We had our first hard (26 degrees) freeze in the
southwestern edge of the Texas Hill Country Saturday night
(November 15). We use old roofing tin in long sheets
discarded by our neighbor to stack across our raised beds
to provide some insulation for the peas, beans, and garlic
which are five inches tall, and the chard, three kinds of
kale and five kinds of lettuce which are barely an inch
tall. Prior to the freeze, we harvested the last of the
cowpeas and took cuttings from the blackberry canes. We'd
already harvested the rest of the green tomatoes when we
expected a freeze the week before and made chutney. (We
use this tin to successfully deflect our bountiful hail in
the early spring when the plants are young).
I planted red clover yesterday (my first attempt at a
cover crop ever) in one of the "crop circles" mowed into
the prairie (mostly undesireable speargrass). Once it
warms up today I'll go and see how much damage the 'dillo
has done, as he always roots wherever I water and he was
already out before sundown. I've mown three of these
circles into the prairie, plus I have the infamous round
tin pond to turn into a rice paddy. I discovered there is
not a drain in the center, but a hole someone broke
through the concrete bottom to drain it once it was no
longer used as a pool. That will require a patch. We will
let chicken manure compost in place there, and across the
creek where we grow a hundred paste tomatoes in the
spring. I'll try to document all this once it gets going
on my blog at www.flowerweaver.blogspot.com
Why circles? Well, circular sprinkers are easiest for us
to use across the creek where there is no water source (we
have lots of hoses crossing the creek), and with all the
rocks, yuccas, cacti to avoid it is somehow easier to mow
circles. They also look more natural, since everything on
that side of the land is very organic in shape.
This weekend I joined Seed Savers and ordered Malibar
Spinach to try for the first time (from the good feedback
on the list, and my general inability to grow other kinds
of spinach--my nemisis plant) and Oaxacan Green Dent Corn
(which I grew before) that seems suited to our dryness and
our desire for cornmeal. Today I placed a Baker Creek
order (they seemed to be out of stock on many of my
favorites) deciding to try the odd solanum Litchi Tomato
and a new (to us) tomato Riesentraube, in addition to our
regular favorites which I still need to order.
I also ordered a copy of the DVD Fed Up! to see if it
would be good to show to our Healthy Harvest group and the
book Seed to Seed, which I should have owned long ago. I
plan to become better at saving seed in 2009. Healty
Harvest will be hosting a booth at Christmas on the Square
this month. We had almost forty people sign up to be on
our email list at the Citywide Garage sale booth, so
things are starting to take off.
--Sage
Way Out in Texas
On Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:17:59 -0500
"Robert Walton" <waltonrp AT gmail.com> wrote:
So how did they come out? We talked about putting them
in, I'm
interested in comparing notes.