Here comes the sun

Our backyard neighbors are cutting down their fir trees. Literally at this moment they are coming down. While this is sad in general, as cutting down any tree is a bit sad, we are mostly very happy. The trees are huge and during Snowmaggedon 2016 they dropped several huge branches due to the weight of the snow and ice. They cover the ground in a thick carpet of needles which prevents anything from growing, including weeds! You know that's a pretty rough spot if even the dandelions won't grow. And the squirrels and crows hang out in them. We're hoping that they may move a few lots down without the trees to hang out in!

However, this also means that we will not have any trees to screen the back of our house and yard from the evening, setting sun. The chickens will also lose their shelter from sun and rain. And it will likely be very hot and exposed during the dry months here (July and August). We're debating what we should do with the space and how to maximize our enjoyment of the yard.

Ideas:

 new trees! Deciduous, shorter, and less annoying than the firs. Current ideas are pink dogwood or a japanese maple (I'm partial to the red ones, bot not the short droopy ones). 

new patio: PErhaps in combination with trees. We actually had a patio guy out for a quote and to talk ideas. Of course, patio is $$ and so we'll see what makes sense to do. We did move the table over to that spot to try it out. It gives the kids a nice open play space and makes the table a bit more secluded which is nice.

shades: We bought a shade cloth for the chickens since they will get hot. We could also have one for ourselves to replace the umbrella stand

Arbor: we could build an arbor for grapes or vines or something 

Planting update 4/24/2018

Today we planted
1. Artichokes (a purple variety)
2. Lavender. We had bought it as a start and grew it up a bit in a big pot in the backyard
3. Tricolor sage in the girls' bed
I also moved a few volunteer potatoes from the tomato/greens bed back to the potatoe/pea bed. I decided to leave the other volunteers and I'll pull them when I start thinning the greens and we'll have small potatoes for dinner!

To still plant:
Front yard- lovage, white allysium, rosemary

Kid friendly gardening

I think there are several different ways to conceptualize the idea of kid friendly gardening and try to consider these multiple directions when working on our always evolving backyard.
First, there's kid friendly meaning the kids won't irreparably harm it by being kids. Shrubs seems to be good for this (rosemary and huckleberries have survived soccer balls pretty well).int is annoyingly hardy and my kids pick handfuls all year for their concoctions.

Another definition is that the kids will enjoy it. My girls like picking strong smelling things (mint, lemon balm, fennel) to add to mud pies and even to add to lemonade or water for beverages.

There's also kid friendly that means the kids will like growing it. For us, that means it grows fast. Quick rewards are key! Potatoes sprout quickly (even if it takes a lot longer for actual potatoes for eating). Peas are almost instantaneous and you can eat the pea shoots while waiting for peas. Radish and lettuce sprout quickly and again you can eat the sprouts while thinning them. Nastriuysums sprout fast and also have funny leaves. And the flowers are edible. Plus I think they basically fit all three categories I've discussed as they are especially hardy and also tasty.

Growing philosophy

My growing philosophy is ever changing, of course. But at the moment, I believe strongly in a few things. 

1) Plants should be beautiful, strange, interesting, and exciting. This gets me into too much trouble at the garden store (and everywhere else) because I find almost all plants meet one of those requirements and so many of them are also new! to! me! 

2) Plants should be safe to have around kids.  I have kids. My kids are pretty good about checking with me before eating stuff found in the wild (we like to nibble on edible plants when we take hikes), but I still think that most of the plants I plant should be safe for kids to taste. Of course, some things are yucky to taste, and that's fine. But we don't need hemlock or other super poisonous plants in our own backyards!

3) Some plants should be yummy. I like to use food plants whenever possible because why not! Need a tree? How about a fruit tree! A bush? blueberries are nice! Kale and chard have beautiful leaves... Get the idea?

4) Kids need their own space. My daughters need their own plots of land to grow things. Sometimes those things are fairies, sometimes they want to make a special home for the slugs (groan), and sometimes they want to plant seeds and seedlings and grow plants! I believe strongly that they should get their own spaces so that they don't get in trouble for disturbing mine. [n.b. my husband has his own space too although he filled his with strawberries and thus has little to worry about because the kids keep it well picked]

5) When in doubt, buy some seeds.  Sometimes I wonder about whether we need a new XYZ. But really, for under $5 a package of seeds seems to almost always be a good solution. Try it and see! The worst that happens is that it doesn't grow. 

I think that's it for now!

First taste 2018

We had our first real spring taste of the garden today! The girls and their friends (and also the slugs and snails and cutworms errrghhh) have nibbled a few leaves of greens but nothing had made it inside to eat until today! We had our first radishes, still smaller than dimes. The girls planted the greens corner of the garden bed by sprinkling all of our remaining seeds from 2017 and it's been fun to watch them all sprout. Apparently we had some mixed color radish seeds because I pulled white, pink, and purple-ly ones. They were still mild and just peppery, not that hot terribleness that happens so quickly after a hot spell. I wandered the garden a bit today just looking at everything growing and I think this is going to be a wonderful year for the backyard! The blueberries and huckleberries are loaded with flowers. The strawberries are blooming too and the raspberries have tiny green blossoms just waiting to unfurl. The peas are already up a few inches and the potatoes, well, what can one really say about potatoes other than they are so ridiculously easy that you should go out and plant some right this second. I'm uncertain about the fruit trees, alas. The apricot had less than half the flowers of last year and then w had a big storm, so who knows. The pear tree is currently blooming and the mason bees are out so I'm hoping that they find each other. The apple hasn't bloomed yet but had a sad year last year so the jury is still out on that tree. We have a thimbleberry patch that is growing bigger this year and makes me incredibly happy just to see it. And then, the garden beds. I need to stop dithering and actually start making choices because very quickly it's going to be the end of spring and I'm going to be chastising myself for not having planted things earlier (which apparently is what I do every year).

Hello, hello?

Here's the beginning of the blog to document what we're growing. We grow lots of things around here: kids, chickens, a cantankerous old cat, and lots and lots of plants. In fact, we joke about not having green thumbs but of having green hands! Somehow most of what we put in the ground seems to grow.

Here's what I think I'll be writing about:
1. the garden and food plants
2. the chickens insatiable need to eat all of (1)
3. my kids' desires to plant all the things and grow themselves
4. my love of natives, heirlooms, and edibles for backyard gardening

So, thus it begins. Here's to a new adventure!