Fighting Pine Bedding Today

Today's excitement was anything but enjoyable. For years we have been using spent bedding from our rabbits. We usually use rye straw over newspaper for bedding but last year we added pine bedding. This seems to be a major hindrance in the garden.

If you go back and look at the video of how beautiful the first bed turned over this year you will see what I am accustomed to working with. Spent rye straw and rabbit manure compost very quickly into beautiful, spungy garden soil, teaming with worms and is just generally a blessing to work with. We also usually use grass clippings as mulch to keep the weeds down and by the end of the season, the grass has composted down as well.

Last year we started using pine bedding under the rye straw to soak up urine in the rabbit cages. We use solid flooring in our hutches and we don't want our bunnies to be walking on wet bedding. Also the pine bedding was good because it cut down on mites and worked as a much cooler bedding than the straw. Straw is great in winter and we did use it over the shavings. Our bunnies love to burrow in the straw as well as dig around, searching for the rye seeds.

Weekly cleaning of these hutches results in a great deal of spent bedding that we historically use to fill the garden beds. That tradition continued over this past winter and early spring. Unfortunately, we didn't count on how long it would take for the pine bedding to compost down or exactly how much would accumulate. Apparently the rabbit manure and straw compost away leaving my bed half full of slightly composted pine shavings. Not what I was counting on at all.

Pine bedding is terribly hard, next to impossible to shovel. Even raking it didn't do a lot of good. After a great deal of time wasted in trying to turn my bed, I opted to just weed around the edges and use some soil from an old compost area. The 2' by 8' bed had to be amended with two wheelbarrow fulls of soil.

Old Compost Pile

I was finally able to plant lettuce, spinach, and carrot seeds. I also used the rest of the Walking Onions that I harvested earlier in the week. They were pretty sad looking so I trimmed the roots and stems before using them as a dividing row of sorts.

We will probably have to make an order of mushroom soil for my other beds. I'm not really happy about that.

May all your endeavors be profitable,
Jess

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Planting Blueberry Bushes and Walking Onions

I was able to pick up some blueberry plants from our local garden center. They have such nice plants. However, I think these plants were leftovers from last year. They aren't looking as hot as the other, newer varieties that they just got in stock. Also, there were only 3 plants, in the varieties that I wanted, available. Last year the entire section was full of them.

I was able to pick up Top Hat. It's a low bush variety that does really well here in the north. It only grows to 1-2 feet tall and wide. The fruit are supposed to have a tart, wild flavor that mature mid season. They need full sun and lots of water in well draining soil. Hopefully I have provided all of that and am greatly anticipating the harvest.

The second plant that I got was Patriot. It's a high bush variety. It's supposed to have large berries that ripen in June. The bush is supposed to grow from 3-5 feet with red and orange leaves in the fall. It's also supposed to do very well here and is resistant to root rot. Sounds great to me.

Planting was easy once I collected compost from an old compost area and filled in the bed. I like to double dig my beds to get really good, loose soil. The plants didn't seem to be root bound at all so just a little "tickling" of the roots before planting was all that I felt was necessary. The garden center gave me a very nice paper on the importance of watering so I followed their instructions and made a trench around the plants and watered them in well. I went back a few hours later and watered again.

After the blueberries were in I started on adding Walking Onions around the outside of the raised bed. I add them to every bed in my kitchen garden. These plants can stand a lot of hardship. When I processed them yesterday I found a lot that were too small and put them aside to replant. I still have some left so they will be planted tomorrow in a different bed.

May all your endeavors be profitable,
Jess

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Putting Up Bird Netting In The Kitchen Garden

I'm so glad to have a bit of help in the garden today. Playing with bird netting is always a lot of fun if you have help. If you don't, it could be a recipe for disaster.

We have issues with chickens, deer, geese, and neighborhood dogs getting into our raised bed kitchen garden. It's very upsetting when you have just sewn seeds and went to get the hose or watering can and come back to find miscellaneous animals digging where you just planted. In years past I have also found young children, with shovels, but now they are more grown up and aware. So I generally only have to guard against wild creatures now.

The process of putting up the posts and hanging the bird netting from the old nails that were already there, took a bit of time. It didn't take all of my time, thanks to my lovely and very helpful daughter. Therefor I was able to also harvest an entire 2' by 8' bed of Walking Onions. The onion sets were planted there last year and could have been harvested weeks ago as spring onions.

That's one of the things that I like most about these plants. You can harvest Walking Onions almost all year long, at almost any stage of growth. They are currently at the turban stage. Generally at this point you either snip the turbans off to encourage more root development or leave them on to use later as pearl onions or to replant. Since I wanted this bed to use for planting something else, I just harvested them instead. I didn't have time to process them so they will spend the night, safe and sound, in the garden.

May all your endeavors be profitable,
Jess

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"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." Genesis 8:22

First Day In The Raised Bed Kitchen Garden ~ Planting Potatoes

It's the first day in the garden. I'm a few weeks behind but everything will be fine; slow and steady wins the race. I only really have about 30 minutes each day to spend working in the raised beds but I'm hoping to be rewarded more than 10 fold.

My rewards were evident today. The weather was beautiful; nice and warm with a cooling breeze. When I directed my attention to the kitchen garden and turned the soil in my first bed I was greeted with beautiful, living soil. 

It was teaming with beneficial bugs and rich with composted rabbit manure and straw. The texture was spongy and it smelled fresh and earthy. I forget every winter how wonderful our garden system is. 

Today was potato planting day. I always manage to forget to order potatoes for planting so instead I grabbed a couple of bags of organic potatoes that I picked up at the grocery store. They had been growing roots in the pantry for a while. It doesn't take very many potatoes to plant a 4' by 6' raised bed. Especially since you only need a few eyes from each potato.

Using an old shovel handle to create holes was especially helpful in planting today. I know all the gardening books say to dig trenches for planting and to fill them in to mounds as the potatoes grow However, I don't have time to babysit these plants. They will come up fine and give us buckets of potatoes by the end of the year. At least, that's the plan and what has worked in years past.

Watering in after planting is essential. I'll have to make sure and water deeply every day. It's much easier to water with a hose but our collapsible, long hose sprung a leak last fall and we haven't replaced it yet.

30 minutes goes by quickly. Turning that first bed and planting some potatoes were the accomplishments for today. 

Here's hoping you have success in all your endeavors,
Jess

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"I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase." 1 Corinthians 3:6

Fall Planting ~ Walking Onions

Hello and welcome back to my little spot on the web. I spent some time this morning working in the kitchen garden and wanted to share the fun with you. Last year I tore apart my garden and remade my raised beds. The bed that I was working in this morning was filled with used pine bedding from the rabbits. When I turned it over, it was teaming with worms and bugs. It is composting very well and since I always have a lot of extra Walking Onion sets, I figured that this would be a great place to plant them.

Egyptian Walking Onion bulbs newly harvested

Egyptian Walking Onions newly planted

As for the onions bulbs that I dug and didn't replant, those came into the house, got cleaned up, and went into my breakfast. I make it a habit to eat two fresh eggs each morning. This morning I opted for poached eggs over fried onions and zucchini, garnished with cherry tomatoes, and topped with a dash of salt and pepper. Yum!!! What a great breakfast.

I hope you are having a lovely time in your garden as we head into cooler temperatures. Don't forget about extending your harvest with fall planting and season extenders, such as cold frames and row covers.



Here's a photo glimpse of the wonders that met me this morning:

Volunteer gourds growing on the fence

Monarch Caterpillar

For more great images from our Quaint Cottage, check out our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/myquaintcottage/

I hope you have a marvelous harvest!!

Peaceful Mornings At The Cottage - June 2016

Spring is in full flow and we are off to a great start. Here are a few pictures that I captured over the course of the month and a video compilation. We've been so busy, I really don't have time for anything more. We've found that Instagram has been a lot of fun. Feel free to visit our page at https://www.instagram.com/myquaintcottage.

Two Week Old Giant Chinchilla Rabbit

Pretty Purple Wildflowers

Pretty White Wildflowers

Pretty Yellow Wildflowers

April at the Cottage

Smiling Bunny Playtime

A few eggs from today

Walking Onions

It was so nice this April. We typically get frost until the middle of the month and this year it was very mild. 

Geese at Sunset