SpringThings

Spring is here!  Now that we're past the dreaded month of April (it's the 'Cruelest Month', you know), things are looking good.  Flowers are blooming, the gardens are mulched, the asparagus bugs are having their way with the new shoots, morels exploded in the yard, the veggies are ready to be planted.  OH MY.  Game On as they say.

Plan "C"

Whew.  It's been a bit of a grueling winter/spring.  Cold, snowy, dark and generally miserable for a 'gardener in waiting'.  I've gone back through my garden diary and notice that we're really behind schedule this year.  Usually I've got cold tolerant veggies in the ground, flower beds edged and perennials divided.  Not so in 2014.  We've had a few lovely days adequate for outside work, but mostly I've just been staring out the window from inside.  Pining. 

Things are starting to look up though, and my to-do list is long.  Thankfully, I can finally check-off one big task.  Plan "C" Chicken Coop.  We've had several chicken setbacks over the past two years.  A dog and a coyote have infiltrated my inadequately secured coops.  Lessons were learned and plans were made.  We decided to go big on this our last try for safely keeping chickens in our little Gap Mountain Garden.

After much reading and planning, we decided to go with the chain link kennel option.  I dismantled the old set-up and carefully salvaged any materials I could...why is hardware cloth so da#n expensive??  We found a good used kennel on Craigslist and some metal roofing 'seconds' from a local roofing company.  We reused our old coop and put it directly into the run/kennel to avoid the need to attach the two safely and securely.

We then wrapped the bottom half of the kennel in leftover hardware cloth and the top half in chicken wire.  We also screwed pressure treated lumber to the door to close up large openings accessible by hungry paws. 

 
We really really hope this will do the trick.  Today is our first day away from the house with the new henettes outside.  Hopefully I won't have any future sob stories for you.  The neighbor dog really likes to eat our chickens and he/she is very motivated and persistent.  Fingers crossed.

The Magical Fruit

As the sun shines, the snow melts and we approach the end of February, I'm in full-on reflection mode of the past growing season and in great anticipation for the one that is yet to come.  These cold days are comforted still by the rewards of the 2013 garden in the form of frozen and canned veggies, sweet potatoes resting in the basement, and dried beans in the pantry.

This was my first attempt with the whole dried bean thing.  I've always grown beans for fresh consumption and for some reason, never even considered these until last year.  Honestly, I've always over-planted green beans.   I could never keep up, we could never eat enough and the da#n foliage irritated my skin, so the fun of picking was lost on the rashes.  Growing beans for dry use ended up being right up my alley.  It allowed me to be lazy during the growing season which was a big plus.  Put the seeds in the ground, let em grow and then let em die.  Simple as that.  Remove the pods, grab your husband and shell away.

 

This is a slightly tedious step, but you get in a groove.  Turn on a movie, or in our case, watch your favorite college football team on a Saturday afternoon.  This year I will need to try some alternative shelling methods (search for the 'pillow case method') to expedite the process as I've gone a bit overboard with the seed ordering.  Black beans, kidney beans, great northern beans, brown beans, garbanzo beans.  Whoops.  Like any good gardener, I've lost my mind. 

New Team

We've got a new batch of chicks joining the Gap Mountain Garden Team.  They arrived on July 9th from mypetchicken.com and have been growing like weeds ever since!

We originally ordered 5 but sadly, a silver-laced wyandotte did not survive the trip.  We're left with 4 and actually, that is the perfect size for our small family and home.  The roster includes:  a golden-laced wyandotte, speckled sussex, silver marans and a dominique.  The dominique is a rising favorite for her super laid back attitude.  The sussex is a close second for her uncurable curiosity.  The other two act like you're trying to murder them when you walk into the room.  I guess no matter how much handling you do, some will just always be nervous.

These ladies are ready to head to their outside home.  We're just waiting for a dry day to finish our coop upgrades and repairs.   Relentless rains have slowed progress for most everything this summer.

June Blooms

HipHops

We're into our second year with the hops grow and we're excited to bear witness to the formation of our first flowers and cones!  Our 'Cascade' vines were the first to get going this year.  They have a prime spot in the front flower bed and they climb up our tall porch posts.

Cascade hops

After last year's derecho-pocalypse storm, we lost many of the 'Nugget' babies that we planned to plant in the new trellised hops bed.  Not to worry though, these plants are just begging to propagate themselves, so I overwintered several cuttings indoors and planted them out this spring.

Nugget hops

We also planted two new varieties from rhizomes this year -- 'Magnum' and 'Perle'.  We're hoping to do a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone for a forthcoming brew and these are critical ingredients.

I have a serious plant crush on these hops vines.  They're beautiful in every way!

See?  Told ya so.

Grand Canyon Garden

Earlier this spring, I had the supreme pleasure of joining my parents and a good friend on an epic journey to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (and back to the top!) on foot.  There are no words suitable enough to describe the beauty contained within those canyon walls.  A trip to the rim, although amazing in and of itself, just does not afford you access to all the secrets that this amazing place has to share.  What got me the most though, as you might imagine, was the plant life.  April seems to the best time for catching the canyon in bloom.  Do yourself a favor and GO THERE!