Beauty in Bloom

These sweet little Iris's are blooming by the back door...

I love how dainty they are and the foliage is a lot smaller than typical Iris blades. I received a start a couple of years ago and they are starting to fill in quite nicely. Such a joy to see them in bloom!

New Garden Signs

Troy actually got a rain out day this week and we were able to team up and make some fun new signs for the garden. This way he can stop asking me "now what is planted here"? ;-)

There was a reason we hung on to those scraps of maple flooring for 10 years. It took us a while but we finally found a use for them ;-)

We left the signs untreated as we love the weathered grey look...It may take them a little while to grey but in the meantime we will enjoy them as is.

Make her giggle

Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest. ~Douglas William Jerrold, A Land of Plenty

Update on the Garden

Look what's happening in the garden this week....


Tomato's are blooming



Peppers are safe and snug in their little micro climate



Corn has sprung up and is about 10" tall

Simple Salad

Life has been pretty crazy around the Maltba house lately with school getting out last week, Soccer practices, games, The Farm chick Show, and Troy working ridiculous hours.

It was a beautiful relief to walk out in the garden and grab the ingredients for our first salad of the Season. Just a simple salad but it was fresh,tasty and delicious and grown by us ;-)

Richard Scary

We added a new member to the family a couple of weeks ago and I am just now getting around to adding his mugshot to the website. As you can see he's not to scary and he's wearing all of Troy's work clothes;-)

I know better...

Than to stop in to the nursery here in town...I just had to grab some of these darling little English daisies to add to my herb garden...

Did I mention Troy is amazing!

Well he is....Amazing! We wanted to make our garden bigger this year and this past weekend he made it happen. Troy removed the fencing off the right side, added a couple new post's,extended the garden,tilled new growing section and replaced the fencing...ahh...the possibilities of what can be grown here makes my spirit so happy!

I got the job of amending the beds with all the natural compost and bunny poo we had left,added sprinkling of alfalfa meal,and a touch of ash and bone meal. Covered with a weed cloth barrier and staked it all in place.

We are both looking forward to what may be sown here on our sweet little piece of earth.

Wow what a difference a few weeks can make in the garden....I am so excited to get my garden going that I just couldn't wait. Parsnips,Carrots, Chinese Celery, Radish's, Potato's,Lettuce,Spinach,and Onions have all joined the Peas and are now in the ground as of Sunday and the Garlic has been happily relocated! I am definitely not having dilutions about the frost being gone as of yet...We will just have to watch the weather,be on our toes for frost warnings and take the necessary precautions of covering.

Barrel of Monkeys

The boys sure had fun rolling down the the hill with our old dryer drum. The dryer went ka-poot last fall and after line drying our clothes all summer our family realized we could live with out the dryer. While my friends can not imagine living with out one we have done just fine. I have to admit I do love a nice soft fluffy dried towel straight from the dryer like the rest of you but nothing beats the smell of pulling fresh sun dried laundry off the the line.

Garden turned

The snow has finally melted and we were able to get our hands dirty, turned the garden beds and thanks to the bunnies we were able to add lots of poop to the beds this past weekend. The leaf mulch from last fall decomposed perfectly and we were rewarded with a bounty of worms and night crawlers (Shhh... don't tell,the chickens just couldn't help themselves to a few of the plump little morsels).


The sugar snap peas were put in on Monday, lets hope with the upcoming rain and snow warnings for this week that they will be safe and sound.

We found a surprise under the leaf mulch...My garlic was already springing up! We put the garlic into a container to be relocated.


The chives are already up and at em'... I have been craving chives, so their timing is perfect!