Dill
Aside from lettuce, we haven’t harvested much this week aside from herbs. We used some parsley in a potato salad yesterday and also harvested some dill. I think we’ll use this on potatoes as well. All the herbs in our garden our going gangbusters and I need to remember to cook with them more.
Which herbs are you cooking with these days?
Sandy
PS: Find out what others have been harvesting by checking out Daphne’s Dandelion’s Harvest Monday post.
Orchard mason bee condo
Steve the bee guy installed the orchard mason bee condo a few days ago. Last year, Steve and I worked out a nifty arrangement. He uses my yard as a base for an orchard mason bee colony and I get the benefit of the bee pollination. This arrangement is great because it requires no work on my part. As you can see, this is a pretty large condo. Last year, he installed a smaller condo. If you click on the link, you’ll also notice that the bees were already out in force this time last year. Our cold, wet spring has the bees behind schedule as well.
Ranier cherry blossoms
It would be nice if the bees did hatch soon because the fruit trees are starting to blossom. The early plums have already blossomed, the cherries are blossoming now, and the pears and early apples will be blossoming in the next few weeks.
Basil cuttings
Although I’ve just started moving my tomato seedlings out the greenhouse (they are a little behind schedule), inside I’ve been creating new basil plants by rooting cuttings. A neighbor gave me some extra fresh basil she purchased at a store (for cooking) about a month ago and I’ve been turning that cutting into more and more plants. I’ll also start some from seed, but it has been fun to get some basil started this way. Plus, it was totally free.
Meyer lemons
Also inside, my Meyer lemon has actually produced lemons! Andrew has an idea that we’ll take these two lemons and make a big pitcher of lemonade. I don’t think they will stretch that far, but we will use them soon. Also, if you look closely in the tree you’ll see evidence of our indoor egg hunt.
Easter rooster
Finally, the kids thought it was hilarious to “hide” an egg behind the little rooster statue. It was pretty funny and clever of them.
Happy Easter!
Sandy
PS: I found a great article on A Way to Garden called “12 Asparagus Don’ts.” I know I did at least a few of these don’ts, which might explain why I’ve had so much trouble with my asparagus bed.
Bok choy for stir fry
Recently, I’ve been posting about spring gardening tasks. I haven’t been posting as much about our spring harvests, which really are more fun. Today, I harvested a first batch of bok choy to be cooked in a stir fry.
Fresh spring salad
Last week I made this salad with a spring salad mix. Fresh spring salad greens taste the best!
Bunching onions
Also last week, I harvested this basket of bunching onions, which cleaned up nicely for yet another stir fry. I’m seeing a pattern here.
It’s so nice to really start eating out of the garden again. It makes all the work worthwhile.
What are you eating from your garden these days?
Sandy
Mole-proofed beds with new paths
Today, we finished the mole proofing project. All told, we dug out eight existing raised beds, installed hardware cloth, and then refilled the beds. We also built two new beds, installing the hardware cloth up front this time. Take that moles!
Just as we finished up the mole project, we started another project. Yes, I’m a glutton for punishment. When we built the raised beds, we did so over a grassy area. Well, the grass around the beds has been driving me nuts so I decided today that I would put down thick landscaping fabric and crushed rock around the beds. We’ll work on this one on and off over the next few months. It’s about as much fun as the mole-proofing project. 😉
In the pic above, you can see the bed with the bean towers. This bed was my failed asparagus bed. Since we had to dig it out anyway, I removed the few crowns that were left and planted them in another part of the yard where they might be able to naturalize. They might just die. I’m going to need to start over with asparagus anyway (maybe next year) and at least this way the few good crowns have a shot at doing something. In this bed, I planted two varieties of celery (Utah and a red variety) and day neutral onion sets. I bought a small batch of these at the Territorial Seed Store when we were traveling through Oregon.
You can also see that the beds have been freshly mulched. We’re continuing with our fall clean up (yes, sadly late I know) and raked a bunch of Big Leaf Maple leaves today. Derek raked most of the leaves and then ran them through our mulcher. We then spread them out on the raised beds to act as a mulch. As they break down, they will serve as a good soil amendment.
Shiro plum in full bloom
The Shiro plum is the first of our fruit trees to bloom each year. And every year (so far) it provides a huge crop of plums. It is the easiest fruit tree I have. On Friday, we had some nice sun in the afternoon and the bees were out pollinating the tree. I hope we’ll have a good crop again this year.
How is your spring gardening coming along?
Sandy
Coffee grounds and egg shells
If I lived in the sunny south, it would be possible to breakfast in the garden with a nice plate of eggs and coffee (if I drank coffee) and enjoy myself as the sun warms the day and awakens the already vigorous spring plants for another burst of growth. Well, I don’t live in the sunny south and right now the only eggs and coffee in the garden are the ones I’m using as amendments.
Raised bed sprinkled with egg shells
One nice benefit of having chickens is that we have a lot of eggs. This means we have a lot of egg shells. Egg shells are a great soil amendment. Not only do they add useful calcium to the soil, they also work as a slug deterrent. Apparently slugs don’t like slithering over the crunchy, scratchy shell bits. To use eggs in the garden, rinse them after cracking. Let them dry completely and then chop them up in a food processor. You’ll get a nice texture for sprinkling or digging into beds.
Coffee grounds sprinkled around blueberries
We also save our used coffee grounds. Coffee grounds can be added to compost piles (as can egg shells) or you can sprinkle them around acid-loving plants such as blueberries.
Well, there’s my breakfast in the garden. Maybe this summer I’ll be able to breakfast in the garden for real. 🙂
Sandy
Trench method for growing potatoes
This year, I am only growing one potato variety. I’m dealing with some space constraints since we haven’t added as many new beds as I thought we might so I decided to grow just my favorite variety, La Ratte, which tends not to be easily available in stores. La Ratte is excellent for soups and salads and also tastes really good sautéed with onion. Last year, I grew potatoes in grow bags, which worked out OK, but I found the bags were a bit of a pain and decided to grow in a bed instead this year. To grow the potatoes in the bed, I’m following the method outlined by Laura at The Modern Victory Garden. Check out her useful guidance there.
Wire cover for potato bed
After I finished planting the potatoes, I stretched out some wire fencing material to cover the bed. This is in an attempt to keep dogs out of the bed. It’s not uncommon for me to find dog prints in my freshly planted beds and the bone meal makes this bed extra tempting to dogs. I hope it works.
The rhubarb bed
Elsewhere in the garden, the rhubarb is breaking through the ground. A few weeks ago we added this 3 X 3 bed just for rhubarb. I moved the one plant I had and added a few new rhubarb roots. Rhubarb plants take up a pretty good amount of space and I wanted an area where they could stretch out without problem. So far, so good on this bed.
I also noticed today that the peas I planted over a week ago are popping up through the soil. I was a little worried that I’d have to start over with the peas because right after I planted them we had a number of days of non-stop heavy rain. Looks like they’ll make it as well.
Happy gardening!
Sandy
Chickens eating their scratch
I haven’t posted about the ladies for a while. This is our third year with chickens. Right now, we have a flock of seven hens. We’ve got one Australorp, one Barred Rock, two New Hampshires, one Golden Sexlink, and two Delawares. The ladies are currently staying in their winter home, which is a coop near the house. In a few weeks, once the pasture starts growing a bit faster, we’ll move them back to the coop in the pasture.
Eggs
You know spring is here when the egg production significantly increases. Our seven ladies are now producing an average of five eggs per day. That adds up pretty quickly and allows us to have extras to share with friends and family. It also means we have plenty for making really yummy egg salad.
Of course, it’s also baby chick season and I’m contemplating whether or not to get 3 – 4 more babies. Some of our hens are getting older and it isn’t uncommon for us to lose a chicken or two during the spring and summer when they are in the pasture. I haven’t made a decision yet, but am starting to think about it. We’ll see!
Sandy
Raspberry raised beds
Finally! A nice sunny day on the weekend. Today was the perfect day to get caught up on some spring gardening tasks. First, following the instructions by Tom @ Tall Clover Farm, I started by pruning the raspberry canes. I took out all the dead wood and trimmed the canes to about 4′ tall. In retrospect, I probably could have thinned the canes out a bit more than I did. Maybe I’ll take a second pass at this tomorrow. I also thoroughly weeded the beds.
Strawberry beds
After the raspberries, I tackled the strawberry beds (well, two of the three beds). Last year, I put in the bed you see at the bottom of the picture. I weeded this bed and cut back the strawberry foliage. Behind this bed, you can see the new strawberry bed. Before planting the new strawberries, I had to fill the bed with soil. Of course, to make this extra fun, I had to wheelbarrow the soil to the bed and the pile of soil is downhill from the bed. So, 10 or so uphill wheelbarrow loads (and one very tired person) later, I had the bed filled and then proceeded to plant the new plants. The third strawberry bed is an old bed that I’m going to neglect this year. We’ll probably get some strawberries from it but I’m not going to put any effort into and we’ll do a total rehab of that bed next year.
(And yes, in the pic above you see my kid making a mud mess out of the freshly planted strawberry bed.)
Weeded garlic bed
Last fall I planted three varieties of garlic. The garlic is looking great, although the weeds were enjoying the soil as much as the garlic, so I weeded this bed as well today. That makes a total of four beds prepped today.
And now, on to the rat (or rats) in the greenhouse. We put a couple of giant rat traps in the greenhouse a few days ago and found a very dead rat in a trap this morning. We’re going to do some more rat-proofing this weekend and will keep the traps in place for the duration.
Sandy
Seed starting under grow lights
Just as the rats must die, seedlings must die as well. Seed starting invariably involves the process of thinning, which is a nice way of saying purposely killing some of the plants. When I planted my tomato seedlings, I planted them four seeds to a pot. Sometimes germination is poor and the extras are there to make sure you get at least one healthy plant (hopefully) per pot. My tomato germination this year was really strong, which means I had to thin the plants. I kept the strongest plant in each pot and pulled out the rest. I also repotted the plants to bury the stem of the strongest plant deeper, since the stems will root and help create a stronger root system for the tomato plant.
At the same time I took care of the tomatoes, I planted eight packs of “Royal” sweet pea plants, two more lettuce packs (“Parris Island Cos” this time), a hot pepper combo mix, a pepperoncini, and a couple of packs of onion, “Candy” variety.
As you can see, I have no more space under my lights. I’m going to need some of these babies to move on out before I can get my other summer crops started. I’m sure more seedlings will die in the process, but so goes the circle of life in the garden.
Sandy
Peach blossoms in greenhouse
Before I discuss some of the nasty beasts in my garden, I wanted to start with the pretty blossoms of the mini peach and nectarine trees in the greenhouse. I think I’m going to do some hand pollinating in there today. With the dreary rainy weather we’re going to have all day, these harbingers of spring will help perk me up a bit.
Now on to some nasty beasts. Derek (no, he’s not the nasty beast) had some big excitement last night. He shot a rat with his .22 pistol. He never takes his pistol out of its hiding place, but last night he had good reason. Rats have moved into the greenhouse and we want them out. Not only have we found tell-tale rat droppings, the little suckers have been eating the plants in the greenhouse. Apparently, the find a mixed green salad of lettuce, kale, and baby pak choi quite tasty. So, after shooting one rat and hopefully scaring the other off for the night, we’re going to have to add greenhouse rat-proofing to our garden to-do list. We’re going to block where they’ve been getting in and set up some rat traps for good measure. The rats must die.
Worm bin
Now on to better creatures. My brother-in-law Jeff has a friend who wanted to give away her worm bin. Of course, I’m not one to turn down a free worm bin, so we took it. The kids call it their worm farm. Looks like we’ll be giving worm composting a try. We placed the worm bin close to the back door of our kitchen so it will be convenient for throwing food scraps into.
Raised bed with hardware cloth
Now back to the bad critters. Our fight against moles continues. We’re setting up some new raised beds this year and with the new beds, we’re mole-proofing them from the beginning. Each new bed will be lined with hardware cloth before being installed in the garden. For the existing beds, the retroactive hardware cloth installation continues. Ack!
Topsoil and compost pile
New beds need to be filled with soil. Yesterday, I had 5 yards each of organic topsoil and compost delivered. I always order a bit more than I think I need, but dang, this is a lot of dirt! This will mean a whole lot of shoveling and schlepping in the wheelbarrow. I guess I’ll consider this part of my overall strength training exercise routine for the next few weeks.
Next week, I hope to post more about what’s growing in the garden instead of the maintenance, set up, and critter eradication tasks we’ve been doing. Right now, the garden seems all work. Next week, I’ll post about some of the fun.
Sandy
The 10 Year Challenge 