garden notes:
+ we are deep into the spring & early summer season down here. it amazes me to see our bell pepper plants beginning to flower & sugar snaps heavy on the vine. our green beans are revealing some beautiful purple flowers, too!
+ we are almost at a year in this home & every time i step outside into our backyard, i am in awe of what we have planted & built. five large raised beds, a perennial bed {much of the plants from our home in missouri & missouri native plant sales}, a chicken coop & run, a rabbit hutch, an impressive compost pile {i can take no credit!} & a beautiful volunteer pumpkin patch. it is not perfect, but it produces plenty of harvests & joy.
+ that volunteer pumpkin patch came up after we left a raw pumpkin for the girls to munch on. the girls scattered the seeds, we moved their coop to another side of the plot & an amazing patch took root.
+ we have harvested two baskets full of wild blackberries behind our home. many more harvest await as the fruit slowly ripens. blackberries in may? yes!
+ this weekend we headed to our local farm & picked four gallons of strawberries & a pint of blueberries. i have since preserved 10 jars of jam, baked two berry rhubarb crisps & frozen the rest {thanks, julia!}. i plan to share my jam recipe here soon!
+ we harvested the last of our freckled lettuce. we had much more success with our starts from the greenhouse than direct seeding. it got too warm too fast for those little seeds to really mature.
+ our black simpson summer head lettuce is impressive, growing heads of fluffy neon green goodness the size of basketballs. a favorite around here, too- piled on our plates both lunch & dinner.
+ we cleared out the broccoli after harvesting four heads & replaced it with two rows of okra. i love pickled okra & cannot wait for the summer's bounty!
+ we gave the girls our scraps of greens leftover from the bolting salad mix & planted zucchini & yellow squash in its place. i am closely watching out for aphids this year, our biggest pest last year.
+ what are you planting & growing in your garden? please share!
your little backyard farmette looks so so good! My peas bore fruit and the beans (including red asparagus bean) are coming up. Backyard tomatoes are beginning to set fruit, but the front yard tomatoes were attacked by wiley city rabbits, which ate 6 tomato plants and all of my basil. Rascals. Strangely, the basil seed I sowed didn't do a thing.
ReplyDeleteThe chickens make me so happy to see! I am itching to get chickens when we finally buy a house---hopefully this summer.
ReplyDeleteI love seeing the different stages various gardens are in---our peas have been done for a month now.
wow, i just can't believe how far ahead of us you are in your seasons! i am just putting in my seedlings (tomato, basil, peppers, marigolds, zinnias, amaranth, calendula, kale & chard) this week. i think i missed the boat on peas, so i'm headed straight to beans. radishes and arugula are coming along nicely, but still very small. and herbs too!
ReplyDeletei love seeing your garden-look how much you've accomplished in just one year! that is something to be proud of for sure :)
Natalie, WOW! Your garden looks beautiful. I love the volunteer pumpkin patch, how cool. Thanks to the sweet hens! As you know, I've got tomato plants, a sugar baby watermelon plant, marigolds, and seeds planted for cucumber, okra, zucchini, and cantaloupe. Hoping for some good food this summer.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like such a little farm. We'll be putting in our tomatoes this weekend and planting the squash seeds. It's always my mother's day gift.
ReplyDelete