August happenings...

Summer is humming along here at the farm! The geese and the chickens have gotten through their introductions without a single feather plucked, but there are feathers EVERYWHERE as Herdie and Gerdie go through their annual molt. The gardens are doing wonderful, with lots of veggies being harvested, despite the onslaught of slugs that we are battling! The fall garden has been planted and the seedlings seem much happier than they did when planted in the wonky spring we had this year... here's hoping for a fantastic second harvest!

 Molting season makes for itchy new feathers!

Fall garden preparations!

June in the garden...

The frost is no longer a danger, the flowers are blooming, the birds are singing, and Gerdie is sitting on 9 eggs! So many things are springing to life around here that I thought I would share a few more pictures with you guys!


The flowers are blooming...

Lettuce is having its best year ever!

Remember the 6 Sunchoke roots I planted last year?...

Happy vegetables...

And a new project to work on today!

Progress Photos...

The season is in full swing at Susitna Farm & Fiber, and I thought I would share some photos of what's growing!

Blue Potatoes and Horseradish ready to be planted.

 

 The Salad Garden

 The Herb Garden

 Pepper Plants

 Sunchokes (Jerusalem Artichoke)

 Perennial Flowers for Pollination

 Arugula

 Broccoli

 Gratuitous Compost Picture

 Blurry Picture of a Baby Asparagus

 Lavender

 French Tarragon

 Pumpkin

 Snap Peas

 Bleeding Heart and Volunteer Chives

 Marigolds Everywhere!

 Beautiful Lettuce

 Cucumber

What are YOU looking at?

Frost protection in the garden...

Spring appears to have arrived early this year, and although most of us have experienced snowfall in May, we all seem to be having a difficult time refraining from planting the entire garden by Mother's Day weekend! Honestly, in most of the Matanuska Valley and Anchorage area, your seeds can be safely planted now, if you take a few steps to warm the soil a bit.

Raised beds are a great way to maximize the heat from the sun. They tend to thaw faster, and if you cover them with black plastic or row cover until you are ready to plant, your soil should be plenty warm. Cold Frames are usually insulated on the bottom, and that, paired with the heat brought in through the glass, make a great place to keep starts, or to plant cold tolerant veggies such as lettuce and spinach a little earlier in the season. Hoop houses are essentially cold frames on a grand scale. They make great season extenders, and can be custom built over raised beds with the plastic removed once the danger of frost is past.

If you decide to brave the frost and plant out your starts, the first thing to consider is micro climates within your space. Generally the south facing side of your house will provide the best cold protection. Large rocks strategically placed amongst your starts will absorb heat during the day and release it at night, and a black garbage can or jugs full of water will retain a surprising amount of heat. For more active frost protection, some sort of nightly cover may be needed. You can buy specially designed fabric to cover your plants with, but an old bed sheet will do just as well.

In my garden, the best protection I have found is to cut the bottom inch off of a clear plastic milk jug and place it over the plant like a miniature greenhouse. You can remove the whole thing on nice days, or just the cap on colder days.

If you do decide to plant now, remember to harden off any starts for a few days before placing them in the dirt, and be sure to use air temperature water so you don't sent the roots into shock! Good luck, and happy planting!

Geese in an organic Alaskan garden.....

The weather has been warm and beautiful, the days are getting noticeably longer, and the snow is slowly melting.  These are all wonderful things, but this year the sure sign of spring at Woodside Gardens is goose eggs!  Gerdie has laid 3 eggs so far this season, and it has me excited for the year to come!  My geese are most definitely my pets, and I would keep them simply for the compost boost they give me, but I've decided to sell her eggs to cover the cost of their food (see the facebook page!), which really works out nicely!

 A goose egg compared to a large chicken egg from my Mother's flock.

I have been ridiculously impressed by how well these birds did over the winter.  Their coop is not heated or insulated (except lots of straw, of course), and I had no supplemental light other than a string of small white LED Christmas lights around part of the fence perimeter to help me see the MOOSE.  I kept a metal trash can in the coop for food storage, along with a heavy ceramic dish for them to eat from and an elevated (so they don't try to swim in it) heated dog dish for water.  That's all it took!  They have 24 hour access to their fenced run, and they actually chose to spend most of their time outdoors.  I filled the coop with a bale of straw last May, and added another this past January, stirring it a bit every month or so.

Having a permaculture-centered garden means that I don't purchase fertilizers, I make them myself.  My compost bucket in the kitchen doesn't fill up very fast anymore because I feed the geese all the edible scraps. Those scraps still make it to my garden soil, but first they provide free food for my birds!  They also eat all the weeds I pull out of the raised garden beds, and every dandelion they can get their beaks on!  After Gerdie is done laying eggs for the season, I'll pull all the straw out and throw it into the compost pile, and start the whole process over again.  The compost feeds the soil and also builds it up, so every year I have more soil to build more gardens, which feed my family and birds, and feed the compost pile!  It's a beautiful, never-ending cycle!

I do feel that it is important to note that geese are BIG birds, and they can be dangerous.  When I steal an egg, Herdie wants to kill me, no kidding.  I know how to handle them, and I'm not afraid of them, which helps, but they are NEVER near my children or visitors.  Geese are easy to care for, but I don't want anyone to think they are cute and friendly like chickens (which can be vicious also!).  Some geese are sweet as can be, but most are not, and you must realize this before you get them.  That being said, they have provided endless value to me, and I'm glad I have them!

A Woodside Gardens Radio Interview!

alaskapublic.org has a radio interview that I did last week available...

http://www.alaskapublic.org/2013/10/07/the-year-round-alaska-gardener/

Give it a listen!

Sunchokes in Alaska...

For those of you who don't know, a Sunchoke, or Jerusalem Artichoke, is a perennial related to the sunflower with a tuberous root that is very edible and quite tasty.  I have been hearing about Sunchokes and their cold temperature hardiness for many years now, and they seem like a great perennial vegetable for Alaska, yet I've never seen them planted in the gardens around here.  Known for their pretty flowers as well as their plump roots, they seemed like the perfect fit for my permaculture aspirations!  I finally found them in the produce section of our local grocery store last fall, and I have been looking forward to testing out their potential all winter!

The package came with 10 roots, and I experimented with cooking 4 of them, using them raw in salads or roasted like a potato with a little olive oil.  The remaining 6 were wrapped in plastic wrap and put in the back of the refrigerator crisper drawer, where they remained until the end of May.  This spring, when the ground was ready to be worked, I simply opened the package up and let it sit on the counter for a few days, and then planted them about a foot apart and 6-8 inches down into the soil. I made sure to select an area where they can fill up the space over the years without bothering anything else in the garden.

They sprouted out of the ground within about two weeks, and a month later, they are growing beautifully and providing a shaded area for my geese as well!  They seem to be very tolerant of the heat we have been having, and don't seem to be bothered by any pests so far.  We'll see how they do as the season progresses, and hopefully they will become a permanent resident in the garden!

New post up at AlaskaPublic.org...

I've got a new post up at alaskapublic.org... check it out!

http://www.alaskapublic.org/2013/05/16/protect-early-starts-with-recycled-milk-jugs/

A Quick Update to Start Off the New Year...

We've had 4 days of temperatures above freezing now, and although it has been great to tend to the bird feeder and shovel some snow while wearing a t-shirt, I'm starting to worry about some of my more tender perennials, like the lavender, and the experimental garlic bulbs I planted this fall. A freeze/thaw cycle will heave the plants up to the surface of the soil where their roots can freeze. I did put a very thick layer of mulch over the lavender and the clematis, so hopefully that will make the difference.

So much snow has melted now that I put on my Sorels and stomped around the yard for a little while yesterday. I opened up the covered raised bed, and to my surprise, the top inch of dirt was completely thawed! Anything below that was frozen solid, of course, but that top inch really made me realize that there is plenty of potential for that structure! I can see my seedlings sleeping comfortably in there over night until the threat of frost is over, and if the whole thing thaws faster than the other raised beds, the potential for a pumpkin or two is a reality!

I really don't know what I'm going to do in my garden this year. I have a feeling that with the geese coming in the spring, and all the planning and building that that will entail, the garden isn't going to have much for experimentation! The garden fence is moving to the birds, so they have some predator protection, and this year will be my first non-enclosed gardening experience. I'm looking forward to moving the garden beyond the confines of that wall, but hopefully the Moose and the Rabbits will be nice to me!

I think that the chickens are going to end up on hold for another year now. The geese are a great start, and probably easier to care for also. Once my husband sees how they do this winter then maybe he wont worry so much about adding a few chickens, but for now, city-boy (and over-planner) that he is, he is extremely worried about how this is going to work. I've given up trying to explain that we don't need a $1000 coop... hopefully he'll figure it out!

Just out of curiosity, does anyone reading this post raise birds in cold climates? I'd love to hear about your experiences!

A quick picture update...

Some New Additions to the Garden This Year...

I've done a lot with my garden this year, and its time I updated you all on the progress. Up to this point, it has just felt like some boxes of dirt with a fence around it... but now, I feel like my garden has finally started to develop some "bones". It has become a destination, rather than just a designation. Here's some pictures of what has been added...

I made good on my promise to turn the old greenhouse into a potting shed. This is my new greenhouse. It is detachable, and will fit onto any of the four existing raised beds so I can easily practice crop rotation, even with my tomatoes and cucumbers. There are four door panels, which can be opened individually, so I can control the temperature AND the cross breeze.

I designed this new flower bed to give somewhat of a visual screen to the compost pile. I kept with my tradition of using materials off the property, so I hand-picked all the rocks and built the wattle fence in the background out of willow and alder that I thinned from the endless supply along the edge of the yard.

The entrance to the vegetable garden was lacking in character, so I decided an arbor was in order. This was built out of recycled materials, mostly leftover from last years house re-model, and more willow and alder from the yard.

I needed another trellis to accommodate my beans, so this was the solution... also made from willow and alder.

In the near future, I'll post some photos of how the vegetable garden and surrounding flower gardens are looking now that everything is green and beautiful. The garden is absolutely bursting right now!

For future posts... does anyone have questions or need information on a particular topic? Ask me!

I love coffee...

Coffee may just be one of the most marvelous drinks on the planet. It warms you up, wakes you up, AND feeds your garden! If you are anything like me, you need a cup of coffee or two to get you moving in the morning. My question is... what do you do with all your spent coffee grounds and filters? Here's a short list of possibilities...

Compost -
Coffee grounds do marvelous things in the compost pile. They are considered a green, not a brown. Coffee grounds actually have about the same nitrogen content as fresh cut grass! Just mix the whole thing, filter and all, right into your pile.

Worm Candy -
Worms love this stuff, but you have to be careful when adding it to your worm bin. Coffee grounds are acidic and abrasive, and if you give too much to your worms, they will be unhappy. Also, watch the moisture content of your worm bin when adding coffee grounds, as they tend to retain a lot of water.

Slug Repellent (and Snails and Ants also!) -
Because the grounds are abrasive, slugs and snails don't like to cross them, so circle your plants with some, like you would do with eggshells. Ants don't like the acidity, and will tend to steer clear as well.

Garden Fertilizer -
You can bury the grounds, top dress with them, or scratch them directly into the soil around your growing plants, especially those (like Rhododendrons and Azaleas) which like their soil on the acidic side. You can also soak your spent grounds overnight and use the brew as a simple liquid fertilizer.

Mulch -
Coffee grounds make a great mulch! They look great (and smell good too!) and they work as a slow-release fertilizer at the same time!

Plant Rx -
Coffee grounds are known to suppress late blight in tomatoes. Top dress or mist the plants with water that has soaked the grounds overnight.


Most of us have an abundance of coffee grounds right in our kitchen, but if you don't, you can most likely get them from your office coffee pot, or maybe your next-door neighbor! Starbucks also offers spent coffee grounds for free. All you have to do is ask!

What's your favorite way to recycle your coffee grounds?

Goodbye to the Greenhouse...

After looking at the pictures of the 2010 tomatoes and cucumbers compared to what they looked like this year, and in 2009, I have decided to say goodbye to the greenhouse.  Well, not goodbye, exactly.  It will be transformed into next years potting shed!  Last year, the greenhouse was out of commission, so I erected a hot-house of sorts.  I bent some old tent poles into one of the raised beds and covered the whole thing with clear plastic.

By August, this is what it looked like in there...

2009 and 2011 the tomatoes and cucumbers were planted in the greenhouse.  There isn't a consistent temperature inside at all, and although I have a fan system set up, it doesn't seem to make much difference.  I don't have raised beds installed, so the plants are in large plastic rubbermaid buckets.  They were all spindly, putting out few branches and only providing 2 or 3 fruits per plant.  Seriously, it was so pitiful that I didn't even want to take any pictures in there this year!

So, the greenhouse potting shed, will be put to much better use next year, giving me a small area for transplanting etc., but more importantly, a place to store all my assorted pots and containers, as well as garden tools, or anything else I can fit in there!  Instead of growing the tomatoes and cucumbers in the greenhouse, I will build a moveable frame (I practice crop rotation) to which I can attach plastic each year.  Then I can plant them in one of the raised beds and attach the frame over the top.  Hopefully, the harvest will be much more bountiful in 2012!