Yes we are April Fools in the Garden

April 1: Finished the demolition project. Garden was tilled and added 25 lbs. of bone meal added to the now 25'x 30' garden.

Transplanted Spinach and lettuce to the cold frames with the addition of watermelon radish's and more lettuce seeds.

We also burned more slash piles, since the rainy weather is permitting it.




April 3: Planted Carrots, Turnips, Parsnips and Peas ( the old-timers say it is way to early to plant...we will see how they fair this next month)I am feeling the need to push the limits of cold weather planting. I will keep you updated on my success and failures

(((perhaps someday we will invest in row covers))).



These short rows are 8.5 ft. long. I am anxious to see how many pounds of produce we will be able to harvest from this small space. It is just to hard to break my square foot gardening ways.


Peas planted after inoculant was added.


Levi and Corbin helped round up branches for the peas.


I love the idea of harvesting peas and then pulling the brush fence out...chickens can devour what is left on the branches and then be added to the burn pile. Should be easy peasy :) we will see!

The garlic is growing along quite nicely!

and just in case you ever wondered why I make soap....



These two grub worms may have something to do with it :)

March garden notes

Just trying to keep it all in perspective :-)

March 26 : Added 50 lbs. Alfalfa Pellets and 50 lbs. Beet Pulp to the garden. Weeded and cleaned herb garden. Began tearing square ft. garden beds out

We just needed more room to GROW!

Saturday was absolutely a beautiful spring day...The boys helped rake up logging debris.



after the rain the pellets swelled up, fall apart and are a breeze to incorporate.




Diggin' in and tearing out the old beds



Corbin doing a fine job!

March 30: Troy finished the cold frames and put them in place.



March 31: Cold frames were amended and filled with garden soil.

Spring Fever

I can hardly wait to get out in the garden and play in the DIRT and just couldn't resist a stroll out in the garden at the first sign of exposed earth.


The snow seems to be melting at a rapid rate now and I am so loving it!!!



Looks like I am not the only one excited...my hard workin' girls love to be let out free range. They all wanted their picture taken...Can you tell?





Guard kitty was on duty to make sure no one entered the garden.





Feels so good to get my hands dirty again ;-)



Found a pea sprout...



a couple rogue onions, sprouted garlic...



and some strawberries who are just as antsy for Spring as I am :-)

Tater Wagon

Not a bad haul for only being planted in a 4 ft by 4 ft. Bed. Of course there would have been more had we not gotten into them. New taters and peas...yummy!

Time to harvest green beans

Troy and I spent the evening after work having a drink and enjoying each others company while harvesting green beans. We decided to wash, blanch, Heat seal, and freeze this bunch as we both prefer the flavor and texture of frozen green beans over canned.

What I have learned

A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.

-Gertrude Jekyll

Tassle tops

We planted "candy mountain" an early variety of corn this year. The stalks will only reach about 6 ft. tall and yet they have amazed be by tassling out before the end of July. I am already drooling and dreaming of fresh corn even though there are no signs of any ears just yet. We will be waiting patiently;-)

Sweet Carotts

We had a fabulous weekend up at priest lake....We enjoyed swimming,boating, campfire hot dogs and sand between our toes for the entire weekend. With scorching temps I thought the garden would be a goner while we played the weekend away, but when we got home we noticed that everything held in there faithfully like champs. I immediately got to work and watered all my green babies. Filled the hummingbird feeders;-)and called it a day.



This morning I awoke to the magic of the sun dancing across my beautiful, peaceful garden. It was time to sneak a few sweet carrots and pick the Chinese pea pods that dangled in the morning breeze... Life is good!

It's a jungle out there...

Everything is growing in quite nicely and the garden is looking incredible!

Knee high by the 4th of July

Our corn is growing like madness and is actually taller than our knees...I sure hope we get plenty of ears as the corn is planted in a new garden bed. The weed block fabric is helping keep those nasty weeds at bay. What a pain to cut little X's in the fabric for each corn kernel at planting time....It is definitely paying off in the long run!



Tons of green tomatoes dripping with sweet summer rain



I am loving the organic Fish fertilizer from Neptunes Harvest..The garden gets fed every other Monday along with side dressings of our own compost.

Growing

"As the Garden Grows, so does the Gardener"