Starting veggies indoors & making rock gardens

Last week I started cabbages, cauliflower, collards, and red lettuce. Once they sprouted, I have kept them in the greenhouse during the day, then I bring them in at night with a light on them for a couple of hours. I used a seed starting mix for these plants, then I will transplant them in one of my gardens in March.

Come March, hopefully I'll have much of my main garden mulched so i can directly sew early growing peas, radishes, and lettuces. By this time, many of the early flowering plants will be up, as I already see the daffodils, hyacinths, and tulips poking through the soil. The crocuses of course are blooming since they're a very early blooming flower.

In a couple of days, I'm going to start onion and carrots indoors as well with a tray filled with potting soil. Once they get established, I'll put them out in April.

In my last post, I forgot to show you the rock gardens by placing rock around fruit trees and fruit bushes. I have been collecting rock from the woods and hauling them to the garden with a wheel barrow. In addition I have been placing rock over paths in the garden because the paths are getting swampy as this winter has been very wet.

Rocks around 4 of the peach and nectarine trees

Rocks around 10 of the blueberry plants & goji berries

Rock garden, tire tower, & beautiful crocuses

I have continued to clean the yard this week. I need to have another brush fire again. I especially am cleaning up arounf the flower garden and desperately need to mulch them. The crocuses are already blooming and the hyacinths leaves are poking out of the ground.

For the last couple of days i have hauled rocks from the woods to put around fruit trees and fruit bushes. I'll show you a tour soon.

I have started working on a tire tower flower garden. I need to clean them so I can eventually paint them vibrant spring colors then transplant flowers in them.

Also i decided to start cabbage and cauliflower indoors. Once the seedlings come up, I'm going to put them in the porch greenhouse during sunny days. By mid March i will tranplant them outside in a mini tunnel greenhouse i have. There is much to do in the garden even in winter, so I'll keep you updated.

Cactus blooming (indoor plant garden) + Full Moon

the cats through palm leaf

 I wasn't sure the cacti were ever going to bloom. Sure enough after December they started budding and today one of the blooms opened to reveal its delicate parts.

cactus flower

Days ago, the full moon was much to be hyped about, as it was a blue blood moon. Under the moon, I had a fire that night and was able to burn a lot of brush from around the yard. I'm trying to clean up the weeds and burn the mimosa trees in this spot so I can start working on the cob greenhouse structure. More details to come with the many other garden tasks ahead.

Snow at the food forest + garden update

A day after Christmas, I hauled two loads of newspaper from my cousin who had been hoarding newspapers. I got almost all of it on their porch and was able to spread the newspaper all over the bank where the grapes, aronia, and goji berries are growing. There was so much newspaper I was also able to spread it on the bank where the blueberries, figs, and other fruits tree are growing, including the pathways in the garden. It was bitter cold when I done that one day, but this week we had two days of 60-degree weather in northern Kentucky so I took advantage.

Over the last two days I covered the newspaper with leaves from the woods. With the blue trash can you can see in the background of the picture, I carried leaves down from the woods and spread on the garden to make it look presentable and clean. I still have so much more leaves to spread over the newspaper in the pathways, but at least I got the bank covered because the neighbors can see the bank from the road. It was unsightly to see all those newspapers. I have to wait for another warm day, because after those two warm days it rained immensely and brought cold and snow with it.

Fig Jam, Growing pineapples & tropical plants indoors (VIDEO)

Harvested Indoor Sprouts (microgreens) + radishes from winter garden

Eat sprouts with sandwiches or in salads

Container & indoor garden with potted Cauliflower & microgreens

Much of the outdoor garden has been harvested like the broccoli, lettuce, peas, and radishes. I'm not sure if the artichoke will survive any longer through the winter, although I have attempted to cover it heavily through these cold nights.

But I dug up the cauliflower from the garden because they were growing so well, and I planted them in their own large pots. Also with the bok choy and nappa cabbage I bought from the store and ate, I planted the roots of the bok choy and cabbage.
At night I cover the potted plants individually with the grow bags I used for the potatoes. I can bring these potted plants inside, but I have so many potted plants as it is; so I am going to try and keep these covered every night through the winter, and even triple cover them if needed on the coldest nights.

Additionally, I am experimenting with growing microgreens to eat. I planted arugula, radish, and mustard seed and put them under a grow light. They have grown so quickly. Compare the first photo with the second, and you'll see the progress within a couple of hours of growing.

Microgreens usually take about 8-10 days, sometimes longer, till you can harvest to eat the sprouts for sandwiches, wraps, in smoothies, or as a garnish on salads.

Harvested Big Broccoli heads & planted Tulips for spring

Planted nearly 100 Tulip/daffodil bulbs, mulched & covered 

broccoli harvest

Seeds As StoryTellers: Colonialism, Biodiversity, Queering Agriculture, & Human Genome

Keeping crops covered at night + colors & critters of autumn

plastic sheets over artichoke and broccoli at night

plastic over fence to cover broccoli plants

broccoli covered with mesh sheet, with grow bags in between plants

greens covered with glass shelves

radish covered with glass pane from old fridge

mattress spring holding up swiss chard

blueberries with red leaves

figs covered with blankets & tree covers

cat in the woods

pear trees with yellow leaves

Broccoli coming to heads + Fig, Turnip greens harvest

collard green plant being held by spring from old mattress

one row of broccoli with artichoke plant

second row of broccoli

this radish gave me heart burn immediately! haha

patch of radishes

rows of artichoke with broccoli, radish, swiss chard, collards, turnip greens

cauliflower with artichoke

bought these tulip bulbs for 5$ !

Harvesting corn & lettuce for veggie tacos + peas & figs

Trucker's favorite corn variety harvested

 I harvested corn and lettuce from the garden to make veggie tacos. The tacos were made by frying onions, peppers, and corn with diced tomatoes and lettuce from the garden. I also like to eat these with vegetarian re-fried beans.

harvesting lettuce

figs & peas harvested