I hestitated to say “tater” but it’s in the dictionary.  It is.  It’s there because of aphesis (gradually dropping off of an initial syllable), and likely being too lazy to say “O” so saying “er” instead, and dialect (we don’t say it much in my ‘hood but sometimes).

I had to gear up in overalls, socks and shoes, and a long-sleeve shirt for this.  The potatoes were in a tight space and the mosquitoes are SWARMING.  I mean.  You would have to be here.

Anyway, I think the taters could have grown a little longer but the sweet little roly polys have stripped the foliage until I cannot tell if it’s time to harvest or call the Orkin man.

Nevertheless, I knew this would be fun.  It is SO exciting to gently dig back the soil and see a tater!!

Close by, the honey bees, and other kinds of bees, were busy with the squash blooms.

I think the squash is looking good and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that no bugs get into the squash.  You know, the kind that can take a plant down in one night. 

I ended up with somewhere between 5 and 10 pounds of potatoes.  It’s hard to tell because I don’t have a hanging scale.   There were plenty of tiny potatoes that are going right back into the ground.    I don’t think this is a bad harvest considering these potatoes were started simply from some potatoes that sat too long in the pantry and were cut into pieces and planted.  I definitely could have let them grow longer, however.

Pretty, but this cabbagewormmoth is probably the reason my broccoli leaves have holes in them.  I’ll have to go out and kill any larvae that I see.  The garden is a constant fight.  If you want to eat, that is.

Yet another creature.  You all know how much I love creatures, so I’m hesitant to kill anything or interfere in the whole nature life cycle thing, but like I said, some things you have to battle if you want to eat anything you’ve worked for.  (There’s a big spiritual lesson in that for me today.)

The creature above is so cute.  I think I see eyes.  I don’t know what it is yet, so he lives.  There are probably gardeners all around the globe killing these things even now and saying, “don’t let it go!!”

Today’s harvest — tomorrow’s supper vegetables. 

I have a little more planting to do today:  green beans, spinach, some various salad greens, carrots.  It’s very dry outside.  The rain barrels are low.   I’m hoping for some rain soon. 

Once I get some things planted today, I’ll pick a wild salad and some herbs for an infusion to sip on the rest of the day.  Mmmmm, minerals.

Lynn

We’ve been blessed here with decent soil to start with, but something we’ve done that has been inexpensive free and really good for our garden is to rake up all the leaves from our large maple trees and spread them over the vegetable garden to sit during the winter months.

Come through the garden gate.  I made that gate myself to keep the cats (sort of) and the dogs and bunnies out.  What do you think?  My backyard will never be elegant, I’m afraid, but we’re very content with it and with making improvements slowly, as we can afford.

Pay no mind to the fence-in-shambles behind the garden.  It’ll be replaced some day in the hopefully not-too-distant future.  

The three to four inches of leaves all over the garden form a nice insulating “carpeting” that brings the earthworms to the top.  They work the soil for us and there’s no need for any tilling.  Once the leaves are raked back, I just use a hand trowel or shovel to dig up and work the soil a bit to get each row ready for planting.

Every single shovelful of soil has many earthworm, up to a dozen or more!  It’s really good soil made better by the decaying leaves.

We rake the leaves up into elongated mounds between the planting rows.  It gives us a place to walk between the rows and also provides mulch to use around the plants as the seasons pass and the weather gets hotter and hotter. 

In addition to the leaves, we add homemade compost to the soil and work it in throughout the planting months.  Our “compost pile” may be different from that of others.  I’ll post about it some time soon.

Oh, one more thing.  Hubby has marked off the area for my little shed!  It’s a potting shed-type building.  It will be everything from a room to let my chickens run around in from time to time as a treat, to a place to pot up and overwinter plants, to a hiding place for Princess of the Universe and me to observe nature.

Lynn

I officially have the homesteading bug.  (I’ve added a homesteading category to my blog.)  Well, you all know I’ve had a mild case of homesteading fever for awhile.  I mean, anyone who eats the weeds in her yard and drinks dandelion “tea.”   Enough said.

Anyway, Mother Earth News has put out a great April/May issue.  There’s info about chicken tractors, easing into self-sufficiency, building an arch steel home for less than 35,000 dollars, making better soil and so much more that I’ve pored over in the last few days.

It makes me feel really good about this little corner of unused ground, currently holding lettuce, broccoli, and radish seeds, but  mostly lettuce.  A water barrel sits nearby, watering can at the ready.

I’ve eased a few steps deeper into the sparkling waters of homesteading over the last year.  The prospect of homesteading might not seem appropriate to some when one lives “in town,” but I think my nearly-100-year-old house needs chickens to look right.  Will anyone even notice?

A few baby steps taken.  I’ve:

• paid more attention to really mulching and “feeding” the vegetable garden
• invested in two water barrels
• gotten more serious about growing more food on our little lot
• decided to build a chicken tractor and get some chickens

The next project?  Clearing the weeds across the walk from the newly established “lettuce bed” and putting in more edible plants.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

How are you easing into homesteading?  Or are you fully there?

Happy Homesteading,

Lynn

PS:  To answer your questions. 

Chicken Tractors:  A chicken tractor is a portable chicken coop that can be moved around the yard to give the chickens fresh ground.  I have seen all sorts of plans since a homeschooling friend first told me about chicken tractors.  Here’s a link to a very simple, plain one at Urban Chickens.  You can just go to Google, however, and search for chicken tractors and get all sorts of ideas.

Thomas has found a design that he would like to build for me.  It’s on this really cool page of tons of pictures of chicken tractors.  The city chicken.

Rain Barrels:  The rain barrels came from out local Whole Foods store.  I think they are made fairly locally, but I’m not sure exactly where.