Whew. It’s been a busy couple of weeks with planting and weeding and growing mirogreens and selling at a couple of farmer’s markets. At the risk of “jinxing” everything, the homestead is looking good right now. Here’s an update:
The strawberry plants are doing well. The bed isn’t wide enough (that was covered in an earlier post) but the pleasure I get when I step out the back door and see all those lovely plants on top of the rock wall with sedum growing along the edges is more than worth a few less strawberries. Not that we’ll get any yummy berries this year. Most experts agree you should pinch all the blooms off in the first year to ensure a better crop the following years. Ouch, that hurts. That’s okay though – there are plenty of strawberries available at the farmer’s markets!
The potatoes are getting ready to bloom. Since we don’t have enough soil to “hill up” around the potatoes, I emptied some bags of top soil around the potatoes and then added a bunch of straw.
The peas are blooming and there are little pea pods forming. The cabbage is looking good too. This is inside the main garden bed which, eventually, will move into the general permaculture landscape.
The other crops in the fenced garden area are doing well – broccoli, kale, mustard, lettuce, kale, red romaine and green onions.
Looks like there will be lots of carrots to can later. I read that mustard green planted between rows of carrots help keep damage from carrot fly from getting out of hand. And a raised bed that doesn’t get much sun is doing okay with kales, mustard and radishes planted there.
Out in the permaculture landscape the blackberries, black raspberries and blueberries are growing. Eventually, there will be other shrubs, flowers, herbs and veggies tucked in and around the berry plants.
We planted pawpaw trees and a couple of honeyberry plants and three elderberries. And would you just look at that! There’s a peach tree growing in the east branch that we never noticed because of all the Ailanthus trees that shaded it out last year!
Looking forward to some goooooood eating in a few years once everything gets well established!
