I never wanted a farm.

A few years ago my sister and her family purchased some land in the country not too far from where we live. They bought a place bordered by a national forest. The property came complete with a cabin with no running water, disconnected power and well built, albeit major fixer upper They lovingly call their cabin in the woods "Moosedanger Shack" which came from childhood memories of my sister's husband. My husband and I said it would be awful to own a country place and HAVE to go every weekend to fix up and work and clear land etc. I asked my sister so many times why she loved it so much. She explained, the family was together doing a good physical work and they all learned new things every weekend. My sister learned how to cook outside on a wood fire. This is the same "I'll just have a balogna sandwich" sister. They all learned how to use chainsaws, a tractor, a log splitter, a portable hot shower, and various ways to use the bathroom when there was no bathroom. Now Moosedanger Shack has running water, electricity, a floor, a very nice bathroom, a wood burning fireplace, and even a dishwasher. On a recent visit, I asked my sister again why she loved it so much. She said that when she drives to the top of the mountain and enters the driveway, she has that "Ahhh" experience. She feels as though she is home.Just recently, my husband and youngest daughter found a farm less than 2 hours from where we live. My husband has always wanted land. His father had told him many times the only real estate deals he regretted were the ones he didn't make. The land is 55 acres with a house and a coach house. It has 2 farm ponds and trout stocked creek provides one property line. My husband and daughter ganged up on me. I kept saying, "It's not my dream". I didn't even go look at it before we purchased it because I was not interested in the least. The whole idea is that this will be a family get away place for now. Eventually, our daughter, her live in boyfriend and son will move to the farm. In the meantime, it will be for all of us to enjoy. Like I would really enjoy driving out to a farm to get hot and dirty. 

We all went out for our first weekend and it was awesome. We all worked really hard clearing brush off the "art studio" which is a cinderblock outbuilding with a standing seam metal roof, a front porch, and 2 windows. It's dry as a bone in there. Even the king snake skin in the corner didn't bother me. We cleared a path along one of the ponds to the place we thought would make a great fire pit area. It was such a fun day. Then my sister called. She was at the Shack and said they would be dropping by at around 3 bringing food and beer and chairs. The Shack, it turns out, is 25 minutes over the ridge if you take the forest road. My sister and I hung out on the screen porch while the kids played and the others investigated the hinterland of the farm. When everyone returned, we went to fire pit area. I drove the car down loaded with all the chairs my sister brought. We found Richard, Donnie, his daughter, Lily and our grandson, Rowan in the pond. We stayed at the fire pit until after 11:00. It was a great day! The next weekend, I had the car packed and ready to go when Richard got home from work. 

Garden Plot Coordinator and Giving Back

Recently at our rented garden plot, it was announced that the Garden Plot Coordinator had to give up her post. Why I raised my hand, I have no idea. But, I did and I am the new Hunter Woods 1 Garden Plot Coordinator.

It's actually not a difficult job. Other gardeners can contact me for the lock code or if they have concerns about an overgrown garden. There is a big annual gardeners event that I will be involved in coordinating later in the year but I will have the assistance of Reston and should be able to come up with a plan.

The giving back is two fold. First of all, we live here, it's nice to be involved in the community where you live. You meet new people  and share ideas. The second part is a program for the local food bank and shelter. As is typical nationwide, fresh food is difficult and expensive for the food banks. They have asked us to let them know if we are going on vacation and they will help collect produce before it goes bad. In addition, if we have abundance of anything, they would love to have any extra. I think that is such a great idea.

New Year, New Plot

We received a call from garden plot giver outer who told us we could have a bigger plot since our name came up on the list and we had no weed violations on our current plot. We jumped at the chance to get a beautiful, full sun plot right by the water trough.

The down side to moving was that we had perennials that should flourish this year-thornless blackberries, raspberries and strawberries. For winter gardening, we had also built cold frames. One was pretty well picked out so we emptied it an moved it. The other had beautiful lettuces that weren't quite ready. When we were deciding to leave it for the new occupants or dig out our lettuce, we realized we had put heavy wire mesh on the bottom to keep out the voles. So, we carefully picked up the cold frame, lettuce and all and positioned it in our new plot. The lettuce is ready and we are going to have a big salad tonight.

Once we got the plants moved, we did some digging,(I say we meaning, my husband who does all the heavy lifting.) weeding and covered the plot with leaf mulch to keep new weeds at bay. The previous owners left strawberries for us and we combined some in our frame and left the rest where they were. I planted phlox at the entrance to make our plot look cheery. I love Phlox and we have a shade garden at home so I jumped at the chance to grow it at the plot. We purchased some tomatoes and planted them and also have some seeds in the ground. If the seeds work, great, if not, we have the plants as a back up.

Our grandson was given watermelon seeds and he planted them in little pots in the house. Then we moved those to the plot. He said he has a vision of bringing a big watermelon over to share with his friends in our neighborhood.

Other seeds we planted are sunflowers, beets, spinach, chard, leeks, basil, peas, beans and sweat peas. I am really more interested in flowers than food but it is great to eat something you grow.

I'll post pictures next time.

Winter Update

Garden plot update. After a great beginning last year, I kind of lost interest. We had gone away in July, the hottest on record but a fellow gardener did some watering for us, but the heat too its toll. Still, we had lots of lovely tomatoes. Surprisingly, the Golden Girl did the best and were so flavorful-perfect summer tomatoes in every way but they were yellow.

We have just attended the annual All Gardeners Meeting. There was quite a bit of talk about new theories like lasagna gardening-where you layer compost and leaf mulch on top of newspaper and you don't disturb the garden soil. It's seems counter intuitive, but I guess it's just like container gardening on the ground instead of in a pot. There was also alot of talk about winter gardening. One gardener was so detailed, she knew exactly how many lettuce leaves she gleaned over the winter. The rules for the plots have changed and we are now allowed a 6 foot structure as long as we get agreement with our neighbors.

We planted 3 thornless blackberries back in the fall. Since we don't really know how old they are, we will have to see what they do this year. Our summer garden will have peppers and tomatoes.  We have a request from our daughter to grow poblano peppers. Her favorite Mexican restaurant closed last week after nearly 40 years in business.

Something new are trying is a plant light system with a heating mat to try and get a jump on the season. We will try the peppers from seeds and buy tomato plants.

Watch this space for pictures.

Over the weekend we checked on the garden. We harvested several green peppers and then pulled the plant out, it was done. We removed the last of the cherry tomato plant after plucking a few gems. The potatoes looked dead-Tropical Storm Lee and that weird spinning storm from Chicago provided a bit too much water-I pulled the plants and got 3 potatoes. I think it's really cool, because we cut up a few spuds that had outlived their shelf life and ended up with 3, albeit small, beautiful potatoes. It's a learning experience and I learned to plant them earlier. I also harvested some leaf lettuce.

I planted some daffodil bulbs, some foxglove that I grew from seeds and some cabbage seedlings that may or may not develop. The last ones I planted disappeared. Our sugar snap pea plants look beautiful, but there's no sign of flowering yet. The strawberries continue to grow and we have high hopes for a nice yield next year. One of our favorite items is the Asparagus. Someone dug up their plant and threw it on the compost. We noted the roots were still alive and rescued it. It's growing and spreading and we may get a few stalks come spring. We love free stuff!!

The thorn less blackberry bushes have settled in and are growing slowly. I don't expect much out of them until spring and our area harvests blackberries in July. We make our out jelly. After years of getting them from the side of the road, this year we went to a farm. After paying the farm, we decided we could buy our own bushes. If we ever leave the garden plot, we'll have to decide if we want to take them with us or give them to the next gardener.

We left the marigolds in and hope to get some seeds from them. Again, the rain didn't really do us any favors. Typically, the flowers die and dry out and viola seeds. Instead of drying out, the flowers just got all brown and mushy.

I say we, because my husband and I tend the garden together. I get to do the fun stuff and he does all the heavy lifting.

The association dumped some wood chips for us to use and my husband brought some down to our garden for the path that separates our 2 planting areas. We had been using leaf mold because we didn't have chips. Well, when he scraped up all the the leaf mold, we added it to the beds. It was beautifully broken down and made the beds look great.

Newness has worn off

Obviously, gardening, for me is a part time job. Like many gardeners, the spring gets me all excited and as time goes on, the fun wears off.

I went by the plot 2 weeks ago. I pulled weeds and pulled out a few spent plants and turned over some of the soil. The fall veggies I had been so excited about got doused by Tropical Storm Lee when we had a once every 500 year rain event-10" I think. I also realized that we really need to amend the soil. The clay is so heavy and with a rented plot, you don't know what was grown there previously so the soil could be - probably is-totally malnourished.

We did put in thorn-less blackberries which appear to be old enough to fruit next summer.  We'll go by this weekend and check the carrots, potatoes and blackberries. Hopefully, there won't be too many weeds.

We Have Carrots!

Last week we planted 2 types of carrots...short ones and long ones. Yesterday a quick trip to the plot revealed successful germination. They only have their "milk leaves" so we will wait to thin them once the next set of leaves appears.

Many years ago we had an old house on an acre and a half. We couldn't really afford to furnish it with the fine antiques it deserved, but we did what we could. It had a new roof and a nice paint job on the outside. We figured out quickly that if we transformed the gardens, the rest didn't matter. We knew that at one point, the house had gardens, so we cleared brush by hand and with Lazarus (my mom's 25 year old lawn mower that wouldn't die). We discovered a terraced garden in the back and the 75 year old daffodil patch.

We created our garden from this.

I knew I wanted flower gardens and that I needed alot of them. I spent the winter months pouring over seed catalogues, going to the library, talking to neighbors. This was before Al Gore invented the internet. I learned everything I needed to be able to grow flowers from seeds, root cuttings, and plant divisions. Luckily, I had neighbors who shared flowers with me. It was during that time that I learned that the first 2 leaves on a plant are called "milk leaves". It seems like it's a reference to infants. It's just one of those little things that is stored in the brain and you wonder "why do I know that" and the lovely memories come flooding back.