Fruit Tree

I often look through home and garden magazines in the winter and think; I really want a citrus tree growing in the house on those cold winters months (not joking).  I have considered buying one on several occasions, but I tend to kill all things living that grow in my house.  

While in Virginia, I bought one!

September is Canning Month

There has been a ton of canning going on at our house this month.  Andy has been canning stuff from his garden, and I have been making apple sauce from our apple tree.  They are not pretty apples, but they taste good.  

Berries

Our sustainable activity for July.  Picking, jarring, freezing, baking and eating lots and lots of berries.  

Sustainable Life

Summer has started and I am already a little behind in my blogging.  When I was thinking about what sustainable act we were going to do this month; I realized the reason for the business this month was because we are already doing a lot.  

For starters, our duck population has exploded! Honestly, I have no idea how many ducks we have at the moment.  We had 4 ducks going into winter.  Those ducks had ducklings that we brought into the house or sold because it was so cold outside.  The ones we kept have since been moved to the chicken coop, because at the time we did not have any chickens.  Then more ducks hatched and were living in the house.  They have since been moved to the garage with the chickens who are waiting for their coop to be evacuated. Andy has been furiously expanding the duck coop, and then more ducks hatched this weekend.  We left those ones with mama duck and have lost two.  We almost lost a few more today when they got stuck in the pool and could not get back out, but they were brought into the house warmed up and returned to mama duck.  

Next we have the gardens.  Andy is taking over the main garden this year--he thinks he will do better then me, while I have planted things in pots and in my perennial garden.  The perennial garden was in need of a lot of mulch, and the berry bushes needed to be pruned.  

Lastly, I have spent the past few days cutting up strawberries.  It is strawberry season and Little Man helped me pick enough strawberries for strawberry wine (more on that later), miniature strawberry rhubarb pies - to be frozen for winter and to eat right now.  The chickens and bunnies have benefited greatly from this venture.

So sustainable.  Got that down this month and may just be in need of a long nap.  

My Lovely Yard

Little Man's Garden

 The marsh marigolds in the marsh that surrounds our land.

 My beautiful cherry tree in front of the kitchen window.

 The flowers I see on the way out the door every morning. 

Knot-weed Chuttney

There is a plant in Vermont called knot-weed.  The stuff is incredibly hard to get rid of and horribly invasive.  It is not native to Vermont and there is a whole campaign to get rid of the stuff.  We, unfortunately, have a small patch that just does not want to die.  Little Man is actually encouraged to hack at this particular plant.

Last year one of our local farmers was selling knot-weed chutney at the farmers market.  She was always sold out of the stuff by the time I got there.  I wanted to try it and see if it might be a way to get rid of the stuff.    I decided it needed to go on my list of things to do this year. 

Today Little Man was given the task to hack out 5 pieces for me.  I found a recipe online and off I headed to the kitchen.  A small batch was made just in case it was horrible.  It actually did not come out all that bad.  However, neither male in the household will try the stuff because it is a weed from the back yard.  They keep mentioning something about the "dandelion fritters" I made them try one year....  

This Week In the Garden

Compost Gardening

Andy thinks the vegetables growing out of the garden look better then our actual garden.  So far we have three tomato plants, and two squash plants growing out of our compost pile. 

Garden In July

Early July Bloom

Bloom Continued

Why I Love my Yard

Just a taste of what is in bloom.



 

 

Garden Time

It is Memorial Day weekend, the happiest weekend of the year.  Why, you might ask?  Because it marks the weekend that New England gardeners put their veggies in the ground.  To be honest, there are still a few plants that we bought but have yet to plant (tomatoes, peppers) because the fear of frost still looms. This said, all of the plants/seeds have been bought and all the cold-hardy ones are in the ground. 

 

Kale Kid

As we walk through the grocery store, there is this little voice trailing along behind me asking if we can buy kale.  Kale is not on my grocery list; it is not what we have come to the store to buy.  After a few quiet requests for kale it hit me; "What am I doing?"  I should be encouraging this craving. Back to the kale we go for a healthy snack; Little Man for his kale.  There are kale chips in Little Man's future. 

Finally!

They are sad looking, but there is finally some color on the ground.

Green

There is still snow on the ground outside, but there is some green inside!

No More KFC for Me

The last time my father was in town he dropped off a bin of chicken manure (as if we don't have enough) for my gardens.  The plan was to put it on the garden when we put the garden beds to rest for winter.  Prior to us doing this the bin resided in the shed.  When we put the beds to rest this, Andy pointed out that the shed smelled like a KFC restaurant.  I will never eat at KFC again!

Eating The Yard Away

My yard is one big tasty adventure after another.  When we first moved in, our small plot of land had a severely overgrown perennial bed and some raspberry bushes we uncovered (apparently also some blackberry bushes we uncovered this year). Over the past five years, we have added some wonderful edible features, along with cleaning out the perennial beds and making them beautiful again. 

 

So far this year, we have enjoyed a few strawberries (we have a pesky chipmunk that has gotten to most of them) that we planted last year, lettuce from our original garden plot, garlic scapes (see picture below) and of course my raspberries. The best part is there is still more to come.  I love summer.

Thank Goodness

When my garden was swamped just before we left, and then again while we were away for a week, I was a bit worried about what I would return to.  I was not sure if my flowers could withstand being under water so much, and worried that I would not have any color in my backyard this summer. 

Thankfully we returned home to lots of color and happy flowers.