Tag: Gardening

August On The Homestead
Gardening · Homesteading

August On The Homestead

Sarah

August started off like July. Colder than normal, where if it did heat up, the nights were well under 60*. Chilly for the plants. Some thrived well, some didn’t. Eventually we got a week of heat mid month, which helped the harvest later on.

I finally after YEARS got white Burbank blackberries. But they just never got good. I’d say mealy was the best term for them. Not good eats. I will keep up hope though, I really want to master this berry.

Marshmallow in bloom. It doesn’t last long, so I treasure it yearly. The plant got at least 12 feet high this year (yes, it is a water hog). It collapses when the heat ramps up, so 3rd week of August it plopped down for the year.

Taunting me, but nope.

Where as the Boysenberry crop this year was off the charts.

White strawberries.

Catnip in bloom.

Boysenberries.

Rusty the Rooster.

A random lily a squirrel planted for me.

Potatoes straight from the Andes Mountains growing.

One has white flowers.

The other has purple flowers.

An August harvest.

And another nights harvest.

Our Frostline peach tree did amazing this year and we had a huge harvest in mid-August. Very juicy and sweet, but they bruise very easily. Not one to store, they must be eaten quickly.

The Lily opening up.

When a cucumber hides on you. The chickens eat well with these.

Having survived July’s freak windstorm, the giant Sunflowers fought on and started opening. The bees were very happy.

Strawberry Calendula.

Sunflower.

Native Twinberry Honeysuckle, growing in the berry bed.

The pear tree gave over 40 pears this year. That was a great crop for this tree.

Herbs that have spread and spread. I let them grow randomly, as it brings in pollinators.

Right before we harvested the peaches.

The Olympian Fig tree grew a lot this year and put on its best harvest, with over 50 figs.

Baby Kiwi growing.

In late spring the boys and I planted Lupine seeds and 12 plants took. This one was getting ready to open. We gave a couple of them away, and will plant the rest into the berry bed.

Boysenberries ripening.

Grapes slowly growing.

Rusty spends his days with us, when we are working.

August brings the start of the second crop of strawberries, on the ever bearing types.

Moving the strawberry plants into a large cage has really helped with getting a better crop.

The swimming pool bed growing lots of food.

More grapes.

Elderberry ripening. It was also a good crop this year, but I am letting the birds eat them this year. The tree has reached at least 14 feet high.

A harvest every night.

August is the height of tomato picking.

Lupine opening.

Which leads to canning.

I love creating jar after jar of salsa, for the winter.

Peach harvest.

The figs ready to be picked.

As August wound down, the strawberries ripened.

The strawberry cage has filled in nicely.

The dual crop red raspberries are putting on the start of the second crop.

And at the end of the month, the first ripe grapes showed up.

Four videos from August:

And as August wound down, we had a freak day of intense thunder/lightning storms (not very common here), with a lot of rain. The temps in the last days dropped into the low 60’s as well, and low 50’s at night. It rained overnight and is still raining today. An odd way to end a month.

Fruit and berries did great this year. Everything else was hit or miss, due to the cold temps.

I am actually looking forward to fall. We are going to rip out all the fences, turn the beds over for the first time in years, then tarp the beds to kill the weeds. Once the cool weather and shorter days arrive I will be busy getting it ready. I need this I feel, to reset everything.

~Sarah

Fall Gardening: Sow Right Seeds Fall Sale
Gardening · Homesteading

Fall Gardening: Sow Right Seeds Fall Sale

Sarah

If you see gardening as a 3 to 4 month time period, you are missing out on the fun months. The months where it is cooler, not baking in sun. Where we live in the PNW, we can actively garden from often March to November, and if we put in extra time, we can extend it even farther under high tunnels/greenhouses.

Which brings me to that I have been planting seeds the past few weeks for fall items. I just go out very early or after the sun settles down into the trees, so I can work with less sweating. Lots of lettuce, new kale (it’ll go thru the winter and get big next spring), swiss chard for the chickens and yes, radishes for some early fall crunch on salads/

I started using Sow Right Seeds awhile back, adding them into the rotation of my favorite go to companies to get them from.

Sow Right sent me this great Fall Crop Collection of seeds to try out this season:

Of the seeds, the first to go into soil was the swiss chard. I cannot emphasize enough how much chickens love fresh swiss chard. So yes, we don’t get a lot ourselves to harvest (I like it in soups, chopped fine), but it sure provides rich eggs for us to enjoy. It’s cost prohibitive to buy fresh greens on our island for our girls in fall/winter, so growing them has to happen year round. But the other part? I love the vivid color of swiss chard – it is visually pleasing and few pests bother it. If I cover it with frost fabric when snow is predicted, it comes right thru.

Now of course…we sit and wait, giving the cups fresh water daily, till the seedlings pop up. By end of August they will be in the ground growing quickly in the waning month of high season.

If you’d like to check out their seeds, visit Sow Right Seeds. Use code: SARAHK10 to receive 10% off your order as well. They are having a Fall Sale as well, from 8/11 to 8/18 with 15% off and if you order $25 and up, free shipping comes with it. They are also on Amazon if you prefer shopping that way.

Fall Giveaway! Starting today, August 11th through August 18th, enter for a chance at winning 1 of 5 seed packs. Winners will be announced on August 21st. US only. 

Click here to enter.

~Sarah

FTC Disclaimer: We are an affiliate of Sow Right Seeds, and receive a small amount if you choose to buy from them. This helps support running the website. We were sent seeds to grow, but all opinions and reviews are ours. 

Building A Strawberry Cage
Gardening · Homesteading

Building A Strawberry Cage

Sarah

I’d not have built a strawberry cage when we lived in town. I can only imagine what our neighbors (and the HOA) would have had to say. But there comes a time when in rural life you must come to terms with caging your treasures. And you just use what you have on hand, and choose to not care about aesthetics. I’d rather spend that money on new plants and seeds.

I have taken growing strawberries, of all varieties, as a focus on our land for the past decade. But the last 5 years has been trying. While I fully support growing for my feathered friends (the local birds), the squirrels and the chipmunks, there comes a time when I am tired of feeding them and not me. I would like some of the harvest.

There’s a lot of frustration to find the nearly ready berries from the day before gone the next day.

At our previous home, in the suburbs, I didn’t have the pressure from as many hungry animals. Overall the deer leave strawberries alone, but not the small animals. It’s feasting season from May to September. Yes, white and yellow strawberries do throw them off, as they prefer red visually. But even that isn’t enough.

So I got to thinking. My neighbors had given me a whole bunch of dog kennel panels a few years back. We were using the majority of them to make the outer structure for the chicken run, but I had 4 sections left. Originally I had set them up to make a small run for my smaller dog to be in, while I am working (she is under 20 pounds and a target for eagles to grab her). Well…she did not like being in it and would bark non stop at the chickens. Fail there. So then I thought I’d make it into a cage for plant starts. Well….maybe not. It wasn’t big enough. I could only fit one table into it.

Then I realized I could put all the hanging pots in it, and even run 2 levels of those.

Then we laid down double cardboard on the ground to keep the grass down, dragged in a pallet. Then I went and found every pot of strawberries hanging out randomly in the beds, across the homestead, and moved them in.

Now they are overall off the ground, and in a cage, where it’s topped.

It will help lower the amount of birds on the plants.

With the strawberry plants now far away from the chicken area, we will have less squirrel presence (they eat chicken feed) and the rabbits cannot get in. But also, as the plants are above the ground, far less slugs.

I never said it looked classy. But it’s a homestead, not a Pintrest-Ready project. Things that work are the only thing that matters. And better is when I can do the project for free, on items I am recycling into yet another use.

~Sarah

July In The Gardens
Gardening · Homesteading

July In The Gardens

Sarah

Summer came on time, as it should. It showed up around the Forth of July, as it does most normal years. It wasn’t hot though. While much of the US baked in July, it was actually pleasant in July. Though it never stayed warm at night, which is great for us, but not so much for the tomatoes. They are definitely hampered this year due to the cool nights.

It was a productive July, and I won’t complain on that. We ate, and it was tasty.

Early Broccoli harvest.

I had planted a lot, and yes, I picked early. I am always fidgety with Broccoli. Take it early or risk bolting if we get heat?

First Tomatoes came in early July.

First Cucumbers.

First Magic 8 Ball Zucchini.

Calendula, growing wild in the beds.

The massive potato field that grows in the compost pile.

Tricolor Sage, that has grown from a 2″ start, to a massive plant. I haven’t watered it in 2 years and it is doing fantastic.

With an anomaly growing up off one branch, reverting to plain Sage.

Bush Green Beans, growing in an old chicken coop bottom.

Work tent.

Daisies, growing wild.

The berry bed, becoming a mess. I’d tidy it up over the month.

White Blackberries, starting to form, after growing these plants for 5 years.

Not at that price. 4 figs for $9.49 is very pricey. And they were not even local! One reason we added a second Fig tree last year.

Figs growing happily.

Kiwi growing.

Red Currants,

Variegated Elderberry producing this year.

Feverfew growing wild.

Apples on the trees.

Was shocked. The Hawaiian Strawberries actually produced a few berries this year.

Growing ever so slowly, but it was very tasty when harvested.

My gardens may not be pretty, but they are functional. I am encouraging the grapes to grow across this year.

Artichoke growing.

Nasturtiums, growing wild.

Blueberries.

Raspberries that taste like wine.

A short crop, but one we love every year.

A butterfly wing we found. A bird must have had a tasty snack.

First onions.

Early potatoes out of the compost pile.

Marshmallow plant in bloom.

Onions and Cucumbers.

Boysenberries.

Chickens enjoying the parts of the harvest we didn’t use.

Borage growing wild.

Chamomile, growing wild.

Evening picking for tomorrow’s meals.

Chicken eggs.

Lavender.

White Sage, harvested for a friend.

Large tomatoes.

Cucumbers can be worse than zucchini for missing one, and finding a club of one later. The chickens enjoyed this overgrown treat.

Lots of bell peppers on the last day of July.

And the Green Zebra tomatoes started coming in…..

~Sarah

Mid Summer Gales and Wilting
Gardening · Homesteading

Mid Summer Gales and Wilting

Sarah

All it takes is one gale storm warning in the middle of summer to have dread well up in any gardener in the Pacific Northwest.

Last week we got one of those, a week ago on Monday.

The storm came in as predicted, with howling winds, off of the Salish Sea. The morning half of the storm wasn’t bad, and the sun came out. Then part 2 came in, in the late afternoon. It rained, like a mid fall rain, for nearly 3 hours. The skies were so dark it felt like it was after sunset.

The rain didn’t stop till after 8 pm. And then suddenly the wind stopped as well. In summer we usually are dry from May to August, so a heavy rain really can hurt plants.

And what a mess it was. I lost my pop up tent I use in summer, to process veggies in – which I keep a table and chairs under, often with my daily tools on it. It was staked out and weighted down, and still flew off – and was impaled on T posts. Totally wrecked, the top was shredded, as were the bug screen walls. All my tools were tossed across the field, soaked. I had early harvested garlic drying on the table, it was soaked fully.

I was so crabby last Monday, as I stomped around looking for anything I had missed in the grass, to toss into our greenhouse, to hopefully dry. With at least 15 pairs of soaked work gloves I picked up. It was almost dark, so even made my mood more black.

The next morning the sun came out, like the storm had never happened. As it likes to do.

But there of course was more complications:

The dreaded post rain wind storm wilt. Where you just feel so hopeless.

This summer in the PNW, on our island, has been cold at night. It hasn’t hit above 55* yet at night. So things struggle to recover when it gets hit bad. The cold really affects their ability to snap back.

I went out in the morning to inspect the beds. Most was OK but I noted some bad areas:

A couple of blueberry plants were not loving it on their newest growth. There was a noticeable overnight wilt on the top growth.

A feral Calendula full went over. I saw this over and over in the beds/rows. I let Calendula grow wild because it attracts pollinators, and hey, it is very pretty. So seeing it all flat was not a great feeling.

The Sunflowers took a beating. The front ones the most. The back ones stood tall. But the front ones, were bent part way to all the way over in the morning. They were not broken though.

Scarlett Runner Beans. Of all the storm damage this was the worst. The plants collapsed overnight. The beans are fine, they are down low, protected.

The low temperatures that night after the storm were around 50* at our homestead. That was far too cold for them.

A week out it is better looking. While the worst affected sunflowers are not 100% back up, they are not dying. The blueberry bushes look healthy again. The beans? Well….at least we can harvest the pods, so I am not upset.

Nothing spread, even better.

The Takeaway?

Wilt after storms can be scary, but just give it time before you react. Don’t pull anything immediately, nor do any cutting/pruning. As well, don’t tie up things immediately after. Wait a week to see if it needs help. The sunflowers I will be tying gently to the deer fence today, to help them stay tall.

Give it a few days, a week. If it still looks bad, then start removing. But wait to be aggressive.

~Sarah