Summer – Page 3 – My tiny u.p. farm

Zinnias and Garlic!

July 31, 2017Jen PowellLeave a comment

I harvested some wonderful garlic tonight. Here are some pics of the harvest, and of the plethora of flowers in my garden.

garlic 2 — This is the second time I’ve grown garlic – last time I just bought organic garlic at the grocery store. This time I ordered actual garlic bulbs. It made a big difference.

calendula — Some Calendula and nasturtiums. The flowers I planted in the garden really look nice this year.

melons — I’ve de-purslaned the melon area – there is still some growing in between the tomatoes, and I’m sure I haven’t seen the last of it here, but it looks a lot better.

sunflower top — Here is a sunflower head. This was just under my head level, so I’m sure it will get a lot taller before this flower finishes forming.

herbs and stuff — Some herbs and cauliflower.

marigold — Marigolds! I love these, but I’m really starting to enjoy my zinnias…

More zinnias. I planted a big mix and they are really delivering this year. They are all different.

flowrs and greens — Here is a nice shot of some of the greens and flowers on one side of the garden. I’m really happy with the flowers this year.

greens and flowers — Another shot showing more flowers.

My Garden is growing quickly!

July 23, 2017July 23, 2017Jen Powell1 Comment

I’ve noticed a lot of explosive growth of many things in the garden this last week. My tomatoes seem to have doubled in size – I have tomato cages around them but I need to tie up some of the branches. I have a bunch of cool flowers starting to bloom. I planted a mix of different kinds of zinnias all over, and some calendula and cosmos – they are starting to bloom. I love the different colors mixed in with the huge amount of lush green in the garden. My carrots and beets are sprouting now. And my weeds are getting large – this week my chores will include getting rid of a lot of them in the spaces I haven’t weeded yet. I have a ton of purslane still, even after picking some and making pickles. I bough some ranch dressing and some cucumbers and tomatoes (since my plants aren’t producing yet) and am planning on some purslane salads this week. It’s actually pretty good – we had it on tacos instead of lettuce the other day, and that was quite delicious. Some updated pictures of my growing garden are below. Enjoy!

escaping nasturtium — Right next to the entrance to my garden I planted a nasturtium. It is now escaping the fence. It’s about 2-3 feet away from the fence.

nasturtium flowers — This one has bright red/orange flowers.

nasturtium on the run — Here is the same plant. It has tendrils going out in all directions – here it is crossing the pathway.

Here is one of my pumpkin plants – it too is escaping and climbing the fence. I planted it near the fence for that reason – it can climb the fence and save me space in the garden a little.

Here is one of the cosmos I planted. I haven’t grown these in years.

Here (in the middle of the bag, with some yellow flowers) is one of my cantaloupe plants. They seem to be doing better than my watermelon. They are surrounded by our new vegetable/weed purslane. There is another nasturium behind it.

mass of tomatos — My mess of tomato plants. I have both determinate and indeterminate varieties – the indeterminate are already branching a bunch, so I need to get in there and start tying stuff up.

tomatoes and greens — The greens area. Chard, spinach and kale. These are all getting large now too.

A view of the back of the garden. The sunflowers are getting bigger. I have a bunch along the back (north side) of the garden.

garden getting big — A view down the middle pathway. I like to take pictures from here to see the change through the summer.

The garden in Mid July

July 15, 2017Jen PowellLeave a comment

We had a very rainy June – most of the things I had direct sowed into the garden must have drowned. They did not sprout. So I had to replant a lot of seeds – beans, carrots, beets. Since the beginning of July we’ve dried up a little bit – we are getting more sun than rain anyway, so that is helping. The garden is finally taking off. Here are some pictures:

Here is a nasturtium – it’s been flowering already and is starting to try to climb the fence.

Here are my pea seedlings. I hadn’t planted peas originally, but my 4 rows of beans didn’t sprout in June, so when I replanted I put in some peas as well.

beans — Here are the new bean seedlings. I had originally planted yellow, green and purple. I ran out of purple at the original seeding, so these are just green and yellow. They’ll do.

beets and carrot — Here are the two beets and one carrot that managed to sprout out of all the rows I put in in June. I replanted seeds today. At least these three plants helped me figure out where some of the rows should be. Now I’ll have to thin everything when it sprouts.

garden long view — Here is the long view down the center of the garden. I have various flowers along the path – zinnias, calendula, and a marigold or two.

My artichoke! I only had one come back this year, and it already has an artichoke. I haven’t decided if I’ll pick it – it’s not very big. Artichokes grow here but I haven’t had luck with them being very large. I only had one plant make it through the winter this year. (I had 3 last year).

My giant lemon balm plant. I actually split it, so this is half of the original plant. The other half is in my front yard. This half is about 2.5-3 feet wide. I keep finding babies in the garden where I had moved it from. I absolutely love it. It smells so good and makes really good tea.

tomato weeds — I have tomato “weeds” sprouting all over – they must have reseeded from last year – I don’t know what variety they’ll be. I did pick out some but there were a lot. I’m guessing they’ll be cherry – those were hard to get to (in the corn/sunflower jungle) and I lost a lot of them into the garden last year. So they are the most likely candidate.

My melon-turned-purslane patch. I have cantaloupes and watermelons in the middle of the bags, and then purslane have exploded between the bags. I found a recipe for purslane pickles, so I’m going to eat them. This is the part of the garden I reclaimed from the yard, so that is my guess as to why I have so much purslane. I have not had an issue with it in this garden before. Luckily it’s edible and tasty.

I have a re-seeded sunflower (or two) growing in my onion patch. I have sunflowers all over the place! Very exciting! To the left you can see my potato bags. They are doing pretty well.

Here are the ducks. We recently sold three of them, so we only have three left. We were overrun with duck eggs. We are planning on cutting down on our chicken flock as well, to help with food costs through the winter.

backyard — Here are the chickens. We’ve let them run around the back yard a lot this year. Their run is still really muddy in spots from the rain, and they have been keeping the grass down but not completely killing the lawn, so it’s been ok. They enjoy foraging a lot.

A walk around the farm …

June 17, 2017June 17, 2017Jen PowellLeave a comment

I took a walk around the property yesterday to see what flowers are blooming. I took some pictures of what I found, and of some other features on our property. I also put in some new trees today! I hope you enjoy the photos:

purple flower — These are in our yard – My mom planted them years ago, and has told me before what they are. I can’t remember the name though. These are some of my favorite flowers that come out each year. They’re like little purple fireworks.

Daisy — Here is a daisy. These grow all over the place.

Lupines — Here are some lupines. We brought a couple over to our yard from another yard years and years ago, and it must have been that a lot of other people did too. These grow everywhere now between our house and town (about 15 miles away).

Thimble Berry Flower — Here is a Thimble Berry flower. I have seen a lot (and large) flowers this year, so I’m wondering if we’re going to have a good crop. The plants are wild and grow across the street. I’ve tried to transplant them to our yard but they have not taken. Thimble Berries are delicious.

The unused plot — Here is the back view of our Across-The-street part of our property. When I was a child, my parents had goats fenced in here, but now I call it the “fern Jungle” – I’d like to reclaim it at some point, and put some more gardens and beehives in.

The hall — Here is a better view of the “hall” – our old building. It’s just an old storage building that is starting to fall in. We are planning on someday taking it down.

the homestead — A view of our house from across the street. Our property is on both sides of the road.

044 — And here are our new trees! We pulled them from across the street today. Some were growing behind the hall in the woods, and a few were growing right next to the hall. They look a little sparse but I think with more room they may grow better.

043 — There are 6 trees – a few are spruce, and there are two that I think are Eastern Hemlock.

Mid-summer on our farm

August 5, 2016July 30, 2016Jen PowellLeave a comment

Here are some pictures of the goings-on around our tiny farm:

My zucchini and yellow squash are going nuts. These plants are huge!

zucchini with cat — Here you can see them with Wizard in front, so you get a little more idea of scale. There are 5 plants in that mess, plus some sunflowers sticking up in back.

Here is a picture of the chickens. I love the variety of colors we have.

My husband got this cool picture of our dogs. Atat’s tail is curled around Downey. Nova thinks the camera is some type of food.

Hollyhocks

August 1, 2016July 30, 2016Jen Powell3 Comments

My parents planted hollyhocks several years ago, and they keep coming back every year. And each year before they bloom, I forget that they aren’t all the same color, until they bloom. They are beautiful. Here are some pictures:

hollyhocks 1 — Here are the hollyhocks – different shades of pinks and purples

hollyhocks 3 — They are all in the corner outside our shed and bathrom windows

Mid July on the farm

July 16, 2016July 16, 2016Jen PowellLeave a comment

We have been very busy. Last week I went camping. While I was away, it seems that my garden has exploded. (It tends to do that when you don’t see it every day). I hatched hatch# 3 of chicks a couple days ago, and we found our first duck egg today! Here are some pictures of the latest happenings:

garden 7.16 — Here is my garden. I get to do some weeding today.

greens — Here it is, growing away. The red bits on the right are some beets.

A tiny artichoke. It’s about an inch tall.

kohlrabi — Kohlrabi. First time growing this – we are not sure if we like it yet. We will be trying it when it’s ready.

daniels garden — My son’s garden. His corn is doing well. There is a zinnia blooming.

early girl — Our Early Girl tomato. This was a grafted plant I bought. I somehow forgot to plant seeds of my Early Girl tomatoes.

hatch 3_2 — Here are the newest chicks! We have 14, they all hatched on Thursday, and they are from my own chickens’ eggs. We now have 57 chickens all together. That total will go down once we cull the extra roosters.

barnyard — Here is the bird yard. You can see we have Pekin ducks here.

blue duck egg — We got our first egg from the ducks today. It’s about the size of a chicken egg. Not sure why it is bluish. Pekins are supposed to lay white/cream eggs.

duck egg — Here is the egg again. Like a large chicken egg – I figure its a starter eggs for the ducks, so they should get bigger soon, and probably change to the cream/white color. Not sure if we’ll eat this one since it’s a weird color. I know it was laid this morning / last night, so it’s fresh, but it’s still not the color they are supposed to be from the ducks.

Exciting times!

A cure for hot bunnies

June 26, 2016Jen PowellLeave a comment

We had some really hot days last weekend. My poor rabbits were not enjoying it – it was in the high 80s, low 90s, with high humidity. I was trying to figure out what to do for them, when I remembered – we keep old milk jugs full of water in our chest freezer when we don’t have a lot of stuff in there; it helps to keep the freezer running more efficiently if it’s full. Luckily I had enough frozen milk jugs to put one milk jug in each cage. The rabbits loved it, you could tell within a few minutes that it made them feel better. The babies were scratching at the jugs and licking them, and I noticed Fire had some frost on her mouth after she licked her milk jug. Later that night, when it had cooled off, I pulled the jugs out. I noticed they had chewed them a bit, but not enough to really hurt the rabbits. I did have to replace a few of the milk jugs. I tend to save them for different uses, so we have a lot laying around. This is a nice solution if you have rabbits that are not doing so well with the heat. Here are some pictures of my rabbits with their make-shift air conditioners:

005 — She looks a lot more content here.

002 — Here is Earth/Buddy and his milk jug.

004 — You can see the white baby bunny is kind of climbing the milk jug. The babies really liked the cooling effect.

Somehow I didn’t get any pictures of Fire with her cooler. You could probably use water bottles instead of milk jugs, although some water bottles have such thin plastic I’d be worried the rabbits would chew through it really quickly. The jugs are good because they take all day long (sometimes a couple of days) to thaw.

A walk in the woods

June 15, 2016Jen PowellLeave a comment

My son and I took a walk in our woods, across the street from our house tonight. The leaves are all developed now, and we’ve gotten a lot of rain the last few weeks so it’s very dark and dense in the forest. Here are some cool photos of our walk: