Humble Garden

ReSkilling for future food independence

Archive for the ‘maintaining’ Category

Deepest Winter – Snowmageddon

Posted by Nika On December - 27 - 2008

Snowmageddon Day Two

When we first moved here 13 years ago the first couple of winters were impressive. We had three or four 3-foot storms that first winter. I just figured that this was par for the course around here.

Since then, the past 10 years or so, winters have not been so impressive. This makes people forgetful of what a proper New England winter is like so that this past week, when we got a snow storm (after the ice storm of some three weeks ago that put out power far and wide here) people truly lost their minds with fretting about the storm.

It was called #snowmageddon on twitter – lots of traffic then.

It wasnt a three foot storm but it did get pretty cold (close to 0 F) which is the part I kevetch about (for the animal’s sake – poor babies!)

The photos in this post share a bit of that time.

Snowmageddon Fun

Night time fun.

Snow Storm 2008 - getting chickens in

Q tending her chickens

Snow Storm 2008 - silly chicken

One barred rock chicken that seems to be doing an odd snow dance – first she flies out lopsided from the shed ….

Snowmageddon - more chicken silliness

Then she some how manages to go totally sideways.

Snowmageddon Day Two

The goats and the llama didnt appreciate the low temps but those low temps made a wonderful thing happen – the llama has started sleeping with the goats! This is good because she can help keep them warm and she bonds more closely with them.

Cold farm animals

This blonde goat is named Wheat.

Cold farm animals

Eating hay.

Cold farm animals

All three species.

Cold farm animals

Home-hatched chicks – very fluffy. They are a flock of four.

The garden is totally submerged but I have already started planning the plantings as well as thinking about moving the seed starting equipment down next to the wood boiler so that they can be toasty warm.

Seton Boiler: connections

Will share more about the 2009 garden soon!

High-rise gardening

Posted by Nika On July - 19 - 2007

(Green and lemon cucumbers rising to the occasion)

Because we grow in raised beds and also because we are trying to grow a bit of pasture and run space for the kids, I am growing our vine crops skyward to keep them off the ground. I have read that this encourages higher production and better fruits/veggies because they do not mold on the ground.

(infant cuke)

What it means in a practical sense is that I am doing bonsai veggies.

(rising spaghetti squash)

I am not doing any pruning but a lot of tying and coddling and massaging, etc. Rather intensive and good more me because its a small garden but this would be tedious if you had a larger thing going on.

(Massive squash)

This enormous squash is growing TONS of base leaves and amassing quite a few proto-runners but has yet to send out a vine I can attach to the trellis. This plant seems poised to simply explode with vines. I feel like I need to almost check it several times a day in case it gets ahead of me!

Who knew there could be so much excitement in a garden. Makes me feel a bit silly, but what are you gonna do.

The young kohlrabis are coming along and I do not find the beetles most times when I go out. I got this notion that these plants must smell irresistible to the beetles because they seem to find them so easily. Because of this crazy idea, I decided to sprinkle the leaves with some cinnamon. I hope this will change the “flavor profile” to one the beetles find either confusing or revolting and I hope not delicious.

Finally, here is a shot of some of the beds, just to give a sense for how some of the garden grows.

About Me

We are a family of 5, including Nika, Ed, Q (14), KD (7), and Baby Oh (4). We garden 1024 square feet of raised beds plus assorted permacultural plantings. We also have 13 LaMancha dairy goats, 40 chickens, and one guard llama.

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    Photos

    Essex大学Untitled Flickr photoJacs_Sport_24_12-3205Untitled Flickr photo