New Team

We've got a new batch of chicks joining the Gap Mountain Garden Team.  They arrived on July 9th from mypetchicken.com and have been growing like weeds ever since!

We originally ordered 5 but sadly, a silver-laced wyandotte did not survive the trip.  We're left with 4 and actually, that is the perfect size for our small family and home.  The roster includes:  a golden-laced wyandotte, speckled sussex, silver marans and a dominique.  The dominique is a rising favorite for her super laid back attitude.  The sussex is a close second for her uncurable curiosity.  The other two act like you're trying to murder them when you walk into the room.  I guess no matter how much handling you do, some will just always be nervous.

These ladies are ready to head to their outside home.  We're just waiting for a dry day to finish our coop upgrades and repairs.   Relentless rains have slowed progress for most everything this summer.

June Blooms

HipHops

We're into our second year with the hops grow and we're excited to bear witness to the formation of our first flowers and cones!  Our 'Cascade' vines were the first to get going this year.  They have a prime spot in the front flower bed and they climb up our tall porch posts.

Cascade hops

After last year's derecho-pocalypse storm, we lost many of the 'Nugget' babies that we planned to plant in the new trellised hops bed.  Not to worry though, these plants are just begging to propagate themselves, so I overwintered several cuttings indoors and planted them out this spring.

Nugget hops

We also planted two new varieties from rhizomes this year -- 'Magnum' and 'Perle'.  We're hoping to do a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone for a forthcoming brew and these are critical ingredients.

I have a serious plant crush on these hops vines.  They're beautiful in every way!

See?  Told ya so.

Grand Canyon Garden

Earlier this spring, I had the supreme pleasure of joining my parents and a good friend on an epic journey to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (and back to the top!) on foot.  There are no words suitable enough to describe the beauty contained within those canyon walls.  A trip to the rim, although amazing in and of itself, just does not afford you access to all the secrets that this amazing place has to share.  What got me the most though, as you might imagine, was the plant life.  April seems to the best time for catching the canyon in bloom.  Do yourself a favor and GO THERE!

"April is the Cruelest Month"

....so says T.S. Eliot... and so says me.  This month has always given me the heebie jeebies.  For a few years, it seemed like all bad things tended to happen during this tumultuous time.  Thankfully, life has calmed down recently but I always seem to be bracing myself when April comes around.  Always expecting the worst.

The worst that has happened this year is that winter has pretty much failed to turn to Spring.  Hey - if this is as bad as it gets, I'll take it a million times over.  As I type this though, it is snowing outside.  SNOWING.  Again.  Heavily.  Not what I had planned for April in Virginia.  The cold weather crops will just have to patiently wait in the greenhouse for now.

What can one do in such dire circumstances you ask??

Drink homebrew, of course!

Thankfully it turned out drinkable!  Round two of beer brewing will commence soon.  This time we'll try the Shining Star Pale Ale from Northern Brewer.  After this next batch, I'm on the hunt for a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone.  

Vernal Snowquinox

Snow on daffodils?

Really, spring?

Sweet Slip Success

I've been growing sweet potatoes for just a few years now and have enjoyed them immensely.  This past year provided a solid stash of taters that we're still eating from just a week shy of the Spring Equinox.  It has been incredibly satisfying.  They have stored very well this time around.  Thankfully, our basement is not heated and hovers around 50F all winter.  Apparently, this is the perfect temperature.  I don't have any rotting or wilting sweet spuds to speak of. 

I was very careful when digging them this year.  Not many injuries to the skins and I held off on removing any dirt.  I stored them in large bins in single layers separated by newspaper.  We still have several layers to work through.  For the first time, several of the stored sweet potatoes put out sprouts.  I've tried, for several years to grow my own 'slips' from the previous years' harvest and have failed miserably.  I tried the kindergarden style toothpick method in a glass of water.  Also, the planting of the potato in the sand.  I've also tried just putting them in regular potting soil.  I was met with rot every single time.  This year, things were looking good since we had sprouts.  I tried the kindergarden method again but without the toothpicks, and it worked like a charm.  Mind you, it took several weeks in a warm greenhouse to get that sucker growing, but it did.

The stem grew long enough that I was able to take two cuttings and left a few inches on the sweet potato so that it could grow out some more.  The cuttings are rooting in a glass of water now.  I will plant those once they root and allow them to grow out a bit.  Once I have a full plant (closer to our June planting time), I will take cuttings again and allow them to root.  These will be the 'slips' that I plant out into our garden.

I'm very excited and our local garden center probably will be too.  I'm THAT customer that calls them almost daily in late spring to find out if/when their slip shipment will arrive.  They're a HOT item in our area and they move quickly, so it's easy to miss out.  Many online sources for slips are just insanely expensive so I was determined to make this happen on my own.

I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch, but things are looking good for another excellent sweet tater year!

Sweet potato sprout (post-cuttings)