Growing our Homestead

So, yesterday we needed more compost for the garden. Apparently ours is not done yet, so we cannot use it. I have used some in the growing of our newer tomato seedlings, and it seems to be doing quite well, but I CONSTANTLY have to pick pill bugs out of it, and lost a few seedlings to their tiny little mouths. Some say that they will only eat decaying matter, but, I know that there were no slugs or anything else in those pots, but I DID see lots and lots of pill bugs, so I'm pretty sure that's the culprit! Anyways! I finally got the whole family rounded up so we could go. They were having Chick Days at Tractor Supply, so the kids wanted to see the baby chicks and ducklings. Bug decided that she wanted ducklings. I kept telling her no, that we didn't have a place to put them, inside OR outside, so she turned on the waterworks. Of COURSE DH caves and tells her that she can have a couple ducklings.

So, meet Phineas and Ferb. DS used to be OBSESSED with this cartoon, so DH named them after the cartoon.

We also got the last 3 beds in that we will be planting in this year, tho that might be a lie because hubs and I were talking about putting in 2 more 4x4 beds, one between the blueberry bushes for Rhubarb and asparagus, and one in front of the corn  for herbs. We've still got a little bit of cleaning up to do, but here is Ivy Hill for the 2012 growing season.

Last year we planted a 4x8 bed with strawberries. I let them get away from me last year, which is something I won't repeat this year. But, being 01April and having as many strawberries about to ripen as we do, I'll take it!

This is one that got out of the bed last year. I've got to figure out how to get it back IN the bed! Something I should have probably done before the growing season started, but the strawberry looks GREAT!

Last year, we got a few of the Burpees white cucumber. DH must have missed one last year because this year, we have them again! Once we get the cucumber bed ready, I will transplant them to where they will be this year.

Our grapes are back in full force! Doc (brindle), Dusty (red/fawn) and Lilly (white) are making their debut here at Ivy Hill! We just put these grapes in last year. DH insisted that these grapes be planted on the fence line because our neighbor had done something similar and he liked the idea of not having to build an arbor for them.

Our pear tree is doing quite well!! Last year it only had 1 pear. This year I think we will have quite a few more! When I told DH that there were "quite a few" and counted about 11, he said "That's not quite a few! That's not even a dozen!" when I reminded him that we had only put the tree in less than 3 years ago, and some people don't get fruit at all for the first 5 years, he decided that it was quite a few.

It rained all weekend so far, so I haven't been able to work in the garden much. I believe I will be hitting full force on Monday. A lot of the seeds that we started way back in January, didn't make it, but some did, and that makes me happy. I restarted quite a few, and THEY have made it for the most part. Next year, we're going to start everything with a grow light, so we won't have as much issues with being so leggy. We are still learning, so, I think we're doing okay for just starting. :-) Monkey got several potatoes to sprout, so we are going to plant those in used dog food bags for our potato harvest. A couple of the celery seedlings made it as well! Can't wait to put it all in the garden!

We got lettuce!! Too bad I don't remember which one this is. I planted both butter lettuce and mesclun and forgot to label them. DUH! In the very back of the picture is another potato, and a rouge tomato!

The apples and blueberries have JUST started to bud, each with a couple of leaves. The mulberry is just starting to put some green on, and the raspberries have just poked their heads thru the ground as well. Things are starting to really come together here in the last week or so. I can't wait to start updating more when things are really going. Won't be too much longer! :-)

Spring Has Sprung!!

We've been pretty busy here at Ivy Hill trying to get things done! I planted those daffodils a few weeks ago, not expecting them to bloom this year, but apparently they decided that they wanted to make an appearance! We have plans to put a brick border around the beds around the porch. We also put more flowers around our crepe myrtle tree, and cleaned out around the mailbox and planted flowers there too. The mailman got a surprise when one of those flowers sprouted a little yellow daffodil as well! :-)

This picture of our pear tree was taken a couple of days ago. There are several more blooms on it now! Last year in April we had tornadoes and every single bloom, save 1, was blown off the tree! It was doing really well until the hurricane came and then we had to pull the 1 immature pear so it didn't fly off and go thru a window or anything. We're hoping that this year we have some pears to harvest! It's still a pretty young tree, so I'm pretty surprised that we are getting anything.

I did finally get the strawberry bed cleaned out! This was taken the other day as well, before I had gotten it completely cleaned out. This year, I'm not going to let them go hog wild like I did last year! Sheesh! What a mess that bed was! There are quite a few more flowers now and some of them already have the beginnings of strawberries on them!

Last year DH thought it would be a good idea to put our grapes on the fence because one of our other neighbors had done it that way. I TRIED to get him to just put up some lines for a small vineyard, but, he wouldn't cough up the dough for it. I guess it's just practice for our farm anyways, but now that I think about it... it's going to be difficult to keep the dogs off of the immature grapes! I noticed that this winter they chewed some of the vines that were on the inside of the fence. This same vine now has a few very small leaves. It's quite exciting!

We had gone to Tractor Supply and there were these ADORABLE little grey Easter Eggers! If DH would have had his way, we would have brought some home. I told him that we didn't have the set up for it right now and that if he would just be patient, then we could get a coop and get some chickens. We've decided that we're going to get some for DDs birthday. Since they will be her pets, they will all have names, and we will only use them for eggs. DH does want to get some rabbits for meat. I guess we will have to see how that goes. I'm not real keen on the idea because, while I love the taste of rabbit, they are just SO adorable!

This is DS holding one of our friends Easter Egger chicks. That little chick just attached itself to him and when anybody tried to pick it up it would cheep up a storm and as soon as you put it down, it would snuggle back into his lap and quiet right back down.

Elsewhere, we are watching our new tomatoes grow by the day! Most of them have their first set of true leaves now. Almost all of the other seeds didn't make it. We've got more that we planted. I'm seriously going to invest in the light for next year!! This is ridiculous! We put almost 2 months into those seedlings and they were just so leggy!!

Anyways, until the next time! I hope that everyone is able to get their hands in the dirt soon!

Coming right along!

Things are poking right along here at the Ivy Hill! I had started to believe that our eggplant seeds were a total wash, until this morning when I was greeted by this:

Yup! That's a tiny little eggplant poking its head out from the soil! (If you look real close... you can see it right smack dab there in the middle! LOL) I also noticed that after this picture was taken there is a bit of fuzzy stuff on my peat pots! EGAD!

The celery is coming right along as well.

This was on 1-26

Same pot... but today 1-30

And the tomatoes are doing fantastic!!

I can't wait to start getting everything ready for outside! This morning it was quite cold! Of course, husband fell asleep on the couch with the windows wide open... and the heater on. LOL What the heck! Way to be sufficient there honey! *forehead smack*

In other news! Tomorrow I get to start broccoli, carrots (hopefully), and cauliflower!

Tomato heads!

So, I got a day late start starting out seeds, I got them started on the 16th instead of the 15th, but it was only a day, so it's not like I started them a month late! ;-)

The other day I noticed that they had just started to poke their little tiny seed heads through the ground. Today when I woke up, I found this:

They're SO CUTE!!

I can't wait to get things in the ground, that's for sure! :-)