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.

Peas!

A lot has been going on around the garden recently. We've been so busy I haven't blogged in over a week! My husband and my dad finally finished pulling out the ugly bushes we're replacing with a fence. They haven't started the fence yet, but we're getting closer. We may buy the materials this weekend.

I've planted quite a few things: about 65 onion sets, pea seeds, carrot seeds, spinach seeds, and the rest of my potatoes.

I planted the onion sets around the garden, here and there, where I could find space.

I planted two kinds of peas- one for canning, one for freezing- in the front yard, 36 of each variety. My husband made some trellises this weekend for the peas. The seedlings are coming up already. Peas are one of my favorite plants. I think the way a pea plant grows, from infancy all the way to old age, is beautiful. I love the flowers they set. Oddly, pea flowers are one of my favorite flowers. Of coarse, you can't beat the taste of freshly picked peas, either. Sugar snap are my favorite for fresh eating.

I planted half my carrot seeds so far. I've got to finish this week some time. I want to get them in early because last year I got them in late and they were very small.

The spinach and the rest of the potatoes are on the balcony. I put the spinach seeds in a window box that I set on the ground. The spinach seems to prefer a bit more shade, so I placed two potato buckets on either side of the spinach. I've got 4 potato buckets altogether. The potato buckets are standard-size plastic outdoor garbage bins with holes near the bottom.

I also planted a bunch of seeds inside for transplanting outside in a few weeks when the weather gets warmer.