Like our land in spring, life is moving so fast that it’s sometimes hard to keep up. The oak leaves are beginning to tint the branches with green. The lilacs are showing their potential, hinting at what is to come. Grass is growing at an incredible rate. We even had a tulip pop up out [...]
Posts Tagged ‘gardening’
13 Apr
Whew!
The bees are coming, and we’re ready for them. We spent the weekend putting the finishing touches on the hives and creating some wind-breaks that won’t blow over in our sometimes 75-mph gusts. We painted the hive a light yellow. The paint is necessary to seal the wood, but it has to be a light [...]
29 Mar
Finished!
We finally got the garden boxes finished. We dug the 6′ x 6′ holes, stapled gopher wire to the bottom of the boxes, and filled them back in with a combination of amended soil: 50% of our own soil (which tends toward clay soil), 25% green manure, and 25% bumper crop compost. It was a [...]
22 Feb
Seeds
As my body continued to heal from this doozie of a cold, I spent some time yesterday ordering our seeds from an heirloom seed company. It was exciting. I never thought that, at 29 years old, I’d get such a thrill from ordering seeds on a rainy weekend afternoon. About a month ago, Robert and [...]
16 Feb
Small Tastes and Good Fences
Our weekend was filled with various guests–friends and family, young and old alike. We were blessed to open our home to people from all corners of our lives. I felt a deep sense of gratitude for this place…it was as we had always hoped, even when it was simply a dream of ours: a place [...]
5 Feb
Progress and rainy days
It’s a rainy day here at the homestead. We’ve had a wonderful week–during the day I’ve been working on the house and the land, and in the evenings we’ve been spending a lot of time with new friends. For a surprise, I cleaned out the garage for Rob and laid out his tools so he [...]
1 Feb
Gopher-Proofing
Digging our gopher trenches will be pretty time-consuming and will burn plenty of calories! A few hours of my Saturday afternoon consisted of getting 1/4 of our “gopher barricade” installed. Here’s me digging one of four 24′ long trenches to line the perimeter of our garden: After the trench was dug to a 12″ depth, we put in [...]
29 Jan
Our Future Dinner Table
What you see here is the beginnings of what will hopefully be our table’s bounty come summer. I’ve spent the last few days measuring out our future four-square garden plots along with walkways to make everything easily accessible. As you can see, I’ve staked and roped everything off, and even this small act makes it [...]
13 Oct
Compost Fun
I realize I haven’t written on some of our homesteading activities in a while. We’ve been continuing along with our homesteading fun, including Robert’s latest love….pickling. But pickling will have to wait for another time. Today I want to talk a little bit about our adventures in composting. It’s easier than you think! Above you [...]
13 Aug
Garden Party
Here are the long awaited pictures of our garden, planted on our anniversary. My how it’s grown! No, the lettuce has not mutated into mini-trees; we’re letting two of the lettuce plants go to seed so we can use the seeds for next season. I couldn’t believe that lettuce could grow so tall! When it [...]
Just a joyful Catholic girl trying to live as simply and consciously and gratefully as possible in this beautiful, amazing world...and bringing as many as possible along for the ride.
