From My Garden 2010

From My Garden:

They aren't huge, but they sure are tasty!

This is my GIANT Cherry tomato plant!!!

Seed saving for next year:

Yard Adventures

Our trip(s) to Dawson last Saturday with our neighbours yielded ALOT of wood. Even with driving the truck down to Dawson twice (diesel is not cheap these days, and we'll need at least one more trip) we will have saved five or six hundred dollars on lumber for our fence!That just goes to prove how greedy and overpriced everything is in Fort St John. Our neighbours all want the same fence which definitely makes things easier and cheaper. We are hoping to get all of the post in the ground this weekend, and then we will be able to slowly put up the fence boards throughout the summer as we have time and money.

Amongst this weekends trips to Dawson and two birthday parties, I managed to plant all of the rest of my perennials. I made another bed along the back wall of our house with all of the plants Jody brought me. I spent the most time on this bed, mixing the soil and making it nice and deep. I will probably have to redo the beds in the front yard next year, but this one will be perfect! A few more weeks and I'll post pictures of the multi-coloured blooms!

My garden is doing splendidly and I already have several large (about 6 inch long!!) zucchini! Oh the joy of planting early indoors... you have veggies that much earlier! My peas and beans are all about four inches high, tomatoes are getting nice and hardy, lettuce, spinach and carrots are popping up all over the place and my broccolli are flourishing! I even have two inch high corn stocks! The only thing struggling are my squash... they are just getting too wind blown, another reason why we need to get our fence up soon! I can hardly wait to be eating fresh veggies from our back yard!

Perennial Paradise

For the past week we have been getting up at 5am because Kurt has to be at work by 6 am. We get up, have a nice breakfast together, and then I drive Kurt (and our neighbour) to work. Then I have 2 hours to myself before I have to go to work, it is bliss! The morning are so sunny and bright! It is usually much more calm in the morning, and no one else is around. I make my coffee, and then work on whatever I want to!

Yester-morning I planted our front flowerbed with beautiful perennials I got from Brenda. The beds are filled with Japanese Iris, Anemone, Columbine, White Daisies, Pink Daisies and Lupins... all gorgeous and healthy perennials. They look fantastic, and will look even better in a little while when they are all in bloom. Our yard is starting to look established... well... cared for at least!

Rocks, Rocks, Rocks!

 Here are the promised pictures of our new rock garden! We had a great long weekend, despite Friday and Saturday's constant rain, ton of slush/snow and power outages. Sunday melted most of the snow and Monday morning turned out to be beautiful. I cleaned the house, Kurt worked on the construction in our basement and we planted the flowers in our rock beds. We then went canoeing and had a weiner roast with some friends. I also dug a whole bunch of perrenials from some of Kurt's relatives... I can not wait to plant them!

Carefully placing the stones...

Kurt's genious idea of making "flower pots" inside the rocks...

And the beautiful results! There are three little spots with perrenials at the base of the sidewalk/drive way.

Up by the house/walk way we have two spots currently housing annuals. We may change this next year to perrenials, depending on how we like them down by the sidewalk and how well they survive the winter banks of piled up snow on top of them...

Come over and visit to see our lovely rocks in real life!

Raised Bed Garden

It is time to get the garden in! But, since I didn't yet have a garden, it was first time to get the garden spot made! We got a load of topsoil yesterday morning and laid out the boards during my lunch hour to figure out where/what we wanted. Originally we were going to make two 4 x 16 beds paralel to one another, but I would have had to buy several more boards. Instead we decided it would look really good to make a corner bed... one 4 x 16 and one 4 x 12 put together to make an even "L" shape. We left about 3 feet from where the side fence is going to be, and about 6 or 7 feet from where the back fence is going to be. We are thinking about making a rock garden or small patio between the fence and beds. We will see what happens I guess...

When I got home from work I measured and cut the boards to fit in the shape we deciede on and then re-painted all of the fresh cut ends. After supper Kurt came out and helped me pound spikes to fit everything together and then we leveled them off and shoveled the beds full of dirt. 

Tada! It looks fantastic and we are really pleased with how the whole thing worked out. Now I cannot wait to get out there and do some planting!

 In other news, Kurtis made a harness for my greenhouse and attached it to the deck...no more blown over plants for me!

The Thing That Drives Me... Barnheart

I have realized the answer.
The answer to what drives me to read "just one more" page in that self-sufficient-lifestyle magazine before I head back to work, to skip lunch in order to get "just one more" stitch done on that quilt during my lunch break, to yank "just one more" weed before jumping in the car. The tender love that compells me to speak to my garden plants. It is why my heart yearns to have chickens in my city backyard and long for the days when we will own our own farmland. What makes my heart skip a beat when I see a beautiful homestead and breath a little deeper when we leave the city limits. I have a condition... it is called Barnheart! Click on the link below to read all about it. The article is from on of my favourite blogs and author, Jenna Woginrich. She has written a book called "Made From Scratch" and also writes for one of my favourite magazines, "Mother Earth News." ENJOY!

http://coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com/2010/01/barnheart.html

Devestation.

Complete and utter desolation entered my soul when I got home from work yesterday. All of my hard work and tender love of the last several weeks was lying squished and strewn across my back deck. My greenhouse had been blown over in the strong wind, leaving my poor seedlings strewn under their pots and dirt just waiting to die. As tenderly as I could, I scooped each little plant back into their pot, trying hard not to cry. In that moment I felt like my home had just been devestated by a flood or tornado (a bit of an overreaction, I admit now) and I was looking at the remains of my life. I was able to salvage most of my plants... but we will have to see if most of them revive or not. Cracked and squished zucchinni and squash limbs, wilted and bent tomato plants, upturned and dirtless strawberry plants... please survive! I love you!
The majority of my little flower seedlings are gone, but a few hardy plants remain. My flower pots will be a lot more scarce than I originally thought, but I guess that is the way it goes. I can always plant some more seeds and enjoy later blooms.
On a happier note, our grass is coming along quite well. Now instead of looking like thin elephant hair, it resembles a somewhat patchy, thin caterpillar! We are thrilled! This evening we are hoping to head out to the farm and pick a truck load of rocks for our front walk and flower beds.
It is a gorgeous day and all will be well in the world again soon!

Pruning and Painting; the Perfect Weekend!

This past weekend was spectacular! I spent my time doing things I love...what could be better than that? On Friday Kurtis and Cory left on a roadtrip for Calgary. Cory bought a Harley Davidson, so they set off in the truck to bring the new baby home. As usual, the weather seemed absolutely beautiful, but these boys had been fooled before. No more early Spring bike trips through Fox Creek and Valleyview, because inevitably it will snow... and it did. They were very thankful to have the truck!

Since I was "bachin" it this weekend, I decided to go and visit my dear Mummsy. Friday afternoon I got off work a little early and headed on down the highway. I decided to detour to Dawson Creek and  check out the local pawn shops and garage sales, which turned out to be a complete waste of time. The weather sure was funny this weekend.I drove through four or five different 5-10 km stretches of snow and hail, and always came out on the other side to find brilliantly warm sunshine and dry pavement.

I finally reached Tumbler Ridge and my Mum and Pops. We spent the evening chatting, drinking Tea, loading up old facia and soffets (that my Dad had spent the day salvaging off a neighbours house for his new garage) and looking through family treasures and keepsakes.

We started out searching for a scrapbook that we had done of our ancstors grave rubbings when we were young (don't get me started on the outrage that inspired this hunt!) and wound up finding a really old Bible and recipe book from my Dad's Great Grandmother. We had a riot reading old kiddie books, looking through my Mom's birth annoucement cards and learning how to make homemade cough syrup!

On Saturday, my Mom and I spent the entire morning ruthlessly pruning and weeding her perrenial/rock garden. I am in a bit of a "rock phase" right now, always noticing rocks and dreaming up things to do with them in my yard, so I had a great time discovering the beautiful rock work under all of the creeping vines and fronds. After several hours we came out victorious, arms battered and covered in scratches, but loving the look of the yard! We then organized her entire prop/costume room at the school, and rewarded ourselves with a cold drink at the restaurant and a round of cribbage. I haven't spent time with my Mum in a long time, so it was nice to catch up for awhile. Once Mum left for music practice, I conned by Brother into playing a few rounds of crib with me, and then we decided to root through all of our old playmobile and sort out mine from his. It is so easy to revert back to your childhood and just want to play!

I finally drug myself away from the toys and headed home, crawling into bed beside my husband at about 11pm.

Sunday moring Kurt was not feeling well and decided to pass out for another few hours instead of going to church. When he is sick, he could sleep for days, poor boy. Coffee in hand and good ol' country tunes blaring, I decided to be productive! I put my plants out, and got to work on my landscape ties. Last week I found an ad on "FSJ Now" and bought 19 ties for $45 dollars to make raised garden beds in my backyard. I spent the entire day sanding and painting and am very pleased with the results... other than the wicked sunburn that is! They started out faded blue and ended up fire-engine red! I can't wait to get a load of dirt and some spikes... garden here we come!

I hope you all had a lovely Mother's Day weekend and were able to spend some time with your Mother, just doing the things you love to do!

I have a greenhouse!

I am so excited that my greenhouse arrived yesterday! Kurtis and I immediately put it together in the kitchen and then moved it outside. It is not very big, but it will be perfect for my little deck! I was so excited when it arrived that I put all my plants out in it right away. Unfortunately it is still too chilly at night for my precious buds, so I had to move everything back in later on!

On Sunday I went out to the commercial greenhouse with a bunch of friends/cousins and we cleaned out the place with our purchases! Well, not really, but it sure felt like it with plants crammed into every corner of the back of the vehicles... Jody even made a double decker out of her truck! The plants are so well kept and are ridiculously cheap, so I got a bunch of flowers for my non-existant pots that are going to be on my front and back decks. I can't wait for the next few weeks to fly by so that I can actually start planting outside!!! I love summer! Here are some of my lovely purchases... I bought an entire flat of strawberries and LOTS of fuscia!

Rich Black Earth Starts in the Kitchen

Over Easter Weekend we took a drive down to Grande Prairie to go shopping and visit my sister and brother-in-law. Of course our two main stops were Wholesale Sports (where Kurtis bought a new shotgun), and Costco, where I bought a large compost tumbler! Kurt assembled it for me and I already have lots of compost started! It is quite a large tumbler and will hold all of our kitchen waste as well as yard clippings and weeds.

I cannot wait for the next few months to pass so that I can begin my garden. I have several plans drawn up, and Kurt has said he will build me some raised beds to start my plot off this year. Because our home is so new, we do not even have a fence up yet, so I am hoping we can get started on that right away... or my garden might be a little late! I already have lots of lovely plants started, and herbs galore!

Pioneering... just a dream?

My life long dream has been to live "in the bush" and be completely self sufficient...basically I have always wanted to be a "pioneer." Unfortunately, my husband is not of the same mind and the furthest he wants to be "out" is a farm... good enough for me!

Because money is always an issue when trying to buy land out of town (or any significant piece of land anywhere), we recently bought a house in town that we plan to live in for the next several years. It is a beautiful brand new home with Geo-Thermal heat and a decent size yard, and we really love it!

My dreams are still very much alive, however, and I have been trying to get my husband to let me have chickens since we first bought the place. I think I almost have him convinced... but unfortunately I will have to wait until our fence is completely finished before we can really decide. While living in town I would never dream of having more that 3 or 4 chickens... just enough for eggs and personal enjoyment! I would love to have a few Orpingtons (pictured above) as they are great layers and also wonderful meat birds. Well, I guess I will just have to keep hoping and praying... at least I know I will be able to have chickens once we move out of town, and I guess a few years wouldn't be so bad to wait...