pear harvest

This year we were better prepared to harvest the fruit trees in our backyard. Last year at this time we were in the thick of the remodel and were sorting through a bunch of rotten apples. Our backyard smelled like rotten fruit and I felt pretty overwhelmed at all of the clean up and pruning our trees needed.

We inherited an old giant pear tree that is half dead and needs a lot of care. Last year when we tried a pear straight off the tree the texture and flavor was so gross I thought maybe the tree was sick and produced bad fruit. I had no idea that pears should never ripen on the tree! Thankfully, this year I did some research and we picked the pears early and let them ripen off the tree and it made all the difference - they were SO good! The taste and texture was delicious, although Lark enjoyed  nibbling on the pears all summer long and didn't seem to mind whether they were ripe or not. ;) We ate our fill and shared a lot with friends and family.

Next year we hope to make our pear harvest turn out even better, these are the types of learning curves I really enjoy.

our garden

We have been spending most of our days outside. I love weeding (no, really, I love weeding) and the girls have claimed the spaces under and between the lilac trees as their "hide out/tree house/grotto" so we are a content trio out in the yard. I pull and they pretend.

Over Memorial Day weekend we were able to clear out a space for our garden thanks to a neighbor with a tiller. This is the area where the fire pit was located, but we decided to move it since this was the best spot for the garden. The stone pathways are made up from all of the rocks we dug out from around the pit. I am so happy to have such a big space to grow food for my family!

I want our garden to be a family endeavor, so we invited the girls to help as much as they wanted. Lark just wanted to wear my gloves and pretend to plant, LM decided she wanted to put the seeds in the holes. Tending a garden can teach so many concepts from the science of how plants grow, to the rewards of hard work and I hope my girls will learn and grow along with our food this season.

purple and orange carrots

  

  We've enjoyed our garden so much this summer. We are still harvesting quite a bit (see yesterday's haul above) and I love going out to see what's ready to be put on the menu that day - I'm going to miss that when the snow comes. But for now I am up to my ears in zucchini, kale, and chard ready for the picking, so this weekend will be spent baking, baking, and baking some more. Yum. Hope you have a delicious weekend as well.

Signed,

eating for two 

first harvest

(mesclun mix lettuce, early girl tomatoes, rainbow chard, spinach)

After losing half our garden to a late frost and having to start over with seed, this little harvest I picked today is very satisfying. Especially since I was able to get to the lettuce before whatever animal has been eating it. Soon we will have zucchini, yellow squash, peppers, kale, and orange and purple carrots as well. I'll have to incorporate this into our dinner tonight. Yum.

spring snow

I haven't been able to get at my sewing machine lately due to trays of little seedlings taking over my craft room.

(celery, cucumber, yellow squash)

And since it looks like this outside today I feel like I am never going to be able to get my space back!

prepping our garden

This weekend we hunted for rocks. Husband did so much hard work digging up our new garden area (one of two this year - we are expanding) and the Little Miss and I helped pick out all of the rocks he unearthed. We live on the side of a mountain so there were never-ending rocks, some as big as my head, and we must have tossed hundreds of them down the mountainside. So glad that part is over.

In my quest to have a successful garden this year (last year it was left to luck and didn't thrive) I actually did some research and had a nice chat with a lady at a garden center who was very knowledgeable about the soil in my area - I highly recommend this. I thought I would share what I learned about prepping soil here (sorry if you don't live in Utah Valley) in hopes that it will help someone, because it can be intimidating if you don't know where to start. This is by no means comprehensive and I still have a lot to learn but it should help. Here we go...

The ideal soil for a garden is called loam, which is made up of 40% sand, 40% silt, and 20% clay. If you live in Utah Valley your soil is probably mostly clay. Not only does the clay retain too much water and make it hard for the roots to penetrate, but the pH of clay is about a 7. Most vegetables like to grow at a pH of 5 or 6 (with some exceptions like asparagus at an 8). To top it off our water is a pH of 8, so every time we water we are tipping the scale in the wrong direction. So, one way to help bring the pH down is by adding peat moss which has a pH of 3-4. Adding the peat moss will also help with the consistency of the soil making it lighter and softer.

After this, you will need to add some nutrients. Our soil is naturally lacking nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, zinc and iron so organic compost and fertilizer will help make up for this deficiency. I was able to find an all organic and natural soil stimulant at a garden center that I felt good about using since I am trying to be as natural as possible. It has all of the nutrients plants need along with mycorrhizae and worm castings (in a nut shell, mycorrhizae are soil fungi which have a beneficial relationship with plant roots helping them to absorb more nutrients, and worm castings are the end-product of organic matter composted by earthworms). We also started our own compost last fall and added that in to the mix.

We made the decision to raise our gardens by making garden boxes out of redwood (which is resistant to rot). This will give our plants an extra 6 inches or so of soft, rich soil to grow in but it is not required by any means and will raise your cost. It was about $60 for two 4x7 boxes, plus however many bags of soil we will need to fill them up - we haven't done that yet. We will also be adding some more peat moss, soil stimulant, and compost to the bags of soil we add.

Our prepped native soil which used to be so thick you could mold a clay pot out of it, is now much lighter, softer, and rich looking. It took a lot of hard work and sweat but I feel good about planting our little seedlings in a few weeks - like I will be giving them what they will need to thrive. I'll give you an update then.

If you want to learn even more, there was a great post on Bloom today about gardening you should check out.