Harvest Monday

March 28, 2016

We are starting to be able to harvest, thanks to some overwintered veggies. Some spinach

A few carrots

And a few purple sprouting broccoli survived the winter under minimal protection.

I will order thicker agribon next year for the broccoli and sprouting broccoli. The cabbage did not need much, if any, protection from the cold. From the deer on the other hand…that is a different story

Peas, beets, carrots, spinach, and lettuce have all been planted but it will be awhile before we are able to harvest anything from the spring garden.

All of the fruit trees are blossoming. (Pear) (Peach not mulched. Just starting to bloom.) (Peach tree mulched. Bloomed several weeks earlier than the other.) (Blueberries with a carpenter?mason?bumble?bee. I don’t know but those fat bees that never sting are our main pollinators this time of year. LOVE them!) (Apple Tree)

The raspberries and strawberries are doing well.The raspberry patch is newly mulched, keeping the weeds at bay. The raspberries are popping through the mulch.As are the strawberries. They are a little yellow when they first pop through from being sun deprived all winter but they green up really quickly. We already have a couple of flowers.

Speaking of raspberries and strawberries, I planted about 75 June-bearing strawberry plants this week and 10 June-bearing raspberry canes. I am hoping for non-stop berries from May (possibly April) until September, starting next year.

And we have a chicken sitting on some eggs due to hatch early in April. Spring is here!

Check out what others are harvesting at Our Happy Acres today 🙂

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Half-way Through January…Garden Chores

January 20, 2014

Halfway through January & still pluggin’ away at my January TO DO list!

We have moved up here in Eastern NC! We get about two whole days each week in which it is warm & dry enough to venture outdoors! Wooowhoo 😉 Some things I have been able to get done:

• Pruned the rest of the blueberry bushes

(with no ‘before’ photo, it’s hard to see how much was pruned but it was a lot, believe me!)

(the brush pile with all of the blueberry prunings)

• Pruned all of the fruit trees

(before) (after) (the blueberry bushes were a lot more obvious/pronounced but until we stake this tree up, I don’t want to prune anymore)

• Ripped up two tarps & weed cloth (it was impossible to keep the bermuda grass out before having our BTE garden — still is pretty difficult) in some raised beds to make them BTE garden beds

(weighed down — windy day…i save these & put them around the edge of the garden to help keep the bermuda grass out)

• Covered those beds with mulch (the plethora of worms found was encouraging!)

• Covered some more area with chicken manure (pics above)

• Finished covering the sweet potato patch with chicken manure (didn’t have enough chicken manure the last time I emptied the table under the roosts)

(new manure at top)

The chickens are not quite pooping enough 😉 so if it ever warms up and my husband gets a day off from work, we’re going to head down to the horse barn so I can spread manure on the rest of the garden and around all of the trees.

As I mentioned earlier, I recently planted onion & celery seeds. As I get more milk jugs, I’ll continue to plant more cool crops this month — lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, kale, etc. before moving on to warmer crops in February.

(celery) (onions)

I transplanted some kale from my neighbor’s garden into mine, since the chickens devoured mine, a while ago. I covered the kale because the temps were fluctuating so much. We have had so much rain and the cover was keeping the kale from being rained upon – they were starting to wilt so I made the decision this week to uncover the kale and the next day…our first snow! 🙂 Go figure. The kale is fine though. As soon as it warms up, I’m sure it will be growing like crazy.

One last thing…the chickens! They are giving us about a dozen eggs a day now! I am so happy that the daylight hours are growing longer — for many reasons but all of these eggs are WONDERFUL! So I guess that’s our only harvest this week but I am very happy with that!

Are you harvesting anything in your garden in January? Check out who is over at Daphne’s Dandelions 🙂