Closing Out 2016

The blog now has a new tab, Photo Gallery, showing all our photographs from 2014, 2015 and 2016. Starting in 2017, we will load photographs to the blog as we take them.

Under Weather, all the monthly weather reports for 2016 have been added.

Under Documents, I have added our Riel House 2016 Year End Report.

And finally, a big thank you to our Secret Santa and her Elf who delivered flax straw with which we will smother the weeds in Beds 29-30 next year.

Best wishes to everyone for the coming year. Only thirteen weeks until we start again!

Secret Santa assisted by Elf-Driver-Photographer

Harvest 2016

12 Boxes of Potatoes plus Beets, Carrots, Onions, Squash, Pumpkins.

This morning, Parks Canada took our harvest to Winnipeg Harvest.  We contributed 122 pounds of beets, carrots, onions, squash and pumpkins plus 629 pounds of potatoes for a total of 751 pounds. Our best ever year:

       2013      265.0 pounds
       2014      501.0 pounds
       2015      455.5 pounds
       2016      751.0 pounds!

Here's a quick summary of what worked and what needs improvement:

Kitchen Garden 

• Our Danvers Half Long carrots were ~okay but somewhat on the small size. Next year, perhaps we will plant a larger variety. As you know, the problem with carrots is planting and thinning the small seeds - the issue being that we are bounded by the patience of our volunteers.
• The heritage tomatoes were also ~okay. Not as prolific as prior years - could be the weather. Tomatoes were picked during the summer for visitors and staff. Consequently, we did not send any to Winnipeg Harvest this year.
• Potatoes in the Kitchen Garden were sparse. Could be the soil; could be the shade.
• Asparagus is slow. We cut perhaps five spears in the spring. We added more crowns this year. Perhaps next year is when the asparagus will flourish.

Produce Garden

• Mangels were a bust. Probably rabbits finished them off. We found only one plant and there was no root.
• Beets were ~fine. I suspect that rabbits ate the majority. What we were able to harvest looked good. Next year we can plant them more densely.
• We tried eggplant, but rabbits decimated all plants and our seeds should have been started in pots earlier. We changed those beds over to potatoes straight away. No, we will not plant eggplants next year. Also, eggplants are not 1886-heritage.
• White onions did quite well. I expect we will plant more beds and space the onions closer together. Very good, onions. Thanks.
• Multiplier onions, frankly, I just do not understand. They looked the same in the fall as when we planted them in spring. More, but the same size. It seems very labour intensive to peel these little things in order to make pickled onions. Not for next year.
• Our wheat looks good; we will cut it and bind it in sheaves but only for decoration.
• Corn has been a bust this year. The four beds of sweet corn were decimated by raccoons about two weeks ago - we harvested perhaps three cobs of corn from all four sweet corn beds. The heritage corn has yet to change colour. Also It looks like birds or squirrels were culprits in all the corn beds. There will be very few heritage cobs this year for decoration.
• The Scarlet Runner Beans and Acorn Squash that partner with corn in the Three Sisters plantings also under performed. Need to keep trying here. Better luck next year.
• Potatoes. Yes! Potatoes did very well. We planted three fifty pound bags and harvested 629 pounds of potatoes - a one to four ratio. In addition, we rejected three five-gallon pails of potatoes damaged by slugs(?), wire worms and/or voles(?). Also, our heritage Pink Fir potatoes did very well in the Produce Garden despite under performing in the Kitchen Garden. 
• Pickling cucumbers did fine. These were harvested throughout the summer so none went to Winnipeg Harvest. It would be interesting to have a pickling demonstration at Riel House where attendees could pickle cucumbers straight from the garden.
• Some squashes and pumpkins in the wild Bed 29 did very well. But typically only one fruit per vine. I suspect some potatoes may still be lurking in Bed 29.

Next year, we may consider multiple harvests during the summer instead of focusing on a single event. 

Next year. There is always next year.

Virginia Creeper

Anything you want to soften or hide can be addressed with a dose of Virginia Creeper. Let's hide the outhouse (it's actually the watering shed):

Before

After

We relocated three Virginia Creepers that were growing out of place in the Produce Garden and planted them on the south facing wall of the watering shed. They will attach themselves to the wood, grow up the structure and disguise it. We have also planted Virginia Creeper around most of the posts of the south fence to distract the viewer from the fact that the fence is leaning.

The future maintenance task will be to cut off any creepers that start to travel across the ground as the vines will easily smother lawns and trees if you are not rigorous in containing them. 

Gardeners must eventually learn to say "No!" when things step out of line; otherwise there is no garden.

Medical Procedure: Adding More Native Plants to the Gardens

Holes in the Garden

Last year we planted native plants in both the Parking Lot Garden and the Road Garden. The plants have done very well, but a couple of things have become apparent. As you can see in the above picture, some areas were under planted, others suffered abuse from over weeding, rabbits and vehicles parking on them. Time to fill in the holes.

We purchased plugs of Prairie Dropseed, Heart Leafed Alexander, Dotted Blazing Star, Black-eyed Susan, Wild Bergamot, Blue Vervain and Meadow Blazing Star.

Below are plugs of Heart Leafed Alexander about to be inserted in the Road Garden. 

Plugs for the Road Garden

And I do mean inserted. 

Instead of ripping open the soil with a trowel and disturbing the fungus and bacteria that promote good soil structure and plant growth, the best way is just to slit open the earth (a hori hori knife works best), insert the plug. and push the mulch back around the opening. After you get the hang of this, planting proceeds quickly - we planted two hundred plugs in just under two hours.

I relate this process to an angioplasty - no need to rip open the patient's chest just to insert a 2 mm cardiac stent.

hori hori knife

Peonies

Peonies with Riel House in the background

Peonies overlooking the entrance to the Riel House National Historic Site

Three Sisters Planted

Bed 15 with corn, squash and beans

At last, everything is in the ground. The last holdouts had been the Three Sisters that require the corn to be established ( 4 inches or so) before the squash and beans are planted around them. Each bed took two packages of beans (about 50 beans) and two packages of squash (about 50 or more). If we had too many seeds, we just went back in the same row; too few, we just spread them out more. Since each bed is 4 x 22, there is "around" "roughly" "about" one squash/bean per square foot (i.e one squash/bean seed per corn seed). We'll see later if we are undercrowded or overcrowded. 


Here's another picture:

Bed 13 with corn, beans, squash plus some potatoes from last year.

Cleaned up the Raspberries

Raspberry Beds

Last fall, we were quite rigorous removing the two year old canes so that this year there is lots of room for new growth (primacanes). Today, we surrounded each of the five raspberry beds with sisal rope, confirmed which raspberries were growing within each perimeter, then brutally removed the ones growing outside the perimeters. Of course, the prunings are left in the paths as mulch. All the canes are laden with flowers and ripening fruit. It's going to be a great year for raspberries. 

Search "pruning raspberries" on Google to understand when to prune, what to prune, primacanes, floricanes, etc.

Two FYIs here: Sisal rope is heritage and would have been employed by the Riel family. A clove-hitch knot works very well to attach the rope to our stakes.

First Day of Summer . . .

. . . . and everything is blooming. . .

Peonies at Riel House

Gaillardia, Harebells and Black Eyed Susans in the Parking Lot Garden

Native Grasses in the Parking Lot Garden

Caterpillar on Golden Alexander in the PLG

. . .  and more caterpillars . . . 

 

Everything is Planted

Everything is planted, at least until the corn comes up. 

• Kitchen Garden
• Produce Garden

The Bump

We also planted some pumpkins and sunflowers on the soil that was displaced when the electrical line went between Riel House and the tent. We have named this area The Bump in reference to Fred Penner's "The Bump ".

Mulch - Nature's Band-Aid, Nature's Swiss Army Knife

The main path from Riel House to the tent used during rainy weather is dirt; and of course, when wet, mud. Tree and bark mulch, in this case made from last fall's prunings, has been used to cover this path. Note that the mulch stops where the path enters the Riel House historical area of 1886. At that time, paths were left as grass or covered with boards.

Of course, we have also mulched the paths in the Produce Garden and Kitchen Garden with leaf mulch to smother weeds as well as in all the flower beds to minimize weeds and to retain moisture for the plants. 

Ideally, you should never see bare earth. Nature wants to cover a bare area as quickly as possible. Usually, what grows there are called "pioneer plants" or more commonly weeds. 

Starting to Bloom

The Parking Lot Garden is just starting to bloom. Stay tuned.

Weeding the Parking Lot Garden

Just starting to remove the Curly Dock . . .

Now that we recognize the weeds growing between the native plants in the Parking Lot Garden, it's time to start weeding. I took on the task of removing the Curly Dock. 

Curly Dock

notice the roots

If you just pulled at Curly Dock in a newly planted bed such as the Parking Lot Garden, you could get an almost soccer-ball-sized clump of soil coming up with the plant. That could destroy whatever soil structure is beginning to form. Instead, while pulling on the plant with one hand, I used a garden fork in the other hand to loosen the grip of the roots. Once the roots were loose, then I used my Hori Hori knife to remove soil from between the roots as I gently pulled out the plant. Then I filled the hole back in and covered it with mulch. The wound to the soil is minimal. 

Tools of the trade

. . . half way done . . .

All done

All done with Curly Dock, that is. See Rogues Gallery for the other weeds we found.

Eggplants, we have a problem.

and there it was . . . gone

As I mentioned in my post of June 4 titled Planting Bee #1 Successful, 

Eggplant is somewhat of an anomaly in this group as it is not quite "historically accurate" regarding Riel House. Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, grew and consumed this vegetable from his Monticello garden in the late 1700's. However, it was not popularized in North America as a vegetable to be consumed until the turn of the twentieth century. Also, in temperate climates such as Riel House, eggplant is typically started indoors eight to ten weeks prior to last frost and requires at least 80 days to mature before first frost. We have set ourselves a challenge.

On June 4, we had planted 16 eggplants that we had purchased once we realized how long seeds took to sprout and mature. On Monday, June 6, we planted Beds 3 and 4 with eggplant seeds that we had previously purchased.On Wednesday, we noted that several of the poorer quality eggplants had been eaten by rabbits. Friday, all the plants have been eaten.

the challenge is over. For this location, eggplants are not historical, require too much care to get started, take too long to mature  and are a delicacy to the local pest. We give up! 

Friday afternoon, we purchased more Red Pontiac potatoes.

Weeding

Curled Dock

The Parking Lot Garden is just getting established after being planted last year with native plants. It has taken us a while to distinguish between a native plant and what we classify as a weed. 
When weeds are removed from the garden, we want to ensure that the soil in which the weed was growing remains as undisturbed as possible when the intruder is removed. Some weeds such as Prickly Lettuce, which has a taproot, take little effort to pull; Curled dock, on the other hand, has rigorous spreading taproots and requires some amount of strength and finesse to get it out of the ground without having a softball-sized clump of soil come with it. Plantain has fibrous roots and is also takes strength and finesse to remove.

It would be good if each of our volunteers became an expert in a single weed and how to remove it effectively. 

See our Rogues Gallery of Weeds.

Rogues Gallery of Weeds

Before - lots of Curled Dock

Today we walked KL from Prairie Originals through the Parking Lot Garden and Road Garden and had her identify weeds that interfere with the native plants that we had planted last year. The Rogues Gallery of Weeds contains photographs of all the weeds that we have found at Riel House.

• Curled Dock
• Pineapple Weed
• Prickly Lettuce
• Quack Grass
• Plantain
• ? Grass
• ? Weed
• Liatris Impostor
• Canada Thistle
• Sweet Clover
• Black Medic

Two samples of what we found today:

Curled Dock

Prickly Lettuce

Planting Bee #1 Succesful

Planting potatoes - one per square foot

We had five volunteers today for our Planting Bee #1. Two planting teams of two people;  each team planting from both sides of a row, and a planting-gofer to shuttle plants to the teams and direct them as to next steps.

We planted ten beds of potatoes, eight beds of corn, two beds of onions, and some eggplant. Our next tasks are to plant all the seeds: mangels, beets, carrots, sunflowers, pickling cucumbers and the rest of the eggplant.

Eggplant is somewhat of an anomaly in this group as it is not quite "historically accurate" regarding Riel House. Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, grew and consumed this vegetable from his Monticello garden in the late 1700's. However, it was not popularized in North America as a vegetable to be consumed until the turn of the twentieth century. Also, in temperate climates such as Riel House, eggplant is typically started indoors eight to ten weeks prior to last frost and requires at least 80 days to mature before first frost. We have set ourselves a challenge.

After we were done, it was time to sit back and take pictures:

We're Ready to Plant!

Our two planting bees will occur on the next two Saturdays. Here are the layouts for the two vegetable gardens:

Kitchen Garden 2016
Produce Garden 2016

I am surprised by the effort necessary to get ready for this. Are the seeds heritage? Would the seeds be familiar to the Riel household of 1886? Are the heritage crops worth growing? Who will consume them? What goes in which bed? What are its companions? How will crop rotation work in subsequent years? 

Let the growing season begin!

Growing into Spring 2016

We have had a slow start to the growing year in spite of some very nice weather at the start of May.

2016 Project Areas

In addition to planting the gardens, there are several sites where we may plant trees, shrubs and plants traditionally employed by Métis people. Below are pictures of these locations and the potential plantings.

Welcome to 2016

Parks Canada Red Chair at Riel House

It's half way through April and we're champing at the bit. Can't wait to have our planting bees on June 4th and June 11th.

In addition to planting the Kitchen Garden and Produce Garden with more heritage varieties, we anticipate planting several fruit trees that Métis people would have traditionally used for food. Also, we'll look to identify a couple of spots where native plants can be harvested for their material.

Here are proposed activities for 2016. I have also added the document to our Documents tab.

Coppicing

When you explore the Riel House property, you will find several locations where trees have been removed for safety reasons. If the tree is not dead, then new straight shoots immediately begin growing from the edges of the stump. Initially, we treated these shoots as an annoyance and cut them back each year.

Tree removed in September 2015

Coppicing is a wood management technique from pre-historic times. After the tree is cut down, the shoots that grow back are similar in size and straight with no branches or knots. These shoots can be used for basket weaving, pegs, arrow shafts, or poles of a consistent diameter depending upon the type of tree and the frequency of harvesting. For a North American perspective, see M. Kat Anderson's Tending the Wild. 

We have a requirement at Riel House for bean poles. And consequently a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate coppicing.