Hi @Mark - you may very well have gone over this on a video that I've missed (unfortunately I can't say I've watched them all). As you've done a lot of beds in this style, I was wondering if you're seeing changes in productivity over time. One thing I've learned is that decaying wood should...
On Sunday, we had a ham for supper and, as we often do with ham, made scalloped potatoes. The challenge is that I sliced too many. I often use the mandolin for this task, but this time I used a knife as one of the potatoes was too large to use that tool without cutting it first. Anyway, the...
ferment salsa.
Tomatoes, peppers (sweet and chiles), onions, garlic, and celery all grown by us this year. We are attempting some different things this year with what we've been able to grow. Aside from some canned tomatoes, fermented cherry tomatoes, tomato sauce, and dried tomatoes, I...
Hi @Mark - this is our second season with the raised beds done in a Hugelkultur style inspired by you. Have you ever had a significant amount of fungi growing in your beds? Fungi are decomposers, so there's nothing wrong with it and forest floors are fungal-dominated (over bacterially...
Yesterday I was in the country. If I had done the gardening / outside work first, I would have stayed dry...I'd looked at weather radar, but the only storm cell I saw was a long way off and I didn't check back in to see the fast moving cell coming from a different direction. After it passed I...
OK, well this post doesn't have any trees, but it does have a couple extra critters. We spent much of Canada Day (July 1) and yesterday at the country place. We had been away June 20-27, so definitely got behind out there. The volunteer canola (self-seeded from the crop there last year) is...
After some time away, I took a few photos the other day of the progress of the city garden. I finally got around to processing the photos...after this post I'll be working on more from the car meet and two days working on the country property, not necessarily in that order.
Our first raised...
The rhubarb patch here in the city gets the honours of being first this year. In part I needed to pick some to work on pointing the stone foundation...not sure when I'll get to that, but I didn't want to be stepping on those big leaves as I get that work done. I'd wanted to get it done before...
Yesterday on the walk with the poodle puppy I decided to head to the riverfront to see how it looked and saw, among other things, wood ducks. They're such an attractive bird that this morning's walk saw me taking the Nikon with the long lens.
Wood ducks and mallard drakes.
I count five...
I'm chomping at the bit to make progress...this weekend is our average last spring frost date, but I was seeing overnight lows around freezing in the forecast so I have to wait for some things. I did plant out a few brassicas in the raised bed a couple days ago...the rest are now starting to...
I laid down the first seeds for starts in mid-March. This year, I’ve got a soil blocker system that I’m trying for the first time. The larger, 2” (5cm) soil block can be created with a dimple for seeding, or with a cube to accept the smaller 3/4” cube. My first seeds were set out in the small...
I figured I'd share a few photos taken in the orchard today.
Those are probably 0.75-1m tall.
Sigh.
He's to blame for this:
These sour cherries are in the range of 2m tall. The hares chew the buds as well...this spring we'll see sort of a line of where the blossoms are above showing...
So, I was out to the country place today. It was a lovely day...the days are definitely getting longer and we can feel the sun's energy increasing. There were a number of common redpolls flitting about so I took a number of photos and I've got some obligatory snow photos for @Mandy Onderwater...
Happily it warmed up today...about -17C at the high this afternoon. It was a nice, mostly sunny day with some thin cloud. I was out to the country and remembered to bring the camera along. One of the primary reasons was stopping at a neighbour's to pick up our 1/4 beef (grass-fed Angus, cut...
Look what arrived today. Left to right across the top is lettuce, winter squash, summer squash / cucumbers, brassicas, root crops and tomatoes. Lower right is peppers, lower left is beans (mostly dry bean varieties) and in the centre is miscellaneous including leeks, celery, and popcorn.
A...
So, after some herbicide drift onto our orchard a year or two ago, I was a little grumpy with the farmer around our property. Following my journey this year toward more plant based food, particularly spray-free, as well as regenerative agriculture, we decided to take back some of our property...
Well, we finally got some frost this week...about a month after the average first frost date for Winnipeg :oops:
We've been slowly harvesting and cleaning up as things have gone along. The new raised beds settled around 3" / 10 cm since filling them this year. I have some ancient manure to...
Well, today was the day. Actually, it did start yesterday. As I wanted to prepare a spot to plant garlic I needed to dig up some of the horseradish here in the city. Then today, we were out to the country where there was another bunch. After digging in the country, I redistributed some roots...