Planting Berries
Category Archives: the homestead
They’re Here!
Yesterday I talked about planning my garden and ordering seeds. Well about 5 days later my packages came!
I was so excited!
I did a status update on facebook about it.
I am a nerd like that.
Beautiful new packets of beautiful new seeds! Love it.
That very same day I received two other deliveries.15 Heritage Raspberries
10 Apache Blackberries
1 Crimson Bunch Grape
1 Flame Bunch Grape
5 Black Spanish Wine Grapes
and
1 Kieffer Pear Tree
We are adding about 125 feet of edible hedging along the sides of our property and I am so excited to get these little guys started.
There are already some little leaves sprouting, meaning they are coming out of dormancy and need to be planted quickly.
Below you can see the root and the gel they are packed in, you know you are getting good bare root products if your supplier packs them with the gel. It keeps the roots moist and helps the plants survive shipping.
I also got 10 thyme plants, all a different varieties.
Since I am not ready to plant them just yet, they get a temporary home on my sunny window seal.
Planning the Garden
March is the start of our gardening season. Even though it is too early, in our area, to plant much this is when we start to clean up and prepare the garden beds for spring and summer planting. So when I woke up to this one March morning I was a tad disappointed. We had garden boxes to build and fill, a chicken coop to rework and expand and the weather had a different idea.
So I figured this would be a good time to do one of my spring projects that I really enjoy, yet tend to put off.
Planning the Gardens and ordering seeds.
So I gathered seed catalogues and got out my box of seeds and went to work.
Planing the garden this year is a bit of a different job, we are adding 100 square feet of new garden boxes and I have to figure out how to fill them with yummy veggies to eat this summer and hopefully to store this winter.
We are doing a lot of the basics, zucchini, cabbage, tomatoes, kale and adding a few new things, rutabaga, celeriac root and cauliflower. I also ordered a few twists on old favorites such as: Apollo Broccoli (a small leafy variety) and Russian Red Kale.
On of the nice things about square foot gardening it the ease of planning what to plant where and how much to plant, it is nice to see it all laid out.
From start to finish it took about 3 hours to plan and order and at the end of it all I am excited and satisfied. Now, all I have to do it wait for those boxes of seeds to arrive, and for it to get warm enough to plan them all!
What are you planting this year? Something new?
Dadzoo the Builder
(Punk#2 helping her Daddy)
(This is my punk brother, who spent the day “helping”)
My new shelves are so pretty and white. I am going to paint the wood cabinets at the top a nice white to match the shelves.
I love how nice and neat all my jars look lined up on the new shelves.
AND, empty spots!
Here is the laundry portion of this little bitty room
Dadzoo built a little movable table to give me a nice work surface, and can also be moved in case we need to pull out the washer and dryer. I am going to add a pretty, bright curtain to the table.
I Love my new laundry/ pantry. It is so nice to have a place for everything.
Compost, Part III
Last fall I walked you through putting my compost pile to bed for the winter. This Saturday it was nice and warm, so I decided to open it up and see what happened.
Over the winter time we added kitchen scraps, chicken bedding and rabbit manure. We just dumped that stuff on top, we didn’t stir the pile at all.
Here is our pile before I opened things up.
When I started to dig through I found a lot of worms. Which are wonderful, worms will eat the decaying organic matter and turn it into wonderful worm casings. Worm casings are fabulously wonderful for the garden.
And here is the final produce. That big pile of leaves, straw, manure and garden waste is now a huge pile of nice, nutrient rich compost. No matter how many times I have seen this, it always amazes me, I am kind of a nerd that way.
Which will help me grow produce full of vitamins, mineral and enzymes.