5 year blog anniversary

I was surprised the other day when WordPress told me that it was my 5 year blog anniversary.  Some of you reading and commenting have been here with me the entire time. I have enjoyed reading your blogs while posting to mine. Thank you.

Oregano fields forever?

When I made my wife’s herb bed 3 years ago, I planted oregano in one 2 ft. square. It grows back thicker every year.

It is still early spring weather

The yard is coming along. It was far too windy this weekend to wrangle sheets of plywood and shed siding, but I did go buy most of the wood.

The cherry trees have hundreds of blossoms this year.  I hope the birds leave me a lot of fruit. Mmmm, pie.

Last night it nearly frosted again. I didn’t cover anything, and they look like they all made it.  I have 11 tomatoes in the ground, 8 peppers, and a large variety of herbs.  3 raised beds are still bare.

How does your garden grow?

Espaliered Honey Crisp Apple Tree

My son H. and I got the new apple tree in the ground this weekend.  This is a multi-year project that will result in a 2-dimensional tree with 6 parallel horizontal arms.

So far I have chosen branches that will become 4 of the 6 arms, and 3 of those were long enough to tie to the guide wires.

I don’t even have the top wire in place, due to a stupid measuring error.

The tree is beginning to leaf out for the year.  Wish me luck!

Working outside in the garden

After weeks of work, this is what I have to show for it.  A garden that is just beginning to look ok for the year, with a new 100 square foot area being used for 1 year as a three sisters garden.

I am slowly but surely changing the layout in a barely noticeable way.  One by one, the beds made with pine boards back in 2008 and 2009 are rotting away.  I am replacing them with cedar frames, but I will also be resizing them from their current 6 foot width to a more manageable 8×4 feet.  Basically it’s just going to be a whole bunch of digging and moving dirt.  It’s actually a great workout.

Do yourself a favor if you’re reading this in time.  Make your garden beds 4 feet wide or less.  6 foot width is NO GOOD for raised beds in most cases.

I planted some herbs out and I am hardening off everything else when the weather cooperates.  I hope to plant some tomatoes this weekend, probably.

The garlic is growing well, both in this yard and at my off-site garden where I planted 4 rows as a test last fall.

And if I can get my hands on some reasonably priced apple trees, I will be attempting to create a two-dimensional fruit tree.

Hibernation over

It’s spring. Time to wake up the blog again. I need to shake the dust off.

I’ve been outside adding compost to the asparagus and cutting down last year’s dead ferns.  I’m replacing rotten garden bed frames with new wood and removing one completely to make room for a shed.  The seeds for new herbs and tomatoes have been growing under lights for a few weeks and I received an order of Gooseberry bushes from eBay.  Most of my arborvitae died after their second year of drought, so those will have to get cut down and hauled away.  $$$$$ Oh well.

I’m looking forward to post again this spring, summer and fall.  Thanks for reading!

Sending Seeds in the Mail

I have test-sprouted (>90% germination), packaged, packed, sealed and sent your envelopes of Cabin Tomato seeds. 7 envelopes went out on Wednesday, and 6 more are going out in Thursday’s mail. I still have about 4 or 5 more remaining.

I am incredibly grateful to you growers who are willing to try growing your own Cabin tomatoes in the 2013 season. If you can, grow a plant for friend too. If you can, save seeds for the next year too.

If you don’t receive the seeds I promised you within a week from today, please contact me again. There was one pack going to Canada, so I don’t know how long that should take.

Everything is going well for Jimmy, I just haven’t had much blog motivation lately.

Thank you all!

Sauercrock Sauercracked, Sauerkraut Sauercanned

My Sauerkraut was finished some time ago.  I held it in the refrigerator to SLOOOOW down the fermentation for a while, then I canned 2/3 of it.  The remaining third will be eaten the proper way…alive.

While I was scooping kraut out of my fermenting crock, I noticed some bad news:

My 4 gallon crock has developed a crack all the way through from the inside, out.  That stain is dried cabbage juice and salt.  This is disappointing, because I don’t want to spend a small fortune on a new one, but I can’t trust this one again.

This is the color I achieved this year with my mixture of purple and green cabbages.  I hate to kill the beneficial bacteria by canning it, but the kraut won’t last until next July if I don’t can some of it.

On an unrelated note, today is the first day in 8 days that I haven’t taken any headache medicine.  I have been down twice with a migraine, and it’s still up there, lurking around, threatening to come back again.

 

 

Paper Seed Packet Template

I have dried out two batches of tomato seeds and I am fermenting a third batch. After all 3 are ready, I will make sure they are viable by sprouting a sampling in a wet paper towel.  Then it will be time to pack them up and ship them out!

Sorry I haven’t had much to say lately, but life happens from time to time.

 

Peanut Update

The potted peanut plant died from heat and drought, but not before making a few little peanuts for us.  How cool is this?

We have to dig through the dirt to see if there are many more, but this was exciting!