Filed under: September 2016 | Tags: cover crop, procrastinate, raised beds, Small Farming, small gardening
September 14, 2016
Over the last three days, my wife and I have accomplished much around the yard and garden. Many of the jobs we did were long overdue. I used the weedeater in places that I hadn’t touched all summer! I trimmed bushes and hedges that really needed a “haircut”! I weeded beds that forgot what the hoe even felt like. We chopped, trimmed, dug mowed and sweated like people possessed.
The summer flew by, as we did farm work, chopped wood, and took care of animals. Somehow, while I was immersed in farm work, the gardens and flowerbeds went WILD. I walked by and simply turned my head knowing that I would get to it sooner or later. Our neglected garden was simply pitiful. Honestly, I was ashamed of my laziness.
I sat down and we outlined an attack plan. I also decided to do away with a couple things that didn’t work for us. We tore out three raised garden beds. I kept the ones with our berry plants, asparagus and rhubarb planted in them. The ones that I thought would make gardening easier, I ripped out and salvaged the lumber. They turned out to be labor intensive, hard to mow around and constant suckers of energy.
We also renovated an old perennial flower bed. The grasses had started to choke out the flowers. I had tried weedblock, mulch and this year, the weedeater but I just don’t have time to make it look like it should. We will now be mowing up to the fence, as the whole thing has been planted to grass. The last order of the day was to work up the garden space and plant a cover crop of rye. The gardens and flowerbeds are now all ready for winter.
It is great to have this behind us. I am training a new horse and will be soon working up a field and planting speltz. The corn crop is drying nicely and the harvest will soon be at hand. I can now look forward to those things, working horses and just enjoying this farm.
Bye bye flowers, hello grass….shhhhh, don’t tell anyone…the fence needs painted!
Filed under: August 2015 | Tags: cover crop, gardening, planting, plowing, raised beds, Small Farming
The gardening season nears its end
August 24, 2015
Our new (this year) raised bed gardens performed very well in spite of the June floods and the recent lack of rains. We have been dry for over six weeks. The weatherman says we are three inches behind in the rain department. Being able to control the amount of moisture no matter what the weather helped us to grow an abundance of food even though our plots were the smallest we have ever grown.
I am pulling out the plants that are done producing. The tomatoes, a few peppers, some winter squash and a cantaloupe vine are all that remains. I am about to plant cover crops in the vacant beds. This cover will put our garden to bed for…dare I say it?… Winter! While there is still plenty to do, one must stay focused on the northern sky, where Old Man Winter and Jack Frost are plotting their chilly plans 😮
Next week we will plant a few things. Any month with and “R” in it is the time for planting trees, shrubs and most perennials. I need to plant all of the above and will even try boldly to relocate our strawberry bed. The horses and I will soon be plowing for speltz, but I am holding out a little longer for some soil softening rain. The water will make the plow pull easier and believe me, we are a very long way from being too wet to plow. The soil and the weather rule and guide a farmer…that is just the way it grows.
Filed under: June 2015 | Tags: gardening, hay making, hoe, patience, raised beds, weeding
Garden beds starting to look good
June 27, 2015
As I write this post, rain is hammering down outside. We have gotten over 2 inches since 5am this morning. We are still pretty wet from the last rains we got a few days ago. I am very glad to be gardening in raised beds this year. The plants, though well watered, are still doing great as their roots are above the flood zone 😮
It does take some getting used to. I usually have many more plants to weed and watch over. Our garden needs have become smaller as our family has too. Gardening like this is actually fun. It doesn’t take any time to weed or hoe a bed. The dirt is loose and easy to dig into. The best part is that even when it is wet, my shoes stay clean as I do my “dirt work” standing on the lawn!
The sugarhouse addition is coming along, but the rains have delayed that project a little too. No worries, I am sure it will wait for me! My biggest issue is waiting to make dry hay for the horses. That too will all work out, I along with everybody else in northeast Ohio, just needs to be patient.
Filed under: May 2015 | Tags: Compost, gardening, high tunnels, raised beds, strawberries, strawberry plants
Renovating the old strawberry bed
May 8, 2015
I built these nicely raised beds for gardening in my old age. We plant our strawberries in one bed and garden vegetables in the other. We keep the strawberries in each bed for a total of three years. During the off years, we grow our vegetables like green beans, salad greens, carrots and any other veggie that is hard on the back when picking 😮
Once we pull out the old strawberry plants, we add topsoil and compost to raise the bed from it settling. The compost enriches the soil. The crop rotation done by swapping our veggies around, keeps our plants healthy. Strawberries are in the nightshade family as are tomatoes and potatoes, for this reason we don’t plant the close relatives in succession of each other.
I can see, perhaps one day in our future, planting sweet corn in these beds just to break up the growing cycle, confuse the bad bugs and have some ears to brag about. I would have to pick the ears with a step ladder, unless they blew over, but wow would they be healthy plants! This compost soil mix makes plants thrive. We grow vegetables in abundance.
I plan to make some “covered wagon bows” to turn my raised beds into high tunnels. These little greenhouses will provide food for us for at least nine months out of the year. I have too much to do with the farm for now, but I am sure one day, these two beds will become awesome food factories. It will give plenty to do, keep me out of trouble and provide us food to boot!
Filed under: July 2013 | Tags: amber waves of grain, purple cone flowers, raised beds
Red potatoes starting to bloom
July 5, 2013
Our raised beds are the only part of our gardening efforts that are positive this year. I plant a few potatoes for early summer eating, to hold us over until the main crop is ready later in the season.
I like the early red ones in potato salad or cooked with the skins on and smothered in hamburger gravy. It is a yummy treat that I remember from my childhood. My mother loved them too.
In the rear of the photograph, you can see the ripening speltz. They will be ready to harvest later in the month. It is neat to see the “amber waves of grain” as it ripens in the sun….. those days that we see the sun around all the raindrops. 😮
Summer flowers are blooming around the yard. The purple cone flowers are some of my favorites. I guess they like all this rain, as much as,the grass. The lawn looks pretty good as do our pastures. I think it is good to focus on the successes now and then. It will help keep a man sane!
RicelandMeadows 