2011 Garden Tour

This past Monday, seven (Count them seven!), friends and neighbors that don't live in my house saw me:
*Bed-Headed
*shuffling in my nightgown
*viewing my very personal and triumphant competition with The Mister of the House as to who could get the hairiest legs (that would be me) as my nightgown stops about the middle of my shins.

On Sunday, I was literally on my back with insane lower lumbar spasms initiated by an early morning sneeze in the shower (lame right?). It's now Friday, and I'm up and going again (although very gingerly and with the aid of copious amounts of muscle relaxants).

One of my first acts performed after getting a back that could bend was to shave my legs. Today marks the ability to sit in a chair. I'm celebrating by updating this here blog.



I wanted to give a waning garden tour, even though I failed to get pictures of the garden in it's full glory. I can't believe it's harvest time already. Here's the baby steps we made in the garden this year.

Remember this dead patch in the spring?


We edged it with railroad ties, had some composted manure hauled in, and planted this.


This was our big heirloom year. I'm going to have to admit that I might be on the fence about some of this. Mostly because we ate approximately two ears of corn from our garden. I'm not sure if it was because of spring-time medical trauma, an insane wet and snowy spring/summer, or the fact that our corn was planted too late, but it wasn't a huge success in the corn department.

I did have a pretty garden though. I transplanted my teepee right in the middle, seeded a winding cosmos path to the teepee, and gave it privacy on three sides with the corn. On the south edge I planted heirloom zucchini, spaghetti squash, pumpkin, and peppers.



I thought it was a little ironic that I had pretty foliage but NO FLOWERS as of the first day of school. But now with half the plants zinged from frost, the cosmos is high and proud. I love to wind down the path and find an invitation to sit Pocahontas-style in the teepee.



Here's the view from both angles. As a weed barrier, and bug deterrent, I seeded marigolds all around the border. The pops of orange have been a delight this autumn (mostly because that's practically when they showed up too...I guess snow on Memorial Day will do that to you).

Here's that cute baby. He's six months old! He's like a cancer patient all hairless and pale. Isn't he adorable? He is off the charts for his heighth BTW.



Around the edge of the teepee we planted pole beans. About 3/4 of the way around I ran out of our heirloom seeds, so I pulled out leftover pole beans from last year. This is when I really started to wonder (and I have yet to fully research) about hybrid seeds, as they clearly outperformed the heirloom in terms of germination and growth. GMO seeds - lame! Heirloom - necessary and very cool. Hybrid - not sure if I'm going to categorize that in the lame department just yet.

I threw carrot seeds inside the teepee and treated it like groundcover. I wanted it to keep weeds out, and thought that perhaps it would be alright and keep rooting into that dirt even if the kids were playing in the teepee.



This kid is at the stage where he puts everything in his mouth! Ah I just love him!

Chomp. Chomp. Who me? What? Yes stupid goat. I'm staring at you! Our goats got out of the fenced area and went to town eating our...orchard! Out of 9 fruit trees, about 7 were chomped to bits! Damn goats.


Our Mellow Wood Pond experiment this year was Muscovy Ducks. Last year we had a ton of fun with the trout, but that pond dried up lickety split and we didn't have a fishing party before it happened.

The Mister of the House researched Muscovy Ducks and how they are AMAZING bug eaters. Love mosquito larvae and start munching it when their still little ducklings. What with flooding of the rivers and a HUGE mosquito year forecast, I was prepared to get eaten alive. But these ducks (we have 7) really did a great job. The mosquitoes were not bad in our yard or the pond. Plus look how gorgeous they are!



Baby has a drool rash, and older brother has a window in his mouth!



Happy Harvest everyone!