From the Kitchen Window to

…the Kitchen Garden

Looking from the North side of our yard toward the house… this is the view.

I like this side of our yard. The roses are trailing down over an old bed frame I put there to ‘KEEP’ THEM.

They are in full bloom right now; an they’re beautiful. When the window is open, they smell divine!   This is what I see from the kitchen window. The ‘kitchen garden’…

We built this fence from a free fence panel from FREECYCLE, scraps and odds and ends that we had around the back of the barn. It was needed to keep our chickens out. As you can see it is working! {smile}

We have four acres—but we don’t grow a large ‘in ground’ garden. It’s soo much and would be too much food and work for us to handle…we like raised beds and garden boxes. It grows just the right amount of food for us. Our peas are finishing up. We planted these in the late Fall of 2011 and they got a late start producing. We are still getting peas but they’re just about done. We’ve also got corn planted here and red onions. Right now the onions are larger than the corn…but the corn is catching up fast!

  Toward the front we have potatoes and onions. Where the milk jug is… I just planted some little tomato plants that I started from seed.

The potatoes did well in this box last year so we planted them here again. We added wood ash, from the stove in the house and I also added some compost and chicken dirt …they are thriving this year! To the right is ‘elephant’ garlic that we transplanted from behind the barn and there are onions there. I didn’t plant any herbs here this year. I cut these 2 liter bottles in half and use them to cover the little seedlings. The moisture builds up on the inside, watering them and keeping them from the chill night air.  Once they get big enough then I’ll remove the bottles.  These are ‘Delicious Tomatoes” (the name) . We had extra onions and they wouldn’t all fit in the other box…so I planted about 3 rows here and the potatoes below are right next to them.  We’ll see how they do.

I’m not so sure that it was a good idea to plant them together so closely… These potatoes certainly aren’t as big as the ones in the box. Also, there is no wood ash (well, I spread a little here; but not as much) in this box.

I garden on a curve. I’m learning as I go. I know this looks like a litter pile of garbage. This is definitely not the pretty side of gardening. But these little things are necessary to help get the garden established and taking off. The large ‘juice’ bottle has water in it and a tiny hole (I keep the cap tight) and the water just trickles out onto the ground. Sort of like a soaker hose. That stick is leaning against the fence and the plant right under it is a green bean plant.  Hopefully, it will grow and climb that stick… keeping it off the ground.

This is the ‘hugelkultur’ mound. It is within the kitchen garden. I started this mound last year. The plants that I placed here THEN, thrived and yielded great amounts of produce. We got lots of tomatoes. The squash did really well. The cucumbers and cantaloupe also produced; but the fruit was ravaged by the grasshoppers. 

This picture is about 10 days old and the plants are much bigger now; I’ve removed some of the soda bottle cloches because they plants are thriving already. The only problem with this hugelkultur that I seem to be having is this one colony of ants! It just won’t move out.  I thought the chickens had eradicated them; but NO. They are quite persistent. Since the garden has taken off, we’ve not let the chickens back inside. So far I’ve tried DE (diatomaceous earth), instant grits, and also lemon soap concoction.

They are still there. Tonight I’m trying coffee and seeing how that works.

I mentioned that I didn’t plant any herbs in the garden. No reason really. But at the last minute I started some from seed… I planted them in these tin cans.

I drilled holes in the bottom, put in a layer of pea gravel and some potting soil. Strung them on jute string and hung them on the porch from a nail. So far, they’re doing pretty well.

If they get too big, I’ll transplant maybe. We’ll see how they do.

I guess this post is also about recycling in the garden; although I didn’t mean for it to be~

 

The grace of the LORD Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Philippians 4:23