COLD

so...what do you do when it is only 18 degrees out and the sun is shining beautifully and you want to garden???  I'm thinking up things to cook and reading other gardening blogs!  I think I'm going to make sweet potato baked donuts with cinnamon sugar for breakfast tomorrow and I've been following all fo the craziness that has been going on with the copywrite of  urban homesteading.  I'm also considering pruning a fruit tree or two but I don't think I'll survive the cold whether or not they will...

I've started reading a permaculture design book...all very sensible and good info but it just makes me think "really?!? does it have to be this complicated?!"  Don't get me wrong, everything it says makes sense and the so far it is essentially how I already garden but it wants you to design and plan every single thing that ever goes into your garden!  Where's the room for spontenaity and trying new things? What about the random plant that you just plop in to an available spot to see what happens?  It seems to me that all of that planning takes a bit of the fun out.  I suppose from a large scale commercial point of view it is fairly radical thinking though...hmm...  More thought will be given on the subject at a later date, I have only read 15 pages after all...

pictures!...or not

I finally took pictures!  There was sunshine and warmth and wonderful all day Sunday...then we discovered the camera cord has gone missing, none of can remember where it got packed and we thought the office had gotten unpacked....*sigh* it's just not working to get pictures of the new garden!

Anyways...back to sunshine and gardening fun...the chickens had a fabulous time sunbathing and wandering through the garden while I cut back dead flower stocks and pulled the dead annuals from last years garden...Jen built one of the two compost bins and we set that up by the vegetable garden.  I scooped up chicken manure-y straw from the chicken run and spread it out over the blueberry garden, then sheet mulched over top of that.  I'm so excited to finally get that project done, I hope the blueberries like all of the extra nitrogen fertilizer :)

We also "dug up" a Sambucus nigra (love these plants!) that had outgrown its pot.. and moved it over behind the chicken run..it should be so beautiful this summer!  It had outgrown the pot so much that the bottom of the pot was completely gone and I had to (um...got to!) break the pot apart with a sledge hammer..that was actually pretty fun. 

Jarett (the NGP!) removed another 4' of ivy from the rock wall and Jen cut down a bit of the shore pine we wanted to get rid of. 

All in all it was a fantastic work day and someday I will post pictures!  Don't worry, there are lots of pictures...they are just stuck on the camera....

I've been reading a new gardening book that focuses on planning for production from a kitcheny-cooking point of view (which does only make sense when you think about it).  It's inpired me to start thinking about this years garden and I want to get started on spring gardening!  I also really want to do some winter gardening this year. 

The book is Homegrown by Marta Teegen - I think my favorite part is the garden layouts designed per person eating and the recipes in the back.  I love learning new things to do with all of that produce!  I probably won't plant by her designs entirely but it was good to get an idea of how much to plant which is something we didn't quite work out last year.  Another thing that I liked is how she rally focuses on soil health as the best way to guarantee a  good crop and one thing Jen & I are good at is making good dirt! 

right now I'm thinking of growing:

garlic
sweet onions
leeks
bell peppers
broccoli rabe
kale
brussel sprouts
purple cabbage
zucchini
cucumbers-pickling & regular
spaghetti squash
green beans
purple potatoes
fingerling potatoes
yams
cherry tomatoes
large sauce tomato
sugar snap peas
shelling peas
thyme
oregano
basil
thai basil
dill
nastursiums
calendula
violas
lavender
rosemary

All of this in addition to the fruit - blueberries, raspberries, concord grapes, green table grapes, peaches, yellow plums, pears and apples!

I'm sure there will be more added later, and that Jen will add stuff but this is the begining of a list in progress.  I may grow some salad greens but I've never had good luck with those in the past so I don't know if I'll bother.  If I do it may be in pots on the back porch (which is just off the kitchen).

 I want to get started on cleaning up the raised beds and getting them ready for some planting!  I will hopefully have time this weekend, I'd like to pull out last years plants that are left over, remove the weed cover (left by the old owner) and inspect the soaker hoses (left by the old owner) and add some of our awesome compost we brought from the old house.  I'm hoping that the hoses have overwintered in good condition and can be used - if so the entire garden will be irrigated!  That will be really nice.

Another thing I need to do is get the pear and apple tree pruned to see if that will help with fruit production this coming year - they are just so awfully pruned right now that I'm not sure what to do with them.

All the sunshine today has me antsy to get started but I remember that it's winter when I walk outside--brr!  A good time to get started on planning.

I can hardly wait to get some photos of the garden, pretty soon it will be light out when I come home from work and I won't have to wait for the weekend. 

I planted my 6 blueberry bushes I brought from our old house...so exciting to get that done, I'm going to spread some of the used chicken straw over that area for some quick nitrogen fertilizer and sheet mulch over top - the blueberries should really love that.

Jen's fancy chickens are ordered and my ducks will be ordered toward the middle of this month...I'm super excited!