March/April 2010

I’m somewhat sad that it has been nearly 6 months since my last post. I am hopeful that this will change in the future as we gear up for more cold season gardening by using cold frames and though we may not have been prepared for year-round gardening this year, this is the first year I have had a garden in before April because this was also the first year (post-children) that I was able to weed the entire garden and get it fully planted as a solo deal. This is proof that my children are growing into new stages and phases and this gives me hope for the future. I even made a large trellis from some bamboo that we picked up off of Craigslist for free and shortly after constructing the trellis we had a rainstorm with high winds come through (and it still hasn’t left) and the trellis still stands firmly! Snap peas are now beginning to climb it.

I have been lusting after the idea of turning the rich leaf compost (partially visible in the foreground of the photo) into the soil where we are developing a new garden bed that will almost double our current vegetable gardening space. But with all the rain the soil is too soggy…and I wait patiently, daydreaming of the rich soil and what the space might look like with a cold frame over it.

If a cold frame over one of our vegetable rows doesn’t materialize I won’t be disappointed because we do have some wood/glass pane cold frame boxes in the works. These boxes will probably go into an area where we are clearing out some blackberries (notice the blackberries in the upper right of the photo? They are covering the entire back corner of the yard) and plan to let the chickens roam and scratch up the soil to kill off the roots. Hopefully time will grace us and these blackberries will be a thing of the past come October.

For now we are growing:

Snap peas
Brocolli
Cauliflower
Swiss Chard
Radishes
2 varieties of Lettuce
Cilantro
bunching onions

I also broke the rules and planted some seeds outdoors that would not tolerate a frost (melons, sunflowers and morning glory’s). Maybe this is what brought on this cold rain storm…But I feel confident that we will have some survivors that will take the lead on growing and give us a welcome harvest of goodies and beauties.

The other seeds that we have started for our summer crop are growing in a sun room at a friends house. We don’t have good southern exposure from anywhere indoors so we hauled a rack and our seeds down the road to a place where they could thrive. I just love how seeds want to grow. Some are so tiny and dry and almost seem void of life yet they burst with life when given just a fraction of care. Growing food is so simple and rewarding, if you aren’t doing it right now what is stopping you? And if you are growing your own food think about the possibility of growing even more.