NO FAIL POTATOES

With my one year of gardening experience, I've come up with this no-fail method. I'm serious...if you want to grow the tastiest taters then you must follow my instructions...to the letter! Okay, ready?

First, you start with a plot of land that hasn't grown anything but weeds and small trees for 90 years.

It's important that you plant during full bug season....wearing the latest in gardening couture.

Have it snow as soon as everything is in the ground.

Now don't skip this step....don't, whatever you do, finish putting up the fence. You need the local bears, deer and moose to tromp all over your freshly planted garden. Very important!


Check on your garden at least 3 times over the growing season.

Complain about the bloody weeds and small trees invading the garden.

Swear you'll NEVER attempt to garden again.

Don't fertilize.

Water it twice. This is crucial.

Wait 3 1/2 months.

And voila....dig up 35 pounds of the little beggars....all the while dreaming about next year's crop.

Proclaim to your husband, that you are the greatest farmer ever!!!

Add some olive oil, kosher salt and garlic - bake at 400 for 30 minutes.

Serve with a side of peameal bacon. Yes, the taters are the main component to the meal when they smell and taste this good!!!!!!!!


If you follow my method...you too can be a farmer! hahahaha

ALL IS NOT LOST...

Have you ever lost your way? I mean, have you ever planned for something...spent endless hours researching and making calculations, purchasing the right resources, working the plan to the best of your abilities...while others sat back and watched you or maybe worse, scoffed at your plans and hard work?! Then to have it all blow up in your face! You start to question your plan...and worse...you start to question yourself and everything you believe in! You just lose your way....

Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore and Prozac was looking reeeeal good, we headed up to the cabin for an extra long weekend. I got a surprise!! My garden - my source of embarrassment - had survivors in amongst the knee high grass and dogbane that had taken over. I couldn't believe it!! After a few hours of tilling and weeding, we now have.....

POTATOES - lots and lots of tasty little potatoes:

ASPARAGUS - 64 pencil thin ferns:

RASPBERRIES - 6 plants that even had tiny fruit on them:

BLUEBERRIES - 2 healthy plants

TOMATOES - small plants but they are flowering:

.....and no need for that Prozac prescription.

ALL IS NOT LOST!

GLOBAL WARMING AND GARDENING

FRIDAY: Temperature - pretty warm. My shipment of 225 strawberry plants are D.O.A. Just a slimy and/or blue mold mess. Fence is still not complete. It's a beautiful day nonetheless.

Path leading down to my garden:

SATURDAY: Temperature - a tad cooler but nice for planting 9 raspberry plants, 6 blueberry plants, 72 asparagus crowns, 1 rhubarb and 28 hills of potatoes. Bugs - well let's say I could hardly see out the mesh of my bug hat! Fence is still not complete. It's a beautiful day nonetheless.

Mama planting the garden:

SUNDAY: Temperature - cold enough to snow! I now have the entire garden on life support! Fence is still not complete. It's a frustrating day - we went home...

Big Daddy working on the corner posts:

Snow falling on May 31:

BLACK FLIES AND BLACK EYES

We had 10 days to complete 3 major projects - oh I can hear your snickers already...

1) New steel roof on the cabin

2) New 10 x 19 shed was to be built

3) Garden was to be fenced and planted

Like I've said - double the budget and triple the time allowed! Hooboy! My garden....posts are in and my 225 strawberry plants are on life support! I did manage to get 12 tomato plants, 6 basil plants and 6 pepper plants in the ground though. The shed project....well....I'll leave that for another post!

Big Daddy and Papa Bob finished the steel roof during the worst bout of black flies I have ever seen! The bugs were freakin horrendous and the men were real troopers!!!

The men got a counter/sink working for me and put up a couple of cupboards. Hey Penny, don't get excited - still no running water - my sink drains into a bucket! lol

They also got my well working - oh joy!!!!


They tore out the old stairs (a.k.a. death ladder). You can see the angle it was on. They moved the door to the bathroom. Then made some new steps with a landing. My freebie buckets store perfectly under it! hehe Good job fellas!

The girls went riding - bringing buckets of sand up to the cabin.

.....so I could make a safe fire pit.


The inside of the cabin is coming along.....

This is what happens to yah....when you tell me the garden fence won't be finished. LOL

LOADED UP THE TRUCK...

....and they moved to Beverley....Hills that is! lol Well not quite. Big Daddy and I hauled our stuff up north on Friday in a rented cube van. Fence posts, wire, shop equipment, shed kit, and furniture all made its way to the farm. I love it! Oh and did I mention that the black flies were finally out. They were still stupid though and didn't know that they were supposed to bite.

Saturday we drove up again and got to work....Big Daddy moved all the posts down to the field and got the shed kit in place - all 1000 lbs and 1000 pieces....while I worked my field once again! And it poured down! We were both soaked to the skin!

Sunday it snowed! I kid you not! Did a number on the black flies too! Gotta love that!

Loading the truck:

Big Daddy moving all the posts down to my garden:


Just taking a break:

I'm almost done. My garden measures 160 x 120:

Rock wall that we found:

It's 4' high, 8' wide and 350' long:

WEEKEND IN PICTURES

Future pond - the water is just bursting out of the ground here:


Fresh paint and little girls - not a good combo:



Not a very flattering picture of Mama lol but...that's my new toy:


Now who's been down to the garlic field? A fair sized bear!

Wild rhubarb?

SEEDS ARE HERE!!!

Oh look what came in the mail last night! I'm doing the happy dance! lol



And since today it's snowing like stink, I'm going to keep curled up with my little one and a very hot cup of coffee while I read about my seeds.



Come on spring...

GARDEN PLANS

We finalized our seed order the first week of January and some of it should be arriving in the next week. I really thought it would be easy. Flip a few pages, pick some neat things and be done....man it was tough. Finding plants that will thrive or even survive in our zone, choosing from early, mid to late harvest, hybrid versus heirloom, etc. I am sooooo excited to be planting our test garden this year at the cabin. It still amazes me to put a tiny seed in the ground and have plants and food come from it! I am in awe of the process!

We ordered the following from Vesey's:
Asparagus - Guelph Millenium - 72 roots It takes at least 2 years to get a crop, so we're getting a jumpstart.
Yellow beans - Gold Rush, Gold Mine, Indy Gold
Beets - Detroit Dark Red Supreme. I made pickled beets this past year for the first time and will definitely do up a whopper of a batch this fall.
Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, Cauliflower, Celery - I originally had them on the list, but we decided to put more energy and money into berry plants.
Carrots - Napoli, Resistafly
Corn - Spring Treat, Applause, Honey Select. This package had different qualities and harvest times.
Cucumbers - Calypso Pickling. We'll try our own pickles this year too.
Garlic - Spring Garlic Sets and Fall Garlic Sets
Leeks - Giant Musselburgh Heirloom
Lettuce - Baby Leaf, Sangria, Paris Island
Onions (green) - Parade
Onions - Red Beauty
Peas - Lincoln Heirloom
Peas - Dakota, Dual, Wando. Lots and lots of peas...
Potatoes - Norland (red) and Yukon Gold. Our soil is soooo set up for growing potatoes.
Radishes - French Breakfast Heirloom. These were a funny shape.
Spinach - Tortoiseshell

For the tomatoes and peppers, I opted for starter plants that will be shipped here in the spring:
Tomatoes - Applause - 6 plants
Tomatoes - Red Alert (cherry size) - 3 plants
Tomatoes - Window Box Roma (dwarf plants) - 3 plants
Peppers - Carmen, Fat n Sassy - total of 6 plants

Since berries take a long time to fruit, we ordered up a bunch to get a headstart:
Strawberries - Veestar - 50 plants
Strawberries - Cabot - 50 plants
Strawberries - Seascape - 50 plants
Strawberries - Kent - 75 plants

Raspberries - Boyne - 9 plants

Blueberries - Blueray, Bluecrop - total of 6 plants
Blueberries - Chippewa - 1 plant

Rhubarb - Crimson Cherry - 1 plant Must have a strawberry/rhubarb pie.

I don't know enough about herbs. I can see us studying them in detail...but just not yet. So I ordered what I do know and use a lot of:
Chives
Basil
Parsley

We also ordered flowers for the garden. I don't know if it's really true, but Marigolds - the French type - are supposed to repel bad critters. Order 1000, I said:
Yellow Boy French Marigold
Early Russian Heirloom Sunflowers - just because they're so beautiful

We already have 6 ancient apple trees on the farm but we thought we'd get a few more fruit trees to round them out. We found a guy near Sudbury (Ron Lewis) who specializes in really hardy fruit trees. They come in from Manitoba and Saskatchewan - yup should be hardy! lol Since he doesn't know what will be available until the spring, I can't give you the names of the trees just yet. But, we will order:
Apple trees - 6
Pear trees - 4
Cherry - 2
Cherry Plum - 2

I think it will be a good start...a real learning curve for sure!