Impressive Squash Vines

The current status of our two hills of squash and pumpkins is impressive.  A single hill of  Waltham Butternut squash containing three or four plants is growing through the fence and across the center path.  We claim no responsibility for the vigorous growth as it is entirely weather related.  Planted during the first week in June, dry weather necessitated carrying water to keep the seedlings alive.  Growth was stalled but the plants did cling to life.  Then the rains and hot daytime temperatures ruled.  Fruit is just now beginning to form and we enjoyed our first meals featuring stuffed squash blossoms.  Actually it was stuffed pumpkin blossoms.  Pumpkin blossoms are a deep appealing orange while the squash blossoms are a weak anemic yellow color.

The view from the opposite corner shows the state of the potatoes and next season's garlic bed.  What appears to be bare ground is actually heavily covered with emerging weeds.  This would have been where the corn grew but we did not bother to plant in light of the grossly unfavorable dry weather.  The missed potatoes have been dug and screened compost has been spread.  We will continue to stir the soil intending to kill the new weeds.

Our grand plan is easy to see now.  Planting beds are five feet wide and eighteen feet long.  Stone filled paths are three feet wide and end five feet short of the end fence.  The reground bark mulch filled central path is four feet wide.  Path stones are so few in number here that we were forced to use bark mulch.  This great difference in soil components between this garden and the garden near the house points to glacial deposition at slightly different times under different conditions.  Soil here contains more clay and far fewer stones than the main garden.  There sand and broken stone chips are dominant soil components.  An advantage of the clay soil is that it holds water longer between rainstorms.  Our house would have been built into the bank between the garden and the pines if money had been limitless.  Here electric power is far away and the driveway more than one half of a mile long.  Still, an earth bermed solar heated house here would have been a wonderful place to live.  When age related decline forces us to live elsewhere, we may retain ownership of this land near the ridge and use it as a camp.

Water Bar Maintainence

Anyone that has hiked trails in the Catskills has seen the impact of human traffic on the forest floor.  Heavy traffic kills the plants.  With nothing but dead roots to hold the soil, rain water or snow melt   soon move it downhill.  Deep stony channels result.  This former farm road to a field at the top of the hill does not see heavy traffic but there is enough to for water to slowly work its way deeper than the adjacent ground.  When a house was built just downhill from this spot, storm debris was washing onto their lawn.  With their permission, gravel was hauled in to build a high spot across the lane.  This diverted the water into my woods.  Over time the water bar filled in as small stones held fine woods dirt and the water flow returned to our neighbor's lawn.

This is where the diverted water enters the woods.  A fallen tree blocks the flow and the water spreads out dropping its load of fine woods dirt.  I harvest this black gold for use in my natural gardens.  The depression between the standing tree trunk and the fallen one marks the location of my earlier harvest this year.

A channel to carry runoff away from the lane has been restored.  Additional work needs to be done here as heavy storms result in raging torrents of water racing down the lane.  The combination of small stones and fine top soil created an unbelievably hard surface.  My painstakingly slow maddock work will restore function here.

Newly placed leaves cover the soil removed from the water bar.  We have been deliberately slow in filling this bed because we did not want to kill the tree.  Little shade falls from a dead tree.  The combination of a raised bed and a thirsty tree resulted in a dry planting area.  We did manage to keep blood root alive here for several years.  New plants from seed actually grew and flowered.  One recent hard summer drought ended these plants.  A snow saucer was placed several inches beneath the top of the new soil.  Our thinking is that the saucer will retain some moisture deep beneath the blood root.  We will purchase new plants next spring and try again.  The two cardinal flower plants somehow grew here from seed despite the dry conditions.  Not all of the seeds follow the rules. They grow and bloom where they fell.   These rebels are more than welcome here.