The Wigglers have been in their new home for a little over a week and I can report that they have settled in nicely. Bookman puts food scraps in an old margarine container — coffee grounds, potato peels, banana peels, apple bits, carrot bits, broccoli bits, you get the picture — puts a lid on the container and every three or so days I open the wiggler bin and bury the scraps. When I move the bedding aside to put the scraps under it I generally disturb a few wigglers which is the only way I know they are alive. Even Houdini must be happy since he has not tried to make a second escape.
I got a couple more seed catalogs in the mail during the week. One of them was page after page of tomatoes. I had no idea there were so many varieties. It was rather overwhelming. I finally couldn’t take it anymore and tossed it in the recycling bin. We buy tomato plants in the spring, usually heirloom varieties, because it is so much easier. In Minnesota the growing season is not long enough and if I were to start my own tomato plants from seed I would have to do it in the middle of March. I have done it before, many years ago when heirloom varieties were hard to come by, but that has changed, thank goodness. It was during one of those years that I discovered I am very allergic to tomato plant sap. After handling several plants without gloves, potting them up, my hands and arms broke out in hives so badly I had to take steroids for a week and was out sick from work for a couple of days. So now I only handle tomato plants with gloves on, or better yet, let Bookman take care of it.
The other catalog was marvelous. It had all kinds of the usual garden veggies in it but it also had four or five pages of dried beans. I got so excited, I can grow my own garbanzo beans! But really, we use so many of them it isn’t practical. Nor would it be practical to do pinto beans or kidney or white or navy beans or any bean that is easily bought at the market. It’s all those other beans I’ve never heard of before that I was drooling over — painted pony, appaloosa, calypso, Jacob’s cattle, ying and yang — don’t those sound fantastic? I figure I’ll try two, maybe three varieties. I have a few months to mull over which ones those will be.
In thinking about next year’s vegetable garden and what we want the garden to be as a whole, Bookman and I decided that we will make two or three large raised beds for the annual veggies and the rest of the garden will be turned over to mostly perennial edibles and other plants. The reason we decided on this is because the annual veggie beds get dug in so often, disturbing the soil ecosystem, that it is best to keep them contained in a more controlled area instead of spread out all over the garden. In many of the permaculture books I’ve been looking at all the home garden plans have a designated annual vegetable area. So we are going to do it too. The beds will be in a completely different area of the garden than where we have been growing veggies. The raised beds will be closer to the compost pile and the rain barrel, making less work in their upkeep in the long run. We are going to do two, possibly three big beds. Maybe not all next year when we will do at least one, but that is the eventual goal. I am very excited about this as well as the polyculture planting scheme we will be using. But more on that in the spring!
I forgot to mention last week we had an animal visitor to our house. One evening when Bookman was working the closing shift I was curled up reading. I heard a noise in the kitchen and thought the cats were batting around a toy and had run into the dinner table leg or something. But then the noise came again and it sounded like a bucket being tipped over. I got up expecting to see that the cats had gotten into something only to find them both glued to the sliding glass door onto the deck. I looked out the window with them and there, right on the other side of the glass, was a possum! Bookman had left the recycling bucket out on the deck with paper and empty cat food cans in it. The possum must have been out scavenging and, even though the cat food cans are rinsed out, must have smelled them in the bucket. It had knocked the bucket over against the window so it couldn’t get into it and was trying to figure out how to turn it around. I turned on the outdoor light thinking it would scare the possum away but it didn’t even flinch. So the cats and I stood there watching the critter who finally gave up and ambled off into the darkness.
I returned to my book and a few minutes later Bookman arrived home. I heard him in the front yard yelling, “get out of here cat!” And then a sound of surprise. When Bookman came through the door a few seconds later I asked him if he met our possum visitor. Yup. He had seen it in the shadows and thought it was a cat but realized when it didn’t scamper off that it was no cat but a possum. We’ve seen raccoons but not possums around the neighborhood. I don’t know where our possum visitor lives or how far they range in search of dinner, but it has not returned as far as we know. Still, it was an exciting visit!
I’ve never heard of those bean varieties! Wow, who knew there were so many. I love garbanzo beans. Yum. We had a possum in our attic one time – I kept freaking out thinking it was somehow going to find its way into the house. Luckily he went away and we found the entry point and sealed it up!
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Iliana, I know me either! There are so many and some of the beans are really pretty. I think possums in general are pretty harmless, though a mother possum might hiss and bite. We had a big firewood pile in the backyard when I was growing up and there was often a possum sheltering in it.
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I feel much better after hearing Bookman mistook the possum for a cat. When we lived in the country, I was walking up the driveway one evening and saw something white behind the bushes at the front of the house. We never let our cats outside, but I thought our white cat, Echo, had, somehow, gotten out. Just as I was about to reach into the bushes and pick him up – I realized it was a possum! Lucky for both of us, although I don’t know who would have been more startled! Baby possums are the sweetest little things.
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Joan, good thing you realized it wasn’t a cat before you picked it up! You both would have been extra surprised then. Babies are cute, ours was full size and fascinating to watch.
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Well, of course your Possum didn’t come back. You didn’t offer him dinner, did you? He’ll be off looking for more hospitable hosts :-). We don’t get anything as exciting as that I’m afraid. The odd urban fox, but that’s about it.
By the way, you and my grandfather would have got on famously. Almost all his winter reading material was seed catalogues. You could have argued for days about what was the best type of tomato to plant.
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Alex, no, there was no dinner on offer for the possum. I’m not sure if the cats are disappointed or glad the critter hasn’t come back, they were beside themselves with excitement watching it. I’ve not seen a fox in my area but I’ve heard they are around. Maybe one of them will come for a visit sometime too.
I am sure your grandfather and I would have gotten along quite well! Reading seed catalogues is one of winter’s delightful consolations for a gardener. And the deciding what to actually buy, momentous! š
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Dried beads are wonderful. Whole Foods has all kinds of varieties in bins – including the appaloosa, that actually do resemble the coloring of the horse of the same name. I do buy canned beans on occasion, but I much prefer buying them dried and cooking them in a slow cooker. So easy. We have a lot of possum – one lives in a live oak growing just at the edge of my property. Sometimes I see them walking across the wooden fence. They like dried cat food – found that out by surprise.
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Grad, I love dried beans too, we stopped buying beans in cans a few years ago. They are so much cheaper and tastier when you cook them up yourself. I’m intrigued you’ve seen the appaloosa beans. Makes me want to try them! Good to know that they are partial to cat food. Mine was disappointed but I’ll have to be sure we are more careful about leaving rinsed out cans for the recycling outside!
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I like the snow on your blog page Stefanie. Hubby and I were in the mountains for our first snow in PA yesterday and it was lovely.
Those bean varieties sound good as you mentioned. I’ve heard of appaloosa but none of the others. It’s funny that you mention beans in your post because I’m reading about the early Greek philosophers and Pythagoras was against eating beans. I found that quite curious.
The hubby and I are looking outside and dreaming of spring planting. We by accident did what you mentioned above regarding permaculture. I’ll look forward to what you have to say about polyculture in the spring as that is a new term to me.
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Vanessa, glad you like the snow. It is compliments of WordPress. They turn it on every December for the month. Didn’t PA get quite a bit of snow the other day? I am glad you enjoyed it.
Any idea why Pythagoras was against beans? Maybe they gave him gas and instead of admitting to it he made up a loftier reason š
The polyculture planting I’ll be trying mixes the plants throughout the bed and not in rows at all. It also considers late and early, deep roots and shallow roots, and nitrogen fixers and pollinators. It’s a really interesting method that promises dense planting and high yields without depleting the soil. It will be interesting to try. Here’s a little more information about it if you are interested.
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Regarding Pythagoras–I don’t know. I’ve read that it could be the gaseous effects or that beans resembled humanity somehow. Every time I eat my beans I chuckle.
Thanks so much for the link Stefanie. I read through and placed the book on hold at the library. It sounds like polyculture would be a great consideration for our veggie beds.
We had a few inches and were supposed to get five more but it is sunny and cold. I’m not complaining š
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Well, Pythagoras was missing out!
Glad the link was useful. I haven’t read that book but when I was casting around for a link that would give a bit of summary I found it and requested it from my library too! It looks like a good one.
Enjoy your snow!
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