Category: Gardening

Starting A Container Garden
Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

Starting A Container Garden

Kirk Kirkconnell

It’s been just over a week since I arrived in West Virginia.  The younger two boys, the cat, and I flew out at the end of March. Kirk, the oldest son and the dogs, drove across the country.

In early March, Kirk and I had driven across the US and I had planted a couple things before we flew back. Everything made it except for the strawberry 🍓 plants. They didn’t get enough rain, as they were just bit too far back. But that wasn’t a huge loss financially. I’ll get my alpine strawberry seeds going this week.

I love 5 gallon buckets for pepper plants 🫑, this frame I found at Home Depot slightly classed it up. I decided to treat myself.

We were here a few days when the first drop of shipped items showed up, from the U-Haul boxes:

We had sent thru 10 of these, and a lot of my garden gear was in them.
With time to spare, I started building on the lower patio.
I had ordered another pop-up greenhouse so I could start seeds quickly.
Fully built and weighted down, with it being the second one Alistaire has built, it went up fast.
Bricks, blocks, or pavers hold down the cover to protect from the wind. It’s even windier here in WV than it was on Whidbey Island.
I set up a potting area so I could make soil and get going on filling pots.

The cheapest potting trays are cement mixing trays. I found 2 sizes locally at Home Depot. It gives me one for soaking coconut coir, which is handy. The work table I had shipped through, though I almost didn’t. I am glad I did!

Clancy Potatoes 🥔 and Hedou Bok Choy seeds started today.
The last frost date is later than I am used to, so it has bought me time to seed and plant. I am now in grow zone 7a, where as I used to be in grow zone 8b
Yukon Gold and Blue potatoes 🥔 that I bought in early March, I got into pots this past week. They were definitely ready to be planted!
With my garden gear there, I started filling my grow bags. This morning, I seeded Tom Thumb dwarf green peas 🫛 outside. They are cold hardy.

I have in the container garden so far:

2 kinds of potatoes, 2 blueberries, 2 grapes, 4 containers garlic, and 2 of peas. In the greenhouse, more has and will be seeded. The weather predicts freezing temperatures a couple of nights this week, so I stay patient. Soon, it’ll be lettuce and pea harvesting time, and then to plant tomatoes 🍅 and peppers outside.

There’s nothing wrong with extensive container gardening. It lets one grow, but not have to build the infrastructure. You can work it around everything else that is crushing you and not feel overwhelmed by it. Meanwhile, as we settle in, I have taken a few moments to walk our land and to think where the permanent gardens will go in.

– Sarah

Growing Garlic 🧄 From One Area To The Next
Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

Growing Garlic 🧄 From One Area To The Next

neverfreefarm

As winter waned, and spring approached, I realized a sad thing:

I had either planted or sold all the garlic from summer of 2024. I had none to take with me, to our new place. The worst part is? I had been thru this before, on our last move. I had planted garlic in the fall of 2017 and left in the spring of 2018, taking none with me.

As I packed I found a tiny bulb of garlic. Little slivers for the cloves, but I figured at least I had something to grow.

In early March, I planted it on a visit out East when we drove our RV to West Virginia. I had found an old broken-down wheelbarrow downat the bottom of our land:

Just add in broken pieces of pottery lying next to it for drainage….

I asked a couple of friends, jokingly, “did you have any of the garlic you bought from me, that you didn’t plant?”

Well…my friend Linda actually did.

Gorgeous. And well preserved still.
It was some of the best I had grown last year. Huge bulbs.

I packed it in my suitcase and flew across the US with it, as I left WashingtonState.

The first day in West Virginia, I walked to the “garden” area in the back yard and saw this:

It had sprouted in the 4 weeks since I had planted it. And survived with no watering, except for the rain.

That made me smile. I went shopping and picked up 2 large containers, and planted the rest I had brought.

Now all the garlic I brought is planted.

The garlic won’t grow as big as fall planted, but it will produce seed for next fall, where I can produce a viable crop next year, to keep my Whidbey Red garlic going! And that was all that matters. To keep it going. And hopefully by next spring the new gardens will be built. And ready to grow as much as I want.

~Sarah

Spring Slides In
Gardening

Spring Slides In

neverfreefarm

I sit here, thinking about the weather in Western Washington State. For a big event is being touted by every meteorologist right now “The skies will fall!”. Sitting on a rock in the Salish Sea, in the Olympic Rainshadow, I’ll sit and wait. Is it winter hollering back one more time? It should be a good one along the Cascade Mountains, but spring is here. The overly excited predictions are hail, rain and tornadoes. I’ll go for rain being the major event. Maybe I’ll be wrong. I hope not.

In a few more weeks, the bad weather will be forgotten as all the trees open, flowers surging. Already the first blossoms 🌸 are almost here. The rhubarb is coming up quickly. Life is returning.

Peach tree 🍑 It’s often the first to bloom. It’ll open next week and hopefully avoid any rain storms.
The Lilac tree might be covered in lichen and moss, but it’s leaves are days from unfurling.

The birds are out singing, even as the weather starts to turn this afternoon. As my time in Washington State winds down, I’m happy to get to see the start of spring, then see it again in West Virgina soon.

~Sarah

First Sign Of Spring
Gardening

First Sign Of Spring

Sarah

There is something about the end of February as the first green stalks come up from flower bulbs in the Pacific Northwest.

Sometime in early March, the first flowers open, and for the next month, the bulbs continue until the tulips end it.

The wind might be blowing, the rain dumping, but spring is coming.

~Sarah

The New Kitchen Garden
Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

The New Kitchen Garden

Sarah

Big news! We are moving soon—across the country. In my work on the new place, I found I couldn’t pass up on at least starting an easy garden. My hands must be in the soil! So while doing work on the new place, I went shopping and got some soil, a few plants, and a couple pots (though I found some on the land that I cleaned up).

In saying goodbye to the homestead on the island and looking forward to the new place we are moving to, I learned one extensive lesson in this last homestead:

It’s OK to take the first year mostly off, learn the land, and go from there.

I nearly burned myself out on the island in the summer of 2018. After leaving behind a well-crafted urban farm, I desperately wanted an established garden. I spent the entire spring and fall frantically trying to get beds in the ground and spending too much money on temporary deer fences.

It’s easy to forget that making that urban farm, like our homestead on the island, took years of hard work.

I cannot forget that I also worked on our homestead for 7 years. It takes time!

If there is one thing that isn’t hard, it is to start a kitchen garden.

It’s a low investment. Our new place has a deck off the living room, baking in the sun. Under it is a brick patio where pots can be put out.

Turning land, building beds, or putting up wildlife fences are unnecessary until we are settled in. Just fill pots, grow bags, plant items, enjoy herbs, and produce them in the first summer and fall. The investment is in a few bags of soil and the containers.

It’s still awhile till spring, so I planted things had been in the cold already.

Two grapes, 2 blueberries and bare root strawberries. I also planted a bulb of garlic I brought with us, to restart my hardneck garlic.

I will move the grapes later, into the ground, but I wanted them to get going, to waken up.

I found an old wheelbarrow, all rusty and unusable. By it, I found broken pottery, so I put them together and made a deep planter to add. Use what you have first before spending money. I planted garlic in it. Again, nothing says I will leave it in there, but it can sit for a few weeks until I have time to build the first beds. The garlic will sprout, and start growing for us.

As spring happens, I will add a lot more on the patio. Lettice, bush peas, and so on. Herb plants. A seat or two, to invite one to hang out and enjoy the views. It will be easy to maintain, and quick to walk out to, to take care of.

~Sarah