The Gardening Edition

I know everyone and his/her dog are talking about what they are growing right now, but I'm going to too because 'tis Spring and a homesteader's thoughts turn to gardening fancy.

To complement this whole gardening post, I've added a "garden seeds" (Hometown Seeds) link on the right hand side, and I invite everyone to check out Theresa Loe's amazing gardening blog, Garden Fresh Living.

On our little homestead, dh has been busy planting and tending (while I sit on my fat duff and write stupid blog posts about it). Here he is, watering the broccoli seedlings:
Dh is trying a biodegradable corn-starch based cover to cut down on weeds. He's growing cabbage and broccoli through the cover.
I checked on our asparagus; alas, nothing is up yet.
Hmmm, the blueberries aren't doing much either:
Inside the greenhouse is a different story. Here are some kale that have over-wintered (among the weeds):
Dh started some (more) broccoli from seeds, along with celery, frisee, and red cabbage. Can't remember what the other trays were. Will have to ask him and come back to fill in. My mind is like a sieve. It's sad.
Here's ds#1 picking cilantro from the greenhouse. The tall stuff growing with the cilantro are leeks.
A close-up of the very cute leeks:
This is one of the fruit trees that we need to put into the ground; it's a nectarine. The others are a peach and a cherry.
More seedlings in the greenhouse, from left to right: choi sum, bok choi (which didn't germinate well, so there's hardly any there), and radishes.
And a peek at our house in its drab winter surroundings. The little plot you see in the foreground is what we call the small northern garden.
Well, that's it for now, folks. Not too exciting yet unless you're out there knee-deep in dirt doing the work. I forgot to mention that dh also planted carrots and beets. They're not the best spring crops; they do better in the fall when there's a much longer cool period for them to develop lots of sugar. But, it'll still be nice to have a few in the spring.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Our garden, a little tour

I promised I'd show you some pictures of and around our garden, so here goes...

This is one of our several semi-dwarf apple trees. They're about 6 years old, and not producing like the dickens yet. The fruits tend to be small and ugly (we don't use chemicals), but the flavor is so complex, it's like the best Pink Lady you've never eaten. ;)I didn't get a photo of the Asian pear tree, but these are just a few of the fruits we harvested:I bought a couple of geraniums from someone selling them for 4-H earlier in the year, and, for some reason, they just never did very well. One of them is finally putting out a bit more bloom:...but the other has one foot in the grave, apparently:And speaking of grave, one of our summer squash plants bit the dust - a sad combination of the fruits not being harvested enough while we were away and borer worm damage.Sometimes, though, what looks like death just means it's ready to harvest. Take these sweet onions, for example:The yellow onions are not quite harvest-ready yet:We finally bought some grapes to plant this year! Here's a close-up of one of the 3 plants:From farther out, you can see they're kind of tiny and pathetic. Deer got to them one evening (before dh put up the fencing) and munched one heavily.The opposite of tiny and pathetic would be our tomatoes. Dh thinks it's because of the grass clippings mulch he's been putting on them, but these babies are 8 feet tall!We're growing several varieties, as usual, but these grape ones are especially cute and tasty:The corn is doing splendidly too:We had our first meal of it Friday evening. Look at those lovely ears: Wandering around, here are some of the (messy) leaks:and some mildly spicy yellow peppers that dh thinks might be Hungarian yellow:One of our green bean beds:The celery always does pretty well for us. Because we don't "blanch" them, they retain a very strong flavor that you'd never find in ones from the store.Inside the greenhouse, we have the Japanese eggplants which have never failed us yet. They're not bitter like the fat eggplants that are more common and the skin isn't tough either.And here's another killer tomato plant inside the greenhouse (notice how it presses on the ceiling?).Most people grow flowers to attract bees and other pollinators. We just grow flowering veggies, which are useful/tasty as well as pretty. Here's a bee on a gai lan (an Asian green) flower:Not from our garden, but this is the wackiest case of a dead frog. Yup, you read right: it's dead, but looks amazingly alive. Dh found it in the pool. Fascinatingly creepy.Do you have anything wacky or fascinatingly creepy to share? Hope you're all enjoying the weekend!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

More gardening fun

Sometimes when I'm talking to people and I groan about weeding, adding that "we have a big garden", some people reply, "oh, we have a big garden too." I always feel like saying, "um, you don't understand; we have a BIG garden."

Our garden has a little over 50 10x3 feet beds, not including the orchard area. Yes, I'm sure there are many people whose gardens are bigger than ours, but it's not usually likely, unless they grow for a living or are homesteading.

I'd like to take you on a little tour today. Here the kids are, helping us spread grass mulch on the plants. They're in the main fenced garden. In the foreground, you can see the north-side fenced garden where spinach, edible pod peas, and potatoes are growing.

The west end of this north garden has dh's "experiment". He's growing wheat this year, both to feed the chickens and also to use as straw bedding in the fowl hut. It's an experiment because he originally had put in wheat just as a winter cover and intended to pull it out in early spring. He got busy and the plants got too big, so it was on to Plan #2.You can see, behind the wheat, our greenhouse, one of the chicken tractors that our friends JGTH left for us when they moved back to the West Coast, as well as our shed (and the attached fowl hut).

Another part of the experiment involved digging holes in the middle of the wheat to grow our melons (watermelons, cantaloupes, and honeydews). A different experiment that dh is trying this year is using grass clippings as mulch. He found and bought a nice clippings catcher for his Toro mower from someone on eBay, and it's probably already paid for itself in making our grass clippings useful.

Here is it, mulching the tomatoes...and garlic...and strawberries...Red Russian Kale was a veggie that ds#2 picked for growing back in 2006, and it's self-seeded itself ever since. Love it when that happens!Lastly, on our tour today, we'll take a peek inside the greenhouse. To the left, you can see the cilantro flowering and going to seed with broccoli plants among them. In the back, we have onions growing in front of eggplants. And to the right is where dh was starting up corn and edamame - which is another experiment. Usually dh puts them right into the ground, but because we've had such a problem with voles eating the seeds, dh decided to sprout them first, then transplant them.This last photo is a close-up of the onions and eggplants:"Hope you've enjoyed this look at our garden. I've not shown you the stuff in the south garden, which includes carrots, choi sum, bok choi, raspberries, squashes, cucumbers, and more onions.

So, next time I complain about weeding, you'll know why! Do you enjoy weeding or do you dislike it?

Hope you're all having a lovely Sunday!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams