Blog Update!
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.

I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!

Monday, March 21, 2011

Urban farming weekend activity

We had the first stretch of good weather this year over the weekend and I managed to get quite a bit done around the urban homestead.

Starting in the garden, I managed to finally remove the last of our two rose bushes (we still have a tea rose in the corner that won't die and is in a position that makes it almost impossible to remove). One went down without a fight, but the other one had some seriously large roots that I had to hack away at over two days.

In its place went two thornless blackberry plants (black satin), bringing it up to four blackberries in the row by the fence. The kids wanted their raised bed to be filled with strawberries so in went 20 plants and an additional 5 sprinkled in other places.

I had fully planned on putting together another raised bed but our drill died so I managed to entertain myself by lugging bag after bag of planting compost into position in preparation for when I get it completed.

Since the copper tape on our raised beds (to keep out slugs and snails) was getting a little tattered from being several years old, I replaced it, managing to gouge my finger in the process.

The chickens have been laying like crazy with the longer days and were rewarded with more free-range time. I wanted to do a lot more planting yesterday but it ended up being colder and windier than I would have liked. Plus I was pooped out from squeezing in all the other activities. I topped off the evenings with reading and sewing some chicken themed placemats, which are slow going because I'm hand sewing them.

Overall, it was a very productive weekend. Oh, and I sent in the paperwork for getting an assessment and estimate for getting solar panels installed on our house, so I'll let you know how that goes as we proceed.

Also, don't forget... if you haven't signed the petition to take back the terms "urban homesteading" and "urban homestead" from being trademarked, do it here.

How was your weekend? Did your first weekend of spring start with a bang? Or was it a bust?

9 comments:

Annie*s Granny said...

Yes, my weekend started with a bang. Two bangs, actually. That's how many times the PVC hoops, being installed on the lettuce bed, popped up and hit me in the nose!

April Alexander said...

It was a total bust due to non stop rain, sigh. We did manage to bake some bread which we turned into French toast. I splurged on real maple syrup ($8), yummmm! Sounds like your homestead is humming away. Those thornless blackberries sound amazing!! I'll have to plant more strawberries this year since my little guy loves them.

Desert Lean-to said...

We managed to bake bread, make yogurt and guerrilla garden. 4 cherries (2 Bing, 2 Stella) were planted off our acequia to eventually block out some light industry in the neighborhood. The neighbors think we're crazy, but I think they'll be glad once they have both privacy and food!

Rachel said...

Bust! Well, we did a lot of flood management in the barn due to very heavy rains all weekend. Looks like it will continue on until after next weekend, which is a bummer because it's our last average frost date and I was hoping to get a lot of plants out.

Anonymous said...

We have volunteer tomato seedlings coming up, but I did purchase a cherry tomato seedling from the herb & veggie guy at the Farmer's Market. Planted it in between storms yesterday. Also got some herbs (basil, savory, thyme, chervil, oregano) & restocked the herb boxes (sage I started from seed last year is still going strong).

Angela said...

Perfect weekend for yardwork! And since my hubby's a teacher, and on spring break, it's a perfect WEEK for getting all those heavy-lifting, hard labor jobs I can't do (since I'm in my third trimester!).

Question - Do you find the copper tape actually works to repel the slugs? Ours are so bad we're getting ducks in a few weeks, but they really go after my hops - even killed one plant last year, and if the copper works, I think I'm going to give it a try (asap!)

Dianna said...

Not much going on here this weekend. We can't do any planting until Memorial day in Alaska. We are thinking about seeds, getting our condo ready to sell and looking for places in the city with a nice kitchen for processing local grains and a nice yard for greenhouses, gardens and chickens and turkeys.

Crunchy Chicken said...

Annie's Granny - Oh no! I need to put up my hoops. Hopefully I won't whack myself either.

April and Rachel - Pretty soon you'll dry up and I'll be super jealous of your weather!

Desert Lean-to - Privacy is key. We need to work on that.

Angela - The copper tape works if they can't get in another route (like from another plant that hangs into the box). They also lose their power over time, which is why I'm replacing them.

Buy PGX said...

It's possible to do urban farming even with just a small space.