Garden Friday

 

 

 

Welcome to Garden Friday,

where we share what's growing in our Zone 7 Piedmont garden.

This fall has been an amazing display of color,

with plenty of interest just outside of our kitchen window.

This is the pathway I take each morning

when I let the chooks out of the coop.

We are so blessed to live here.

 

The strawberries have turned a brilliant shade of red,

as if to greet the Christmas season.

This fruit does well over the colder months,

just awaiting the spring thaw to work their magic.

 

The blueberries also turn a variety of colors,

as they enjoy their winter slumber.

I'm  hopeful that this coming spring we will be awash in berries!

 

Our raised beds are just starting to get a foothold 

on producing broccoli, lettuce, 

 

and leek.

I've been a bit disappointed in the germination rate,

and not having as many things growing as I'd like.

We'll enjoy what we can and think toward springtime planting.

 

The cover crops are filling out one of our beds nicely.

Each fall, a different raised bed is sown 

with a cover crop to add nutrients to the soil.

A thick coat of shredded leaves has been added here.

 

We have a couple of parsley plants growing,

one in a raised bed (see below),

and this one planted in a pot.

They both do just fine over the winter,

and it's a real treat to be able to harvest something

on a regular basis.

You've gotta love crops that need no coddling!

garlic and parsley

 

The garlic is doing well

and will be well worth the 9-month wait to harvest time.

Garlic is the best hands-off crop ever!

Just plant it and forget it!

 

I was so perplexed about the asparagus.

It's a new to me crop,

and I wasn't sure what I had done wrong

to make it turn this harsh amber hue.

A fellow gardener told me that this happens to hers every year.

She simply adds a bit of magnesium sulfate to it,

cuts it back and mulches over the top.

What a relief to know it wasn't me!

I will be putting this task on my list.

Our leaf mulch pile has grown leaps and bounds!

Our sweet neighbor allowed us to use her riding mower to mulch and bag up

the leaves on our property, so we did hers as well.

I still have bags and bags to go,

but no doubt we'll be set for leaf mulch until next fall. 

It really is the best mulch to use,

and best of all, it's free!

snack time in the chicken yard

Excuse my absence from the blog of late.

I am struggling with the motivation I need to write.

Although I do my best to focus on the blessings in my life,

so many folks I know are having a difficult time right now,

and I'm afraid I am more sensitive to that than most.

I can't promise that I will be here every week with a garden post,

but I will make an effort to at least post some photos from the week.

It's so beautiful here, especially this time of year.

Maybe it will even help me get out of my funk.

Blessings...daisy

Friday Fotos

 

first daffs!

Welcome to our first Friday Fotos of March!

Garden Friday will resume in a few weeks,

but this week's activities revolved around the garden

with the gorgeous weather pattern we are currently in.

 

 On Monday last, a whole host of seeds were sown,

using the homemade cardboard pots.

They number over a hundred and include

not only veg, but herbs and flower as well.

I was pumped to see that after only 3 days,

one of the lettuce varieties had already germinated.

 

The rest of the carrots were harvested,

to make room in the bed for the Yukon Gold potatoes

that need to go in within the next week.

This year, I am going to purchase a bag of organic potatoes

from the grocery store, instead of buying the ones at the hardware store,

as I have done in the past.

I just want to see how they do.

There were a few leek that needed to be moved in the bed,

and they should be no worse for wear.

 

I even spied one of the leek I transplanted in a cardboard pot.

It had disintegrated and the leek looks like it is faring well.

 

 This bed currently holds onions, parsley and red cabbage,

which will not be disturbed for a while.

There are plans to grow something else here

once these are ready to be harvested.

 

I'm really diggin' the trellises I made out of cattle panels,

as they facilitate easy maintenance in the bed 

or pulling up what's ready.

The wide openings keep things accessible.

 

The items needed for our intended asparagus bed

were purchased earlier this week.

The asparagus plants are coming from our local

Extension office.

We are also expecting 3 blueberry plants.

Time will be spent prepping the areas for these new crops.

 

These pansies have spent the winter on the front porch

and look like they were just planted.

Amazing!

 

I hope the sunshine finds you this weekend.
Be Blissed!

Instant Mulch!

Every fall, our wonderful next door neighbor

shares her bounty of bagged leaves with us.

We also have many trees on our property,

so there is no shortage of leaves to be found.

In December, Big K found this leaf shredder on a local marketplace.

We used it to corral all of the leaf coverage on our lawn,

but this week, I decided to create a great mulch/compost blanket for the veggie beds.

It shreds the leaves wonderfully,

so that there is no concern about smothering.

It will be a yearly ritual that I look forward to completing.

(You can also use a mower to shred leaves,

running it over them a few times.)

Leaf mulch is beneficial to plants for a number of reasons.

First, it acts as an insulator, keeping the soil warmer in winter

and cooler in summer.  This gives crops better stability in growing,

as the soil temperature is more or less constant.

Another reason leaf mulch works so well is that it acts as a weed barrier.

With the soil fully covered, the weeds don't stand a chance.

If you think about a forest floor, it is always covered 

and the plants therein thrive.

It's natural for Mother Nature to be covered up.

Leaf mulch also adds nutrients to the soil as it breaks down

and helps retain moisture, so less watering is needed.

Just look how tucked in these onions look

with all of that leaf mulch snuggling up to them.

Whenever we run our irrigation, or are blessed with a good soaking,

the moisture can be enjoyed by the plants' roots for a good, long time.

There were a few bags with pine needles mixed in with the leaves.
Not to worry, they were the perfect candidate for our blueberry bushes,
which need acidic soil in which to grow.
Last year I added pine straw around our three bushes,
but this year, I think this will do just fine.

It's a beautiful thing when Mother Nature provides the garden
with just what it needs.
Grateful for our slice o' heaven.

Garden Friday

What better use for a coffee can?

Welcome to Garden Friday!
It's officially winter here in the Piedmont,
although chilly temperatures have been a constant for the last few weeks.
It's been a challenge to get anything done out in the garden
(except for decorating with holiday lights),
but slowly, a few projects are coming along.

last year's daffs

I managed to get a few types of spring bulbs planted,
but not as many as I had hoped.
Ah well, there's always next season, right?
Adding a few more each spring and fall
will eventually have our garden stocked with blooms.



While it's not entirely impossible to have success planting this late in the season,
NC State Extension recommends doing so by mid-December.
Of course, the bulbs are better off planted than stuck in your fridge,
waiting for next autumn, so it's worth a shot if the ground hasn't yet frozen.

 Some of the lettuces that managed to survive my neglect
were transplanted into containers,

 while several were planted directly into the hugelkultur bed.
With a heavy blanket of mulched leaves,
I'm hoping they will be well insulated and cozy.

 This has been the perpetual scene at our place.
We work on raking the leaves,
but we have miles to go to corral them all.
Maybe we'll finally catch up,
now that most of the leaves have completed their exodus from branches.

To aid in this endeavor,
Big K found this leaf mulcher on a local online marketplace.
I'm stoked, I tell ya!
It makes it so easy to just wander around the property
and suck up every last leaf I can find.

It grinds them into just the right sized mulch
that I've been adding to flower beds, veggie beds and containers.
What a blessing.
No doubt we'll get plenty of use out of it every fall.
The bonus is that we were able to buy used,
our preferred method of staying green 
and saving money to boot.

Enjoy a wonderful weekend!

Garden Friday

Yesterday we woke up to 61 degrees,
and enjoyed a cool breeze most of the day.
It seems that fall may be arriving a bit early.
You won't get one complaint from me!

With autumn hinting at staying a while,

it seemed like a great time to do some clean up in the garden.

The ride-on tractor and little trailer are so helpful

and save me lots of steps.

The leaf pile sits in a corner of our side yard

and holds last autumn's bounty.

It breaks down over the year and is then used

to amend the beds.

Leaf mulch tends to attract earthworms and other beneficial organisms,

which will enrich your growing medium.

It can also act as an aerator and balances out the nitrogen in soil.

When grabbing a forkful from our pile,

there were tons of these lil' critters doing their work.

The remainder of any spring/summer veg was pulled from the hugelkultur bed,
except for some leek, basil and nasturtiums.
When I get to planting in earnest,
these can continue growing without being in my way.
The shredded leaves were added to the bed,
along with some fresh soil, compost, and worm castings from our worm bin.

I also decided to remove most of the larger logs from the bottom of the bed.
Since they hadn't broken down that much in a year,
I will save them for future beds that will be a bit deeper.

The whole kit-n-kaboodle was covered with the straw

left over from our potato towers.

It had been sitting for a while, breaking down over time.

This straw was actually the remains of the dismantled straw bales

that I grew lettuce and kale in last year.

It gets recycled as mulch in its final stages

and helps to retain moisture and deter weeds in the growing beds.

The $3 per bale I paid certainly gave me a lot for my money.

With two beds ready to plant,

it was time to get to a few tidying chores.

This compost bin was here when we moved in,

an unexpected treasure!

We use several coffee cans to collect our food scraps (usually kept in the freezer),

which are emptied into a 5-gallon bucket on the back deck.

Once a week or so, we empty the contents of the bucket

into this bin, then add leaves and a bit of compost.

I relocated it closer to the house and took a look at what remained behind.

The pile seemed quite compressed,

with lots of earthworms and other critters enjoying the bottom of the pile.

The top layer still had visible food scraps.

It's always sad to pull up the sunflowers at the end of the summer.

These had been blown over in a fierce wind,

and I couldn't prop them up.

This was a colossal collection of sunflowers,

this one being the tallest, at over 9 feet!

I like to leave them in the garden for as long as possible,

because they act as a food source for birds and pollinators.

Some of the heads were removed and added to the pollinator bed

so that perhaps the birds can still enjoy them.

This bed will be planted with fall blooms

to attract pollinators to the garden.

Black-eyed Susan vine climbing sunflower

This was the first time we've grown watermelon,

and unfortunately, we lost the first one

when it was too heavy for the vine,

(we're growing them vertically),

and it fell down before ripening.

With several more still growing on the arches,

I was hoping to find a solution to save the rest.

I found some rags in the rag bin and cut them into rectangular shapes.

The melons were placed in the slings,

so that the weight of the fruit is displaced,

and hopefully, it can grow to fruition on the vine.

The top was simply tied onto the arches.
I've been checking on them this week,
and so far, they seem to be doing the trick.

 The remainder of the butternut squash was picked,
and it is curing inside for a week or so.
This bed will be the next to be amended,
so that our fall planting can begin in the next two weeks.

 We're still getting a smattering of cucumbers,

while eggplant and okra are coming on strong.
This veg picked a few times a week
promptly makes it onto a sheet pan and is roasted.
So far, one jar of pickled okra has made it into the fridge.

sweet potato blooms

 These were discovered this week, and I am SO excited!
The milkweed we planted is doing well
and is serving as a host to several monarch caterpillars.
We are a Certified Monarch Way Station and are so happy to provide what they need!
What a miraculous transformation!

As summer draws to a close,
we welcome the changes to come
with cooler temperatures, less humidity,
and bugs taking a hiatus for a while.
Gardeners in our area have yet 
another season to look forward to.
What a blessing!