Sunday, May 8, 2016

The garden in May - and happy Mother's Day!!!

It's insane.  My roses are blooming, and that's one month early!  Mind you, I'm not complaining.  When I walk out to the goat shed to milk, I love to stick my nose into a rose that's just unfurling her petals as I pass.  It makes milking so much sweeter!

Lots of other stuff is blooming as well.  Columbines, Californian poppies, dandelions (cough, cough), sweet geraniums, bugleweed, Rhodies, and bleeding heart.



Today, I would love to give you a little tour of my garden to show you what's happening.  Come walk with me.  Let's pass the goat shed first.  

Oh, and let's say hi to the ducks on the way!  They come waddling and quacking as soon as they see me.  It feels so nice to be loved!





Okay, here we are.  This is Yours Truly, weeding the garlic, which has been overtaken by self-seeding poppies.   

My little Eva loves helping me and is my shadow in the garden, volunteering her services.  I give her a spading fork, and she goes to "work", usually dressed in pink or flowing accessories.

She also loves to plant seeds, although I have to supervise this activity, since I don't want our winter squash to grow all in one spot versus nicely spread out.






Next, let's check out the beautiful lettuce, cilantro and asparagus.  Can you guess what's for dinner tonight?




Little carrots and beets are sticking their heads out of the soil.  The now weeded garlic looks happy as well.




I discovered a whole bed of volunteer potatoes, and since they look so happy, I shall let them grow in peace instead of yanking them up.  My boys love potatoes and would eat hashbrowns every single day if I let them.  So: grow, taters, grow!

I also let volunteer flowers flourish, since they attract pollinators and are easy on the eyes!




I love how involved the kids are with growing our own food.  They work hard helping with planting, weeding, watering and harvesting.  It makes them tired and their hands dirty, and that's how we like 'em!



I will leave you with an image of my kitchen the other day, where I made the first Greek Yogurt of the season.  There's nothing like homemade yogurt, and it's so much easier than you think!

PS: If you want to learn from me, I teach a self-paced, fun online course on how to make Greek Yogurt, Chevre, Gouda and Cabra Al Vino.  Click here to check it out!


5 comments:

  1. Happy Mother's Day to you, too! When I was a kid I followed my dad out to his gigantic garden and helped him. I followed my mother around to her flower beds and helped her. I think that's why I love gardening to this day. Hey, what kind of wood are your broadfork handles made out of? Must be something hard. My BF going to be all welded steel since our soil is still pretty compacted.

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    1. That's what I'm hoping to do with the kids: influence them, so will love gardening, too.
      The broadfork handles are made with vine maple and cascara. I broke it when I dug the garden one day, filming a little movie on how to use a broadfork. Ahem. It broke during filming, which was kind of funny. Steve replaced them.
      In case you haven't seen it yet, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_crd4xGUio

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    2. Oh My God that is so funny! You are too cute..... You know again, this is why you are my favorite blogger. You leave the imperfections in. For example right now my better half and I are trying to learn how to skip coat walls that have texture. Our new place is like living in a scrubbie pad with texture right left up and down. So we go on the internet and find all these guys making it seem like skip coating is a piece of cake. NOT! If they would only mention a few warnings we would be better prepared. I might have to make a video of the problems one might encounter when mudding a wall. It would be like your admonition not to leave tools out in the weather. Love, Renee

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    3. Wow! I'm even more favorite than Ben, eh? That would be an incredible compliment, that!
      By the way: mudding walls is HARD!!!!! Good for you for doing it yourselves!
      Love back!

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    4. Well, you're welcome. You deserve it. (We finally found a tool that makes it easier. But not easy. It's called The Magic Trowel and it actually performs as advertised.

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