Well, I am 3 months into my Home Farm project and even with some recent setbacks I can say that I am still overjoyed with what my Home Farm has taught me (and produced) this summer. Setbacks you say? Yep. My first setback was one I didn’t account for as I always assumed that sun and warmth would be a good thing. And while they are to some degree, we had one really warm day which produced me a TON of snap peas (peas for Peabody!!!) but also caused my broccoli to form flowers. :( Once the broccoli grows flowers you can’t eat it. As you can see from the picture I got flowers. Luckily for me though I still had quite a few other stalks, though I panicked at the idea of not getting to use them. So I probably prematurely chopped some of them to make soup. But I wasn’t missing my chance to make Broccoli Cheddar Soup with broccoli from my very own patio! So even though many of my plants when planted said that they needed 5-6 hours of sun, they seem to like the rainy overcast weather … [Read more...]
Contain This: Floral Arrangements…
First off I want to say that who needs a traditional flower garden when you can have a Home Farm? Not only has having a Home Farm on my patio brought lush green to gaze upon (as well as all the salad greens I need), but many of those herbs and plants also produce flowers. Some of those flowers, like the one pictured above, are even edible as well. In fact, every flowering plant I chose for my Home Farm is edible. In case you are wondering what the lovely yellow flowers above are, they come from Arugula, also called rocket in the UK…my former neighbor is from Britain and she was more than excited to learn they were the same thing as she was wondering why there was no rocket here in the states. My particular flowers are yellow, but I am told they are often white. I’m happy to get the yellow as they add a pop to my lovely farm. Normally you want to remove the flowers but I am trying to promote bees to come on by since my strawberries don’t seem to want to produce any fruit and my … [Read more...]
Contain This: Using What You Grow
I must admit that when all this started on April 12th I kind of had it in my mind that this little adventure might end up being more of a disaster than a success. I thought I could get a few things to grow but am just in awe of how my little farm has taken off! Just look at the difference since my last post!!!! Just like kids, it seems like my plants store up and almost overnight grow while I am sleeping. I walk out some mornings just amazed. As most of you know I was down and out for almost two weeks and am just now recovering which is kind of the topic of today’s post. No, not about me being sick, but about how plants are living things and if you are going to be gone or do get sick, you will need to find a caretaker for your plants. For almost a week, I was unable to get up and move around and so I had to have someone every day (because that week we actually got sun) come over and water my farm. They also needed to come and move my containers around (I still have to have … [Read more...]
Contain This: Beautification
It’s time once again to check in and see how my container farm is coming along. I must say it was pretty cool when realizing I forgot fresh parsley at the grocery store for my Bolognese sauce, that I had some just outside. And with a couple of snips, I had the amount needed for the recipe. There is something extremely satisfying about using food that you grew yourself.The weather is still my main issue around here, as we tend to not get above 50F on average…it’s May! But the peas and Swiss chard don’t seem to notice at all, they are growing nicely. The broccoli and lettuces are also responding well to the weather. What doesn’t seem to be growing all that well so far is the spinach (which I am a little sad about) and some of the herbs, especially the dill. I’m not giving up on them of course, I know they wish they had more sun (5-6 hours ideally), but they will just have to work with what the Pacific Northwest is giving them. Now that most of my produce is planted … [Read more...]
