Pure Joy
Sitting down to a meal of things that were produced here is a wonderful thing. On Tuesday night we did just that. I finally harvested that lettuce I started in containers a month ago.
We enjoyed it topped with: venison tenderloin produced by Mr Chiots (aka the fearless hunter), eggs from our very own flock, seaweed from Mt Rose Herbs, cheese from a local dairy, and an avocado purchased at the co-op (the small farm I usually order from doesn’t have any yet). We topped it all off with a Meyer lemon vinaigrette, which was made with lemons I bought from Lemon Ladies Orchard and olive oil from Chaffin Family Orchards.
Boy was it delicious, once I get my avocado tree growing and a few dairy sheep I’ll be all set for this meal to be 100% home produced. Actually, I’ll probably never have those things, but I enjoy eating as much as I can from my garden!
Do you have anything you dream of growing for yourself but probably won’t?
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The 5×5 Garden Challenge
After putting in a long day of coding yesterday, Mr Chiots got the 5×5 Challenge website up & running (a big thanks to him). Over there you will find: a forum for questions (if you want to be a regional mentor let me know so I can add you as an admin), badges for your blog/website, and some general info. Of course we also started a facebook page.
This challenge is all about encouraging new gardeners. If you’re new to gardening we hope this challenge encourages and teaches you. If you’re a seasoned gardener we hope you use this challenge to encourage new gardeners and pass along your knowledge or maybe to try something new. Each Wednesday, the 5×5 Challenge update will be posted here on Chiot’s Run. Next week we’ll start at the beginning, getting your plot ready to go. Your homework for this week is to find a spot you think will be perfect for your 5×5 plot. Try to find a nice sunny location away from large trees. If you have a shady garden, you can go with shade tolerant vegetables instead.
If you have no garden area, get 5 large containers to grow in. For those of you who will be container gardening or gardening the ground (these plants will do OK in the ground as well), this week we have a giveaway of the Container Kitchen Garden Collection from Renee’s Garden. Comment below for your chance to win.
Have you ever grown vegetables in containers? Which vegetable were you most successful at growing?
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Seed Starting 101 eBook is HERE!
After much work, it’s nice to announce that the Seed Starting 101 eBook is finally finished. After much debate about putting it out as a regular e-book for a few dollars on Amazon or somewhere else, I decided to offer it as a downloadable PDF for free. A big thanks to those of you who have donated to support our efforts.
Inside the book, there are 20 pages filled with photos and information. I also included my chart on the shelf life of seeds.
If you have any questions or find any mistakes, please let me know. With this format I can easily add things to the book if needed. Hopefully this is early enough for most of you. Feel free to pin this book and share it with others. I’m hoping more and more gardeners will find joy in nurturing their own garden plants from seed.
Have you already started seeds for the 2013 gardening season?
Download the Seed Starting 101 e-book PDF (12.2 MB)
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Cultivate Simple 24: Say No to GMO
This week on Cultivate Simple we talk about random topics and get a little political, sharing our frustrations about living in a society where not many people act on their convictions.
Don’t you love our potting bench/studio?
The Survival Podcast – Defining the Machine Podcast about how government is bought and paid for.
Reader Questions
Daina from FrontYardFoodie: I know you like to buy local and use farmers but where do you get things like dish soap and baking soda, etc?
Soap and other bulk items are often purchased from Mountain Rose Herbs. Their castile soap is particularly good, here’s a post I wrote about it.
The automatic dishwashing detergent from Tropical Traditions is the best you’ll ever find (even over non-green options).
Brian’s Geeky Corner
Angie asked about keeping data on an external hard drive. Brian recommends these hard drives: G-Technology Hard Drives
Sign up for BackBlaze and start backing up today!
Book of the Week
Check out Heidi Egerman Designs– Thanks for the support Heidi!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:56:45 — 80.9MB)
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Quote of the Day: Spring had really come
“Spring had really come.
The south opened like a mouth. It blew one long breath, humid and warm, and flowers quivered inside the seeds, and the round earth began to ripen like fruit.”
Jean Giono (found in Provence: A Country Almanac)
It’s certainly starting to feel like spring outside. Yesterday was warm and sunny, I spent most of the day outside working in the potager. If you remember, I showed you what it looked like last fall.
This spring, it’s finally starting to take shape. Over the winter, I decided to divide the garden into four sections on the diagonal. Since our back door opens up to the corner of the garden, that seemed to make to most sense. When you come out the back door, you’ll be looking straight down the main path of the garden. Yesterday, I started making the pathways and the central feature.
Instead of having the pathways intersect in the middle, I figured a large circle with a garden in the middle would visual interest. Tomato stakes were put in the four corners of the garden with twine strung between them to mark my two main garden paths. To make the circular path and garden, I put a stake where the two main strings intersected, then I used the rope with a stick trick to make the circle.
It actually worked quite well, the circle is as good as it can get. Since there is an abundance of rocks here, I decided a rock border would be a nice way to hold back the soil in the slightly raised circular bed. I’m still on the fence about lining the main walkways with stones as well. The walkways will be covered with wood chips for now, perhaps I’ll use crushed limestone in the future.
I have a lovely trellis that will go in the middle of the circle, I didn’t install it as I’ll need a helping hand. Mr Chiots was busy putting up firewood all day. Instead, I started planting the beds with vegetables. After much deliberation, I settled on rows that followed the central curve.
While I have a hoop house of spinach, fall planted garlic bulbs, and a few overwintering perennials that are hindering the completion of the walkways, it is starting to look nice. The top of the garden dries out faster than the lower portion, so were also a few sections that were still too wet to work in, those will be finished up when things dry out. This view below is the view from the back door, as you can see, dividing the garden on the diagonal was a great idea!
I even had time to plant yesterday. The circle in the middle was planted in: ‘Little Gem’ and ‘Winter Density’ lettuce, along with ‘Scarlet Frill’ Mustard. In one of the triangles I planted two rows of ‘Windsor Broad’ fava beans with a cover crop of ‘Idagold’ mustard interplanted between them. In front of the beans by the walkway there is one row of ‘Green Fortune’ pak choi and ‘Bowles’ Black’ pansy. The small area in front of the low tunnel was planted in ‘French Breakfast’ radishes. (click on variety names for seed source). It certainly feels good to tuck a few more seeds in the ground.
Has spring officially arrived in your garden yet? Or are you lucky like Maybelline to not have any “off seasons” in the garden?
If you’re interested in making your kitchen garden a little more designed & formal, check out these books. They’re full of lovely images and layout plans to help you create a stunning potager:
