I always assumed old men puttered about in the garden. I found myself picking up the habit today. I decided on a fall garden bed at least of some radishes and spinach. We'll see how they do as they're two of the crops I've never really had any luck with. I planted some parsnips as … Continue reading Garden Puttering
Canning Day! And Other Updates
Yesterday, we celebrated American independence by canning our own produce. For the first time, we harvested enough blackberries to make jam. Granted, it was only about a half gallon of jam... But it was ours! And that was the exciting part. We also had enough cucumbers come in to do a small batch of pickles … Continue reading Canning Day! And Other Updates
What’s in the Garden?
I thought I'd take you through what we have going on in the gardens this year. At this point, we have 5 distinct areas which we are cultivating: Terrace Back to Eden Garden Hugulkultur swale/fruit trees The Berry hedgerow The Orchard Market Garden terraces half-finished seems to be our trademark... We're working on improving that … Continue reading What’s in the Garden?
Children on the Homestead
We have 3 kiddos babies. They're 3, 1.5, and 1 month. Babies. As the Mama duck around here, you might imagine it's difficult to wrangle all my ducklings outside while I do gardeney things, and you'd be right. I took everyone outside last week, and it was the first time all 3 of us have … Continue reading Children on the Homestead
Productive Monday
We got a lot done Monday! I "bottled" the gallon of kombucha I brewed two Sundays ago. It tested with a brix of 6 and ABV of less than 0.2%. Success! I poured the 1/2 gallon jars into quart jars for the sake of "single servings" and put them in the fridge for the week. … Continue reading Productive Monday
Back to Eden: Soil pH
This is the end of our first year doing the Back to Eden garden and I wanted a tangible way to guage the results of the soil condition. I decided to test the soil pH with a very rudimentary and simple experiment: vinegar and baking soda. The concept is simple; alkaline soil will react in … Continue reading Back to Eden: Soil pH
Back to Eden Strawberries
This one is a play directly out of Paul Gautschi's book. We planted 12 strawberry plants around a dogwood tree in spring 2017. The plants all doubled if not tripled and we had tremendous success with their growth of new runners and leaves. We planted in mostly shade, We wood chip mulched the bed 5 … Continue reading Back to Eden Strawberries
Year 1 Evaluation of Back to Eden Experience
I wanted to evaluate my first year experience with the Back to Eden garden. I decided to break the experience into sections: preparation, planting, productivity, weeding and watering, overall experience. My rating scale is from 1-10 with 1 being unsuccessful and 10 being absolute success. The effort to reward ratio will be covered in the … Continue reading Year 1 Evaluation of Back to Eden Experience
Back to Eden Update #3: Fall Preparations
Over the last couple weekends, we have focused on hauling mulch. It is a strenuous task because we do it all by hand; shovel the mulch into a cart, pull the cart to the other side of the property, dump the cart, rake the mulch... It takes forever. That said, on Saturday, we mulched the … Continue reading Back to Eden Update #3: Fall Preparations
More Fall Preparation
My son and I have been working to establish the Back to Eden beds along the back of the house and prepare them for spring herb planting. We finally figured out that a greater number of spadefulls of mulch goes faster than trying to rake mulch loose and shovel fewer larger loads with a snow … Continue reading More Fall Preparation
Wholly Holy Living 
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