Native Archives : Page 10 of 68 : Cast Iron Garden

January 30, 2024January 30, 2024

01/29/2024 prairie larkspur leaves up

A single leaf is circled with a white marker. There is a black metal sign with messy porcelain marker writing saying “prairie larkspur”. Lots of the sandy loam soil is visible and other small winter annuals and some dry tan buffalograss are around nearby. — I checked both prairie larkspurs in the front side year and each one has a leaf! I have circled this one with white lines. I was actually worried about this one because I accidentally broke off the dried stem pretty low, but it seems the root was fine. I had two plants in the back yard too but I haven’t looked for them yet.

January 28, 2024January 27, 2024

Recent food and beverage

Some tepary beans mixed in those refried beans! The hot sauce is Chimayó pepper mostly. 01/25/2024.

Homemade pasta with homemade pesto. 01/24/2024.

I finally roasted the yaupon holly leaves instead of just having it dehydrated. It’s actually a nice tea now! I did 300 F for somewhere over 1.5 hrs on a cookie sheet. 01/22/2024.

January 27, 2024January 27, 2024

01/26/2024 Indigofera’s first day out

Two six pack trays and one yogurt container full of potting soil and a few seedlings per container. They’re all sitting on a bigger black plastic tray. — Since it was in the 40s and humid I brought the tray of scarlet pea seedlings to the porch to start getting outside light.

Three seedlings, two of which have the beginnings of compound leaves emerging. — Several have cute little adult leaves starting!

January 17, 2024January 16, 2024

01/07/2024 making lemonade out of lemons

Pile of month old oak logs along the back wooden privacy fence. A squirrel is eating birdseed on the feeder in the foreground. — We had to get the lone red oak trimmed back by the power company. This resulted in a pile of fresh oak logs. The Chef was inspired by a book we listened to recently called To Boldly Grow by Tamar Haspel. It is available from the Norman Public Library as an audiobook.

Two of the chosen oak logs standing end up on the concrete patio. — And what was he inspired to do? First, The Chef chose several big logs. He wants to grow… mushrooms!

Metal conduit stands upright out from the edge of the concrete block compost area. Leaves cover the ground. — After a household discussion and reading about shiitake requirements, The Chef leaned some conduit over rebar and old concrete blocks near the compost structure.

The chef holds a log down with his booted foot while drilling holes wearing work gloves. — The Chef drills holes for the plugs.

Paula taps mushroom plugs into one of two visible logs, on top of the workbench outside. — Paula taps the mushroom plugs into the drilled holes. To the left you can see the beeswax candle the Chef made for this purpose.

I point at wax seal spots on an upright log that’s been finished. — The plugs are sealed in with clean beeswax.

Five logs are leaned up against the metal conduit rail. — We ended up with five logs full of mushroom plugs. We shall see what happens!

January 16, 2024January 16, 2024

01/16/2024 walk to OU duck pond

It’s 22 degrees F and sunny and with very light north wind now, so we walked over to the OU duck pond to see what was happening. All the geese and ducks were at the north end at a patch of open, flowing water on the creek. We also saw two Belted Kingfishers tangling in the air – squabbling? Courting?

A woman in a long blue quilted coat looks into an iced over pond at some big slider turtles. — Paula spotted one big slider turtle under the very thick ice!

Three turtles (two close together near shore and one farther out) under cracked ice that’s at least half a foot deep b — Can you find all three? They were all moving under the ice, which looked at least 4-6” thick.

A big iron sewer or water cover with the tidy graffiti described in the caption as well as a small geometric pattern of partial squares at right angles. Briar the dog sniffs the concrete under the lid. — “think, look, listen”… smell?

Paula holds a purplish leaf of the spring beauty. It’s very narrow and long, with dry tan bits of bermudagrass around it. — Paula remembered where she saw Spring Beauties blooming last year and after a few minutes of searching we found several leaves! No buds yet.

Briar’s fluffy tail near a geodetic survey marker in low bermudagrass and small forbs. — We also noticed this geodetic reference survey marker for the first time. Dog for scale.

January 14, 2024January 14, 2024

01/14/2024 not very efficient plant window

Single pane glass isn’t great in this extreme weather. Fortunately most of the plants are above the thin metal bottom. in past years this has damaged tomato seedlings when we did them in the window.

Frost is pretty though. Mom fixed the stained glass cardinal for me recently! Thanks Mom!

January 14, 2024January 15, 2024

Scarlet pea process

Scarification of some kind is needed for quick germination of Indigofera miniata. I decided to nick each seed manually.

01/08/2024. The seeds swelled up ready to go within 24 hours! if you look very carefully you can see a few little roots emerging on a few seeds.

01/11/2024. More roots come out after a few days of light!

01/15/2024. These cotelydons (seed leaves) are opening in the container that had a clear lid! Two seed cases had fuzzy gray mold so I picked that off with tweezers the day before.

01/15/2024. This baby is emerging from the six-pack cells. It’s sort of yellow even though we have the grow lights right on them. For the open cells (no cover), I’ve been watering them by flooding the tray so the water soaks up.

I still have more of this species nicked. I think what I’ll do with the rest is plant them directly; they seem to imbibe water very fast which means they’ll probably sprout in spring rains. I forgot to inoculate them with any of the inoculum I bought from prairie moon nursery but I believe you can add it later if you disturb the roots a bit. If this species even needs it. Mysteries.

January 2, 2024January 2, 2024