We were working on a pretty big garden project (details to be shared later!) when suddenly we realized we had unknowingly disturbed a nest of voles. Ok more than disturbed. They must have been nesting in our compost but we only found them after it had all been shovelled over into the new location and even then not until the next day.
Today we were bringing bags of dirt down to the garden and Mr. Forager nearly dropped a huge bag right on one that had crawled out into the garden path. We heard some more squeaking and discovered one more still hidden in the compost. Neither of us knew what to do so we put them in a box with some straw and I've been feeding them milk from an eye dropper all day.
I'm not really expecting them to last long, but I feel like I owe it to them to at least try to give them a chance. We'll see what happens.
Update (11/06/16): Both voles have passed away. This was not really unexpected but it was still sad. I hope they were more comfortable in their last days than if I had just left them.
As you can see our garden is a bit challenged when it comes to space. We are renters right now and we consider ourselves lucky to have the space that we have. I could just go at gardening as more of a hobby, but I consider it a personal challenge to try to feed my family as much as possible from our tiny little plot. One important step to this is encouraging vertical growth whenever possible. This makes peas and beans no-brainers, but there are some other veggies in this category that might not be initially thought of. One of these is potatoes.
This is our potato bin. I wish I took a photo of it right at the beginning, but I wasn't thinking of writing a blog post about the project at that point so that got neglected. Basically we used a couple pallets and Mr. Foraged and I worked together on an idea that might work.
I've grown potatoes in grow bags before, and grown them in a raised bed with the more traditional method of 'hilling up'. This potato tower method was sort of a combination of the two. I was also influenced by some reading I did on other traditional ways people grew tomatoes - one of which was to grow them in straw. This was the real key to keeping our idea cost effective!
What we ended up doing was screwing together a four by four square with four posts going up from each corner. We then covered the ground inside it with newspaper to discourage weeds, and then covered that with a few inches of good manure and compost. We planted our potatoes in that and then covered it with a good six inches of straw.
Then as the potatoes grew we kept adding slats and filling it up with more straw. I made sure to keep a few inches of the potato leaves visible from under the straw to make sure the plants still had access to sunlight.
A major benefit to this method - aside from saving cost and space - that I can see is that the job of harvesting should be much easier! I'm thinking we'll spread out a tarp and then unscrew the slats on one side and then just pull everything out. The potatoes should be pretty clean from just growing in straw, and we won't accidentally poke any with a potato fork. It will also make it really easy to get in to grab a few early baby potatoes! Of course it remains to be seen if this even works for growing potatoes. So far we have beautiful looking plants, but I don't know what is going on underneath right now. We'll have to wait and see! I will definitely update when it comes time to really put this method to the test!
Here is a bit of a thank you letter to all those who have given me my start in this urban homesteading adventure. I am so indebted to your wisdom. I am inspired by parents, friends, grandparents, and great grandparents.
I know I have always liked plants and nature in a vague and general way, but now that this passion has blossomed - so to speak - I am so grateful to have the knowledge of the people around me when I need it.
I am reminded of stories of great grandparents making up big chicken dinners on Sundays since they never knew how many people would be coming over after church. There wasn't a worry that there wouldn't be enough because the homestead was so well provisioned. Everything was right there on the farm.
I think that most of the people I come from have had a connection to the earth. That may be because historically it was necessary for their survival, but even in recent generations many traditions have not been lost.
I remember savouring my mother's crabapple jelly. She did not have a vegetable garden, but there was a crabapple tree that kept us in our favourite jelly every year. I remember one amazing harvest of 39lbs of fruit; apples with red so deep they were almost purple. There were so many that only the best were chosen. The blemished ones were left carpeting the ground below the tree attracting the only four point buck I have ever seen visiting that house.
I have fond memories of shelling peas at 'the farm'. There were so many that in the end my thumbs were sore from the repetitive motion but it didn't matter. The communal family time of us all gathered in the kitchen over a shared task outweighed any fatigue. The little peas seemed like green pearls to me at the time, and the few that missed the bucket for my mouth seemed sweeter than any I'd eaten before.
When I first forayed into gardening efforts on my own I commiserated with my grandfather about visiting deer. I asked for help from neighbours and friends who had been gardening for years in this climate. I am still learning about what works and what doesn't (mostly from experience). I love sitting in someone's kitchen talking about local wild plants or the new things and the old tried and true things they are growing.
I went on my first asparagus foraging trip with a neighbour. She bequeathed her knowledge as we walked and gradually I didn't need her help to identify where I might find the delicious spears poking out through the grass. Now I can go on my own and even pass on the knowledge to others. I want to be a solid link in this chain of wisdom. I want to be able to pass down this way of living in close symmetry with the world around me. God's creation gives so much and I want to steward what I can and pass these values on to the future generation.
On the first sunny day since our rainy long weekend it seemed right to eat a salad for lunch. It also gave me an excuse to do a garden chore I hadn't quite got around to yet - thinning the beets!
My favourite thing to do when growing root veggies with edible greens is to purposefully plant them crowded. Like super dense. I should have taken a photo. Actually what I did was drop entire seed packets (in this case: radishes, beets, and some spinach) in a 3'x3' garden bed, rake them around, and cover with dirt. Now that they are grown up a bit I am forced to thin them. Normally I feel a bit sad thinning out my plants, but in this case I am excited because it's almost like getting a bonus crop. Today I threw them in a gorgeous salad. Tomorrow I might wilt some in scrambled eggs.
These radishes were getting on the larger side so I would likely sauté them or throw them in soup.
So many delicious options for something that would have otherwise been thrown in the compost heap (not that composting is ever a bad thing)!
Now about that beautiful salad. I threw my beet greens in there, along with some lettuce from the Kamloops Farmer's Market. Some walnuts, candied salmon from Haida Wild, and a boiled duck egg from a neighbor went on top. Here's my basic salad dressing recipe:
HOW TO MAKE THIS