Happy Memorial Day

Red raspberries begin to ripen immediately after cherries are harvested

Since most gardens start out as tilled patches of lawn, weeds become a serious problem this time of year. I like how Robert Frost described the process with "Putting In The Seed" (Mountain Interval, 1920):

Nanking bush cherries ready to fill a Memorial Day pie

How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

"Soil tarnishes with weed," appropriate mental image. Some people ask what's the organic way to control weeds.  The best approach IMO is to actually get down on hands and knees and pull every single weed by hand after a good rain once. Then, cover space between plants with cardboard or newspaper, and layer grass clippings, straw, or mulched leaves on top. This approach keeps weeds down for us all summer. Except in the corn, where my Mantis tiller and a hoe do a fine job once or twice until towering stalks shade the earth.

These short carrots were harvested from our cold frame

Though it's still early in the season, we're enjoying harvests of beets, broccoli, lettuce, spinach, onions, peas, carrots, strawberries, sour cherries, and raspberries. We always have fresh eggs on hand, thanks to our egg-laying Rhode Island Reds. Herbs are at their peak freshness now, too.


Summer crops of cukes, green beans, zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers are soon coming. Happy Memorial Day and happy gardening season as we celebrate the unofficial start of summer.

Love these helpers!

The vegetable garden in May

Lettuce, broccoli, and peas on the fence (volunteer sunflower to the right)

Huge pea pods with 12 peas swelling inside

Spring garden to the left, summer garden center, and corn patch right

Building A Cold Frame

Seeds of Gourmet Lettuce Blend, Bloomsdale spinach, Short-N-Sweet carrot, Detroit Dark Red beet,
and Cherry Belle radish laid out for planting in the cold frame.

Thanks to my father-in-law for the free-to-us
discarded window!

Winter has not been kind to southern gardens this year; green edibles in our veggie patch did not survive January, and the forecast for what's to come indicates more frigid weather.  Though we may still get snow, under a cold frame vegetables are getting an early start on the growing season.  

A cold frame is a bottomless box with a top that admits light, providing the benefits of a greenhouse on a convenient scale.  We used 2"x12"s treated with wood preservative to discourage rot; total dimensions are 68" x 46".  The lid is hinged to help with ventilation.  The cold frame is situated on the sunny south side of our barn.

The cold frame is 12" high in front, 18" high in back to help with
water drainage and to catch slanted rays of winter sun.

Fitted with the window on top.

Potting mix 8" deep fills the inside.  Even on a cold cloudy day,
soil inside the cold frame feels warm.

Pullets, the Sixth Week

Golden Comet pullet at six weeks old.

Rhode Island Red pullets.

What a difference a week makes, especially with growing chickens.  I don't think we're imagining daily increases in size.  Our birds look nearly as they will look for the rest of their lives.  Just this week, their vocal calls are changing over from squeaks (I wouldn't call them "peeps" any longer) to more full-throaty clucks and squawks.  It brought a smile to our faces hearing the first contented "Gluck. Cluck-cluck-cluck."  They come to the gate to greet us every morning.  At six weeks old, there are still anywhere from eight to twelve weeks before they begin laying eggs, between July and September.

We harvested first spinach and are watching peas, carrots, and onions grow.  These cool mornings make us glad we waited to transplant out our warm-weather crops.  Strawberries are setting by the hundreds (and maybe thousands); all around, it looks like we will have an excellent fruit crop this year.

Our chickens enjoy free-ranging for bugs and small stones in the grassy lawn at Palmetto Acres Hobby Farm.

"All I want to be in life is a little red hen."

"I am most definitely a vegetarian."

Curious one poses again.

Chicks, the First Week

Rhode Island Red chick at one week old.  A miniature comb and wattle are growing on its forehead.

Wing and tail feathers.

The chicks are a week old now and are growing fast.  They have doubled in size since we brought them home, and they are showing loads of personality.  We have our eager ones, reluctant ones, curious ones, and shy ones.  Some are assertive, first to do everything; and others prefer to follow.  Feathers are starting to grow out from the shoulder, wings, and tail.  Thanks to those wing feathers, they are getting rather adept at cruising around in their 8 ft. x 4 ft. brooder pen.  It looks like a couple of the chicks are playing at pecking order, and not necessarily the largest ones either.  Maintenance is very low - we refill the feed tray every other day, and we haven't yet had to refill the gallon waterer.

3rd-year semi-dwarf nectarine tree.

We have an excellent stand of spinach this spring; lettuce, carrots, and onions are just sprouting.  Peas just went in the ground over the weekend after being pre-sprouted in wet paper towels.  Indoors our peppers, dill, and bedding flowers are growing under lights, and we will add to them tomato and other warm-weather crops this week.  We're still enjoying peach and cherry blossoms.  Happy first day of Spring!

Bush cherries in bloom.

March 12, 2012

The first peach blossom.

March is here, and it's beginning to look like it.  Mounds of green clover up to 10 inches high are covering our future corn patch.  Grass is turning green again, thanks to abundant Spring rains, and trees are in bloom everywhere.  After wheelbarrowing mulch to the far ends of the property during a church work day, we came home to plant:

Onion and carrot plantings
next to garlic

6 ft. of raddishes
18 ft. of 'Salad Bowl' lettuce
6 ft. of 'Romain' lettuce
25 ft. carrots
25 ft. yellow onions

Bush cherries two years old.

We also re-planted spinach seed where there are bare spots and mowed part of the lawn.  A second batch of peas is rolled up in moist paper towels on top of the refrigerator to sprout and be planted before St. Patrick's Day.  This is a busy weekend for the garden, since it's also time to sow seeds of tomatoes and dill indoors.  Broccoli will be transplanted out into the garden by next weekend, so it's time to start hardening off our seedlings by acclimating them to sunlight and wind after being pampered under fluorescent lights on a heat mat indoors.

Bees are loving our bush cherries, and the first peach blossoms have opened.  We finished a very busy day by watering our blueberries with an acid-loving fertilizer and by misting all the newly-planted seed.  Thanks to all this work on a sunny day, we can humbly show off our red necks!

The vegetable garden in March showing garlic left; clover center;
and peas, spinach, lettuce, and brussels sprouts right.

September 26, 2011

I've seen so many "Welcome Autumn" signs one would think people are eager to say good riddance to a summer of the kinds of records no one wants to break.  Sometimes it's outright disasterous that norms are averages of the extremes.  We're slightly behind on rain for our area, but there is still the chance for tropical storm precipitation through November; this was a good rain week with over 3 inches.  Overall we experienced a first-rate gardening year, the one difficulty being an isolated mini-drought in August.

Pumpkin growers across the nation are saying the crop will be small this year.  From floods in some parts to extreme drought in others, farmers endured a problematical growing season, so it wasn't just us.  Still, we enjoyed making this seasonal display under our front yard maple tree; by the time these pumpkins become pies, hay bales underneath will be moved to serve a more practical purpose as garden mulch.  To rid wheat straw of seeds, we let bales sit out in the rain over winter which either sprouts or smothers them before they are spread around plants.

We have a decent supply of pumpkin butter to sell at the "can't miss" annual Pumpkin Festival in Pumpkintown, SC this year on October 8, one week from this coming Saturday.  Hope you will come out and say 'howdy.'  There is a delightful little article on the event featured here that even mentions us!  No, we do not home-grow all the pumpkin required to make our pumpkin butter, but we will sell extra produce, so it's nice in some way to see a little return on our work.

Sweet bell peppers will be
chopped and frozen



Carrots, last harvest of the season



Our fall garden has really zoomed into growth, smiling at the rain and mild temperatures we saw last week.  Next year's future summer vegetable patch has been burned clear of brush and is ready for tilling before we lay down cardboard and fallen leaves.  We gathered the last of any fresh tomatoes and bell peppers - extra peppers were chopped and frozen to add to meatloaf, chili, and breakfast eggs later.  Carrots were dug, too, the final harvest of our summer garden.  Now as soon as the ground dries some, we will till and plant a cover crop of red clover.

Driving around town we see obvious signs of the seasonal change in trees, especially dogwoods and red maples.  Some sugar maples, too, are starting to glow in their tops.  Since we enjoyed abundant sunshine this year we're hoping for a spectacular show across the fall foliage spectrum of reds, oranges, and yellows.