Garden or pumpkin jungle?
Hi everyone welcome back! It’s been taking me a moment to get back into the swing of things after all the commotion of July but I am working on it! Instead of spending Tuesday in the sewing room (like I was supposed to) I sat down with my planner and took a moment to realign myself with my goals and ambitions for this company and for my garden next year. I think it is really important to take that time to write down all the ideas and thoughts that float around in our heads so we can work towards them smoothly. I went into the sewing room and saw what a mess it is and decided that I needed to take some time on a different day to get myself reorganized because I could not stop thinking about the garden and getting it ready for the cold. Some major things I need to do before then starts with getting the chicken coop frost ready for my girls, however, I also need a greenhouse so I can prep for the garden next year. Soooo my plan is to take this little shed type thing attached to the back of the house and remove the wood from the top half of the walls and replace it with either greenhouse panels or some old windows to really let that sunshine in. The shed is in a really sunny spot and the walls are only plywood so it doesn’t seem like it will be too difficult. As well, I think I am going to reuse the wood I do remove to help seal off the chicken coop. I am looking into doing some of that this weekend as I already have a line on some windows. The next priority after that is doing a fall crop planting. I would like to replant some beans, peas, and maybe some loofas but where I had them they were getting eaten by the chickens. Once the chicken coop is fully sealed hopefully they will leave my crops alone! Now that I will have an actual greenhouse I am going to turn my grow room downstairs that I used temporarily and turn it into a pottery studio so then I can contain some of the mess and have a good area to do my work. Once all of that is done maybe I will be able to sleep and get more sewing done. I am really wanting to make dishwashing aprons! I love wearing an apron while doing the dishes because it helps protect my clothes but sometimes it leaks through and I still get wet so my thought is to take repurposed shower curtains or some other thin plastic and sew it to the back of the lap of the apron to prevent leakage. Once I try it and iron out the kinks I will put them in the shop as well. My whole goal when I am trying new products or I am building something new is to do it with as little waste as possible. Everything is reusable if you try hard enough and when it is still quality material it makes it really hard to throw away. I hope I am not the only one who thinks this way and that I can build a customer base who is like minded.
The garden. Oh boy. The gourds and pumpkins are taking over. My husband asked if he had any okra growing and I told him those sprouts got eaten by the gourds a longggg time ago. At this point I am trying to keep their grubby little tentacles off of my tomatoes and peppers. My pumpkin hammock seems to be working well but it got full very fast. The one thing I will be doing next year is a separate pumpkin patch and if anything I should start prepping it now so the ground is ready for them next spring. i have quite a few baby gourds and some baby pumpkins which, for the first time yesterday, I was able to help pollinate them! I was never catching the female flowers when they are nice a bloomed but yesterday I had three and I went crazy. I took at least 3 males flower stems to each female flower so let’s hope I did it right. Is there such a thing as over pollination? I have a few baby watermelon which I am very excited for as they were one of my hardest plants to get to grow. I learned that they grow best when direct sown in the middle of June. As well as the squash which seem to be making a good grasshopper home. I managed to plant a cucumber in the middle of the watermelon which I am ok with since all the ones on the trellis died. Overall I am really proud of my garden and did not ever expect it to be this full. I got a few gardening books from my grandma when she was in town and one of them is a gardeners journal which has been super helpful with planning for next year. When I get my garden binder together I will post about how I did it what I did and how you can do it too. For now, plan on farmers market on Sunday with hopefully a couple new products and I will keep you posted about the greenhouse!
Talk to you later!
The homesteaders wife
The garden and a new arrival!
Hey guys! Welcome back. I am debating starting to do this as a podcast instead of a blog just to reach a different audience. I am going to hold a poll and see what you guys think as well as look into what it would take to do that. Anyways, more garden updates and a new arrival of products! So for the garden, yesterday I pulled out all of my spinach because I wasn’t a fan, my husband wasn’t a fan, and it all went to seed anyway. So I took everything I could out and gave it to the chickens and I am planning on planting my cabbage there tonight and maybe some more tomatoes or peppers. I am really starting to run out of room especially since my gourds are absolutely taking over. Speaking of which I think I came up with a solution. I am going to take chicken wire and run it across the garden fence kind of draped on top to make a sort of double decker gourd/pumpkin trellis. It might not work or it might be great but that’s my job to test it and tell you. Next year I am definitely going to do a different garden just for pumpkins and melons because this is getting ridiculous. I also tore out all of our peas because I saw a video that if I pull out this crop of peas and feed them to the chickens (who have been eating them anyway) I can replant in the fall and get an actual crop of peas for us. Where the peas were wasn’t working anyway because the chickens would pluck them off the trellis so they weren’t growing nicely. I had one pea pod out of all of my vines of them. In the end all I got done yesterday was pruning the melons, pumpkins, and gourds, covering my male flowers with cups in an attempt to preserve or collect their pollen while we wait for females, pull the peas and the spinach. Tonight I am going to try to get the rest of the plants planted and maybe try that trellis. Ok now for our new arrival….. drum roll please…… I got a pottery wheel! Currently I am only going to be offering things I can make with the clay I bought. Even though the clay I bought can be used on a throwing wheel, it isn’t ever going to be durable enough for use with mugs, plates, bowls which is my whole goal! Until I figure out how to rent space in a kiln or can buy one myself I am going to start offering cute little crafts made and painted by me such as magnets and coasters! I hope you’re as excited as I am.
Talk soon,
The homesteaders wife
Garden updates!
Hey everyone! Long time no talk! I have been super busy with my family in town, going to Yellowstone with my in-laws, and having my wedding! Anywho, now that I’ve had time to go through my garden I figured it’s time for some updates! It’s a gorgeous rainy day and the plants are loving it. My carrots are starting to form. I can kind of dig and see little baby carrots! My beans, cucumbers, and peas are not doing so hot. My chickens have just been obliterating them and not giving them a chance plus the sun beats on them all day. I think I might pull them out and replant them somewhere else. My gourds are taking over my garden. I need to plant some trellises in the middle of them in hope of them growing up instead of out. I have two little baby gourds and a crap ton of flowers. My male flowers are blooming beautifully. I’m not sure if I am going to cover them and manually pollinate or not. I will have to do more research first. I think my squash plants are blooming as well. I have some of my own tomatoes growing now! I am so excited since my first round of tomatoes all died. My sunflowers are forming their first heads and they’re huge! As well the corn is growing rather nicely. Outside of the garden my raspberries are doing amazing. I ate a couple over the weekend and have some new ones ripening up. I wonder how you get large harvests because you only get about two or three ripe at a time and they don’t preserve long enough for more to join them. I also have my first strawberry growing and lots and lots of flowers. They are doing just great. I am very excited. Here’s some pictures!
Let’s talk soon, the homesteaders wife
Garden updates! 🌱
We have updates on the garden! While getting prepared for our wedding reception in a couple weeks and the in-laws coming into town we have been making progress in the garden! This is all a learning curve for me so I will be adding not only my successes but my failures so that we can all learn together. First things first, my strawberry plant got its first flower this week! Yay! Now, I was told with your first year strawberry plants you’re supposed to pick off your first flower to force the plant to focus on growing more, so that exactly what I did. Talk about nerve racking! I did that on Friday and last night when I looked there were three more flower buds getting ready to open so I’d say that’s a success! My raspberry plant has many little berries that are working on ripening. I bought it as a year old plant so I didn’t pick any flowers in hopes it’s already been established. So far so good. We thinned out the potato box as well! It had become a giant jungle of plants and the smaller ones had started to die and rot below the bigger ones. Some plants I pulled had little potatoes starting to that’s exciting as well! I am planning on curing those potatoes and re-sprouting them and replanting them. I have a good feeling about them! Finally the main garden. On Sunday evening we ended up buying 9 plants from our friends over at Old Town Farmstand to add to our garden! They look great and so does the garden! We went through the garden and weeded and planted the new plants (which you can watch on our Instagram) The gourds are going nuts! Many little buds starting to form underneath as well as on the pumpkins! Come fall (depending on harvest) there may be some fun pumpkins and gourds for sale! Anyways we are leaning new things everyday and loving doing it. More later, talk soon!
Planting Day!
Planting day!
The garden is planted! On Sunday (Mother’s Day), we took advantage of the amazing weather and planted all of the vegetables and fruits sprouting in the grown room in our garden. Getting the garden prepped took a lot of time and effort, but I have hope that it will produce for us really well this year. The boys have had a garden for the last couple of years, but this last summer/winter, they really let it go wild. As soon as the ground defrosted mostly and I could work the dirt, I was in the garden doing everything I could to prepare it for this gardening season. Many different techniques were attempted, but I will get into that in another post. Not only did the sprouts get put in the ground, but we also planted a couple of extra seeds to make the garden a little fuller. Our goal is to make it so that all of our food is either grown or made by us.
The following day, I went around and planted all of my flower sprouts I had growing, as well as the rest of my seeds. The flower boxes along the dog run, the front porch, and the maple tree are made out of repurposed pallets, graciously given to us by our neighbor who works at a boat mechanic shop. I think my favorite is the one around the tree. Last year, I attempted to use bricks to create a flower bed around the tree and between the four dogs who act as bulldozers to the yard, and the boys mowing the lawn around the bed, the bricks did not hold up very well. I have a couple of planter boxes with raspberries, strawberries, and lavender, as well as a couple of flower bulbs on the side of the house and the back door of the cabin. They are actually made out of motor crates from the same neighbor. I took the largest motor crate and planted potatoes in it (which are successfully sprouting).
Anyways, I am very excited for all of the new developments going on around the homestead and will keep you updated!
Talk soon,
The Homesteader’s Wife