Watering

This summer so far we haven't gotten a lot of rain, at all. Last year we had severe flooding all over, and this year, nothing. I hate to do it, and I hate admitting it even more, but I have been using the hose about once a week, sometimes twice, if it's really hot.

I hate using the hose because there are plenty of other ways to water the garden without resorting to the hose. I use grey dishwater a lot. I also use water collected from the bathtub during showers. At my old house I had a system hooked up such that I could use the water used in the washing machine to water the garden. I really want to do that again, if I can get my husband back there to hook it up for me. It's quite a simple process, I just don't have the time for it. Lord knows what my girls would get into while I'm down there fiddling with the water hose. As a side note, I make my own natural laundry soap, so there's no need to worry, in my case, about any gross residue in the water (or on the clothes, for that matter).

I try to collect rain when I can, but I don't like to leave rain buckets standing around too much, again, because of the girls. Perhaps next year they will be ready for fish outside. Not this year.

Despite the fact that my plants have not been watered every day, they are in amazing shape. They all look wonderful and are setting fruit as usual.

Pulling Weeds

I spent the entire weekend pulling weeds. I actually did a lot this weekend with family and friends, but it seems I spent the entire weekend pulling weeds. Since we do everything as natural as possible around here, we pull the weeds by hand. I don't use any tools except my hands. No gloves, no nothing. My hands are beginning to become quite calloused. It's funny because in the winter time I spend a lot of time doing craft stuff, but that type of stuff is gentle on my hands, whereas pulling weeds will put a callous on my hands quicker than I could believe!

Everything in the garden is doing well, aside from a patch of radishes I planted a few weeks ago. Looks like they are being eaten by something. The strawberry cage is completely reinforced now, thanks to my husband, who did most of the work by hand, no tools of any kind involved. Looks like the strawberries may be coming back this year.

The asparagus is looking really nice now, too. It took forever to come up and was plagued with weeds (most of the pulling we did was in the area of the asparagus) but it looks like they'll bounce back.

I recently canned some peas that I grew in the front yard. I'll be freezing some this week. I'm hoping to have an even balance of canned and frozen peas, but we'll see. The vines themselves are going strong and only in the last few days have begun turning brown in spots. I'm hoping to plant another round of peas later and hope they take off before it gets too cold.

My pumpkins are overtaking the front yard. They've grown over the onions, when they were supposed to grow in the direction of the sunflowers. The onions don't seem to mind, though.

Also ahead this week I've got to freeze some lovage and dry some sage and lemon balm.

I'll be writing more in this blog during the month ahead, too, so stay tuned!

Pea Blossoms!

Pea blossoms are one of my favorite flowers. I'm not talking the inedible sweet pea vines. I'm talking about the delicate white blossoms that pea vines set before they set their pea pods. I think I like pea flowers so much because they are one of the first blooms in the vegetable garden, and give promise to a lot more to come! I wait so impatiently every Spring for these blossoms. Finally they are blooming in my own garden! Seeing the pea blossoms is the first small garden victory in what promises to be quite a productive season.

The spinach I planted with my strawberries is really taking off. I'm planning on harvesting some tonight to use in dinner. I tried some of the spinach already- it's delicious. So far this year I have harvested some lovage, lemon balm, rosemary (I overwinter it inside), chives, sage, spinach, rhubarb, and radshes. All grown by me, and harvested by hand. No pesticides, no transport costs, all organic, all delicious.

Snow Storm

We had another snow storm over the weekend. At first, over 12 inches were forecast. In the end we got about 4 inches. Not bad, but just enough for us to not have anything to do outside over the weekend. It turned out alright, though, because my sister-in-law had a baby last week, so we got to go see the newest addition to the family on my husband's side. Now we're up to 2 nieces and one nephew, along with our two girls. Between us, my husband and I like to "call" who's having the next baby amongst our sisters-in-law. I'm not having any more babies, so I'm out of the running. Right now it's between two sisters-in-law, since the other sister-in-law is in no hurry to have more babies any time soon.

But I digress. Because of a bad allergic reaction to something in the air, I hadn't accomplished much in the way of the garden last week. My pepper seeds are starting to sprout, which is very exciting! Next is tomatoes. Due to limited space, I cannot start both at once. I am hoping to start tomatoes this week.

Oh, and we have a new addition to our family! A friend at Master Gardening class gave me a peace lily last week. Right now I've got it kind of quarantined away from the other house plants, but so far things are going pretty well.

Garden Season!

Unfortunately, I think I'll have to cut back on my blog writing to about once per week because of the garden season starting. I am, as always, way under prepared this year. Every year around this time I start to panic because not everything is just so. This year I have a lot more in place than last year as far as the bones of the garden, but I also have bigger plans. I was able last fall to dig some beds that were not previously there, so at least I've got that going for me.

When we first moved in, the yard was a few hostas and a bunch of 4-foot tall weeds. I kick myself all the time that I didn't take pictures right away. Instead I just dug right in! Considering all the weeds, all we started with were some overgrown grape vines, some straggly raspberry canes, and a chestnut tree. Oh, and a climbing rose bush, too. That's about it.

Right now the yard is about 35% usable garden space. By the end of the growing season, I plan to have dug about 50% or so, and by the time I'm done altogether, I'm planning on having about 70% of the yard to be usable growing space. Oh, and I should probably mention that last year we went from 15% usable space, covered in weeds, to the 35% we have now. I'll continue to keep you all posted throughout the season. For now, time to plant more seeds!

A List of Plans

Well, everyone, you asked for it, you got it! The following is a list of plants I grow/am planning to grow this season. I am not completely set on my herbs yet, so I will not be listing those right now. I don't grow too many ornamental flower-type plants, except if they will be beneficial to my soap-making. In that case, I consider them herbs, even if they are not technically in that category. This list will comprise of fruit and vegetable plants I am planning on growing this season. Keep in mind, when you read the list, I am growing all this in a space of less than a quarter acre, and that I am, in most cases, not growing one or two plants of a particular kind.

Plants to Grow (fruit and veg)
Peas, sweet-36
Peas, shelled-36
Beans, Bush~40
Beans, Pole~40
Carrots-80+
Broccoli-2-4
Tomatoes-9
Potatoes-10
Sunflowers-12-16
Pumpkins-4
Lettuce
Spinach
Peppers, green-2+
Peppers, Cayenne-2+
Peppers, chili-2+
Blueberries-2 (one high, one half-high)
Onions~20
Asparagus-20
Garlic~15
Rhubarb-1
Grapes-15+
Raspberries-12
Strawberries
Zucchini-2

I will explain my choices of edibles in an upcoming post.