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.