around the farm

remember the around the farm posts? i’m going to need a spot to put all of the before and during photos of my new digs (yuk yuk). i think most of my readers know i’m head over heels in love with this guy

but i’m not sure how much i’ve said about the land he lives on, and how i’ve fallen in love with that, too. and so the setting for my around the farm posts has changed to that new home where both quinn and i feel our roots reaching steadily into that nice dark rich soil.

quinn is holding his earthworm friend named centipede next to the 850 square foot garden that up until very recently was solid salmonberry. in case you’re worried about the salmonberry, please don’t. it takes over any neglected place, so we have plenty more left and plenty more will undoubtedly spring up again, hopefully not in the middle of the garden after i worked so hard pulling all those roots out!

so this new home… it’s just such a magical place. i can’t hear any cars, unless it’s my honey’s truck coming home from work. i can’t see any city lights, or even any neighbor’s lights. i can see the stars, i can hear the birds and the frogs. the bees have been buzzing for weeks and the hummingbirds are already zooming around the zillions of blooms.

there’s a bunch of abandoned nursery pots and flats sitting around waiting for me to put them to good use in the greenhouse. there’s a sweet man who will walk to the greenhouse from where he’s been busy chainsawing back the brush from the pathways, just to deliver a trillium that was in the path of destruction and needed a safer place to hang out.

there’s  a ready supply of old tools that i can feel free to use until i break, and when i do, a professional welder is on hand to put them back into working order for me. (i did use tools in the plural, because yes more than one shovel has been repaired thus far.)

that was because of all those salmonberry roots. this nice pile of soil used to look like this just a short while ago:

and although last week it looked like this:the rain let up a bit over the weekend, and next week i will document my progress on  the snazzy garden design i’ve got cooking up in my head (and sketching a little bit on paper, too.) re-reading some of toby hemenway’s gaia’s garden, and a few other permaculture and gardening books have rekindled my excitement about ecological design, companion planting, polyculture, and food forests…

speaking of polyculture, our community garden bed is still producing several over-wintered goodies to eat (parsley, beets, oregano, celery, broccolini or brussels sprouts-ilini, if you will- essentially the bolting tops of brussels sprouts, leeks, chives, chard, and several kinds of kale. i am seeing lots of up and coming alliums (garlic, onions, leeks, scallions) looking mighty fine in there. apparently they thrived on the cold and wet winter conditions we experienced.

 

granddaddy leek

granddaddy chioggia beet, practically the size of quinn’s head. it went nicely with our roasted mck ranch chicken and mashed potatoes the other night.

smiling garden gnome

back on the farm, the potted garden of my rental life is starting to congregate (one trunk full of pots at a time) on the sidelines of the newly dug beds, more than ready for their new lives in the real world.

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