Is it really June? Spring whizzed by and with all the travel, we found ourselves lost in the dust of garden dirt-devils and sneaky rabbits. We are usually eating out of our garden this time of the year but instead are still trying to prepare beds for transplanting starts from the greenhouse. The saving grace: we’ve been eating fresh greens and broccoli from our greenhouse for months and are gradually learning how to grow all year long. I’m making fresh pesto now, too. It always amazes me though how every garden year is different — always a curve ball, a surprise — that humbles, amuses, and seasons us. Last month, I transplanted 70 BEAUTIFUL zinnias and they ALL died. Um, what?? I gradually acclimated them to the cold and sun, so what happened? Yes, a portion were lost in a spotty frost but the rest? Was it because onions grew in that bed last year? A mystery. C’est la vie.
Well, we did start more zinnias, and slowly, slowly, seed by seed, we are planting our garden. I love that Tulsi loves planting, too. She is always asking for seeds or saving her watermelon seeds and planting them here and there. :) A local farmer taught me how to sprout my winter squash seeds in damp, rolled up paper towels in a glass jar (so we know the seeds are viable). Then plant them. It worked great! And another friend lined us out on electrifying our chicken yard (that we just tripled) so bears won’t bust through and destruct. Fingers crossed. Sometimes on the homestead, it is a dance of two steps forward, two steps back. So today I’m giving thanks for feeling a little more ‘caught up’.
I’m also excited about taking a workshop in August on fermentation at the Lama Foundation with Sandor Katz, author of Wild Fermentation, and others, fermenting, making herbal medicines, gathering wild foods, root cellaring and food drying, composting, cheese making, etc.
AND, for my birthday, Patrick gave me a “worm farm“! I’m one lucky woman. Tulsi and I can’t wait for the 2000 squiggly, wriggly worms to arrive tomorrow! (I’m such a garden nerd.)
How is your garden growing this year? Any lessons learned?
Oh wow, I’m admirative of all you do and learn… and of your humility! I wuld love to learn to do all this with you…*sigh*
And Noa does the same than Tulsi, same obsession with watermelon seeds ;)
And I loved your French wisdom quote ^^
(and wow, bears??? Didn’t know you had some!)
Sabrina, do you still have a small garden (tomatoes, herbs, etc) at your house? I remember how happy they looked from old photos! And yes! Tulsi’s watermelon seeds are plants a few inches big now — I don’t know if they’ll yield fruit in the mountains, but we’ll try. :)
oh, all this…and my new one is planting companion crops…my bok choy ( which I never grew before) apparently is a fave of flea beetles…. I spayed w/ some neem oil and planted radishes ( a BIGGER fave) between them and wow, what a big help!….they have jumped ship for a better snack!>..
ah , there is just so much to learn in the farming world!….
hey Kerin! yes! it’s endless! we’ve also been companion planting the past years here…like spinach and borage with strawberries, and carrots and beets together. so much. an maybe even more importantly — what DOESN’T like to grow together. onions are a toughy there so we mostly give them their own bed. and crop rotation, too. i made a map of our garden 5 years ago and every year we do a planting map on a piece of tracing paper so we are sure not to plant the same thing in the same bed for 4 years. and hooray for your neem concoction! yeah! i’ve used it before, too, but thanks for the reminder. we have bugs usually on our asian greens…i should try it! do you preserve food?
Love this post, J-ma! You’re attitude inspires me!!!! Always!!!!
Things I’ve learned: Plant more than you need (I harvested potatoes and while they were beautiful and perfect, I wish there were more to share!!) And, of course, put chicken wire up before anything else. Bunnies are some serious salad bar eaters! :)
xoxo, p-ma
Penny! that is so tricky — knowing how much to plant every year. we love planting excess to share and swap with friends but sometimes we either don’t grow enough of one thing or too much of another. last year we grew like 300 pounds of potatoes! ha. gave tons away and still couldn’t eat enough. and our winter squashes just didn’t produce last year… i ‘think’ this year is going to be better…i focused more on what i can preserve: carrots, beets, winter squash, cabbage, onions, tomatoes, pesto, herbs… we’ll see if we can keep the monster hungry bunnies out. :) a new fence is always on the bottom of our list! btw, your potatoes were beautiful! mmmmm.
Hi Jenny, In going through our archived blog posts I found a link to your blog and came to check if it’s still active. Active and thriving I would say! How wonderful that you are still enjoying your Growing Dome greenhouse. I wanted to let you know that I’m going to re-link to you again on our channels and share what you’re doing with our audience. Congrats on the beautiful blog and I look forward to reading more. All the best, Stacey @ Growing Spaces