More Signs of Spring

We're getting a snowstorm today. Owain has a snowday and Gwynneth just got a call that her evening class is cancelled. Spring in Vermont is very much a two-steps-forward-one-step-back proposition.

But never mind what the weather is doing outside, inside it is spring.

I have started tomatoes, broccoli, onion, some herbs, and some flowers. I'm going to plant some cabbage and kale when I get the chance.

My makeshift greenhouse is my south facing bedroom window. I have some very bright lights to add supplemental lighting and seed flats. It's a very warm window, so I haven't needed hot mats. The biggest dangers are the marauding kitties who like to snack on green shoots (Uh, you know you guys are carnivores, right?).

Starting seeds this way has been a hit or miss proposition for me for many years. It's much more cost effective than buying plants in the spring and for many plants it is impractical to direct seed them in a climate with this short a growing season.

I have always wanted a nice garden. We're getting there, but the problem has always been that so many other things demand attention. I've got a million projects around here in various stages of being finished. Largely because I learn as I go.

I have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: I learned none of this growing up. Every skill I have that requires working with my hands, I learned as an adult. Plumbing, woodworking, gardening, animals--all of it. I learned using books, websites, neighbors and trial and error. Sometimes when we hire a professional, I sort of hang around watching what they do and asking questions.

I have this thing about liking to work by myself. The complete opposite to Bryan. I think I always fear that people will judge my work. Like spring in Vermont, my skills are sometimes a back and forth proposition. A lot of it I end up ripping out and doing over, but my mantra is always "It goes easier the second time."

For all of my homesteading stuff, I have to be willing to do it over. I can't get too invested in how much effort I put into something, because then it's just too heartbreaking when I inevitably need to redo things. I suppose there's a certain Zen to it. 

I am convinced that anyone can learn anything, given the time and the right books. I'm certainly a good example--the first thing I ever built was when I was in my thirties.

The snow will stop coming down soon and tomorrow is supposed to be warmer. This is what they call a "sugar snow" because it makes the trees produce more sap. Tomorrow is the first day of Spring by the calender and astronomically, but it'll be another few weeks until the ground is thawed enough to plant anything outside.

In the meantime I'm tending my little seedlings.

Sugaring

No matter what the calender say, spring starts in Vermont with two things: seeds and sugaring. The seeds are planted in flats, protected from drafts, put under lights and carefully nurtured. The sugaring requires a drill, some buckets and lots of time.

I love sugaring. There's something really pleasant and contemplative about watching water boil and turn into liquid heaven. The only reason to make pancakes to me, is that they are a maple syrup delivery device.

The sap buckets sprout on the trees long before the snowdrops, but the weather has turned. Even if we get a cold snap now, we are aware that it will only last a day or two. The snow has taken on the specific texture that skiers say they enjoy and I warn the kids not to make snowballs of to hit their father.

Winter is shrouded in silence or it roars with wind. Spring announces itself with song, even before the birds return. In the sugar bush the sap drips into the galvanized steel buckets creating a high pitched musical plink.  A dozen of these on a sunny day sounds like a couple of people riffing on high pitched steel drums. The base line is provided by the stream that is a chuckling  then a roaring as the ice breaks up.

We have snow on the ground up here in the mountains, but it's mostly gone on the valley floor.

My neighbors for whom sugaring is a commercial exercise are up and down the street with their tractor and our grey muzzled dogs play together, running up and down the trails.

Maple sugar is a wonderful thing. It is the only form of sugar that does not lend itself to the Plantation System. A sugar  bush can only be tapped for about 6 weeks out of the year. The rest of the year the maples just grow happily in their forest with only minimal help and protection from humans.

Sugar Maples are only found in North America. From Cornell University:

Distribution and Habitat: Sugar maple is one of 148 maple species found in the Northern Hemisphere, which includes about 90 native and introduced species in the United States. The range of sugar maple in North America extends from Nova Scotia and Quebec at its northern edge, west to Ontario, southeastern Manitoba, and western Minnesota, south to southern Missouri, and east to Tennessee and northern Georgia (Figure 2). Sugar maple is most common in New England and the Great Lakes states as well as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.

Yes, it is expensive, and likely to get more so. Due to the recent warm winters, the season has been growing shorter, especially for the valleys.

Sugar maples can be grown in other places, but they will not yield sap without the specific weather available in these specific parts of North America. Thomas Jefferson apparently tried to sugar in Virginia, to no avail. In order for tapping to happen, there must be warm sunny days and freezing nights.

Maple syrup can be boiled down into dry sugar and stored almost indefinitely  The chief component is sucrose (like table sugar), with very little fructose, which is being implicated as a culprit in obesity.

There are no GMO maple trees (yet) and since the trees are North American, there's no need to look for the free trade label.

Soon, the snow will be gone and we'll be into the planting part of the spring, until then, I'll be busy watching water boil.

Venus Cloacina

Goddess of the Sewer

Just finished putting in all my flower bulbs.  It's amazing that it's the first week of December and we still can, but it is a bit of luck for me (Ceredwyn).

At left you see the little statue I've added to the garden.  Hopefully, in the spring the bulbs and wildflowers seeds I've planted will come up around her.  She will also hold a butterfly/hummingbird feeder when the weather is again freezing.

She is my Venus Cloacina, Goddess of the Sewer.  The Romans were very sensible people and did, in fact, have a shrine to this deity right in the middle of Rome.  They said the Health of Rome depended upon her.

Hummingbirds and flowers are especially sacred to Her, according to the Wikipedia entry.

So, right over our new leach field, we have a small statue of Her, 'cause it just seems like a good idea.

Rise of corn

Success: the corn continued to flourish, despite hurricane Irene.

Yes, those plants are much taller than me.

The plants are audacious things, huge spears poking up despite torrents and winds.  It's an eerie, sweet experience to walk among plants taller than yourself, and only a couple of months old.

A couple of months, and these fast-growing types are ready to harvest.  Notice the way the ears lean out, in the picture up above?  Time to pluck.

We won 2-3 ears/plant this time.  Each was about 5-6" long -not so big as grocery-store-bought ones.  Boiled up, they were excellent.

So, Ceredwyn and I are strategizing, with friends.  It seems like we can grow corn* up here on the mountain. How to proceed?
(Well, immediately we turn the green leaves to compost, and feed the husks to chickens.  Eat some of the corn, and freeze the rest)

Perhaps we should build a much larger plot for next year.  At 2-3 ears/plant, how many should we plan to sow?  Let's do some rough calculation.

1. Assume we four people eat five ears per day, cooked and consumed in various ways.  Some days we eat more, some less. That's 1825 ears per year.
2. Assume we can store corn sufficiently for a year (frozen, canned).
3. Looks like 730 plants are called for, total.
4. We now know that a grid pattern is essential for planting, so that plants cross-fertilize to maximum growth.  Assume a square layout - 27 x 27 plants.

If that's right, we need to start clearing extra space now, before the frost locks up the soil.

If we do this the right way, it's another step towards sustainability.  Corn's excellent food, and all four of us eat it (amazingly).

*Corn: I'm talking about sweet corn.  Field corn is a different thing, and we haven't tried it yet.  I'd like to, so we can mill it into corn meal.