There’s a place where the railroad splits a village in two and still tries to remain whole.
A village split in two
Category: photography
The empty sky and tracks below
She says to me, even Kerouac said that road trips have unexpected turns. He also wrote, “My witness is the empty sky.”
Downtown
A Midwest downtown on a Sunday afternoon.
Eichelman Park
Renovated Main Street
A couple of years ago the main street was ripped up and busy with construction trucks and earth movers. Now it’s quite lovely on a quiet August morning.
Garden project: how to eliminate unwanted slugs
All six garden beds are in and mostly full. A couple more tomato and pepper plants would be a nice addition. Plus I’m waiting for the kale and chard to mature enough to put them in the ground.
The lettuce leaves are big enough to pull a couple for a sandwich a couple of nights ago.
Only thing that’s a bit annoying is how the slugs seem to attempting to take over the southeastern corner of the garden. Two techniques to organically get rid of unwanted snails include beer and salt. First I’ll try the beer bait first. If the slugs persist, I’ll use salt.
The beer technique works like this:
- Fill a small container (like a baby food jar) about a third full of beer and place them in the infested areas of the garden.
- Place the slug bait in the garden in the morning or evening. I usually place the beer containers in the garden at dusk and check it the next morning.
- Empty the beer containers of the dead slugs and repeat the process.
If this doesn’t curb the invasion, the next phase of attack is salt.
the garden project: late april
New feet within my garden go,
New fingers stir the sod;
A troubadour upon the elm
Betrays the solitude.
—Emily Dickinson, “The Garden”
Unlike the poem, the troubadour is a male cardinal and the tree is an red oak. And no, I didn’t color coordinate the bird and tree. Actual bird and tree reside on or near the location of the garden. A cardinal couple made their home east of the garden project and routinely perch on a lower limb of the red oak tree and comment on my gardening progress.
At this point, all six garden boxes are built, soil turned, topsoil added and plants planted. Plants yet to plant include chard and kale and a couple blueberry bushes. The blueberry bushes will go in the northwest corner.
The garden receives at least six to eight hours of direct sunlight each day, but not until after noon. On an early morning in late April the sunlight provides dappled shadows on the garden. By May, the surrounding trees are in full green dress and the garden remains in full shade until noon.
The garden project: diy terrace gardening
The garden project revealed something very obvious the other weekend; I really underestimated is the slope of the land. Two more boxes were built on the east side of the garden; otherwise known as the top of the garden. Each box is level, but east boxes are almost six inches higher than the west boxes. At this point, the only thing that’s in the ground are cucumbers, cabbage, lettuce and some assorted plants that lost their labels (I’ll know what I planted later this year from the fruit they yield).
Initially, the idea in my head was terrace gardening, but a challenge presented itself. Mainly this, more lumber is required for proper terracing of a slope. I suppose I could use stone for terracing a slope, but the transportation costs of delivering stones exceeds my budget. So, with limited resources, I maintain the raised bed/container gardens strategy, but have to build the boxes into the slope in such a way that each box varies in elevation from two inches to six inches. From the southeast corner to the northwest corner is a difference of almost a foot. And remember, the goal is six garden boxes.
The garden project: marigolds
I came here last, bringing
marigolds from the round garden
outside the kitchen.
—Donald Hall, “Maple Syrup”
The last few weeks have been chaotic and I’ve had a challenge focusing on the garden project. The goal is to build six wood container boxes. But my weekly lumber allowance disappeared rather quickly; cost more over $17 to build two 4’x4′ boxes. The other challenge is the composting I did in the fall of ’09 only filled one box. So know I have to spend a few extra dollars purchasing topsoil.
Since I don’t own a motorized tiller, I resorted to a very old method of preparing the soil for planting. The New Self-sufficient Gardener by John Seymour offers an old English tradition for raised beds preparation. Basically, get a spade and dig down 6 to 10 inches and flip, or turn, the soil. After turning the soil in each box, I used a garden weasel tool to break up the soil even more. Finally, I added about two to three inches of topsoil before I began planting marigolds around the perimeter of the box. One source I read stated that marigolds provide an organic pest repellent. This is the first year I’ve used marigolds in the garden.
The garden project begins
The last couple of years the garden project goals have been simple: spend less than $100 on garden supplies (seeds, plants, etc.), use native or found materials (like creek stones or fallen, dead wood from local trees to make garden borders) and avoid using pesticides or herbicides (with the exception of natural, organic pesticides like cayenne pepper, ground cinnamon & the like).
This year I took the liberty to construct garden boxes with the goal of making raised bed/container gardens. The garden boxes are made from 2″x6″ pine boards and measure four feet square.
I began the garden project in April.
I’m using a variety of sources to put together this year’s garden project. But the primary gardening strategy handbooks I use include Trowel & Error by Sharon Lovejoy and The New Self-sufficient Gardener by John Seymour.
this is the guard donkey for the sheep… seriously…
Maple Creek Farm
Maple Creek Farm tour
15:59 – snowfall. 2 march 2010.
13:46 – snowfall. 2 march 2010.
snowfall, viewed from the east wing of the estate…
Blizzard?
Asheville – 29 jan 2010
Not a traditional print shop
The kitchen not only functions as a dinning room & laundry room… it also functions as a print shop. big thanks to my eight year old child for helping with the woodblock prints.
mid-atlantic blizzard of december ‘09
another photo from our end of the mid-atlantic blizzard of december ‘09… it’s still snowing… expecting another foot of snow by sundown…
mid-atlantic blizzard
photo from our end of the mid-atlantic blizzard of december ‘09
Instax camera
the south garden (or the pepper & tomato patch) at mid july
1 hot banana pepper plant & 1 jalapeno plant are still struggling to grow in this shady spot. the 4 bell pepper plants began to blossom. i think i may have a few spare dollars to buy additional pepper plants to fill in the empty space in the garden.
something thing attacked the north garden late saturday night, early sunday morning
i’m not sure if it was a raccoon or the groundhog couple that was spotted late last week.
the south garden (or the pepper & tomato patch) at the end of june
since the loss of the spinach plants in may’s excessive rains, i’ve been trying to keep the remaining pepper & tomato plants alive.
for the record, here’s what remains in the south garden: 1 hot banana pepper plant, 1 jalapeno plant, 4 bell pepper plants, 7 red cherry tomato plants.
Coffeehouse Junkie 