work outside

Turned my compost pile. Thought a post was missing that holds up the perimeter of the bin container- but it was actually broken a third from the top, and bent down inside the edge. Don't know how that happened. This was my process, same as last time but I don't recall if I wrote it down: pull off the perimeter and move to the new spot. Lay small sticks or dry stems (usually from monarda, echinacea or pye weed trimming) in the bottom of the new bin space. Pull and shovel all material out of the other, smaller metal bin under the deck (where fresh kitchen waste goes- it has a sealed lid). Dump that into the wheelbarrow, ferry to the new bin spot, shovel into the base. Take all the unfinished stuff off the top of the old compost pile, put into the new bin spot. Sifting out sticks along the way, which get carried back over to the metal bin, to be the new base of that one. When I finally get down to mostly unrecognizable stuff, mostly blackened, with just a few leaf bits solid in the bottom of the old pile, it's ready to go into the garden. 

It wasn't as much this year- or just got compressed down- I can't remember if I dug this out in spring- maybe that's why . . .

I'm pretty satisfied with my process now, though it confounds my husband when he helps me with it (last year, when I had no energy). Basically, I use the smaller metal bin for fresh kitchen waste, any food material- because animals can't get in there. The big bin in the rear of the yard, gets leaves and yard waste only. Until it's time to turn the pile, then the metal bin contents get shifted to be the bottom of the new pile where it gets buried very deep and keeps breaking down until it's time to turn the pile all over again. I think this helps keep pests out of my pile- there's still a hole in the side of the plastic bin perimeter where something chewed to get in once . . . especially in the winter.

I only shoveled out a fifth of the compost so far, into the wheelbarrow and left up by the garden overnight. Too tired to continue, plus I saw a wren poking around in the metal bin's base of stems (before I shut the lid) and thought I'll leave the exposed garden soil for a day, let the birds pick through that perhaps. I'd scraped up all the mulch off the garden beds, pulled some dead plants and weeds. Left the dill (looking lovely!) one swiss chard and one collards plant, one big borage that regrew in fall, and a half dozen white nicotiana (self-seeded). 

Tomorrow I will spread the compost on all the beds, then some grass clippings/leaf mulch back over it, and maybe dig more rocks into the base of the bed edges again. Lots more work to do with that.

I found that one of my pathetic kidney bean plants, actually made beans in the pod. But they're not red. I picked it too soon, should have let stay on the plant to dry out.

There's lots of maple and oak leaves to start raking up. I was concerned that I'll forget where my new young plants are back there on the slope- the elephant's foot, st. john's wort and sumac. But I found the first two stand up just tall enough above the litter I can see them well (if I remember to pay attention) and the little sumac has flame-red leaves now since the first frost:

So it really stands out.

end of acorns, first step

Well, almost. There's a few left in the last basket. I spent a few hours going through all the acorns. Because I'd forgotten to sift them around for a day (or maybe two), and also perhaps the baskets didn't have an open enough weave on the bottom, and I found that a lot of them were suddenly going moldy. There was also film of mold growing on the bottom of the baskets, I threw one out and scoured the other with bleach and set it outside on the porch to dry, ick. 

So while the other day, I felt like more than half the acorns were good, which was pleasing, this time most of them were bad, which was discouraging and gross. I threw a lot out without even bothering to open them, due to the mold. And then I drained the bowl of opened good acorns but got distracted with another task out of the room for a moment, forgot to come back to it, and they discolored very quickly. Looked bad enough I threw those out too. This was halfway thru sorting all the acorns though, so it wasn't a total loss. 

I ended up with a full bucket of bad acorns, full bucket of shells again, paper bag full of solid but with-a-worm-hole nuts to discard in the woods, and just over half a quart bag of good, clean ones to go in the freezer. Very tired of it. There's just a few handfuls left that weren't ready to split yet. I shake the basket when I walk past through the room, to keep 'em aerated. (Though only one layer now, so they probably don't need it).

The bad acorns and moldy ones this time around disgusted me so much, I felt compelled to scour my kitchen sink and other things just to feel clean again.

acorns day 4

of the shelling stage, still. Heaped a plate again with ones that were starting to split open. Learned that the quick spoilage happens from the nutmeat getting exposed to air, so if you drop them immediately in water, they don't start to discolor. So I tried that.

It definitely made the job go quicker- instead of making continual trips across the room to freezer, I just plop them all in the bowl of water, rinse and pat dry and freeze at the end. Above pic, all the acorns that split entirely in half while I was shelling, so I finished them right away. Set aside the ones that remained intact with their skins on to do after.

While I was splitting these, to check for bad spots, the ones in the bowl soaked out enough tannins to color it all yellow.

My bowl for shells filled for the third time since starting all this, so I empty in the yard under shrubs as mulch.

And the bowl (slightly smaller) of bad acorn discards, filled for the fourth time, prompting a walk through the woods . . . 

Almost filled a quart bag entire, from this shelling alone.

first frost

Last night. I had just planted out more of my new plants during the day- slender mountain mint, sedum and New England aster on the larger sunny sideyard. (Probably the last will get eaten by the deer, though I'm taking the chance. These plants much bigger than the ones I tried setting out before, if that makes any difference). They'd been in the mini greenhouse until now, I still have the bergamot and American beautyberry in there. Undecided where to put them. Have a full week of sun and warmer nights up ahead, so I can take my time. I planted the elephant's foot out on the easement, near where there's yellow salvia, ferns and solomon's seal under a maple. 

Brought some of the plants into the basement window for the night: all the geraniums. They're looking better since the temperatures dropped this past week. I think because it killed off some of the insects that were plaguing them.

The citronella is still one of my favorites. 

Lime scented one is upstairs

next to the stevia. Which surprised me by sprouting tiny new leaves at base of some stems.

My one echeveria 

It's still quite small for the pot size

Doing quite poorly is my cuban oregano. Leaves are all small, tons have dropped from the lower stems. Not sure why, though I suspect insects again. Planning to clip all this back and restart in another pot.

I did a drastic thing to our big schefflera in the dining room window. Cut all the leggy tall stems, and replanted in the pot. I did one first about two weeks ago, dipped the end in rooting hormone, and watched to see if the leaves would die and fall off, or if it would recover and sprout new growth. It appears to be doing the latter! So I went ahead and pruned, replanted all the other tall stems:

Window feels very exposed now, to say the least.

more acorns

Yesterday I planted out the sweetspire, on the larger slope. And trimmed berries off the nandina. Mixed firepit ash into the vermicompost and spread on both front and back lawns (most of it on the front, as I think the back lawn gets nutrients that wash downslope out of the garden beds). 

Sorted this pile of acorns out of the baskets, that were starting to split

and got this much good stuff out of them

Today even more looked ready- hard to tell in the photo, but the plate was heaped a lot higher.

I didn't take a photo of the ones that had exposed nutmeats, putting them directly into the freezer once I had half a dozen open- but here's all the ones that got shelled and still had skins on- left those for the end, as they wouldn't start to go bad as quickly.

It still felt like more than half were rotten inside or eaten by the grubs (they're not really acorn worms, though I've been calling them that. They're the grubs of the acorn weevil. Acorn worm is a different species entirely that lives in the ocean, named after the shape of its head I think). 

But felt satisfying that after splitting all those in the last picture, and putting the good ones in the freezer, to find I've now filled a quart bag completely.

And I'm down to two baskets of acorns, to continue shelling and splitting as they dry out.

fall flowers

My wild chrysanthemum is so pretty

I really need more of this in other places in my yard. And I think I can do so easily- I had cut a few stems that were growing out of the space just few weeks ago, stuck them in a new spot, and didn't expect much. But look- not only did they survive, they're blooming too!

The standard mums in the front are full of flowers. Even though I only pinched once, they are bushy enough and not flopping over this year. So increase sun is a plus. I only have two left now- this pinkish purple

and the salmon colored one

My black-and-blue salvia is reblooming, after I did all that trimming. Not as much as in full summer, but plenty to enjoy looking at, and I hope the hummingbird appreciated it too. Haven't seen it at the cardinal climber in the past few days, I'm assuming it's gone on migration now.

planted stuff

I put my new rosemary in the ground. In the corner of the garden. By the rue- so you can see it's really still quite small, considering the final size it might get- but four or five times larger than any rosemary plant I've had in the past!

I trimmed those droopy tips a bit too, to reduce the transplant shock.

Also planted out- on the backyard slope that I want eventually to have no grass- the shining sumac. So small from the house I can't even see it!

The iris are likewise nearly invisible-

And the two shrubby St. John's wort. Near the other ones. Now I suppose that my larger St. John's wort (the first one I planted) might also be a 'shrubby' one, and the one with very small leaves, another variety? I didn't realize before there's different types, though I ought to have guessed.

And indoors, I took all the crypt balansae out of the vase and planted them into the aquarium. They're down the center. Hard to get on camera though. Here's a side shot

and one with the fish in it. He's not quite as bright as before. Maybe the excitement of loosing his tankmates has evaporated. Or he doesn't like the change in weather (colder now). He still brightens up when I feed him a worm or fly, but then darts away from the camera, of course.

acorn processing

There's definitely fewer to pick up now. Either the tree is almost done dropping them, or the squirrels have wised up to the competition and are getting out there ahead of me each morning. Collected from the yard day before yesterday:

and today. (Still plenty of pin oak acorns, which I toss out in the woods).

I got a bunch of baskets to have good airflow and contain them for drying out- nobody likes the sound of me sifting through them on the wooden floor. But it's nice to run my hands through them in the baskets- looking for worm holes, pinching off sprouts, feeling for loosening shells as they dry.

Today going through the baskets I pulled out a bunch that were starting to split.

Watched a youtube video called "Acorns and Eat 'Em". By a lady who said she was considered the expert on processing and using acorns. Funny to me that she said "you gotta whack 'em" cracking hers open by hitting with a stone. Mine, I can just roll and press in my hand and the shell starts to separate.

I've read that you don't have to remove the skins, as these are lighterweight than the nutmeats, and will float off after grinding, when you soak them. But I pulled most of them at least halfway off, to check for bad spots. Quite a few had rot couldn't see unless I at least split them in half. Here's all the nutmeats I got:

And all the bad ones. This includes discarded acorns with wormholes, or rot that I could see before opened the shell. Only two were green. Seems like more than half are gonna be bad. Is it worth the effort then, I don't quite know yet . . .

acorns

Bumper crop in the yard- it must be a mast year. I noticed there's tons of big fat white oak acorns falling, I can actually hear them thump onto the ground if I'm outside. Don't know if I never noticed them before, or if this year the tree really is producing more than usual. And it's smaller and scrawnier than the big straight pin oak. Perhaps because the leaf mulch pile was near base of the white oak this past season, it had more nutrients to put into growing nuts? well, I decided to collect them 

Mainly because I don't want to encourage the deer and squirrels into my yard anymore than they already are. Plus the tannins inhibit growth of the lawn and other plants under the trees. I am picking up all the broken ones, empty shells and separated acorn caps too, because they roll and crunch under my feet the same way, making me stoop and reach for a nut that isn't there. Easiest way to find them (even though I cut the grass down to an inch, they're still fairly hidden) is by walking back and forth gently scuffing my feet on the ground. Or sit and rake my fingers through the grass in a wide circle around me. (I must look like a fool to the neighbors). Here's what I got on the first day (a lot with a rake, after raking up the leaves)

After cleaning them up- sorting out the bad ones, and putting the small ones from the pin oak in a separate container

discards-

After a day of going through them and reading up, I decided to just toss all the pin acorns. Most of them seem to have worm holes, and they're smaller so maybe not worth all the prep work of prepping to eat, and they're supposedly more bitter. I fill my pockets with them for a walk and scatter in the woods- the deer and squirrels can eat them there.

The worms. I was right about more of them being in the pin acorns. Since I removed those, I find far fewer grubs squirming across the floor.

And then what? Well, I'm curious to try and eat them, leached and cooked into something of course. It is a lot of steps, but not as much actual physical hard work as cracking and extracting the hickory nuts was. I wait for the shells to start cracking when they dry, and open 'em up by hand. Then put in the freezer until I have enough to grind, this is just the first part of the process. So far, not encouraging. About half of the ones I've opened, are partly rotted or moldy inside. (These few were good)

So it might take a lot of collecting to get enough to actually use. All this was actually earlier in the week. Since then I've gone out to pick up acorns in the yard for just an hour once every day or so- hoping if I get them right after falling they won't have absorbed as much moisture from the ground? Collected on day two from my yard 

and these from the pin oak

Day three collected- still a good amount- I'm guessing they'll keep coming down for weeks.

But if it turns out that over half are bad (see the three with worm holes upper left of pic) and I don't get much acorn meal to use, 

next year I'll just pick them up to relocate in the woods for the wildlife.