Vegetable tour - progess and notes

This post contains many pictures - dial-up beware! 
Here’s what the gardens look like now in mid-August.  The heat has been 102* for the last three days - I guess maybe it’s time for that mean, ol’ dry land gardener to drag out the sprinklers and soaker hoses!
We’re just been busy keeping everybody (except us) in [...]

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Winter

We spend all summer harvesting sunlight, just so we can meter it out over the dark days of late fall, and winter, and then the lean spring while waiting for the new spring growth.  Grass, firewood, hay, vegetables, meat, milk, seeds, fruit and suntans.  It’s no wonder we worship the sun.  We long for it, and [...]

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I’m 8 today, according to Purina

If I was a medium breed dog, that is.  Today is my birthday, and I’m doing something that I have done on many birthdays before.  I’m canning.  My dogs are sleeping at my feet, (they are 15 and 49)waiting for a bit of apricot to fly off the cutting board, and it’s raining.  If it [...]

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Farnsworth, you’ve got weeds

Poor Farnsworth, I know how he feels - I’ve got a bad case of weeds too!  Some are by my own hand, which, when they present themselves, make the light bulb go on (sometimes.)
I won’t take the blame for these weedy garlic rows.  Overwintering alliums are hard to keep weed free, since they span two [...]

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This last week in the garden - vegetables

It’s always a struggle to get things in the gardens and greenhouse under control before we start haying.  So far, we’re behind.  While the guys were making noise yesterday, I snapped off all the garlic scapes for pesto, and the bolting tops on the multiplier onions, the weeds in the garlic I think I will [...]

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The bounty of blogging

If I have a dismal season in the garden or hay department this year, maybe I can eat my words!
Blogging makes me feel even more accountable about what I say and do, here are some examples of things I’ve said of late that fit in the category of “DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO…”
♣  [...]

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Water - harvesting, using, and protecting

Living in an area known for it’s abundant rainfall, and clean water, you might think we have a blasé attitude about water usage.   We don’t.  Maintaining our own watershed and water supply is perfect insurance that we work very hard to NOT waste water.  Most of the hubbub in the news is about peak oil - [...]

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Some gardening, finally…

Sometimes I forget I why I garden.  When someone says to me they garden, I automatically assume that they mean vegetables.  Most of the time before this latest feeding frenzy brought on by current issues that I won’t go into in this post, they would mean flowers mostly.  My gardening has evolved from 2/3 vegetables, [...]

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some gardening, some canning

In spite of the weather, which is uncomfortable and aggravating but by no means as serious as the weather in the Midwest and East, the garden is slowly emerging.
Harris Model OP parsnips, roots for the dairy cow and for seed saving.

It’s hard to believe these little guys will be here feeding us, and the milk [...]

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This is seed rotting weather

Our temperatures here have been hovering between 42 and 52 for a week.  The sun, if we see it, is like a phantom.  Here and then gone, making you wonder, was that the sun?  Definitely not good gardening weather.  At this point, June 6, I’ve lost my window to plant my Calais Flint corn.  I [...]

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Biting off more than I can …

chew, weed, can, freeze - fill in the blank.
About this time of year, I get impatient.  When I’m on the tractor tilling the garden, it looks too small.  When I’m planting seeds, or weeding it looks way TOO big.  I change my mind about things about 10 times a day at least.  It always gets [...]

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Trying not to be wasteful

I always feel guilty if I waste food.  Whether from over planting, or being over zealous in my harvesting.  I try to ask myself, “Is this better on the vine, in the ground, … , OR in the refrigerator?”  The refrigerator is usually the most wasteful place for me, it costs money to run, and [...]

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Garden like you can’t go to the store…

I know I can still go to the store, but I can’t buy heirloom seeds that were handed down to me, or even high quality seeds, for that matter.  I try to conduct my gardening like the store may not always be there, that way I won’t be in for such a shock.  Plant a [...]

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The year of the gradual garden

After the big letdown with Jetta’s calving,  I was kind of glad that it rained most of the week.  I just didn’t feel like planting any garden.  We let Jetta lick and clean her calf, and eat the placenta.  The amniotic fluid on the calf, contains natural pain inhibitors, and eating the placenta helps prolong colostrum [...]

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Jetta is going into therapy

She has to - she can’t deal with her owner anymore!  I broke down and called the vet yesterday, and he gave me several reasons that I shouldn’t worry about the calf.
•  The first baby can come at anytime.
•  The bull, (whom we only know as Willy) may throw late calves.
•  The owner can’t [...]

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Meat and potatoes

That is what our garden is - just your basic old vegetable garden.  Full of workhorses and not too many gourmet delicacies.  It feeds us year-round though, but you won’t find low performers in our garden more than a year, or two at most.
Before the rain on Tuesday, we planted 50# of potatoes.  I plant the [...]

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It’s not the planting

It’s not the actual planting, it’s all the work beforehand and after, that takes so much time.  Making compost, seeding, tending, irrigation planning, and soil preparation.  This list could go on in more detail, but, it’s a long time and a lot of work from the idea of growing your own food, to get that food to the table.  [...]

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