Wild grapes are in season right now. I wandered out and grabbed up a few pounds.
They are significantly smaller, tend to ripen at varying stages.. and are sour. Like with many wild fruits, the seeds are significantly larger with less flesh. These are lovely when mixed with other fruit in juices and jams. While munching on them off the vine is fun, the seeds can be daunting, rather like when bits of popcorn get stuck in the back of your throat. The chickens were snaking on them as well, often jumping up like Michael Jordan with incredible "air time" to snag a few treats.
There are several species native to North America. With wild genetics, each one is a bit different than it's neighbor. Even if you are not pleased with the grapes these natives provide, the vines do offer more. Grafting is an option. Many are not aware that wild strains of grapes from North America saved many vineyards in Europe. Our wild types are resistant to a disease that was ravaging European cultivars.
If you are interested in grafting, this is a helpful link.
I was surprised by this massive guardian of the garden.
See her? A Chinese mantid. 4 inches my foot.. she's over 6 from her head to the end of her body.
A beneficial invasive, imported for bug control over 100 years ago. We have a couple of these wandering about. You can see the Japanese beetle damage to the vines. Minimal damage compared to the vines that were not patrolled by my feathered friends.
I've pulled my first zucchini for seed saving this year. You have to let the fruit get fully ripe.. which a ripe zucchini has a hard shell and is yellow.
This is Ronde de Nice, a small round French heirloom strain. These are great for stuffing. I like a few of these.. and let them hang out until close to Halloween. The seeds benefit from some storage time of the fruit. I'll carve a few out, save the seeds ( and roast the extras).. to be small jack-o-lanterns.
These are cucurbita pepo.. and many "summer" squash are as well. That means they will cross with many other garden favorites. I controlled cross pollination by picking the male flowers of the other c. pepo that were soon to bloom. They became dinner.
Same drying method as others. Clean off the seeds, dry them well (will snap in half when bent). They can last a decade and better in proper storage and still maintain decent viability.
Ok.. have to run! Best to you all!
I thought I would pop this up quick to show the range of these beetles. A 100 years ago they were spotted in New Jersey. Kentucky has also popped up several times as one of the areas from which this pest was introduced.
That was 2005. This next one is the range over the last decade.
This map is from NAPIS (National Agricultural Pest Information System.)
The Japanese beetle tirade here hasn't quite slowed down yet. The chickens and guineas were doing an incredible job keeping the beetle numbers down. I did not realize how big of an impact they were making until we moved them to the coop.
3 days away from the garden and the beetle numbers just exploded. Gently shaking a leaf of a wild grape vine and dozens would tumble into my awaiting hand. The pole beans which finally made yet another surge of growth.. was now a lacy wreck.
It did make me pause a moment and consider how much food my chickens and guineas were foraging. 34 birds are consuming about 50 pounds of feed a week (50% scratch and 50% layer feed).. although much of the layer feed gets wasted and the scratch is like candy to them. It works out to be about 3.36 oz of food per bird per day including the wasted feed or the veggies I give them.
They really do not like the bagged feed. I made the mistake of mixing some scratch in with it to encourage them to eat out of the feeder.. the results were a massive mess in the coop. They about emptied the 30 pound feeder just picking out the seeds. If I only offer pellets, then a 50 pound bag would probably last almost 2 weeks. 5 pounds of cut up dinged garden veggies lasts 2 minutes. The only time their crop is empty is in the early morning. No chubby chickens either as they run around all day long.
Milky Spore is on my want list. Kinda further down on my want list.. as my husband has noticed the bug devouring power of our feathered fiends.
It is hard to see Japanese beetles as a blessing, but as chicken feed.. I suppose they are. I couldn't imagine how bad the beetles would have ravaged the garden had we not had the birds. 3 days without them and many things in the garden almost were eradicated.
Maybe... I just need more chickens.
I've been swamped and hit a few times by heat troubles. Wild black raspberries are in full swing and I'm determined to grab up as much as I can! (Even though I will never ever be able to make a dent even if there were 20 of me picking around the clock.) My overzealous picking has landed me in hot water twice now where I collapsed in the lawn on the way back to the house. Hot and humidity in the 90's really can hit you like a ton of bricks. Heat exhaustion happens easily, but trying to track back through a forest to get to someplace cool was the only option. Humidity that high and evaporation does not happen. I take emergency ice packs with me just in case now.
What also is in full swing are Japanese beetles (Popillia japonica).
These bugs will "fall" when disturbed. So I grab a large mouthed container, throw in a bunch of ice and some water.. and let them drop in. The wild grape vines and wild roses all around the garden are essentially acting like a trap crop. They drop into the ice water and are too cold to fly away.
These beetles will skeletonize a long list of plants. It is like a biblical plague. Several trees are so covered that you barely can see the leaves. While you can use a lure trap, it will essentially attract the fiends in greater numbers than what the traps can catch... As in.. if you use traps, put them up at someone else's place far away!
Once I have my finely honed attack chickens ready (read.. brave enough to leave a 20 foot radius of their coop).. I dream of opening the door and yelling "RELEASE THE FOWL!" The beetles will tremble and go elsewhere. I did mention I was dreaming..
At 8 weeks old, I am bringing the beetles to them. I collect up what I can, pour it into an old flower pot and let them devour the semi-frozen fiends.
I should have had my husband ready with the camera. That red headed chicken is "Karen".. and a force to be reckoned with. She is brave (within sight of the coop), independent (as long as she sees you are around), a natural laid back little leader. The "Karen technique" essentially means we may never ever need to use the weed whacker ever again. She has taught the others the scratch and sit method that has cleared the grass and weeds around the 20 foot distance of the coop to the house.
This is the coop so far. Keep in mind most all of this is from wood my husband is scavenging from the ancient barn. The bottom was excavated a bit. It should be deep enough that they should be able to wander around under there. Wiring has been sunk into the ground and then rocks which are mud packed as well as concreted into place hopefully will deter any predators.
Floor boards are from the old barn, as are the posts. You have no idea the string of adjectives my husband was able to fluently string together. Everything is warped, twisted due to time and exposure. Not an attribute my perfectionist husband particularly cares for.
The coop will be 8' by 12' and have 4 windows that are also reclaimed. When you are working with reclaimed materials, it takes a lot more time. We are insane for doing this. Trying to build a coop this large for under $1,000 is interesting.
Here's what my incredibly amazing husband is rummaging to get much of the lumber..
So the cavernous old barn will get a new life as a little chicken cottage, with any luck. When the coop is done, then construction on making some compost bins to organize my piles, and cold frames.. ugh cold frames. Endless list.
Focus Danielson! I suck at completing projects by the way. I am great at starting a million of them, but notorious for flaking out and biting off more than I can chew. Kinda like the multiple stock pots of berries that I must freeze or jam..
I need a jammer! As in.. here.. you make the jam while I pick the berries. As having a big family is not in my cards to create, maybe I should create a commune. Which I totally would do.. you know.. if I actually owned the land. Maybe start some sort of rent-a-jam-granny business.
Time to run over some produce from the garden and get back to work. Take care and stay cool!
It is 2:30 am.. still sweltering hot and we have just been blessed with the arrival of Mayflies by the billions.
Getting pelted from every direction.
I need... an anti-bug bubble.
Old school style screens are just not cutting it.. too gappy on the sides (not inset into the frame).. it has become the unofficially official Beetle-Ant-Gnat-Whoknewsomethingthatbigcouldfly expressway.
It would be much easier to sleep if I wasn't so concerned about what just tried to fly up my nose....
Less than 4 hours until sunrise.. then off to water trees and the gardens..
The bugs are out in droves. The last 2 weeks the bugs have been coming out in what seems like clouds that make time outside uncomfortable.
Eye gnats, sometimes called grass flies or as kids we called them eye-lickers, make a cloud around your head. They fly into your ears, nose, eyes, hair repeatedly and swatting brings you maybe one second of relief. A beekeepers veil would probably be really helpful to keep them away while you work. I've been rocking the Hee Haw bridal look with netting on a straw sun hat.
Buffalo gnats as well are out and about. They sort of look like tiny house flies, but bigger than eye-lickers and they bite! Their bite turns into something like a mosquito bite, but larger and itchier. My husband isn't allergic to mosquitoes, so when they bite him, nothing happens. When the buffalo gnat bites, their saliva is an irritant and creates those itchy big bumps. They are also not something to be trifled with as they go after many animals and have killed poultry.
While the eye-lickers are out for essentially the summer, buffalo gnats stick around for a month. So if you see some goofy freckled Hee Haw bride chasing poultry, produce flailing about wildly.. it's just me in my mid-life crisis garden.
We have a solid white keet and I named it after my friend Kate. Mainly because I like writing notes on her facebook wall or send her messages, but also it is a nod to "Taming of the Shrew". We have a pied keet that I named Keet Richards. Rather swarthy and disheveled, it is always causing a stir. Keet Richards and Kate are the ring leaders of this feathered mob.
Keet and Kate frequently can be found partying on the top of the brooder box. They like life on the edge. They are above the common peeps. They are out-of-the-box thinkers.
To give a dark spot in the brooder for the birds to sleep (cause I was a dummy and got the white light. A red heat bulb minimizes pecking and lets them sleep more comfortably), I draped an old shirt over the corner.
Keet and Kate, when busted, will jump on to the shirt, slide down and hop into the box. It makes me laugh every time because you can't help but think of those cheesy action movies. The character jumps over the edge... lands on a cafe awning.. slides.. and gets to safety below where they can disappear into the crowd.
Meanwhile in the garden things are still wet. Wet, wet, wet.. and from the look of the clouds.. soon to be a bit more damp. The pole beans are sprouting. A few washed up in the rains, but I sowed it pretty thick so no biggie.
The wet weather also is triggering powdery mildew along with the pesky pests.. so out comes the spray bottle of baking soda in water. Changing the ph helps nerf powdery mildew, but you have to catch it quick. If you wait until it looks like a talcum powder truck jackknifed in your garden.. you waited too long.
Now is also the time to check under leaves here for eggs of various unwanted visitors... namely squash bug eggs. I've been popping them off into a container and then chucking it in the freezer to kill them. I am hoping the guineas find them tasty when they are old enough to roam the garden.
If you don't know what the eggs look like.. check here for information about them. The eggs are on the underside of the leaves.
