Bells of the North Homestead

This weekend I decided to bite the bullet and tear out our lovely, beautiful lone tomatillo plant.  If you remember right I posted earlier that I made the rookie mistake of only planting one tomatillo plant.  You know, the old saying, it takes two to tango? Well that applies here. Tomatillo plants are self infertile which means they need two plants to produce fruit.  Since I only planted one plant the tomatillo was going to do nothing else in my garden but draw bees (good thing), take up room (bad thing) and bring shade to my pepper plants (also bad thing).  So, it's gone.  In it's place I planted some Cumin seeds that I hope will come up soon.  Edward and I love cooking with Cumin so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  This will be a new spice for me to grow. I also have one other spice that I will be trying soon but a blog will be following shortly on that to cover that one. So onto the state of the garden.  First we had a...

First let me say, I'm so relieved that I didn't post more about our DIY greenhouse.  It survived until about mid January when we had a snow/ice storm that caved in the top somewhat.  The windstorm we had in February just finished the job on it. We did get a few fresh onions, some fresh greens, our leeks are just about ready to be pulled and made into soup or what not but we didn't get as much as we were hoping to get. I think a bit more of a significant investment will be needed.  As it stands it looks like this might be the last year we put a lot of effort into our garden because we might be moving to another house here on the same military post.  After that move we'll only have another year and a few months before my husband will be retiring, gratefully, after 20 years in the service. At that point we move North to the Future.  To any that don't know what that refers to, that's Alaska.  We'll  be moving most likely to Fairbanks as that's where we ...

It's now been, what? Almost a month and maybe even a week since I've written.  I kept having the best intentions to write and then.....something always got in my way. First I injured my left foot while walking through the garden, next, was my laptop which decided right now was a perfect time for an epic fail.  Then next hubby having yet another TDY, while my son and I were sick. Nice, real nice. Hell, as it stands right now we're in the middle of a Severe Thunderstorm Warning and watch (thank God it's not a T---ado watch or warning!).  Thunder is rumbling outside and the sky is lighting up as if someone has thrown fireworks up into the clouds. So with all that happening I still rush to hurry and write. My God, where do I start? First, we had a few successes.  Our battle with the slugs is going well, thanks to about 4 beer traps we set weekly. My hope is that when I put in our second seeding of mesclun, arugula, romaine, and other mixed greens the slugs will be ...

This past winter we discovered compost tea.  I have to admit, when I first heard of it my very first thought was "OOOHH GROSS!"  After a bit of research though and hearing lots of good things about it, I decided to give it a try.  So I went to Youtube like I almost always do to scout out people who are familiar with it.  I was lucky enough to almost immediately find this video from Ray at Youtube. So starting February we purchased a bucket from Lowes and kept any vegetable or fruit scraps and threw it in there.  We actually kept it inside for a bit but it started to stink come March so we brought it outside.  It takes a bit longer for the compost to actually breakdown in the cooler temperatures but we figured that would just be the price we would have to pay for an UNstinky house!  Little did I know at the time that the extreme smell was due in part to too much nitrogen remains and not enough carbon. Here is a list of high carbon items that can be com...