Gardening

Summer Garden 2013- What’s Growing?

May 14, 2013
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I’ve decided to keep it small and simple this year for our summer garden and we’re only using the two smaller raised beds we have. There’s more space available for gardening, just no space in my life right now for more of me gardening. I’m happy with what I’ve got and so far, so good.

This year, there have been no garden monsters, thankfully, pulling up my plants. I’ve finally learned from years past and covered the plants with chicken wire until they were big enough to crowd the boxes and keep the masked bandits out.

Changes this year:

Tomatoes: Almost every year we get big beautiful plants which develop plenty of tomatoes and then get blossom end rot. This year I buried several crushed egg shells in the bottom of each hole where I planted the tomatoes. Supposedly the extra calcium in the egg shells will help prevent …

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Summer Garden 2012

May 29, 2012
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I seriously debated whether or not I wanted to spend the time, effort and money to do a garden this year. In the past we’ve built raised beds, I tracked every expense to see if it’s worth it, and last year only planted half a garden. This year, even though I was a bit late in getting started, I decided to jump in all the way and plant every bit of space in our raised beds. With a little help from family and friends we got the beds ready in a weekend.

We went with a modified version of the no-dig method this year. Instead of hay, alfalfa, compost and fertilizer, I substituted organic garden soil for the compost and fertilizer. Last year we lost a lot of soil in the boxes to various digging creatures and general decomposition. The hay and alfalfa break down every year so …

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Nosy Neighbor Virtual Homestead & Garden Tour

August 1, 2011
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A little while ago, one of the blogs I follow, Northwest Edible Life, posted this on their Facebook page;
Interested in participating in the Nosy Neighbor Virtual Homestead & Garden Tour? All you have to do is take pictures or video of your garden/homestead and post them to your blog, website or photo-hosting site.

I thought, well yes, I am a nosy neighbor and I’d like a peek into other people’s gardens and urban homesteads! While this year is smaller than normal, I’m always happy to share, so here is an update on what’s going on with my Summer 2011 garden. Also, if you’re new here, I’m also involved with some friends and family over at Mount Royal Farms. While I don’t raise chickens in my own yard, I’m happy to participate over there.

The current garden consists of 3 raised beds; two which are 4′x5′ and one …

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Introducing Mount Royal Farms

June 25, 2011
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Dear Readers,

I have been unfaithful. I won’t even try to make an excuse for my infidelity because I’m hoping when you see what I’ve been doing, you’ll understand and be willing to share your affections. If you follow me on Twitter you might have seen the tell-tale signs of my latest passion; the murmurs of new love, the late night tweets, the giddiness of schoolgirl infatuation.  I have been straying from Former Chef with a younger, and some might say, sexier blog; MountRoyalFarms.

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Summer Garden 2011; Sometimes Smaller is Better

May 27, 2011
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I’ve written quite a bit over the last 2 years about my garden and specifically about the no-dig gardening method. This year the plan is a little different. I’ll still have a garden, but it will be smaller and use a more traditional planting method.

While I certainly believe the no-dig method works well, this year I decided to only use my two smaller garden beds (plus a piece of the larger one) and fill them with soil and compost instead of the hay, alfalfa and compost I used previously.

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Winter Garden Update and Maverick Meat Grinder Giveaway Winner

January 24, 2011
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I’ve never planted vegetables in the winter before. Most of my gardening has been limited to the summer vegetables which splash out and are “easy” to grow; tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, etc. In addition, I’m not a fan of the traditional winter vegetables like broccoli and cabbage. This year however, I thought I would allocate one of my garden beds to a tiny winter garden and see what would happen if I threw some seeds in the dirt.

Way back in November, I took the protective cages off all my beds, shoveled some of the composted fill (a mix of compost, straw and alfalfa from the no dig method) from one box to another to fill one of the small beds and went off to the nursery to buy some seeds. I ended up with packets of carrots, mesclun lettuce mix, beets, multi colored chard, and broccoli rapini (yes, I know I said I don’t like broccoli, but …

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