Stump Farm

Another job I got some good stuff from was a re-lighting job at a Park and Ride in Redmond. The light poles in the parking lot medians were five inch square, thirty feet long, laminated and treated cedar. The shoe box fixtures were attached to the tops with cedar 2×6′s four feet long. The wood poles were replaced with thirty foot square concrete poles with two fixtures on top attached with short steel trunnions. I think there were thirty poles altogether. A couple of the wood ones had so many staples in them from people attaching garage sale signs to them, they looked like they were rusting.

I was going to bring all the wood poles out to the Stump Farm, but the shop estimator wanted his fair share. Thus I only got fifteen of them. He made a chicken coop out of his. I thought about making a gazebo out of mine, but couldn’t decide where to build it. They got stored under some black visqueen for a few years. They also got moved about three times. Seems like they were always in the way.

When my wife Diane decided that she needed my shop as her office, a few changes were made. My shop was at the back of the garage. There is a studio apartment above the garage, where we lived for about three years before the house was built. The only door into the shop was in the garage. Since she didn’t want clients walking through the garage to get to her office,  we put a door in the back wall of the shop. Then there was the problem of the clients walking through the grass to get to the new door. When it rained, they would get their shoes wet. If they went through the garage, they wouldn’t have that problem. That was not an option.

Anyway, she decided a raised wooden boardwalk would be just the thing to keep the clients feet dry. The thoughts of a gazebo were gone. So I sawed the poles into four foot lengths and then sawed those pieces down the middle to end up with two pieces. The end of the pole that had been in the ground had started to deteriorate, so I lost about five feet on each pole. I dug a swath through the grass to lay the pier blocks, geofabric and round rock. Set the treated 4×4′s, spread the round rock on the geofabric and stared screwing down the boards. The next thing you know, we had a boardwalk. So now the clients of White Raven Financial Services don’t get their feet wet or muddy.

The poles had vertical groves in them, so the boardwalk is more or less skid proof. The pieces with the staples are really skid proof.

Scavenging to going Green and everything in-between seems to be the norm here at the Stump Farm.

Scavenging, re-cycle,re-use and going Green. Funny how the terms change over time. Though they all mean the same thing to me. Save what you deem will be useful in the future, and then figure out how to put it to best use. Could this also be called hoarding? No.

I guess my scavenging started while I was in the Air Force. I still have an aluminum aircraft records chest, from a B-66, that followed all over Europe and then home. It is now used for storing chain saw oil and tools. When I became a electrician, the scavenging really went into hi gear. I work for one electrical contractor for thirty-four years. They did everything from high voltage power lines to traffic signals. In later years they were known as “Circus Electric, A new show every day”. You can’t begin to imagine the oppertunities to scavenge. Every thing from high voltage insulators from electrical sub-stations, used utility poles, pole cross arms, railroad rails and ties, indoor and outdoor lighting fixtures and all the old bottles I dug up while trenching and drilling holes to set poles.

One of the jobs we had was to install soccer field lighting across the street from the Seattle Arboretum. The site was over the top of a dump that was in use before and after the fire that burned most of downtown Seattle on the 6th of June, 1889. The dump site was a deep gully that opened to the North. They just kept dumping and pushing until most of the gully was full. One of my job was to auger the holes for the lighting poles. The holes were thirteen feet deep. The stuff that came out of those holes was unbelievable. Everything from cupie doll heads, porcelain salt shakers, perfume bottles with the glass stoppers still in place, Owl Drug Company bottles, liquor bottles and ten thousand pieces of broken dishes. I still have the salt shaker.

You can tell Fall is in the air. The Vine Maples are starting to change color. Some are in the red stage while others will just turn yellow before they drop their leaves.

It’s time to put the garden to bed. It shouldn’t take long. The critters didn’t leave much to harvest. The rabbits got the peas, Swiss chard, carrots and the first planting of the beets. The India Runner ducks got the Brussels sprouts, broccoli, squash blossoms and the potato leaves. The spuds had already started to grow, so no harm done. Planted corn two different times with no success. Finally planted some corn starts, and they only got eighteen inches tall. Couldn’t even get cucumbers or zucchini to grow. Miss the cucumbers but not the zucchini. Diane is the only one that ate the radishes. In fact, she had two plantings of them. Had to move the pepper plants into the greenhouse to keep the ducks from eating all the leaves off the plants. Might actually get a few peppers.

I was smart enough to fence the pole beans right from the start. Got enough to pickle a gallon of them. Next year the fence goes up around the whole garden after it’s planted.  All I have to worry about then is the dog. He will pull and eat carrots plus dig an occasional potato.

We got a fair amount of tomatoes. They are on the south side of the pumphouse and not bothered by any critters. Just picked all the green ones yesterday and moved them inside to rippen. They won’t be as tasty as the vine rippened ones, but still tasty.

The ducks do serve a purpose other than causing me grief. They eat every slug they can find. Four females and two males. They have free access to all of the yard, except the garden. If the females are laying eggs, I can’t find their nests. Pickled duck eggs are really tasty.

White Raven FS had a wreath making party for clients on Dec. 5th. The Stump Farm supplied most of the material, know how, hot drinks and some of the cookies. Some of the participants also brought material and cookies. The wreaths were made with all natural materials so they can be composted when they are done with. The frames were made from Vine Maple and the lashing twine was sisal . I did spray some dried hydrangea red, to add a little contrast to all the green, so I guess everything wasn’t natural. Everyone had a good time and went home with at least one wreath.

If your blueberries have never suffered from mummy berry, consider yourself  lucky. I don’t know how long some of my plants have been infected, but I spotted it on three of them last year. Part of spotting it was due to the MG training. The other part was that it was really bad on one of the older bushes. There were almost as many mummies as blue fruit. Well, maybe there weren’t that many but there were a lot.

It is caused by a fungus Monilinia vaccinii-corymbosi. The fungus overwinters in the infected fruit (mummies) that have fallen to the ground. In the spring trumpet-shaped apothecia produced on the mummies eject wind borne spores that infect new shoots and flowers. Its all down hill from there.

Cultivating around the plants a minimum of two inches in the spring, or applying two inches of mulch around the plant is supposed to keep the spores from becoming airborne. Picking the mummies off the plants and keeping any that fall on the ground picked up will also help. I’m going to try putting black plastic around the base of the plants, next spring, to see if that keeps the spores from surfacing.

Once you know what to look for, the infected berries are pretty easy to spot. Left picture. When they start to ripen they turn a pinkish beige and start to form ridges like a pumpkin. They then start to shrivel and turn white. Right picture. They then fall to the ground where you can pick them up and dispose of them.

Before I forget, I did graduate from the 2009 Master Gardener Class. I have a badge with my name on it for proof.

The leaf gall on Bitter Cherry (Prunus emarginata) is caused by eriophyid mites. They feed on the underside of expanding leaves and the eruption forms on the topside. The galls don’t seem to harm the tree or the leaf.

The photos show the galls in late spring and mid-summer. Easy to see where the name comes from. They are quit striking in the spring (left). They turn white and fuzzy as the summer goes on (right).

Well, tomorrow is the first class in the Master Gardeners course. Hope I make it through the first day. It should be interesting since I am going into this blind.

winter wonderland 2008

I can finally see the grass through the melting snow. Some of the small saplings are starting to snap back up after being bent over from the snow load. Mother Nature did a little pruning on the blueberry bushes. The snow took off some of the older limbs.

Our wetlands are on the full side with all the rain, warm temps and the snow melt. There is a flood watch for most of the small streams and rivers into tomorrow. It’s nice to see the snow going, but it’s going to be a little sloppy for awhile.

Well, I was one of the lucky winners. I was notified that I had been chosen as one of the partisipants in the 2009 Master Gardener class. The next step is paying the class fee.

I told a friend that I was taking the class and her responce was “Your not going to be another one of them!”. I hope not, but I am sure she will let me know if I should start down that path.

The class starts Jan, 8th and runs through March 19th.

Well, I have put in my application to the WSU Extension Service to see if they will let me take the Master Gardener course. Hopefully I am not biting off more than I can chew. The class runs for sixteen weeks, one class a week which is eight hours. If you graduate you are required to put in fifty hours of volunteer work. All of those accepted (winners) will be notified on the 10th of November. The anticipation is growing by the day. 

The leafs have fallen off most of the brush (salmonberry) so I will be able to get out into the woods and see how many of the new trees have survived. Didn’t get too many planted last spring. Probably fifty or so Shore Pine. They were three year old trees that had spent one year in our nursery. It gave them a head start on the brush. They don’t much care for the shade.