Sweet Potato Homestead

rain blessings 🌦

The end of April really came for us here in Maine and now that we’ve had some summer-like days, the homestead is filling out~

My hard work of blowing dandelion (l) seeds all over the driveway every time I took the dogs out is paying off. While I’m still trying to get things established in our gravely hell there aren’t many flowers so I’m thankful all these guys have shown up.

In the wild border around our homestead, several flowers have also popped up. Lil baby Azure Bluets (m) fill the path between my future cooking and medicine gardens but don’t last very long. I was also able to ID a Common Serviceberry tree (r) in the craggy soil in the backyard. I don’t remember seeing these last year so I don’t even know if it’s fruiting but either way, flowers!

Rain means mushrooms and slugs and jellies~

Among the brush of a huge pine tree we had cut down, these neon orange-colored Jelly Spot fungus (1,2) stuck out like a sore thumb. I love jellies, they’re so cool~ These turkey tail (3) from last year are still vibing on the stump out back. Not for much longer once the tractor is out of surgery. I haven’t been able to ID this cute slug/snail (4) boy but I’m sure I’ll find more as I start more projects outside. Lastly, my new favorite fungi Amber Jelly (5) has been littering the driveway for the past week. They’re so fun to touch and thankfully Potato finds them terribly uninteresting.

Winged friends have also been staying around the homestead once I satisfied their seed demands. While not formally ID-ed, these woodpeckers have been seen all over our gardens, making a meal out of both sueit and foraged bugs~ It’s still an ongoing battle between me and Potato in who gets to eat the bird seed and we can’t reach an agreement.

Either way, all these new neighbors have been lovely to see and I’m excited to make improvements around the gardens to attract even more nature friends~

2nd sow seed update

What do you know, putting the seed mats on a timer did help~ 🙄

It also took me this long to think of labeling the top of the grow trays with sharpie. As long as I remember to put it back on the correct way, it’s fool proof. Putting both the lights and the heat mats on the same timer has really made the difference, so much so that the red amaranth germinated in 2 days! I hope they’ll be just as motivated to grow like weeds once they get moved outside.

I’m going to have way too many cucumbers this year since I’m pretty sure all the cells I planted have germinated~

Other early risers in my 2nd sow include:

Lettuces (butterhead, the french one, etc)
Cucumbers (Spacemaster, I’m going to be forced to make pickles this year if all of them make it outside)
Gourd Mix
Broccoli (Purple Sprouting)
Chards (all colors)

At the rate these seeds are coming up, I’ll probably have an update by the end of the week~

first ever weaving project

A very much in the way forsythia that could use the haircut

While Mike and I have our building projects planned out for the year, I’m constantly brainstorming ideas for fixable spots around the property. One of the problem areas is at the top of the driveway where the cabin (future community center??) and home share some bramble space. This forsythia plant in particular is in the way but thriving despite the gravel it sits in. In order to use some of it up and try my hand at some wild weaving, I trimmed back the longest pieces that were bendable enough to use.

After gathering both forsythia and oak pieces, I set up shop beside my medicine garden and starting driving stakes into the garbage gravel soil. After placing several stakes it occurred to me that I cut them too short and while I wasn’t intending to weave a full height fence, it would have been nice to keep the dogs out. Regardless, I got to work hammering and after a lot of pike stretches, the backbone was done.

As I began to bend my weaving materials, I found that they weren’t as green as I would have liked and they either bent loosely or snapped entirely. I was discouraged and was pretty close to moving onto another project but I worked around the issue and got to weaving.

After using the broken ends to secure around a stake or two, I started to weave the forsythia branch back and forth as far as it would go. I tried to create one layer along the entire stake layer before doubling back and starting the second layer. This process was both satisfying and frustrating as I could easily weave the greener branches and create a proper wall, the brittle and snappable pieces we often loose and didn’t stay where I put them.

After an hour of weaving, breaking stakes and branches alike and corralling the dogs out of my work space, I had erected a small wall.

I’m really happy with how this weird project turned out. I don’t expect it to last very long but if it provides a little more protection for my raspberry plants, it will have been a fun and helpful project.