Built a proof-of-concept today. I don’t even know what this is–a mini-chinampas-inspired tub concept? Or is this something everybody already knows about and I just can’t get the right search terms to spit it out? Or has everybody tried this already and failed and now we all know better except me?
Well, I had pond liner and a whiskey barrel planter and Azolla caroliniana and I’ve been making grow bags, so let’s see what happens.
…but holy moley, this con-crud has some teeth to it. Cough, body ache, fever and fatigue. Then you lay in bed and think “Am I REALLY sick or just lazy with a cough?” Then you get up out of guilt and then you have to sleep for three hours. Fun.
The tweet, if you can’t read it, reads as follows:
ERNIE: i ate snow sad now
ME: Oh buddy, your ears are so cold. Let me snuggle–GET YOUR TONGUE OUT OF MY COFFEE
ERNIE: better now
Anyway, being home alone with the hounds during a snow event is not a bad thing, although I’ll be glad to see another human soon!
I am embarassed by the relatively meager looking size of the harvest, but in my defense, like half the early crop got swept into a slow cooker (and I have no idea what was in it! I think a lot of Yoeme Purple. There were words.) and I sacrificed a load of Trail of Tears and Tarahumara Red to chili. But a couple just plain did not perform–I’m done trying to make the “ojo” types work. Whatever they want, it’s not what I’ve got here. And the Aztec Cave Beans are very pretty and don’t hold a candle to Mother Stallard in terms of production and flavor, so they’re out.
On the other hand, I just went and looked up standard yields for dry beans, and a lot of them average something like 1.5-3 lbs per 25 foot row, and even 25 plants per pound of beans. So given that I have maybe 25 feet of beans TOTAL, and that heavily intercropped with tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers and squash, the fact I managed at least three or four pounds worth is not too embarassing at all.
Next year, I’m looking at Trail of Tears, Mother Stallard, O’odham Pink, Tarahumara Red, Rattlesnake Pole and probably Yoeme Purple. We’ll give it a year or two and see how those fare…
Ernie’s in pretty good shape, just has some neurological issues as a result of…whatever happened. He turned up in a rural shelter with no information, had heartworm, pretty much as sad a case as you can imagine. Farm Friends Rescue, who are a wonderful local group, took him in, patched him up, and describe him as “velcro dog”–he just gloms onto a person and wants to be near them. He is not very bright, but his issues seem to be mostly balance-related–he tips sideways then rights himself. (He’s listed once or twice while I’ve watched, but it doesn’t seem to be severe at the moment.) We are told he is great with small children and would follow the foster’s toddler around happily while she stuck post-it notes to him.
Everybody in the house gets along really, really well at the moment, so adding another animal is a tricky business–we are a very laid-back, low-energy household for the most part, which is surprising granted how many personalities are at work here–but Ernie so far seems to be very quiet and friendly. So here’s hoping!
I write & illustrate books, garden, take photos, and blather about myriad things. I have very strong feelings about potatoes.
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