Luscious landscaping

I recently met someone who thought that horticulture was a waste of a major at a University, I find that sentiment to be pretty sad. When asked what I thought they were good for, I responded that I love luscious landscaping and I've met a lot of horticulture majors that advocate it. I had to elaborate on what luscious landscaping was because they were under the impression that it was just good foliage.

What is luscious landscaping you ask, well it also goes by the term "edible gardening." And honestly, what more do you need to realize that it rocks?

When we were planning out our front yard and the layout of the back yard, I really wanted everything to serve a purpose. Yes, there are many beautiful trees, plants, bushes, and such, but how will they help me on the homestead if they do not provide anything? I wanted to have my plants to be functional, beautiful, and above all - edible. We do have a few shade trees, but their branches can be used to make hurdles, or spear shafts, or many other medieval functions.

For example, in the front yard our fencing is covered with grapes and berries, our tree provides shade and almonds and soon apples from the small tree. The borders provide herbs and strawberries, the beds break up the open area and provide veggies and fruit that can be picked and eaten in the shade of the almond tree. I guess in a way I find edibles to be beautiful and as such I strive to share that beauty. At the moment we have peas growing like mad and their flowers look lovely as well as let us know that we're going to have a bounty of peas to enjoy. The plants and trees bloom and let us enjoy the beauty of their blossoms, the fragrance of their blooms, and the beauty of their fruit. What more can you need in any landscape?

Our front yard is covered with splashes of white, pink, red, purple, and yellow flowers as the fruits and veggies start blooming. I know that it's not the conventional huge yard for Ivan to play in, but he'll enjoy eating healthy food while playing in his trees. I couldn't ask more than that. So when you are thinking about gardening this year, if you are used to planting annuals try planting some veggies to lighten up your flower bed and to provide you with a little bit of produce. You'll enjoy the beauty and the food.

The tale of the potatoes

Last year we received two shipments of potatoes from www.potatogarden.com (who we highly recommend) but both seemed to come to a sad bitter end due to animals. The batch planted in front of the house (including purple viking) where nomed by the neighborhood rabbits (who in turn where delicious, revenge is still best served with potatoes), provided a very small harvest most of which went for seed potatoes for next year. The patch planted in the back of the house grew well but the greens where all eaten by our birds during the hot months and their tale finally ended with the piggies digging them up and eating any spuds that had remained underground after the birds where done. Although we do not know the flavor of the spuds planted in the back, we know the few we where able to eat from the front patch where amazing and far and above beyond the flavor of store spuds.

And here is where their story continues. Rosie was able to plant all of the potatoes today, under the watchful eye of our new task master Ivan (7 months old). We look forward to a good potato year as we hope to mound up the plants properly and get a yield of around 10lbs per plant (that's our hope but we might just end up with more tiny potatoes again). I do hope to purchase more potatoes to plant in the back and hope that with better cover we will have a higher percent of plants survive the chickens, geese and ducks.

A few things we have learned about caring for potato plants;

1) Make sure you mound your plants up routinely.
2) Try not to use companion plants if you are using a raised bed.
3) Good netting, cloth or a plastic cover will do wonders for keeping animals out of your plants.
4) Heirloom potatoes are awesome in flavor and texture.
5) When harvesting your potatoes use your hands as tools can cut and damage your spuds.
6) When planning the next harvest pick the best looking potatoes (no bruising or scars) and set them aside for next years seed potatoes.
7) Never plant your potatoes in the same spot twice, give a plot at least 4 years before you plant potatoes there again. This will virtually eliminate any potato specific diseases from being harbored in your land, learn from the Irish potato famine.

Front yard harvest

As with last year, our front yard was able to produce a lot more than was allowed in our back yard. This year we were able to get a ton of cucumbers (Armenian and green), watermelons, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, tomatoes, bell peppers, different types of chiles, a dozen apples(there wasn't supposed to be any... I tried to cut them all off so that the tree could just grow this year), lots of black raspberries that I didn't get to can because I kept eating them, a bunch of grapes, tons of artichokes and asparagus and some other things... now that I look back on it, we actually did pretty good. I was starting to feel like a failure for not being able to plant out as much as I wanted... but I guess we actually did pretty well.

We also have corn that is ripening and some eggplant coming in. Zucchini is also coming in and some of the beans survived the great bunny devastation. We've harvested basil for pesto and herbs for cooking.

Out front

As a short update... May was a month of ups and downs. I might post more about that in the future, once it doesn't hurt as much. We slaughtered some guineas for a really neat event and they were nummy! We're left with a pair but they have not started laying again. I did see them mate so I know the guy is at least in a breeding state of mind. We'll see if they give us anything. The ducks are still laying on the eggs. I'll have to post the egg story. =) And also the chicken story. =(

Sooo, up front I planted a lot of items from seed so now we have the following coming up:

4 types of beans
onions
grapes are doing a lot better now that Bugger is no longer sneaking in and eating them
We ate our first loganberry the other day
herbs are growing well
strawberries got burned with the sun but we have two hanging on
trees are doing well (3 citrus, almond and the apple)
melon and watermelon

I'm waiting on: corn and carrots to come up

Need to plant: tomatoes, strawberries, spinach, tomatillos, chilies (I guess others call them peppers...), and pickles. I'll see about doing this on Friday since I have that day off.

I love getting to see the seedlings come up. It's like christmas every time I see a new seedling sprout.

In the back we have all the trees growing, asparagus and mint hanging on, the onions spreading their seeds so that we have wild onions next year. We're harvesting mustard leaves and the grains. We're also saving some of the hay for summer food. Bees are thriving as I have to keep adding boxes as they keep filling them up with brood and honey. I need to build more boxes. Again, something I can work on on Friday. .. So much to do, so little time. If I totally can't sleep tonight (ate indian food for dinner... aka will not sleep due to tea) then I'll clean the house.