Growth this week, before the wind

Forecast 50 mph winds today, so who knows what will be left by tomorrow. I will be taking the bird net off the beds tomorrow because the plants are growing bigger and the birds can't eat the seeds anymore. Will have to figure out something else when the plants fruit out. Also aphids showed up yesterday on the hops bine.

Lettuce that finally germinated after I killed off the first sowing with plastic sheeting. Found some seeds that rolled downhill and are now growing in what is supposed to be the cantaloupe section. Should have some explosive growth this week with temps in the 80's and lots of sunshine.

Green onions finally showing their heads above ground.

Onions, white and red and green in the near right section, carrots in the middle and beans on the left that haven't sprouted yet.

Potatoes--I love how they come up so big through the earth that it looks like the dirt is giving birth. Or an alien is exploding out of its belly.

Should really plant more stuff in this one. But the elephant garlic has now come up through the ground.

What is this peeking out of the ground? Asparagus! Unfortunately I have to add more dirt and the shoot will have to keep seeking the light.

Parsnips, carrots, lettuce, peas.

Peas-which started to flower yesterday, romaine/radish, collards/chard, broccoli/kale

broccoli/kale, lettuce/spinach, turnips, spinach

Three Sisters

Pictures posted in reverse order, but too tired to switch everything around. Try reading from bottom to top.

But three didn't look like enough so I put 5 mounds in.

See all the colors: red, blue, yellow and black.

I planted festivity corn heirloom seed from Bountiful Gardens. Should be very pretty.

The sites I read listed anywhere from 1 to 4 corn plants in the center of each mound. I must be an overachiever because I made 5 holes for planting and put 4 kernels down each hole. "One for the rook and one for the crow. One to die and one to grow." My germination rate has not been that great this year and I can always thin them later.

Started with 5 gallon buckets of dirt to create mound. The bed I wanted to plant this way is only 4'x6' so I started with 3 mounds.

Ever since I heard the children's song "Three Sister's in a Mound" I've been a little fascinated with this concept. The idea is that farmers in the western US in days long ago planted three species in close proximity for the symbiotic and healthy relationship they give each other. Corn, beans and squash are the 3 sisters. They each occupy a different layer of sunshine and root zones.

"Squash grows on the bottom. Beans grow all around. Corn grows up high. Three sisters in a mound."

Not sure why the mound shape is needed for the dirt but I thought I'd go with it. The corn gets planted first, in the center, so it has time to grow high. Two weeks later the beans go in, planted in a ring 6" or so outside the corn. The beans (pole beans) will use the growing corn as a trellis. The beans also fertilize the soil for the corn with their bacteria-laden nitrifying nodules. The squash, which goes in a ring further outside the bean ring, gets planted at the same time or one to two weeks later depending on which website you read. I suppose fast growing squash, like zucchini, should go in later so the other two plants have a chance to grow higher. The squash shades the soil, acts as a living mulch, and expands around the other two plants. Not sure how it helps the soil.

Growth this week

Peaches are growing. I thinned them because you're not supposed to let the tree produce its first transplanted year. There were 77 little peaches on the tree but now about 20. I know it's better for the tree's root system to spend its energy on growing roots not fruit, but the kids would cry if we didn't get something off the tree this year.

The wheat sprouted in the planter box.

Two kids are sharing this box. One wanted pumpkins and the other chose green beans. We put them out this week but the temps have been a little cool for them. We'll see if they make it.

Broccoli/Kale, Cabbage, Lettuce/Spinach, Turnips, more Spinach

Lettuce, Peas, Romaine/Radishes, Collards/Swiss Chard, back to Broccoli/ Kale

Parsnips (can't seem to get those to germinate well), Carrots (survived transplanting to thin-spread out the row), back to lettuce and peas again.

And the last green things in the covered bed, Chioggia Beets. They grow like a bullseye with fuchsia and white rings. The eggplant has not germinated yet and the asparagus is still not coming up yet.

I am trying to increase our planting area with 5 gallon buckets. Two years ago I tried to make my own topsy turvy tomato planter, where you have a bag of soil and put the plant in the bottom and hang the bag up. I used a regular bag of soil and reinforced the holes with tape and hung it up with wire. It worked pretty well until the kids plucked off the green tomatoes and the hail storm broke the plant. Last year I tried the same idea with a rigid planter that looked like a two tiered planter with columns holding up the top one. That worked really well and I found out that peppers will grow well upside down too. Until children come along to pick the little green ones. Or you forget to water it. So this year I thought I'd try plastic buckets. But I'll have to be careful where I hang them because they are kind of heavy.

Mary, Mary quite contrary

How does my garden grow?

Not so great. Apparently when they say that pumpkins/melons, tomatoes and peppers like hot weather--they mean it. I tried transplanting these pumpkin and patty pan squash seedlings but they are looking all slumpish. Temps down in the low forties are not warm enough. And, although we only get 15 inches of rain a year (on average), this month is pushing us above average or we won't get a drop for the rest of the year. So cold and soggy are not doing my hot-weather seedlings any favors.

The cool weather crops are liking it though. Here are the leafy veggies last week. This week, despite harvesting a couple of salads, they are even bigger and bushier.

Here is the same bed (90 degree turned-sorry) three weeks prior.

The hops bine is slowly winding its way upward. The metal arch is a little too slippery for it. I will need to figure something out.

This was how it looked three weeks ago when I planted it.

Then and now, backyard

We salvaged these concrete retaining wall blocks last year from a neighbor yard and arranged them as planters. They have about six square feet of growing space with a foot of soil depth. Their location in the yard is a bit shaded, though, so the peppers, eggplant and tomatoes I planted there last year did not do so well. This year I added soil to increase root depth ability and we cut down the choke cherry tree yesterday, so not as much shade. Plus the dogs had a tendency to jump into the planters. I am putting up a fence.

Two years ago I put in this bed using 8' redwood 2x8's. It holds 64 sq ft of growing space. The first year I grew fennel, carrots, lettuce and spinach if I'm remembering correctly. Not really enough depth for carrots but the fennel did ok--mighty tasty when sauteed. Last year cilantro grew so high I thought it would take over, plus I planted more carrots, lettuce, spinach and garlic chives and zucchini. Not enough soil depth to let the zucchini flourish, but we still got a few squash. This year I put in red and white onions, the garlic chives won't go away, lettuce, turnips, radishes, and peas. It is smack against the shed and that shades it from 4 o'clock so it is a good place to grow cool season crops in the summer.
Another view. I put stepping stones down the middle so the other dirt wouldn't get compacted. I originally filled this bed with bags of compost and cow manure. When I can afford it, I need to add another layer of boards and another 8" of dirt to increase the soil depth.

This is what part of the yard looked like two summers ago after a bad hail storm. We had a window and two skylights broken plus the fence between us and our neighbor to the north fell down. We still haven't fixed it. Luckily our house walls and roof are basically made of concrete and so none of that was damaged.

What we started with

Well, we started with a typical suburban tract home. Not quite cookie-cutter and a little larger than most, quirky definitely describes our house and barren describes our yard.

Two large pine trees in the front yard plus some sort of flowering bush thing. Not much yard, but I dislike mowing anyway.

The trampoline mowed over half of the trees in the back yard one particularly windy night. One choke cherry down and one to go. They are sort of pretty trees as far as foliage color goes and spring flowers, but the fruit is rather inedible and leaves a huge mess. Plus the plant sends out suckers all over the place. Very annoying.

Our lot is approximately 13,200 square feet, a good 60-75% of that is house, deck, concrete and a shed.

My daydreams for the property include:

For the outside greenscape

adding rows of raised garden beds in an effort to provide most of our own produce

possibly getting chickens, ducks or goats

changing the raised area in the back of the yard to accommodate berry bushes, grapes and maybe fruit trees

For the outside hardscape

turning the shed into a greenhouse

adding a greenhouse on the south side of the house for four-season growing

composting all our food waste and recycling what we can so we produce a minimum of landfill waste

figuring out a system to harvest rainwater

For the inside

totally changing the inside of the house

building our own hot tub

What the hay is going on around here?

Back in grade school we had a unit on the Home of the Future. I don't remember too much about it, but I do recall the fish. I'm sure the home was full of energy and labor saving devices, nifty technology and ways to use the natural elements to the owners' advantage--however I forgot those details. Out in the front yard was a fishpond with a lid growing plants through it so the roots dangled in the water. In this Home of the Future you fattened your own fish for dinner and grew the salad greens hydroponically for the side dish. I don't know (yet) if that's really possible but the image stuck with me all this time. In daydreams about my own some-day home I would invariably have a moat around the house to act as a facsimile river for fattening up trout or bass for food (and for keeping out invading dragons).

We had a garden when I was a kid and one grandmother had a huge garden that fed her quite well. My other grandma had Kroger's and I always loved her cooking. So I've seen both sides of the producer vs. consumer lifestyles. This blog is my record of trying to incorporate what I have learned from them, from books and blogs and my own desire to live a sort-of suburban homestead life. Self-sufficiency has intrigued me for quite a while, but given that I have approximately 36 minutes a day to pursue my own work all these words may just turn out to be pipe dreams, I still want to try anyway.

Because thinking about the Home of the Future is fun.