Progress

March 25

April 14

Well, a lot of that green is weeds, but there is progress there!

For instance, the grape arbor, which you can barely see as wire arches.  As the grapes grow, it will be more visible.

March garlic.

April garlic.

And today's biggest news:

Yesterday we got 4.5 inches of rain.  I measured, not in this wheelbarrow, but in a non-leaking metal garbage can used to hold weeds.  This wheelbarrow actually has holes in its bottom; stoppered by mulch today.

Horseradish

Planted March 25.  They are big roots (that could have been ground up last fall) with these little green sprouts on them.

Here they are April 14.  Doing pretty well!

Harvest, 2011

So, what happened?  No pictures.  No story.

Well, there WAS a harvest.  Let's see.  I dug some very nice sweet potatoes; the best I've ever grown.  My friend Cindy was kind enough to cure them, and we're eating them still.  They are also providing sprouts for this years planting -- hooray.

There was good crop of peppers.  I sliced and froze many red and green.  The hot ones got picked before the frost, but only one batch got pickled and the rest spoiled.  Oh, well.

The tomatoes never came on.  Of the big table varieties, I had maybe six tomatoes all season.  That was a record for bad, and I've no idea why.  But I am going to stop with planting the peas and tomatoes together.  There's too much competition going on with a narrow bed.

The melons mostly, I'm sad to say, went to the chickens.  Owen picked some early good ones, but then the chickens were out on a regular basis.

The raspberries were grand.  The grapes made leaves  (too young for grapes).  The potato crop was good -- some quite big, many small.

And so it goes.

The Chicken Coop

February 4, 2012

Outdoor space for chickens?

Not much.

March 25.  You may not be able to tell, but the pen is new, wrapped around the coop, and the wood pallets form a place for a compost pile.  In front of the pallets are rugosa roses. And there are two gallons of paint purchased, waiting for stable weather and hands to apply it.

Spring 2012

It's time to start again.

Records of Times Past

2011

2010

2009

2008

Graduation!

He did it!

Birthday Cake!

 It's an angel food cake with vanilla cream filling, chocolate sauce, and raspberries on top.

Happy fourteenth birthday, Owen!

Pig Day

On Friday Owen put an ad on Craigslist;  by Saturday morning Jeff had five responses.  By Saturday afternoon four pigs were gone, and the rest will be gone by Monday. So next time we'll ask for more per head (the price was $30 each), and maybe Serena will be having another litter soon.

The Melon Bed of my Dreams

There are 9 (or 12 -- I forget) "hills" in there, marked by tires, so we could find them to water.

Fortunately it's raining, so we don't have to find them.

A watermelon -to-be.

Cantaloupes.

Our melon bed has never been so well-mulched, and therefore weed-free.  Now no weed could compete with the plants -- and the melons are happy to grow.  They don't mind life on the Great Plains!