New home construction

I have 40# of seed potatoes sitting on the dining room table just waiting to find a spot in the garden. Dear hubby is always willing to make room in the garden for spuds. We have 5 varieties this year and I can't wait to try each of them over the fire pit.

The rhubarb is taking over the garden. My husband will pass on that treat while I enjoy some stevia sweetened cooked rhubarb/apples with cinnamon. It will be nice for an evening snack and on oatmeal in the morning. Not using sugar much limits the options for rhubarb recipes but I still enjoy it. I think that some rhubarb/raspberry wine will be in the works this summer. I haven't tried to make wine with rhubarb yet but I have had some made by others. I haven't been impressed but I think I might enjoy it if I go light on the rhubarb.

Lots of good stuff growing already including lupine, peas, radishes, basil, currants and lovage. I also have 2 varieties of green peppers, 4 varieties of tomatoes and ground cherries started in the basement and ready to head out to the garden after hardening off. Hopefully the peppers will fare well. I have about 3 trays (12 pots in each) but one really took a hit today. I was headed out to the garage with them took a misstep and started to tumble down the stairs. I managed to twist around and fall into the house (sounded much better than going down the stairs) and went face first into the pepper plants. I'm a bit sore but I think I did better then they did. I re-potted them and hopefully after another week or two of TLC they will be ready for the garden. Right now they look a bit rough.

I enjoyed sitting out in the garden this evening and admiring the lupine. They don't stay in flower for long but they are one of my favorites. Happy gardening!

Need more space, always need more space

One might think that that 12 raised beds and two large garden areas would be enough. They are not! I'm always looking for one more spot to tuck in a plant (or a few dozen). In addition to my usual annuals, I'm looking forward to putting in more raspberries, blueberries, currants and horseradish.

This year we will grow potatoes in a 4X8 raised bed garden, 10 smart pots/grow bags and quite a few large plastic pots. Potatoes are so easy to grow in most anything. I have heard of people growing them right in bags of soil. I've also seen them in a wide variety of containers including tires. I am always looking for a place to grow more potatoes. We have some food grade buckets we may use this year too. Drill holes in the bottom, add some good dirt, spuds and water then watch them grow!

Have you tried or heard of any unique methods for growing spuds? More ideas are always appreciated!

A work in progress

The good news is that we have a lot of room to work with in our yard. The bad news is that the weeds can easily fill in the spaces before we do. Our lawn wasn't in great shape when we moved in and hasn't been worth the effort for us. We prefer our flower gardens, fruiting shrubs and raised bed vegetable gardens. Three of our favorite projects are pictured above. The hollyhocks bring back special memories because they are from seed collected by my mother-in-law years ago. The bee balm pictured in the center is a favorite of ours because the hummingbirds love it. The red currants are special because every year near our wedding anniversary, we pick them and make a one gallon batch of "Ruby Lady" wine to be enjoyed the next year for our anniversary. The yard is definitely a work in progress with much left to do. However, we are enjoying ourselves along the way.

Growing potatoes

Do two people really need 20# of seed potatoes? Apparently my husband and I believe that we do! Last year we grew Purple Viking and they were very good. They made especially tasty mashed potatoes but we enjoyed them roasted over the fire pit as well. We ran out of them in January but they stored that long fairly well. We also planted some Russets. We hadn't planned on that but our co-op had some on sale that were sprouting so we grew those too.

This spring we will plant Carola, Adora, Mountain Rose and Rose Finn Apple along with Purple Viking. It sure looks like a lot of potatoes to grow in a small area but it works well. Last year we used five Smart Pots and a 4x4 raised bed for potatoes planted in a mixture of leaves, grass and soil. We hilled more of the same mix on top as they grew. We really liked the Smart Pots because we just had to pour them into the wheelbarrow at harvest time. The russets were planted right into the soil in one garden and then hilled with more soil later.

I know that spuds are cheap at the grocery store but there are so many fun varieties to try that we will only get by growing our own. Next year 30# of seed potatoes?

We have a plan!

It snowed overnight, the skies are gray and the temps are in the upper 30's. Not a great day to work outside but nice for planning and dreaming.

Gardening and yard work became much more fun once we decided to reduce the amount of lawn we have and add raised beds. However, I have been too busy with school to really use our gardens to their full potential. This summer will be my first in a while without homework so I am planning on really having fun with gardening. We especially enjoy growing fruit and vegetables. Here are the areas we have to work with. I hope to report much tasty success with this years projects:

The Fenceline Garden: Has wild blue lupine, lovage, red currants, black currants, blueberries, raspberries, ground cherries and rhubarb. With a little luck I will get some butterfly weed to survive and thrive next to the lupine plants. I also plan to add some coral honeysuckle.

The Triangle Garden: is new and will have raspberries planted along with miscellaneous vegetables.

The sunny part of the 4 Tree Garden has elderberries, raspberries, lovage and horseradish and I will plant swiss chard. The rest will be ferns and other shade lovers.

The Postage Stamp behind the deck has hollyhocks, bee balm and false dragonhead.

The middle of the yard is our raised bed gardens. The blue squares and rectangles represent what we already have. The purple shapes are on my “dream list”. I’m told by my builder/husband that they will appear late this summer or next year.

The diagram is a little rough and not to scale but it gives some idea of what we are working with. We also have 2 garden areas in our front yard. Overall, we don’t have a lot of space to work with but it is not bad for an in town property I guess. I can’t wait to post the tally of this years crops. The hardest areas to work with have been the shady spots. They still need work but have been a nice cool place to escape to during a warm day of yard work.

Garden Therapy

Temperatures are in the mid 40's this morning and the sun is shining bright. I had no choice but to do a little work in the garden today! It was so relaxing to be out there again. It's way too early to plant but a good time to start cleaning things up. I will have at least 10 raised beds to work with this year and I'm really looking forward to it. We have a relatively small space but are trying to grow as much as possible in it.

So far the raised bed tally is:

(2) 4 X 8 beds
(6) 4 X 4 beds
(2) 3 X 8 beds

Still to come this year or next:

(2) 4 X 4 beds

(2) 4 X 8 beds