Adventures of an urban homesteader growing greens, preserving the harvest and tending a backyard barnyard
Don’t you just love June? I’m planning our evening meals based on garden strolls – picking artichokes here and there, clipping rhubarb and gathering berries. It just feels right to eat what gifts our summer garden is giving us right now. We are in the thick of berry season on our homestead – happy times indeed. The red currants are dripping with ripe berries. The
The new pullets are quickly turning into adult chickens. They are close to four months old now and ready to be mixed with our flock of older chickens. Let the abuse begin… Chickens have a pecking order. Whoever is on top gets to boss everyone around. And when you mix two different flocks, the chickens have to reorganize themselves to determine where everyone falls in
Having backyard livestock is a joy, but it’s not all eggs and sunshine. Chickens, ducks and other backyard livestock can attract flies, mice, rats and other undesirable critters. The rodents love the free food, so keeping poultry feed in a hanging feeder off the ground can help. Dealing with flies, however, is a bit harder to control. Disclaimer: Don’t read this post while eating your
It is time to get those tomatoes in the ground! I pulled out almost everything in my late spring bed – all the bolted celery, arugula and mature onions – and replaced them with healthy young tomato starts. There are a few things you can do when planting your tomatoes to make them extra happy. First, dig a hole larger than the tomato you are
That brown stuff my veggies are planted in isn’t “dirt” – it’s “soil”, a substance teeming with life from the millions of microorganisms at work. They give my plants the nutrients they need to thrive. But those veggies are greedy with how many nutrients they need, which means I need to provide them steady supplies of homegrown compost to keep them all happy. That’s not
Our new flock has settled in comfortably to life in our city garden. The older chickens are still separated from the younger ones, but that will soon end as we combine the two flocks into one. The young gals are about four months old now, except for the bantam who was fully grown when we got her. The bantam is officially the most productive layer
I can’t tell you how many people I have heard gushing about the amazingly sunny spring we are enjoying in Portland… How much they love being outside again… How it’s so overdue after a gray winter… Meanwhile, I’m the curmudgeon wishing for showers in the forecast! It has turned out to be one of the driest Oregon springs in state history, which is bad news
Remember back in the fall when I was busy cutting and dividing perennials for the front garden? The new little plants held on through the winter – mostly cuttings of lamb’s ear, artichoke, sage, euphorbia, and irises. It was a slow start in February, with just a few spots of green emerging from the mulch. April rolled around and things started to take off. Colors
A home orchard is the best way to savor the delicious sweetness of summer fruits. I would argue that it is just as much fun to watch the baby fruits develop as it is to devour them when ripe. It’s like Christmas as a kid – the presents were that much more fun because of the excited anticipation leading up to the unwrapping. I’m not
My first years of gardening really focused on the divas of the produce world: tomatoes, pepper, eggplant and melons. Those are the plants that want a hot climate (something the mild NW can barely provide) and lots of water. They are the plants we garden nerds coo and crow over with one another, talking about which sexy varieties we’re adding this season. As the years
