Training butternuts
Even
though I'm the primary cook around here, Mark does nearly all the
grocery shopping. I just hate shopping, so every two weeks, I
hand Mark a list and send him to the big city. He always comes
home with everything on the list...plus this and that. When I
first started converting him to Walden Effect eating, the "this and
that" were things like biscuits-in-a-can and lemon cookies.
Nowadays, I roll my eyes when he brings home...an out of season
butternut.
Yes, we've become such
fans of butternuts (especially butternut pie) that Mark's hard pressed
to live without them over the summer. I didn't know they would be
such a hit, so I only put in two small beds last year, and we ran out
of the delicious fruits in the middle of the winter. This year, I
expanded the planting to encompass three beds, and I fed the soil
well. Cucurbits love a good meal of manure, and before I knew it,
the butternuts had zipped off their own beds, across the aisle, and
were partying with the tomatoes. Bad butternuts!
As every parent knows, proper limits are essential in raising a healthy
child...I mean, butternut. And parents definitely have to work
together to set those boundaries. So Mark and I went out as a
team to train our recalcitrant butternuts to toe the line. Mark
hammered in fence posts and I strung up pea trellis material to cage our butternuts
in. Now they can play as hard as they want and we won't have to
worry about them skipping curfew.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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I've look a bit at your site, brought here by a google image search for Butternuts -- the nut. But I saw your picture of the butternuts being caged in after trying to party too hard with the tomatoes. (of course I had to read the post to find out what the picture was all about)
I'm in my (mumble mumble) 's and am so intrigued and, I'll admit, jealous also. I may have to follow you, however probably be a silent reader. I have several health compromises and am not able to do the work I did when I was in my 20's and even early 30's, before the lupus started to sink his teeth into me. I still work to overcome the health compromises, and even be able to get back to the 'gardening' or even suburban homesteading that I so loved some years ago. Thank you for allowing me to live vicariously through you and your homestead. : )