2024 has been a fun year for me, and a typical one too with routines like gardening, firewood, plenty of research, and lots of code writing. Frosts late in spring and early in the fall provided some challenges to the plants but did not impact overall production. The freezer is full of goodies again.
We had a snow on Leap Day after the daffodils were up. Of course, here snow melts quickly.
Last winter the deer were still food stressed, so I was collecting and handing out apples for as long as possble. The tame ones still enjoy interacting with Sara's cats just as they did as kittens and fawns. By April, after our verdant winter, the parade of flowers begins. Daffodils and bluebells are quickly followed by the tulips.
As weather improves my focus shifts outdoors and gardening begins in earnest, albeit initially centered in the solarium and garden shed. I scored some free doors on craigslist and put two solid cores to use as a new workbench in the garden shed before I set out the free seeds table. I'll have that set up again soon, so neighbors, come and get seeds, tubers, and bulbs.
That meant more tables for the solarium starts. I started some tomatoes from seed without testing germination rate first (yes, I procrastinated), so I just planted a lot of them. That resulted in over 100 tomatoes, more than I could give away.
I set out the biggest and best tomatoes on May 18, sort of late because of the quite cold spring. I was impatient but finally the garden was tilled and ready plus the forecast was great. Two nights later they frosted. I got a great new weather station for Christmas and awoke to sub-freezing temps on the display. I was out before first light with tarps and saved them, but the damage was done. The late plantings out performed the damaged plants.
Peas can handle frosts here, and they were undeterred. I start pea seeds on President's Day and set them out on the equinox. With our cool spring and early summer they not only thrived, they kept producing longer than usual and a record amount is in the freezer.
After enough firewood was stacked to refill the shop with the annual supply, I turned to arborist chores oriented to reducing fuel and the fire hazard, plus getting the fir limbs high enough for delivery trucks to use the driveway again. You all missed out on watching a 75-year-old man up on a tall ladder doing one-arm chainsaw work. After sitting too much in the winter, this kind of activity keeps me young. And the property looks better too.
I always enjoy family visiting, moreso this year after so much pandemic isolation. Cousins and nieces visited along with family members. I hope more of you visit in the year ahead. I'm keeping up on covid boosters and still being cautious. I've eluded infection so far, even when Sara fell ill this year.
I sent off Gwynne and Christin's families with plenty of fresh produce. By mid-August the garden is really producing and it was a surplus year. I took the camera with when dusting the roofs for moss control, an annual chore here in the rain forest.
This view below is a month later. I started two late sunflower patches, the larger one behind the tomato row was also a potato patch with beans to add nitrogen. The mixture thrived in an area of newly tilled soil.
I collected plenty of seeds in fierce competition with the bluejays, and kept seed separate from selected plants. Come and get some seeds.
Somehat unexpectedly, my shitake log experiment, inoculating a downed alder trunk in the forest back in 2017, produced some great fruitings this year.
I had to do something with all those excess tomato starts, and they were needed after the late-May frost. I planted a bunch of them densely and they produced heavily, albeit late in the summer. In Nov. I took the plastic tarp off and picked the remainder, ripening the green ones in the solarium.
After eating and giving away peppers for half the summer there was still a record harvest when frost threatened in mid-October.
There was barely any room in the freezer for a few salmon this fall. I caught a couple of really bright ones shore fishing and will enjoy good eats all winter.
