chickens

Our family got three hens and built them a coop and enclosed run. It was a family effort, I got the materials, assembled most of the run and painted the coop. Jeremy did most of the coop building. The boys helped out enthusiastically.

Growing like a weed

Well here we are in the second (now fourth) week of June and the garden is changing faster than I can keep up with all of the changes. Our pea harvest is finally ended. I have harvested the garlic and will finish with the onions this weekend. We have almost finished with the beets and the lettuce and spinach is but a memory now. I Harvested the potatoes, because the plants died back, but we didn't get more than one meal worth.

So far we have cucumbers and squash now coming into season (delicious). The beans are going well, we have a ton of green tomatoes and tomatillos. Our eggplants, melons, and pumpkins are all flowering. The corn, carrots, and broccoli are growing. I'm not really sure how to measure the progress of the parsnips because I have never grown them before.

Next month we will start planting potatoes, brussel sprouts, broccoli, carrots, beets, and beans. Then in August we will start with lettuce and spinach for a fall harvest.

memorial weekend 2009

Now going into Memorial weekend, the garden has changed a lot in the last two weeks. The pumpkins are growing nicely and the beans are ready to start climbing their trellis. The onions and garlic have continued to grow and are now quite large. The lettuce and spinach are at maturity. (I have more planted in peat pots and waiting to fill in holes in the garden) The watermelon and cantalope both have true leaves. The cucumbers are in need of a trellis sooner rather than later (we will get to that as soon as the chicken coop is done). The beats, parsnips, and carrots are all going full blown. The first wave of peas has started to flower. The potatoes continue to grow and I have just added more soil onto the mounds.

The containers on the deck have not all fully flowered yet, but you can get an idea of how it will look when the nasturtiums, petunias, strawberries, and peppers join the petunias and marigolds.

The eggplants are not doing as well, and I think that they were put out too early and it has been too wet for them. I am starting to enjoy the visual effect of interplanting, especially the color added by the flowers.

First week of May 2009

We had planted two pear trees and five herritage rasberries along the fence. We also planted a Don Juan climbing rose and a Japanese Purple leaf honeysuckle to replace the plants that were ripped up in the construction of our new fence.









Jeremy, constructed the first of 4 pyramids for climbing beans we will be planting. For now they will be used for a spring pea crop.











Here in the containers we see pansies, strawberries, marigolds, onions and orange mint.

In the boxes you can see that the garlic is getting big as are the lettuces and spinaches interplanted with them. The onions on the other end are not far behind. The radishes next to the onions are nearly ready to harvest. Within the bed; the transplanted tomatoes, peppers, and brassicas are doing very well, but the two eggplant do not appear to be growing. Two squares of beets are doing well and so are two squares of carrots. There are marigolds, nasturtiums, and a pansy interplanted with the vegitables.

Not seen are the cucumbers, melons, and next crop of lettuce, radishes, and carrots planted in the first week of May.

Early spring 2009

So, we had made our boxes in the fall of 2008 and in January of 2009 we started tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and flowers indoors. By mid April of 2009 our garden looked like this with a lot of homemade cloches covering the more tender plants.

Building a new garden

The First Garden at 500 Herschel

We moved into the house in late February 3 days before son number four was born. We had chosen the house in part because of the large back yard which looked so suitable for gardening. And then we hit hard, packed clay. Oh well. You make do with what you have.

That first year was just one 3x15 plot in the ground. The first thing we learned is that plants like Kansas, alot. The tomato plants kept growing and growing and the tomatillo became a weed that grew into a monster taking up half the garden. We didn't get much else out of that garden other than tomatoes and tomatillos because we were still gardening on Montana time where you don't plant peas until late April. In Kansas, late April means several months into the season. The second season in Kansas also caught us by surprise. I mean really, we had never heard of such an absurdly long growing season.

So come fall, we were determined to conquer our new homeland (and the clay). We built raised beds and eagerly plotted our strategy to get the most out of it.