I've been gardening for most of my life and have been a devoted fan of organic gardening the whole time. It just makes so much more sense to work in harmony with Mother Nature than to fight her. Besides which it is better for the planet and better for our bodies. Here you can see what I'm planting and harvesting, with gardening hints and resources thrown in for good measure.
Picking for this afternoon’s delivery. Flowers, herbs, Red Russian kale.
I spread some of the oldest compost on a garden bed. Then cleaned out a small coop to start a new pile. .
Whoa. The pillow factory exploded out here. I sure need to get these pens cleaned up and fresh bedding put down.
Spent the afternoon clearing out weed trees. Going to need the sawzall for some of them. Shredded up 2 buckets full for the compost pile. Delivered produce to Superior customers, bought feed, came home and collected eggs. Time for food and bed.
Last spring I hatched some ducks from my old pair of Welsh Harlequins. I ended up with 3 drakes and 2 hens. Love my Harleys! The boys are beautiful with their emerald green heads and russet chests.
The hens are good layers, the grandmother of this brood once laid 90 days straight without skipping a single day. (She did take a few weeks off to go broody at that point tho). These two young hens are now both laying, so yay! More eggs for us. I love duck eggs, especially for baking.
duck eggs
hoop house lost it's cover
main tomato garden
We had snow and rain over the holiday with some high wind. I had to wait until things thawed out this morning to get the cover back over the hoop house. Didn't really hurt anything, I mostly use the plastic to help winter crops grow a little faster in the cold weather.
I got all the old tomato vines pulled up and chopped into the pieces. I've started a new big compost pile in the main tomato garden. The compost chickens will be moving to this area shortly. You odn't have to chop things up for the compost but it makes it rot faster and it is much easier to turn the pile if you don't have a lot of long stringy stuff in there.
parsley, sage, rosemary and lavender
Kale seedlings
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and lavender seedlings are all waiting to go into the ground.
Some Red Russian Kale, aka Ragged Jack seedlings are also waiting to go out into the garden.
seedlings in the hoophouse
Broccoli and collard seedlings have just been transplanted into larger pots and are waiting for garden space. That is the great thing about growing most of your garden from your own transplants. The seedlings can grow off to the side, out of the way and not needing as much water while they wait their turn to go into a garden bed. I can gain as much as 6 weeks growing time this way.
The broccoli I"ve been harvesting is Di Ciccio, an older variety that makes slightly smaller heads but a lot of side shoots. This batch is Waltham 29, another old variety. I don't remember growing it before, so we'll see how it does. All of the collards I'm growing this year are Georgia.
