I am pleased to announce that we are in a time of fruition on the homestead, with all the hard work over these last couple of years paying off in cherries, blueberries, strawberries, marionberries and thimbleberries. The cherries are especially exciting because it is the first time I have ever had my own crop of homegrown cherries. There was a cherry tree here when we moved in that never fruited, ...
Homesteading
DIY Barbed Wire Trellis
The rose bush in the front flower bed was beginning to fall over with the weight of all the new growth these past weeks, and was in serious need of a trellis. Rather than buy a trellis, I felt up to the task of making one myself. One of my favorite approaches to the creative process of garden art is looking around my sheds to see what is on hand that could be re-purposed. In this case, we had been ...
New Growth
Whether in the garden, or in general, new growth is an encouraging thing to observe. All these little wild Arugula sprouts, for example, mean the start of something fresh. It can feel like a huge leap of faith to plant a garden. You get it all prepared and plant the seeds, and there is nothing left to do but water and wait. It's hard to imagine sometimes that an entire garden is going to emerge ...
Two Kids and a Dude
Every May, when the garden is prepped and seeds are planted, the kids get the fun job of building Dude the Scarecrow. Dude has been with us quite a few years now, watching over the garden and scaring away marauding birds and pests. Occasionally he gets something new, like a straw hat, or overalls when the old ones fall apart. Honestly, I am not sure where the rainbow suspenders came from, but they ...
Earth Day in the Garden
We spent some time over the weekend working with the earth and getting the garden prepped, just in time for Earth Day. With the help of a bargain rototiller we got over the summer from a friend's grandfather, our trailer load of aged steer manure, all of Corey's old newspapers, woodchips from the free city piles, and a bale of straw, we now have a beautiful garden taking shape for the season. I am ...
Busy as a Bee
April is a busy time around here, with everyone abuzz, especially the wild honeybees living in the woodshed wall. While they've been doing their job pollinating, we've been working hard providing them with plenty of things to be pollinated. The garden is tilled, paths are mulched, potatoes and onions are planted, peas are sown, and starts are going in a cold frame. All in a weekend's ...
What a Load of Manure!
A load of manure is a pretty exciting thing on a homestead. Seriously, I would never B.S. you. It means a healthy garden, abundant vegetables, and the most bang for your buck as far as fertilizers go. It all comes back to the nutrient cycle. Garden nutrients can be added with composting and chicken coop cleanings, but when your garden is large, and you have no livestock of your own, you need a ...
One Raised Bed at a Time
Raised beds are handy. They're easier to weed, ergonomically nice for working in, and ideal for some plants that just need their own space. I like to keep things like rhubarb, strawberries and asparagus in their own raised beds because you know exactly where the crowns are when things die back during the winter (in the case of rhubarb and asparagus) and once they take over the bed (which ...
Bare Root
It's tree planting season, and we made some exciting additions to the homestead orchard this year. With mature apple, Asian pear, and Italian plum trees, we had a really good start but still needed some of the basics. Last year we planted Stella and Royal Ann cherries, and a D'Anjou pear. There were still a few specific varieties of things I wanted, but when I visited the nurseries around ...
Free Woodchips!
A trailer load of woodchips really is something to crow about around here! While the chickens did a fine job of supervising, a huge thank you goes to Mountain Man Corey for collecting and spreading the woodchips around the blueberries and raised beds while I was under the weather last weekend. Little by little we're getting ready for the next growing season and it's looking to be a ...