July 2020 Update
Originally posted at https://www.batshitcrazyfarms.com/2020/07/07/the-edge-of-liberty-july-update/?source=2418
Been spending a lot of time up at The Edge of Liberty, our property on Calumet just north of 600. It’s rapidly becoming a beautiful space now that James got his dream tractor. We’re probably less than a month away from having a proper “parking lot” to welcome visitors.
We’ve learned a lot about gardening without water or electricity – and it’s incredible to me that the founding fathers of Indiana didn’t starve to death – at least the ones here in the Valparaiso moraine which is mostly clay and rock.
James has been filling up two 55 gallon barrels with the hose at home, hauling it up to the property with the ATV and trailer, and slowly and patiently watering with gravity pressure where the garden is low enough, and dipping watering cans where it’s not.
Some of our earliest planted rows had to be declared a complete failure, but luckily in the greenhouse we had extra bell peppers and a flat of “husk tomatoes” or ground cherries that came as a free gift with a seed order.
We moved out the one viable kohlrabi, and about eight kale plants that made it through this dry spell into the empty patches of the broccoli and brussel sprout row. Then we weeded and retrenched the two emptied row, filled them with compost from the Valparaiso compost site, and planted in 40 bell pepper and 20 ground cherry plants.
Today after work I hope to find what survived among the weeds in the cauliflower and cabbage row and fill in the remaining empty spaces in what we’ll call the “kale and friends” row, trench, compost, and plant in some excess leek starts and some beet seeds into that row in the same way.
Will need to wait for some rain before we can tackle the weeds that have taken over the hot pepper and potato rows since any attempt at pulling right now is leaving roots behind, and the soil is so hard it could break a hoe. The other ten rows we were able to salvage with deep weeding, pruning, composting over the last week because the soil was still “almost” workable from the last rain.
On the “parking lot” project, James and his tractor (or as I like to call it, his new girlfriend) moved a ton of soil into low patches in the hiking trails, pulled out trees and roots, tilled and flattened the space, and left a lovely 3 foot tall, five foot wide hill of compost and woodchips on the western edge. Together we planted out all of our remaining sweet potato plants (and are awaiting nine more babies from our prolific mama purple sweet potato to finish) and hope to see a lovely mound of gorgeous foliage there in about a month. If we get any sweet potatoes, it will be a bonus – we just want the purple flowers.
There’s a 15-20 foot wide space just west of that mound – left open as space for the free Norway spruce trees we got from an Arbor Day Foundation donation to grow into – that we’re going to seed in pumpkins – which should have just enough days to mature before Halloween.
Our modified Three Sisters garden isn’t going to be called a “failure” as much as it’s a learning experience and an opportunity to collect seeds from the corn, beans, and squash that were strong enough to thrive despite the weather and sub-standard soil. We’re not babying the area with hand watering or weeding, so whatever makes it is going to be some genetically superior stuff worth propagating.
At the entrance, James has installed a wall of hibiscus trees repurposed from some weeding at my son’s house, re-homed volunteer sunflowers from the main garden, and cleaned up the hoop bed. Wild garlic scapes are still trying to take over the area, but they do a nice job of keeping the bunnies at bay.
Bunnies are the enemy in the bee garden. We finally got all the trapezoids and triangles dug out, composted, and planted, only to find that bunnies just love black eyed susan, asters, sunflowers, rhubarb, oxalis, ginger, peacock orchids, genovese basil (strangely, not the other three kinds of basil), columbine, and nasturtium. We did find out that they do not like Irish spring soap – and 6 bars a month have been added to our Subscribe and Save list. I may need to buy James a new food processor though. Feels silly, but it has been effective to sprinkle soap shavings just outside the hosta border.
The fishing line trick has definitely kept the deer out of the planted areas, but they seem to have taken over our future pond space. I guess they just see it as a new meadow with tree coverage close by. A momma robin has decided to take up residence in the lone pine tree in the bee garden and she gets quite mad if we choose to walk down the path near her tree. The kill deer family moved out of the parking lot area last week once the babies were big enough to fly.
As for calling it a bee garden – it still hasn’t quite earned its name yet. While the bees in our swarm trap do seem to like visiting the flowers that have started to bloom there, we haven’t had the right weather yet to plan their move-in date. The hive stand is placed and leveled, enough hive equipment for three full sized hives are strapped down and waiting for final placement, and we’re just waiting for a night cool enough that they aren’t bearding outside the trap to move them to their new home. We really do need to get this done by mid July so they have time to settle in and build up winter stores for sufficient heat mass. Saving this particular colony is very important to us since they’re a swarm we caught late last summer, and they made it through the winter and spring in the trap – so these are some serious survivor stock.
Foraging opportunities abound on the property. Last months ramps have been edged out by wild garlic scapes, sumac trees are setting flowers perfect for calming teas, and the blackberries are starting to fruit. Please message us on Facebook if you’d like to forage, just to let us know you will be on the property, so that we don’t freak out if we see you there!
We hope The Edge of Liberty can become a space we can share with our friends and fans, for open air picnics and foraging and hiking. Eventually some day we’d like to have a real farmer’s market or regularly scheduled art fair/acoustic music festival events there. For now we’re just trying to get it to be a place we can bring prospective vendors to so they can see our vision and help us determine what other projects we need to do to make it a place they’d want to invest their time in.