The last few days I have begun to notice some pest damage to my plants outside. This morning I took a nice long stroll with a cup of coffee and inspected the situation. Slugs have been munching on the collard greens and the raspberry bushes. I have also noticed holes in some melon and squash starts, which is another sure sign of slugs. There were
Birds in the Garden
Birds are an important addition to the backyard food forest. Although they will steal some of my berries and fruit, they give something back with their guano, insect-eating, and simple beauty. If the competition for my produce gets too severe I will cover the berry bushes with some netting. I am willing to take that risk though in order to give these guys some habitat.
Tree Generations
A local arborist said the lilac tree in our backyard was one of the oldest he had ever seen. It’s fun for me to think of that tree as a little sapling in the backyard, back in the day when our neighbor’s new house was an empty lot still attached to our property. The old lady who used to live in our house had her
May Sprouts
April flew by this year and everything seems to be growing along quite well. I took a turn through the garden and my currant shrubs are just covered with berries. This is their second year in my garden and last year I didn’t get a single berry. I remember one bush in particular started getting overrun with ants in the early summer. I am hoping
Building an Herb Spiral
There are some major projects going on in the backyard right now! Jay is building me an 8′ x 8′ four-post trellis for my hardy kiwis to grow up – aren’t I a lucky girl? He spent the whole weekend on the project: gathering the materials from multiple lumber yards, measuring off the area, digging out the post holes, and busting up the concrete walkway.
Spring Preparations
The first egg of the season arrived this weekend! Surely Spring can’t be far behind. I assume the little green egg was from Hazel, since she is the most consistent layer of all the girls. Pearl and Winnie gave up their egg-laying duties around Labor Day, but Hazel kept up through about mid-October. It kills me to buy commercial eggs from the store when I
The Best of Everything
It will be a long time before I top the weekend I just had. My weekend was full of my favorite things: being with my best friend in the whole world, gardening in the sunshine, eating bratwurst at Otto’s, sharing Sunday brunch with friends, taking country drives, playing with ceramics in my studio, tango dancing until my feet are sore… My best friend Erika, who
Newspaper Seed Pots
This is the first year I am starting seeds indoors for my vegetable and herb garden. In the past, I have been willing to take my chances shoving seeds directly in the ground when the weather was warm enough. After my experience last year with my urban chickens digging up and eating so many of my seeds, I thought transplanting small plants might improve the
Seed Swap
Seed swapping is a great way to pool your saved seeds with friends and divide up the loot. My sister came over this weekend and we spread out in the kitchen with our bounty from this past season. There was cheese. There was chocolate. There were good times to be had. It is such a relief to get some of those seeds off my hands.
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