Adventures of an urban homesteader growing greens, preserving the harvest and tending a backyard barnyard
Thank you all for your great comments on the post last week about the fifth anniversary of Hip Chick Digs! It was SO fun to read all of your comments about your homesteading journey and get to know you all better – especially you quiet ones who have been with me for several years! Thanks to a random number picker, Kat is the winner of
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
Gather round kids as I tell you a story of a snag and a homestead… A snag is a dead tree that is still standing. We urban dwellers see them as an eye sore, but wildlife see them as a valuable place for nesting and finding food. In fact, some native birds in the Pacific NW will only make nests in snags. No snags means
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
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
It is a pretty steep learning curve when you become a parent for the first time. After a month and half, I wanted to share some of the lessons I have learned so far.1. Bring new parents food. Our friends organized a meal train. You pick the nights you could use a meal and people sign up online for different nights. Great way for them
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
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
It turns out that wishing for a new baby is contagious on the homestead! Our runner duck Ramona has caught baby-fever and wants to hatch her own little ducklings. Poor girl is going to be very disappointed when she patiently waits and the stork doesn’t arrive… Typically, I peek my head out the window throughout the day to check on the ducks and chickens, whose
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.
