March updates

The weather this year has been oddly warm. Most of my MN friends are hesitant to plant anything because they can't believe spring is already here. The trees and grass have given up on winter and are putting on their spring outfits. I did put some peas and radishes (that sort of thing) into the garden. I just got finished with putting in a new compost/garden bed and planting seeds. I'm really not very good at starting plants from seed, so we'll see how that works. I've got apple trees arriving next month and lots of other plants to put in the ground, put it seems a bit early for MN.

winter garden dreaming

It's winter. That means time to plan the garden! We now live in zone 4. In Missouri we could, almost, get two seasons of growing in. Here it is one season, period. And you better be pretty choosy as to which varieties you grow. Every garden is a new chance to learn. I wish my summer gardens would grow half as wonderfully as the gardens I grow in my dreams in the winter.

the tree is gone

Just giving evidence that we cut down the huge tree in our backyard. The stump is under the snow, the pile of mulch is the mountain of twigs we shredded up, the wood stacked against the back fence is a whole lot of firewood for future years.

large tree down

Wow, I skipped blogging the entire month of November! Things continue to roll along here at the homestead. We had that huge tree in the back taken down, and stacked all the wood and shredded up the twigs. Because of the threat of the Emerald Ash Borer the local municipality no longer hands out wood mulch for free. And the tree people we used didn't own their own shredder. So we rented one. I'd have to say, don't bother. It cost money to rent the chipper/shredder, it took ALL DAY to shred up a tree's worth of twigs and the mulch isn't that good. It's "sticky." Lots of big sticks. On the plus side the mulch pile takes up far less room than the twig pile did, but it just wasn't worth the amount of time/effort/expense we put into obtaining that small pile of low quality mulch. What we do have, as result of taking down the tree, it a whole lot more sunshine in the back yard and a very large stack of fire wood. I had a gardening friend come over and we decided where the different plantings are going to go.

progress

Just an update on how the gardening stuff is going. We put in a second compost pile/future garden bed. The white tulle over the top is just fly prevention. It's getting cooler so that probably isn't really needed anymore. The wood pile is from the dead tree in the front yard that we had removed. The gorgeous tree in the backyard will be removed. It is a beautiful tree and I'm going to remove it because it shades every hope I have of a garden. That gorgeous tree is going to be turned into a massive wood pile. I'm also going to chip/shred the twigs into garden mulch-compost starter. Lots of plans.

decisions decisions decisions

I'm looking over the yard and trying to decide what to plant, where to plant, how to plant. I feel like I have been presented an embarrassment of riches with all the space I have, and I don't want to mess it up. The soil isn't very good, but I was planning on doing raised beds, so that isn't a major concern. What is a concern to me is that I've heard reports of killer compost. The big chemical companies have bred herbicide seeds that have entered the composting system and as a result the compost is toxic to plants (other than the specific plant it was bred for). Here where I live there is fairly easy access to free compost, similar to what I had in St. Louis, but now I'm freaked out over the killer compost and I'm not sure I can use the free compost. I just don't see how I can produce, in my backyard, the amount of compost that I normally use in a year's time. ARRRGGGGGG.

master gardener

I applied to be a master gardener here in Minnesota. We'll see if they want me. I'd really like to do this. It is a volunteer, community service job. Not a paying job, but a service opportunity. I'd get to be trained by the University of Minnesota gardening experts and then I would be a community liaison and occasional teacher. I like the idea of promoting gardening, especially food gardening.

let the gardening begin

OK, so I'm just taking baby steps, but this is the start of my garden. I've got one plot, which will have composting stuff dug into the dirt until I can make it into a decent compost pile, next year this will be my first garden bed. In the plastic tub are my "Joseph Smith Memorial Tomatoes." When we were coming back from vacation we stopped by Palmyra, New York to visit the Sacred Grove and see a few sites from church history (sighhhhh, I wish I could've spent longer). At the Joseph Smith farm house they have a working garden and they were giving away some of the extra tomato plants. I took three of them and we'll see how they do!

apple trees

The apple trees are so beautiful. I've never gotten over the wonder of apples. I never tire of the dark pink buds unfolding into white petals. The warm spring sunshine encouraging the bees to flit like electrons around the tree. I feel like this is a play I never get tired of watching. After the stunningly beautiful overture, then the villains, the aphids invade, like they always do, threatening to destroy the trees by eating all the young leaves, then enters our heroes, the lady bugs who wipe out the aphids by eating everyone. This allows the tiny apples to grow, but they always have one difficulty after another. Yet at the end of every season I have delicious apples to eat. Some years bushels and bushels, some years just a bag or two. But the play goes on every year. And every year I enjoy it. This year I'll only be able to stay for the first couple of acts. I'm going to miss the finale.

total lack of garden

This is sad in several ways. The apple trees are at their most beautiful, they are blossoming and gorgeous. We won't be here for the fruit they will produce. The other picture is of the backyard sans garden. It there is a little garlic growing in the back of the bunny coop, but other than that nothing. We tore out all the squares and spread grass seed over the old garden squares. With all that compost they ought to grow a lot of grass!

Year end totals

Just to make it official-- the total garden produce for 2010 was 761 lbs.

I wish I could set a goal to increase that for next year, but 2011 is so uncertain, because we're moving. I just hope I'll have a garden all set up and ready to go for 2012! As soon as we have our new place I'll be planning the fruit trees and fruit bushes. Those take years to get going, so I want to plant them asap.

Looking over the past year it was good in many, many ways. I feel like I got too involved with the soap business to do the garden full credit but I did get a good amount of food off of our little piece of land. The apple trees produced well. The strawberries produced enough to put some in the freezer. While it was technically on our land we did harvest wild blackberries from Sunfish and they were amazing! We got lots of beans, tomatoes, peppers, and onions from the garden. I love my garden and I love the feeling of self sufficiency it gives me. I'm hoping (SOOO MUCH) that I'll be able to find a little house with a nice spot of land that will be garden friendly.

November totals

Nov 2010 totals--

eggs 13 x 2.1oz= 27.3oz
Tomatoes 64.9oz
Chinese cabbage 8.8oz
peppers 12.4oz
broccoli 28.3oz
Total 141.7oz OR 8.9 lbs

total garden produce for 2010--- 761 lbs

I really don't expect it to go any higher. The chickens are on their winter strike (plus they are getting older, but I'm sure they'll lay a bit more in the spring). The garden is all done, other then the wintering over of garlic and wheat. I did attempt some winter lettuce, but it got to be too much of a hassle hauling it in and out of the house on cold nights, so I fed it to the chickens and that made them very happy. SOOOO I'd say, baring an unforseen event, my garden produce total for the year 2010 is 761 lbs. That is a a bit more then my 2009 total, but not by much. They're about the same.

fall gardening

Here's my attempt at fall gardening. Broccoli, Chinese cabbage and cabbage. Fall gardening is so easy. Fall gardening means stick it in the ground and ignore it. The broccoli is looking good, the cabbage is basically vermin attacked and useless. Of course that was the state of my cabbage last spring, too. The Chinese cabbage is amazing. It grows well in the spring even better in the fall. It could be the perfect garden plant. I use Chinese cabbage in.... Chinese stir fry. It works great. All three of these vegetables are frost resistant, they'll freeze when a bad cold snap hits, but they do fine in a light frost (which is what we get this time of year).

garlic and wheat

I'm trying something new this year. I planted winter wheat. This is one of those rare garden crops that you plant in the fall and harvest in the spring. The wheat looks like grass right now. I'll ignore it until the spring harvest. The other green growing thing is garlic. Easiest thing to grow ever! Stick in the ground in the fall pull out of the ground in June. I love this sort of gardening.

October totals

October
49 eggs x 2.1oz = 102.9
tomatoes 149
beans 7.7
peppers 72.5
yard long beans 7.4
bok choy 34.7
chinese cabbage 13.0
onions 1.0
sweet potatoes 310.4
October total 698.6 = 43.7 lbs
2010 year to date total 752.1 lbs

Things are slowing down, gardenwise. I am very impressed with the bok choy and the Chinese cabbage. Both of those are fall vegetables that did better than I expected.

fall gardening

I pulled up the sweet potatoes. I got almost 20 pounds worth. They were huge (and did I take pictures? N0). Sweet potatoes are the easiest thing to grow. Stick the slips in the ground in the spring, pull sweet potatoes out of the ground in the fall. I'm trying something new this year. I planted some winter wheat. We'll see if anything comes of it. The idea planting it like you plant garlic. You stick it in the ground in the fall. ignore it over the winter, it will grow a little in the fall and continue growing as soon as possible in the spring and be ready for harvest in early summer.

chinese vegetables

Garden update-- bok choy and chinese cabbage work great as fall vegetables. I've tried to do bok choy as a spring vegetable and it just doesn't work. I was thinking I just couldn't grow it at all. So in early fall/late summer I literally poked the bok choy seeds in the ground and ignored them and they grew beautifully. We eat them up for two different dinners last week. The chinese cabbage grows great in the spring, and are growing great in the fall, too.

September totals

113 eggs, lots of beans, peppers, tomatoes, some onions, potatoes, yard long beans. The total for the month was 28.1 pounds for the month of September.

The garden produce 2010 year to date total is 708.4 lbs.

September musings

The wedding was lovely, seminary been going for a couple of weeks, I no longer am a homeschooling mom, seems like I ought to have all the time in the world, right? How do people go to work every day? I just don't get it. I have a terrible time keeping up with everything I'm committed to do and everything I'm trying to do and I can't imagine taking on a full time job on top of all of this. I'm behind on making soaps for the Farmers Market and I haven't even started sewing that dress I was going to make for the wedding. I can't even keep up with my garden. Fall gardens are such a wonderful idea but it is so hard to keep up the umph to do it. In mid summer, when the heat is miserable, I should be thinking ahead to fall, but I rarely do more then poke a few beans seeds into the ground. My big goal for this week is to get some Chinese cabbage planted. If I do that I can say I've done something for a fall garden.

august tally-ho

August garden total-- 177.0 lbs This makes the year to date total 680.3 lbs.

This August we got Peppers (I grow the hot stuff, not sweet peppers), cucumbers (did great!), tomatoes (didn't do great), yard long beans (not hard to grow, but no one really likes them much), apples (got a disease, but I picked them green and processed them for cooking, they taste great, they just looked icky), and finally, green beans.

In spite of the fact that I've been neglecting my garden this last month it still produced pretty well. We'll see how it makes it through the fall.