Tag: Gardening

Wrapping Up August In The Garden
Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

Wrapping Up August In The Garden

Sarah

It’s hard to believe it is already September 3rd. The boys have been back in school for weeks. The last half of August cooled down a bit, with temperatures in the mid to high 70s during the day and nighttime temperatures in the high 40s to mid 50s. I got so much work done in the garden, because I wasn’t fading in the heat. And it was oddly low humidity. We warm back up for a couple of days, into the upper 80s, but by the weekend, it will drop back into the 70s. Seeing the end of my first hot summer has me enthused.

It’s been an education, with my first year of growing in grow zone 7a, south of the Mason-Dixon Line. I had failures, but also many successes. Starting with nothing but containers and grow bags was challenging. Completing the fence and building my raised bed garden was a huge accomplishment. I really pushed my boys to help me before school started. I know the winters here can be so cold, so I knew I didn’t want to be building it in December. We spent a few days out here last December, and I nearly gave myself a case of hypothermia just being outside too long and not having real winter clothing on.

One thing I had never grown before was sweet potatoes. Earlier in the summer, I saw slips for sale at the local Mennonite-run plant nursery and picked up a bundle. I grew them in a large pot, since I didn’t have the garden ready.

By the end of August, they were sending out long vines and were putting on flowers. I will definitely grow them again.

I had one raspberry plant I bought in early spring, which had been sitting in a container that was far too small. I put it in one of the first finished raised beds, so it could grow more roots in the final months of summer. It will have new friends join it next spring. It rewarded me with putting on many new flowers. I might get a fall crop (it;s a dual crop plant) after all!

I found out I have two rose bushes that produce roses twice a year, by the house.

The butter yellow is beautiful. They are a tea rose type.

I stopped by the Mennonit nursery a couple of weeks back and picked up some Swiss Chard starts to fill out a large container. I didn’t have the time to get seeds ready for it this summer.

I also planted two types of bush and dwarf pea seeds, bok choy, and three types of lettuce seeds in August, for fall crops.

All my basil plants have grown like I have never seen before, especially since planting them in the ground this year. The heat has been great for this.

The creek down below still has a bit of water in the sections that stay shaded. The deer come down to drink in the early morning. We only got rain twice in August, after a very wet (and hot) May/June/July.

Eastern Black Swallowtail happily munching on my Lovage plant. I am OK with donating a plant to them; they are beautiful butterflies. Lovage is their favorite treat. I will plant a ton next year!

I worked on finishing the fence last week, taking advantage of the cool mornings. First up was adding 3-foot-high bamboo poles, zip-tied to the T posts. Later, I will thread hemp twine around the poles to extend the fence’s height.

Another project was the gate. I am well known for the trashy gates I put together. I tried to make this one look nicer than in the past. I used 5-foot bamboo poles to strengthen the hardware cloth fencing. Then I used poly guy lines that were trash, which I wound around the poles. Now the gate is as high as the fence. I used a zip tie to create a loop and a carabiner for closure. The metal novelty flag stake is zip-tied to the fence and flips over to help keep the gate shut. Use what you have on hand and save money, no?

Onwards to September and to hopefully a fruitful fall garden.

~Sarah

Building Hugelkultur Raised Beds
Gardening · Homesteading

Building Hugelkultur Raised Beds

Sarah

Hugelkultur Raised Beds: it’s the fancy German word that plays into permaculture. When Kirk and I took a class on permaculture last year, I planned to incorporate the practice into rebuilding parts of our homestead gardens. Then I hurt my arm and sat out the summer. Then…we moved.

As spring turned into summer, and I started building my raised bed garden, adding many more raised beds, I knew I needed to think it over more deeply. Soil isn’t cheap.

For example. I finally found great bed soil locally, from a Mennonite Nursery across the river, in Maryland.

The soil is $4.99 a bag – it;s heavy in weight, and I would guess is a cubic foot bag each. Price wise that is good compared to the “garden soils” sold at big box stores.

It is a blend of screened topsoil, leaf matter, and mushroom compost. It smells good, not how often “garden soil” smells (usually heavy in animal matter).

It’s on the right, next to the other garden soil. It is a fine soil.

I filled the first two raised beds with bagged soil so I could build a herb bed and one for strawberries. For the third bed, I needed to do it quickly, so I added a thick layer of chipped wood and dried leaves. Then piled in the soil.

The clumps are mushroom compost. The bed was done, but I definitely had to spend far too much to get it ready. An 8 ft by 4 ft by 1 ft bed will take over one cubic yard of soil. This soil by the yard is $58. It’s worth it, though.

It will become the raspberry bed next year on both sides. For the fall, I transplanted a dual-crop red variety that I had been growing. They don’t require caning. Next spring I will add more red and also golden dual crop.

For now, I planted a couple of rows of Patio Pride Peas, which are bush, so they will grow fast. I will transplant my lettuce starts in a week or two.

With so many beds to prepare for next year and so many trees to trim, I put that to work. Save money and have healthy soil.

We trimmed all the branches we cut down (the trees here hadn’t been pruned in many years, and some were in terrible shape). It’s work we can do in the shade and isn’t physically taxing, just tiring from using loppers constantly. We used our chipper to process many branches, but the minor items that the chipper doesn’t like often get jammed.

Haul them to the beds and spread out.

I am filling the beds to the top with the cut branches and leaves. Then I will place the trimmed logs on top to compress them. With rain, the wood matter will break down over the fall and winter seasons. I will also be adding lawn trimmings on top.

Once we have the beds filled and fully prepared, I will purchase the garden mix soil to add to the top, allowing the wood to break down more effectively.

So, as always, it’s a work in progress.I will talk about it more in the coming months.

Now then, is it true Hugelkultur? Not quite. But that is the best part of gardening…You can do what works for YOU. My beds won’t be mounded up and high. They will be in pretty, standardized-sized raised beds. They will look just like they were filled with 100% ready-to-use soil. But I will have a vested interest in it. I oddly took that away from our Permaculture class. Use the principles and make it work for you. Perhaps that isn’t exactly what was being taught, but then my mind has always worked a bit differently.

~Sarah

Terracotta Carrot Watering Spikes
Gardening · Reviews

Terracotta Carrot Watering Spikes

Sarah

Kirk found me these terracotta carrot watering spikes as a gift to help with the hot days here in West Virginia. He wanted to see if they would actually work.

One came with a crack, but we can fix it with glue. Terracotta is fragile in some ways. The others were fine.

I added them to my large container pots. Gently twist so they sink into the soil.

I added water to fill them.

Put the carrot top on. I checked them 12 hours later, after a warm day, and about 20% had leeched out. According to the listing, you can put a pottle on top for extra water. I could see a 16.9-ounce water bottle working.

The terracotta slowly weeps out the water, is how it works.

Cute too! I put the first three in our blueberry bushes and olive tree.

I could see picking up more of these (and they come in many styles on Amazon) to buy me time on the hot days. They are functional and cute, which works well in our garden for me.

~Sarah

The New Garden: Getting It Ready
Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

The New Garden: Getting It Ready

Sarah

The work continues – through the heat and humidity of a West Virginia summer. My window of having help shortens by the day, when the boys return to school. Start early, then come out after dinner, once the sun starts to settle low. It’s not much cooler, but at least the sun isn’t directly over us.

I decided to risk it with potential deer harassing my garden, and started moving items in the evening, to get as much as I could off the patio. The truth is, the patio doesn’t get enough sun during the day. Mostly what I moved were herbs and grow bags of potatoes, not things deer are usually too interested in.

It was 80° as we started early in the morning, but we got the T-posts up and running. I bought 25 6-foot poles (Tractor Supply seems to be the most affordable option here in the Eastern Panhandle, at about $6 each).

More went in.

Filling in more.

We brought out more of the grow bags, and some were already done for the season, so I put the soil from them into the raised beds to reuse it.

To start the soil in the beds, I added wood chips and peat moss on the bottom. And then dumped in the soil from the now-empty bags. Might as well reuse.

I was also transferring the potatoes I had started in July, as they hadn’t grown. However, once I moved the soil, I found that all my July potatoes were completely rotten – like hot, mashed potatoes. Interesting lesson I didn’t know I would learn. In the PNW, this was never an issue. I must have cooked them in the grow bags for the past few weeks.

I decided to try out felt liners for the bed to prevent soil from escaping from the floorless beds and to keep the area neater. They came in 2 packs, and are 4 by 4 feet, with four sections in each. I paid $19.99 for each two-pack. Which fills one raised bed. We are using eight-by-four-foot beds, which I spent $70 on (they came 2 to a package)..

I got an herb bed in, of all the herbs I had started this spring. That left me very happy.

I did the lower half of the fencing – while hardware cloth isn’t actually fencing, I had brought four rolls with us. Paid for fencing is better than buying new fencing – and since I won’t have chickens, my need for it has decreased.

We built more raised beds. I thought about putting a pop-up greenhouse into the bed….

I had brought up all the small pots that I had kept on the patio. These were strawberry and herb plants.

It really is.

I was getting all fancy and had filled in the base of the greenhouse with pea gravel, made of granite and similar, in a light color.

The strawberry bed is half alpine, half regular. Both sides will fill in eventually.

I only moved one tomato plant, a cherry plant, into the new garden. It was easy to move.

And sometimes one learns lessons, whether they want to or not.

I was so proud of my work. Then we received a warning about a potential severe thunderstorm approaching. I went outside to check on everything.

When suddenly the wind showed up, howling out of the Appalachian Mountains across the Shenandoah Valley. I am finding the wind here? It can be far worse than the wind back on Whidbey Island, even off the Salish Sea. The wind was hammering anything tall. I was about to have a kite on my hands. And I was outside, with a potential thunderstorm approaching. Not my most brilliant moment. We got the greenhouse out and ran for the patio. With two holding it down, we got the cover off and then ran inside.

It might have been some of the strongest winds I have ever experienced. I ended up inhaling far too much dust and was coughing for a good hour afterward.

I whined the next day, and then got back to work. I figured out I couldn’t have a pop-up greenhouse out in the garden – it is too exposed. Neither can I have tall structures. The greenhouse will stay where it has thrived, which is under the patio, between two support beams. And use it as a shed till spring, for all my garden gear.

So I moved five of the large pots into the area I had built as a focal area.

I added more herbs to the herb bed.

The sun came back out, and we added more raised beds.

The look of the garden was starting to come together.

It’s still my happy place. Lessons exist for a reason.

I started the upper fence, adding favorite garden signs I had brought with me.

Some I just don’t point to the road is all.

Kirk picked me up the cutest statue kit, and I added it to the focal area.

The herbs are doing so much better in the main garden. The Comfrey is growing well.

I have one raspberry plant growing. Soon it will be planted in a raised bed, but now that it is getting enough sun, it is producing berries. Next year I want one side red, the other half will be golden.

Sweet Potato vines. growing up the fence. I bought slips on a lark earlier in the sun. Now in the sun, they are growing fast.

Ten raised beds have been built so far. We finished the upper fence today. We have another four beds to build. Then more planning.

I upgraded the grapes into larger pots and put them in the front corners, so they can start growing up the fence.

My goal is to add more grapes next year and eventually have the fence covered in vines. I will get bigger pots. That are designed for large trees.

But now…go build more beds and find a source for a lot of soil.

~Sarah

The Start Of The New Garden
Gardening

The Start Of The New Garden

Sarah

At the end of April, I had posted about my planning for the new garden bed. Then it got hot. And I had so much else to do after our move.

However, with less than a month left before school starts again and a week with lower humidity/temperatures (mid-80s), I decided we needed to get moving on it. So that by early fall, I could work on this on my own terms.

First, I marked out the perimeter of the new garden. It will become bigger, but I wanted to see what 40 by 4o feet looked like. I took it almost to the edge, where the lawn drops off (down below is the septic drainfield).There is also a tree that needs to be cut and taken to the ground.

To start, I had Kirk mow this side of the house. He cuts to about 5″ in height. Then I went in and mowed it with Ol’ Crappy to about 2″ or less. I went as low as that heap could do it. It finally had a break in the rain this week, but the lawn was still soaked. Last week, we experienced multiple days of heavy rain. And while it might be warm, it can take forever to dry out.

I will keep using this mower till it finally dies. It is being held together with duct tape.

Working with heavy-duty farm fabric. The first roll was 5 feet 5″ wide. We cut it into 40 foot long sections.

First strip down. You want to be sure to peg down the edges well.

Three rows down. We overlapped by about 4 to 5″ on each section, so grass cannot easily push up between it.

Four rows in we ran out of the first roll of fabric, 160 feet used.

I had to wait for the new roll of fabric to ship overnight, so I had them bring out the two raised beds Alistaire had built for me. The raised beds are 8 feet long by 4 feet wide. I plan to give them three feet from the fence, so I can walk around and work.

At least get an idea of what we are doing—four more sections to lay down.

The new fabric showed up, a 500-foot roll.

Now onto finishing the ends.

So much more to do – but it is happening finally.

When we moved, I left behind a couple of essential items in the greenhouse at the old place. A bonus for the new owners, I suppose. One was a roll of farm fabric (one got packed. The other didn’t). I also left behind a nearly full box of fabric pins. So I had to buy a new box, but what I got was better in some ways. The FEED brand comes with plastic disks that you insert the galvanized landscape fabric pin/staple into, and then use a plastic or rubber mallet to drive into the ground. This helps prevent the staples from bending and getting bent as you pound in. It also helps with the fabric not tearing around the staple. A win for me.

Part 3 is already happening, and I will write more later.

~Sarah