The sounds of birds and the buzzing of insects in springtime is a reminder for me that our homestead supports more than just our own sustenance. Here are some tips on making sure your garden offers an open invitation for birds. Give Them Water. Birds need a place to stop for a drink or a bath. We were gifted a heavy, old, concrete bird bath
HipChickDigs Turns Five + Giveaway!
Hip Chick Digs turns five today! I wrote my first blog post about nine months after we moved into this teeny 1927 bungalow on a tenth of an acre covered with lawn. It’s easy to lose sight of how far I’ve come amongst the weeds and planting chores. But marking this anniversary is a time to acknowledge how hard work combined with fertile Willamette Valley
Spring Signs of Summer Fruit
Junebug and I were taking a morning stroll through our backyard oasis noticing little signs of budding fruit. It’s looking more and more like this will be the best season yet on the homestead. Here is a little background on when I planted the trees and shrubs that are showing signs of summer fruit. The currant bushes, both red and black, fruited the second year
Emerging Spring
Spring is emerging from the sleepiness of winter and showing signs all over the homestead. What seeds are popping up in your garden? The snow peas above won the race on first to emerge. Our cherry tree is in full bloom and the squirrels are all licking their paws waiting for the fruit to set. The tree is in decline and barely scrapes through each
Our Homestead Plan
We moved into our homestead back in 2006 when it was just a blank canvas of lawn, with a couple old rose bushes here and there. After six years of major landscape changes, it’s about time I got around to making a decent planting plan of the homestead. I used AutoCAD to create the above plan showing what we currently have growing on our 1/10
Spring Planting With Company
Seeds are officially in the ground! The beds were prepped last week and the soil is now warm enough for some early spring crops. I carefully mined my seed collection to dig out some of my favorite veggies to plant. After an hour or so outside, I sowed snap peas, sugar peas, semi-bush peas, beets, spinach, broccoli and kale all directly in the raised beds.
Raised Bed Soil Prep
Soil is a complex web of life with billions of living organisms operating within its structure. Vegetables require a lot of nutrients to grow and thrive, which means they often deplete the soil over time. Early spring is the perfect time to check the health of our soil and get it into shape before planting. We moved back into our Portland homestead in December and
Spring + Portland = Snow?
It is officially spring, but someone needs to update Portland of that fact. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I awoke to snow last week! It’s a rare occurrence to have snow in Portland at all, let alone this late in the year. The snow is not great news for early flowering crops. Ornamental flowers like daffodils and tulips can hang on, but early crops
Gardening An Hour At A Time
Today is the first day of spring and the garden waits for no one! Juggling a newborn can easily put a cramp in gardening productivity, but gardening isn’t just a hobby for me. It is where we get a significant part of the food that ends up on our table. The “stead” part of having a homestead means inside and out of our home is
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