The AikiHomestead
Our Lifestyle Blog as We Create a Homestead in Northern Ontario
2009-08-03
Our Urban Garden
Well, that’s annoying… I typed up quite a long blog entry just describing our garden, complete with many pictures, and accidentally published it before I wanted to. I rushed to take it down, and instead deleting the whole thing. Sigh. Computers…
I should probably also point out how difficult it is to properly embed pictures into blogger posts… I’m not sure why that is, but you’ll have to live with whatever I cobble together on this post.
T
oday was a civic holiday here in Ontario. I spent a bit of the morning working on the computer, then went upstairs and began preparing a “breakfast bake” for Kenny and Donna. I sometimes make up muffin mix from scratch and then just bake the whole think in our cast iron frying pan – it works beautifully, and cleanup is much easier than a muffin tin. Today I mixed in raspberries from our patch out back. (Pictures to follow, seemingly at random…)
Donna called for help, but before I could arrive, Kenny’s obviously burbly stomach rejected whatever he had been sleeping on, and he threw up for only the second time in his life. All down Donna’s front. Just like the first time he threw up too! That makes cleanup a snap for me, but I’m not sure if Donna thinks that it’s as convenient.
Kenny had been fighting a fever most of the weekend, but seemed recovered by last night. I’m not sure what disagreed with him this morning, but, aside from the whole weekend’s fussiness and irritability, he was fine.Seeing as it was a holiday, Kenny and I got to have Mommy around the whole day again – that’s a real treat for both of us! It also gave me the opportunity to really focus on getting some projects done that are otherwise somewhat difficult. Today I tried to clean up the garden a bit.
Last fall and this spring, I turned over the area between our house and the garage of the neighbour next door. Then I planted two of the three sisters. That is to say, corn, and squash, and pumpkin… We still have beans leftover from last year that I canned up. As you can see, they’re holding their own against the weeds!
I should probably also point out how difficult it is to properly embed pictures into blogger posts… I’m not sure why that is, but you’ll have to live with whatever I cobble together on this post.
T
oday was a civic holiday here in Ontario. I spent a bit of the morning working on the computer, then went upstairs and began preparing a “breakfast bake” for Kenny and Donna. I sometimes make up muffin mix from scratch and then just bake the whole think in our cast iron frying pan – it works beautifully, and cleanup is much easier than a muffin tin. Today I mixed in raspberries from our patch out back. (Pictures to follow, seemingly at random…)Donna called for help, but before I could arrive, Kenny’s obviously burbly stomach rejected whatever he had been sleeping on, and he threw up for only the second time in his life. All down Donna’s front. Just like the first time he threw up too! That makes cleanup a snap for me, but I’m not sure if Donna thinks that it’s as convenient.
Kenny had been fighting a fever most of the weekend, but seemed recovered by last night. I’m not sure what disagreed with him this morning, but, aside from the whole weekend’s fussiness and irritability, he was fine.Seeing as it was a holiday, Kenny and I got to have Mommy around the whole day again – that’s a real treat for both of us! It also gave me the opportunity to really focus on getting some projects done that are otherwise somewhat difficult. Today I tried to clean up the garden a bit.
Last fall and this spring, I turned over the area between our house and the garage of the neighbour next door. Then I planted two of the three sisters. That is to say, corn, and squash, and pumpkin… We still have beans leftover from last year that I canned up. As you can see, they’re holding their own against the weeds!
Kenny insisted on helping to clean up the lower, main garden area, by mowing in between all the raised beds. Trust me, although his mower looks like the only one that did the work, it really was a team effort. Me with my shears and reel mower, and Kenny providing moral support.
The raspberry patch has recovered quite strongly from being moved a number of years ago, and is now beginning to actually make a nuisance of itself by spreading back towards my garden beds. A combination of mowing and cutting it back, as well as using clothes pegs to hold it against the fence seems to work satisfactorily to keep it civil.
An entire bed of carrots promises to be a real pleasure in the coming weeks and months. By square-foot gardening, I haven’t had to do much in the way of thinning of them, and they all seem to be thriving quite nicely.
Tomatoes too are doing well this year. But as often is the case, regular peppers make me question if they are worth the effort. Hot peppers are a mixed bag at times. I sometimes get enough for the coming year with ease, and other times I only get a small handful. This year seems to be a small handful year, so I’ll likely have to invest in a bottle of hot sauce to see me through. Oh well, it’s a learning process.
The strawberry patches at the base of the retaining wall look quite lush, and Kenny has delighted in picking them clean, but they’ve actually been rather meagre providers, either that, or the birds and animals are picking things prematurely. Three full beds of potatoes are doing really well, and I’m quite pleased with them.
You can see that Kenny seemed to have recovered from his tough morning, and was ready to take on just about anything we could throw his way!Comments:
Love the pic of all your gardens and of course of smiley Kenny!
Love the pic of all your gardens and of course of smiley Kenny!
- Anonymous (2012-01-05)