The Fat Ewe Farm and Bed and Breakfast
The Fat Ewe Farm and Moose Hills Inn
Organic Permaculture Farmin' for
the Lazy Ewes
  • The Fat Ewe Farm
  • About Us
  • Blog
  • The Fat Ewe Farm Store
  • Livestock Breeds (click here to see all the breeds)
    • Angora goats
    • Icelandic Sheep
    • Jacob sheep
    • Old English Southdown Babydoll Sheep >
      • Babydoll Sheep on the Fat Ewe Farm
  • Contact Us
    • Photo Gallery (click here for some awesome photos or watch the slideshow) >
      • Video Slide Show
    • Phone Number
    • Map
  • Sale Barn
  • Recipes From the Fat Ewe
    • Old Stuff
  • How Much Meat Do You Get?
  • Ukrainian Easter Eggs
  • Moose Hills Inn

The Garden is Done

6/11/2015

0 Comments

 
I dont know a whole lot of folks who love to weed the garden. I don't recall hearing anyone say, "Oh, I just can't wait to go out and bend my back and dirty my knees and weed the garden!" Nope, I can't recall that ever in almost 61 years. 

Me either. I am always looking for ways to avoid weeding. Masanobu Fokuoko, a Japanese natural farmer, says we should not pull weeds. He says that weeds come for specific reasons and they have a great purpose. It is interesting. I put some 2 year old sheep manure on some flower beds last year and this year, lambs quarters have sprung up in hoards. Lambs quarters are edible weeds, highly nutritious and very good for animals and humans alike. I made a delicious salad of them the other day and plan to stir fry some tomorrow. They are better than kale or spinach, even. Anyhow, if you follow Mr. Fukuoko's way of thought, the weeds come to heal the soil. Lamb's quarters are shallow rooted, but lambs quarters grows prolifically where the soil is already rich in nitrogen. That makes sense since I enriched it last year with a huge dump of manure.  By turning lambs quarters under before it goes to seed, that nitrogen remains available in the soil for the plants to come. 

So, in the garden, I scraped off the sod, and what little topsoil there was  and put down well rotted manure, then fresh composting straw and then the soil and sod. I later hand picked and raked most of the sod out, leaving behind the little bit of topsoil that there was. It is enough to plant a garden. 

The new composting hay will provide warmth and the well rotted manure will provide nutrients, but only for deep rooted plants. Dandelions have deep roots. I dont like weeding the garden so I will leave them if they do come, and besides , they are good to eat and the root is great for many herbal treats too. I have even contemplated making dandelion soap! 

I planted a variety of heirloom and non gmo seeds from various seed exchanges, all ordered online. There will be watermelons that ripen in 75 days, two varieties of corn, 3 varieties of carrots, lots of different lettuce, peas and beans, 2 kinds of cukes, several types of beans and squash, mangels and beets, turnips, rutabaga, oh, I am sure I have forgotten some. There are also herbs scattered through out and broadcast over the vegetable plantings. I recall self seeded dill in the garden of my parents and it just sprung up everywhere. It is necessary to make fermented dill pickles. Yum! On the edges inside the bales, I placed potatoes a friend gave me from his last year's garden that he did not eat. I left them outside so they would get a head start and start to sprout and they did. They were laid on the soil and covered with rotting straw. As they grow, more rotting straw will be laid around them. That is a clean and easy way to grow potatoes. Just remove the straw and voila!

Tomatoes are planted on the south side of the house where it remains hot and sheltered. Now, if we don't happen to get frost the first week of September, I might just have some delicious tomatoes this year. There are flower seeds scattered in the garden too, because the flowers attract pollinators and are pretty to look at. 

Depending on the success of the garden, there might be enough to sell even, at the farm store. Wish me luck and rain. We got some rain yesterday evening, about an inch and a half, or 3 centimetres. Everyone was praying for rain, because the area is so parched. It was what I was waiting for to plant the garden and more rain is expected in the next two days. Perfect!  To sing an old song, " Inch by inch, row by row, I'm gonna make this garden grow." Yup, I am. 
Picture
The potatoes are laid on the top of the soil and then covered with rotting straw. As they grow, more straw is added and then when they are ready to harvest, the straw is removed and the potatoes are all on top!
Picture
There are a few rows, but most seeds are hand scattered in areas, rather than rows. Some thinning of beets, carrots and radishes will be necessary. There is also overseeding in those areas with short term crops, like lettuce and radishes. They will be harvested early and the root crops will come later.
Picture
This is not the neatest looking raised bed and was the most work since it got most of the sod when the soil was put back on top. Raking and digging, I think I got most sod clumps out and stacked them on top of the straw bales around the garden beds. Near the edges are vining plants such as cucumbers, watermelon, and squash and they have the alleys between the beds to sprawl in rather than over the planted areas.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Airstream Land Yacht 1964
    Alpacas
    Alpine Goats
    Ameraucana Chickens
    American Buff Geese
    Ancona Ducks
    Angora Goats
    Angora Goats
    Angora Rabbits.
    Babydoll Southdown Sheep
    Babydoll Southdown Sheep
    Bed And Breakfast
    Berkshire Pigs
    Blue Faced Leicester Sheep
    Blue Swedish Ducks
    Boer Goats
    Border Collie
    Border Collie
    Bronze Turkey Standard
    Bronze Turkey (Standard)
    Canadian Horses
    Canadian Horses
    Cats
    Chickens
    Cotswold Sheep
    Crafts And Hobbies
    Cream Legbar Chickens
    Dorset Sheep
    Ducks
    Embden Geese
    E'st A Laine Merino Sheep
    Farm Life
    Farm Life
    Farm Store
    Finnsheep
    Flemish Giant Rabbit
    Flowers
    French Lop Rabbit
    Galloway Cattles
    Gardening
    Gotland Sheep
    Guinea Fowl
    Herbs
    Holstein Steer
    Icelandic Sheep
    Jacob Sheep
    Japanese Bantam Chickens
    Jersey Cow
    Kahaki Campbell Ducks
    Karakul Sheep
    Kiko Goats
    Kilo Highland Cows
    Light Sussex Chicken
    Livestock Guardian Dogs
    Livestock Guardian Dogs
    Maremma Sheepdogs
    Maremma Sheepdogs
    Meishan Pigs
    Miniature Nigerian Dwarf Goats
    Moose Hills Inn
    Muscovy Ducks
    Norwegian Red Dairy Cow
    Nubian Goats
    Nygora Goat
    Ossabaw Hogs
    Partidge Chantecler Chickens
    Pekin Ducks
    Permaculture
    Pied Guinea Fowl
    Polish/Ameraucana Bantam Cross Chickens
    Polled Dorset Sheep
    Potbelly Pigs
    Pygmy Goats
    Recipes
    Rigit Galloway Cows.
    Romanov Sheep
    Romney Sheep
    Rouen Ducks
    Saddleback Pomeranican Geese
    Saxony Ducks
    Sebastopol Geese
    Sheep And Goats
    Shetland Sheep
    Silver Spangled Hamburg Chicken
    Soap And Hand Made Cosmetics
    Standard Jack Donkey
    Sustainability
    Swiss Blackneck Goats
    The Llamas
    The Llamas
    Toulouse Geese
    Tunis Sheep
    White Chantecler Chickens
    White Danish Geese
    Wool

    Author

    Fluffy writes daily about the experiences on the farm and with the bed and breakfast patrons. 

    Archives

    October 2020
    September 2019
    June 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    view old blog site

    RSS Feed

Contact Us
Home

The Fat Ewe Farm 

All text and photos are the sole property of The Fat Ewe Farm  and may not be used without written permission.