Reflections on 2010

The pictures above capture the Farmville Reality Project at three different points of time. There is about two months in between each shot. The first picture is just before the ground was worked prior to planting. I really should have taken a picture a couple weeks before this one was taken to show how ungarden like this site was. I had to spray the waist high weeds two times to knock them down enough to see where all the trash was to pick up. The boy and I spent close to two weeks cleaning things up between the too often spring rains. Even after disking, rototilling, shoveling, and finally raking the seedbeds, we continued to find odd items all season long. These items ranged from old beer cans to horseshoes.

The picture in the middle shows how much bare dirt there was between the various things growing. I bring this up for a couple reasons. One, by the end of the season, there wasn't much bare dirt to navigate around on while picking things. It always amazes me how much corn, melons and tomatoes grow in just a few months time. The second reason I bring this up is to somehow burn into my brain to leave more space between some of these things when planting. I tend to crowd things a bit too much when planting. I'm always trying to get the most from whatever inputs are being used, but I did learn a long time ago that crowding plants that don't want to be crowded doesn't turn out very well. The first time we grew watermelons commercially, we made this mistake. We did end up with roughly twice as many melons per acre than the traditional spacing would have yielded. The punchline was the biggest melon was only about twelve pounds, which for the variety we grew, was not very good. It was a seeded variety and at ten to twelve pounds, each melon had roughly two or three small bites in the middle before you had to work around the seeds. The next season we planted on a wider spacing and had twenty two to thirty pound melons, which sold much better than the prior year's crop. The one major spacing change I'll make next year will be for the heirloom tomatoes. Their plant type is much larger than some of the new hybrids and they need the extra room to spread their branches out. It looked like I crowded them to the point that their branches became too intertwined and did not allow enough sun to hit the plants. I think this reduced the number of blossoms and subsequently, the amount of tomatoes. It also allowed the stinkbugs to build massive subdivisions of stinkbug tract homes deep inside the canopy. This population explosion meant quite a bit of the tomatoes were damaged. These enemies of Farmville feed on the fruit and leave yellow spots on the surface of the fruit. Just under the skin, the yellow spots turn into white blotches that make the fruit taste bitter. If there's not too much damage, you can cut the bad parts out, but if there's a lot, then it's not worth it. For the sake of my mental health, I need to move on now. I can easily lose myself in the never-ending war on stinkbugs and spend every waking moment developing strategies to try and prevail over them.

The third picture above shows how it all comes together with enough sunshine and water. Although the three pictures were not taken from the exact same vantage point, with the old, dead oak tree in the background, you can hopefully get a good sense of perspective on how things went from a weed patch to having eight foot tall corn in just four months time.

The two pictures above have special significance in the context of reflecting back on 2010. The shot of the young melon plants with the morning sun bringing out the glow in the leaves was taken in early June. When this picture was taken, I had the good fortune to reunite with someone that shares this passion for growing a garden that feeds one's self in many ways and on many different levels. Beyond the countless meals that were amazing simply because the ingredients were freshly picked, the garden brought much more to the table. In our small circle of folks, it became a center of many conversations. These ranged from people asking when this or that might be ripe to planning future meals based on harvesting things we were literally planting seeds for at that moment. The picture of the sun going down behind the garden hopefully captures the simple calmness of finishing the day taking care of garden chores. On this evening, it was about watering the thirsty plants. We spent many evenings watching the sun set while doing simple chores like this. I could go on for pages describing the many things you see when you're out at sunset in a garden, but it still wouldn't scratch the surface. We saw everything from intricate spider webs getting the finishing touches to an owl setting up its perch in the dead oak tree. Actually the owl came along a bit past sunset that evening, but it still counts.

All in all, 2010 was an amazing year. The plan is keep the Farmville Reality Project going strong in 2011 and every year into the future. It's very likely the location will change but the concept will stay the same. I plan to continue posting blog updates in 2011, much the same as was done in 2010. The big wild card is that we will be embarking upon a new adventure that will become material for another blog. Then again, it might be the right time to roll everything together into one site with sections for each "adventure". Stay tuned and we'll see where it all takes us...

Not so Random Stuff

It's been just over two months since the last post. To make up for this long gap, there will be two posts today. Truth be told, the reason there are two posts is the site only allows 8 MB of pictures to be uploaded per post and there just happened to be more than 8 MB of pictures I wanted to comment on. I titled this post "Not so Random Stuff" for a reason. While these pictures and the accompanying comments are pretty random, overall it's not. Since two posts were made on the same day, as you can imagine, even in my ADHD world, there is a correlation. It is this; the fact that I'm sitting here commenting on pictures taken many months ago shows how the project became a focal point for bringing together many different aspects of 2010. It was fun to sort through the many pictures taken over the past several months and remember what was going on at the time they were taken. These particular ones stood out for various reasons, so I thought I would upload and comment on them.
Here is a picture of the crooked rows of corn from back in April. I had mentioned in a post in May that they were crooked and would bother me until the next planting hid my crooked rows. I thought I would post it despite how the middle two rows curve to the right. It stood out this morning because I was looking at other pictures where the corn planted a few weeks after this was over eight feet tall. In the next blog post, you'll see pictures of the corn and this crooked stuff is invisible.

The picture of the basil is here because we can't wait until next summer when garden fresh basil will be just a few steps from the kitchen. Although we spent an entire afternoon making pesto for the freezer, it is long gone now. This showed us we need to make at least twice as much next year to get all the way through the winter. In 2011, the pesto making will have a neat twist to it. In early December 2010, Kevin Jr, Jessica H and I spent a rainy afternoon picking olives out by the UCD airport. This was part of an event that resulted in the olives being pressed into oil. Some of this oil has been set aside to be used for pesto making next summer. This will be the foundation for some truly great meals.

The sunflower picture is here to highlight an idea that is not necessarily exclusive to having a garden, but having one helps. The idea is the act of taking pictures sets you up to see some incredible things. The sun behind the sunflower with foraging bees is a prime example. Originally, my goal was to get a shot of the sunflowers in a row. As I looked at them, the bees' activity seemed interesting and they were foraging so intently, an up close shot without disturbing them was easy. Taking the pictures involved moving around to try different angles and one of them was this one. I encourage everyone to keep a camera handy and look for great shots. They're out there, you just have to look for them. Having a garden helps because it gets you outside, where in my opinion, the best shots are at.

This bucket of tomatoes is here because I was just recently reminded about them. As part of my important mission to keep Lynda from having to buy regular old run of the mill food stuff, I sent her home with some tomato puree. This tomato puree came from these tomatoes pictured. They were the Roma variety and in addition to making nice thick puree, they are great for pico de gallo. Now that I'm writing about them, I think I'll use some to make spaghetti sauce for dinner tonight.
The pumpkin pictured here was a, in the words of my daughter, ginormous one. It took RJ and I some serious cussing to carry it from the garden to the front porch for Halloween. Not to deprive Kevin Jr of the opportunity to talk like a sailor, he and I carried it from the front porch to the back porch where I cut it up to cook. This is no exaggeration when I say I cooked less than half of it and filled the freezer up with pumpkin. It has made its way into numerous pies, batches of cookies, a pot of soup, and a casserole. I have also given a few vacuumed packed bags away and there is still a butt load in the freezer. It is amazing how much comes from just one pumpkin. The personalized inscription was done at no extra charge. This was the first pumpkin Lynda and I grew together in over thirty years and it looks like we still have the magic touch.