Ceaberry's Homesteading: My Square Foot Garden Plan 2018

I have been working hard on figuring out where everything is going in my newly installed raised beds for square foot gardening.  I should note that you may notice containers. I am in a competition with Mr. Native Farmer over potatoes (more on this in a later post) and a few of my other things are in containers because they already are in a container or need to be (like my mint and cotton). There is an Asparagus bed with tomatoes on the side, that is part of doing companion planting. This is NOT how the beds are laid out in my actual garden, I have a compost bin and in the very middle of my garden is a rhubarb patch that has been there for well over 40 years (not kidding, it is practically an heirloom in itself, just like our grape vines). 

So here is my plan for the lower garden for next year!

There are 75 seeds on my list, not all of them are going in the garden and by the chart of "containers", not all of them are going into the raised beds. So here are my seeds I will be planting at some point in 2018. The sprouts, however, are not being planted. You see the main groups of my garden. Some of the extra seeds will be planted in my two raised beds at my house and I have a whole hillside of roses, berry bushes, and wildflower mixes to attend to next year.

Asparagus, Mary Washington	Blueberry, Highbush	Lavender, English	Potatoes	Tomato, Beefsteak Pink
Basil, Mix	Blueberry, Pink Limonade	Lettuce, Gourmet/Mesclun Mix	Pumpkin, Jack Be Little	Tomato, Brandywine, Yellow
Bean, Bush, Borlotti	Broccoli, Romanesco Italia	Melon, Banana	Pumpkin, Wee Be Little	Tomato, Cherry Red (small)
Bean, Bush, Calypso	Brussel Sprouts, Long Island Catskill	Mint, Spearmint	Radish, Champion	Tomato, Cherry White
Bean, Bush, Harvester	Cabbage, Acre, Golden	Onion, Walla Walla	Spinach, Matador Viking	Tomato, Gardener’s Delight
Bean, Bush, Landreth	Cabbage, Copenhagen	Onion, shallot, Holland red	Sprouts, Alfalfa	Tomato, Oxheart, Orange
Bean, Bush, Provider	Carrot, Chantenay, 5” Long	Pea, Austrian Field Pea	Sprouts, Broccoli	Tomato, Roma
Bean, Bush, Romano	Cauliflower, All Year Round	Pea, Little Marvel	Sprouts, clover	Tomato, Tiny Tim
Bean, Bush, Slenderette	Celery	Pepper, Banana Yellow	Sprouts, Rainbow Chard	Wheat, Sampler Pack
Bean, Bush, Tendergreen	Corn, Sweet	Pepper, Cayenne, Purple	Sprouts, Sunflower	Wildflower, Celosia
Bean, Bush, Tiger’s Eye	Cover Crop, Clover, White Dutch	Pepper, Chocolate Bell	Squash, Crookneck, Yellow Early Summer	Wildflower, Low grow scatter
Bean, Pole, Dry, Cherokee Trail of Tears	Cover Crop, Fall & Winter Rye	Pepper, Hot Holiday Marbles	Sunflower, Autumn Beauty	Wildflower, Marigold, Sparky Mix
Bean, Pole, Lima, Henderson	Garlic, Early Purple Italian	Pepper, Orange Horizon	Sunflower, Mammoth	Wildflower, Nasturtium, Black Velvet
Bean, Pole, Lima, King of the Garden	Gourd, Luffa	Pepper, Purple beauty	Sunflower, Sungold	Wildflower, Snapdragon, Mix
Bean, Pole, Lima, Thorogreen	Gourd, mixed (small)	Pepper, Sunbright Yellow	Sunflower, Sungold, Dwarf	Wildflower, tansy

Hopefully, this inspires you to make your own garden plan. Happy Homesteading!!

Ceaberry's Homesteading: Taking Vermicomposting to a new level

Mr. Native Farmer looked at me like I was crazy when I asked that he put the old bathtub down in the lower garden. He couldn't figure out what I was going to do with the tub. Multiple ideas sprouted to mind but alas, he couldn't even fathom what I actually did with it. 

It became a worm bin. Yup. Worm bin. I need to amp up the amount of worm castings to fill my raised beds next year. In came a larger worm bin. I have currently separated my worms but for the winter every one is going in there. I am surrounding it with hay bales and forgetting it for most of the wintertime. It may not look pretty yet but it will turn into a bench back with an arbor behind it (boy do I have lofty goals?). 

I put screen in the draining holes then a bit of gravel near the holes then back filled with creek rock/dirt mixture and added topsoil. Then I added my worms and some food for them. Put on a makeshift lid and let them get to work. It is working so far and I am happy to see my worms just munching away! It is set on two high cinder blocks (6 in total so three sets). It will be framed around and a nice top fitted with a bench in front of it and a cushion and an arbor behind it with our heirloom grape vines expertly intertwined with it. You're laughing aren't you? Its doable, I swear.

Ceaberry's Homesteading: My mom's garden

I am truly jealous of my mom's garden. She has raised beds enclosed with some deer fencing (it is the same method we used for the chicken run with t-posts and wire and Zip-ties). She uses Shenandoah Screened Topsoil (not a paid endorsement), it is located in Winchester, WV (can't get much more local than that for the quality we receive). I think her true key is the topsoil, because even though it is labelled as that it is a rich mixture that she DOES NOT fertilize. You will see how amazing that fact really is when you scroll through the photos below. She orders an entire pallet of topsoil bags in the 40lb bag quantity. Then, they sit at least 6 months but most of the bottom of the pile is over a year old and it is black gold when you open the bag. That is probably her second successful secret, she basically composts the top soil and adds just that to her garden.

Now for some pictures! She does "rowish" gardening in her raised beds. They are semi-permanent beds. For her beans she puts up more T-posts with that nylon square netting.

This is her beans, you are correct in thinking there are weeds in the front. Now they have been removed and the bush beans are happier. Her pole beans have lovely purple flowers and she always gets an amazing yield.

This is another raised bed. She has peppers, squash, tomatoes and corn growing in one raised bed. The sea of green is just amazing to watch!

Now this is the last true secret of my mother's garden. Sunflowers... Yup, sunflowers. Now by accident my mom discovered their very nice side effect. She got some plants from Burpee (not paid endorsement), and there was a sunflower seedling in it. Burpee seems to have this occur quite a bit with their seedlings. These are intentionally planted ones. The bees, oh the bees!! She doesn't have to worry about pollination, ever. She also has humming bird feeders nearby and butterfly bushes. For some reason she doesn't have cabbage loop worms either (lucky her) but does get Japanese beetles because of the blueberry farm down the road.

Now to see just a few things she harvested recently.

I know... you secretly are jealous too. Those cabbages were "as is" from the garden. Notice no holes!

This was a different day, her broccoli in there are actually the side shoots that are supposed to be tiny... yeah right. You can't see them but she gets 6 or so banana peppers every few days!

Why am I jealous? She doesn't fuss with her garden after planting and it grows despite the lack of tending. I think her three accidental things have helped her garden grow so well!

1. Get good topsoil. 
• My mom orders it from a mom and pop business but you can find it at Lowes in some places.
• There is topsoil at Wal-Mart but we have found it to be wildly inconsistent. We got bags from two separate cities (about 3 hours apart or around 100 miles), but the SAME topsoil was rich and black at one place and completely clay at the other place. I am not kidding we bought them within a week of each other and the only reason we bought them from two different places is because we liked the first stuff so much we had the truck in another city near us and decided to get more... which was clay... yucky. 
• Read the labels, really. If you read what is in the bag it will help you decide what is best for your area and growing habits. You can get raised garden bed mix but we were lucky with a local producer.
2. Let it compost
• Buy some extra bags and let them sit, out in the rain and everything. My mom just piles hers up and forgets about it until she needs it. Little buggies (and composting worms) will get in there are really make it a treat. I suggest a tight stacking method and keep the area around free of tall grass, it may just bee too tempting to snakes otherwise.
• You don't have to let it compost but why not? You are going to need to add to your raised beds eventually, having richer topsoil then when you started is always a good thing.
• I put my bags my mom graciously gives me into my worm tub (upcoming post). I use that as a nice medium for the tub and I get back even better soil!!
3. Bring in the pollinators 
• My mom has found that sunflowers, butterfly bushes and hummingbird feeders are all she needs to bring in the good and keep out the bad. 
• I have loads of flowers and multiple beneficial species. I also have deterrent species as well and it has served me pretty nicely. 
4. Feed your garden
• Feeding and fertilizing are two different things. My mom does not fertilize, she feeds. She puts eggshells and spent tea in her garden and that is it. 
• I fertilize but I also amend my soil plus my worm bins and composting bins with tea, coffee, and eggshells. 

Happy Homesteading!

Ceaberry's Homesteading: Summer recap

It is now Mid-August and I am looking towards fall. I will be not looking up at the eclipse that is happening today, be safe and smart about enjoying the eclipse. I have my garden winding down and in a near future video I will show you what my garden looks like now that some things have been harvested and my plans for next year. My next posts will be more about what to do with your harvests, big or small. To enable me to do this I have looked to good old Pinterest for inspiration and ideas and to YouTube for wonderful how-to videos. 

I hope your week is wonderful! Happy Crafting and Homesteading!

Ceaberry's Homesteading: Gardening -- Three quarter growing

We were now into July and everything stalled growth because of 3 weeks of absolutely no rain.

However, my oldest is pretty proud of her growing garden.

The snapdragons have bloomed twice already and we have some gorgeous colors going on right now.

I added some herbs. Parsley (which was eaten by a opossum), basil, three kinds of mint (chocolate, sweet, and spearmint), and lavender plants.

 Later in mid-July we have a pretty cool garden growing. You can see the snapdragons have gone to seed, the celosia is coming up nicely, the plants are all doing well and we added broccoli and cabbage to the raised beds! Next time you will see what after the first few harvests look like plus the videos to come will show off the garden!

Ceaberry's Homesteading: Gardening -- Starting to Come to life

Before I show the updates of the garden in mid-June I have a picture of the bushes after I hand pruned them. These bushes were over 14 feet in the air and the now sunny spot that was created was ALL in shade. If you're worried about the bushes surviving, I can say now in August the Rose of Sharon is blooming it's three flower colors and even though I had the back lilac chainsawed to the ground (due to rot) it is coming back full force already. This was actually best for the lilac bushes because the rot had set in pretty deeply and if I had let it continue there would have been no bushes in about a year or so. 

Ok now to the garden. In mid-June it did not look like much from far away, mostly a flower garden. This was great since it had color while waiting for the veggies to grow.

In the front, you can see flats of tomatoes that would become my plants that have been so successful!

These are my radishes and lettuce. In later videos you will only see the radishes. These are not the same as the ones pictured. Unbeknownst to me around this time cut worms were growing in my container. The moths are attached you young soft growth (the lettuce since it isn't head lettuce) and I had TWELVE in this small container. I woke up one morning to all of my greens just gone. I replanted after I sifted the soil. Now those radishes have been picked and one has left to seed. Lesson learned.

These are my little corn sprouts. Now a few of these were moved into the raised bed and the ones left in the pot got tassels but never any silks, the ones in the raised bed however have silks and tassels. Gardening ....*eye roll*

During most of June my corn plants hosted small yellow garden spiders. They stayed there all month until I finally moved them into my garden and I still see them around from time to time.

My pink lemonade blueberry bush had the berries finally starting to change from green to pink.

In the other pots, my cotton in the center pot is coming up well. It will be the only pot to survive, the other two are repurposed for other things later in the season... Gardening.

In this picture, I have planted my peppers and tomatoes with the onions in the center of the raised bed.

Now for some pretty flowers. These are my snap dragons with the Hawaiian 5.0 in the middle. Hindsight, I will put the purple flowers in their own container next year.

 

These are my marigolds and celosia flowers.  It took until mid-July for the latter to bloom but my marigolds have been going strong all summer!

Here are my begonias. They look exactly the same as they do in this picture today in August.

I got all my flowers and my peppers from a local grower, the rest of my stuff is from Burpee's or Crazy Harry's Greenhouse (not a paid endorsement). 

Ceaberry's Homesteading: Gardening -- Season Begins

This is my series on my small little garden this year. We decided to forgo our bigger garden this year but next year I have plans of expansion. This section deals with the garden I started way back in May 2017.

I started with a few containers of plants. I have a lovely flower plant, two pots of deck corn and a patio railing of half lettuce and half radishes.

I have two "raised beds," one protected and one not so protected. The one that is protected just has last year's onions in it. The one that was unprotected has 3 pots of cotton (legal in my state). The main thing though is the rose of sharon and lilac bushes behind the raised bed. You can see one lilac bush is really over grown and tall, all three were very poorly maintained.

I took my hand saw and cutters to the rose of sharon and hacked away at the bush with vengeance. There is also forsythia growing into the raised bed. Please, if you don't plan on maintaining a forsythia, DO NOT PLANT ONE. I have been epically fighting this battle for FOUR years and I am losing most years, not next year but that is a different post.

In the next set of photos you can see me cedar trees that are on our front lawn. One has been slightly pruned and the other has been half pruned. I wanted an archway for the mail people to be able to walk through and us if we parked up there.

So out came the loppers and hand saw again. I worked for 3 days getting everything trimmed. I have two small kids and were only able to do this an hour a day. 

So that was the beginning of my gardening for the year. I add a lot more plants as time progresses. Happy Homesteading!