Memorial Weekend Garden Images

Red Cabbage - Ornamental and tasty.
You can't see much from this shot, unless you click on it. Front left we have lettuce, spinach, then peppers. Back left we have potatoes and tomatoes.
Our corn is coming up nicely.
Not so nice looking - our potato plants have been hit hard from the beginning. When they first came up the potato beetle's set in strong and I picked them off almost daily. Then a small black mite looking insect has done the most damage and they are too numerous to pick off. So to fight these guys we have used an organic spray and some neem oil.
We have stopped harvesting asparagus and we have not been able to control the weeds.
Our strawberries are starting to ripen up. The oldest plants have always produced small strawberries, but they seem even smaller this year and may need to be replaced for next year, but they are still very sweet and tasty. The plants we put in last year have not started producing much yet.
Thanks to Clay's co-worker, Dewey, we now have a new giant heap of horse manure mixed with pine shavings to use for compost. The pile to the left is all the sod that we have been digging up around the yard to fix our gutter runoff and from starting new flower beds.

Bonkers and Dave have an Encounter

Hike at Mayapple Glen

Mom and I went on a little walk behind Papaw Melvin's house today and decided to nickname it Mayapple Glen, because the Mayapples were thick as a blanket over much of the valley. We have had a lot of rain the past couple of days leaving everything green, green, green. I love the smell of a forest after a fresh rain. I was so happy to spot a couple Jack-In-The -Pulpit plants. The pulpit that surrounds jack is not the flower, it is a leaf bract.

We also spotted several Yellow Lady's Slipper plants. These plants have a very interesting pollination process. They require a specific fungi to be present in their roots in order to survive, and their bigger Pink counter parts are pretty rare.

Here is the bloom of the Mayapple. To find one of the blooms you need to spot a plant with two stems. When I was little I can remember calling these little plants Smurf homes. I guess it was the shape, because they are not a brightly colored toadstool, but it was still fun to imagine.

We also spotted several other flowers that I tried to ID when I got home. I think that we found:
Prairie Ragwort
Daisy Fleabane
Golden Star
Hoary Puccoon

Mid April Garden Days

Clay worked really hard today tilling up a section of the garden for seed potatoes. We actually decided to till over the area we planted the sugar snap peas because there was no sign of life. We did three thirty-five feet rows. One and half rows are Red Pontiac, and one and half are Kennabec. We also planted our final blueberry bush, that we ordered by mail (Patriot).

The seedlings we planted are coming up well. I majorly over seeded each cup, thinking that some seeds may not germinate. Plus I only have a few containers and not nearly enough space in the garden for all these seedlings. I have been thinning them out daily, feeling horrible that I'm killing a possible beautiful tomato plant, I still have about five per container and there should only be one. I did replant some of the seedlings in potting soil mix instead of seed starter and put a few cucumber seeds in today. I also started some oregano, Imperial Larkspur, and Delphiniums in pots. I know that these can be directly sown, but we are not sure where to put them yet.

Color Code for Seedlings:
green-blank-green = Brandywine
green-black-green-black = Green Zebra
orange = Silentz
orange-green = Brandywine (2008)
black-orange-green = Risentraube
black = Purple Tomato (Sarah Black)
blue-orange = Red Belgian Pepper
blue-green = European Hot Pepper
plain = Early Russian Cucumber
We had our first asparagus harvest today. We usually like the skinnier pieces when we buy asparagus in the grocery store, but these were coming up pretty thick. We were pleasantly surprised that they didn't take long at all to cook and were perfectly tender and super yummy.

Garden Pics and Hanging Rock Raptor Observatory

We have had horrible luck so far with planting an early spring crop. So far no sign of spinach, lettuce, or sugar snap peas that were planted two weeks ago. Although I planted a second round of peas and lettuce, so they still have a chance, I hope! Last year we tilled in a large truck load of horse manure to help fertilize the soil and we added compost and organic fertilizer with each row of seed or each hole for a plant. I was in such a rush to get something planted that I neglected to add any compost to the soil. I have some more seed to try to put in later today or this weekend. We did put in four red cabbage plants that need to be mulched (I hope to save some grass clippings for the next time we mow the yard). Also in the picture above we have returning oregano and lavender. Good News!!! In the picture below we have our first signs of asparagus coming up. We should be able to do a light harvest from the patch, because this is the second year it has been established.
Below are some pictures from our trip yesterday to Hanging Rock. Hanging Rock Tower is in Monroe County, West Virginia which is in the southeastern part of the state near the Virginia border. It is on part of the Allegheny Trail, which intersects with the Appalachian Trail.
The best time to visit the tower in in the fall from late August through October, during migration season. Our only bird sightings were Turkey Vultures, which we see every day down at the river and all over the place, but it was still amazing to see them at this elevation. We did see some other interesting birds and bird calls on the trail up, including some woodpeckers. The other great part about going this time of year was we had the place all to ourselves and the view is amazing. During peak season the spot can get up to 100 visitors daily.

This pictures shows why it is called Hanging Rock. The wind was not too bad (otherwise I wouldn't be sitting on the edge), I can easily imagine being swept off the rocks on a really windy day.
Elevation - 3812ft

The building has an interesting history including plenty of vadalism, requiring it to be rebuilt. It has to be hard keeping the shingles and the roof in good shape. There was one window with a broken latch that kept banging open and shut.
Meet Grendel!
On the way back we took Rt.600 to Paint Bank. We have visited this are before, but neglected to check out the buffalo farm. The sign is very entertaining.
After visiting the farm we ate at the local restaurant, Clay had a buffalo burgar and I had a grass-fed beef burgar, not too cheap, but very yummy. The history of the town is pretty fascinating. When reading about one of the old flour mills, that is being renovated to do demonstartins of the milling process, I realized that the owners of basically the whole town graduated from Roanoke College.
We were able to stay on the scenic country roads for the whole trip. We returned to McCoy just in time to catch the train.

Cold Mountain

Clay and I traveled to Oronoco, Virginia (near Buena Vista) for a day hike. It took about 1 hour and 45 min. to get there. Then we hiked 5.8 miles to the summit of Cold Mountain (Which is actually Cole Mountain, but somewhere along the way the name changed). This is the first clearing we came to that is maintained as a campsite, with a large stand of mature Oak trees.

Bloodroot

This open meadow had a 360 panoramic view.


Elevation 4033ft.

One shot from the top.

A few other images we enjoyed along the way.

Barney's Wall

This hike did not start out as planned. We started out with poor directions from a website for "Scenic Mountain Views Near Blacksburg". After deciding that the name of the road we were looking for had been changed , we did eventually find Paces Gap Rd (now Little Meadow). The "road" ended up being a complete mud hole, but Blueberry (my Subaru) made it though the sludge. We couldn't find the sign for the Nature Conservancy Trail, so again we went out on a limb and tried an unmarked trail that seemed to be in the right area. This side trail did lead to the right trail, but we didn't know which direction to turn when we found it. Our first two guesses of the day worked so we turned right and walked, then just as we were about to give in we spotted this sign!!
Barney's Wall turned out to be a sheer drop off of about 700 ft. It is not the kind of drop off that had little ledges sticking out on the way down, in fact the ledge you stand on it jutting out over the cliff. I'm not too scared of heights but this one made me nervous, especially with the wind blowing pretty good. It is hard to see the degree of the drop off in this picture but I didn't want to spend too much time near the edge, but those toothpick looking trees are not seedlings.
This is a side view of the wall.
The view looking out wasn't so bad either!
I did say I was nervous about the edge, but I couldn't resist another last look. Laying down kept me from feeling like I might just blow off.
On one of the side trails we stood under this pile of layered rock.

Below - Running Ceder
Right before we were about to get back to the forest service road (Little Meadow), I spotted our first critter sighting. Clay was sprinting ahead of me and almost stepped on these guys. (We were pushing to get back home before the VT B-Ball game) Meanwhile, I kept stopping to take random pictures like the two pics above, and at first glance I thought I was looking at one snake, but then realized it had multiple heads. We counted three garter snakes.