn for many years, this snake is accustomed with people. Still, it would not be a good idea to try to pick it up.

Company Arrives

A car stopped behind my truck. The driver got out to see what was going on. He and his companion were teenagers on their way to the river.

Exclamations of amazement were yelled back and forth as the two of us used sticks to lift the snake over to the fence. It promptly decided to head for the safety of the barn.

So now all my resident black snakes have arrived for the summer. Two seven foot, one six foot and a new five foot snake now chase the mice. And, yes, they do snack on the eggs when I don’t get them picked up several times a day.

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Crazy Weather

Gardening is getting to be a big challenge. This isn’t due to age or time constraints. It has to do with crazy weather.

Midwest weather is changeable. Every season argues with the next one resisting its ouster. But this crazy weather has gone beyond that.

Rain and Drought

Floods came in May. A six-inch rain fell overnight or over a day and the creek rose. The next day the waters settled lower.

Now floods come any month of the year. They don’t take a six-inch rain as even a couple of inches pouring down in an hour or two brings the creek up.

These sudden floods tear out the creek banks. They undermine big trees. Most of the water runs off down to the river.

These rainy times give way to dry weeks to months. Often the dry spells take plants to the edge of survival before another rainy time moves in. This too will be followed by a dry time.

The Ozarks traditionally does have hot, dry summers. However, the new wet dry cycles may or may not fall into the old patterns.

Cold, Wet Springs

I love growing potatoes. It’s not that I can’t buy potatoes in the market or that I prefer some exotic variety. It’s that I love growing potatoes.

Spuds do like cool weather, but not cold weather. They need to get planted in March to beat the summer heat.

Now cold March weather keep them from growing. Frosts keep nipping any brave sprouts off. By the time the plants can finally grow, it’s late April and summer hits.

I no longer grow potatoes.

crazy weather allows snow peas and lettuce time to grow
Cool weather crops like snow peas and lettuce are lucky to survive long in an Ozark spring. This year the temperatures flirted with 80, but are staying in the 70s. Those flowers say I may actually harvest some snow peas this year.

Summer Crops

Every plant takes a certain amount of time to grow and bear fruit or reach harvesting size. That’s why gardeners in northern states grow different crops and varieties than those in southern states.

Tomatoes take sixty to ninety days. Peppers are much the same. Okra takes seventy-five days.

Killing fall frost arrives around October first. When summer crops can’t be planted due to cold and frost until late May, that puts summer harvest into late August.

As one who loves to garden, I’m trying to adjust to the new crazy weather patterns.

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Wildflower Hiking

It’s that time of year again. The weather has warmed up. Wildflowers are blooming. It’s time to go wildflower hiking.

Mostly I stay around home as I have many interesting places to check out. Once a week I hike the trails at ShawneeMac Conservation Area. In spite of doing much the same wildflower hiking for nearly thirty years, I still find new plants and take time to admire old friends.

wildflower hiking find of Robin's Plantain
Robin’s plantain is one of the fleabanes. Daisy fleabane is the common one. What sets this one apart is the number of rays. When first spotted, this flower seems surrounded by a halo of pinkish to white fringe. As with other members of the Asteraceae or Aster family, little tube flowers are massed in the central disc. I find these about two foot tall plants scattered, usually in low areas such as ravine bottoms or, as this one is, in a river floodplain.

Some Recent Hikes

One recent hike was to check out a patch of lady’s slippers. They bloom in May. This spring has had several frosts which slowed things down a little. The patch I checked will bloom in about a week.

The Canada geese are enjoying ShawneeMac Lakes. There are so many water loving plants along the lake edges. This hike is often done wearing boots so I can wade in a little for better pictures of the pond weed and water shield among others.

One of my old friends was missing on my wildflower hike along the river. I used to find Confederate violets back in the sandy floodplain. This year I found Virginia bluebells Robin’s plantain, but none of these violets. The river has changed its course this year wiping out some of the banks and gravel bars, creating a few new ones.

Canada geese preening at ShawneeMac Lakes Conservation Area, Missouri
Going wildflower hiking doesn’t mean not looking at other things such as these Canada geese using a submerged tree as a resting spot, a place to clean, straighten and oil feathers. These birds and others find ShawneeMac Lakes Conservation Area in the Missouri Ozarks a nice place to visit or stay.

New Plans

Another change this year is in how many pictures I am taking. Last year I ended up with over 18 Gb of pictures. It takes hours and hours to work all of these up. Many of these flowers I’ve taken pictures of for years. This year I’m trying to not take so many of these concentrating on new ones or ones missing pictures or ones I’m not sure of my identification of.

Much as I enjoy going wildflower hiking, I have many other projects as well. Gardens, goats, chickens and others take up time too. And there is “Hopes, Dreams and Reality” to finalize and publish.

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Raising Seedlings

The easy way of raising seedlings is to buy transplants others have grown. One drawback to doing this is being limited to those varieties offered for sale.

Buying seeds and raising seedlings is a lot of work and takes planning. One advantage is browsing through seed catalogs and selecting varieties that sound interesting.

Take Peppers

I grew up despising green peppers. They were bitter and tasted terrible. I thought all peppers tasted like that.

A friend introduced me to the world of sweet peppers. Then I found bell peppers came in at least eight colors. When I grew them, each had its own flavor.

My friend grew Macedonian sweet peppers. I loved them too.

Most of these are not available as transplants. This year I started seeds for four Macedonian peppers and three colors of bells.

Raising Seedlings My Way

I don’t have the set ups with shelves and lights. They look nice, but I couldn’t justify the expense for something I would use only a few weeks a year.

I’ve finally settled on using Styrofoam cups with holes punched in the bottom and cat litter trays. Yes, that is correct. I use cat litter boxes.

The cups come in various sizes although I favor the eight ounce. I dump potting soil in each, label each and add two seeds.

The litter boxes are an easy to move size, waterproof and hold 19 cups. Since I move the trays out on the porch in the morning for light and back in at night, these are important qualities.

raising seedlings in pots
Labeling the pots is crucial. One pepper plant looks like all the other pepper plants. This particular tray has Balkan Blue and Balkan Yellow seedlings in it. (No, you won’t find these in a seed catalog.) When repotting those second seedlings, I label the needed new pots, fill them with potting soil and start lifting out one seedling. An ice tea spoon works really well for this. These slide down into a hole in the new pot and get watered in. Care must be taken to not crush the stems or tear off the leaves, but the spoon helps with this. Once the seedlings are established, watering is easy as water is poured into the tray and absorbed by the pots.

Germinating Seeds

Tomatoes and peppers need warmth. I have a shelf over the wood rack where I pile the boxes of cups. Old window glass is over the trays both to hold moisture inside and keep the trays from squashing each other.

Warm air bathes the boxes. Most seeds germinate in five to seven days. Any box with seedlings is moved out to where it gets light.

This year I started a number of seeds that like cooler temperatures. These set out on a table I usually use for painting until they germinated.

Last Steps

Since two seeds went into each cup, most cups will have two nice seedlings in them. They can’t both stay in the same cup.

Unless something is wrong with one of the seedlings, I set up another cup and move one seedling as soon as the first true leaves appear. This does require more cups and litter boxes. And time and space to move them in and out of the house.

Ultimately these seedlings will move into the garden. And raising seedlings is over for this year.

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Goat Gym Repairs

One thing about homesteading or farming or ranching, there are always repairs needing to be done. Presently I am working on some long overdue goat gym repairs.

Wood rots in moist climates like the Ozarks. What doesn’t rot attracts termites and carpenter ants. The goat gym is twenty years old or so and some of the wood is rotten.

Some Repairs Are Important

These goat gym repairs are very important. The goats run up and down the ramp, leap onto the platform and jump up and down the stairs.

Rotten wood can collapse under a goat and break a leg. Although broken legs do heal, they are a nuisance and, in this case, would be my fault.

The main part of the gym got repairs done a couple of years ago. Now the platform and ramp are falling apart.

I saw the boards collapsing a year ago and did nothing. I’m not much of a carpenter and this was obviously a two person job. I am one person.

What Happened?

The goats came in from pasture the other day. The kids raced up to play on the goat gym. And the platform and ramp were gone.

A friend came over to help me get started and we demolished these. We also cut the long pieces needed to rebuild these. There is a pile of old oak pieces to take nails out of and cut to length for stove wood next winter.

platform for goat gym repairs
It might be tempting to just drive a nail through those boards. Seasoned oak won’t allow that. The C clamps hold the board in place so the drill can put in the nail holes. Not using those clamps is a sure fire way to break the drill bit. Then the nails can be driven in. Ten boards take a long time, but the platform for the goat gym is done. The goats tried it out and approve.

New Goat Gym Taking Shape

The new pieces are cut. Now I’m putting the pieces together. I’m working on the platform first as one end of the ramp sits on it and it is flat, easy to work on.

With help, the long runners are together. It does take two people as seasoned oak requires drilling holes for carriage bolts and for nails.

Why am I using oak? Oak lasts a long time. Seasoned oak is tough enough to withstand goat assaults. And oak is available here, cut with a band saw sold several years ago.

How Long?

The goats want their playground back soon. I am slow as my carpentry knowledge is limited. And the goat gym repairs take care to be done right.

I finished the goat gym platform. The ramp? That depends on my figuring out how to cut the top and bottom angles.

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Farmers Market Preparations

Gardening is a great hobby for lots of reasons like exercise and good food. Lots of good food. More than we can eat. That’s where farmers market preparations come in.

Many people don’t garden for one reason or another. Some neighborhoods won’t allow food gardening. Many people live in apartments and haven’t heard of container gardening. Others have small children who destroy seedlings.

These people are potential customers for fresh vegetables.

What’s Growing?

Farmers market preparations begin with seed selections. Some vegetables sell much better and for better prices than others.

I like spinach so I grow spinach. It wouldn’t sell well at the market. The same goes for turnips, beets, kohlrabi, Jerusalem artichokes and others.

Tomatoes are a big hit with customers. They are a favorite with market gardeners too. So the supply outruns the demand for much of the summer.

farmers market preparations include growing vegetables like these snow peas
Peas don’t stand much of a chance in the Ozarks. The taller varieties barely get grown before temperatures are in the eighties, too hot for peas. This year I’m trying a short variety of snow pea, only two feet tall and hoping it will win the race so I can enjoy some peas before the heat arrives.

Rule of Thumb

If you won’t eat it, don’t grow it. Some, maybe a lot of the produce taken to market goes home again.

That leaves the grower trying to use it up in some fashion. I freeze a lot of produce, especially peppers and tomatoes, to use over the winter. This last winter I enjoyed pureed summer squash as soup stock.

Competition

The worst competition comes from people who give produce away to their neighbors. It’s not a bad thing as the produce is used, usually.

However, it does mean fewer people coming to the market buying the produce being offered. Since the seller pays for their booth and spends time and labor to produce their crops, this hurts. Some of these sellers stop bothering to participate.

Getting Ready

My pepper and tomato seedlings are up. Onions are growing in my containers. Snow peas are several inches tall and trying to beat the race to summer temperatures.

This year I will attend a vendor’s meeting for the first time. I’m hoping to be a more serious seller this year.

However, my farmers market preparations are like my garden, subject to time and weather considerations.

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Goatkeeping Nightmare

Goat kids grow up too fast. They want to go out to pasture with their mothers. That can be turn into a goatkeeping nightmare.

There are four kids here. The oldest ones are close to a month old. They are lively and their mothers want to go out to graze.

One Consideration

Later in the year I would not let them go out as the grass blooms with stalks taller than they are. They get lost in the grass.

These stalks are so tall, only the ears of the adults are easy to see. Hunting for a lost kid is close to hopeless as I have to almost step on the kid before I can see it.

Second Consideration

One evening my herd came in minus two kids. The grass wasn’t very tall yet, so that wasn’t the problem.

Kids, even when they know me and my voice, will often not answer me when they are lost. So I put a lead rope on their mother and drag her back out to where I think the kids might be. It is important to know where the herd went that day.

We went out across the bridge and up to the hill pasture. The doe was bellowing and Nubians are very loud.

Reaching the edge of the pasture, we stopped to look around. I looked down and those two kids were curled up sleeping totally oblivious of their mother’s bellows from three feet away.

Goatkeeping Nightmare

This last week one of the four kids did not come in. I’d noticed earlier he was missing and had been out looking. I didn’t find him.

I dragged his bellowing mother out. We went to the areas I thought the goats had been. We heard and saw no sign of her kid.

That evening I went back out looking and found nothing. It was starting to rain.

This storm continued through the next day dropping six inches of rain. The temperatures dropped to forty, not real low, but dangerous for a young, wet kid.

Goatkeeping nightmare of a lost kid
The little black Nubian buck, the friendly one, the one that stands on me (not good, but cute) went out one morning and didn’t come in. The debris is from the small flood from the rainstorm he was out in.

Surprise

This kid was lost. I had no ideas where to look and thought he hadn’t survived.

As I mentioned, Nubians are loud. I heard a kid calling. It kept calling so I went to investigate.

My lost kid was standing at the pasture gate. He was hungry, but fine. His mother was glad to see him. So was I.

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Spring Flowers Coming

Last year I spent most of the spring and summer collecting plant pictures. As spring flowers start opening this year, I am again going out with my camera.

Dent County Flora

There are so many plants growing wild in Dent County. I keep trying to track all of them down. Last year I added fifty plus new plants and completed nearly as many more.

Still, I’m only around four hundred plants completed out of nearly two thousand. I have a long way to go.

first of the spring flowers
These little wayside speedwell flowers greeted the New Year. That makes them the first of the wildflowers to bloom this year in the Ozarks.

Time Constraints

For several reasons last year, I abandoned nearly every writing project to work on the plants. I don’t plan to do that again this year. It’s tempting as the plants are straight forward to do.

First I spot a plant. Then I take pictures of the flower, the back of the flower, the leaf, the stem and the plant. For most plants I have to come back to get pictures of the fruit or seed pod which is when I have problems.

Finding Plants a Second Time

Once spring flowers start opening, all plants start growing. Even a week can make an area look very different.

The plant which was so obvious is now tucked under other plants. Its flowers are gone. Even if I mark the plant, I sometimes can’t find it again.

hoary bitter cress heralds spring flowers coming
Spring flowers are starting to bloom in the Ozarks. Most of the ones I’ve seen are not native although daffodils are international as are dead nettle and henbit. The yard has numerous little white flowers like these which are hoary bitter cress, another transplant from Europe.

Adding Plants

The pictures are transferred to my computer. The plants are identified. Pictures are selected and put on the Dent County Flora page. The plant is marked as completed.

That is how it is supposed to work. Sometimes the pictures aren’t good enough. Some plants are difficult for me to identify and I must seek help from guidebooks, the internet and iNaturalist. And there are those plants I don’t get all of the pictures for.

Spring Flowers Start Opening

Already I’ve missed one flower I needed. There are a few more I know how to find. I have a list of plants with missing pictures.

The hills are calling. So are my writing projects. So are the goats and garden. It will be a busy spring and summer.