Something is eating the tree bark

This morning while on the phone with my Dear Dad, I was looking up into the yard and I noticed that two of the smaller trees, in a group of many, had the bark stripped off of them.

Now the snow has melted quite a bit over the past week, so last week, there was probably 24 inches of snow at the bottom of those trees, and not having gone out into the yard yet, I would say the bark is gone from between the 12 inches above the ground and 24 inches above the ground.

Last week, Sylvester seemed quite interested in the underneath of the deck area.  I thought perhaps one of the local stray cats was hiding out of the weather under there.  Perhaps I am wrong.

Now, I will need to put on my snow boots and investigate for foot prints in the snow, IF there are any left to be found, AND also keep a closer eye on the yard when I let Sylvester out at night.

Two weeks later:

More of the snow has melted and while I was up at the top of the yard, near our neighbors shed, underneath which the rabbits live, the sucker starts are all eaten about two feet above the ground as well.  AND there is ALOT of rabbit poop near them!

So, I am confident in stating that the rabbits had a difficult time finding food while the deep snow was on the ground this winter.

Two more weeks later:

Today I was in the garden, trying to see if I could plant some pea seeds.  In the garden were still a few Brussel Sprout plants that had been left behind in the fall.  The rabbits had eaten each one until the stalk had become a woody point!  PLUS, they left behind a fair amount of rabbit poo in the garden.  My poor rabbit friends must have been so hungry this past winter.

I have seen both of them in the yard on the nicer days last week, so I am sure they will be having babies soon, and I'm okay with that!

Sowing Seeds indoors

I planted a flat of seeds this morning.

Each flat has 72 cells in it, or 6 sets of 12.  So to make things easiest, I planted 6 of each kind of 12 seeds today.

6 National Pickling Cucumber
6 Homemade Pickles Cucumber

6 Dwarf Blue Curled Kale (heirloom)
6 Dwarf Green Curled Kale

6 Copenhagen Market Cabbage (heirloom)
6 Tronchuda Cabbage (heirloom variety)

6 Matt's Wild Cherry Tomato
6 Martinos Roma Tomato (heirloom)

6 Sweet Cherry Blend Pepper (heirloom)
6 California Wonder Orange Pepper (heirloom)
6 Sweet Pepper Red Cherry

6 Cardoon Greens (compost pile)

I know, I said I was only going to do 4 of each kind of tomato, but I figure just in case all six seeds don't grow, or I can share the extra's.

The amount of pepper plants is such because we both like peppers and I would love to can some pickled roasted red cherry peppers.

The cucumbers I wasn't too sure about planting so soon, but I figured they would be larger at plant out time.  If they don't survive, I know not to plant time indoors so soon next year.  We like them for fresh eating, salads and canning.

The cabbage, I will plant a few here and then share the rest or plant them in the garden up at my fathers house.

The cardoon will go near the compost pile and I will use that as "green" to keep the pile going during the summer months.

Seed Starting thoughts

I am so excited this year.  I am going to try to plant some of the seeds for our garden.

Our Darling Boy gave me a gift card for Lowes (which I had asked for) and we purchased a shelf unit, two shop lights and bulbs with that, plus some of my Christmas money.  I have been itching to get it all together and get started, but I know that it is a bit too early yet.

So I continue to read and to plan.

Sometimes I think I plan too much though.  I become compulsive about knowing everything I can know and then I overwhelm myself and sometimes do nothing with what I have learned.  I don't want to do that this time.  I want this to remain fun, but I also want to be able to provide more food for us to help us keep expenses down and to become more self sufficient.

I bought three trays of 72 cells each and some starter mix for them.  And of course, I have ordered seed, and more seed, and, more seed.  Can you ever have too much?  Perhaps.

Part of my plan is to have the green beans in the ground along the deck and the lettuce and spinach planted into the rain gutters as early as possible. The beans will trail up the trellis, yet to be decided upon, and will help to shade the lettuce as the weather gets warmer and the sun gets stronger in the afternoons.  I am hoping that this will work in our favor.

I was not going to start tomatoes or peppers from seed.  I was going to buy them from the local nursery, but, I ended up buying seed.  I am planning to start four of each.  I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but, first, I want to see if I can grow them, and second, I plan to plant the tomatoes in the pots along the driveway and have not done that before.  I figure if all four seeds grow, I will give away the other three.  The peppers I purchased that I am really interested in are "sweet cherry peppers".  I recently bought some pickled peppers of this kind and liked them, so it is my hope that I can grow them and pickle them myself.  I am thinking that these will also go in pots on the deck so that I am sure they get lots of sun.  I will probably keep all four plants, if they grow.  We like peppers.

The carrots I will plant in the planter that Dear Darling made for me in the fall.  They are nice and deep and I don't have to disturb them at all, just water them.

I am also itching to get in to the actual garden, which will probably be a while with all the snow we've had this year.  I want to get the peas in as early as I can.  Partly for eating something fresh and green and partly to get the nitrogen into the soil.

The Frost is still there....

sigh.

I went out into the garden today, hoping that I could budge the ground some and plant some pea seeds.

The ground is still as hard as a rock!!  There were no peas planted for St. Patrick's Day or will there be for the first day of spring.

I envy those who have been able to plant already and I hope to be able to real soon.

Still problems

There are still problems with IE not working properly with blogger.  I guess I am just going to have to bite the bullet and look into installing firefox.

I am sorry that you haven't been able to comment, at least I hope there is someone out there reading that would like to comment.

Anyway, the posts will continue and I will find out about changing my search engine.

Have a good one.

How far do you want your food to travel?

Spring 2013

This is as far as I would like my food to travel.  As far as my own back yard.

Now I know that I won't be able to raise ALL of my food.  I'm not able to. I don't know I am going to try to make our yard as much of a garden, a food garden, as possible. We live on a small piece of land, that is on a definite slope.  So there are many challenges, but I've thought of some things to do to work around those challenges.

For me, my "food" will be what I can grow, basically vegetables and the beginnings of some fruits.

I've shared with you my journey so far with last years garden and how I am preparing for planting blueberry bushes this year so that in a year or two we will be able to harvest our own blueberries.

I don't want to say "I want to be able to grow 50% of my food" as I am not sure how much I can actually grow, but I do know, that I won't know if I don't try.  And so, I am going to try to grow more in my yard this year, than last.

I am also going to be growing things this year, that I am not sure that we are actually going to like and enjoy, but these are things we've never tried before.  Why?  Well, we are like most people, we tend to do what our mothers did.  So it's going to be about going outside of the "box" we've grown up in.  About going out of our comfort zone.  I look at it this way.  We may find some things that we really enjoy that we've been missing.  Maybe we've been missing them because our mothers never fixed them, OR they fixed them by cooking them to DEATH!

I wish I had decided all this 20 years ago so that I would have even more time to think about what we like and how to grow it.  If you are just beginning to garden, whether you are 10 or 50, try some new things as well as things you like.  Eat them raw, straight from the garden.  Try them steamed, blanched, roasted, or even boiled with no other seasonings.  Then, go from there.  Maybe you won't like them raw, or "plain", maybe they are good for stews or soups, or perhaps even breads or cakes.  Go outside of your "box" and comfort zone.

I'd love to hear any comments on what you are doing different in your garden this year.

Last Years Vegetable Garden

 

Last years vegetable garden was a true eye opener to me.

 

Carrots in October

 

 

I hadn't had a garden in many years, and I wasn't sure that with my ground and the slope, that I would be able to manage much of one.  But, with the help of my Dear Darling, and ALOT of work, we managed to have a nice yield for a first try.

 

 

Green tomatoes harvested before the first killer frost

 It makes me think about a lot of things, where growing your own food is concerned.  The past year has been not one for just my first garden in a while, but also of getting to be a "stay at home" wife.  To do that, I have had to simplify not only my "life" but our budget as well.  I had to learn to do new things and to stretch what I already know.

I learned how to use up the excess from our garden in ways I had never done before.  Such as the great tomato cake I made from all the green tomatoes that were there before the frost.

Brussel sprouts

 I learned that if I wanted to grow what we like, I had to try.  And the brussel sprouts grew just fine and we enjoyed a few harvests of them for our meals.  They were nice and fresh and they grew in our garden, they didn't travel a long distance to get here.

And more brussel sprouts

Tomatoes of several kinds that all grew well

 I love sauce, but tomatoes for me, are usually just a tomato or two on toast with Mayo and maybe some lettuce and I'm good for a year.  But, Dear Darling likes them on sandwiches, burgers and in his salads.  SO I grew a few different kinds, and we had them fresh, as well as dried and I even learned to can, on my own.  Something I am proud of and I look forward to doing next year.

Kale, never tried it before, shared it, loved it and will grow it again.

And, I learned to like Kale, as well as grow it.  I'm not really sure why I chose to grow it.  I guess it was because I had heard so much about it.  It is one of those things that takes a while to "like" it.  So at first, what I grew and harvested I gave to a friend.  She makes smoothies using Kale.  She is a cancer survivor and does what she can to eat healthy to stay healthy.  So I was so glad that I could give this to her and it would be used.  She was glad as well, as then she didn't have to buy and could use her budget towards another food item.

Then, I read about dehydrated Kale chips.  BINGO!  I was sold!  I made some, liked them and that was how the rest of the harvest was used.

Did it take a lot of time or effort to grow these things?  Well, last year, there was the time and expense of building the garden.  But as far as the actual time to grow them or the effort we put into growing them, no, there wasn't much done at all.

Now, all I can think of is this years garden and all the other "new" things I want to grow and try.  I am so excited by it all that I am having a hard time restraining myself from beginning to grow things from seed under my lights.

If you've never had a garden before, choose something you like, such as tomatoes or peppers, and grow a few in pots on your deck, patio or porch and enjoy knowing that you grew them, that they didn't travel far AND that you could.

The big spring project

We have a problem with our yard.  It's on a slope and in the past few years we've had at least one really HEAVY down pour of rain a year and so the water from our neighbors yards, who are above us, needs to go somewhere and we've found that it goes from one neighbors yard, who is the highest, into his neighbors yard, which is next door to him, but a bit lower and runs down our yard hits our house and pours down our stairs like a water fall.

Not good.

Water runs through this fence

Down past this planter

Down past the second planter

All the way down past the third planter

 

 

Wash out second year

 

 

Wash out the second year

 



Wash out second year

Wash our second year

Yes, this is how steep our yard is.  It has a lot of challenges. And since we are going to be here for a few more years, I would like to get more gardening use out of our yard.

I've been doing some reading and this year we are going to try to dig a trench at the top of the yard near the fence and put in a dry gravel bed that will run parallel with the back fence, under the fence that separates our yard and divert the water to run out the side yard without hitting the house or running down the side stairs.

Our yard, in areas where we have dug already, is mostly shale gravel with not much dirt.  Yes, dirt, not soil.  We don't know exactly how deep we will be able to dig this trench for the gravel bed, we would like to try for 12 inches, but I am not sure we will manage to get that deep.

We will also try to shape a swale, so that there is a slight berm at the bottom, or north side of the gravel bed, to help reduce the force of any downpour that may not run down the gravel bed.  I think the swale will help to disperse the water from pouring down with such force and at the same time also help to retain water in our yard and slowly disperse it over time.  On the other side of the swale I am hoping to make more garden space in the fall.

Updates to come, once spring is here.






Blueberry Guild

Here is my plan for the blueberry hugel that I started in the fall.

I have purchased the Maximilian Sunflower (seed), the Asters (seed), the Purple Coneflower (seed) and the Daikon Radish (seed).

The sunflower, aster and coneflower are to encourage the pollinators to visit not only the Blueberry Guild, but also my garden.

The Daikon Radish is to help pull nurtients from the subsoil and deposit them near the surface in the fall.  Plus the long root helps to break up the subsoil.  We aren't really radish eaters, but we will try a few of these to see what they are like.

I am planning to put in peas to help fix nitrogen into the soil and also the Nasturtium to help suppress the weeds.

I have not found a good source for the Comfrey.  I am still looking into that a bit further.  I think I would prefer the sterile one that I've read about, this way I do not have to worry so much about it spreading on it's own.  Once it is planted, that will be it's spot and I won't need to move it.  I would also like to plant some near my compost pile, which, it too will remain in the same place. I wanted this primarily for the compost pile and for mulching.  If you have a suggestion of where to get it from at a reasonable rate, I'd appreciate knowing. 

My blueberry bushes I will get locally.  There is a man who has a nursery at his home in the area and has a large selection of plants and trees that are grown locally and that he grows on his property.  I purchased some holly, hosta and rhododendron from him last year and they all did wonderfully once transplanted. I am hoping to get three different varieties so that I can have a nice, continuous harvest.

I am looking forward to having this area come together.  It is the first time I am trying to build a hugel and I'm excited to see how it is coming along.  The snow is still covering it.  Once I can work the soil a bit, I am hoping to be able to level the ground a bit more, as it still needs to come up on the one side as it is not level and with the settling it has done it looks rather lopsided.  I still would like to enclose the sides and we are working on gleaning some free wood to put around the sides to hold it all in place.