All posts tagged: garden

Rainy days and container concepts

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Early harvest time is here and every day brings more lettuce and spinach. And with the daily harvest comes nearly constant rain, storm after storm. While some storms are more nerve-wracking than others, being trapped indoors has led to a spike in productivity on a laundry list of new and old projects, a boon since recent work trips out of state have left no days to be lost. But the downside of the constant rain, among other things, is hoping all the young plants don’t drown, mildews and molds don’t take hold, and plants aren’t lost to sogginess. The first bed of potatoes is in a spot that seems to hold water especially well and they are developing what looks like early signs of rust. Next year’s rotation will be a completely different lay out, living and learning as it were. But the first corn seedlings made it up and all the beans are growing except the newly planted cowpeas which may or may not rot in the ground if this weather keeps up. Half the greenhouse yield is now transplanted and the recently …

Spring Salad with Honey

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  The days are rainy and a little chilled lately, but tromping around the muddy orchard and garden in worn green rain boots, weeding and admiring, it becomes a welcome rain dance. And life has given me a mess of baby lettuce and greens and I’m making salad. Upon discovering a selection of almost empty microgreen and lettuce seeds in my seed box, I decided to dump them all and see what came up. Happily, they’ve produced more than enough to keep me in salads until my larger leaf lettuces catch up and there is nothing, I mean nothing, like fresh lettuce for a salad. So in spite of these rainy cool days, there’s lettuce, green onions, and strawberries to enjoy, thinking of the warmer days around the corner and splashing through the puddles until then.      SPRING SALAD WITH HONEY 4 cups mix of baby greens and lettuce of your choice 1 ½ cup strawberries, sliced ½ cup slivered almonds 4 green onions, sliced ½ cup dried cranberries ½ cup crumbled bleu cheese Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette (recipe below) Toss …

Baby Bok Choy Udon Bowl with Poached Egg

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April has arrived and per the adage she brings with her showers. A week’s worth at least according to the forecast and in taking full advantage this week is all about seeds that can be broadcast at our house. In areas tedious to mow and bordering to the woods, I have broadcast all my favorite wildflowers, a few dozen types from indian blanket and lupines to black eyed susan and coneflower, almost all native and all capable of reseeding themselves. Low maintenance is nice. But with still more old overgrowth to clear, the busiest gardening month arrived, and the house’s interior to finish, unfortunately the fencing projects and our chicken coop have to be put off, for now.                    Most days are gray and cloudy lately, but just enough humidity hangs and just enough warm sun comes through to spur on the baby bok choy. It probably doesn’t help having planted a bit too much to keep up with, but I adore fresh bok choy. The cool rain inspired soup cravings, so I opted to make a sort of play on some favorite Asian soups, mixing and …

Waste not

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Not one for wastefulness, as we’ve worked at cleaning up the overgrowth and saplings choking each other for space in the long unkempt wooded section of our property, I’ve tried to find use for every tree of any size that has to come down aside from just firewood. (All that pine is no account for firewood anyway.) Those paired with the two stacks of forgotten building materials left by the former owners have become the primary materials in building the framework of my garden. From deer fencing corner posts to bed frames, they have played a role in every job involved in building the garden spot saving both money and waste.         That in mind, a year and some change ago I shared an entry on the other blog about using otherwise unneeded palettes and cinderblocks for building a garden bed and so well does the idea work that I decided to share it again. These palette bed frames are too shallow for larger plants, but for leaf lettuces, herbs, and other surface crops …

Seedlings

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It feels innately warm, the virescence of spring, the electric glow of green budding against an often grey or pallid blue sky. Inside, for over a month, tiny cups of earth have been scenting the house, warm and ancient and fertile. And every day for the last few weeks, a new raised disturbance in the surface of the soil, a loop all serpentine and pale milky whitish green appears, one leaf, then two, unfolding and stretching and rolling out in a slow vaguely feline style.   And every time I pass the counter where they’ve taken shelter from the passing snows, I smile. The heart shaped pairs of purple green leaves on the baby cabbage, pointy long stems of onions and leeks unfurling like tiny whips, the heart like curls of eggplant and peppers first leaves, the showy bold overachievers that are rapidly growing young tomatoes. Every year come beginning of February, newspaper page after newspaper page is rolled into tiny cups and seeds are begun, tiny wishes for spring, tiny hopes for tomorrow. And hour after …

Home.

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“It’s deep in the race for a man to want his own roof and walls and fireplace.” – George Bailey Sr . Once upon a time, not quite a century ago, there was a cabin built in central Oklahoma on a small farm. The house was happy and well-loved for many decades, until the capital city outgrow its borders and all the neighboring communities and towns swelled with the weight of growth. One day, the farm land around the little house began to change as it was split and crushed under imminent domain for the expansion of the interstate. Soon big companies with big money came and began buying the remaining land around the little house and its little farm. And then the little house’s last family member, its last holdout, passed away and the sad little house was left alone with the big businesses and their big money. But another family had seen the little house and loved it very much so they bought a piece of land much farther away from the big businesses and …