Category Archives: the homestead

Potato Towers

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This year we decided to experiment with potato towers.

http://urbanfarmerseward.posterous.com/potato-towers-and-living-fence-posts

I love to try new things, and new ways to grow food in the yard, and what a better way to maximize space than to grow potatoes vertically.  Our towers have been growing for about 2 months, and while they aren’t growing as much as I had hoped, they are growing and I am excited to break into them this fall and see how well they did, and try it again next year.  I make myself try new things in the garden at least twice before I decide if they are a success or failure.  So we shall see!

 

 

 

 

A Walk in June

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 This years garden has been wonderful, the best I have had in a couple years.  The last two years our springs were very cold and very wet and it took forever to get anything to grow!  Tonight I harvested my first round of broccoli and kale.  The cabbage patch is going great, so are the tomatoes and squash.  We also have potatoe towers that are starting to sprout.  I am so excited for our garden this year.

I Love Flowers

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(I originally posted this three years ago, since I am getting ready to cut some branches for blooming today I thought I would give it a re-post)

I LOVE flowers, spring flowers happen to be my favorite.

Right now there isn’t anything blooming in my yard, it is still too cold, although there are a few flowers that are beginning to stir. In my flower beds there are yellow green spears pushing up among the mud and snow, and we also have this:

This is my big forsythia bush. It is the first plant in the yard that blooms. It amazes me that even through the freezing months of winter this little bush is getting ready to be the first to welcome springtime. With a little know how and very little work this bush is very easy to “force” blooms in the house, I will show you how.

You can see here the buds that are getting ready to bloom. All they are waiting for is a little more warmth and they will bloom a beautiful cheery yellow.

With some clippers I cut a handful of branches, remembering that I only wanted to clip a few and I wasn’t pruning, the more you take into the house, the less will be on the bush for the first springtime show.


I filled a vase with warmish water and just put the branches in. Very easy.

Since I didn’t like how spread out the branch were I just tied them with a ribbon, I could have cut more, but I wanted to save a lot for the bush.

I put it in a nice out of the way place (that can handle a large arrangement) and in 3 to 5 days it will start to bloom.

This is a fun easy way to bring spring into your house a few weeks early.

I know this method will work with pussy willows too, and a few others. (google it! LOL)

Now you tell me….what is your favorite flower?

(One week later)

Beans

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My garden, this year, has been a sad little shadow of my past gardens.  The combination of a late, cold, wet spring and me being great with child for the first half of the summer, and nursing a hungry little monkey for the second half has made for a very late, very neglected, very low producing garden. 

 

 One item that has done very well, which it should since it is pretty much a no-brainer in gardening circles, are my green beans.  I planted a lot this year hoping that I would have enough to can, which I did.  And, as luck would have it, the all decided to ripen just as Baby Girl was born and when we came home there were pounds of beans that needed picking. And as luck would have it, I have a whole bunch of little fingers that are really good at picking beans, and snapping them.

The great thing about canning beans, is that they need little preparation, they aren’t like jellies and jams, they aren’t like tomatoes that need peeling either.   The only thing that needs to be done to the beans to get them ready for canning is a good washing, and snapping them to the size desired.  I then raw packed them in pint sized jars, added a half teaspoon sea salt, and hot water.  I then processed them for 20 minutes at 12 pounds pressure (the pounds of pressure needed is determined by altitude).  Simple and easy. 

 

I was able to can 24 pints, and the bean bushing are still producing like crazy, there will be many jars of beans on the shelves at our house to feed us all winter long!