Be joyful though you have considered all the facts
Goings on OUTSIDE Another nice day, yesterday. Not as warm as on Friday, but working hard raised our body temperatures plenty. DH finished all ten veg bed frames (in the picture he’s begging Amie to hand over a screw). I heard her ask: “Baba, what are we making?” He: “Beds for the vegetables.” She, incredulous: …
Continue reading “Goings on in the Cold Frame and Elsewhere in the Garden”
The garden planning continues. A couple of days ago I wrote about GrowVeg, and I posted the garden plans I made with it. A reader in a comment mentioned a different gardening planner software (Plangarden) and I tried that out – as I was making drafts anyway. This is what I came up with, so …
Friday was a glorious day and a holiday too, so Amie and I went out to visit two farms. First, Codman Community Farm and then Drumlin Farm, both in Lincoln, MA. I went to Codman to check out their compost and also to see if they have duck eggs. They had neither. But we had …
I think becoming a mom made me a better farmer. Before Amie came along, all my houseplants died on me. I simply always forgot to water them… or feed them. The herbs I grew on my steps when we were living in our condo survived because they were outside, getting rained on. But now I …
Continue reading “Thyme Bites the Dust, and Strange Tomato Seeds?”
I wasn’t getting to the actual design of the garden: it was too intimidating, all those elements, heights and widths and soil types! Then I found GrowVeg, and I signed up for a trial membership. I like it a lot, it makes designing the garden quite easy. I have a couple of suggestions for them: …
In 2002, Chelsea Green published William Coperthwaite’s book A Handmade Life, In Search of Simplicity, and the book has now been released in paperback (read the review). It is a book that aspires to social design, and it is most perceptive and inspiring on the issues of childcare, the nurture of the young, apprenticeship and …
My apologies for the spotty posting. We’ve had to cope with sickness – Amie and Mama last weekend and now Amie again. A dear friend of mine has also galvanized a project I had set aside as not fitting our current schedule: the communally oriented side of “Transition” (yes, the more I think about it, …
Spring is here! The first Robin arrived two days ago, along with a bunch of House Finches, and (I believe) one Pine Siskin (must be part of a flock). The neighborhood is full of bird song: it’s so good to hear! Our garden is home to many new generations of squirrels but I haven’t seen …
We’ve got a funny situation going on here, in the lettuce patch! A week ago we just plunked our cold frame onto its proposed site, without preparing the soil. The hot temperatures inside made the tulips spring up double as high as their colleagues outside the box. And among these I set out the lettuces …
Yesterday Amie and I made hotcaps (or some version thereof) for our lettuces, some of which are bursting out of their already large containers downstairs. I had hoped to transplant them into the cold frame before today, but the weather has been in the extremes. Three days ago, for instance, the max in the (unvented) …
Continue reading “Hardening Off the Lettuce, and Our Version of Hotcaps”