#growingislife

August 2011 I just came across a gardening competition run by @dobartim. I’ve been a strict organic gardener since 2008, and a not so strict one for a decade before that. I’ve grown artichokes here in

One of three Luffa plants I have around the homestead. This year I added three Luffa gourd plants to the Golden D Homestead. According to Gardening Know How Luffa (Luffa aegyptiaca and Luffa acutangula),

Ground Garden Is In... This weekend I was offline a LOT... sorry for that; but this is the weekend I've always planted the main part of my garden- now known as the Ground Garden. I have so little room

The main iris bed had not been weeded since 1999. Our WWOOFer Nate helped me renovate it in 2013. In 2014 I had 2 flowers, both the yellow type. I have an abundance of the light/dark purples. I'll have

I’ve been using hay, NOT straw, for mulch since my first vegetable garden in 1992. I know a lot of people say not to use it, it causes weeds. But my experience has been, that if it is put down properly,

When we resurrected the Big garden in 2008, we didn’t have a lot of money so we used 1” chicken wire. As it measures 60’ x 42.5’ for well over 200 linear feet, not an insignificant amount of money. I had

Apple Blossoms are Open

Johnny Jump-ups/Heart’s Ease in the New Herb garden I’ve collected a lot of different violets over the years. Some hybridized right here, some I brought in. Here’s what my collection looks like. These

We got a call at 1:30 PM on Tuesday afternoon from the farm 2 doors down. It seems they had left their garage door open and the local momma bear and last year’s cubs had come to check it out. They have

@knowledge-seeker challenged everyone reading this to show what your “Taking Time To Smell The Roses” moment is and to nominate others to get involved. By using the tag #taketimetosmelltheroses, it can

Today is our anniversary. When we married, I used lilacs and lily of the valley from my garden for my wedding flowers. Every year we watch to see if the flowers will be open by May 9th. Today they barely

We started off with a Salatin pen but it quickly became obvious that the heritage birds could not spend the next 12 weeks in that. They had to have more room. So we set about designing a more user friendly

Big garden shaded by catalpa The catalpa tree had grown so large since I planted it in 1983 that it shaded about ¼ of the Big garden on the northwest corner. The East maple, planted the same year, now

Barred Rock chick The Post Office called at 7AM and we went down, collected my husband’s mom, and swung into the Post Office. I rang the bell at the back door and I could hear the peeping long before that

Twice the size of my fist Our local market had a huge shipment of these beautiful artichokes. They were selling them for $2 each! I had my first artichoke in 1974 in Tacoma, WA. When I met my husband,

Jonquils and Siberian squill in the West garden Today was a super busy day. I was out in the garden by 6AM trying to beat the heat and incoming rain. I washed up the cage we transported the pigs in so

The 80F temperatures has made the magnolia burst into bloom today.

The pigs’ fence barrier up around their ¼ acre turnout Wednesday we went to get our pigs up in Vermont. These pigs are a Berkshire x Hampshire cross, about 8 weeks old. It was a lovely drive up, on back

I grew a dozen clivias from seed many years ago. I still have 5 of them and right now 3 are flowering. This one is in my office.

Our order of chicks ships today from Stromberg’s. They should be in our Post Office at 7AM on Friday morning. We are getting 60 Barred Rock pullets and 30 Buckeye pullets. We’ll started working on getting