Summer 2012

 

Greetings Friends and Family,

Most of you have not received our Summer Letter for several years. Hope- fully this is a new beginning. And we enjoy hearing about many of you also.

This Summer in California has been very dry and hot. Fire season came early and we felt compelled to cancel weekend vactions and travel. Fire prevention measures have been our primary focus as well as our garden. We cleared a 75 foot paremeter almost down to the dirt around our house.

Last September we had a terrible ground fire near Stallion Springs where we live. Over 50 lightening strikes caused over 30 fires in our area for the California Forestry Department to fight over 2 months. One fire was about a quarter mile from our house and at 3:00a.m. Jeff was up with the fire trucks headed toward the flames. The Stallion Springs Fire Department got there in time to extinguish it in less than an hour.

Two days later another fire on the mountain side was closing in on us from the west fueled by strong winds. It was not under control and had already burned 25,000 acres. That Monday afternoon we saw a sky of red and ash about 1 mile from us. It was so scary. We packed everthing we could in our motorhome plus three vehicles, closed the house and traveled 6 miles east to safety in Alpine Valley with friends. We are better prepared for this September, but wild fires 1 mile or closer to the house are very scary.

Our garden is a wonderful escape from thinking about wild fires. Last year we planted a vegetable garden and berry bushes. The vegetable garden did so-so last year. This year we planted only tomatos, cucumbers, zucchini, and radishes. The tomatos are doing well and we are enjoying them already this year. Although we used steer manure mixed in the soil, next year we are going to increase the amount and add horse manure. Our soil is not like nor as good as the soil Jeff is familiar with in Wisconsin.

The berries are really fun and some are challenging. The red raspberries, black berries, and boysen berries are fun and easy. We started with four plantings of each and they are now really expanding their areas nicely. The elder berry plants that survived the voles are now almost waist high and doing nicely also. Voles are ground burrowing mole-like animals that eat the roots of plants. If anyone knows of a good way to get rid of voles, we'd really like to hear from you. They have runied our front lawn.

The challenging berries are the red currants, black currants, brown currants, goose berries, gold raspberries and blue berries. Our blue berries are doing better now that we realize they need acid in our alkaline soil. Maybe next year they will flourish more with better nutrition. None of the black raspberries have survived after two years and two plantings. This year has been dryer and hotter than usual and could be a major cause of the struggle for our berries. Any suggestions or experience would be greatly appreciated.

Aside from the vegetable garden and the berries, we tried growing red rhubarb and asparagus from dry roots. Of four rhubarb plants only one survived and is doing well. In a few years we can take roots from it to start more plants if one rhubarb plant isn't enough. The asparagus on the other hand is going gang-busters. We planted 20 roots last year and now we have lots of shoots going to seed. Next year we should be able to pick and eat some. We do have questions about asparagus maintanence: "Should we cut the stalks in the fall this year? And if we should cut the stalks, do we just put them over the bed with the mulch and horse manure?". If you know what to do, please let us know.

May this letter find you celebrating the Summer season in good spirits. We wish you all happiness, health and prosperity always.

Your Friends and Neighbors,
Jeff & Renee Haswell