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.
One of my strongest pieces of advice to anyone looking to get into gardening is to start without a plan. Seriously, just put some seeds in the ground, and see what happens. This should be a relatively small piece of ground. Or a pot. In one growing season you will have opportunity to learn a… Continue reading Re-routing the Garden Fence
Cow salt and sheep salt are not the same. I don't know if you know this. You may have thought that we just salted our cow and our sheep with the same generic table salt, but you would be wrong. Sheep salt has to be granular, not blocked, because sheep have smooth tongues. They cannot… Continue reading Salt Boxes
Earlier this year we put plant protectors around a bunch of our orchard shrubs and pasture trees. This was in order to facilitate letting the sheep and cows pulse through the orchard to mow the grass down for us, without letting them browse all the leaves off the figs, mulberries and currants (I'm looking at… Continue reading Protecting the Orchard Plants… more.
Here in the good ol' Pacific Northwest, getting ready for winter is more about getting things ready for rain than it is prepping for snow or ice. This means cleaning out the gutters (before and after the leaves fall). We had gutter guards, but found that we grew too much moss under them and the… Continue reading Winter is Coming
Saturday was a run-around kind of day. The older three kids were all over the mountains with Deedee and Papa, picking apples, so Winnie got to be an only child for a day. She is very good at being an only child. Takes to it like the proverbial duck to water. Fortunately she only gets… Continue reading Garden Snacks (not just for people)
Saturday was a busy garden day. Daddy and Winnie and Seppi got out there early, prepping last year's legume row to be ready for winter wheat. Of course, we do not hold with muzzling the ox that treadeth out the grain. In other words, snacks for everyone in the garden. This is a radish. We… Continue reading Fall Harvesting: Apples, Wheat, Taters, and Garlic.
Our third annual ciderfest is fast approaching. The date is set for October 18th. Let the annual apple scrounge begin! This is the time of year that we jump on facebook or reach out to neighbors with apple trees and collect apples all over the neighborhood. This load came all from one tree: And filled… Continue reading Fall Harvesting, Apples, Grapes, Cannellinis,
You want to see something crazy? Those are blossoms on a raspberry. That is a raspberry cane that we planted last fall, now in its third or fourth flowering this year. This one is already fruiting again. If we can get around to pruning the raspberries this fall, and pulling out all the bindweed and… Continue reading Clean up on Row 6.
If only more people understood. If only I understood. This is what Traherne was on about. I complain about not having time to get into the garden as much as I would like, and sure, there are a lot of tasks that ought to be done, for productivity and for beauty, but honestly... It still… Continue reading God Provides
Little Farm in the Big City 