Today, I am 5 weeks out from my arm injury, and I was feeling down a bit. I have watched my gardens barely treading water. We have kept them alive by watering them, but I can’t weed them or do any maintenance work. It is frustrating. Especially when I have had to watch rabbits destroy some of my crops and not be able to fix the fencing with only one functioning arm. I need to put down chicken wire 18″ up and 18″ out. But that won’t be this year. I can do it this coming winter when everything has died back. Maybe the other frustration is that I discovered field rat tunnels along the orchard bed, and they got in and dug up multiple artichoke plants from seeds I had grown. It’s crushing to watch it happen. So it’s not my year. I can accept that.
Add in our very cold and wet spring and early summer. It’s enough to make you want to quit farming and move into a condo.
But last week, I had a victory in all the mess. And it renewed my love of growing. It let me get past my sadness and anger over this summer.
We started pulling the garlic beds. It was time. With our youngest son’s help, we pulled it before a minor heat wave appeared.
It’s a nice color and size. There were no worm or insect issues, and the majority of the bulbs popped out without stem breakage.
Thank you, nature. I needed that boost. For a moment, I felt that things were OK out there. I had many bulbs of garlic come out this big.
I just felt….that at lest I was getting one good harvest this year!
Alistaire was a huge help. He hauled the harvest to where we decided to cure it, cleaned it up, and laid it out to dry. We will go up next week to trim it and pretty it up.
I have a bunch of bulbs in the house and have been cooking with them. It’s a mild but intensely flavored garlic. I have grown this variety that another gardening friend sold me five years ago. It’s one for Whidbey Island growing and does well in our microclimate.
We will go through the harvest and pick the best way to keep back for this fall’s planting. November will be here before I know it.
With my arm healing, I have had far more time to wander online. This has led me to look at many “tools you need!” for your garden articles. This isn’t bad because finding the crevice weeding brush was a winner for an ugly problem with no easy solution I could think of. The kit was less than $27, shipped one day for me, and came with the pole and two brushes. There are no instructions, but putting together and getting outside is straightforward. My thought was…$27 was a low enough price if it didn’t work.
When we bought the property 6.5 years ago, it came with two patio areas that are paver stones. Being by the house, it was easy to ignore it while we worked for years on conquering the outlying areas, building gardens, and such. One of the biggest issues is that it faces the West and is baked by the sun from noon to 8 pm in summer. Sitting outside is too hot and bright, so the patios have been wasted on us. And I let it go. Weeds love to pop up in the cracks around the pavers, and they fill up with moss. It has progressed gradually and has become worse each year. I tried to power wash it last summer, but it didn’t do much. Mostly, I’d bend over and hand-pick weeds as I saw them, but they’d come back quickly enough. And let’s face it, planting a garden is more fun than hand-picking dry weeds and trying to curl back dead moss strips.
Since I was injured this summer and unable to work in the garden area of our land (I rely on the boys to keep it alive until fall), I have had a lot more time to sit and look outside at the awful state of the patios.
It had gotten so bad that we had lost rows of pavers to the weeds growing over them. The youngest helped find the corner on the lower patio, which the lowest level of the house opens out onto. With summer in full swing, the weeds are dying back, making this the best time of the year to do the work.
The weeds have grown up to the stairs and the pathway that heads downhill. The pathway might be the worst, as it is half as wide as it should be. This is my fault for ignoring it. We could barely see the walkway.
The moss is dormant right now, and crispy, which power washing doesn’t remove, but….
The crevice brush is fantastic. It works. I can’t do it with one hand, but it’s quick work for the boys, taking turns—just a few strokes and the dirt, moss, and dead grass pop right out.
The first nine rows are mostly done. Some of the bigger weed masses will have to be removed by hand, by pulling, but the brush will remove the very shallow roots that is most common.
The brush in action.
We used a leaf blower to blow the debris off. After doing a row, we would give it a good blow.
It only took about 3 hours to do it all (and that was a slow 3 hours, with a lot of putzing). If I had been doing it, I probably would have taken 1 to 1.5 hours.
Kirk battled the walkway with the weed eater to get the overgrowth under control. Then they got to it with the brush. It’s not 100% done, but it looked amazing compared to before.
The lower patio and walkway are nearly done. Such a huge difference. The steps are being demossed, so they won’t be slippery this coming winter. We still need to remove the mass at the base of the stairs, a flat shovel works wonders in getting it up, then we will use the brush.
The upper patio has been started. Thankfully it was not as bad as the top, and only truly bad in a few spots.
Money is well spent on this tool! I feel like I got our patio back and it just looks so much nicer now.
Soon we will power wash it for the season, but I don’t feel any rush now.
When I first started studying herbalism on my quest to be an herbalist, I never saw how I would be able to connect it to the practice of permaculture. Permaculture wasn’t even in my mind then, nor was regenerative growing. I started studying around 2017 to learn more about the herbs I used in my body care product business. The years when I started creating tonics, salves, soaps, healing essential oil blends, and so much more. I wanted education to support my actions so I would not harm.
I wrote this book about the recipes I was using then.
Natural Body Care
But the growing aspect wasn’t quite there, as we had a tiny urban homestead.
Then, I got so busy building a rural homestead I left behind my herbalism studies and put all my effort into growing food first. That wasn’t a bad thing; it was just a season in my life. The Covid years changed what I was doing. I was so busy homeschooling the boys and growing food/plants that my herbal business slowly went to the back of my life, and I quit selling at farmer’s markets (and adding in how restrictive the rules were at the local farmers market in the pandemic years).
But this year, as I fought the dreaded 6-year homesteading year (it’s a real thing when burnout hits), I realized I missed learning. It was time to go back to my education. Take my interest in permaculture and the desire to rebuild our homestead into more of a permanent food forest where herb plants get a chance to shine.
With time on hand during the hot parts of the day this Summer, I have started retaking herbalist training, starting with the Herbal Academy’s Becoming An Herbalist Mini Course, free to take. Always start small, and get that excitement and drive back. Come this Fall, I have more classes lined up to take. I want to take that knowledge this winter and start my new permaculture-inspired growth. (I reviewed the course a while back, but taking it a second time…. opens my eyes up to things I missed the first time.)
As I opened up the mini-course in the first section, I was hit with this:
“Students of herbalism may also aspire to be plant growers, with a focus on owning or working for an herb farm on both small and large scales. This work will likely appeal to individuals who like to work outside and with their bodies and who crave direct relationships with the plants themselves. Many vegetable farmers manage to incorporate a variety of herbs into crop rotation and garden bed planning, while permaculturists and landscapers may create food forests with herbs as part of a sustainable and holistic design. Still others are interested in creating plant sanctuaries as a part of land stewardship and ecological education, focusing on integrating and protecting native plants in wild settings.”
It was like I had not read this the first time, all those years ago.
“The contemporary herbalist exists in a long line of practitioners who work at the intersection of land stewardship and health, and this intersection is only one of many that an herbalist may need to navigate.”
Another line, in Lesson 3, had me thinking.
“As the much-loved botanist, clinical herbalist, teacher of herbalists, and Herbal Academy educator 7Song notes, community-based herbalism involves a variety of aspects of herbal practice, which may include growing plants, making herbal products, seeing clients, and understanding intimately the community in which the herbalist works (7Song, n.d.)”
From Lesson 3. That is very much how I work in life. I learn for myself and then to help those around me.
This summer, my mind has been excited. I did not realize how I had subconsciously changed our growing style over the past few years until Kirk, and I, took part in a permaculture class. Someday, we might get certified, but the truth is that it isn’t cheap, and it takes at least two weeks to complete. That is a lot when one has a job and family.
In my spare time, I could study more about plants—why I should care about them, how to grow them, and, once again, how to use them. Maybe becoming certified in permaculture wasn’t my most important goal; rather, increasing my skills in growing and using plants and working with nature was.
I have my dreams for sure. If the first 6 years were us running around to conquer the mess our land was, then the next 6 can be us working with the now healed land, to get to my dreams. No, I won’t have the fantasy AI photo above, but slowly it will become something even cooler than now.
And that is why this summer and fall, my mind is running to learn even more. To build a deeper appreciation of permaculture.
It’s second week of July and most people are not thinking about their fall garden. They are focused on what is happening now, and the start of the summer harvest. But now is the time to get your fall crops seeded and going, so you can get them in the ground in the months of July and August.
And yes, it always coincides with the heat, but if you want to eat for extended months, this is the time. Work in the cool morning or as the sun sets (if you don’t have mosquitoes). I love the evening as the bats come out and fly over us—eating those mosquitoes!
There is a wide amount of produce you can plant soon to extend your garden by 2 months on average. Our growing area has a 10% chance of frost around October 23rd, and by then, the sun will be getting weaker in the northwest, and the hours of light will start to get shorter, so it will be about time to wrap it up for fall. If you think about it, many gardeners give up around Labor Day, losing 1¾ months of potential crops.
Sow Right Seeds has fall seeds ready to ship and to get started. Use code “SARAHK10” for 10% off. They offer collections of seeds, one of which is the “Fall Crop,” as seen above.
What can you plant in Zone 8b?
Arugula:
Seed Start 8/6-13 Outdoor Planting 9/03
Bush Bean:
Outdoor Seeding 8/19
Beet:
Seed Start 7/27-8/3 Outdoor Planting 8/24
Broccoli:
Seed Start 7/17-24 Outdoor Planting 8/14
Carrots:
Outdoor Seeding 8/04
Kale:
Seed Start 7/22-29 Outdoor Planting 8/19
Kohlrabi:
Seed Start 7/27-8/03 Outdoor Planting 8/24
Lettuce:
Seed Start 7/27-8/03 Outdoor Planting 8/24
Mustard Greens:
7/19-8/02 Outdoor Planting 9/13
Pak Choi (Bok Choy):
Outdoor Seeding 8/24
Bush Peas:
Plant anytime from now on to the end of July. Do not plant pole peas, as they take too long to grow.
Radishes:
Outdoor Seeding 8/24
Spinach:
Seed Start 8/11-18 Outdoor Planting 9/08
Summer Squash:
Seed Start 7/17-24 Outdoor Planting 8/14
Swiss Chard:
Seed Start 8/03-10 Outdoor Planting 8/24
Turnips:
Outdoor Seeding 8/24
Zucchini:
Outdoor Seeding 8/24
So you don’t live in Grow Zone 8b?
Want some help on when to seed and plant? Check out Sow Right Seed’s Planting Calculator – just enter your zip code, and you can choose from Spring or Fall planting. It’s that simple!
You can also play with the chance of frost. I put in the lowest chance, which is 10%; you might want to go up higher. It’s always good to go and look at all the options and see how dates change.
One of our long-term goals on our homestead has been building densely planted food forests, where most are perennial. Planting once and eating every year has been my goal for long-term sustainability.
While we have carved out garden beds to grow in (because of deer) that are fenced, 2 of the biggest beds grow wild now. Yes, I do weed to a certain point and water in the hottest weeks still, but it is every year getting to where I need to maintain it less. Just prune as needed and fertilize yearly.
Less work is the goal, with the promise of food to come.
These beds are The Orchard, Berry Bed, and The Strawberry walk-in cage.
What do we grow?
We have planted these plants over the past five years, and most have survived. I have noted what grows well in our area.
Of course, your mileage may vary depending on what grows in your microclimate. This may mean you lose plants here and there, but that is part of the learning.
Blueberries. We currently have about ten varieties to avoid a mono-crop.
Raspberries, golden raspberries, marionberries, blackberries. (Multiple varieties)
Kiwi Berries.
Grapes. (Multiple varieties)
Gooseberry.
Lingonberry.
Fruit and Nut Trees:
Plum, peach (frost type), apples, and pears have all done well.
Figs (cold hardy).
Olives (cold hardy, grow at last 2)).
Elderberry (at least 2)
Asparagus:
I keep growing more from seed every year; in the second to third year, you can transplant it into the ground. Once established, it lives on its own. Cutting it often encourages new growth.
Rhubarb:
When we moved rural, I quaintly thought I needed 15 plants. One or two is just fine. But do plant it; it’s a pretty plant. It’ll need water for the first few years and pruning of dying-back leaves, which encourages new growth all season.
Artichokes:
Grow as many as you can. Whether or not you eat them or let them go to flower, they are beautiful and tall. Native bees love the flowers.
Herbs:
Unless you live where it is snow-covered or deep freezes for months, many herbs come back yearly, especially culinary ones. Once they are established, a good trim/pruning and annual fertilizing are usually all you need to do. You may lose one or two if there is an extreme freeze. Otherwise, watering is often only needed first year and during heat waves in summer.
Potatoes:
Once planted, potatoes love to hide baby potatoes you miss in harvesting. They love to come back on their own.
Also, if you harvest damaged potatoes, toss them back in the ground to grow a new crop, even if they are rotten or have insect damage.
Garlic (sometimes):
Garlic can rip when pulled out and will come back up again the next year if cloves are left behind. Letting hard-neck garlic go to flower will produce garlic bulblets that will seed it naturally. (This happened to us last year in an outlying field that is full of feral garlic now.)
