Dirt Watch - End of Season Recap

The garden is beginning to wind down now that Fall is here. Today I harvested a half-dozen cherry tomatoes, three Roma tomatoes, the last small handfull of green beans and two green peppers. There are still many tomatoes on the various plants, but now I'll pay close attention to overnight lows and bring in the greenies before the first freeze hits.

Overall, the garden broke even or maybe saved us a few bucks. This was primarily due to the fact that tomatoes cost a fortune at the grocery store, and I had (still have) tons of them. My neighbor has greatly benefitted from the excess.

Here's a rundown of what worked, what didn't, and next year's ideas.

Tomatoes - I need better cages for the beefsteak and cherry plants. You may recall that I grew these two in large flowerpots and they did great! It's no exageration to say that I harvested over 100 cherry tomatoes and more than a dozen each of Roma and Beefsteak. The Roma tomatoes loved the net trellis set up.

Cucumbers - Some insect devastated my cucumber plants. Slowly. A gardening friend at work had the same happen to his and claims that it's a leaf borer. Still, I harvested almost 20 cukes, some were enormous. All were tasty. There are three left on the vines, but I don't know if they'll ripen enough to harvest. If not, into the compost pile with them!

Green Peppers. Badly shaded by the cucumbers (will relocate to sunnier spot next year), I only got two medium sized peppers, with two or three small ones in progress that may or may not make it to harvest.

Basil - Still going great guns! I shall be making a huge batch of pesto in the very near future. I only planted one plant and it was enough.

Parsley - did great. I harvested from the single plant a few times for cooking and to give the bunnies an occasional treat.

Green Beans - I got two crops in this year from the bush beans I sowed. Not overwhelmingly prolific, but got enough for several side dishes. Incredibly easy to grow.

Onions - did nothing. Not a single onion plant grew from the sets I planted. Next year I will find a different source.

Carrots - Meh. Managed to get several smallish carrots out of all I planted, and they took forever to grow. The bunnies adored the huge masses of fresh carrot greens.

Radishes - fail. Like the carrots, I strongly suspect there just isn't enough sun during the day for them. I got a few. As in three.

Swiss Chard - fail. Supposedly chard is the easiest crop to grow, but I got nothing more than a couple of sickly leaves.

Lettuce - fail. Enough for a small salad and some bunny food. More sun needed.

Broccoli - fail. Worm food, you may recall.

So that's it. I learned a few things and have a few ideas for next year. The cucumbers are going up against the fence. They worked entirely too well as a sun shade over the lettuce. I'm also hoping that more spiders along the fence will reduce the chances of leaf borers killing the plants.

Something else Liz and I talked about is to build a few deeper but smaller boxes for carrots and maybe potatoes.

I'd still love to have that Maple tree removed from the yard, which would really open up the sunshine. Right now, I'm not sure I want to spend the money on it. We'll see how the job situation goes over the next few months. I've got time to decide.

Bottom line: the Square Foot Garden idea works, and works well. I'm looking forward to next Spring.

Like A Zoo Out Back

We survived hurricane Irene with little trouble. Daughter Robyn and granddaughter Lorelei came up from Virginia Beach "just in case". Their street flooded, but the water never got higher than halfway up their driveway. Other than a rain gutter downed by the wind, they did fine too.

While Lorelei was here, I took her out back to see the garden and to meet the spiders. She was fascinated by them and got a kick out of blowing on the web to make them scramble around for safety.

She also noticed the eggshells in my garden and asked if I were growing eggs. As we got closer, she saw they were broken and marvelled that Grandpa hatched birds in his garden!

This morning, I had already gone out to harvest tomatoes before the rain arrived. I left the back curtain open wide and while working out it started to rain. As if on cue, at least three big frogs started jumping around in the garden. I hadn't seen them before, but once they hopped they were pretty obvious.

Next came the big surprise.


This handsome devil was racing up and down the fenceline (well, racing as much as a turtle can race), trying to get into the next yard. When he climbed up on top of an old push mower close to the door, I opened up to snap some pictures. He tucked in for a while, but finally came out enough to pose for the above.

Definitely a big guy.

Dirt Watch - Midsummer Update

Rather photo-heavy this time around, but if you recall I use this blog as a journal to keep track of how my garden project is going. All pictures are clickable for Jolly Green Giant size.

But before getting to the yummy pictures, I'd like to introduce you to two ladies who have been co-existing peacefully with me out back.

This little lass has kindly relocated after I walked through her first attempted web without realizing it. She was trying to weave it across the area right outside the doorway, which of course just wouldn't do. I swung a length of her web towards the fence, and since then she has rebuilt (beautifully) between the fence and one of the trellises. I make a point of going the long way around now so as not to disturb her further.



This is the other lady. She lives by the spigot that I reach for daily. When she's agitated, she vibrates her web so that she's swinging back and forth, so fast that you can hardly see her. Pretty amazing.



Long-time readers know that I'm phobic about spiders, but can manage a truce as long as no startling goes on. These ladies help out by keeping the intrusive insect-American population at bay, and seem to be doing very well at it too. Other than one aphid infestation of one pea plant top (easily removed with scissors) and the vicious broccoli worms, I've had zero insect problems with the garden.

So far, I'm loving the Square Foot Gardening method that I'm trying this year. Here's a picture of the original boxes when I built them.



And here they are today:



The key point to remember is that I've been harvesting pretty steadily for the last month and a half, and the garden is still going strong.



Above are the cucumbers climbing the trellis. Buried inside this jungle are a half dozen ripening cukes, with another dozen or two just budding out. I've also harvested four (so far) that would make the Mayflower Madam blush.



Roma tomatoes. I made fresh spaghetti sauce with some of these a couple of weeks ago, along with some basil from the garden that was out of this world. I served it over grilled squash.



Here are the second crop of green beans in the ground (along the front). They're about two weeks old. I found out that there are two kinds of green beans; bush beans and pole beans (the kind that climb). Bush beans mature faster but you only get one crop, then you can get rid of them. Pole beans take longer to produce but they'll keep growing new beans until frost. It's a trade off, and this year I went for bush beans. Mainly because I didn't want to have to deal with another trellis crop.



Lots happening in this picture. In the back are my two green pepper plants. They're healthy but not really doing much. You may notice the white things on the ground, those are eggshells. Peppers really like extra calcium, so I just tossed some broken eggshells around them and hopefully they're leaching calcium into the ground. They keep slugs away too. To the right of the peppers are the start of my second snap pea crop, just getting tall enough to reach the trellis. In front of the peppers are two squares I just re-seeded with lettuce. And in front of them are my parsley and basil plants.



This is today's harvest. I finally got more carrots, including one larger than "baby" sized. Just as importantly though, the bunnies are going to be feasting on carrot greens tonight. On the right are the last leaves of the spring lettuce. The bowl of beefsteak and cherry tomatoes, along with a cucumber make a pretty centerpiece, and hidden in with the carrot greens is a huge bunch of parsley that I snipped.

A lot of people seem to think that gardening means you spend vast amounts of time tending the plants. With this Square Foot Gardening method, I water every evening for about 15 minutes, and weed once every couple of weeks for maybe 10 minutes. The whole thing is designed to be low-maintenance, and it is.

Green Thumb May Be An Understatement

I can grow things. It's an unexplained knack I've always had. But even this kind of makes me go 'wow'.



This is that cherry tomato plant (one, each) I keep talking about. It's growing in a large plastic pot, maybe 12" or 14" across. The bottom part is almost completely bare because of the leaf rot that is working its way slowly up the plant, but, as you can see, the top half is healthy. As hell. Go ahead, count 'em. I did. This photo shows some 50 cherry tomatoes on the bush. There's at least 20-30 more not in the picture. And I plucked seven that were ready, plus we have a bird who's discovered a liking for tomatoes. He's gotten two or three this week.

Just damn.

Dirt Watch - Quickie Edition

Just two photos. The first is misty because my camera lens fogged from being brought out into the humid mid-90's from the relatively cool house. It was too hot to stand there and let it acclimate. It's also sideways because I'm friggin' lazy.



So if you pretend you're squinting, you'll notice the many, many, many cherry tomatoes on this bush. A smut, or rust, or whatever the hell you call anti-tomato plant disease, is destroying this plant from the ground up, but damned if there aren't about 40 little tomatoes left with more popping out every day. I've been eating them every day with lunch for a week now.



Now this was today's harvest. Two Beefsteak tomatoes, five Roma (good for making sauce) and a handfull of those luscious little cherry tomatoes. The limp basil was cut yesterday.

Maybe more pictures this weekend. You should see the cucumbers!

Dirt Watch - Confessional Edition

Let's get the bad news out of the way immediately, shall we?

There has been some clamor for a reprise of Nog Watch, and this Dirt Watch is a pale imitation. Long time readers were used to fine brandy, and now I regularly serve up flat Tab. I regret your disappointment.

A couple of weeks ago, Rachael's boyfriend was coming over for dinner, and we decided on home cooked Chinese: Beef and Broccoli, snow peas, homemade wontons, the works. While whooping up the filling for wontons, Liz asked if we had any teriyaki marinade in the fridge.

Understand now, we hadn't made Chinese in a long time, kinda fell outta the habit, you know? So imagine my surprise when I did, indeed find a bottle of teriyaki marinade in the fridge. It was even unopened, seals intact.

The "use by" date was 2008.

I immediately tossed it into the trash and we improvised for the wontons, they were yummy. Liz is a master at the fillings, and I'm the fry-cook who turns them out by the piping hot bowlfull.

During dinner, Rachael remarked that I could've used the teriyaki marinade as a new Nog Watch. I considered it, but rejected the idea on a couple of points. First, it was still sealed. That seemed to violate the spirit of the concept. Second, it had already been thrown away, and fishing it out to put it back in the fridge rubbed my inner-artist wrong. I think I made the right choice.

Whew! It feels *good* to get that off my chest!

Anyway, onward and dirtward. Last night I picked some basil and our first two ripe tomatoes and made a tomato, basil and mozzerella salad. Delish was the verdict.

Tonight we feast on fresh-picked green beans (first of the season) with dinner. I did a quick inventory and there are now a dozen Roma tomatoes in various stages of ripening, no less than 30 cherry tomatoes on that plant, and eight beautiful beefsteak tomatoes that we'll be munching on in the next few weeks. If you've toured the produce section of the supermarket in the last year, maybe you've had the same little heart-lurch as I when you see the prices on tomatoes. Tomatoes may be the only vegggie (fruit, I know) that's actually going to save you money by growing your own.

The cucumbers are starting to appear, ten or fifteen about an inch long at this point. I nibbled the last snow pea from the vine yesterday and pulled the peas from the garden and tossed them into the compost pile. Peas were a huge disappointment this year, as were radishes.

I expect the harvests will start getting better and better since I'm growing plants I've grown before and know (kinda) what I'm doing. Still though, I've really enjoyed having the garden this year. I seriously suggest it for everyone, even if nothing more than a cherry tomato plant in a big ol' pot on your porch.

It's good for the soul. And lately, I've felt the need for more of that kind of thing.

Dirt Watch - Continuing the Micro-Harvests

I just harvested the two largest carrots and two largest radishes from the garden. They were all very, very tiny. But tasty! Bonus because the rabbits are going to love the fresh, fresh carrot greens and get to try radish greens for the first time.

I'm pretty convinced that I need a drip irrigation setup for next year and will need to add fertilizer too, because most of the early crops are running really late and not thriving.

Gardening is not an instant-satisfaction activity.

Tomatoes and cucumbers are going great guns, there's already fruit started on all three varieties of tomatoes (Roma vine, cherry and beefsteak). The cukes are starting to climb the trellis now and have tons of the little yellow flowers that mean it's ready to start putting out edibles.

Dirt Watch - Attack! Edition

During last week's lunches, I packed a few snap peas picked from my garden. Yum.

Then one evening I went out to water and discovered that the garden was under attack by vicious things. One thing was certain, they loved broccoli, to the tune of completely deforesting one plant, damn near the entirety of a second, and were well on their way to devouring a third. I referred to them as "Broccoli Worms", for lack of any better name, but later found out they're called Cabbage Worms*. Go figure.



Normally, I'd be upset at the carnage, but the broccoli was doing nothing this year. Two of the plants pretty much bolted and went to seed almost immediately and the third was only just beginning to develop the edible head - way late and probably too bitter to eat. So I figured I'd live and let live.

Then this happened.



You can tell how quickly it happened by the blur, he was moving so quickly the camera could barely catch it!

That's right, the little peckerhead attacked me! He went from slow munch-machine on auto-pilot to bloodthirsty and life threatening in the wink of an hourglass.

I pulled the broccoli plants, death spawn and all, and tossed them into the compost heap.

And here's the rest of the garden beds.



In the two bottom left squares you can see the damage those worms did. Those stalky green things are the main stems of all the leaves they ate - overnight! Yowza!

Right above them are parsley and basil, then eight bush bean plants. Those bean seedlings are like two weeks old. I'm not a green bean fan, but the rest of the family loves them, so they're worth planting (have I said that before? Deja vu.) At the top are two green pepper plants. On the right, next to the broc-stalks are two Roma tomato plants. They're doing well and just starting to climb the netting. North of them are my snow peas. This hasn't been a good year for peas, and I'm not sure why. On the other side of the tomatos and peas are some spinach and lettuce, neither of which are doing so hot. I have theories to test.



In the top right sqare of this one are some lettuce, not doing great but getting there. To the left of them are two thriving cucumber plants, next to them are two squares of Swiss Chard I re-planted after the first did nothing. Bad seeds? Bugs? Dunno. Top left are two squares of carrots that are doing well. At the bottom are two squares of radishes that are doing good, and then finally snap peas. They look raggedy but have been producing ok.

Not pictured are two large pots with a cherry tomato plant and a beefsteak tomato. They're doing great, but they're getting more sun where they are.

So now you're caught up on... Dirt Watch, 2011!

* I originally called them Anthonys, because they're camoflaged, vaguely penis-shaped, and no one can identify them with any certitude. Topical! Git yer hot Topical right here!

Garden Buddy

This little lady is a Venusta Garden Spider, and we've been co-existing out in the garden for a couple of weeks now. I first spotted her orb web after a drizzle, when it was holding water droplets like strings of pearls along its entire structure. Very pretty. I finally spotted her hunkered down under cover, waiting for the rain to end.

When I go out to the garden, I usually glance over to make sure everything is ok with her. She's usually sitting under the center of her web (the business part of the web is about 8" across, but the structure itself is about twice that), waiting for dinner.

After our big big rain the other day, I went out back and spent a quiet little while watching her rebuild her tattered home.

The truce holds as long as she doesn't startle me.

Bounty

This photo shows the first of my garden harvest for 2011. A single sugar snap pea. It looks a little silly sitting there all by itself, but I decided to take photos of all the veggies I grow this year on this small platter, for future reference and comparison purposes.

Thinking back, I believe this is the first edible thing I've ever grown from a seed.

It was delicious.

Dirt Watch - Holiday Edition

Around here, Mother's Day is when you can start putting in plants that can't handle frost: tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and such. I'd bought some of each early this week, and have been slowly getting them into the ground as time allowed.

Today I finished up by planting bush bean seeds (a little late, but they should be ok). I'm not a green bean fan, but my family is, so eight of the little guys went in.

Also in the ground is more Swiss Chard. The original ones didn't fare well, and I think only one is still alive. I replanted there and added a couple more squares worth.

I have two tomato plants in big pots. One's a beefsteak variety and another of cherry tomatoes. In the boxes there are two Roma tomato plants. These beasties will climb the net trellis and are supposedly great to make tomato sauce. I've had good luck with tomatoes in the past, so I'm optimistic.

Also in the ground this week are cucumbers, a couple of green pepper plants, a square of parsley, and another of basil.

From the original seed stock I started with, the carrots seem to be doing great, as are the radishes. The lettuce and spinich is finally taking off, and the peas (snow and sugar snap) are climbing the net and already pushing out a couple of little pods. I'm pretty much writing off the onions this year.

I think I've made some basic mistakes during this initial year of Square-Foot Gardening. First off, I don't think I watered enough early on. I'm thinking about adding a drip irrigation setup next Spring. Second, I really need more sun in the backyard. I took out some overarching branches from the neighbor's tree, which helped, but I've got one massive branch about 45' up on a maple in my yard that needs to go (I want to get rid of the whole tree - maybe next year). I can do it from the ground with my rope saw if I can get the thing up and over the branch. Sounds like a project for this weekend, eh?

Thirdly, I didn't put enough dirt mix into the boxes to begin with. On the plus side, I used 2x10's instead of 2x6's as recommended, so even with the settling of the mix I'm still barely ok. But I need to really overload the boxes next time.

My final problem is that I bought into the hype about not needing fertilizer. I got some slow-release general purpose stuff that I've started adding to the dirt. We'll see how that works out.

Aside from the food crops, I planted a Hibiscus for Liz (because she wanted one, I give it 50-50 about surviving our Winters) and a few boxwood shrubs. Dusty Millers and Impatiens (the ol' go-to) are in the front bed and should be spectacular as they spill out between the pickets of the fence. Mucho hardwood mulch went in today.*

That pretty much wraps up the garden prep for the season. All that's left is to water and enjoy.

* I don't get this new "rubber" mulch. They claim it doesn't rot and will last for years. To me, the idea of mulch is that it does compost and improves the hell out of your soil - year after year after year. Oh well, what do I know?

Dirt Watch - Weekend Edition

Planted two squares of lettuce today, eight heads in all. I'll plant another two squares in two weeks to stretch the harvest.

Peas and broccoli are doing great, spinach is sprouting like crazy and the radishes are already popping their zesty little greenery up into the sunlight. My onions aren't doing so hot... I think. I have a couple that seem to be doing great, but most of them are just kinda there. Since they're underground doing their thing, I can't really tell if they're taking the final dirt nap or merely resting. Time will tell.

No word yet on the Swiss Chard or the carrots. For some reason, because of the "Swiss" in the name, I feel like I must capitalize the chard.

Weird.

Concentrated Essence of Honey Badger

Alternate title: A whole heap o' stuff you don't give a shit about.

Dirt Watch. I planted broccoli and onions just before it snowed last week. Broccoli and onions don't give a shit! They're doing fine. I saw the first of the peas emerging (from seed). I did a nipple check and yes, I was excited. Something was fucking with the garden. I'm guessing birds. They scratched a couple of holes in the loose soil and knocked over some of my popsicle stick markers. I plant Swiss Chard today.

I camped out in the backyard again last night. Temps to the mid-30s. I tweaked my sleeping setup a little and was toasty comfortable all night. I've already told them at work that if the Government shuts down and I'm not essential, I'm going for a long hike.

To that end, I tested some trail recipes at work for lunch. Knorr (Lipton) parmesan noodles, powdered milk (Nido, not that nasty Carnation crap), butter buds and diced pepperoni. Throw it in a freezer ziplock, add near-boiling water to cover and tuck it into a cozy for 20 minutes. Freakin' awesome, and smelled good enough to make the local cubical denizens jealous. Did some curry rice the same way another day.

Our dog is wearing an inflatable collar for a few days. There's an area around his butt that's irritated and he won't leave it alone to heal. A little mockery ("li'l donut head") and some cortisone spray and it's looking much better already.

I'd ask if you enjoyed this, but I've been taking pointers from Honey Badger.

Warning: Content May Cause Elevated Heartrate

Yep, here's the threatened promised photos of this year's foray into Square Foot Gardening.

Two four foot square boxes, a modest start for sure. If this goes well though, I'll be harvesting an amazing amount of home-grown goodness out of here.



This is a better view of the mason line I used to grid the boxes. The wet area in the upper right is where I've already planted. Eight snow peas are in the two grids straddled by the trellis, and the two cornermost grids have four spinach seeds each.



Here's a detail of the trellises that I put together. Made of 1/2" steel electrical conduit, what annoyed me was that 40' of the conduit was less than $9.00, but those corner pieces (I needed 4) cost almost $16.00! I got the nylon netting from Amazon and tied it on myself (I have lots of leftover too). All told, those trellisi cost about $45.00 but should be good for many years, and they're strong enough to hold up anything I might want to grow.


I was hopeful, but I doubt this will live up to NogWatch.

Thrilling Update

Today was a busy day, garden wise. I built trellises for the cucumbers, tomatoes and peas out of electrical conduit and nylon netting. Once that was done, I planted the first of the peas and spinach.

Later I'll try to get pictures, but for now, just imagine boxes of dirt with string stretched all over the place.

Edge of your seat, innit?

Let The Weirdness Begin

Liz: What are these eggshells doing on the counter?
Me: Drying.
Liz: Let me guess, you're going to use them for some weird gardening thing?

Why yes. Yes I am.

It's that time of year again, when my thoughts turn to gardening. I have a green thumb, although I don't always apply myself. Mostly I grow flowers, but will occasionally get the urge to grow something edible.

Like this year. I've decided to do a little Square Foot Gardening. I've planned out two four foot square beds and have started to get things together.

The fundamental bit here is that you use raised beds, lined with landscaping cloth on the bottom to prevent weeds. Then you fill the boxes (mine will be framed with 2x10's) with a mixture of peat moss, vermiculite and compost. Notice what's missing? Yep, no dirt. No topsoil. No "potting mix".

The other important thing is the "square foot" bit. You plant the beds in one foot plots. So for my first try, I'll be planting 4 squares of lettuce (16 plants), 2 of carrots (32 total), 2 each of spinach, broccoli and green beans, snap peas *and* snow peas (trellised), cucumbers (ditto), plus more! The idea is compact and intensive growing and harvesting. When a crop is done (for example, carrots), then you immediately plant the next crop, whatever it may be. You can add compost or a little fertilizer as needed, and because of the growing medium there is very little weeding to be done.

And y'all get to share in my little gardening adventure.

You may recall a few weekends ago, Liz and I travelled four hours to buy bags of vermiculite. In the gardening world, that counts as adventure.

Oh, and the eggshells. You see, you collect them until you have a dozen or two's worth (rinsed, of course), then soak them overnight in a five gallon bucket of water. Use the water to give your peppers and tomatoes a drink. They love the calcium. Then you can crush the eggshells and spread them around your plants. Snails and slugs hate to crawl over them.

Spring Isn't (Quite) Here (Yet)

Seemingly overnight, Crocus have sprouted and are blooming in the front flower beds.

Hippies and Hikers

Last weekend, a few "need to do" things fortuitously aligned so Liz and I spent a nice, long Valentine's Day weekend down in southwest Virginia.

I took Friday off and we headed down, eventually reaching Roanoke, Virginia. I had never been there before and was surprised at how big it was and by how beautiful the scenery is. Roanoke is seemingly surrounded by the Blue Ridge mountains, and the Appalachian Trail (AT) also happens to pass fairly close by.

First stop upon arrival was a trip out to Seven Springs Farm for vermiculite. This stuff is useful in gardening and almost impossible to find. Seven Springs is an organic farm supply place that not only stocks it, but has it at a very reasonable price. The only drawback was having to go pick it up myself, because shipping the stuff would cost as much as the vermiculite itself (it's incredibly light but bulky).

The online directions were... uh, less than useful. Luckily, our GPS took us more or less right to the place. Let me state for the record, that I still believe GPS should be a "trust but verify" kind of tool, but the more I use it, the more I believe it's made out of equal parts magic and awesome.

It was a beautiful drive. Over one mountain and partway around another, we were a good 45 minutes outside of Roanoke by the time we got there.

In the "small world" category, the folks from the farm had given a talk on organic and sustainable food production during a class Mookie took at Mary Baldwin college. I said that their website sounded like the place was run by "hippies", she laughed and said, "yeah, pretty much." Growing up in the San Fransisco bay area during the 60's, to me the term "hippy" is more a term of endearment than derision.

So we get to the farm, drive down a dirt road, find the store and nobody is around. Posted on the door is a list of things to do if nobody is there. This isn't the actual list, but it's close:

1. Honk your horn several times, wait a few minutes.
2. Go over to the house, knock and see if anyone is home.
3. Go into the store, use the phone to call ...... and tell him you're at the store.
4. Call ...... and tell Daisy you're at the store (she lives a couple miles away, so be patient as you wait for her).
5. Go to Daisy's house (directions below) and knock on her door.
6. Use the computer inside the store to send an email to ....... and let them know you're waiting.

And so on.

Liz and I waited a little bit and I walked around and checked the barns and sheds in the vicinity. No worries, on a weekend like this, I can be patient. Soon enough a truck pulls up and a guy gets out with a load of compost. Within minutes the farmer arrived too. He asked us what we needed (we were expected, I'd let them know via email beforehand), and we got directions to the "warehouse", which was another large barn down a couple more dirt roads.

We loaded up the bags of vermiculite, I paid and we all talked about gardening and farming for a bit, then we headed back to Roanoke. It had already been a long day.

The other big event in Roanoke was a hiker's gathering on Saturday. A couple of Roanoke locals had posted the idea on a forum I frequent that they'd like to host an evening of pizza and beer, just to get to know other hiker's from the area. If anyone else wanted to come, they were welcome to join in too. The idea caught fire, and in a few weeks their were almost 30 people coming. It also grew to include a Saturday morning hike and maybe a slide show or two from folks to show some of the trails they'd hiked.

A quick word about hikers on the Appalachian Trail. Many take on "trail names". Sometimes the name is bestowed upon them by other hikers because of a memorable trait or moment, sometimes the hiker names him or herself. Either way, there's usually a story. Not surprisingly, my trail name is Rocket Jones.

I opted out of the hike. This was a valentine's weekend for us, so spending time with Liz was my first priority. Besides, I'd be gone to the gathering most of the evening, and Liz didn't want to go to that.

Those who hiked went up to McAfee Knob, a landmark on the AT. Here's one of the iconic pictures of the trail.

Most everyone who hikes by McAfee Knob takes a photo, but only the bravest sit on the edge like this. You can also get an idea of the view from up there.

Personally, I've seen way too many RoadRunner cartoons to sit like that.

In the photo, by the way, is Caitlin. She came down from the University of Miami, Ohio, with her friend Sunshine and Sunshine's dad Kerosene. He drove from Ann Arbor, Michigan to pick up the girls and just kept right on driving to Roanoke. Kerosene is a section hiker, he's done about 1500 miles of the AT, section at a time as his vacations allow. Someone who does the whole 2200 miles in one go is known as a thru-hiker.

So yeah, Kerosene and the girls got the award for mostest out-of-town. Jersey Dave came in second, and my measly four hour drive was almost nothing in comparison.

The gathering was held at a great place in downtown Roanoke, hosted by Hikerhead and J5Man (real names are Don and Jeff, but most of us only knew each other via forum/trail names). Lots of good beer, good pizza and great conversation. Much putting of faces to names. I met Graceful Roll, who was diagnosed with Leukemia in November and spent most of December in the hospital (mucho goodwill and gifting sent to her once word hit the forum). She's just been cleared by her doctors to hike again and she still wore a goofy hat-thing to hide the after effects of chemo. After meeting her, I have no doubt that she'll kick its ass.

I spent a good bit of time talking to a nice older couple named Haranzo (I think his name was Henry and I can't remember hers at the moment). Turned out that they're the parents of John Haranzo, who had a new shelter built and named for him as a memorial on the trail (John's Spring Shelter). Henry is now the trail maintainer for a few miles of the AT, making sure the trail is clear of tree blowdowns, picking up trash, making note of any erosion problems, etc. He hikes up the mountain four times a week to do that, as a volunteeer. Later, it came out that Henry is 76 years old! I really enjoyed talking to them.

There were several great slide shows afterwards, but the highlight (for me) was CookerHiker's set from the John Muir Trail in California. This is the part of Yosemite that the lazy tourists don't see.


I left the party several hours later, full of pizza, stories and with lots of new friends. They're planning to make this an annual event, and I'm definitely going back.

On Sunday, Liz and I headed back home. As we drove up I-81, we paralleled the mountains and I think for the first time Liz realized that along those blue ridges the Appalachian Trail meandered, and that somehow, someday, I was going to walk those 2000 plus miles.