What’s Blooming When Laika and I walked out the door this morning, I didn’t have the highest hopes that I’d have anything worth photographing on the homestead. I figured I might find some violets or creeping charlie if I got lucky. Right in the center of the front bed was a sole bleeding heart blossom …
The big story this week was the flooding and cleaning up from the flooding. The basement took on several inches of water when the city shut down the sewers as an emergency measure during heavy rains. It bubbled up through the floor drains. This setback made it difficult for me to do anything with the …
Neighborhood Blooms Not much in bloom on the homestead grounds this week. A few straggly tulips and the bleeding hearts. But yarrow, dogwoods and Johnny jump ups are blooming in the neighborhood. Blooming Inside The House Much more interesting are all the blooms in the house. Violets started from seed have erupted in bloom, anthuriums …
I’ve learned to think ahead with my garden this year. I planned most of 2020 between November and February of this year. I got first dibs on all the seeds I wanted, but even then, I was late to the party getting a lot of the permaculture plants I was hoping to add. Last weekend, …
Garden Update Old fence removed, new fence incomplete. It’s been an exceedingly wet week. We’re currently under a flood warning from yesterday (Sat) until Thursday. It’s wet, there’s standing water in the yard that has me slightly concerned for the state of the shrubs. A bigger headache right now is the lack of fencing. I’m …
The tulips are going out in a blaze of glory with these towering yellow sentinels. Bleeding hearts bloom strongly, but I don’t quite see what’ll come next. Neighborhood Blooms Things are starting to thin out a bit in my beds, but the neighborhood is still going strong. The grape hyacinth in particular might be a …
Last week, I decided that Asian dwarf shrimp might be a great enterprise for the homestead. And I still mostly think that. But as I’ve been doing my research, I keep running into what could be an absolute deal-breaker in practice. Shrimp can be extremely finicky about water chemistry. This might force me to violate …
I got lucky this weekend. We had a “polar vortex” sweep through the midwest, and lows well below freezing were predicted for my region overnight on Friday. Unfortunately, I don’t have any frost blankets, and my plants have almost all started leafing out, so I was extremely nervous. Luckily, Saturday morning, I woke up to …
I’ve started the process of picking my first line of business for the homestead. This spring has been incredibly productive, and I’ve made a lot of progress getting things growing on the land. In a few years, the hedge should be stunningly beautiful and create mounds of fresh fruit each year. Even sooner, the vegetables …
Temperature is falling, the wind is blowing and we’ll get a freeze tonight. But the sun is out and the tulips are glorious. The forsythia still have a few petals, but they’re pretty much done and I think it’s the last week for daffodils. The new violets are blooming beautifully, more frustratingly, so the creeping …