#growing zone 4b
More scenes from the Big Garden.
I planted a new strawberry last summer, I’m very particular about which and where I plant so I can tell them apart and figure out the best varieties for our conditions after some unproductuve duds. When I found these edible ornamentals with COLOUR FLOWERS I snatched them up, both for the novelty and easy identification! They’re a light and dark pink, specific to each mother plant. One tag said “Toscana”, which there is plenty of info online about but the other was something like “Havana” or “Hovana” but I can’t any information on it. Or even any other shades/names for pink strawberies besides Toscana, so make of that what you will. They are doing great as a garden perennial and also look fantastic cascading out of a hanging basket, which is how I origionally bought them.
I’m also very excited to see my buckweat flowering, although of the three pounds of seeds I planted it was considerably sparse. Rodents have been digging up my seeds just as fast as I plant them, sometimes eliminating entire crops before they can sprout, and it’s become an epidemic in our garden… I’m hoping to fill in gaps around the garden and between beds with Buckwheat to use as bee forage. A local homesteader recommended it for it’s fast growth and ease of uprooting when rotating crops. It also produces a dark molasses-like honey if a lot is available.
July 17, 2017
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Summer garden getting into full swing!
Here’s some hardy roses, greens clipped for lunch, our hugelkultur mounds with perennial berries and herbs, a ground cover of radishes and rye that I pull up and use as green manure (it’s been coming back for a few years, anywhere I drop the seeds), squash vines (on a hugel mound) with a cattle panel set up for a trellis, and tractor tire raised bed full of tomatoes.
Finally, what I’m hoping will be a snake habitat to control pests. It’s set into a hugel mound that the rodents made nests and tunnels in, there’s a water dish nearby and the bricks and rocks catch the sun and warm up. I’ll let the grass around it grow long to create cover. Strawberries grow on top.
July 16/17, 2017
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Life on the farm. Happy kid, happy animals. Black currents and other things in the garden…
The first photo is the recreational area I put in the garden, behind the cedar with a sandbox in a tractor tire. It’s the burned sod I got for free and nursed back to health, contrast that with the next picture and you can see how sad our pasture is. It’s been over-grazed so the herd spends much of their time in the pen but we bring them out to play, walk in the woods and eat brush, etc. They are eating mostly hay this year, but I toss them garden weeds and leafy/piney branches when we cut wood.
In the garden shots are herbs in raised beds (tires) and I’m using baling twine from our big hay bales to train my climbing rose (‘Wiliam Baffin’, the hardiest climber I could find) to wrap around the cedar. The new pup is getting big and her and the older livestock dog spend all day together, playing and patroling.
July 20, 2017
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My Ditch Lilies are blooming!
Did you know the entire plant (young shoots, buds, flowers, and tubers) are edible? Just make sure you have a unspotted Day Lily (aka Ditch Lily) and not a poisonous Tiger Lily or hybrid. They are super hardy, low maintenece, spreading, easilly divided, and lovely, though they are considered invasive in some places.
July, 2017
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