yay! welcome to another year of tend! i am over the moon at the opportunity to share this space once again with this amazing group of women & with you!
since my last post, we have moved (again!), built a garden & more! as i always say, i believe you can grow food wherever you are. with each garden, we learn a bit more & have the opportunity to make big changes. it's an exciting adventure each season!
today, i want to take you on a little tour of the humble beginnings of our garden this spring season!
we chose to use what we had on hand & grow most of our food in raised beds. we have serious issues with bermuda grass in this part of the country so it makes managing weeds very difficult unless there is a weed barrier.
luke is experimenting with double-dug, bio-intensive beds in our backyard. i am skeptical, but i love that he is always challenging my ideas & trying new things! more on that soon...
we also created two raised beds - one for medicinal herbs & another for culinary herbs - right outside our door for ease of harvesting & preparing meals. we are also establishing a blackberry patch in our front yard, a first for us in our home garden.
there are many fruits and vegetables growing in our garden right now. carrots are beginning to germinate & newly sown radishes are making an appearance. kale is slowly maturing, swiss chard is almost ready for harvesting, the lettuce is growing more each day & our beets are enjoying the nice drizzle that each spring day brings. every time i step outside, i swear our garlic has grown at least a foot. the strawberry patch, transplanted from our previous garden, is settling in nicely to it's new home.
we are still waiting patiently. we are waiting for a nice, dry, warm day to transplant more seedlings. we are waiting for the last frost date & warmer soil to plant our summer crops. we are also waiting for the new members of our family to join their older sisters...
meet our newest flock of layers!
we are so excited to see what this new season has to offer. we are digging in the soil, planting seeds & waiting as our bare landscape transforms into a bright green space with just enough to feed our family.
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readers, we want to know- what would you like to see at tend this year? are there any topics you are particularly interested in us covering? thanks so much for your thoughts & ideas!
-natalie
I always appreciate how you and Luke make the most of what you have, and the different containers you're using in the garden are also charming.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to know more about the medicinal herbs you're growing and how to use them. (:
So happy to see you all back for another season! And I love, love, LOVE the little sketch with the critters and veg! Who is the artist? :-)
ReplyDeleteJust found this site from Natalie Creates. So excited to follow along!
ReplyDeleteThanks!!
cris, the artwork is by heather! (link in our about page!)
ReplyDeleteso glad you guys are back! i had started wondering if you would be writing here again...
ReplyDeletei would very much like to read about what you grow in your garden and how, how you care for you soil and how you deal with problems.
i also find it nice to see what you use your gardens bounty for, like what you cook with it or how you use the medicinal herbs.
and, of course its always nice to see pictures of your beautiful gardens.
thanks for writing such a nice blog!
lisa
I'm always horrified to hear about people planting blackberries! Where I live they are a very thorny invasive weed that can not be controlled! Trying to dig out a blackberry bush is an exercise in futility, and those buggers can spring up anywhere. Their runner grow for meters and meters underground before springing up in the middle of well...anything! But I'm guessing it's not like that everywhere, enjoy!
ReplyDeleteNatalie! What an amazing collaboration! I am so sad to miss this season of gardening due to our move, but excited that we will be in the same hardiness zone as you once we do move!
ReplyDeleteWe gifted our garden boxes and amazing soil to some local friends recently. I'll be sure to follow along and live vicariously through you ladies!
we'll have to compare notes on medicinal herbs and preparations, natalie. my friend beth and i made your lavender toner recently.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, I had the same thought as Alyssa about blackberries! They are so hard to manage here and people are constantly trying to dig themselves out. On the other hand, I LOVE picking blackberries, and if we could have a controlled patch it would be a treat for sure. Looks like you guys have done a great job on your new garden. I look forward to learning more about Luke's double digging thoughts.
ReplyDeleteshari, i am so happy you tried the lavender toner recipe. let me know what you think! also, luke has more knowledge in medicinal herbs, and i am slowly learning. i hope you share some of your knowledge with us! :)
ReplyDeleteabby and alyssa- that is so funny! blackberries are nothing like that here. we once lived in a neighborhood that had wild blackberries, but they were a real treat & definitely not a nuissance!
ReplyDeleteHi Natalie,
ReplyDeleteI am curious about what you use for mulch around your raised beds. We have pebbles between some of ours, but they are hard to walk on. I have thought about straw or pine needles, but maybe they would be slippery? Our precipitation comes feast or famine here, so we either have mud or mudcracks between the beds now.
Thanks, Jenna
Jenna, we use wood chip mulch that we purchase from the city where we live. you could also use pine needles... our friends have had great success with that :)
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