Ahhhh……
I’m looking forward to doing a little bit of this today, hopefully with a book in hand.
It’s going to be a chilly weekend with a winter storm rolling in tonight that’s supposed to dump 4-8 inches of snow on us. You’ll find me in front of the wood stove staying warm!
Do you plans to spend time relaxing this weekend?
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Friday Favorite: New Garden Areas
There’s something exciting about new garden areas, even if they are only an extension of another garden area. For the past two years I’ve been mulling over my plan for the main garden back behind the garage. As I work I look at the surrounding areas, the lay of the land, the trees, etc. I plan out where access roads/paths will be, where hedges will be planted and where drainage ditches will need dug. All of these plans lay in the future, a few years down the line, but that doesn’t mean that I can start preparing. The garden in the back needs expanded quite a bit to make way for perennial borders, fences, and hedges. The pigs have helped greatly in tilling up the sod to make way for these new gardens. Now that they are finished with their work I set to work laying down cardboard with a this layer of compost.
In the spring they will be over seeded with various cover crops that will be mowed down for a weed smothering mulch. It’s a slow process, this garden will take more than a decade to become what I see in my mind. The slow, steady process of reaching that goal is fulfilling, and it helps me learn to be patient. There is such new promise in a new garden bed, one that has only grown sod. The possibilities are endless and that’s what I’m loving right now. I just need to remind myself that it’s a slow process, because admittedly it can be disheartening at times when you left behind a place that was just reaching it’s full potential and are starting all over again. I have to relish the newness and the possibilities!
Do you have plans to expand your gardens this coming year?
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No, No, No, I’m NOT Ready!!!
ACK, every time I open up my mailbox I’m greeted by a new seed catalog. I am completely unprepared to order seed at this early stage; I don’t even want to think about it. There has barely been enough time to sit down and rest from the previous garden season and I’m being bombarded with seed catalogs. It’s not that I don’t like them, in fact I love them, but only when I’m ready to start thinking about planting and getting my hands dirty starting seeds for the coming year. It’s still 2014 for goodness sakes!
It’s like they come earlier and earlier every year. I know I have to sit down and make my list because gardeners are responding to these early catalogs by ordering earlier every year. Last year I couldn’t get some of the seeds I wanted because they were already sold out. At least in my years of gardening I’ve narrowed it down to a few catalogs, the rest go straight into the recycling so as not to clutter up my desk. My favorite places to order from are: Rare Seeds, Territorial Seed, Southern Exposure, High Mowing, Renee’s Garden, and Johnny’s.
Have you started receiving seed catalogs? Are you making your lists for the coming year already?
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Yowza
The other morning I went out to collect eggs and found this ginormous beast. I know exactly who laid it, our oldest lady. She’s five or six years old, I’m not exactly sure which. That’s the beauty of having older hens in your flock, you fewer eggs from them, but they’re usually bigger.
I wish I had grabbed a pullet egg so you could see them side-by-side. I also should have weighed it as well, but I didn’t. It was cracked right into Tara’s bowl atop kefir and she gobbled it down.
Do you ever find jumbo eggs in your coop or in the eggs you get from a local farm?
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The Last Harvest
Cold weather arrived before I was quite ready for it at least two months ago. My hopes of harvesting my leeks before the ground froze were dashed. But then we had a nice warmup this week. As a result I spent this weekend working in the garden.
I dug a mess of leeks that will be cleaning, chopped, cooked, and eaten. Luckily there are a few delicious recipes features in my copy of Tender. Most of them feature potatoes, which I have a root cellar full of so I’m in business.
Another recipe calls for Jerusalem Artichokes, which I also harvested a mess of yesterday. I’ve grown this vegetable for many years but I’ve never harvested many of them to eat. I just let them multiply and replant them since I started with only two tubers. They’ve grown into quite a nice little patch, I was amazed at how productive they are.
It’s no wonder many people keep a patch in the garden for insurance purposes in case the economy goes south. I’ve also heard that some folks keep a nice plot going to feed the pigs come fall. My pigs wouldn’t eat the tubers this year, but I’m guessing if they got hungry enough they would.
I’m certain this will be my last harvest of 2014, at least it should be. The weather is supposed to turn very cold this week and the ground should finally freeze. Hopefully I will be able to get out today to plant my elephant garlic so I can enjoy it’s beautiful blooms next summer!
Are you harvesting anything from your garden right now?
