Cedar Writes

Category: Garden

  • Excitement and Raspberries

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    by

    cedarlili
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    It’s been an interesting day… very quiet at the moment, as the kids are off at a friend’s party. But about 10 am, Dad came in and announced that the guy with the excavator was coming this afternoon to clean the farm lane, the pad for the second greenhouse, and the pad for the shops.…

  • Books on the Farm

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    cedarlili
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    It’s been chilly and rainy, so not much is happening on the farm. Critters need fed, herbs are growing, but the tomatoes aren’t ripening yet and the raspberries are holding off, too. Dad and I both tend to do one thing during down times… we read. A lot. My parents gave me a love of…

  • Planting Blueberries

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    cedarlili
    in

    Dad and I planted 35 blueberries over this last week. We’d bought them eariler in the season, put them in pots in the greenhouse temporarily, and now finally had the time to put them in the ground. We chose to plant them where the wild blueberries are happiest, and we marked out the area the…

  • Herb Garden

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    cedarlili
    in

    I have been wanting to put in a raised bed herb garden for a long time. This year I finally got the opportunity, partly because I’d been able to get 12 landscape timbers for free. Determining where I was going to build the bed was to longest part of the whole process, as I knew…

  • Hugelculture

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    cedarlili
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    It’s a funny word – I like to say it. Hoo-Gull-culture. And I love the concept even more. Hugelculture is the concept of using wood, particularly decaying wood, in the garden to boost productivity and reduce the need for irrigation. Well, here on Stonycroft the one thing we have lots of is rotting wood (and…

  • Planting the Garden and Distractions

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    cedarlili
    in ,

    I’ve been working on getting the garden planted. I had a ton of melon and squash starts to get in, finished those today. I planted cucumbers, golden and blue Hubbard squash, watermelon sugar baby, Melons Jenny Lind, Crenshaw, Sweet Granite, Pixie, Charentais, and one that Johann lost the label to. I put in butternut squash…

  • Gardening

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    cedarlili
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    Dad and I bought a contractor’s underlayment day before yesterday. 20’x100′ of black plastic, 6 mil thick. That was the foundation of my garden. Today I unrolled the plastic, realizing in the process that before today I had no concept of how long 100′ really is. I used the area the pigs have been “tractoring”…

  • We’ve been Working in the Greenhouse

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    cedarlili
    in ,

    Last season we planted in ground in the greenhouse and by the end of the season it was a jungle in there… difficult to get around without a machete. This year Dad wanted to create defined growing beds, and to get the infrastructure in place for aquaculture. Yesterday we finished decking the center path, which…

  • Spring is the Time for Babies

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    by

    cedarlili
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    We finally have some sun! It’s been a long and rainy couple of weeks, so it was delightful to wake up to sunshine this morning. Johann and I made the rounds of the farm, checking on critters and harvesting from the garden. A well-established perennial garden means you can begin harvesting in mid-May, not July.…

  • More Dirt

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    cedarlili
    in

    It’s still raining, and I’m still not getting anything done outside, although I have been spring-cleaning and working at the library. Dad’s still up at Toad Hall eating bon-bons. He’s gotten the all clear from the doctors – they got all the cancer and he won’t have to get any follow up treatment. That was…

  • Rainy Day Activities

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    cedarlili
    in

    It’s been raining since Sunday, three days now. Which has put a cramp in my plans, a bit. But it has allowed us to get some things done inside that needed doing. Like going through all the seeds and sorting out what needed to be planted now, and what will be planted later in the…

  • Making the Farm Beautiful

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    cedarlili
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    Landscaping the front of the farm has been the lowest priority for the last few years. This year I was determined to make it, not into a showpiece, but at least neat and pretty. Showpiece will have to wait a year or two until new plants mature! Saturday we picked up two loads of mulch.…