Planting progress and rainy weather!

We got 6 inches of rain so far this weekend and are expecting more tonight. I planted a few things in my garden and held off on others that I will plant on Monday.
Over the weekend I put in:
-basil
-flower seeds. (I thought this would be a good idea because I wouldn't have to water them. But they may have washed away since they got planted outside my garden fence, not in the level raised beds. I'll be interested to see where they pop up haha!)
-Green onions

I finally got to prepping my beds for tomatoes and peppers this weekend. It's been a cool and WET spring so I think planting them Monday will be perfect :)

 Kale- Lower photo, March 16th, Top photo, April 12th

 Red express cabbage, transplanted March 16th, above photo is from April 28th

 These are my kale and spinach pickings of the crop that grew over the winter. I had to harvest it all to prep for my potatoes.

 One days harvest of kale, onion, and cilantro. I ended up making kale taco salad for dinner. It was yummy.

 This is my healthy attempt at artisan bread. It is 50% rye and 50% whole wheat. I used a sourdough levain and it fermented 14 hours! Rye makes for a dense bread but it was actually pretty tasty.

 I had Cam show off the kale that was bigger than his head. I can't even remember what variety this is but as you can see it gets big!

 Cam surprised me one morning by going out to the local strawberry farm and picking berries for me *true love*. I made strawberry lemon jam. This is my favorite jam! I hope we are able to get more berries this year... I'm not sure how they will fare with the flooding.

 The bed on the right and top will get tomatoes Monday. The green already there is arugula, red, and green lettuce. Big square bed has potatoes in those trenches. With all the rain, the trenches were filling up. I hope the potatoes survive. Also, I have been having a major problem with cutworms. I think because I left the cover crop in so long, they hung out in there. I found and killed 2 worms and I ordered some diatomaceous earth to sprinkle around. I hope it helps because my lettuce is getting chopped off one by one.

 Daikon Radish

Cool season crops in and growing- More fruit plants too!

 I planted Daikon Radishes last week. I left in the rest of the cover crop until I plant squash in a few weeks.

Here are the radishes now- 1 week later. There is also some lettuce and in the back spinach here.

 Overwintered Kale and spinach

 The kale is going to seed, I was hoping to save some of the seeds but may not be able to. I'm harvesting these this week and planting potatoes here.

 March 16th I transplanted my cabbage. This is red express and Napa

 Another photo from March 16- Napa Cabbage- Lots of Kimchi in my future I hope!

Here is the red express cabbage- March 16th

Row covers are on now- March 27th

 Kale on the adjacent bed- March 27th

 Overwintered cilantro. The best way to plant it!  We get so much more because it doesn't go to seed as fast.

Blackberries are breaking dormancy.  Photo from April 1

Blackberry flower bud

 Hard to see here but I planted nanking cherries along the fence. They were mailed bare root and dormant. I'm very excited about them. Next to them we cleared the bike track since it didn't get used enough. I planted some peas and oats in rows there. They are not to eat but to build the soil since its pretty awful. (April 1)
I will be adding landscape fabric and mulch all the way down the fence on this side- about 5 or 6ft out.

 A few asparagus are popping up. I hoping the asparagus rust stays away this year. (April 1)

 Blueberries flowering out. They are very pretty.

Here is the smaller garden. Snap peas are along the fence. Napa cabbage under longer row cover. Broccoli under the other. I just planted some onions. I still need to plant the rest of the onions and leeks this week. (April 1)

Broccoli under row cover

 Strawberries coming up.

 Raspberry. When we first started I didn't have any other garden room and planted them on the outside of this garden. They have spread a lot and are now encroaching it!

 The little green sprouts in the picture are marigolds. This is one of the reasons why I love open pollinated plants, they reseeded and grew without any effort from me!

Napa cabbage under row cover now (April 1) Its hard to get a good picture. Before I got the row cover on they were attacked by flea beetles. Now that they are covered I think they died off and I don't see new holes on the leaves thankfully.

More raspberries

 Overall look at the larger garden

And the back half of it. 

New apple trees in the back! Arkansas Black and 2 Enterprise. Not pictured is a crab apple I planted outside the fence because it wasn't going to fit. The crab apple is for pollination. Along the fence is peas- the kind you shell. Or I should actually say the kind that I will be shelling :) Beans will follow peas once it warms up.

Chicks, seeds, and Cold Frames

 I potted up my little mini soil blocks into the bigger ones. This picture is from a
 few weeks ago- this is cabbage. Napa and the left and Red Express on the right.

 We got some more chicks! 5 Rhode Island Red, 2 Buff Orpington, and 1 Red Production. Last year we had 8 chicks. One ended up being a rooster so we gave it away, then 3 got eaten by predators. Now we are down to 4 hens. Hopefully this year we can keep more of our chickens alive. We have plans to build a legit chicken run on the back portion of our garden. I will share progress on that when it happens (which I hope is soon). The boys kept asking me if we are keeping our hens from last year, and the answer was yes. They are laying lots of eggs now yay!

 I put Cam to work building me cold frames so I could set out my cabbages early.

Here's the finished frame. I'm still waiting for the row covers to come in the mail :)

 After many failed attempts, I made my first successful artisan bread. The tricky part was I only wanted to use a sourdough culture as my leavening. I also wanted to create a bread that was not just white flour. This is 50/50 white and wheat.

The garden now. We had a dusting of snow!

My overwintered kale and spinach are picking up speed growing and we are harvesting some of that.
I planted my peas last Wednesday. I could have planted earlier but somehow I always get a ton of little projects going on and I get behind.

Seeds indoors right now:
Kale, Cabbage (Acclimating these to the outdoors this week)
Broccoli
Spinach
Mache
Onions
Flowers
A few herbs

Seed Starting

Once it comes time to start my seeds, time starts moving really fast because there is a lot to do!

In mid February I started my onion seeds. I just put them in these flats and as you can see the varieties are separated by cardboard.

 I also harvested the last of my parsnips this month. It was getting to hot and they were sprouting green again on their tops.

 Dax was a good helper digging out the parsnips.

 Trees and forsythia bushes are blooming already. This one is in front of our house. I think it's a bradford pear.

The start of some of my other seeds. I got a mini soil blocker to start my seeds, then you put the mini blocks into the larger ones. The soil blocker works really well for things that don't like to be transplanted. I love my 2inch soil blocker. I'm still trying to decide if I like the mini.

Seeds 2017

Christmas #2 came to our house. Or it least it feels like that when I get my seeds in the mail!!

Since there is not much happening in the garden right now, I am carefully planning the garden- seed starting times, transplant dates, and planting dates.

Here are the seeds that I ordered for this year.

Some of these varieties I have planted before and I'm restocking, others are new to me. I save a few of my seeds, but not too many- someday I will do better at that!
Here is the list of what I'm growing this year (although they may be subject to change a bit!!) from seed or root:
All varieties are from Bakers Creek unless otherwise noted. Also all are open pollinated except the fennel.

* = new varieties I'm trying out.

Bulgarian Giant Leek*
Ho Shi Ko Bunching Onions
Dakota Tears Onion (High Mowing Organic Seeds)*
Zebrune Shallot
Southport Red Globe Onions

Siberian Kale
Curly Scotch Kale
Chinese Hilton Cabbage*
Mammoth Red Rock Cabbage
Express Red Cabbage (Peaceful Valley)*

Fennel- Precludio- this is a hybrid
Bloomsdale Long standing Spinach
Broccoli Watham 29*

Lettuce
Little Gem*
Merlot*
Crisp Mint*
Cimmaron*

Arugula
Garden Cress (Peaceful Valley)
mache*

Sweet Potato-
Beauregard
Omani Pink

Kelvendon Wonder Pea*
Sugar Snap Peas
Oregon Snow Pea

Herbs 
Thyme
Dill
Cumin
Genovese Basil
Thai Basil
Cilantro 
Lemongrass*

Radishes
Dikon*
French
Cherry Belle

Potatoes- Yukon Gold*

Tomatoes
Jersey Devil*
Amish Paste
Lucid Gem*
Black Cherry
Black Vernissage*

Peppers
California Wonder
Tam Jalepeno
Canary Bell
Red Cheese
Emerald Giant*

Carrots
Nantes
Atomic Red

Cucumber
Muncher*
Tendergreen Burpless

Watermelon
Ledmon*
Ali Baba

Cantaloupe-Hales Best

Summer squash- Lemon

Winter Squash
Buttercup*
Waltham Butternut*
Cushaw

Parsnips-hollow Crown

Sweet Corn- Who gets kissed (High Mowing Organic Seeds)*
Popcorn- Mini Blue*

Beans
Calima (for fresh eating)
Good Mother Stallard (dried)*

Ginger root

House Exterior Paint- the finished house

I realized when I updated about my garden yesterday, I had never posted pictures of the house with the painting all done.

Today I went out in the freezing cold and took these pictures. It was so cold, I didn't want to pick up anything outside before I took the pictures so please ignore that :)

 Took this picture right before painters came.

 After!! House color is Sherwin Williams - mossy oak. We had it color matched and used Benjamin Moore- Aura Exterior Paint. Our painter educated us and said, since the majority of the cost in painting is labor, you save more money in the long run if you use a quality paint which lasts longer. I totally agree- so far so good :) The trim color is Benjamin Moore White Dove.

 
Here is a picture from right before we moved in.



Here it is now...Christmas lights up still and everything ;)

 After

After

Garden Goals 2017

Today's Harvest - Parsnips

I have some lofty goals for my garden this year.  I'm so glad the setting up, digging trenches, making raised beds part is done.

This year, I got a taste of what it was like to have garden veggies spring, summer, fall, and through winter. We are just starting to have to go to the store to supplement vegetables.

Still in stock are
Winter squash- holding up well in our cold basement storage room
Sweet Potatoes
Canned pickles, jam, tomatoes
Dehydrated carrots, peppers, and zucchini
Frozen strawberries
Frozen tomatoes
Frozen Kale
Parsnips

I wasn't sure how the dehydrated stuff would taste because I'd never had rehydrated veggies but it's worked great! We use our peppers frequently in fajitas and chili.

So on to the goals part-

My goal is to grow enough vegetables to feed us year round. We eat a lot of vegetables on a daily basis so it will be challenging!

I'm working on the fruit - but there is just no way I could get close to growing all the fruit we eat with the small area we have.

Why grow all our own veggies?

After being married for a few years I started to hate shopping at the grocery store (it just so happens that we had a child around this time haha). The less time I have to spend there- the better.

Gardening is one of my things that helps me stay happy. It is really good medicine for depression for me (that and my art).

I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle for the second time. The first time I read it, it didn't quite hit me like it did recently. If you haven't read it, it is about a family who grows/buys all their food locally for 1 year.

The "fresh" out of season vegetables from the store taste disgusting to me- ie. tasteless, grainy tomatoes, cucumbers with whatever slime they put on the skin (you know what I'm talking about).

Saves money

I like to be healthy

I can grow everything organically

I finally have the space that I think I can do it.



I have loads of recipes and feel a lot more confident about being able to use whats on hand than I used to. The challenge will be how much to grow of everything. On that score, I have no clue how much we will use and how much I should put up. I think that piece of the puzzle will take a few years to shake out.

I'm hoping I can keep up with the blogging aspect so I can keep a better record of what gets ripe when, how much I harvest, what's working and whats not. Having a garden is difficult for me in some ways because nature throws at you insects, small animals, disease and the list goes on. I am a recovering perfectionist and sometimes thats hard to take. But I'll try my best to put on here good and bad- my mistakes and successes- because thats all part of the journey.

Here's to a good year of lots of home-grown food!