Garlic Chive

I love Chive. It is beautiful when it is in bloom with it's unique Dr. Seuse style pompom flowers. Many foods enjoy the jazzy onion like flavor it offers. Needless to say, I was pretty excited when I was given a little Chive plant last Spring. We used companion planting as a general guide for what plants to put together. The little Chive went in the bed with tomato, a purple basil and there may have been some carrots in that bed, too. Chive is said to repel Japanese Beetles. I can say they seem to prefer the canna lily leaves over the Chive. 

I was surprised by it's mild flavor, but thought maybe it would be stronger the next season. When the gardening season wrapped up, we let the chickens into the garden and they scratched out the Chive root ball. I was sad but decided there are always seeds to start again. A while into the winter, I looked at the root ball and realized there may actually be some life in it yet despite exposure to harsh winter weather. I put it in a pot (and watered it slightly) in the garage to stay dormant a little while longer. When we were in the full swing of seed starting, I put the Chive under the light. Boy it was happy then. It got watered and fed and enjoyed 8 hours of bright light a day. 

It went outside once the weather eased up and there she sits! She is happy and blooming. The pollinators are pretty happy about it, too. Since I have not seen Chive bloom any color other than the pink/purple poof, I had to do a little research to find out what the deal is here. This is a Garlic Chive. They are less cold hardy than regular Chive, so it's probably good I brought it in to baby it a little when I did. 

I am enjoying the sweet little white flowers. They make me think of bouquets of stars. Leaving the flowers to go through their life cycle will encourage the plant to go dormant, so I guess I will cut them to prolong the season of Chive seasoning. Our one year old has enjoyed plucking a blade and sitting on the step to nibble on it. Little does he know, he is helping with the reccamended minor pruning. :)

I found some general info on this website: http://www.heirloom-organics.com/guide/va/guidetogrowinggarlicchives.html

Late Summer

I love this time of the summer. Everything seems so full of life, rich with flavor. Tomatoes and peppers are heavy on the plants. Melons and pumpkins are so big you have to find alternate routes through the garden. Sunflowers are blooming and going to seed welcoming different birds to enjoy a nutitious snack. 

Not all the plants in the garden are in their prime at this time of year, however. I have said goodbye to the snow peas. The greens are long gone. Cabbage has been harvested and eaten. Potatoes and onions have been pulled and dried. All to make way for the next round of seedlings!

We have decided to can beets and carrots, so there are tons of little beet sprouts working their way up right now, and the carrots should pop up any time! Greens will be back on the menu in a while. A few different brassica will also be making a comeback in our garden. 

Here is to another round of veggies!

Strawberries and a Toad

Weeding. What fun. It is one of those things that is easier when the plants are little. That is easier said than done when weeds are popping up with seedlings and they all basically look the same. They are the same size and who can really tell the difference! Once there are at least two sets of real leaves it gets easier to know what you are dealing with though. 

I went out to do the last egg check of the day at dusk and ended up pulling a few weeds. I stuck to the asparagus and strawberry beds where there would be no question in the dim light between the weeds and the plants I want to stay. Even in the dim light I could tell the strawberry plants are loaded with flowers! 

They got some Tiger Bloom yesterday and seem to have enjoyed it, this plant has at least a dozen flowers ready to pop open! Pardon my enthusiasm, I am close to harvesting one of my favorite fruits! Slugs better watch out, these little red gems are mine.

While I was pulling weeds, I heard something in the grass next to me. 

I found this chubby little sweetie. I have always liked toads. They eat bugs. That is great! I think that I liked them a little girl because most people did not like them (I was so compassionate that I thought somebody should love them), and also because of the Frog Prince story. I was little and I liked fairy tails. I found a toad when I was about 5 and named her violet and decided she should live in the hollow part of a tree by the iris patch. I put her there every time I found her. She liked being petted. Back to the toad from this evening. I think I will set up a toad abode. I may need to visit Pinterest for some extra ideas. 

May Peas Be With You

Life is exploding back into our world. The daffodils have bloomed, the dogwoods are holding bouquets of flowers,and the redbud trees are trading in their delicate flowers for little heart shaped leaves. It has been a wonderful spring.

There has been some frost in the mornings, but the hail storm from early April did more damage taking a strawberry and a few brassica plants. With the week ahead forecasted to be in the 80s, it's easy to think it's time to plant the whole garden. Don't do it. 

Keep your planting in line with the weather. Read seed packets and plant at the right time of the season for greater success. Broccoli, coloflower, spinach, arugula, strawberries. These are the things doing really well in our garden right now. The peas are coming along nicely as well. 

Everything has a season. May the Peas be with you, happy gardening!

Asparagus

Here is to 20 years of fresh asparagus!

We planted a bed of purple asparagus crowns last week and they started popping up a day or so ago. 

Planting was actually pretty easy. I was nervous because I have no experience with this skinny veggie. Any time I plant something new I am a little worried I will mess up and it won't grow, but as long as directions are followed somewhat, all is well. We created a trench about 6-7 inches deep and shaped a small mound along the bottom (creating a furrow), placed the crowns in and covered over with a few inches with soil. Pretty easy.  The extra soil is still along the sides of the furrows so that it can fill in gradually over time as is recommended. 

I can't wait for the freshest asparagus ever. Nothing beats fresh out of your garden.  

Herb Garden

Herbs are the spice of life, or something like that. They definitely add variety to dinner.

purple basil

I wanted to put an herb garden out front from the beginning. Well, really I wanted to make it a flower garden, but herbs look nice and serve a purpose, so an herb garden it is! The area is full sun all day except for a small area that gets morning shade. 

Last year we did companion planting in the garden, so we had some oregano, basil and chive out there. I put creeping lemon thyme, Russian lavender, peppermint, basil and oregano in the herb garden. It was really nice having it right out side the door so I did not have to walk all the way out to the garden in the middle of making dinner.

The ground was hard and the grass was tough, but this edger made it possible to remove the grass to make the garden. 

I ran it along in rows

and chopped them into brick sized pieces so it was fairly easy to remove the chunks with a shovel. Keep in mind it is February and I am sitting in front of the computer 9 months later, so easy may be relative.

I was able to use the sod I removed in other places in the yard, and the rest went to the compost pile.

Along with the herbs, we planted a few left over chili peppers.

I soaked news papers in water and then laid them on the ground and placed sand stone on top to create a path. Originally, I was going to put 2 or 3 stones as stepping stones, but since we had plenty of stones around the house, I just went with it! There were lots of small river rocks in the space that I made this little herb garden, so I piled them up on either side of the path, and my husband filled in with sand. The result was a nice little path that held up pretty well over the summer.

Nasturtium 

Over all, I am pretty happy with how the herb garden turned out. I would like to expand it a little each year. It will be more manageable that trying to do the whole thing at once. It is just a side project after all!

Hope and Light

Deep in the dark, damp soil: life begins. 

I feel an excitement for the first snow in the early part of the winter season, followed by the holiday cheer. A week or so into January though, I am ready for Spring. Ready for the sun shining on a crisp fresh morning. Ready for tiny bits of green peeking out of the brown of Winter, taking over the gray, bringing the world back to life.

Starting plants inside in January brings hope and light to the dead of winter. Last year we put freshly planted seeds on top of the refrigerator for a little extra warmth. Once they popped up, we put them in the brightest room in the house with South and East facing windows. They got lots of light and grew quite happily. To a point. Then they just seemed to slow way down. I think it was a number of factors like temperature, too few hours of direct sun light, possibly not enough food (though we were using things like azomite and green sand).

This year, we are doing things a little more seriously. There is now an area designated for gardening. We got a nice light and set it on a timer so the little plants get 16 hours of "sun" and 8 hours of dark. So far, salad greens have been planted and are doing quite well. Peppers and strawberries have been planted, and a few sprouts are peeking through. More on that another day. We started the seeds in 2 inch peat pots and transferred them to 4 inch nursery pots when they were still quite small. The starts have been on a regimen of neem oil and sal-suds Castile soap (anti-pest, anti-fungal) and fertilization with Foxfarm Grow BIG.

These starts are very happy little greens! We have kale, a yellow swiss chard, mizuna red streaked mustard greens, deer tongue and a ball lettuce. We will be eating our own salads again in no time! Even with the taste of snowy winter we just got, the sun is out now and we have a small garden on the way, reminding me that Spring is really on it's way back.

Breaking Ground

It was a long winter. I am sure you have not heard that this spring! The good news is that we have actually had spring this year. Last year we got ripped off and went from winter to summer. 50 something and rain is actually spring. May is a bit late for that, but at least we have gotten some rain this spring.

I started writing this in May last year after a winter of many snow storms. A lot has happened since then, so I will give some of the high lights because I have no idea what I was actually going to say that day!

Last spring rolled around and we put a fence up. We put straw bales out and topped them with garden compost from a local nursery. We had lots of plants started inside. We experimented with different ways to sprout. We used peat pots, cardboard egg cartons and toilet paper tubes.

The idea was that they could just go right out into the garden when it was time, pot and all.  We found that that was not the best method for many of our plants since they needed to grow more than the tiny pots allowed. The other  problem was that the roots did not grow through the peat pots as easily as I expected, causing them to get a slow start once they got out in the garden.

Despite a slow start, our garden grew big, looked nice, and supplied us with a bountiful harvest on a regular basis through the season.

I got some things in the freezer, like blanched tomatoes and pumpkin puree. This coming summer/fall I WILL be canning though.

Tomatoes! notice the chilis hanging by the window?

It is February now, so it's basically Spring, right?!

African Violets

Once upon a time, I acquired an african violet from a friend. It was in decent condition in a small terracotta pot. Feeling hopeful, yet intimidated by hearing they were easy to kill plants, I did a little research. Supposedly, as long as you have the right set up, African Violets are quite easy to grow! I was living in an apartment with only North and South facing windows at the time, so I thought the light quality would be good. On to the watering dilemma. Feeling cheap, I decided not to buy a self-watering African Violet pot. That would have meant purchasing the pot, and a special bag of soil. Like I said, I was feeling cheap, so I opted for the wick system. I had some 100% cotton batting that I cut into a strip and put in the soil with the plant and the other end in a bowl of water with the understanding that the soil would absorb as much water through the cotton as it needed. I was afraid to water from the top since I thought if any water touched the leaves it would cause rot problems. To wrap this story up, the plant died and I was afraid to every get another African Violet.

Fast forward a few years, I was visiting my cousin Ivy. She had strawberry pot in her kitchen full of happy African Violets! She said it was super easy, mostly she just lets them be. I think her kitchen is South facing, but the pot is in a place where it doesn't get much direct light, just lots of bright indirect light. Well, Ivy, you inspired me.

Once we moved into a larger house where I thought my husband might not notice yet another plant appear out of thin air, I brought home a 50 cent African Violet. Purple with a thin white edge, pictured above. I splurged and got a self watering flower pot. It has been sitting in my South facing kitchen window for probably about 8 or 9 months. It gets bright indirect light all day with a very short bit if direct light. Not only is it growing new leaves, but it has even re-bloomed a few times!

I added another one a few months later, and it is just as happy as the first! When I brought home the purple one, I cleaned it up a little by removing a few leaves. I got a wild hair and stuck one of the better looking leaves in a pot with another plant just to see what would happen...much to my amazement, it grew babies!

I officially love African Violets now! Thank you Ivy for the encouragement you probably had no idea you gave me! We never know how our words will affect someone, so that is why I try to keep mine kind and positive. I hope you are having a beautiful day!

New

It's amazing what can happen in a year.

This time last summer, we were in the process of buying a house. Everything went through with out a hitch. We are now the owners of a house originally built in 1901. It started as a small farm house and a few additions over the years have doubled it's size. The old portion had carpet that we planned to remove and redo the flooring. When we pulled up the carpet, we found an old hardwood floor. It was in decent enough shape that we sanded it down and refinished it. Let me tell you, that is not a fun job. We have also painted a few rooms. That was much more fun, and did not take forever and a day to finish!

Clematis at the back of the house

There are plenty of projects we have planned for the house, as well as the yard. (A garden is among them, don't worry!) Our biggest project completion happened this spring. We got 14 chickens and built a chicken coop and yard.

My husband designed the coop and his dad spent many afternoons in our yard building it. It was quite the Feller project as my father-in-law was assisted by all three if his boys at various stages. We are all pretty proud of it.

The coop is made of reclaimed barn wood. I love the old look it gives the little building, almost as if it has been there for decades.

Rudy the Rooster says "Hi!"

Lots to Do!

If you have ever read this blog, or know me personally, you know that I want a real garden. I have been learning about container gardening while renting, but I now have more than an acre to work with! There are so many possibilities that it is almost hard to decide where to start.

Here is a preview of some of the projects I am in the midst of.

When we originally looked at the house, there was a beautiful tree at the end of the driveway. It was tall and had a lovely shape. I was not sure what it was until mid June.

 

mmm, persimmons! now that is exciting! I started imagining all the persimmon pudding I would make this fall since the tree was completely loaded. But then:

 The poor tree was so full of fruit that it could not support itself. As the fruit ripened and plumped up, branches started drooping and cracking. Eventually, many of the branches had fallen, well sort of. I have done some minor pruning to take the weight of the fruit off of the broken branches since I currently do not have the means to properly prune the tree.

On the bright side, there is still plenty of  fruit to turn into persimmon pudding and give to my expansive persimmon-pudding-loving family!

 Also on the back of the house is a...uh...garden area. The English Ivy is quite lush! Wonder what was here before the ivy took over?  I would love to have an ornamental pond in this area. It is right below the kitchen window, so it would be pretty cool to have a flower garden to attract hummingbirds. You know I like my hummingbirds! Stay tuned to find out what happens.

 To the right of the English Ivy is a large Lilac bush. I have learned pruning these guys can be dramatic, but this time, I don't have to worry about what the landlord will think! Like the lilac I posted about previously, this one is in need of some serious surgery. Check out the suckers!

 

Even the front door is overgrown! can you find it? I know it is the wrong season to cut into these bushes, but I had to carve out a path to the door!

This Summer has been busy, and the Fall will continue on the same way. In the long run all this clean-up will be well worth it. In the mean time, my arms getting pretty buff :)

The Garden is not a Litterbox

 My first year in this house I had grand plans for small garden beds. There were a few places around the house where the grass did not grow very well, so I thought a nice little flower bed would be a better alternative. 

Not only would the areas look nicer, I figured the land lord would not mind since he would not have to weed eat awkward spots in the yard. Yes, that really was one of my justifications! I put in my garden beds in the fall by removing the grass (and roots) with a flat shovel, putting down a cocoa soil conditioner and putting in plants the next spring.

There are plenty of neighborhood cats that wander yard to yard...know where I am going with this? Well, the sweet little kitties LOVED the fluffy cocoa soil conditioner. I went on line looking for ways to ward of the feline interest. Basically all I learned is that cat's will do what they want, where they want, no matter what you do to the garden. This was not a news flash to me because I have a dear kitty of my own, so I know quite a bit about feline determination!

I got some large pine mulch for the front flowerbed thinking dainty little kitty toes would not like the large coarse chunks of wood and bark. I was wrong. I tried to keep the bed cleaned out by scooping any offensive deposits and watering really well...that didn't work either. Not even damp mulch kept these cats out! Aren't cats supposed to not like water? Sheesh!

I went to the pet store looking for cat repellant, but did not buy any. I did buy a jug of ammonia thinking if I sprayed it on the boarders of the gardens it would smell unpleasant. 2 problems with that: I think ammonia smells unpleasant, and I was not sure how the plants would react. So I never used it.

 

So now what?! 

 Rocks and ground cover. 

I placed rocks in the spots they liked to use the most (after scooping and a good watering!).  There is this neat little succulent ground cover around the neighborhood that I brought home a few small pieces of and planted in some of the leftover open areas. It is a nice ground cover to use because it pulls out easily if I change my mind!

see how much bigger they have gotten in 2 years?

The rocks add a nice decorative touch, and make great stepping stones. There are so many options for ground covers. There are a few types of Thyme that are creepers, and some are tough enough to walk on. Just imagine the wonderful smell of walking on a carpet of Thyme!

Vintage Farm Wedding

Ahh summer! The season of sunshine, swimming, extra daylight, fresh fruits and veggies, lots of flowers...and weddings!

My cousin's was yesterday. It was a lovely out door ceremony in the groom's parents yard, followed by the reception in the barn. The weather turned out perfect. It was nicely overcast by the time the ceremony started, saving everyone from a blistering 7pm sun, and there was a sweet little breeze dancing around to keep us comfortable.

I believe my cousin's theme was Patchwork. I only titled the post Vintage Farm Wedding because when I saw the bride with a classy vintage look, the bridal party and the setting all together, that is the post title I thought sounded great. To see pictures, check out Amy Phipps Photography. I was too busy running around having fun to take pictures...plus my batteries were on their last leg, oops.

The tables had tons of wild flowers in a variety of glass bottles. They were also marking the isles of seats for the ceremony. Each bridesmaid had a different colored bouquet. There was yellow, orange, red, maroon and mine was white (pictured above). The bride's bouquet had deep reds, lavenders and a pop of yellow. They all looked great together. The main flower in each bouquet was the elegant snapdragon. I love that she chose this whimsical flower. When we were little her mom (my aunt) always had them growing in her garden. Recently she told me why she loved them so much. It has to do with a trick she liked to show little ones. Gently pinch the sides of one of the blossoms and it looks like a dragon snapping it's jaws! She showed me this trick before I can remember :)

The bride brought a lot of personal touches to the decorating, but also to the bridesmaids. She gave each one of us a hankie, a pin and earrings selected for the individual girl. She also gave her sisters a pin, very sweet!

The pins are leaves, and we each got different styles of pearl earrings. The bride did a nice job matching the jewelry to the girl.

By the end of the night, after hundreds of hugs and blessings from their guests, this lovely couple had a blissful glow!

Congratulations Lovebirds!