Roofing, rain and rot. But its not all bad!

What a day to be a roofer!  The rain was absolutely pouring down, puddles everywhere, and as warm as it was I couldn’t see myself skipping around on the strapping spaced 24 inches apart and twenty feet above the slippery concrete floor.  First thing this morning I wondered  if they would be showing up but at 8 o’clock, splashing through the pot holed driveway came a truck towing a trailer with the standing seam roofing machine followed by 2 other vehicles filled with the crew.  Up they scrambled onto the 3000 square feet of unsheeted roof and started laying felt, sheets of roofing and finishing with angled flashing.  They completed the east half of the roof today and expect to finish the west side and the entrance dormer tomorrow.  If the weather is even marginally better than today that should be no problem.

Bittervine hops has got busy trellising and pruning and is unable to harvest shoots this week. We will have a limited supply of North Arm “5^th Ave” hop shoots available.  Bittervine may have shoots next week and is interested in having us distribute their dried hops.  Anybody interested?

We added lovage to the sheet this week.

Dangerous Dandelion Dress

The first pass of weeding in the strawberries was completed this week and we could see how last years cool weather delays caused us to get backed up in weed management and come back and bite us this year.  Several of the less vigorous varieties suffered and are showing gaps as a result.  It looks as though the day neutral varieties may have also suffered some winter damage.  Fortunately we did get through the patch before the masses of dandelions went to seed.  A pretty but dangerous sight, at least to the pocket book.

a field that looks like this means chemicals

The decision has been made with regard to asparagus.  We will be picking it to death this summer and then tilling it in.  The errors that I made in establishing the patch have become overwhelming.  I planted the seeds of an open pollinated variety rather than the more vigorous all male hybrids and it wasn’t planted deep enough and so we have trouble cultivating the weeds out without damaging the plants.  We finally have determined that we need to cut our losses and start again.  See you again with asparagus in 5 years.

Flagrano Beans

I planted 4 kinds of beans a week ago and they should be up by now.  Jade green, Rocdor yellow, Royal Burgundy, and Flagrano as shelling bean which is like a fava without the tough skin.  The weather is forecast to turn warmer on Wednesday which is about the limit to germination without rot so we will keep the fingers crossed.  It was a bit early for sowing beans and I hope worth the effort.  Risk and reward. We’ll see.

Have a great week everybody.

Jordan and Trish