This week has been a week of setbacks I had a couple of huge failures, finally picked all my carrots, and finished up one of my projects.
THE FAILS FIRST
The top band on my whiskey barrel pond broke and it now only holds about half of it's water ARGH!!
The pond is on life support I'm going to see if I can get it through summer.
Here's the band aid I put on it a ratchet strap but it's still leaking like the Exxon Valdez. The bright side to this mishap is I've begun research on a new permaculture pond I'll be putting in the backyard in a few months when I have saved up some dough. Moral of the story whiskey barrels make bad ponds but they're still hands down one of the best planters you can use, they're repurposed, they have great insulation for our summer heat, and you can plant a ton of stuff in them.
Fail # 2 was much harder to accept, this weekend the new buds on the apple tree I grafted shriveled up and died then the scion that was grafted onto the rootstock shriveled up and turned brown, today I looked at it closer when I wiggled the scion it came out of the rootstock, the graft never took. I had a full blown hissy fit ARGH!!!!
I'm not giving up on grafting I'm still going to learn how to do it but, this sucks. I've killed thousands of plants in my lifetime it's part of what you sign up for when you choose this lifestyle but this one has bothered me the most!
We finally picked the last of the carrots I'd be more excited about this huge harvest except I'm tired of carrots. Carrots for every meal everyday for a month is killing me I think my blood has turned orange. We gave most of this away (in permaculture you're supposed to share your excess). If you've never had french carrot salad you should try it. Next year less carrots more brocoli.
Finally a little more about permaculture, part of permaculture is energy consevation so to save a little energy this year I installed a new back door and jam plus an energy efficient dog door. You could see through parts of the old door and the dog door flap had a big hole in it, it was so big one of the chickens figured out how to get in the house. I replaced everything and sealed the new door with foam. Eliminating air leakage from your house is one of the easiest things you can do to bring your summer cooling bills down. I would also recommend shade screens, ceiling fans, and planting deciduous trees on the west side of your house as easy ways to help save energy.. SRP offers free shade trees here. I'm gonna say the halo around the picture is a sign of brighter things to come and not a bad picture taken of a door in the sun.
booyah.
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