Tomatoes are my very favorite crop to grow. I fret over them, baby them, cheer them on, and proudly serve them to friends and family as some sort of jewel in the green. As modern homesteaders on our old farm, we grow nearly all that we eat and store lots in our freezer, root cellar,…
Tag: hugelkultur
Short Fun Animated Story: Small Gardening Series
For a little light-hearted but instructional reprieve, I offer you this short story drawn with the talented mind and hand of my husband Brian @brianthompsonart. In 3 minutes it shows you: 1) how to construct a hugelkultur garden bed (if you want to try that); 2) What things you can successfully grow in shady spaces;…
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Photo Diary: Buckets and Buckets and Buckets of Life.
Everything around us is bursting with burgeoning, blossoming, gorgeous, incredible, inspiring, life-giving, life-supporting, life-affirming, nature-built pieces of art. From the blackberry blossoms to the clusters of Italian plums to the Braeburn and heirloom and Fuji and Transparent apples and Bosc pears to the greens and peppers and tomato blossoms, to the first fire-orange nasturtiums, and…
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Ladybug season.
It’s not ladybug season in our garden yet. But it is in our house. We have a small colony living inside a sunny south-facing wall. Little ladybugs march up the shiplap siding in our kitchen and visit with each other. It’s like a little party–a Sunday social with ladies in frilly dresses sipping tea and…
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Endorphin blast.
We woke this morning to riotous springtime birdsong and sun–precious, blessed sun–blasting through our bedroom window. Our rooster was crowing his head off, surprising even himself with his bantam lung power, I am sure. The poor girls trapped in the henhouse were pretty grumpy when the kids finally arrived to let them out. We gathered…
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Making A Hugelkultur Garden
Hugelkultur (German for “gardening with mounds”) is a form of permaculture gardening that has been heralded as a way to end world hunger, because it offers sustainable gardening methods that require very little water: “Hugelkultur are no-dig raised beds with a difference. They hold moisture, build fertility, maximise surface volume and are great spaces for…
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Garden planning.
I’m eating reheated shepherd’s pie and sipping hot tea with honey while browsing through the Sero Seed catalog and dreaming about spring and summer garden harvests. It’s time to start planning. I’m taking an inventory of what worked last year and I’m going to start building out our wish lists for this year. Then I’ll…
