They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
Oh, and also some buckwheat. This buckwheat was planted back at the beginning of July. It has been watered regularly and is now 3-4 feet tall. A decision has to be made at this point. Once the flowers are formed, the protein content in the stalks and leaves is at its maximum level. If cut… Continue reading Blackberry Wine, Mead, and Liqueur
The Summer harvest is just beginning! On Monday we did another picking of raspberries (pretty slim pickings, at this point) and we did our first picking of beans. Ellie bet Uncle that he would not find any beans on the west side of the beans. She bet him one scone for each bean that he… Continue reading Summer Harvest
A few months ago I watched a video in which John Lovell (a.k.a. the War Poet) interviewed a local farmer who has developed a method for keeping his farm productive with minimal water in the middle of an historic Georgia drought. The video is worth a watch, not because it has anything truly groundbreaking in… Continue reading Hugel beds
Finally got to harvesting the wheat last week, on Friday. This was a few weeks overdue. It really was ready in late June, early July. The optimal day, with that magic combination of nice weather, not too hot, no rain, and time to get to the job, with nothing more pressing that needed to be… Continue reading Gleaning the Wheat
The quest for the perfect variety of pickling cucumber for our microclimate continues. This one (Wisconsin SMR 58, from St. Clare Seeds) doesn't seem to enjoy the heat very much. It has started to become quite wilted. Still producing a few small cucumbers though, but nothing like the volume we had hoped for. By contrast,… Continue reading Cucumber, Hubbard and Crabapple
We are actually a couple of weeks behind on these. Comes of being too busy. Photography brought to you by Ellie-Belle! We tried something new this time. Instead of planting the seeds in dry potting soil and then watering them in, we started by soaking the potting soil in water, before putting it in the… Continue reading More Brassica Starts
Not everything can be woodworking around here. There are too many other things that need to be done. For instance the raspberries are coming on fast, And when we checked on the blackberries, some of them were ripening. They always ripen from the end of the branch first. In every cluster the most distal berry… Continue reading Garden and Orchard Update.
Now that the spring weeding is complete, we can finally get started with the summer weeding. I have switched out my workout schedule so I am only training Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. On Wednesdays and Fridays I am running wood chips or pulling weeds. This section along the fence between the garden and the… Continue reading More Weeding, More Garlic.
Coming back from Captain's Career Course was disheartening, because I had been absent from the garden for more than two weeks. I wasn't able to get immediately back to it either, because of work, and more National Guarding. However, in the last week, with help from the two older girls, we have been making some… Continue reading Weeding and Garlic Harvest
This really should have been done a month ago, back when the squashes and maters went in the ground. But it didn't. Some years are like that. It took until June Something-or-other even to get Bed 2 weeded this year. Once the weeds were pulled out then we had to mound it up, throwing the… Continue reading Trellising.
Little Farm in the Big City 