I have decided to revive my blog! I recently came back and realized my last post was about taking a break from technology for a week or two. Well, it's been almost a year since my last post!
I have a lot of plans for the coming year. For the first time I am really attempting to change my garden from a hobby to a major contributor to our health, budget and goal of eating more whole foods.
We actually removed a small part of our back yard last year. We have added an espalier apple tree, an Italian prune tree and another type of blueberry to cross-pollinate my two existing bushes.
I was not happy with my garden in 2012. It was a miserable cold, wet and gloomy Spring and early Summer. I think that some of the seeds I ordered were not suited at all for our climate here.
Many of the plants that did grow did poorly. Potatoes and Zucchini were a bust. In fact so were all my squash along with my cucumbers. I also tried to grow corn but it never produced anything. Of course my peas, lettuces, carrots, kale and other cold weather crops did well. My green beans also did well.
My new espalier produced a decent amount of apples for being in a new home. This year although the blueberries produced well, few of the berries stayed on the vine until they matured. I think this was do to the lack of cross-pollination. I have recently got a nice mid-season blueberry bush to pollinate them.
We bougth some heirloom tomatoes while passing through Chelan on a weekend trip. Unfortunately I did not harden them off properly so they did not do well but the few that did make it were delicious and made me want to try again.
My wife had picked up some hanging pots for the fence for some flowers but we ended up planting them up with some cherry tomatoes. They were a huge hit! We had hundreds of delicious fresh cherry tomatoes.
With all that the important thing was that I learned a lot and know I can make a lot of improvements this year.
This year I will plant crops that are proven in our climate. I am growing sunflowers for seeds instead of just show. I have purchased meters to help me determine moisture levels and PH.
I'm looking forward to this coming year! I intended to post pictures but I haven't been getting home much before dark.
Hopefully this kind of catches you up and I look forward to getting back to regular postings!
Congrats on ordering a PH tester. Our soil is very acidic, so I'm in luck when it comes to the blueberries and raspberries. I look forward to hearing about your successes.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested to see my results. My soil had a large percentage of well composted horse manure last year. This year I am adding straight topsoil to try and even things out. I had trouble keeping my large pots watered properly so I hope the moisture meter will help with that. By the way thanks for the free e-books at your site too!
DeleteEqually important to the issue of growing food, is the knowledge of preserving it. The successful garden spot can take a few years to mature into a truly harmonized and productive area as one learns what works and what does not, from season to season. In the mean time, in anticipation of that first season when your garden finally produces an overflow, why not start learning and doing food preservation projects using seasonal produce from other farmers? It'd marry in nicely with your blog topic if you filled us in on your success and failures.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment Robbin! I do agree that the time to start figuring out the preservation methods you are going to use and learning how to do them, should not be when your garden is in full production. Harvest time can come on quickly and be quite intimidating. It also occurred to me that people who live in the city or even an apartment who have ambitions of a big garden someday would benefit from learning preservation skills. Thanks for the topic idea. I will be using it.
DeleteLarry