Garden in April, Eastern NC, Zone 7b

April 4, 2016

Garden at the beginning of March

Garden at the beginning of AprilSooooo much has changed already! As we walk through the garden, you can see to the right, the fencing has been taken down and in its place is a big mound of mulch. That mound of mulch is one of our many potato patches. Behind it are some brassicas I transplanted from the greenhouses. To the left of that are some winter squash and nasturtiums that were transplanted from the greenhouses. As we continue, there is another patch of brassicas. Sorry for the blurr…These were transplanted from the brassicas that overwintered on accident (brassicas I planted and had planned on transplanting last fall but never got around to it). I am definitely doing this every year! I put a shade cloth over them to protect them from bugs but nothing to protect them from the cold. It seemed as though they died but they came back this spring! I thinned them out and planted them in the cover to the left. I am going to transplant the rest this week.  Between the two covered areas, I planted peas. they are just starting to push through the mulch. And the purple sprouting broccoli under the cover to the right are doing well (as well as some cilantro that overwintered). The next section has some more potato patches, some lettuce I transplanted from the greenhouses, and boxes. In the boxes, I have some eggplant and tomatoes, transplanted from the greenhouses, some overwintered spinach and carrots, and more potatoes! We moved the old chicken tractor (we grew tomatoes on this last year) past the boxes and are going to grow different types of melons over it this year. To the right of the chicken tractor is another patch of brassicas aaaaaaaaaand…another potato patch! This is the first one I planted and it has started sprouting!

As far as our perennial vegetables and fruits, more raspberries are popping up in our raspberry patch (we need to go ahead and put up supports), strawberries are popping through the mulch (and flowering!), the blueberries are being polinated, the new strawberry plants (June bearing) are becoming established, the asparagus are popping up (newly planted bed!), and the trees are setting fruit!(peaches) (apples – can’t tell if it has really set fruit or not…) (pears)

I finished most of my TO DO list for March (plant potatoes, plant all of the greenhouses, plant cool weather seeds). All we lack to do is expand the chicken runs. For April, the TO DO list is pretty straight forward. PLANT, PLANT, PLANT and then plant some more! Our last frost date is April 21st. I have planted everything early because we have had an incredibly warm spring so far. Of course this week, some of our nights are dropping below freezing. Wonderful. I am going to cover the transplants with tops of milk jugs and hope for the best!

What are you doing in your garden? Are you harvesting already? We are harvesting some PSB and spinach here and there but mainly just waiting. There is SOOOO much work to be done! Always. Happy Gardening! 🙂
Check out what others are harvesting at Our Happy Acres today!

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Garden in March, Eastern NC, Zone 7b

March 7, 2016

Here is our first harvest of 2016:She joins the rest of the girls, who now outnumber the boys! 🙂 (# 1, 2, 6, and 7)

There are joys and challenges of having a newborn in any season. I can’t take her out in the garden to sit in the bouncy seat while I work like I would a spring, summer, or fall baby. However, it’s winter — I’m not spending much time in the garden anyway 🙂 So it works out.

Here is a look at what the garden looked like last month versus what it looks like currently…

Garden at the beginning of February:Garden at the beginning of March:At first glance, you will see:

1. A LOT of tarp has been ripped up and recovered with new mulch.
2. The hoops are uncovered (though they are still covered with fencing to keep the deer away).
3. The bushes and trees have been pruned.

If you look a bit closer, you will see:

Many of my broccoli plants died BUT…A few sprouting broccoli survived and…There are some small cabbages that did not rot and have not yet been eaten.

You will also see we have some spinach that survived the winter, mostly uncovered…And some carrots as well! This past month, I have been pruning…Planting seeds in my milk jug greenhouses… (I have planted all of my cool weather seeds and most of my warm weather seeds. I need to make a few more greenhouses to plant more tomato seeds.)Planting asparagus crowns (no pic) and I just started planting potatoes this week. I planted 50lbs last year. This year, I will plant 60 or 70lbs. I planted the early season potatoes first…Purple Viking, Purple Majesty, and Mountain Rose (5lbs each) were planted here and then covered with 8 inches of mulch.

The TO DO list for the rest of March is:

• Finish planting potatoes
• Finish planting seeds in the greenhouse
• Plant peas, spinach and possibly some other cool-weather crops like lettuce, and root vegetables
• Plan out and expand the chicken run so we can cut back on our feed bill

What are your plans for March? Are you planting yet? Happy Gardening!

I will leave you with another spring bulb that has bloomed already 🙂(Crocus)

Harvest Monday

October 19, 2015

We harvested more green beans, raspberries, and tomatoes this week. We also harvested more fall green beans, garden peas, and carrots. As we were cleaning up before the first frost of the season, we found some potatoes and a cucumber!

We had our first frost Sunday so Saturday we cleared out all of the tomatoes and beans.Tomatoes were on either side of this old chicken tractor. After the tomatoes were cleared out, compost was added. Now the ground is ready for next spring! The chickens love when we clean out the garden! (Last of the tomatoes!)

We ate the last of our squash this week. Sad day 😦 I hope one day I will learn how to grow summer and winter squash. It is our favorite and the squash bugs won’t let us get more than a handful of either each year. We cooked the last two butternut squash for our pumpkin baked oatmeal this week and next. After Halloween, pumpkin patches will give away their pumpkins and we will be set for the year (and so will the chickens!). We’ll have to survive for the next couple of weeks 🙂

This upcoming week, we will be harvesting sweet potatoes, putting up more hoop houses, and covering the rest of our fall/winter crops. Busy, busy! Check out what other gardeners are up to at Our Happy Acres.

 

Harvest Monday

September 21, 2015

This week, we continued to harvest purple beans, tomatoes, strawberries, and raspberries. We also harvested the potatoes we had missed earlier this summer that were sprouting.

I also transplanted over 100 brassicas (purple sprouting broccoli, green sprouting broccoli, green cabbage, purple cabbage, and broccoli), and planted peas, spinach, carrots, beets, lettuce, kale, and cilantro. After all of the transplants got over their shock, I collected compost from our wonderful chickens, put compost around all of the newly planted/transplanted plants, and watered it in.

Everything is covered so at least they will not get scratched up by rogue chickens. The brassicas are covered because of the cabbage moth. Everything else is covered because I interplanted the root veggies and planted the greens on the south side of the brassica beds. I have not seen any cabbage moths but I made the mistake of taking off the covers this spring because I did not see any cabbage moths and I ended up only harvesting 1 broccoli head from 50 plants and 3 cabbage heads from the same number of plants – all because of those stinking worms! That mistake will NOT be made again.We weeded a little bit this past week but we will need to do a lot more this upcoming week. We need to do a twice-monthly weeding and we are a bit behind at this point. This week’s chores include:

1. Weeding
2. Spreading more compost where crops have been ripped up.
3. Transplanting a few more brassicas.
4. Planting some more carrots

Spreading the compost will be a multi-week project. Shoveling compost into the cart to take to the garden just about does this pregnant mama in. I can only do one wheelbarrow load/day. And I like for the compost to be dryish so that limits when I can spread it to some extent.

Hopefully, we’ll get weeding done this week. The children just don’t have eyes like I do. They say they can’t find any while I see them EVERYWHERE. Kind of like cleaning their rooms, I guess 😉 Maybe in about 3 weeks we’ll be able to add some spinach to our smoothies in the morning. Right now we are using kale but I prefer the more mild taste of spinach. Can’t wait!

The 2yo hens are in full moult. They are pitiful! The new pullets are giving us about 1 egg/day so we are eating more oatmeal. Eating less eggs during the fall and winter is one of the hardest parts of eating with the seasons. We are having fun experimenting with more oatmeal concoctions though.What are you up to in your garden this time of year? Check out what other gardeners are doing at Daphne’s Dandelions 🙂

Harvest Monday

August 17, 2015

We harvested a few raspberries and strawberries, cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes, our first watermelons, beans, sunflowers, cilantro seed, and some late-planted carrots and beets this week.

(the 4yo’s job every day is to collect tomatoes)

I freeze about 4-5 gallons of tomatoes each week. Not to mention all of the tomatoes I give away! I think we’re going to be good with soup, pizza sauce, and marinara sauce this winter!

If you have been keeping up, we have harvested 2 watermelon and 3 cantaloupe this year. The groundhogs ate about 20 and the raccoons have eaten the last 10 or 15. We have now bought electric wire and are playing with it, getting it just right before we test it out. I want the charge to be HIGH! I am fighting back!

We have been cleaning up a lot these past few weeks as well as planting for the fall/winter garden.

• The remaining potato plants that were all beautiful and green? Yeah, I found those a couple of days later COVERED in potato bugs. I covered them in DE and they have recovered pretty well.
• I tied up the tomatoes (they had outgrown their previous tyings).
• I planted another round of brassicas for the fall/winter garden and covered them.
• I chased the groundhog out of the garden a few times (still can’t find its hole).
• Remember the raspberries about to ripen? A deer (or something tall) ate those so we fenced in the raspberry area (which has watermelons and cantaloupes so the fence does double duty).
• We continued to try to outsmart the raccoons with fencing…
• I collected some compost from our soil manufacturers and spread it around 1/2 of the garden.

Last week, we:

• Planted another round of beans, and planted more beets, carrots, kale, and peas for the fall garden.
• Cleaned up all of the spent bean plants (most of which had been eaten down by deer).
• Harvested the dried beans and sunflowers.
• Spread more chicken compost on the newly-cleaned up areas.
• Started fencing in the garden with electric wire low (raccoons and groundhogs) and fishing wire high (deer). The plan is to, next year, shoot a crow and hang it up in the middle of the garden, like Paul does. They have gotten WAY too comfortable walking around in the garden!

Unfortunately, our cat hasn’t figured out the electric fencing either and she has gotten shocked 😦 Not what I wanted but…what can I say? I want FRUIT next year!!!

This next week, we will spread some more compost, plant some more fall/winter seeds, and finish up the fencing.

What are you harvesting? What gardening chores are you doing this time of year? I am linking up with Daphne’s Dandelions today to see what others are harvesting around the world 🙂