We are now well into December and are again scrambling to get things done before the snow flies and ground freezes.  Our to do list keeps getting longer, not shorter.  I cross off one item only to find that Ron has added two or three more.   We not only have the water hoses and equipment to store away,  but last minute planting to get done.

Last weekend we finally got the last of our garlic into the ground and covered with straw.    We had run into not only issues with rainy weather, but with the ground itself.  The first row we did was ideal.   Every row after that was just a degree harder to get our dibblers into the ground.  For the fourth row Ron had to pull the tiller out and dig it up again.  By this time everything was really wet which made it even more fun for Ron working in his heavy boots. 

This year we are growing Italian music, German white and new for 2018, Italian red.  Come early summer I am going to try pickled garlic scapes.    In case you didn’t know;  I have my own list going.  This is a list of experiments for me to try.  And let me tell you, pinterest is not my friend in this regard.  So many ideas out there right now.   I keep adding to my “ideas for THF” board.  Not sure how many I will actually try.  But, man it is so exciting to think about all the things I can try making with the products we grow or plan to grow out on THF.  That is another list that continues to grow.  Not only more types of mushrooms but other herbs, flowers and fruits.

But I am not the only one who has experiments to be tried.  This year Ron used our new shed to try and expand our shiitake growing season.  This involved hauling our logs across the stream from the forest area and setting them up in the shed.  Ron had his builder include a support beam just for this purpose included in the plan.  It runs almost the full length of the shed and we can have at least 50 logs there at one time.  He did get a few more runs of shiitakes with the added bonus of fewer bug issues.  He plans to try and get the season started early next year.   All of this involves more hauling back and forth.  Wonderful.

On Sunday, while I worked on getting protective layer of straw down on the garlic,

Ron and Jo got the logs back where they belong.  Then they brought the hoses back over so we can get them put away and out of the soon to be deep cold.

Ron and I had broken down his dam the day before.  A lot of silt collects in the pond during the year and it needs to be flushed out.  

The more nature washes out over the winter, the less we have to dig out come spring.  A deeper pond works better when you are pulling water out to use for soaking your mushroom logs.  Ron took the opportunity to have the water tested again.  The results were fabulous with the E-coli levels very low.  This is just what we needed for our Certified Naturally Grown standards.

And Ron and I finally got our wild flower seeds sewed.  We mixed the seeds with sand and then walked the length of our planned bed, scattering as we went.  We did seriously underestimate how many seeds we needed to cover the area.  Could have easily doubled the amount.  Luckily we still had a huge amount of cone flower seeds at home.  When we got home, Ron went out and cut dozens of the heads off and busted them down.   The birds we have at our house will not be happy to lose so many of the seeds they eat each winter.   We are just hoping that the birds out at THF don’t eat the seeds before we actually get flowers from them.   So looking forward to an explosion of color next summer.   But Ron will have to be patient with this project.  It might take a few years before the butterflies discover THF.

One of the things we , well actually Ron has discovered over the past two years is that there is a group on Facebook or Yahoo or Google for just about everything.  He has connected with so many people through these social media groups.  For mushrooms in general, shiitakes in particular, butterflies, pawpaws, elderberries;  the list goes on and on.  And they are more willing to share advice, information and contacts.  One contact from the Monarch Butterfly group sent him butterfly weed seeds.  They are another variety of milk weed and have orange flowers.  They will make a nice contrast to the common milk weed, which to be honest, is not the prettiest flower out there.

Our garlic bed is now ready for winter, we have about half of the pre winter chores done and I am ready for a break.  Too bad I won’t get one.