Bells of the North Homestead

Life in Alaska moves infinitely slower than it does where we came from on the East coast but our gardening season is much much faster.  So much so that it stunned me how quickly it ended.  By the middle of September we were getting close to the type of temperatures that would kill the cold loving brassicas so we knew, the time has come to harvest what was left. Gardening here is so much more different than it was in Maryland.  I knew what it was like to grow tomatoes here, I knew that aphids here are tough little monsters when compared to their Maryland cousins, I knew some of the troubles with growing cucumbers and herbs and yet, I learned it again through this year. Tomatoes: This summer was a super wet and cool one which frustrated many of the gardeners and farmers I spoke with.  Locally grown tomatoes were scarcer than hen's teeth and what were found locally grown were ridiculously expensive.  Our plants (9 of them) provided beautiful foliage, they gr...

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...

A weekend not spent camping usually means a productive day or two in the garden.  This weekend we didn't go camping so we managed to tidy up a bit, pull weeds, move some of our squash and cucumber vines around and work in our compost bins a bit. To those who are new to reading here, we do both traditional compost and Vermicompost.  Traditional composting is more or less just moving your kitchen scraps into a large vessel of some sort (we used a recycled cheap plastic trash can with a lid that has holes drilled in through the sides).  Allow the scraps to slowly decompose and within three to six months you have new fertile soil, ready to feed your plants. Vermicomposting is composting but with the help of worms.  We use Red Wigglers because they are more tolerant of warmer temperatures.  During the winter months they will survive, eat, and reproduce but very slowly.  During the summer months as the temperatures rise the worms’ production rises.  I no...

Wow.  It's been such a long time.  We've had so much going on and we've been so busy that it's been hard for me to actually sit down and WRITE! In April we got our pop up camper, something we've wanted for about 10 years.  So that has been keeping us super busy as we've been camping with our pop up now almost every weekend.  Thankfully, however, we're taking a break for this weekend to get some much needed things done around the house.  I must say one thing.  I actually miss writing here because, while you, dear reader, might find it entertaining and educational to read about how things are going in our garden, I miss seeing and reading what we did in the past! It's nice to read and relive my failures and successes. I miss reading back about what we did, what lessons we learned and how the garden grew over the past weeks and months.  Okay, so here I go. Back at it again! This first photo was taken on the 5th of July.  Disreg...

Lately I've been thinking more and more that it would be great to have honey bees in the backyard. Two reasons actually. First and foremost is the honey production.  Next reason however is because they're great pollinators. Now here's the big issue.  I live on a military post.  They govern what I can and cannot do in my yard and house.  So today I approached them with the question.  Can I have a honey bee hive in my backyard. I told them, "Look, I already have wasps a plenty.  I don't want them.  I want honeybees.  They can only benefit the neighborhood as they go from plant to plant pollinating.  They don't tend to sting quickly unless provoked.  Wasps are worse then they are.  And last I have a large garden in my backyard.  Its a garden that's an inspiration to other neighbors. It's a great hang out spot.  People love it".  Oops.  Why did I have to go into so much DETAIL?  I sure hope I didn't just get m...