Our New Gardens

Don't you love the hay fields in the distance? I know I do!

I am SO thrilled to finally be moved! I thought it would never happen. We packed boxes for almost a week and then poof!! We were moving! It was a really stressful process for me, but I think over all it went really smoothly. One of the first things I did the second day we were at our new house was take a walk around the back yard. I am really excited about all the different things we have out there!

This is our loaded apple tree.

The Trees

There are two apple trees. One has already lost its fruit for this season (I just missed getting those apples, but oh well…there’s always next year!), and the other is just about ready to pick! The second tree is loaded down. There are 15 cherry trees that are about 3 feet high right now. Three of those are dead, but there are a few young trees in the middle of the yard under the full grown cherry tree that can be transplanted in October to replace the dead trees. We have a dwarf peach tree, but the peaches on it look gross and are small like apricots. I’m not sure what is going on with that tree… There are a lot of other trees in the yard too that don’t produce anything.

The top left photo shows the grape vines.
The top right photo shows the blackberry bushes.
The bottom photo shows blackberries starting to ripen.

The Fruit Vines

We have a bunch of grape vines. I’m not sure of the exact count, but there’s a good many of them. The vines are loaded down with grapes! Some of them are staring to ripen while others still have a ways to go before they’ll be ready to pick. We also have 8 blackberry bushes. Most of them are done for this season, but a few have tiny clusters of fruit that is still ripening. There really aren't enough blackberries left to do much with at this point.

This is the herb garden a few days after we moved in.

The Herb Garden

I didn't notice this before, but there’s a small herb garden bed that’s just in front of the organic garden. It has some sage growing in it and there’s something else in there, but it looks dead. I've already raked out half of the herb garden and put in 8 different herbs for a late harvest. More on that in a coming post...

The Organic Garden

The organic garden is built up off the ground. It’s full of tomato bushes right now. The bushes are loaded with green tomatoes. A few of them are ripening. I picked one tomato right when we moved in and it was DELICIOUS! Much better than anything I've had in a long time. We had to put up chicken wire around the tomatoes because something was getting into them and eating them. Right now I'm getting anywhere from 3 to 5 ripening tomatoes a day to sit in the kitchen windowsill to finish ripening. We've made BLT Sandwiches quite a few times with the fresh tomatoes. It's SO good!

The Regular Garden

The regular garden is on both the left and right of the organic garden. So basically the organic garden is right in the middle of everything.

This is the view from the opposite end of the garden. In the background would be the house (you can't see it).

To the left of the organic garden there are two rows of planted foods. One has green beans (on the right in the photo) and the other row has sweet potatoes (on the left of the photo).

On the right of the organic garden there are red beans which we planted for a late harvest (on the right in the photo), and a row of onions (on the left). There is plenty of room for the garden to be expanded next year if we want to. In the background of this photo you can see the herb garden. This photo is also showing from the opposite end of the garden.

Well, that's what I've got on the garden & fruit trees for now.

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• Clever Chicks Blog Hop #53

Chickens, Chickens

I'm thinking the chickens will go in the back corner. Location may change.

Hubby & I are planning on getting chickens in the near future or next spring. We haven’t quite decided when, but we know we want to get some. Hubby has been working on figuring out what kind of pen/chicken house he wants to build. Th ere’s a lot of scrap wood stacked up by the shed so he might be able to use some of that to build the pen. There’s a ton of chicken wire in the shed too so that helps save some on the expense of building a pen. I’m excited to see the finished ‘building’.

I've been doing some reading on chickens the past few weeks. I've mainly been reading from Barnyard in your Backyard, edited by Gail Damerow. It’s a beginner’s guide to raising chickens, ducks, geese, rabbits, goats, sheep, and cattle. Obviously we’re not planning to raise all those things, but the section on raising chickens has really helped me learn a lot.

If what I read in the book is correct I think we’ll want 8-10 hens. I mostly want them for laying eggs and the three types of chicken recommended in the book are Ancona, Leghorn, and Minorca. I don’t think I want Leghorn’s because supposedly they’re not very laid back and I think they lay white eggs too? Not for sure on that though. The Dual-Purpose Breeds recommended are New Hampshire, Plymouth Rock, and Rhode Island Reds. Those are used for laying eggs and for meat. I want chickens that lay brown or speckled eggs, those are the favorites. Do any of you bloggers who raise chickens have any suggestions on what type might be best for us?

We haven’t gotten very far on the chicken adventure, but we’re working on it. I've talked to the local feed store about purchasing chickens. The lady there said it would be least expensive to purchase them in the spring (April). Hubby doesn't want a rooster because they are noisy. I think I’d want one eventually so that we could hatch our own chicks, but that’s probably for much further down the road.

Do you have any suggestions for a first-time chicken farmer?

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Country Home, Here We Come!

The view out our back yard. Isn't it gorgeous?!

Well, we finally made it to our new home!! I thought it would never happen. I packed boxes for almost a full week. When we finally got all moved in I looked over everything we had and thought, “wow, I have no clue how I got all this in that tiny two bedroom apartment!” Every room of this three bedroom house has furniture in it with a few pieces to spare. We’re not lacking in the furniture department at all! I’m grateful to have so much. It’s been a steady gathering process over the past year but when we moved in here we didn't have any room needing furniture so it was worth it.

One day we had all these tomatoes & greenbeans ready to pick and the apples were off the ground under the trees.

I've been out in the garden almost every day since the big move. We have had tons of tomatoes ripening. I plan to can most of them because there are just too many to use up right away. I've made several BLT sandwiches with the garden tomatoes and they are better than anything you could buy from a store!

We have 4 different garden sections (which I explain more in another post coming soon). In them we have tomato bushes, sweet potato plants, green beans, red beans, and several rows of onions! The grape vines are loaded and are close to being ready to pick. The blackberry bushes haven’t had much on them. I've decided that next year I will pick the berries as they are ready and then put them in the freezer until I have enough to actually make something worthwhile. The apples have been doing wonderful. I made the first apple pie of the season a few weeks after we moved in.  It was DELICIOUS! Instead of using white sugar I used brown sugar and it had a caramel like flavor to it which was amazing!

My first attempt at jelly making. I made Strawberry Preserves.

I made my first batch of jelly. It was strawberry and tastes heavenly! I have a recipe & directions for it coming soon. For as long as I can help it I won’t be buying jelly from the store! This homemade stuff is just too good to not make my own! I have plans to make blueberry jam, more strawberry preserves, and hopefully some grape jelly as well! Making jelly is one of my new favorite things!

We are very excited about our new house. I love being out away from everything. The lack of internet has caused me some stress a few times when I wanted to look something up right away but couldn't. I’ve learned to keep a running list that I bring with me when I do go to a place that has internet. That way I can look up those things and save the info to my computer to read up on later. This little system has been working quite well for me so far.

I have a few posts lined up and scheduled about different things hubby & I are working on around here. We are considering chickens...probably in the spring. I have a whole post on that coming up next week. Then there is a post with more details about our gardens scheduled for later next week as well. There is so much to them that I thought it would be easier if they had their own post. I love living out here and I really like that we have our own place. There's nothing quite like this feeling!

A few related posts from the blog:

• Our New Gardens
• Chickens, Chickens

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• Waste Not Want Not Wednesday #46