Starting the Garden

Actually, we may be having a very big Life Change (moving), but in the mean time, I'm attempting to carry on as usual. But on a much smaller scale. As in I only planted a 16 tomato plants (six different varieties) and 8 peppers (4 varieties). If we're still here, I'm focusing hard on saving seeds this year, instead of putting up. Moving canned and frozen foods 4-20+ hours away doesn't sound like my idea of a good time.

On Compost

Mostly, it's a sanity saver. Particular child or children driving you batty? Send them out with a full (or not so full) bowl and collect your wits while they're gone. Need a break? Run it out yourself. I chose to go myself today.

And enjoyed the first bit of open water the pond has had in over 5 months.

Then sat on the edge of the porch with me feet in the herb garden and enjoyed the sun while I finished my coffee.

Auld Lang Syne

these darn peat pots never work for me, and I still keep trying

Passover

So glad we didn't buy the property next to us. They brush hogged it and it's even wetter than we realized.

A very warm March meant I got my raised bed planted, then covered with a garden blanket. 

Worked a treat!

Garden jewels.

Dandelion salve, plantain salve, and jewel weed salve (which was a saving grace when A. got poison sumac. this was the only thing that gave her any relief.)

a walk along a nearby(ish) river

the farm children

All of my siblings and my parents at my sisters wedding  Memorial day weekend. My brother on the far right leaves at the end of the month for Marine boot camp. Still not used to that idea.

My black holly hocks bloomed this year! They were *stunning*.

Nearly all home grown frittata

farm harvest

I had another Little House Day, that will be a post of it's own.

A. went to State Fair with her sewing project!

new apron. I'm trying to find the perfect apron pattern. this is nice, but not it.

I froze the tomatoes as they ripened, then pulled them all out of the freezer and canned them as sauce and soup in November.

homemade sausage

Kale bouquet

the farm children in their natural state

A few picture snippets from our year. 

I've been quiet in general, not even reading my favorite blogs. I was getting overwhelmed by life, feeling like I had to keep up with every single blog I read, planning wedding showers and helping plan weddings, and and and. So I quit all the extra fluff- even when I didn't want to- cold turkey. That was awful and the best thing all rolled into one. And now I'm slowly adding back what I truly missed, which wasn't nearly as much as I expected. I'm hoping to be back here, I miss blogging.

The kiddo's are getting big. Oh my are they getting big.

I naively thought that once I didn't have a baby anymore, I would find more time to do things. Wrong.

But that's alright. I'm learning to reprioritize, and to plan out, and rearrange, and change how "Ive always done it" to "how I need to do it now". 

A season to everything.

Planning and Plantng

There are a lot of things I should be doing right now (overseeing the kids afternoon chores, grinding pork for supper (sausage gravy and biscuits), folding laundry, trying to get Mr. Crabby-pants down for a nap, planning a bridal shower for my sister, working on baby shower stuff for my sister in laws shower), but I decided writing a blog post sounded like more fun, so here I am.

It's supposed to be 50 for the next two days, but then back to cold and snow again. Just in time for Sprouts visit to the ortho guy. (Sprout discovered that he cannot fly off the bunk bed ladder and spiral fractured his tibia about a month ago. It's been lots of fun.) The snow has melted and while it doesn't smell like spring, I have spring fever. This has been a very mild winter so far and it's not helping that spring fever one little bit. I've had my pot of seeds (see that yellow pot off to the side? That's what I keep everything in at the moment. I'm so organized...) sitting in the kitchen waiting for a chance to sort through and see what I have and what I "need". Need being a relative term. Garden catalogs suck me and I "need" *everything*. I do not have enough garden space to plant everything I want to, so I guess I'm going to have to get creative. There is a difference of opinions amongst the adults of the house regarding gardens and I'm not pushy enough to argue. But if I had my way, I would have separate gardens devoted entirely to pumpkins, squash, garlic, onions, and different types of beans. And I feel like a perennial garden is going to be a must this year. My herb garden is mostly established, just a few changes need to be made here and there.
I'm starting seeds for my raised bed tomorrow so that once it's warm enough for cold weather crops, I can put in plants instead of seeds. They may have a fighting chance then. The weeds in that bed come up so thick and so fast that everything gets choked out before it has a chance. This is the last year I'm trying it. If I can't keep the weeds down with mulch and paper this year, I'm taking it out. It's not worth my time.

Which brings me to: what have been your most creative and successful garden beds? Has anyone tried hay bale gardening and if so, what gardening zone are you and how did it work? What about potato towers?  Vertical gardening? Hugelkulture and permaculture sound interesting, but I think we have too much other stuff in the way.  Our land slopes and holds water and we have to be careful of where we dig and till because of underground drainage pipes and drain tile. Plus I don't completely understand it. I need layman terms and everything I'm finding is technical. Attractive and raised is probably going to be where I need to go. Oh, and we're zone 5, but I tend to incorporate zone 4 stuff too.
Hit me with your garden wisdom folks, I'm in need!

Ain't No April Fools Joke

Nope, this really is a post from me. And there is a good reason I never posted from the rest of January straight through to now. Every post would have said "Today it snowed." and had this photo accompanying it. And since most of you could look out your own windows and see the same thing, what would make my snow any more exciting?

I suppose there would have been a few interesting things mixed in, like seed catalogs, orders and first plantings...

And these two little monkeys who think wrestling on my lap while I try to drink coffee is just the best thing ever.

And the snow *finally* melting (hallelujah thank-you Jesus)

And the tomatoes the kiddos and I planted last week finally coming up.

Not to mention birthdays (I didn't make a thing by the way. Store-bought birthday presents all around. Also, I'm not sewing dresses for the girls for Easter. I'm not even sure who I am anymore.), a trip to the ER (again) for Sprout not two days after my last post. For those interested, he swallowed a penny. And kept saying "Penny stuck fwoat. Hurht." Fortunately it was *not* stuck fwoat, and made it's appearance a few days later.

Then just 10 days ago, the 70 lb. "puppy" decided to buck the rules and try to jump into bed with Biscuit. Which resulted in a humdinger of a scratched cornea.

Best of all though, is one of my sisters got engaged right after Christmas (to her best friends older brother- they've known each other nearly their entire lives, but had only been dating about three and half months), and so every spare minute or two has been spent planning and working on her wedding shower, which at present has a guest list of well over a hundred and before thinking it through, I decided a tea party would be good. And it will be, but I am a HORRIBLE delegator and feel guilty asking people to do things. But it will be fine. And lovely. And there you are.

Bon

Afternoon Ya'll

I wasn't planning on disappearing for almost 2 months, but life happens and there you are. However, we are done with school, the basement is clean (10 years of crap in about 4 days. Durn near killed me.) and that is good.

I now present to you a pile of photos, and a few words to go along with them:

Easter

The girls dresses I made. And I had them finished the day before! Amazing!

A bit of life that has kept me so busy. There is a reason this little monkey was a number 5 instead of a number 1. It takes the rest of us to keep him semi out of mischief.

Waving our flags on "Remorial" Day

Parade watching selfie

Pumpkin planter

Pea planter

Sunflower planter

Bean planter

Path stomper

A garden post coming once it's worth looking at

Cobwebs in the coop which make me all happy since it reminds me a of a barn. Yes I'm a goof ball.

Hopefully I won't be such a stranger after this, but then again, no promises.

TTFN.