Look at all our Summertime blooms…
Gardening
Another Weekend…
Another garden project! We got alot of veggie gardening done as well as ornamental. Alot of work, but we are having fun. In the veggie garden I got transplants of pumpkin, cukes, basil, and cantaloupe all in the ground, as well as transplanting a few more peppers. I’m working on what is going to happen next as we have a full other growing season to think about. We can actually still plant corn if we want…crazy! I’ve been checking out gardening books from the library and practically inhaling them. I’ve got the bug bad all of a sudden. I’ve always enjoyed it, but lately it seems like I HAVE to get my hands dirty. I think it has to do with it being the very first time in our lives together, that we are actually producing our own soil, starting seeds from friends rather than just store bought, and really getting into the nitty gritty of biodiversity with having the chickens, successful composting, etc.. This is our home, and our gardens and we are really making things happen. It’s a really great feeling and quite addicting I must say.
Not only are we having a blast with the veggie garden, but our front yard ornamental gardening has taken a huge upswing. We did alot of work once again this weekend and changed the entire look of our front yard with a new rock garden and some plants. We went to the nursery to pick up some Hens and Chicks, and found an amazing deal on our favorite Poinciana – $15 for a 3 gallon pot and it’s just about ready to bloom as well. So worth every penny to us! We also got an Echinacea plant, which I’ve been wanting for awhile now. I actually want more than one, but I’m hoping this will reseed for next year. If not, I did get seeds this season, I just wasn’t successful at getting them to grow for some reason. So hopefully this one will take and spread the joy!
Here are a few pics of our work. Hope everyone is healthy and happy. Peace!
A Couple Pics
“Can’t I have just one? Please?”
The new planters out front, filled with our homegrown dirt and the Poincianas we grew from seed.
Closer shot of the planter nearest the front door with it’s Poinciana.
More to come, we also put in a small walkway that is the start of our paths threw our front garden. It’s evolving!
For veggies, I got some more seeds going in pots and we’ll see what happens. Cukes, cantaloupe, pumpkins and broccoli.
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I’m sure some of you are wondering why I’m posting a picture of dirt today. Well, that’s not just any dirt, no way. That is dirt that J and I worked on mixing most of yesterday (Saturday). That dirt is a mixture of the bottom of our compost (which we sifted), and the dirt in the chicken run. We’ve been working on this project for a year now, turning the dirt in the run every month or so (thank you to J for that!), moving around the compost piles and gathering the goodness that is made. We are very excited about this as it’s our first successful composting project! We have a few different piles going, one for dirt, one that’s new stuff and one that we use as mulch which has more hay from the chicken coop mixed in with it. The chicken run dirt has big fat earthworms in it too, so we know alot of good organic matter is in there! We feed the chickens alot of our kitchen scraps so what they don’t eat (which usually there is nothing left anyway), composts into their run along with their droppings. We replaced the dirt we removed with more composting hay, lawn trimmings, oak leaves, and dirt that needs to be reworked. We now have several piles of this goodness in different parts of the yard where we are planting.
It is so funny to get excited about dirt, but when you’ve actually created it yourself, it makes it much more rewarding! Thanks for indulging me! Peace!
Oh The Thrill Of The Harvest
We are starting to get some really yummy things out of our gardens. Here is a couple pics of this morning’s haul! YUM!
We are averaging 8 eggs a day – the neighbor’s love us! Haha! There are still plenty of potatoes growing, now with more room after this morning’s take. Plenty of green beans, both pole and bush. Our peas just got anhiliated in the sudden heat though…the girls were able to get a few before they just burned up. We’ve got several volunteer tomato plants with green fruit on them, so that will be fun! I have no idea how big they will get, but they are organic and homegrown so I’m not complaining. We are still pulling onions, although we lost one whole patch due to bad dirt I think. One area of our larger garden still has too much kalichi dirt in it, so we are going to be working on really making that area better. But the rest of our onions are just going crazy. We’ve never been successful with onions before and I realize why now, we were planting them too deep! This year we went much shallower and are much, much more successful. We have a ton of lettuce and chard that I just clip the leaves off when needed rather than pull the entire plants. And our cukes are starting to really take off, so hopefully should do well!
We are also going to experiment with watering by the moon. My sister was explaining to me her friend’s garden, which she says is an organic masterpiece. Apparently her friend waters deeply – 3 to 4 hours – everytime the moon is in one of the astrological water signs. From what we could deduce, you water deeply the first day the moon is in the sign and again the last day, then wait 5 or 6 days until it moves into the next water sign. After much research, the novice gardener that I am, discovered that this way of watering promotes much healthier and deeper root growth. It also means you water less, thus conserving at the same time. We are having such hot hot days now, that we are watering every other day already. So we figure we’ll try the deep watering method and see how it goes! I like the idea of gardening by the moon, feels very traditional.
We will be adding some new life to our little homestead in June. We are getting 10 baby broiler chicks from Barnison Farm. Jeremy, who owns the farm along with his lovely wife Alison, is going to help us when the time comes to process them. We did it on our own with 5 birds, but could definitely do it better. So we’ll take a trip to the farm when the chicks arrive and get a lesson from Jeremy on what NOT to do mainly. I’m hoping we can sweet talk him into allowing us to bring the birds out there when the time comes! We’ll see. We are looking on Craigslist for a freezer and will hopefully be buying a side of beef cuts at one point as well.
Our zukes haven’t fared well however. The squash vine borers pretty much attacked them right away. I’m going to replant as we did manage to get several fruits off each plant, and they grow so fast that maybe we can get another harvest in, wish us luck with that!
So that’s the garden update for now. Hope your Memorial Day Weekend is a good one!
Peace!!
Summertime Is Almost Upon Us
The Texas heat is starting to set in, the plants are growing like crazy, and our water bill is rising. But life is feeling alright. We are learning, growing, changing and loving our world more and more. With everything this last month, I’d gotten out of my normal habits of eating as healthy as we can, creating new things, and just enjoying our environment here to its fullest. Back to cooking with our own vegies, working hard in the yard and home, and just being. Our goal right now is to continue improving the soil down in the far back property – we have alot of kalichi rock and dirt; expanding our produce base and improving aspects of the house that we can afford right now. We are starting from the outside in…so the front yard is continuing to evolve. It’s nice to feel motivated again…
Our new table on the front porch, courtesy of Mom and Dad:
Pole beans!:
Remember those tomato sprouts from a couple months ago? Here are some of the ones which made it, all heirloom:
Flower children!:
More Goings On At The Farm
A few days ago you got some blooms…today you get more farm pics. Things are growing like crazy now that the weather is warm. We are starting to enjoy some of the bounty on our dinner plates too! Oh, and I made the Minestrone Soup that I posted a few weeks back…one word, YUM!!! I used chard instead of spinach (we have huge chard plants growing now). I’d say about 75% of it was from our garden…can’t wait until we are consistently cooking 100% of our own homegrown.
So back to the pictures, these are just some of what’s growing, it’s very fulfilling…
Peace!
Potatoes:
Zukes!:
Radishes all in a row:
Is that a tiny bell pepper I spy?:
And the first tomato! We have about 25 volunteer tomato plants, plus another 20 or so heirlooms (the heirlooms are just now taking off, so we should see fruit in a few weeks on those). We have no idea what type of tomatoes these are:
Just a few of the pepper plants – we have about 50:
Pomegranates:
A huge rose bush on our fence. It’s got the most beautiful old fashion pink roses:
Kubra doing her thing:
June looking at me warily:
And of course, Mongo…who is full of personality and was very curious about the camera:
A Bouquet of Blossoms
Just pictures of some of the blooms currently happening here on the farm, along with a mama kitty. Peace!
Front Yard Is Evolving
We spend alot of time working on projects in the back – the vegie gardens, animal pens, studio, etc.. We realized that we’ve neglected the front as far as new plants go. I have a vision of this amazing ornamental garden. Full of interesting textures, colors, shapes, and height. So we planted some of that. It’s a start anyway…
Esperanza surrounded by Ornamental Purple Peppers:
Close-up of the Esperanza and Purple peppers:
Purple Peppers:
Yellow Peppers:
Tomato Goodness
Some of the 50 sprouts we have going in the kitchen window. These are mainly heirlooms – Summer Feast, Black Brandywine, Chianti, and Rainbow Harvest. Can’t wait!