Garden Salad

The garden is growing like gangbusters. Here's a quick pic of the ingredients from last night's salad - all freshly picked.

Kale, Lettuce, Spinach, Radishes, and the first Sugar Snap Peas of the spring. The best part was that there was enough left over to take for lunch today.

Garden Pics

It's May, and the garden is alive and kicking. Here are some pictures from the 'Burbstead.

Sugar Snap Peas growing on a trellis that I made from reclaimed lumber, old porch swing parts, and a piece of an old soccer goal net. The Aster flowers are all volunteers, and they're ALL OVER my garden. I also have tons of volunteer Marigolds and little yellow flowers (Dwarf St.John's Wart?). This isn't a problem by any stretch. I try to sprinkle flower seeds around every year, and I let the volunteers grow wherever I'm not growing food. Not only do they attract pollinators, but they make the garden look nice.

 I've got 5 Blueberry bushes planted on the edge of the garden. Two of them have little berries on right now. I'm hoping to get enough to make a pie this year (assuming the damn birds don't eat them all). In a couple of years, they should be big enough that I can have enough to eat fresh and preserve some.

 Early Flat Dutch Cabbage. There are about 12 plants. I'm hoping that enough of them get big so that I can make a lot of Sauerkraut. Right now, something has been munching of the leaves, so I need to figure out what sort of pests are hanging out there.

 Fordhook Chard and Buttercrunch Lettuce that I planted in the hoop house last fall. It over-wintered, and took off once the weather started warming up. I'm not sure how long the lettuce will go before it bolts and turns bitter. In any case, it's awesome that I can get a really early Spring harvest thanks to the hoop house.

Curly Blue Scotch Kale. This year is the first time that I've grown Kale, and it's doing great. I put some in vegetable soup the other day, but other than that, I'm not sure what to do with it. Joe Rogan always talks about drinking Kale and fruit smoothies for breakfast. I'll have to try that sometime.

 French Breakfast Radishes and Olympia Spinach in the front, and Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce in the back. You can also see some Kentucky Wonder Pole beans poking up on the left side. I've planted them around the base of the hoop house so that they'll (hopefully) climb all over the frame.

Yes, that is a tomato. It's a Silvery Fir Tree. You might be saying to yourself, "But it's only May 2nd. Isn't that crazy early for outdoor tomatoes to be starting to put on fruit?" Yes, yes it is. The crazier part is that since I transplanted these in mid-March, I only had to cover them with a sheet ONCE! If I had known that this Spring was going be so warm, I would have transplanted all of my tomatoes back in March. It's funny to look back a couple of years at how excited I was to find a little tomato in early June. At this rate, I'll be eating fresh tomatoes before June. This must be what it's like to garden in southern California. Yeesh...

Hatch day update

Today is the official hatch day for the eggs that Tater Tot's class were incubating. Renee called this morning to let me know that when she dropped Tater off, 5 of the chicks had hatched, and 2-3 more looked like they were in the process. So this Friday, we'll be getting another shipment of up to 8 more chicks. It's a good thing that the earlier batch were moved out to Cluckhaus 2 yesterday. It's an A-frame tractor style coop that should serve as a good transition home for the new chooks. Once I get the roof shingled this afternoon, I'll post some pictures.

New Arrivals

Tater and Erik smile for the camera, while Alex tries to put a voodoo hex on the chicks.

Right about 1 year ago, we got a delivery of 10 chicks from the kindergarten class at my children's school. 5 of those (4 hens and Brown Spot, a rooster with permanent laryngitis) are currently hiding from the soggy weather in the chicken coop out back. Well, a friend of the kindergarten teacher decided to hatch chicks for her class, and about a week ago they moved over to the 'Burbstead. The kids were all very excited to get more chickens. I had to explain to them that we weren't going to be keeping all, if any, of them. Our current flock lays more then enough eggs for our family. Besides that, at least a couple of them are going to be roosters who will no doubt be noisier than Erik's beloved Brown Spot. We'll have to wait and see how many boys and girls we get before we make any plans. We also have to wait for...Tater Tot's class eggs.

Tater is in kindergarten at the same school that Alex and Erik go to, and the teacher is once again hatching a dozen eggs. The estimated hatch day is April 30. So in about 2 weeks, we'll have a whole bunch more chicks. Hmmm, I smell a mid-Summer butcher day coming...

The latest 'Burbstead additions warming up under the lamp

A hot Spring: Going topless in the Garden

It's April 2nd, and the high today is going to be 90 degrees. Something is not right here. The warm weather has afforded me the chance to work outside with my garden girl, aka Tater Tot. She is always happy to work in the dirt with me. Here she is helping to transplant Kale seedlings a week or so ago.

Anyway, after much wrangling and patching and taping, the plastic finally had to come off of the hoop house. I was hoping to use it as a staging ground for all of the various and sundry seedlings that are currently taking up space on the kitchen counter. Oh well. Everything that is in the garden seems to be doing well so far. I need to fill in some blank spots along the snap pea trellis. THings planted so far include: Silvery Fir Tree and Purple Russian tomatoes, Curly Blue Scotch Kale, Early Flat Dutch Cabbage, Amish Snap Peas, French Breakfast Radishes, and Olympia Spinach. Notice that with the exception of the tomatoes, all of those are cool season crops. We'll see how they handle this unusual weather. I put the tomatoes out in the middle of March, and I haven't had to cover them once. Gak! I suppose the silver lining here is my other tomato and pepper seedlings shouldn't have a hard time getting a good start.

Eat with the old, grow with the new

The weather is certainly starting to warm up (thank you Global Weirding). It's been all upper 70's and lower 80's this week. The early seedlings have graduated to bigger pots, the Kale and Cabbage are hardening off in a lidless cold frame out in the garden, and we've put Snap Peas in the ground. March 21st is still a week off, but Spring is in full effect around the 'Burbstead.

We're pulling the last of the Winter crops out of the hoop house. The lettuce, spinach, and radishes that I planted in there a few weeks ago are up, and Alex is getting set to plant some carrots in his little section. I patched the big hole in the plastic, but some heavy wind and rain opened part of it back up. Considering how warm it's been, the holes are actually providing some much needed ventilation. I'm hoping to have the whole thing replanted in the next week or so.

Erik with some freshly picked Turnips and Carrots

The first round of Tomatoes that I planted consisted of Purple Russian and Silvery Fir Tree varieties. They're off to a great start, and I want to get them transplanted under some row cover this coming week. The second batch of tomatoes have mostly all sprouted. The list includes: Beam's Yellow Pear, Hillbilly Potato Leaf, Large Red Cherry, Pineapple, Speckled Roman, Black from Tula, Green Zebra, Amish Paste, Moonglow, Cream Sausage, and some Ground Cherries (not tomatoes, I know). Altogether it amounts to about 95 tomato seedlings. That's way more than I can grow, but I enjoy giving the extra plants to friends and family members. Next up, Peppers... bring on the warm weather!

6 good looking Purple Russian Tomato seedlings

Hoop House Fail

To say that the weather this "Winter" has been odd would be a gross understatement. Yesterday it was almost 70 degrees, then a front moved in and it dropped down into the 30's. It was also freaky windy. Given how degraded the plastic on my hoop house is becoming, I was a little worried about how it would handle the abuse. This morning when I was feeding the chickens, I walked over to inspect it and this is what I found:

I've had to patch up the hoop house numerous times, but they have all been tears that were 18" or smaller. I'm not quite sure what the best way to fix this gaping hole is going to be. I suppose that will be a job for tomorrow morning. I need to patch it quickly because I have a bunch of seedlings on my kitchen counter that are going to make their way out there before too long. Once Spring is in full effect, the plastic is going to come off, and eventually the frame will serve as a giant green bean trellis. For now, though, I need to seal it up.