Category Archives: the homestead

Dandelions

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Remember my mystery green from Tuesday?

That beautiful green leaf was a dandelion. Dandelions are edible, nutritious and a very valuable medicinal herb.

“Dandelions are a powerful diuretic. The roots act as a blood purifier that helps both the kidneys and the liver to remove toxins and poisons from the blood. The roots have been used for centuries to treat jaundice. Dandelion also acts as a mild laxative and improves appetite and digestion. It is useful for eczema like skin problems, boils, and abscesses and is believed to help prevent age spots and breast cancer.”
Prescription for Herbal Healing,
Phyllis A. Balch


Dandelion helps treat: Bladder infection, PMS, constipation, hemorrhoids and indigestion, irritable bowel syndrome, liver problems, gallstones, and osteoporosis. I have used dandelion to help prevent pre-eclampsia during my last two pregnancies as well as bloating due to PMS.
I have always purchased dandelion tea and capsules, but I got to thinking, I have plenty dandelions hanging around my yard and since we haven’t sprayed I decided to harvest!

The small leaves in the early spring can be eaten raw, in a salad. They can be a little bitter, so I mixed them in a tossed green salad, I thought they were really good and had a nice flavor. Once the heat comes the leaves turn really bitter, at that time I will harvest and dry to use medicinally in teas and tinctures. In the fall I plan to dig up roots, dry and use medicinally as well.

(thats if I can keep Dadzoo from pulling them all up before….)


Sometimes I look into the hills behind my house and wonder about the plants up there. What is edible? What can be used medicinally? I know that yarrow grows in the high meadows and is a powerful herb. There are also Sego Lilies, that my pioneer ancestors used to use as food, but are now protected as our state flower and can’t be harvested. I am going to be researching this a little more. As for edible and medicinal plants in my yard that wouldn’t normally be considered as such, I will be blogging about those.

(Have you ever eaten a rose? I have!)

Expanding the Garden

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This year we decided to expand our garden space by 96 square feet in the form of three new 8×4 garden boxes. I am hoping to grow all the produce we will need this spring and summer and hopefully a good chunk of our winter food too.

Dadzoo fashioned the three boxes using 12×2 boards. To the bottom we stapled thick weed cloth to help keep the grass from growing through.

In each box we mixed peat moss, vermiculite and compost, to make a nice light soil. Each year we will add a little compost, to keep the soil rich, so while this is a little expensive to begin with, it is a one time thing.

Saturday I planted beets and carrots in this box. I love square foot gardening, it is perfect for my little suburban homestead!
For more information on square foot gardening go HERE.

First Fruits

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The garden is starting to produce, and I can’t be more excited. I love getting my basket and wandering the yard picking a bit of this and that to make into a meal.

Saturday after a long day of planting some early veggies I decided it was time to start picking. The carrots and kale are leftovers from last year.

(can anyone tell me what this is?)


The Kale is nice and sweet, when the temperatures are warm it turns bitter, but will become sweet again when fall weather turns cold. In the summer I use the Kale to feed my chickens and rabbits.

This year I am going to keep track of how much produce I grow on my little quarter acre. On my side bar I am going to keep a running total as well as periodic posts.

Eggs

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After being a very consistent blogger during the month of March it seems like I have fallen off the face of the earth in April! I am still here, although this last week has been very busy with no time to sit and blog.

One of my favorite things about spring, besides the flowers, are eggs.

I know, eggs sounds a little weird. However during the long, cold winter my hens don’t lay very much. I have 7 hens right now and I would get about 1-2 eggs a day. A far cry from last summer when every lady would lay every day! It has to do with the lack of lighting, and while I can keep my hens laying well by giving them artificial light through out the winter, I choose not to, I would rather they had their rest, the way nature intended.

So when spring rolls around and the hens start laying more and more I get excited.


We are up to about 4 a day now, and I am hoping we will soon get to 7. Although, my hens are two years old now and they egg production will naturally go down. Now once the chicks start laying in July we will really have eggs coming out our ears. I hope that once that happens, eggs will be our primary source of protein in the summertime.

Planting Bareroot

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There are a lot of reasons to plant bare root instead of getting a nice bush all potted up at the nursery. The two biggest factors for me are price and variety.

Any bush or tree purchased at a nursery was at one time a bare root plant that was potted up. When you purchase at a nursery you are paying them to have grown and nurtured that plant for a year or so before selling it to you. This isn’t a bad thing at all, when you purchase from a nursery you can inspect the plant and you know you are getting something healthy with a good established root system. However you are going to pay extra for that. I usually buy trees from a nursery, those are big investments and I want to make sure I am getting something strong and healthy. For things like raspberries, roses and strawberries I buy bare root, especially when I am planting in quantity, I just can’t afford to go with a nursery.

Also when buying bare root the varieties available to you open up. With a nursery you are limited to what they have in stock or are willing to order for you, which usually means you will only be able to pick from varieties popular in your area. This too, isn’t a bad thing, you are pretty safe with popular varieties, it usually means that they will grow well in your area. However if you want to branch out and try something a little special the Internet opens up so many possibilities.

People sometimes have a hard time getting bare root plants to grow and flourish. They do need special care, and a tad more time.

Once your plants arrive you need to get them in the ground as soon as possible. Bare root plants are shipped dormant, and if they sit in your warm house they will come out of dormancy and that can be very disastrous. For instance, when I received my plants, they all looked like dead twigs (perfect) and we were able to plant them within two days. The very next week the weather turned cold again, and the last few days we have had freezing cold wind and snow. Had those bushes broken dormancy all the tender new growth would have frozen and died, and put undue stress on the plant.

(sorry the pictures aren’t better, it was a sunny day…)

Before you plant your bushes spread them all out and inspect your plants. If the roots are super long you can trim them a bit, but don’t take too much.

Dig a nice big hole, in soil that has a good amount of compost mixed in. In this instance I am planting raspberries that will be there for years, this is my only chance to work compost into the soil. Don’t plant in straight compost, you will burn the roots and your bush will die, always mix with the existing soil.


Then place your bush in the hole, spreading the roots out as best as you can.


Then a little at a time fill in the hole. The trick here is to make sure the soil completely surrounds the roots. If there are any air pockets around the roots that part of the root system will die, making for a weak plant or possibly killing the plant.

With the raspberries it was pretty easy to fill in the dirt, sometimes when I have planted roses we have had a harder time, the roots being very strong and woody, we have at times filled in the hole using a running hose to help the soil flow around the roots.


Pack it down nice and firm, leaving a little dish like indentation around the plant.


Then add water, and lots of it, soak that little puppy! The indentation around the plant helps the water puddle and soak in.


Water everyday, those roots need to say pretty moist, until they start to leaf out. When the leaves come you will know that the plant is out of dormancy and they are starting to establish a strong root system.

That day we planted 15 raspberries, 10 blackberries, 7 grape vines and a pear tree. It took about an hour to do it all (not including the soil prep), not much more than if we had had rooted bushes in pots.

In case anyone is wondering this is where we got our plants from:

Willis Orchard Company

Are you adding any bushes or trees this year?