restoring the roost

North Carolina Country Living and Farmhouse Style

North Carolina Country Living and Farmhouse Style
since 2010

gardening

Summer Garden Update and a Cold Frame

· gardening, Homesteading

Hello from the Roost! Hope everyone is enjoying their summer. Truth be told, I can’t wait for fall even though I enjoy the harvests from the summer garden. We have been very busy this summer, but here is a quick peek at what’s been going on around our little homestead:

we are letting the lettuce seedlings dry out so that we can save them for next year
produce from the garden: heirloom Cherokee Purple tomatoes,
yellow crookneck squash and a red pepper

A wonderful couple that goes to our church made this amazing cold frame for us with some old windows and leftover scrap wood. We are so grateful to be able to start seeds in the late winter or very early spring next year!

Our new cold frame
Our southern peas exploded despite the chickens helping themselves to bites out of the leaves.  We
 have enjoyed these peas cooked with green beans, onion, bacon and seasonings in the crock pot. 

We planted heirloom pie pumpkins for the first time this year!

This is a random HUGE mushroom BJ found growing in the yard.
Anyone know if it’s edible? 
I hope all is well around your homestead and that you are enjoying the late summer’s harvest. We are so grateful for blessings this time of year.  Coming soon- I received a pressure canner for my birthday along with the book Canning and Preserving with Ashley English. Stay tuned for a post on canning vegetables from the Roost!

Linking to:

Summer Garden Update and a Cold Frame

· gardening, Homesteading

Hello from the Roost! Hope everyone is enjoying their summer. Truth be told, I can’t wait for fall even though I enjoy the harvests from the summer garden. We have been very busy this summer, but here is a quick peek at what’s been going on around our little homestead:

we are letting the lettuce seedlings dry out so that we can save them for next year
produce from the garden: heirloom Cherokee Purple tomatoes,
yellow crookneck squash and a red pepper

A wonderful couple that goes to our church made this amazing cold frame for us with some old windows and leftover scrap wood. We are so grateful to be able to start seeds in the late winter or very early spring next year!

Our new cold frame
Our southern peas exploded despite the chickens helping themselves to bites out of the leaves.  We
 have enjoyed these peas cooked with green beans, onion, bacon and seasonings in the crock pot. 

We planted heirloom pie pumpkins for the first time this year!

This is a random HUGE mushroom BJ found growing in the yard.
Anyone know if it’s edible? 
I hope all is well around your homestead and that you are enjoying the late summer’s harvest. We are so grateful for blessings this time of year.  Coming soon- I received a pressure canner for my birthday along with the book Canning and Preserving with Ashley English. Stay tuned for a post on canning vegetables from the Roost!

Linking to:

Spring Garden Update

· gardening

Our heirloom vegetable garden is coming along! The lettuce is looking great and the spinach is sprouting. Our peas and beans look very healthy; they have sprouted and grown significantly all in the past week!

this photo was taken a few days ago- the beans have grown
much taller than this now!

Southern Peas

Today we planted various kinds of peppers, collard greens, squash, carrots, and heirloom tomatoes. I’ll admit the thing I am most looking forward to are the tomatoes. We planted brandywine red/pink, brandywine yellow, cherokee purple, pineapple, and big rainbow varieties. A tall, “fence-like” support will allow the tomatoes to grow without using cages.

recently planted peppers

We would like to plant more of everything if we can somehow prepare another bed. Otherwise, we will just reseed the beds we have after the first harvest. I have yet to plant the pumpkins and I’d love to be able to find space for onions and potatoes. There’s always next year!

I also want to thank everyone for their kind words and sympathies regarding Mr. Rue and Chamomile. I will miss them very much. If you’ve had chickens, you understand how difficult it can be not to get attached to your birds. Have a wonderful week!

Linking to:

Spring Garden Update

· gardening

Our heirloom vegetable garden is coming along! The lettuce is looking great and the spinach is sprouting. Our peas and beans look very healthy; they have sprouted and grown significantly all in the past week!

this photo was taken a few days ago- the beans have grown
much taller than this now!

Southern Peas

Today we planted various kinds of peppers, collard greens, squash, carrots, and heirloom tomatoes. I’ll admit the thing I am most looking forward to are the tomatoes. We planted brandywine red/pink, brandywine yellow, cherokee purple, pineapple, and big rainbow varieties. A tall, “fence-like” support will allow the tomatoes to grow without using cages.

recently planted peppers

We would like to plant more of everything if we can somehow prepare another bed. Otherwise, we will just reseed the beds we have after the first harvest. I have yet to plant the pumpkins and I’d love to be able to find space for onions and potatoes. There’s always next year!

I also want to thank everyone for their kind words and sympathies regarding Mr. Rue and Chamomile. I will miss them very much. If you’ve had chickens, you understand how difficult it can be not to get attached to your birds. Have a wonderful week!

Linking to:

Spring Gardening Part 2: prepping and planting seeds

· gardening

Our heirloom seeds have arrived!  Time to get our hands dirty and get planting!  Thankfully, I have the hubby to help me because I seem to have a brown thumb when it comes to these things…

Actually, we’ve had the seeds for two or three weeks now but we’ve only planted two or three of the packets. The rest of the vegetables require that we wait until mid-April to sow the seeds into the soil.  In the meantime, we have been evaluating and prepping our beds. We are also adding compost to the soil for extra nutrients.

Arugula we harvested recently that was revived from last year

Our largest raised bed (the size of which I grossly overestimated in the sketch from my first post of this series), still has arugula, carrots, a few garlic bulbs, and one lettuce plant growing in it from last year. I assumed these were long dead, but it seems they resurrected themselves as soon as the temperatures warmed up. Weird…


We decided to put in an additional bed for the greens and the veggies that like to climb (such as pole beans) directly behind the back patio. This way, the climbers can use the wooden supports of the railing. Mr. Rue has already christened this vegetable bed when he hopped over the wire one day and happily began foraging for bugs. He was scolded and chased out.

We have potted several herbs already, and plan to pot a few more. We might even consider growing some peppers in pots this year.

How is your spring gardening progressing?