Category Archives: Gardens

kitchen garden tour

~July of 2011, when we first came to see the property.~

This is where I’ve spent so much of the last several months.  I think it may be the dearest spot on earth.  In the summer time the hummingbirds are often about, sometimes 3 or more at a time.  They call to each other from different parts of the garden.  Have you ever heard a hummingbird before?  They make the most adorable little squeak!  The hummingbirds are long gone now.  Only the hardiest of my greens are still going strong through regular frosts.  I’m looking back now over a season of growth and dreaming of next year.

~July 2012~

So much has changed here.  And it is still very much a work in progress.  What started out as a completely overgrown 19 x 22 plot is now a 22 x 50 space, all freshly fenced in.  Planting this year was far from methodical.  Basically whatever was ready to be planted went into whatever space I had managed to clear.  We were still building new beds well into autumn.

Outside the garden, off to the side there is actually a beautiful stone wall.  It had become so overgrown that you couldn’t see it at all.  When you live in the woods you have to decide where the cultivated land stops and the wilderness starts, otherwise you end up with tree branches knocking into your windows.  That wall is our line on this side.  The day after these photos were taken we started clearing it out.

All kinds of gardening methods are represented here.  There are some container plants; some planted in pots others in objects found around the yard.  There are traditional beds.  There are raised beds.  There are spots were we experimented with lasagna gardening.  There are beds quickly made out of old pallets, layered plantings, a bit of everything.

The three beds above (two of which were already in existence when we moved in, as seen above and one that we built), are outside of the main garden space, near to the house, next to the herb garden.  Two of them were gardens to Iain and Elijah this year.  We ate some of their turnips just this morning.  It was an in between time when I took this photo, with many seedlings too small to be seen and a swath mature plants waiting to be harvested.

~Early Autumn 2012~

Each of the children had their own small plot to tend.  Little Rosebud found a pack of 3 year old ‘Cinderella’ pumpkin seeds and insisted on planting them.  The vines grew lush and full, but the chipmunks ate every pumpkin just as soon as it started to show.

 

Our “orchard” is an orchard no more.  For various reasons we had to move everything and it’s all out back with the kitchen garden now.  This idea caused a lot of internal turmoil for me at first, but really I think it’s for the best.  I’m with the trees so much more now.  It’s easier to water and keep an eye on it all.  Gardening, simplified.  It does, however, mean that we have to be much more creative with our use of space.

We now have what amounts to an Orchard Walk, along one side of the garden in the area near the wall that we cleared.  All of the trees are here, under planted with some strawberries that I’m hoping won’t deplete their nutrients too much.  Before and between the boxed in trees reside high bush blueberries and a lone rhubarb plant.

See the wall and everything off to the side now?  These photos were taken right before our first heavy frost of the season.

~November of 2012~

I’m so excited to see what next year will bring.

                                           before                                                and in progress

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before and after, Food, Gardens, Our Home, Our Little Home
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October Nature Study

Some scenes from our Nature Study week.  The theme was, “What’s Happening in Autumn”.  This was the main work of the week for the little ones and a side project for the big ones.

During the week we put areas of the garden that are done for the season to bed.  We planted garlic and bulbs.  Galen gathered a bunch of calendula to dry after we read that a bunch of dried calendula in the house was once believed to give strength and comfort to the heart.  We ate a lot of squash, carved pumpkins and made apple sauce nearly everyday, putting up 20-some quarts over the course of the week.  We ate squash with applesauce.  We made a start to our little indoor window sill garden, with the end of a bunch of celery set in a cup of water.  Already there are new stalks shooting up in the middle.  Steve helped Galen to build a little bird feeder, which is now set outside the window of our homeschooling room, attracting all sorts of visitors.  Two field trips were the bookends of the week.  We started off visiting the birds at the rehabilitation center and ended the week at a corn maize.

The big kids are working on family trees, a completely fascinating subject for me.  We’ve been telling a lot of stories.  Getting out old photo albums.  We’ve even got a small stack of copies of “official” documents to work from; birth certificates, baptism certificates, census reports.  I am particularly intrigued by the blank spaces; the lines that have yet to be filled in.

This morning is very winter like.  I’m steeping tea, eating a clementine, roasting chestnuts and reading about when our first real snowstorm of the season with be drifting in, all while flames dance merrily in the wood stove.

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celebrations and festivals, crafts, Food, Gardens, Homeschooling, Kids
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simple cookery: enjoying the harvest

We’ve been eating so much squash lately it’s ridiculous.  If we’re not careful I think we might all turn orange.  I’m in the middle of doing the Whole30.  Which isn’t really far off from how I usually eat, with a couple of exceptions.  Including strictly avoiding all sweeteners.  After a very busy end of summer/beginning of fall, I just felt like my poor body needed a rest before heading into the holiday season.  There are some people, you know, who’s bodies can tolerate just about anything and years of abuse add up to just about nothing.  I’m kind of like the opposite of those people.  Just the tiniest bit of over-indulgence does me in.  Sometimes for a long time.  And I’m too darn busy for a broken body, so great care must be taken in it’s upkeep.  Right now that means a diet free of dairy, grains, legumes, food additives, nightshades and sweeteners of all kinds.

But back to the food.  The good stuff.  The stuff I *can* eat.  I needed some new ideas in the world of squash preparation.  My sweet neighbor inspired some experimenting which resulted in a whole new-to-me favorite.  Whenever I make these, the Wee Girl stands by the counter eating them all before I have the chance to bring them to the table.

As usual, the process is simple….

cut your squash in half and scoop out the seeds

slice into pieces about a 1/4″ thick

arrange on a cookie sheet, in a single layer with several gobs of coconut oil and a good sprinkle of salt on top

bake in an over preheated to 375 until done

You can serve them when they are just soft, but we like them to get a bit browned and crisp around the edges.  Leaving on the skin makes them especially nice with a mix of crisp and chewy that is most satisfying.  Also the combination of being a bit fatty and sweet makes them seem like a very great treat to me just now.  You don’t have to flip them as they cook, but they will turn out much, much nicer if you do.  And this my friends is why there are never any cookie sheets clean in my house!

This year I’ve also started using a new to me method of saving fresh herbs.  I’m still utilizing all of my fall back methods, but I think this one is a nice little change of pace.  I put my fresh clean herbs in the Vita-Mix (you could us a food processor or blender, basically use whatever you would make pesto in) with a bit of olive oil and blitz them to make a sort of thick, chunky paste.  Then I spoon it out into ice-cube trays to freeze.  Once frozen the cubes can be moved to a freezer safe storage container (jars, bags, what have you).  Pictured above are some of my cilantro cubes.  I think these will be very nice to have for adding a quick bit of flavor and summery freshness to soups, sauces, greens, on top of chicken…really the options are endless.

What’s cooking in your kitchen these days?

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Food, Gardens, Herbs, recipes
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on a day like summer….

Last week we had one of those witchy step out of season days where everything we were just starting to get used to fell away and we had the feeling of stepping back through time.

They built a house…


So sukkah like.  It’s interesting to me to feel like we’ve lived into this particular holiday so deeply that even without me doing anything, it feels right to them to do that sort of thing at this time of year.

While my oldest and youngest helped me to move strawberry plants.

My Queen of Sweden rose even held out with one last blossom for us.

It’s hard to believe that day was just last week.  The chill crept back quite quickly.  They’re predicting our first hard frost this evening.  Today it’s back to the garden for me to gather in whatever is left to be gathered.

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celebrations and festivals, crafts, Gardens, Kids, Life
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our garden gate

I wanted the entrance way into a storybook garden.  It’s not perfect and it’s not done.  I’ve been struggling with perfectionist tendencies.  I keep putting off posting about things until they are “completely done”.  Only nothing ever seems to get completely done.  For one thing, projects and spaces are always evolving and for another, we’re just too darn busy!  Which means that we have to prioritize.  Which means that we almost always move on to something more important before all of the little details get taken care of.  I admit it.  I’m jealous of those people who can start a project and follow through down to the very last detail.  Sometimes I get down on myself feeling like it’s a lack of discipline or something that keeps us from never really finishing.  But the fact is, that’s not the case at all.  We’re just spread too thin, with too many commitments and responsibilities to work that way.  Like for this project I know that we have yet to install a handle or latch because it was more important that money go elsewhere.  I never finished setting the stones because there are only so many hours in the day, and the fall vegetable garden needed planting, if we were going to be able to harvest in time.  The gardens out front weren’t fixed up and the planters that I’ve dreamed up still remain in dream land because the strawberries needed weeding and side dressing, we had to build a new bed for the cantaloupes and dozens or hundreds of other little things that beat out “cleaning up and adding to the old flower beds” on my to-do list on any given day.  So those moments, here and there, where I grabbed a few weeds, were as far as I got.  But really now, how silly of me to dismiss this beautiful spot, because it’s not quite done yet?  We worked very hard, designing and building this gate and arbor.  And it’s lovely.  It makes me smile every time I enter the garden, even all unfinished as it is.

The details…

The design was our own.  The arbor was finished with Vermont Natural Coatings Polywhey Exterior Finish in ‘Acorn Brown‘.  The gate was finished with the same product in ‘Barn Red‘.

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building, Gardens, The Renovation Journal
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these, mostly sunny, days

There has been an epidemic of card house building.  Also games of rock, paper, scissors.

I’m gathering flowers to dry.  Early spring can be so fickle here and I might not have much to choose from for floral arrangements.  I tie a thread to each stem, then loop all the threads together and hang them from nails in the pantry.  Next week I’ll carefully wrap them all in tissue paper, then pack them away in a box until I’m ready to use them.

We harvest at least a bit from the garden everyday.  I wish it was more.

I’ve been making “pesto” from everything…all sorts of herbs, nasturtium leaves, kale, thinned carrot seedlings…

 

I finally transferred all the heights from boards from three different houses on to one master kid height board.

A pair of juncos decided to build their nest in a grassy patch by our kitchen garden.

We laid out a ring around them to remind everyone to tread carefully.

The herb garden is completely over run.  I’ve not gotten a chance to get out there and move things around.

Galen’s sailboat “Amazon” had her maiden voyage.

Elijah helped with her sail and made her flag.

 

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crafts, Food, Gardens, Herbs, Kids, Life, snapshots, toy making
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these, mostly rainy, days


 

1) I finally got enough plants out of the way that we can use the backdoor that leads straight out to the kitchen garden.

2) Mushrooms grown by our neighbor on their way to mingling with herbs from our own garden in a pot of soup.

3) Wool gathered by Galen while visiting the sheep.

4) Page from Iain’s Nature Journal.

5 & 6) In spring we swing…and jump!

7) Red Eft in the garden.

8 & 9) Getting wood in the rain.  Stacking it in all sorts of weather.  Winter preparations start early here.

10-16) I waited and waited and waited, not the least bit patiently, for the peonies to bloom and now they finally have and oh!  Be still my beating heart!  I love them so!

17-24) The rest of the garden is growing as well.  We’re still eating mini-salads of baby greens and thinned plants.

25) Page from Elijah’s Nature Journal.

26) Joy is a baseball field with an adjoining playground.

27) Green lemonade and yam chips made in a borrowed dehydrator.

These last several weeks have been a blur, with playoff games, company dance auditions, putting together the end of year reports for the school district, trying to get the garden settled before we take our leave.

And than there is just life and well more life.  I mean if the stove has to have a gas leak, I guess it it better to know about it and have to deal with it than to not and say blow up or something.  Ditto the exhaust leak in the car.

Now baseball season has come to an end and Thursday morning we leave for our annual camping excursion.  One that I am in no way prepared for.

But matching Salt Water Sandals came in the mail for the Wee Girl and I, so obviously we are all set.  Just so long as we don’t need anything to eat, or anything to wear while we are there.  Oh, and also provided my male children are cool with wearing say snow boots on the beach.  Or possibly baseball cleats?  As it stands, Elijah’s sandals from last year, which should still fit, can not be found.  We’ve been searching everywhere.  I have no idea where he could have packed them.  And the lovely new sandals that I bought next-size-up for Galen when they were on sale at the end of the season last year?  We’ve been searching everywhere.  I have no idea where I could have packed them.  And Iain just came to me to say that one of his sandals just broke.  I think we’ll just hope that the sand’s not too hot and everyone can just go barefoot!

When we get back I should be able to post here regularly again.  Provided of course that I don’t come back with Lyme Disease like I did last year! (fingers and toes crossed and double crossed again!)  And when I do, I have so much to share!  Off the top of my head I have at least 4 knitting projects that I’ve yet to post about, a bit of embroidery, some wardrobe refashioning, some sewing, a lot of gardening, possibly a recipe or two, and at least one finished room!  Of course there will be little bits about our trip as well.  I should be back here again early the week of the 24th.

Happy almost summer to you all!

~Melody

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Food, Gardens, Homeschooling, Kids, Life, snapshots
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there now…

These were my thoughts, several weeks back now, as I set the last of this year’s additions in the orchard.  Our growing spaces are divided into three main sections.  There is the kitchen garden out back, a flower garden in progress in front of the house and further up, out by the road, the orchard.  Or at least what I’ve insisted on calling the orchard since before we moved in.  Even when the little field’s most prominent feature was a telephone pole.  And really not a whole lot has changed.  The few little twiggy things sticking up are still dwarfed by that pole and it will never be big enough to be what most people would consider an orchard, but setting that last plant in the ground, all felt right with the world.

They say the best time to put fruit trees in the ground is ten years ago.  The next best time is right now.  ‘Tis true and we did both.  The first four trees to go in the ground here are the ones to replace the trees that we planted at the old house for each of our children, with one extra, for the extra little person that never got her tree.  Which also means that for the first time in nearly three and a half years, there is no longer a placenta in my freezer.

Two cherry trees and two peach trees.  I’ve been playing it kind of fast and loose with both the definition “orchard” and the types of fruits planted there.  Along the side closest to the house there are rows of furrows planted out with 103 strawberry plants.  In the back I have a row of little snippets that I hope one day will be a lilac hedge.  Along the driveway there will be a high-bush blueberry hedge, currently seven little plants that I believe will fill in rapidly.  The first three in the row belonging to Little Rosebud and Goosey, who pooled their birthday money to buy them (completely and totally their own idea).   And the fourth side is bordered by the forest.

“It was a vision to develop slowly into fulfillment. Grandfather King was in no hurry.  He did not set his whole orchard out at once, for he wished it to grow with his life and history, and be bound up with all of good and joy that should come to his household.  So the morning after he had brought his young wife home they went together to the south meadow and planted their bridal trees.  These trees were no longer living; but they had been when father was a boy, and every spring bedecked themselves in blossom as delicately tinted as Elizabeth King’s face when she walked through the old south meadow in the morn of her life and love.

When a son was born to Abraham and Elizabeth a tree was planted in the orchard for him.  They had fourteen children in all, and each child had it’s ‘birth tree’.  Every family festival was commemorated in like fashion, and every beloved visitor who spent a night under their roof was expected to plant a tree in the orchard.  So it came to pass that every tree in it was a fair green monument to some love or delight of the vanished years.  And each grandchild had its tree, there, also, set out by grandfather when the tidings of it’s birth reached him; not always an apple tree-perhaps it was a plum, or cherry or pear.”

~except from “The Story Girl” by L.M. Montgomery

Yes, just right.  Next year Steve and I will set out some trees to commemorate 15 years of togetherness.  And each child that joins our dear little family shall have his or her tree as well.  With trees or bushes set out for other milestones, ones that I can’t even fathom and one that I can only dream of right now.  Fancy thinking of planting trees for grandchildren, while all my own little ones are still here at home with me!  Well, I guess I have time to make space for them anyhow.

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celebrations and festivals, Gardens, Life, Mothering, The Renovation Journal
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Week in the Life, Monday

 

~rain, blessed rain!  Rolling off the roof this morning and more importantly, sinking deep into our gardens.

~The house smells good after a night of broth bubbling on the stove and yams cooking in the crock pot.

~an extra little person showed up in my bed this morning, looking to be cuddled.  Then they plotted together and there was a conspiracy to get me to read.  Which I did, one book each; “Little Baa” and “Mother Goose”, the later turning into a sing along.

Little Rosebud’s favorite illustration

~Galen has taken to slipping my wedding ring off while I cuddle him and putting it on his own finger.  Then he asks me to tell him about it.  I show him the circle as well as the continuous Celtic knot pattern.  We look for a beginning and an end and never find one of course.  I tell him that it’s just like my love for Daddy with no beginning and no end.

~The other two get up early and read to themselves for an hour or two every morning.

~Iain built a fire.

~He  lost two teeth on Saturday and has two more loose.  Galen thinks he has a loose tooth (it would be his first).  He often asks if I can see it wiggle.  I can’t really, but I’m certainly not going to tell him that!  “hmm, I think maybe I might see something…”

~Quiddler with the big boys over a breakfast of yams, sausages, sauerkraut and green tea.

~Chores as usual

Màiri Rose with the nasturtium she’s growing.  She was able to taste a leaf for the first time today.  It’s a climbing variety and growing so fast that Galen is convinced he’ll be able to climb it like Jack and the Bean Stalk.

~Baseball fever is alive and well.  We’ve been doing their team’s warm up exercises in the morning before school work.

~outdoor play

~Making sauerkraut this morning as an activity with the little ones.  Really it’s an all morning affair, one that lead right into making lunch, followed by most of the dinner prep, since I know we’ll be working when Steve gets home tonight.  It takes a whole lot of peeling and chopping to fill that big crock.  We usually get around 2 gallons of kraut once it has all fermented down.  We never really make the same one twice.  Today’s is green cabbage, onion, garlic, turnip, radish and ginger.  I got a new little gadget that you crank to julienne things.  The little ones love making (and tasting) little turnip and radish strands with it.

Iain’s Nature Journal Entry:

Date: 4/23/12     Time: 11:42   Location: home   Weather: cloudy, 48 degrees

*Nothing is coming up in the garden yet.

* It is raining today.

*The woods are turning very green.

*My cherry tree is in bloom.

*Galen and Màiri’s peach trees are starting to bloom.

*There are a lot of birds singing today.

~Elijah’s entry by contrast started with, “My fruit tree is the only fruit tree that does not have any flowers on it.”

~Galen the faithful forager went out and gathered a whole bunch of dandelion greens, even though I said I didn’t have time to prepare them today.

~A game of skippo with Galen while the big boys do their math work.  The Wee Girl likes to play with the discard piles, sorting and arranging them.

~Lunch: kale salad with baby basil, pear chunks and maple-blueberry vinaigrette

~Iain and Elijah finished up the map of our property that they started working on together last week.

~the little ones did some coloring of their own.

~One of the big ones told Rosebud that what they were doing was more important because they were working, while she was just playing.  I scolded him and told him that play is the work of little ones and very important.  At which point she announced, with a rather superior tone, “I’m doing baby work!”

~Steve and I put up just under 150′ of fence around the garden.

~ dinner was asparagus soup with Jerusalem artichokes and fresh thyme from the garden.  It was lovely to come in to after working in the cold and damp.

~Steve is reading Peter Pan to Galen at bedtime.

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Books, Food, Gardens, Homeschooling, Housewifery, Kids, Life, Mothering, The Renovation Journal
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