Kitchen / Garden / Sanctuary - Urban Homesteading to Nourish Body + Spirit
It’s a gorgeous fresh sunny morning here, after a fantastic rainstorm last night which left us over an inch and a half of rain! Our ground really needed that soaking.
And so here are some garden pictures, taken on this fresh dewey morning.
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May you have a most relaxing Sunday morning!!
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It’s time! Time to crank it all into action, which is what I’ve been busy with all this past week. Actually the garden this year is happening on a delayed schedule since it’s been cold and wet here, but it did all finally begin last weekend with my dad and me taking our sorta-yearly ritual trip out to the landscape place to get a pickup-load of compost. Then digging up the wintering garlic, turning the soil, making sure all displaced worms were lovingly tucked back under, spreading and digging in the compost, spreading and digging in the fertilizer, re-planting the garlic, and finally planting the seeds for spring crops.
What a lot of work. I think gardener-folk are the only ones who know how much work it truly is! But it’s good work, and at the close of the day you feel satisfied because of all you’ve done out there, and because the garden looks tended, and because your body is that good kind of tired where you know you’ll collapse into bed and wake up the next morning in the exact same position.
And so begins a new gardening season, with a fresh, new, carefully considered garden plan full of dreams and anticipation and delusion…if we’re going to be calling it what it is…that It’ll be better this year! Which is why this year’s plan includes bell peppers and melons despite poor performances and outright failures in the past, punctuated by one successful year each — just enough of a dangling carrot, you can imagine, to tempt any stubborn gardener into disregarding logic and experience and plopping those fat little seedlings into the soil yet again because This will be the year.
Starting tomato and pepper seeds on their heat mat:
The garden, “before”:
The bedsheets… as soon as we dumped the compost on the garden, we had a couple days of very high winds, creating a mini dustbowl. So yes, the bedsheets.
Baby tomatoes:
The garden plan, and planting:
Laying out the garlic:
A beautiful sunrise:
Complete!
Good thing we got the walls-o-water set up just in time for them to freeze solid:
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I hope you’ve all had a good week.
I’m curious — what has the early Spring weather been like in your area so far?
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As I opened the bedroom curtains yesterday morning I was greeted by a peaceful gray day and gently falling snowflakes! I always get excited when I see snow. I made tea and turned on some soft harp music, which goes very well with snowfall.
In the afternoon, the sun was shining while the snow was still falling:
And now’s the time when I haul out the seed box and plan my garden. I always am puzzled about statements referring to gardeners delving into seed catalogs in December or January, itching to get going again. For much of the winter I can hardly think about gardening! I very much enjoy the break that winter provides. I love my garden, and I also love having a break from the work of it. And I absolutely can’t even think about garden planning and seed starting and fertilizer stuff and soil amendments… until I’m fully ready. Through the winter, my heart actually sinks when thinking about these things! Until one day… about this time each year… I think about gardening… and my heart lifts — soars, even.
And then I know that it’s time to begin.
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My cat Liz loves seeds perhaps as much as I do. When I lay out all the packets for planning purposes, she makes sure she’s there to help. We love to “play seeds” together.
Can you guess what kind of seeds she loves best?
When I left all the seeds out on Sunday night, I had forgotten about the Catnip.
And Liz had been playing seeds in the night — as I quickly realized on Monday morning when I saw the crumpled rug and strewn packets.
The life of the party:
So I guess to plant catnip this year, I’ll just have to rake a plot of dirt and shake out the rug!
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(If you’re curious about planning a veggie garden, here’s how I do mine each year.)
And your garden… what’s it up to right now?
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After what has been one of the hottest, most wearisome summers in my memory, it seems that the autumn season has finally, completely (mercifully!?) clunked into place. We had our first snowfall, which began on Wednesday night by way of a steady rain. I was delighted to see this, so armed with an umbrella and steaming tea in a to-go cup, I ventured out for an enchanting night walk. And an hour after I got back, the rain switched over to snow, falling fast and blowing sideways, blizzard style. By that time the two of us and the cat were all squashed together on the couch, side by side by side, vegging out in front of PBS. A cozy, snowy night.
The next morning, we awoke to the wonderland you see above. Cold and still and silent.
I love the snow because it’s so peaceful.
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If we back up a little bit, though, Tuesday was a gorgeous day with temperatures in the mid-70s, and I was out in shorts and a tank top getting the last of the garden chores in order. It was a busy garden day and I was exhausted at the end, but the progress felt good.
Here are some pictures from my end-of-summer preparations:
The garden in early October just after our first frost nipped a few things.
Potting up the thyme to take inside for the winter
Red Siberian heirloom tomatoes -- I'll definitely grow these again
One of the leeks from the harvest
Cabbage and potatoes just harvested
The rest of the tomatoes, picked and ready to store.
Storing the green tomatoes in the coolest spot in the house (the coat closet).
End-of-season applesauce making
Bringing some of the garden stuff indoors
Tilled in our homemade compost and made a "nursery bed" for the garlic. I'll transplant them in spring to their usual spots around the perimeter of each raised bed. This nursery bed thing is a new thought I had -- never done it this way, but I'm counting on it working like a charm.
Putting the garden to bed
Dusk, my favorite
The first snowfall
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"There's nothing more pleasurable than making things by hand, and nothing more beautiful than handmade things."
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
- Theodore Roosevelt
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- Cree Nation Tribal Prophecy
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