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.
Last Tuesday (July 28th) The three older kids were all at VBS, so it was just Daddy and Winnie for a few hours. We picked blackberries. Winnie loves being the only child. She chatters away, all the thoughts that come into her little head. Every other sentence is, "Daddy, I really love you!" She is… Continue reading Blackberries
The Asian plums are coming in strong right now. Our golden yellow plum is having its best year ever right now. Mommy took a peck of plums up to Swiss Kids Kamp every day, and still we have only used about a third of the plums on the tree. We need to make some jelly… Continue reading Plums
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
With the summer drought well under way, the grass has pretty much gone dormant for the season. But you know what hasn't? The weeds! (Although borage is a bit too useful and pretty of a plant to be called a weed in an unqualified sense). A quick trip into the food forest area to pull… Continue reading Thank God for Weeds?
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.
Which means we will be drowning in blackberries for the next month or so. The first pick is always the best quality. The thornless blackberries in the old orchard are quite large, especially compared to the himalayan blackberries that grow wild, though to my mind the flavor is not quite so fine and they definitely… Continue reading Blackberries are on
This was Saturday, May 30th, the last day before Daddy left for National Guard orders. Getting to the thistles was a top priority, as they were starting to put on buds. But first: Cannellini beans! Dozens of little beanlets! And we took a few minutes to weed out another section of row 5 and seed… Continue reading Thistle Massacre
It has been a difficult spring. Frosts all the way into early May, but also hot, dry weather during the day without our usual level of spring rain. Still, we are making do as best we can. Finally got the garlic excavated. This is entirely by pulling a wheelbarrow load of weeds first thing in… Continue reading Slow Garden this Year
Because I forgot we already installed all the drip line around the trees. Saturday, the 9th was a busy day. It started with a trip in to town to get some chicken feed. Seppi is getting bigger and stronger every day, it seems. I don't have to climb on and off the truck anymore. He… Continue reading Food Forest Irrigation, Part 3 (really it should be part 4).
Evie actually likes weeding. So here she is weeding row five in preparation for putting in more brassicas. The weeds themselves will be fed to the cows and sheep as a tasty treat. I think this was Tuesday of last week. I had hoped to get the water line finished, but we ran into a… Continue reading Food Forest Irrigation, Part 2
Little Farm in the Big City 