Tags
bloomfield ny, chicken coop, family farm, fava beans, finger lakes, fungus gnats, Gardening, neem oil, new farm, rochester ny, summer project, time, wind storm
Continuing on through the week…
On Tuesday I did battle with the gnats. I’ve never had to deal with these before. I don’t know what it is about this place but I can’t get rid of them. Their purpose in life is to drive me bananas, by hiding all year, and then stealthily making their way to the dining room to lay their eggs in my plants. Once their so-called “babies” emerge, they eat the tender roots of my seedlings. Their favorite is apparently onion. 
Last year they wiped out my entire onion crop before it ever had a chance. So this is a thing. Expecting them this year, I covered my seed cells with a layer of vermiculite, thus making the usually soft inviting seed mix sharpe and uncomfortable. While this didn’t stop the dog from taking a big mouthful, it did hold the bugs off until just now, when suddenly there was a population explosion, and I had to get rid of at least a dozen tomato plants. There is no feeling bad about this considering the number of tomato plants I have, however, they all represent my time and a portion of dirt, fertilizer and space which cannot be ignored. The gnats have to go. I will begin by spraying them with soapy water & need oil. While this is acceptable for organic gardening, it is an indoor solution only for me, as it is dangerous to bees. I’ll have to stop before it’s time to transplant. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Heard peroxide worked? I feel like I’m just managing this problem without solving it.
But oh, the gnats are nothing compared to Wednesday’s wind storm. It’s often very windy up on this hill. We jokingly call it Hoth all the time. We’re used to it and we even like it – makes you feel cozy inside the warm house in the winter. But yesterday was I think, the strongest wind we’ve ever had. 40mph the weather channel said, and I have no frame of reference for that other than that it was legitimately difficult to walk ( Kingsley couldn’t manage it at all ).
I witnessed the whole thing from the dining room window. Said gale lifted my chicken coop like the wizard of oz, carried it 20 feet towards the hill and then smashed it into the ground. Like a cartoon. Le sigh. The open frame with a roof, heavy as it was, was picked up like a kite.
The worst part about this, is that it was going to be a free chicken coop. That is no longer the case. Having used every 2×4 left in the barn, the most suitable materials are mainly smashed to tiny bits. This is a significant setback in the egg department as I have mentioned before, making money on organic eggs isn’t really a thing. Additionally, time is now of the essence. With the weather report looking as if this cold won’t really break until the end of next week, it’ll be well into April before much can be accomplished. Which means I’m going to have to haul ass the last couple weeks of April. Oh boy.
In case you were wondering, there is also nothing left of the fava beans. This experiment will have to be re-tried another spring. 
On the up side, several buckets have blown into my yard. Buckets are always useful.
Sempre avanti!
Side Note on Barn Demolition – over the one nice Saturday we had a barn razing. To the north of the house there is a small barn that actually pre-dates the house. The cool thing is the history of it, the down side is that it’s right in the view. Since the roof of this barn is beyond repair, and over the years other owners have covered it’s sides with sheet metal, and the groundhogs have completely undermined its foundation, we’ve decided to take it down and salvage the nicer wood. The beams are beautiful, and the main sliding door is perfect for a loft apartment somewhere. Most of the siding that hasn’t been destroyed is very thin, too thin to plain. We’ll save what we can for some wood shop projects. More on that later.
I finished putting the metal on my chicken house roof. Since making money on eggs isn’t really a thing, I’m not investing much in this structure. I’ve spent a little on hardware, but mainly it’s constructed from a hodgepodge of materials the previous homeowner left behind in the barn.
My cabbages are ready to plant now, but I don’t have a place for them! I had plans to expand my kitchen garden anyway, so I’m going to go ahead and get started on that and use it to save my seedlings instead of waiting to plant herbs in it. The cabbage will be finished early enough to successively put herbs in. I can also use the tomato patch location for this. I’d rather use an alternate tomato location than lose the cabbage. So I’m going to go ahead and start hardening these plants off today. The snow is finally gone, so we can FINALLY start digging out the new garden this week.