Bells of the North Homestead

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...

You know, I was talking to my husband about this recently. When I was a child we always used to plant things when Dad was home from the ship. Not much. A rather simple summer garden in Southern Maryland. It was always when he was home though, never when he was out to sea. The garden we did have when he was gone consisted of the most lovely Peonies. I remember Mom didn't really like having the air conditioning on a whole lot as it was so expensive so early summer mornings I would get to smell those first thing. That wonderful honey smell drifting through the house. I remember Mom had bright Pink and a reddish Magenta one. I think there was one more but I cannot recall. When Dad wasn't around and Mom was at work my brother and I went to our next door neighbor (actually across the street) as our babysitter lived over there. She brought us over there quite often as we were very content with helping her pick tomatoes, green beans, corn all with the cicadas serenading us. That g...

Last summer I meant to write about this but then I got caught up in all the hoopla from Hurricane Irene, the rush to get even more canning done, the busy schedule at work and home and all and well. I just never got to it. I'm sure many have heard about BPA which is short for Bisphenol A. Wikipedia has this to say on it. "BPA is controversial because it exerts weak, but detectable, hormone-like properties, raising concerns about its presence in consumer products and foods contained in such products. Starting in 2008, several governments questioned its safety, prompting some retailers to withdraw polycarbonate products. A 2010 report from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) raised further concerns regarding exposure of fetuses, infants, and young children.In September 2010, Canada became the first country to declare BPA a toxic substance. In the European Union and Canada, BPA use is banned in baby bottles." Over the years my husband and I both have gr...

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 ...

Yes, we are preparing for Autumn. Even though to us these temperatures make us hardly wince.  To Sourdoughs from Alaska, 60 degree temperatures mean either late spring, early summer or early Autumn.  Still we try to follow the calendar for this area as it seems so do our plants.  I guess they know better than us that it's time to quit, no matter how hot it still feels to us. Our tomatoes have almost completely thrown in the towel.  They know they're done.  They're just begging to be taken away.  Still though, we've left them to allow those few green tomatoes to ripen naturally.  Later those will turn into our Ketchup for this year along with others we've picked and frozen.  Within the next two weeks Fava Beans and Rye will be planted in our tomato bed and our eggplant and bell pepper bed.  This will help with the nitrogen levels and of course add more organic material back into the soil. On the other hand our winter garden is just gett...

It's been about a month since we received our packages of shitake and oyster mushrooms.  So far the oyster mushrooms have been producing about a half a pound every other week.  Sadly, the shitake has produced ....nada. That's right. Zip. Zero. NOTHING. Oddly enough in the past I have found Shitakes to be the EASIEST to grow but once again I am learning that now that I've moved to a different locale, I have to learn new ways to grow plants that I was once an expert at. In the beginning, when we first received our package I think our mistake was not to shock the shitake block in the fridge and then submerge in water.  We just set them up hurriedly and told them verbally "Okay, time to grow guys" Ha ha. Yeah, like that has ever worked for ANY plant! Since then we shocked our shitake block once, submerged once and still NADA. Okay. Back to square one. Tomorrow we will be doing a repeat of everything we have already done and on top of that scouring our guide to gr...