Our New Watering System

In my last blog I talked about how we water most of our gardens using rain barrels ( filled with water piped from our roof) and watering cans.  I have been suggesting to Jerry (he would say whining!) for the last year or so that we need to come up with another method in the future.  We are not getting any younger and with injuries to our wrists and arms in the last years it makes sense to limit the amount of work we have to do.  I have been sending him blogs and websites of how others are managing watering systems with solar panels, pumps etc but he has always had a reason why a system was not practical for our purposes.

One day, last week I see there is a long extension cord from the house down past our gardens.  I figured he was working on piping to the rain barrels but went down to investigate.  Miracle of miracles, he has a small submersible pump that is attached to a hose and he is going to submerge it into one of the barrels.  INSTANT WATER! 

 So easy!  Attach hose to pump, lower into water, plug pump in, start watering garden.  I was SOOOOOOOO happy!  I asked him when he got the pump and his response – it was in our basement ALL THESE YEARS!  He had purchased it when we were building 6 years ago for some one time use.  WHAT!  Last year while he was recovering from hernia surgery and I gave myself a frozen shoulder trying to water in the drought there was a PUMP sitting in our basement!  #*&^. 

For a moment my happiness was gone, but then I stood there watering for a bit and all was forgotten -  it was sooooo nice.  You have time to look at all your plants, look at the property, to check out the little details that you don’t see when you are sweating and running back and forth with watering cans.

Once the one area was watered we moved hose and pump over to the next set of rain barrels. The watering of all the gardens was done in record time.  To make it more efficient we have decided to get hoses that we can leave at each rain barrel station (we have three) and then it is just a matter of moving the pump around. 

The one drawback is our watering spout on the hose gets clogged quickly from the sediment in the bottom of the barrels.  We fixed this by just taking off the shower spout and watering with a stream of water.  We could also just add a brick or something for the pump to sit on in the barrel and then it is not pulling in sediment from the bottom.

We also won't be getting that great arm workout from pulling full watering cans from the rain barrels but with all the jobs to do around the property I have a feeling that I still won't be having to join a gym.

And because we almost always are watering when the sun is out, we are using electricity produced from our solar panels to power the pump. YES!  Crossing “watering system update” off the to do list!

The Great Rain Barrel Dump

It has been very dry - the understatement of the year - 80% less rain in May than normal, little in June, almost none in July - still we consider ourselves lucky that we live in an area that does see  it's share of thunderstorms which enable us to water most of our gardens, most of the time, using rain barrels.  When we built our home we had the foresight to get our septic installers to install pipes from each of the downspouts around the house and pipe the water back into the garden areas - we have three stations quite a distance from the house with multiple rain barrels connected and then two up near the house, front and back for the gardens there - in total we have 11 barrels.  We should probably have 15. 



 Most mornings finds us outside early slogging to water the gardens - we water by dipping in watering cans into the barrels, pulling them out, then walking to the nearby garden and repeat AGAIN and AGAIN.  It is an awesome arm and shoulder workout but can be more than exhausting when the temp hits into the 30's before 9.  Every year I ask Jerry to put in taps or hoses so we would have less work but recently I have been watering a friends garden while they are away and the tap from a rain barrel takes FOREVER to fill a watering can! So we continue the old fashioned, fast way.  

We have run out of water in the barrels a number of times this year and have had to resort to watering with the hose - after the hard labor of the watering cans it is kinda nice to just stand there holding the hose, no upper arm workout, just time spent gazing around but the well water is cold, not good for the plants and it feels like 'wasting' to us when we use the hose.  We try to get every last drop from the rain barrels. 
When the forecast suggests an 80% chance of rain on the way (like they are today) we take a look at our rain barrels and if there is still water in them we do the big rain barrel dump.  We would rather that water go into our gardens then overflow once the storm hits and just run into the vegetation around the rain barrels.  We did not have the foresight to put the rain barrel stations directly INTO the garden areas mostly because we had no idea where the gardens would be.  That would have made the most sense and we may have to consider changing things up if the summer droughts become standard procedure and I have a horrible feeling that they will.

Anyhow, the forecast is calling for rain and so today was a rain barrel dump day - We have watered and watered to empty out all 11 barrels into our veggie gardens.  Our thinking is that by watering just before the storm there is more chance of the ground being moist and allowing for greater penetration of the rain - these violent, quick storms drop a lot of rain but little seems to be absorbed, instead running off the gardens and taking soil with them. While there is a bit of a risk that we will not have water for days ahead if the rain does not materialize, the "extra" water on the garden is not a bad thing at this point and we can say they have all had a good watering and we may actually have a break from watering if the rain arrives. 

                                             The good news is the clouds are rolling in...

Garlic...We have Garlic!

                          

For the last few years we have grown a bit of garlic (2,000 heads) to sell to a couple of local markets.  It  was my idea to try it and net us a bit of money that we could put towards a vacation each year now that we are living on a pension.  Last year was a brutal year for us – both of us were injured, we had a long drought and our garlic crop ended up with a rot from the cold, rainy May and we lost half of our crop.  I spent way too many hours looking at pictures of disfigured garlic and reading about the many diseases and how difficult it was to eradicate them.  So it was with great trepidation that we planted our fall crop still using our own seed and in different garden beds.  This year we had a record dry May instead of a rainy one and we did not water the garlic very much worried that we would kick-start the fungus.  Two weeks ago I went out and pulled up a few sick looking garlic and sure enough it looked like the same rot as last year.  I was sooo disappointed and really trying to avoid going out to actually harvest.

 The garlic is planted in October, November  - each head separated into individual cloves and each clove is planted to yield a head of garlic the next summer.  Hard-neck varieties like ours – Music – send up scapes in June, early July that need to be trimmed off.  We sold some of our scapes to local markets a few weeks ago (the earliest on record for us) and as of July 1 the scapes we left on were standing erect, a sure sign that the garlic was ready to harvest.  July 2 is the earliest we have ever harvested our garlic – four years back we were harvesting the end of July!  Last year we started harvesting July 11.  This year July 2! 

 We went out and started pulling the garlic and lo and behold – we had great garlic!  Some really nice large heads and a fair number of smaller heads due to the lack of water but almost no rot!  I was doing a happy dance and starting to count the dollars I can tell you (we already have a week booked in Myrtle Beach in August ya see).

Harvesting garlic is pretty labor intensive and best done by hand – while Jerry loosens the soil with a pitch fork I do an initial quick clean and look to remove most of the soil and make sure it looks healthy – any suspect garlic goes in a separate bin right away.  Once we have a wheelbarrow full we head up to the garage where it gets a further cleaning, removing more soil, some brown leaves and another look to make sure the bulb is sound.  We then tie a dozen together with a string and then hang them from nails we have placed all over the garage so they can dry for another 2-3 weeks.

Once they are dry we will then cut off the leaves, stalk and some of the roots and do the final clean with gloves or toothbrushes.  It is then we will also do the big separation of keeping back seed stock for next year, then dividing the rest to sell by size.  The largest we will sell individually and the smaller stuff we will bundle in ½ pound or 1 pound bundles.

We also planted a fair number of bulbils in the fall – bulbils are garlic seeds from the flower (scapes) and they are super tiny.  It takes three years of successive planting to get the bulbils to be big enough to plant for garlic heads but it is a great way to get “clean” seed (without any disease) and a cheap way to increase your seed stock, albeit cheap and looong way to increase your seed stock.  

Winter? What winter?

It has been a strange winter here in Ontario.  For the second year in a row we have not had to shovel our driveway even once.   Yes, we have cleared our walkways of a couple of inches here and there but for the most part the few snow accumulations have been quickly followed by a warm spell with rain and the snow is melted away.  A friend shared this table from Environment Canada.

News Release

Ontario Weather Review

January 2012 

In January 2012, balmy temperatures continued to reign across the province.  Mean temperatures approached, but somewhat surprisingly did not surpass, the values of 2006 when most recent records were set in Ontario. This January, mean temperatures were above normal values by as much as 7.8 degrees Celsius, which was the case in Dryden!

Unusual mean temperature readings (in °C), ranked by variation from normal:

Location         MeanTemp  Normal   Difference   Warmest since

Dryden                 -9.7             -17.5            7.8             2006

Kenora                 11.4            -17.3             5.9            2006

Sioux Lookout     -12.8            -18.6            5.8            2006

Red Lake            -14.0            -19.6             5.6            2006

Thunder Bay         -9.9             -14.8             4.9           2006

Wawa                   -9.9             -14.8            4.9            2006

Peterborough        -4.2              -8.9              4.7            2006

Kapuskasing        -14.0            -18.7              4.7           2010

Toronto Pears       -1.7              -6.3               4.6           2006

Elliot Lake            -7.3            -11.8               4.5            2006

Geraldton             -14.7           -19.2              4.5            2006

Chapleau              -11.7           -16.0               4.3           2006

Trenton                 -3.2              -7.5                4.3           2006

Pickle Lake          -16.3            -20.5               4.2           2007

Sault Ste. Marie      -6.4            -10.5              4.1            2006

Earlton                  -12.3            -16.4             4.1             2010

Kitchener-Waterloo -3.2              -7.1             3.9            2006

Sudbury                   -9.8            -13.6             3.8            2008

Timmins                 -13.7            -17.5              3.8            2010

Sarnia                      -1.8            -5.4                3.6            2006

Windsor                   -0.9             -4.5               3.6            2006

Moosonee              -17.1            -20.7              3.6            2010

Kingston                  -3.6             -7.1                3.5            2006

London                    -2.8             -6.3                3.5            2008

Toronto                   -0.8             -4.2                3.4             2006

North Bay               -9.6           -13.0               3.4               2008

Wiarton                   -3.4             -6.8               3.4               2008

Muskoka                 -7.1           -10.4                3.3             2008

Petawawa              -10.1           -12.9                 2.8            2010

Notice that the warmest years have been over the last 6 years.   Whether you debate climate change as man-made or just cyclical there seems to be little doubt that we are currently warming.

  In the past our spinach has overwintered in our cold-frames and we eat it until December.  This year we harvested some in January and it is still growing well in February.

  The Eastern bluebirds that nest with us every year overwintered this year in the back yard, the first time we have noticed this.

Since the weather was a balmy 32 F we went for a walk into the woods across the field.  What prompted the walk was the arrival of a herd of 31 deer.  They all came running over a period of 5-10 minutes through the field after crossing the road and ended up streaming through our back yard and the field behind us before all hopping the fence and disappearing into the woods.  I wanted to follow their trail.

  The woods are actually a landlocked conservation area that was man-made – picture perfect rows of pine after pine.  Around the exterior the native trees have taken a stand and there is a mixed wood with maple, black walnut, oak, and hickory but once you venture in a bit it is all pine.  The lack of snow made it fairly easy to walk through at this time of year and as we walked we found these depressions in the snow where deer must have been sleeping in the night.  There were 5-6 of these spots melted in the snow a few feet apart.

In the middle of the woods is a large pond.

A massive oak near the pond.  Local kids use it for a swing.

                          Yes!  Buds!  spring is on the way...

There will be pros and cons to the warming weather, and if it continues there will be changes to what we are able to grow, and like nature we will have to adapt.  

Freedom 55 Here We Come!

Happy New Year!  Guess what my resolution is?  To blog more often.  I have set a goal of at least one a month and I am putting it in writing so it is here for all to see.  Feel free to send me reminders if I miss my goal.

What better way to start of the New Year than a fascinating blog about...fiscal responsibility! Did you think I was going to say weight loss?  Part of living sustainably is living within your financial means and Jerry and I are about to embark on that journey big time.  He officially starts his retirement pension in May of this year when we will have to live on about a third of our past income but till then we are without a pay check!  Yes, it is rice and beans for us for the next 5 months! We knew that this day was coming and we have saved money to cover our expenses over the next months but still it is pushing us out of the very comfortable zone we have been in for the last 35 years of getting a very decent wage deposited to our bank account every two weeks.

There is now a notebook on the desk to write down every penny we spend over the next couple of months to track where our money is going.  We sat down a few months ago and made up a new “retirement” budget based on our current expenses.  All that is missing is the glass jars that Gail Vaz-Oxlade suggests on her wonderful show “Till Debt do us Part” (http://www.gailvazoxlade.com/).  In fact we used the budget under her resources.  I often watch that show and am always shocked at the lack of financial knowledge the couples have.  Note to parents: the most important lesson to teach your children is fiscal responsibility!

For Jerry and I this exercise is really reverting back to the way things were when we were first married 33 years ago – we had a budget, we had envelopes instead of jars (why did I not see the potential then to be a guru to the masses?), the cash went in the envelopes and when it was gone we did not spend anymore.  We were very careful with credit cards always paying off the balance and used credit sparingly.  We only ever lived on Jerry’s salary and my salary went first for a down payment, then to pay the mortgage off on the house and the occasional trip – and we lived very well.   We always saved at least 10%-30% of our income and that allowed us to invest in rental properties and mutual funds.  Ultimately, this system gave us the opportunity to build our eco home and to allow Jerry his “Freedom 55”.

Choosing to live sustainably saves you money in a myriad of ways.  While our house cost more to build upfront our monthly costs will only be 15% of our income where most people have housing costs upwards of the 35% suggested by Gail.  Owning a Prius and making trips multifunctional keeps our transportation costs at about 7% of our income rather than the standard of 15%.  Using vinegar and baking soda for most cleaning saves on the grocery bills as does a vegetarian diet – beans and lentils are much cheaper than meat.

Making choices about what is really necessary for day to day living also saves you money - I am probably the only cell phone customer left that pays $10/month and not under a contract, we choose not to stop for coffee and tea every time we get in our car, we rarely eat in a fast food restaurant, and we borrow books from the library or buy them at Value Village.

Doing a budget again after many years gave us a chance to review what was important for us to spend our money on.  We still have an amount for charities that we hold dear to our hearts, there is still a monthly massage that I swear is a need not a want, there is money set aside for a yearly vacation and there is money for an emergency fund – another must from Gail’s suggestions.

To be honest, after years of hearing Jerry complain about my spending habits (which I swear were not horrible anyway) I am looking forward to the challenge of living within a budget and finding ways to stretch our dollars.  Our “Freedom 55” will not look like the TV ads, luxury vacations, golf courses and yachts but it will be a totally awesome, fulfilling life starting with the peace of mind that only a budget that balances can bring.  Oh, and tonight for dinner?  Lentil soup!

Fire!

Every year when October arrives we start the discussion about when to start using the wood stove meaning, when do we start heating our home.  This discussion usually takes place while we are stacking the firewood on the back porch.   Jerry always says, “No fire until November 1”.   I usually start whining about the first week in October and every time the temperature dips to 19C inside.   In the four years we have lived here we have not made it to November 1 without a fire but this year we came pretty close.  Thanks to a warm October we only had the wood stove on about 6 times through the month and most of those times were for short periods – a morning fire on a chilly rainy day and a few chilly evenings to help dry the laundry.

Even half way through November we still have not had to have the wood stove working 24/7 thanks to the solar passive feature of our home.  On a partly sunny/cloudy day like today it is 20C at 10:00 a.m. and will likely stay at that temperature without any heat at all.  The fire will be on in the evening to help maintain temperature and we will likely wake tomorrow to the house still at 19C.

On a sunny day in January and February when the sun reaches 20-30 feet into the house the temperature can often be a very balmy 24 -25C without any additional heat.  Our favourite spot in the winter is the window seat on sunny days where we can soak up the heat while reading and taking in the frozen land outside.  

On cloudy days the super air-tight, energy-efficient Pacific Energy wood stove is on all day and we use the radiant floor heat to come on in the middle of the night when the fire dies down.  The floor will feel warm in the morning and will help maintain the temperature at 18-19C throughout the night.

The solar passive feature works so well I am dumbfounded that builders and the general population never seem to consider this when building homes.  Time and time again you see major windows on the north sides of homes, garages facing south or homes with lots of windows facing south but no overhang to keep it from overheating in the summer.   It really should be the first consideration in the layout of surveys and in custom building if we are serious about becoming more energy efficient. 

The best part is that the sun does double duty – while it is heating our home it is also hitting the solar panels and creating our electricity – and all for free - what could be better?

The result of that free sun? Our monthly energy costs are a $30 hydro bill and propane costs of $75 a month.  Our wood is free as Jerry has a deal to clear out dead wood from a property close by but if we had to buy it we would use approximately $500 worth a year so our total energy costs would be $145 a month instead of the current $105.

                                                              

                                                                     Thank you Sun!

Sweet Potato Bonanza!

Our friends Cam and Michelle (Cam Mather is author of “The All You Can Eat Gardening Handbook”, the best gardening book of all time!), have grown sweet potatoes for the last couple of years and we have been insanely jealous of this ability.  I whined and begged and Cam finally relented to share his secrets last year – he gave me some vines from his plants to keep in the house through the winter and gave me the name of the Sweet Potato Bible – “Sweet Potatoes for the Home Garden with Special Techniques for Northern Growers” by Ken Allan.  Thank you Cam and thank you Ken!

Slips planted in plastic in June 2010

Sweet potatoes require a fair bit of planning to grow in the North here in Ontario – the soil must be warmed with plastic sheeting starting in April and the potatoes do not grow from tubers the way regular potatoes grow.  They only grow from slips which come from keeping vines through the winter or letting slips grow from the tubers from last years’ harvest and cutting and rooting them in the spring. 

Despite the work involved to get them into the ground, once they are in there is little work involved.  They are a tropical plant so love the heat and we had plenty of that this summer.  The vines spread over a large area and the vine produces a very pretty lavender/purple flower.  This is the same bed  - 6 plants in September before harvest.

So, the results?  We could not wait any longer and dug up four plants last Thursday.  What a huge crop!  One of the largest ones was 14” in diameter!  Unfortunately, a mouse had been nibbling on it for probably an extended time so only half of it was left.  But we got at least 7-8 sweet potatoes from each plant and filled our huge harvest basket with them and we still had another 8-10 plants to dig up. 

Today we dug up another 6 plants and found even bigger potatoes - 15" diameter width and 19" diameter length wise and about 4 pounds.  We have probably dug up about 50 pounds from the 10 plants.

The Big One

It is a bit like an archeology dig because the sweet potatoes are not always right under the plant - in fact we found many right outside the beds and many feet from the the original plant.  You also do not want to scratch them up too much so it is best to use hands where possible.

A grouping of sweet potatoes around a plant

Once you dig up sweet potatoes they need to be cured if you want to store them and again this is a bit of work – they need to be kept at 85-90F with 80-90% humidity for 5-7 days.  Not easy to figure that out in September in Ontario.  We have converted a large appliance box with a small space heater inserted into the side into our curing shack.  By adding a jug of water and keeping the sweet potatoes in paper bags we hope to retain the humidity required to cure them for storage through the winter.

The second harvest

Sweet potatoes, by the way, are a super food and should be incorporated into everyone’s diet as often as possible.  We love them in Sweet Potato Salsa and one of the easiest ways to enjoy them is to make mashed potatoes half with regular and half with sweet – they end up to be a gorgeous golden colour.  Perfect for the Thanksgiving table.