Garden food dinner with asparagus & herbs

Today I harvested from the garden for the first time this year, picking asparagus, herbs, greens, carrots, and onion. Asparagus is tough so you have to cook it thoroughly. First I let the bow tie pasta boil in water whole I chopped the wild onion and put it in a pan to fry with oil. Then I chopped the asparagus and added it with the onion, in addition to soy margarine and the 1 cup of boiling water from the boiling pasta.

I let that boil down then added salt, pepper, garlic, then added my herbs at the very end of cooking. I picked rosemary, oregano, and thyme in the garden and chopped them. Don't let them cook longer than 5 minutes so they still have a lot of flavor.

Then I drained the pasta, mixed the asparagus and herbs with the pasta, and added a little (vegan) Just Mayo brand to get it creamy. I garnished with raw chopped lettuce from the garden.

Tulip garden pics + grow bag potatoes in April

I want to keep capturing the beauty of tulips this year before all of them have died off, so I keep taking pictures of them. But I sowed lots of summer flower seed as the spring flowers fade.

Thursday I sowed sunflowers, zinnias, and chamomile, in addition I have lavender to transplant into the flower garden. There's another interesting plant I stumbled upon that is just brilliant-- the Cassia Popcorn plant which absolutely smells like buttered popcorn when it's touched. This tropical plant grows up to 8 feet tall but in my region-- it will be small and I'll have to bring it in during the winter.
Later on Thursday I sowed cushaw and straightneck squash, straight 8 and home pickling cucumber seed, in addition to jack o lantern and sugar baby pumpkins, and bottle gourds. After sowing, I covered each row of sown seeds with clear plastic to protect the seeds and warm the soil so that it encourages the seeds to germinate.

Today I got compost and spread on the areas where I will soon transplant tomatoes and peppers. Also I spread compost where i'm going to sow watermelon seed under the polytunnel and cantaloupe under the second polytunnel. Growing melons under the polytunnels will ensure I can protect the seeds during any cool weather till mid May. Next week will be 80 degree temperatures, so I'm waiting then to sow melon seed and transplanting the lavendar, tomatoes and peppers.

The rest of the truckload of compost was used to fill 20 grow bags, and in them I planted potatoes, the Kennebac variety. As I make more progress on these gardens, I will continue to show you along the way. Good night everyone and have a great weekend.

Flowers from my garden

My flowers and me are symbiotic...until I cut them..but they fell over from the storm

Working everyday now in the gardens

I've shoveled this garden for days and am finally finished, but I need to till still. I'll have to wait after this week of rain to till, then on to sowing.

Shoveled garden 2, now it needs tilled

 

Mulched this bed too 

But garden 3 needs shoveled & tilled now

Recycled materials as cloches to cover seedlings during spring nights

Use strawberry containers for cover as they are easier to secure over seedlings than plastic bottles

Uncover containers every morning to let plants breath

Plastic bottles can be used but generally they overheat plants or easily blow away in the wind

Still shoveling garden 2 + flower pictures

I continued to work in the second garden today turning the soil over to till. If I go at it tomorrow, I will have the second Garden all shoveled and ready to till. Then next week, I'll till the garden to plant greens, beans and potatoes. I also enjoyed looking at the flowers under the spring Sun.

Sowed carrot, kale, cilantro, beet seed around seedlings

After days of hot weather, it immediately set in rain, then got cold. So I covered the seedlings in the garden with plastic bottles. Today I sowed carrot, kale, cilantro, and beet seed around the seedlings in the garden.

On the right, carrot "little fingers" and arugula were sowed

Beet seed and cilantro sowed around seedlings in the bed beside grow bags 

Around the bottles, a line of kale was sowed

I need to rotate the soil here again then I'll transplant pepper & tomatoes 

I'm going to sow squash & cucumber seed here in May

80 degrees here & mulching the gardens + flower photos

Yesterday I got a truck load of mulch for 20 dollars and spread it on the hugelkultur mounds as well as the fruit trees, flower garden and the fruit bushes. I have peas, cabbages, cauliflower, and collards growing in the garden now so I really needed them mulched during this hot period then cold of April.

Mulched around greens and peas

Mulched this bed for squashes in May

Mulched around greens in bed on the left, not sure what to plant on the right

Mulched fruit trees and fruit bushes 

The truckload was actually so much mulch that I even spread it on an additional garden bed and my grandma's trees and flowers I planted for her. This is a tip: do not buy bagged soil as it is expensive and never enough soil. 20 dollars for will get you 2 bags of soil at Southern States or Lowe's. So I get a truck load from an Amish community that works a garden center.

After mulching almost everything in two people's yards yesterday, I can feel every part of my body aching from shoveling the mulch. Even today I cleaned my second garden, started shoveling the soil and had a fire until it set in rain...

But yesterday was successful because I used the mulch for the grow bags and planted potatoes in them as well. I'm glad at least I have several rows of food growing now because actually I am a little behind schedule this year from the cold spring weather.

Grow bags with potatoes

 According to farmer's almanac, the 13th through the 15th are good days to cultivate so I wanted to get the mulching around the plants done. It was 80 degree weather here in northern Kentucky, and it will be very warm for the next couple of days.

There is going to be a couple of cool days so after that I'm going to transplant more of my greenhouse seedlings and sow root crops and greens.

Today made more of the Tulips to bloom out. They're so magnificent.

Covering the fruit trees from snow & other fruits trying to grow

It was a cold and snowy morning so I prepared for the snow last night by covering the tulip garden and blooming fruit trees. When I woke up this morning, I knocked off the snow from the tree covers and the row covers on the tulips.

Obviously I can't cover the bigger fruit trees, but I can cover the blueberries and actually I should have because they're trying to bloom as well.

The two large pear trees and plum are too big to cover

The old peach is too big to cover

I have kept the 3 fig trees covered all winter & spring so far

I think there's less than 10 blueberries and most of them are trying to bloom

2 goji plants are leafing but the other 2 are not

The other 2 goji are here with aronia plants and grape vines that are leafing

The raspberries are leafing out here, but the 5th goji here is also not leafing yet 

Tulips blooming everyday, fruit trees still blooming

Happy generation variety

Peach trees 

Plum tree blossoms smell like grape flavoring