Celery cat

This is my celery cat. I saved him from the dump and now has a new life perched on the kitchen counter. 

 

Celery has been one of the best producers in the garden this year! Some came from seed but the rest has just been recycling itself. Cut off the bottom before using, drop the bottom (the part you usually compost) into a shallow dish of water for 24 hours and then plant in the garden. A new celery plant grows! Amazing! 

Or you can also do it this way...the celery cat way. Pull the plant, roots and all. Retain some of the roots when you bring it into the kitchen. Place the celery into your celery cat, or similar vase, and add enough water to just cover the roots. Just cut off the stalks you need, when you need them. Keep the roots wet but not the stalks. When you have used all the stalks replant in the garden.

When the freezing weather arrives pull the remaining plants from the garden. Place them in your root cellar/basement/what ever cool place you have. Keep the roots moist but not the stalks. You can use them from here all winter and what is left can be replanted in the garden in the spring! 

Today in the garden

This year I am off to a shot gun start in the garden. It is April and I am eating fresh from the garden and even supplying my first share this weekend! Over wintering food in the garden, starting early (risking that the mild weather would continue), having raised beds that don't really require much work to get them going in the spring have all contributed to great success already!

Take a look at the garden today

Chickadee has moved in!

 

Asparagus

 

Potatoes and raspberries

 

Spinach and swiss chard

 

Swiss chard, broccoli, garlic  and onions

 

strawberries

 

the orchard

 

Lettuce, kale  and peas

 

 celery

A garden share

Last year our garden flourished. We rarely shopped for groceries. All our fresh food came directly from our garden, supplemented by a local farmers market for new items we don't grow ourselves. Last year we put in an asparagus bed, more berries and an orchard. We stored much for the winter and are still eating off those stores!

I expect the garden to be even bigger and better this year. I decided to try selling a share of our garden. Some farms do this to help offset the early season costs and to have an established group of customers to provide for. While we are not a big farm we definitely have enough abundance to try doing the same with a couple other families. 

We have once such family already signed up. This weekend we provided them with a "winter share"...a sampling of what is to come, a sampling of what we still have in our winter garden, root cellar and hen house. 

Harvesting

As summer comes to an end we begin preparing to store our harvest for winter.

The hurricane left us lots of firewood...

Onions braided....

this sunflower actually survived the mice, hiding it in with the asparagus worked!

potatoes drying...



the melons didn't get big but...

they were delicious!

Always lots of little helpers

Happy Harvesting

Bleeding heart

One of my favorite shade plants is the Bleeding Heart. It is a perrenial, needs no help once it is in and has beautiful flowers and leaves.

Scout seems to love them as much as I do.

Did you know they came in white?

The lilac bush is blooming too.

Happy spring.

The garden May 4

The garden is coming to life!

Last year we put in a few strawberries, bought at a yard sale. We were thrilled that they provided us with yummy berries from June 'till September! We bought, from a neighbor down the street, another 60 plants for $10.00!

We had to create a new bed to fit them all into the yard.

This is an easterly view of the garden. The fruit tree's are in and pruned. Apple, peach, plum and cherry. The raised beds have asparagus, cucumber, squash varieties and swiss chard. Already peeking out of the dirt are potatoes, broccoli, onions, lettuce, parsley and raspberry and blueberry bushes.

The birds are moving in!

A pair of orioles sang to us.

I couldn't let this house stay at the dump. Some child spent time on this masterpiece and some birds are sure to move in.

This is the wedding hill. We spent months getting grass to grow here, and it did. Satinka and I traveled down together on my wedding day, it was beautiful. Unfortunately the grass won't stay. The rain just keeps washing it away. We are going to try to plant grass over there rocks, in hopes that it will drain the water through and let the soil stay. Stay tuned!

peas up

The peas, onions and pansies are peaking.

The Garden April 2011

The weather is finally turning to spring and we spent it preparing the garden!

This is one of our compost piles, the one we are currently dumping in. We dump the manure and kitchen scraps into the pile, which is built on the side of a hill. The chickens scratch through it, but we don't turn it, it just sits, usually for 12-18 months.

This is the pile we are using for dirt. It has finished sitting. We are using it to make the new garden beds. After we dig out all the usable dirt it will become the new dumping spot. The other one will be covered with mulched leaves to cook until next year.

Beautiful and full of earth worms.

Murph spreading the black gold into the new beds. He moved more then 100 sq feet of dirt this weekend!

Some fresh dirt in the new beds. Potatoes and onion sets went in, peas, beans, lettuce, spinach already in place.

I love art in the garden. This was salvaged from the dump. The back says it was collected on the beach in 1967, I presume it was painted back then too. It was just tossed away, thankfully it now has a new life.

Soon the fruit trees will go here. They lay in the basement, dormant. The nights are still below freezing so they will wait a little longer to find their way here.

I decided to plant the asparagus. I have never planted it before. I have researched it and we prepared the beds correctly. Still, when the time came to put it in I wasn't exactly sure which way was up!

The asparagus on the right was my first attempt. Were the tubers the asparagus? I thought so. As I looked at them, after I planted them, I could see they were roots. Then I read the directions more closely, "spread the crowns". Spread, okay, take them out and start over. The bed was exactly the right size for the asparagus we ordered...how did that happen!

It was warm and sunny all weekend..the piggies came out!

Life is good!

Tilling

We have received the emails....apple tree, aspasagus, rasberries, blueberries are on the way. There is more to come...peach, plum, pear and cherry trees. Our quest this year is to become as self sufficient as we can. We have eleminated our cable bill and we all have diesel cars that get 42 miles to the gallon. We are hoping for wind power later in the year. But right now we are focusing on our food. Not only fresh and organic but free. We chose to plant things we love that seem expensive at the market. Asparagus is the best example. We chose the largest spurs so we will actually be able to harvest some this year. Then we can expect to harvest from our bed for 20 years or more. We love cherries too, but they cost so much. Now we will have our own. All the trees were ordered in dwarf size, not growing more then 6-8 feet high. We will espalier them along the side of the garden. A technique that started back in the 1600 century and it produces more fruit for its size then full size trees.

We needed to take down a tree. Look closely in the upper right corner and you can see the stump. The tree needed to land between the wood shed and the new bed. Murph dropped it perfectly, without breaking anything!

The the ground needed to be dug up to ready it for the trees. Nothing has every been planted here and it was compacted tightly. We decided to rent a tiller. The best $39.00 we ever spent! It took only a few minuted to prepare the soil...it would have taken all day by hand. We also used it to dig a trench over by the horse run-in to start a french drain project. Next we will put up the supports for the trees. Check back for our progress.

Garden happenings

Spring is coming and there is a lot happening in the garden.

The horses have an afternoon napping ritual now that they can count on sunny afternoons. If you look closely there are 4 horses lying down with 1 guard. Tonto is the guard today.

Here is a close up, only Little is out of the shot.

We have bog plans for the vegetable garden this year. We just finished 3 new raised beds. We are putting a fence around the whole thing to keep the chickens out. This year we are adding an asparagus bed, berry bushes in the garden and several fruit trees which we are going to espalier.

Scout is back in the sandbox...preparing meals all day long!

Bulky coats have been put away.

Spring jackets and sweaters take their place!

Picnics in the garden again...Life is Good!!