Quick update...

We took today off from work and got started building our new shed (aka goat & chicken barn!!)
2 walls up ... lots more to do tomorrow! The floor, and making the whole thing level on our rocky hill, took most of the day!



I also worked on my new shady perennial garden.
The weather was beautiful: sunny and 70 degrees ... it's about time! Here's a pic from today of the seedlings, planted last month:

My sister is taking my daughter to a plant swap tomorrow. Here are some plants we dug up for her to bring: chives, lemon balm, strawberries, rose campion, batchelor button, daylily:

Happy Spring!

(flower photos by Tori)
It's time to start blogging about gardening again!
I can't wait to get my garden planted this year! I did start some seeds indoors last month, cucumbers, summer squash and mini-pumpkins, along with a few bean seeds, back when we were trying our hand at making Maple Syrup!

We have been busy working on building and preparing a new shade perennial garden and also on preparing to welcome new animals to our home/garden! Since the last time I posted we welcomed 2 rabbits to our familiy, Merlin (an American Chinchilla buck) and Ace (a black Velveteen Lop buck).

This spring we are looking forward to the arrival of our 6 baby chicks and 2 Nigerian Dwarf goat kids! Lots of updates and pictures coming soon!!
Here's a picture of Tori holding "Angus" and here is "Malcolm" where they currently reside at The Sisters Three Farm. We hope to be bringing them home at the end of May or early June!

Back from vacation ...

We were in Maine last week, and before we left there was no sign of squash ... when we returned on Saturday, the summer squash were finally growing!! Here's a little one, right next to the first cucumber we picked!

And tons of beans!!


The 'bean tree' is growing wild!!


More pics soon ...

New pictures!

These were taken today around 7pm ...

red cabbage, surrounded by marigolds:


Baby green Tomatoes!!!


Cayenne peppers ...


Bean Pole Teepee ...

from both directions!



In Tori's Garden: assorted greens ... mesculin mix, lettuce, spinach, radishes, parsley, lemon balm ... along with red cabbage and sunflowers ...


In the 3 Sisters Garden ...

Summer Squash, Corn, Beans (2 kinds) ...

... cucumbers, sunflowers, tomatoes, radishes ....


Cucumber flowers ....


Squash flowers ...


... and Fairies?!

More flowers ...

Remember my other posting where I asked if anyone knew what this was?? Well, Leslie DID know, and told me it's called Mullein .... here's another pic:


She also identified St John's Wort for me, as we have it growing wild in the yard. I'll need to add a picture here soon!

some daylilies:


Another pretty wildflower which needs an ID!

updates ...

I haven't had time to post much lately, so I just wanted to post a couple of pics here
to show the progress of our Three Sisters Garden
since it was planted on June 1st, and since the last update on June 14th.

Also, here's a picture of the Bean Pole Teepee, taken this weekend.

You can see the difference between the plants growing in the pot in the middle, which is filled with rich garden soil, as opposed to the plants growing in the vermiculite-compost-peat moss mix, recommended in The Square Foot Gardening method. Both raised beds filled with this mixture have been doing very poorly, and I ended up digging them up this weekend and mixing in the same Garden Soil I used for the Three Sisters Garden. I transplanted the tomato plants and they already seem to be doing better .... more updates and pics next weekend!

another literary reference ... to beans!

Just wanted to pass this along: a friend sent this excerpt to me, knowing how excited I am about my garden! (Thanks Dacia!)

"The garden was growing now. In tiny rows of different greens, the radishes, lettuce, onions, were up. The first crumpled leaves of peas were pushing upward. The young tomatoes stood on thin stems, spreading out their first lacy foliage.

. . .

All one hot morning, the beans were popping out of the ground. Grace discovered them and came shrieking with excitement to tell Ma. All that morning she could not be coaxed away from watching them. Up from the bare earth, bean after bean was popping, its stem uncoiling like a steel spring, and up in the sunshine the halves of the split bean still clutched two pale twin-leaves. Every time a bean popped up, Grace squealed again."

"Springtime on the Claim" ~ Pages 15-16
from Little Town on the Prairie
by Laura Ingalls Wilder