After quite a long break from blogging I am finally back! Life has been full lately with the birth of my first baby in December, and the start of this new growing season. I have many great posts planned, but for now here is a quick update with some photos.
Ok so here is the beginning of a lovely new season of growing in our new location! We are loving Kamloops so far and I am particularly excited because this is an especially good climate for growing tomatoes and melons and things like that. It gets nice and HOT in the summer! Anyway, these are the first few beds we've been working on.
One fun story is that since Mr. Forager's new job (the reason we moved) is at the Church down the street, we've been in contact with several awesome people who are full of great advice and also skills. I asked one man if he had scrap wood lying around that I could use to make some raised beds. He said he might and that he would get back to me. Later on I got home one day and found these super convenient boxes made for me! We are using them upside down because they weren't going into the ground very well. It doesn't really make that much of a difference. I suppose we can cut off the stakes if they get in our way, or I can use them to tie plants up to or something. Either way!
Anyway, my favourite method for filling up my boxes is to use a combination of lasagna gardening and hugelkultur techniques. I was particularly excited because I got to use up some of my Christmas tree to fill the boxes and that enabled me to use much less soil, and I won't have to dig or till the boxes since all the layers will break down.
This time around (as you can see in the photo below) I used a layer of newspaper first which I then soaked so that the weeds and grass below won't be growing into my nice beds. Then I spread a thin layer of steer manure (you can use any kind of fertilizer, really). After that cut up branches of my Christmas tree, and then another layer of manure. After that I spread out some straw and helped to fill in some of the gaps that the branches created so that the top of the soil would be more level. After that another layer of manure, and then finally a nice thick layer of compost. My favourite thing to use is Sea Soil which is very awesome and rich in nutrients.
For more information on "Lasagna Gardening"
For more information on Hugelkultur
I realize that it has been a while since I have posted one of these - in fact it has been a while since I have posted anything at all, but I'm going to keep on trying to keep this current. The big move changed a lot of things for us and I've had a difficult time getting back into the swing of things here.
This topic comes at a pretty good time, since it is the very beginning of a new season and there is not much I can do in the way of actual practical action. Right now my yard looks like this:
I'm going to have to wait a while on the planting!
I guess the garden of my dreams would be large enough to feed my family year round. It would be beautiful, and use permaculture techniques so that my food would be nutritious and benefit the environment. I would grow heirloom, open pollinated varieties and save my own seed so that I could have a hand in preserving agricultural heritage. Basically I would like to grow anything that my family needed: from cut flowers, to food, to Christmas trees! I would also be interested in having chickens as a part of my garden to help eat my weeds/scraps and to provide me with fresh eggs. I also would be interested at some point in keeping bees to help pollinate my garden and to harvest the honey.
While most of the things I have outlined are very practical, I would also like my garden to be a place where I can relax and enjoy the beauty of nature. I hope to be able to make it so that in every season the garden looks beautiful - not just in the spring and summer!
I guess while this was meant to be a "dream", it is still attainable as long as I can someday have the land to do it! Even in the mean time here while we are living in rentals and don't own our own land I am going to work at taking steps towards my dream garden.
Ok, so you might have noticed the new name and banner for this blog. The main reason for that is: we no longer live in a big city so "Big City Kitchen Garden" no longer fits us very well. We now live in the booming metropolis of Barnhartvale. I know you're all wondering where that is. Short answer - South East Kamloops, BC.
We have already begun to settle in to our new home. Our senior citizen cat has been out and about exploring. I know that looks like a painted backdrop, but let me assure you - it is that beautiful here.
So for me I realized as soon as we moved that my original blog title (Edit: originally I had a blog called "Big City Kitchen Garden" that is no longer active) was too narrow. I have also developed a keen interest in foraging (either for food, or for items) as well as eating and using invasive plant species (read: I love free food). Basically for me this is a new focus on my home in general, and is a way to include more of my interests. Gardening will for sure be something that I still talk about, but so will my excursions around the neighbourhood to find wild apple trees and the like. My family is starting to live a more hunter/gatherer lifestyle (mixed with some backyard farming) with our move out here. Mr. Forager is promising me great things in the way of trout and deer so expect to see some of that in the near future as well. I also count "foraging" to mean anything involving the use of found items. I love to repurpose items and give them new life so I am glad to have a blog that I feel I can include those topics as well.
All in all I am extremely happy to live where I do and to be able to explore the interests I have and share them with you! I hope you enjoy reading about my future adventures and endeavors as much as I enjoy doing them.
I'm a little behind the times on this one, but I came across the Grow Write Guild writing prompt club over at You Grow Girl and I decided it would be a great thing to start. I struggle with keeping a regular schedule of posting for this blog so I figured this would be a way to make things a little more frequent.
So. My first plant. I'm a little bit foggy on what it was in particular. In my youth I had many a struggling african violet and the odd sad tropical plant one finds on the shelf at Walmart or Ikea. The first plant that I remember loving is a different story. I used to have a terrible job at a store that sold clothing and other accoutrements for babies. Despite the unsatisfactory job situation, the store was located in the area of my town with the most unique and interesting shops. Nearby there was a store that specialized in orchids and this is where I first remember falling in love with a plant. I had to take one home.
The leaves were dark emerald and luscious. The stem soared above them crowned with luminous white blossoms - the largest and most beautiful I had ever seen.
I adored it.
Now, this is not to say that I was successful in caring for my prized phalaenopsis. In fact I think it has long since dried up an withered away, but this was my first introduction into really learning and experimenting with more than just watering plants. Even though I let the orchid die, I have since developed into a gardener that really seeks after knowledge about what makes my plants tick. I read up on all the different varieties I grow and keep a private gardening journal as well as this blog to share what I learn and observe.
I've had and will continue to have many failures, but each one is a learning experience that is almost as rewarding as a success.