Saturday, March 30, 2013

March Update

I've decided to do a monthly update in addition to our regular posts. It's almost impossible to tell you everything that we have going on here... but I'm going to try anyway.

First, some very exciting news. Our potato experiment appears to be working !


There is also a number of sprouts coming out of the side of the cage as we hoped. It's very exciting. It took 16 days from planting our potato cuts to seeing growth breaking through to bask in the sun. We are very proud of our tiny tubers. 

Generally all around the garden we are seeing a lot of progress. Little green folks popping up all over the place. 

Look at all our little green friends !

We also picked and ate our first radish. 

The peas are starting to grab their trellis. 

Strawberries are doing great in their gutter.

This poppy should be in full bloom any minute now. 

And just for fun here is a list of everything we are growing.

  1. Radish
  2. Red Stalked Celery
  3. Purple Broccoli
  4. Carrot
  5. Parsnip
  6. Rainbow Chard
  7. Chioggia Beets
  8. Golden Beets
  9. Sugar Snaps
  10. Shell Peas
  11. Basil
  12. Chive
  13. Tulsy Basil
  14. Chamomile
  15. Oregano
  16. Cat Nip
  17. Mint
  18. Butter Lettuce
  19. Spinach
  20. Oak Heart Lettuce
  21. Arugula
  22. Bok Choy
  23. Daikon
  24. Russet Potato
  25. Butter Potato
  26. Red Potato
  27. Red Cabbage
It's been a fun,exciting and challenging month at The Littlest Farm with so much more to come in April.







Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Attracting birds and bugs.

Some parts of gardening can be unintentionally rewarding. Here at the +The Littlest Farm we are finding that our garden is turning us into amateur birders. It has motivated us to make space in our garden for birds, bugs and all sorts of needed critters.

Some of you might remember my Insect Hotel from a few months ago.



We have also placed multiple bird feeders and a bath



Today my lovely wife designed and built something for the more adventurous birds ( and likely squirrels ).

It is another adventure in re-purposing.

Using two old wire coat hangers ( hook portion cut off ) Meg took needle nose pliers and bent
them into a selection of shapes.





Add a couple apples on the ends...


... and you have a lovely decoration for the garden that feeds a bunch of critters. 


Saturday, March 23, 2013

Side Project : Broken Pot Garden


Sometimes, when you are just waiting for your plants to grow or having a hard time deciding what chicken breed you take on a weird project. This is a weird project.

Inspired by my clumsiness and our determination to let nothing go to waste we but together a little art project for the garden.




There was no hoping super glue would help here. Something else needed to be done to keep this from heading to the landfill.

A little creative hammer work

A delicate idea


Place the stairs


Some ground cover



An awesome world where dinosaurs hunt sheep. 

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Pictures !

Sorry... no time to write this week..
Here is a ton of pics instead !!!















Thursday, March 14, 2013

The Great Potato Experiment

Over the winter as we planned our garden we often modified our ideas through several versions until we agreed on the best way to build or layout whatever was on the docket that day. Nothing was more debated or went through more evolution than our potato plan.

We love potatoes and eat them all the time so obviously we wanted them in the garden but there are so any different growing mediums out there that we couldn't decide which one was for us.

Since our first priority in all projects is to re-purpose and reuse otherwise useless materials our initial inclination was to use old car tires stacked to contain our spuds.


We read about this idea in a great book The Urban Homestead. This book is full of great tips and ideas but ultimately we didn't choose this method because of fears of what might leech from the tires into our soil. This fear might not be completely founded but regardless was a concern for us. 

The second idea that we considered was to just put them in their own raised bed and grow them one plant at a time. An idea that obviously as worked just fine for a few million years but that doesn't mean it is good enough for us. 


The trouble with this age old method of tater production is that it just didn't seem efficient enough to us. We love the idea of the tires and stacking up plant on top of plant and really wanted that increased yield without the side effects. 

And that is when my wife had a brilliant idea. 

The TUBER CAGE!!


The plan was to take a six foot long section of hardware cloth or welded wire that was three feet tall, pull it into a circle three feet in diameter ( had to use pi to figure that one out , Happy Pi day! ) and fill it with layer after layer of potatoes and that is what we did. 
Check out the pics of the process and we will keep posted as to their progress. 

The spudded potatoes

The hope is the plants will grow out the side toward the sun

Cross your fingers. 


Click HERE for an update on our experiment.