An Early Start in the Vegetable Garden 2012

We raise alpacas and they are little fertilizer factories.  I have been gathering up their poop and putting in the beds.  Their poop can be used almost immediately without needing it to compost.  I am topping off the boxes now and will work it in as I plant. 

I used to plant by the moon when I lived in MA but for some reason gave up that idea when I moved here.  Don’t know why because I had such success with it.  Well I am going to give it a try this year and see how it goes.  I live to experiment and this will be my experiment for this year.  If you have never done this method of planting it really is simple.  A Farmers Almanac is helpful but if you want to do a simpler method all you need to know  is that when the moon is full don’t plant and wait a few days after it starts to wan before you plant.  This is when you plant any root crops.  Once there is no moon again waits a few days after it starts to wax to plant crops that grow above ground. 

I planted my peas a few days after there was no moon and as you can see they are starting to grow.  I do hope to get a crop of peas but even if they fail I can till them in and they will fix nitrogen into the soil for my next crop.  I just planted beets after the full moon but they have not come up yet since it was just a few days ago.  I will update on their progress. 

Getting Close to a Finished, if that is possible, Vegetable Garden

Last year I worked on the pathways.  I wanted to be sure that I did not have to deal with any grass but also wanted to be able to walk through the garden without walking in mud after a rain storm or watering.  I do have a drip system which is the best way to water a vegetable garden in a drought.  I found the best weed barrier I could find that would have a very long life.  I decided to use the stuff nurseries use under their  plants.  It is heavy duty with a 25 year guarantee.                                                                                                                                                           You can see what the weed barrier looks like in this photo.  That is a bag of mulch in the foreground. Also is my little helper Chen Chen but she prefers Farmer Chen Chen when she is in the garden.  

It got so hot so fast last spring that I didn’t get finished with my pathways.    With such a nice mild winter I took advantage of this great weather and finished laying the weed barrier and the remainder of the mulch/bark.  I am waiting to find the next mother load of broken bags to finish it up.  In the mean time I am gathering up the rocks around here to place around the edge of the garden to keep the mulch in when we get those heavy rain storms.  I am also placing smaller rocks around the bases of the pomegranates and fig tree.   I am so happy to see the end of this project coming soon.         

        

In the Garden Again.

Since last week I have been working in the garden. I finally laid out the weed cloth in the pathways that didn't get finished last year. I put out the mulch I purchased last summer also but I am still short many bags. I will be haunting the home improvement stores for broken bags which you can get for a lot less. I am really happy with the work so far and think that kind of work is done now. Now I can concentrate on the garden boxes. I will be out cleaning up all the piles of alpaca poop to add into my garden beds.
I planted peas last week and they are popping up. Today I planted beets and Bob and I planted onions. I know it is late for the onions but that should be ok. The soil is still cool almost cold. We got more rain last night and may get more this weekend which is good for planting.
I am trying a planting method I used years ago when I lived in MA. I was reminded of it by someone a few weeks ago and just wonder if it will work for me again.
I will post some photos of the garden soon. Loving this weather!
Li

Being Thankful for Wonderful Friends

So 7 days ago I took my darling husband into the emergency room at 7 AM and 10 hrs later he was coming out of surgery with out a gall bladder.  The Thursday before that we went and picked up scaffolding so that we could start the work on the siding for the second floor, :"Oh no now what?".  Good friends that's what.  Our friend Al and his wife Lizzie had said they would come and help when we first started this project.  I do not do heights well. But now with Bob being laid low we were not sure if we were going to have to post pone the job, did I say I don't do heights well.  Thanks goodness Al's brother said he could come and help. So as you can see, we are almost done with the east side of the house.

That is Al and his brother Joseph working on the peak.  Those angles are so much fun.  And kids wonder why we need algebra and geometry.  

Here is Bob looking on but he did the cutting which was necessary.  He felt better being able to help some what.  I know he is itching to get up there.  We are on hold until Bob can get up there and take down the stove pipe.  Then the rest will be done on that side.  The wood trim at the top is going to get beefed up some and then painted a wonderful dark plumy red.  Oh I forgot to say we got the new window in as well.  It is a casement window and will give us some more air and breezes through that window during the summer.  To bad the guys are hiding it and to bad it is only their backs you can see.  Next group of pictures I will be sure we can see them.  Next weekend they will be working on the other side of the house.  That side has two windows.  

Once this side is all done I can start thinking about what I want to do for some landscaping. It is a bare canvas.   I have lots of iris's that will do well there along with some 4 o'clocks and may add some of those nice natives I have wanted to add also.  This is the east side so it can be hot since there isn't much shade there.  I do plan to plant one of my mulberry trees in this area between the house and where I was standing.  

I will post some more next week.  

Summer is Finally Over!
This has been such a year so far.  The drought has hit our place with a vengeance.  The pastures are dead and I have no idea if they will recover and if they will how long it will take.  Of course we are still in the grip of the drought with no end in sight.
On the bright side my husband and I went to his 50th high school reunion in Bellevue Washington.  The weather was cool with some rain on Sat night.  Friday we drove around Bob's childhood neighborhood.  The landscapes were so lush and green.  I think the pictures will tell it all.  So here is a treat for those of you who have nothing but brown to look at.

I thought this planter was unique.  It was made of metal but looked so much like terracotta. 

 Do you remember what this green stuff is? In case you don't it is grass.

 This is looking out over Lake Sammamish on Sunday afternoon.  It wasn't really cold but the drizzle was so nice to feel on our skin.

What a glorious day in May

The past few days have been wonderful. We got at least 1.53" of rain on Wed. into Thursday. That is about the first measurable rain since Sept. The air is cool and dry which makes it perfect gardening weather. Last year I started laying down weed cloth down on the paths in the vegetable garden. And today I added some more. I also put down some bark mulch over the weed cloth. I have two bags left which I will but down tomorrow. I am hoping that this supper duty tough weed cloth will last as long as they said it would. I don't want to have to do it in ten or twenty years. Of course in twenty years I will be 80 so it won't matter I guess.

Everything is growing and starting to produce. The beans have flowers as do the tomatoes. The evening temps have been a bit chilly so I don't expect much from the tomatoes yet. The rain storm we had last week also had some lightening with it and what a difference rain and lightening make in the grown in the garden. The beans grew several inches over night. That extra shot of nitrogen does it every time.

In my last post I mentioned getting some Indian Runner Ducks. They have grown so much in just a week. I wish I had taken their picture when they first arrived but here they are now. Aren't they cute. I still don't know who is male and who is female. I guess it will be awhile before I do know. They do come to my voice which I think is so cool. That means they are getting to know who I am. The lady with the food.

It has been a long time since I have written.

I can't believe it has been over a year since I have written on my blog. Shame on me. Lots of additions have been made since last year. We now have three alpaca males that were rescues. They were only a yr old when we got them and now they are two years old. I have their baby fleeces as well as this years sheering. I am looking forward to spinning up their fiber. I think I am now an alpaca yarn snob. These are the three boys, Roberto is the red one, Cristo on the right and Edwardo is in the center.

Yes 2010's winter was a rough one, we even had 6" of snow but this years winter was even worst. What the grasshoppers didn't kill the 2 weeks of below freezing did.

Yep the grasshoppers killed off my wonderful veggie garden last year except for my two kinds of cucumbers. I had a great crop of cukes last year and many jars of bread and butter pickles to boot. Also the pepper plants survived but did not produce much until later in the summer/fall once the grasshoppers started to die off.

Even though I didn't have much of a garden last year I did get all the garden boxes built and filled with soil and compost. They are now planted with all kinds of veggies. Back in Feb. I planted my onions and in early April the green beans. I am hoping they will produce before the hoppers come out and do them in. In spite of the gale force winds I did plant my tomatoes and peppers a few weeks ago. Two out of five tomato plants managed to stand up to the wind, heat, and then cold. I did plant three others along side the deck on the east side of the house and have two others in large planters getting ready to be placed in the back yard now that the wind has let up. Today I replaced the tomatoes that died with new ones plus I have 4 more added to the garden. Got the eggplant plants in today too. Saturday we planted some seed like those cucumbers I planted last year along with corn and carrots. I finally go my zucchini seeds and so I will plant those and some summer squash seeds later today. There was some rain on Monday and I am glad I got those seeds in when I did.

I am hoping for a good garden this year because the last two or so were so bad. Last year at this time we were getting rain but it seemed to come to an end before May ended. We haven't really seen any beneficial rain since last May. Our garden is now on a drip system but without rain I do not know how long I can keep watering. Once I get the plants more established I will mulch and then cut back on the amount of water. When you are on a well you need to be careful. Plans are in the works for setting up those rain barrels and putting gutters up along the studio and the house.

As the end of every growing season it is good to reflect over that season and plan to make it better. So the year before last I decided that growing in rows and fighting burmuda grass was not what I wanted to do any more so I changed that by putting weed cloth down on the paths soon to be covered with bark mulch and using garden boxes to grow in. If I had not had a biblical invasion of grasshoppers last year I may have gone about my gardening with out needing the assistance of two Indian Runner Ducks. They just arrived today with hopes that once they are grown they will keep my garden free of bugs. If they can eat all the grasshoppers they may end up being to fat to waddle about. LOL.

I will get some pictures of the new garden and the new pest patrol posted over the next few days.