State of the Farm, May 2025

The Radishes are coming! The Radishes are coming!

 

It looks like a cold and wet spring. There are several days in the coming week (just before Memorial Day) that in the forties and one day that NOAA says will be 39F. Of course, with all the cuts at NOAA, who knows if that’s reliable? It’s not like the weather service isn’t a vital service the government supplies, is it?

 

Regardless, we have many sets in the greenhouse ready to come out but we’re holding off until the weather warms a bit. We did put in the tomatoes as can be seen in the picture. Look along left side of the curved arbors on the right.

 

The potatoes have come up. (See several of the raised beds in the background.) We’ve moved the strawberry bed and it’s all coming up blossoms. The grapes have sprouted but they are having some caterpillar issues. I usually spray some kind of diatomaceous earth on them (product name Surround) but it washes off readily and—as I said—it’s a cold and wet spring. 

 

Go global warming. 

 

But that doesn’t stop us from having radish salads.

 

You may notice a curious absence inside the garden but beyond the arbors. That’s because I finally got around to taking down the Granny Smith apple tree. You can just barely see the wood and brush outside of the garden. It has been plaguing me for nearly thirty years. Always growing out. Sometimes it had blossoms that would then furl and die. Sometimes it would actually present apples which would curl and wither. Sometimes it wouldn’t present any blossoms at all. We decided to take it down over the winter and I got to it yesterday. Now I have a lot more applewood to work with.

 

(I plan to do an entry on my wood preparation saga but it’s on hold along with Many Other Things.)

 

Regardless, this is a significant expansion of the garden’s square footage. This year, we’re planting squash and pumpkins there. They will do well in mounds of rich soil rather than having to cover that space in manure. It’s never had much in the way of soil there. 

 

The quinces are fully covered in blossoms so I hope for fruit. The pears, paw paws, and other fruit look promising. As I mentioned previously, we had to take down a chestnut that had proven not to be resistant to blight. More wood as mentioned above. We planted a peach tree near the stump and there’s a wee peach waiting to ripen. 

 

I cleared the east garden where we’re going to try 2/3 of a three sisters approach. Corn with pinto beans. We tried pinto beans last year and had limited success. The pintos we bought were reported to be bush beans but instead really, really wanted to vine. This year we’re giving them corn.

 

I do like growing corn. 

 

The fava beans are in and looking good. We’ve gotten spears from our asparagus patch. I like asparagus but not the after effects. It is interesting that the ability to smell asparagus pee is genetically determined. See here.

 

The rhubarb is doing well. 

 

We tried growing peanuts last year and but they didn’t take this year. So, no peanuts at this point. 

 

One problem I’ve been having is gourds. I’ve been trying to grow birdhouse gourds and in the last three years, the seeds have just not sprouted. Not sure why. I’ve made a couple of birdhouses out of gourds past and the wrens like them. I’d like to make some more. 

 

We have several experiments going on. We’re trying sugar beets again. Last year they didn’t take. Also, trying amaranth and sorghum. We did sorghum last year and got a good set of heads but we didn’t get very far with it.

 

We’ve increased the potato and bean crop. As I’ve said before, we’re moving towards food self-sufficiency as much as possible. Given the current political conditions, that’s more important than ever. A great deal of American food is imported and that is clearly at risk. Squash, beans, and potatoes are reasonable calorie returns on investment. Adding in the chestnut flour, I think we’re approaching a 50% sufficiency. That said, it’s mostly carbohydrates. Beans have good protein. Squash has some. But potatoes and chestnuts not so much. We used to get a fair amount of protein from the chickens, both in meat and eggs. But we’re not doing chickens these days.

 

The banana harvest has been good. We grow these small, very sweet bananas. In fact, when I finish this missive, I plan on going down and making a smoothie. 

 

That’s about it for now about the garden. But I thought I’d include an article from the Guardian regarding the demise of the National Park System. See here.

 

 

Destroy All Assets

A few weeks ago I received a pleading letter from the Charles River Museum of Industry.

 

(Picture from here.)

 

The CRMI is a small museum in downtown Waltham—a place people might know by the old Waltham watches built by the Waltham Watch Company.  Massachusetts was a hotbed of industrial production and innovation during the 19^th and 20^th centuries. In the 19^th century it was manufacturing or precision instruments, textiles, shoes—pretty much everything. The US was worried that Britain would have a stranglehold on manufacturing forever. First the Embargo Act of 1807 forbidding imports from Britain and then the War of 1812 forced America into the industrial revolution. 

 

This is what the CRMI is all about: charting how the US (as shown in Massachusetts) navigated this period. The Museum has example machinery, some of the Waltham Watch Company’s original precision tool and dies, example looms. Every year it has a Model Engineering show put on by the New England Model Engineering Society where steam engines, Stirling engines, pulse rocket devices—all manner of precision-built machines shown both full size and in miniature. It’s a cacophony of hisses, thumps, and bangs showing the chops of 19^th century engineers.

 

I’ve been going for years. 

 

The message from the Museum was regarding yet another destructive executive order. This one to defund and destroy the Institute of Museum and Library Services. That order is here.

 

The IMLS budget is under 300 million dollars—.003% of the federal budget. You can see it here. About three quarters of its money is block grants to the states for library support. A little goes towards research. Nine percent goes to general museums. About seven percent goes museums for Latino, African Americans, Native Americans, and Native Hawaiians. Seventy employees distribute these funds. 

 

Three million goes to support libraries in Tennessee. Three quarters of a million went to libraries in Nebraska. Half a million went to support a program in the Children’s Museum of Kansas City. A hundred-fifty thousand went to a children’s museum program in Montana. Along with the Council of American Jewish Museums, the IMLS supported creating resources to help fight against anti-semitism. 

 

Libraries and museums. If we’re going to put money anywhere—if there is a common good to be supported by our common tax revenue—why shouldn’t that be libraries and museums. (Or cancer research. Or heart disease.)

 

We can’t afford libraries and museums but we can afford huge tax cuts for billionaires? We can’t afford cancer research but we can afford a bigger defense department? 

 

I’ve worked in government departments both large and small. I’ve worked in corporations both large and small. Business doesn’t pursue opportunities where there’s no money. Critical problems that can’t be solved by private enterprise must be solved by government. That’s why public service exists.

 

I have seen civil servants do miraculous things with vanishingly small budgets. I have seen them help bring bird populations back where they were lost, nurture the innovation of amazing general aviation instrumentation, and enable me to bury my parents in Arlington National Cemetery. All with grace, honesty, attention to detail, and respect.

 

There may be civil servants out there that don’t do any work or take home two paychecks but I’ve never seen them. I have seen civil servants hobbled by bad legislation and worse leaders and then vilified for nothing more than doing the thankless job handed them by political government. Vilified for things that are completely out of their control.

 

This isn’t about efficiency or budget considerations or the deficit. If it were about efficiency, why take down social security one of the most efficient systems on the planet? If it were about budget considerations or the deficit, we wouldn’t be getting tax cuts or shutting down the IRS—what businessman cuts his own revenue stream? I’ll tell you: a businessman who can’t keep from going bankrupt. This isn’t about truth—truth is what you need to know whether you like it or not. This is about people fantasizing about an imaginary better time. This isn’t fixing the system. It’s breaking the system and then saying we have to scrap it because it doesn’t work—while transferring our money into the coffers of the ludicrously wealthy.

 

This is insane.

 

America used to be a shining beacon of innovation, science, and technology. That came largely from the investment the United States government—as allocated by Congress—made in United States institutions.

 

Not anymore.