Thursday, June 23, 2011

Simplicity of Farm





My farm is a little more along the lines of John Jeavons, permaculture style http://articles.sfgate.com/2002-04-13/home-and-garden/17541149_1_organic-gardening-farming-food-shortage , http://www.johnjeavons.info/ than Martha Stewart magazine style, at least for now. Besides Martha has staff, and for the most part it's just me with a little help from my not so interested in gardening hubby. For some reason, I'm guessing the volcanic activity in Iceland, and Chile this spring, we have had a cold rainy Spring and Summer so the veggies are a bit behind. I'm in a zone 4/5 so the raised beds not only keep tunneling creatures out(I drilled small drainage holes and put wire screen mesh on the bottom of the troughs)it also warms the soil. My dear friend gave me the troughs which I am eternally grateful for. I think she was surprised to see how happy I was over some old horse watering troughs but I'm the kind of person who gets more excited by second hand garden supplies than, fancy jewelry. So far, I have potatoes and peas growing in them. In the greenhouse I have tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, eggplant, basil etc.., that I started from seed and in the other half of the greenhouse I have kale, lettuce, arugula, spinach, parsley and cilantro growing in containers which I have been able to harvest since April.I bought my greenhouse for a great price with a discount coupon at Harbor Freight in Spokane. For anyone in North Idaho, my greenhouse has held up well in the snows as long as I raked off the snow. I placed it out of the wind because around these parts, we get high winds from time to time. My husband and I cook with a lot of garlic so I grow garlic and onions which are what's planted directly in the ground.

I made some linen sun dresses from fabric I bought in the garment district in N.Y.C. the last time I was home visiting my family. My mom taught me the basics of sewing, in her own way, as she calls the sewing term"notches" the term "darts" because the notches look like darts. We took the train into N.Y.C. and she came with me as I proceeded to buy so much fabric that we looked like a couple of bag ladies wandering the streets and could barely squeeze onto the bus with all our stuff. Mom was very tolerant in helping me pursue my fabric obsession. The way our spring and summer is going here I just hope I actually get to wear them, perhaps with a homemade sweater at least!