Garden

Postcards from the Garden

My laptop broke down a couple of weeks ago. Because of this I’ve had more time to work on the kitchen side of recipe development… and head to the garden on a daily basis.

We spend much of the afternoon on low-key shade activities so by the time supper concludes we all sort of disperse to outside activities. Stewart heads to the fence, the boys head to the goats, and I head to the garden with one or three in tow.

Things die a lot this time of year. The squash inundation has ceased. The green beans gave it up. The collards are drying up. The heat loving sunflowers, tomatillos, black-eyed peas, sweet potatoes, water melons, and okra are pretty much all that remain and even those are struggling through 100 degree days and pest issues.

Still, Abram and I pulled the green beans and bug-infested squash and planted more black-eyed peas and okra. I don’t know what will come of them or if it was even the best move, given it is the middle of July in Texas.

But we had seeds and soil and water in the pond, so it seemed the right thing to do.

Potato Planting: Preparing Seed Potatoes

After we expanded the Chicken Field last year, we had talked about planting potatoes. Originally we thought we might do it last spring but couldn’t get the garden prepared in time. This year it seemed the way was made for it to happen so a few weeks ago we began preparing rows. Then just the…

This Week In The Kitchen

The week started with another double canner load full of summer squash on Sunday. With the rains we received and the warming temperatures, the squash have been producing more than enough for eating and preserving. We’ve been eating a simple stir-fry most days of squash, onions, garlic, green beans, and collards all from the garden….

Sifting and Hauling the Wood Ash

We have heated exclusively with a cast-iron wood stove through the previous four winters here in Texas. Somehow we’ve always managed to scrounge together enough firewood through barter or harvesting from our own land. In that time we’ve burned mostly mesquite and reclaimed wood. Much of that reclaimed wood had the remnants of use left…

The Fall Garden

It sort of feels like the garden off-season even though things are still very much growing. We haven’t had much frost to speak of and it is actually in the 80s today. But because most everything is greens and roots, we are simply eating loads of it every day and I am taking a break…

The Chicken Field in July: sweet taters, green beans, squash & melons

Do you remember when we planted sweet potatoes in the chicken field at the beginning of June? Three rows of sweet potatoes in a few different varieties were planted and mulched. Around that same time we planted four rows of beans, including one row of black eyed peas. Shortly after that, Stewart planted a few…

The Spring Garden: Plant, Plant, and Plant Again

The story of the spring garden is much like past years… in some ways. We plant early to try to beat the summer heat because it isn’t abnormal to be cool like spring one week and in the 90s the next. We are now already full-on in the latter stage, by the way. But this…

2 Comments

Lori Fellows says:

July 15, 2016 at 10:33 AM

So glad you’re ok…I was beginning to get concerned about you. Have a blessed Sabbath.
Linda says:

July 15, 2016 at 3:41 PM

I too have missed your updates. Thankyou for sharing a bit of your warm…well hot…sunny life. It’s brightened my mid winter day 🙂

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