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A 3 Acre Farm

A 3 Acre Farm

Category Archives: Top Five

Out of the Way!

05 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by a3acrefarm in Top Five

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

broccoli, garden, kale, mulch, plantings, plants, plow, Premium Ground Cover, pumpkins, raspberries, raspberry canes, scythe, Snow, winter

“Let’s put the new raspberries here,” I suggested. Tim and I were standing waist deep in an untamed field near the vegetable garden. In an area a bit rocky for root crops, fruit canes seemed a good choice. With sun shining there all day and water easily accessible, the decision was made.

As I began to mark the perimeter, Tim went to get the scythe. “How much can I have?” I asked tentatively, realizing that he’d have the worst task – knocking down the tall, tough grasses before we’d be able to rake and mow.

“As much as you want.” Tim is a jewel I don’t deserve, who lives by the motto, “Happy wife – happy life.”

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We opened much more than we needed just for raspberries. I’ve been wanting to get the pumpkins out of the garden, and this was a great opportunity. By fall when it was finally tilled and ready for planting in the spring, we were pretty proud of ourselves.

Our son, Sam, came over to see. “Is this really where you’re planning to plant raspberry canes?” he questioned. “You’re going to be plowing snow right through there all winter.”

Ugh.

Sam was right. In the midst of summer, it’s easy to forget what happens on a piece of the earth in the winter. Here in northern Maine, where we expect lots of snow, we plow the snow back far beyond the driveway, leaving a wide place to deposit the snowfall from each storm. The new garden will freeze and we will have no difficulty plowing over it, but annuals, not perennial fruiting canes, will be our best option. 

To help you avoid a similar mistake, I offer these suggestions:

Have you already chosen your plantings? Consider these before choosing a garden location:
1. What are the sunshine or shade needs of your plants?
2. What will be the size of the mature plants? Will they spread? How much room will each plant require?
3. What are the water needs? Is there sufficient access to water nearby?
4. Look up and around. Are there existing plantings which will compete for soil nutrients, water and space? What will be the mature sizes of existing plantings? Will existing plants eventually crowd or shade your new plantings?
5. What does the plant need after the growing season? Will it die back to the ground or need to be mulched (Learn about my favorite at www.PremiumGroundCover.com), wrapped or supported in winter? Will it provide interest and beauty in a winter garden? Will you want to see it from your window?

Have you already chosen your garden location? Consider these before choosing your plants:
1. Is the garden in full sun, partial sun or shade?
2. If the garden is next to a house or other structure, how much room do you need to maintain a proper distance between plants and foundations, steps, windows and gutter downspouts?
3. Are you looking for plants of a particular shape, color or size? Fast growing or slow-growing? Annual or perennial?
4. How far is your garden from a water source? Can you provide adequate moisture, or should you choose more drought tolerant plants?
5. What happens in your garden’s location in winter? Will it be under a snowbank? Exposed to harsh winds? Plowed over?

Our new garden will be planted in pumpkins before long, and they will be free to run as they will. We’ll also plant other vegetables there, long rows of kale and broccoli, perhaps. As for the raspberries, we will be doing some hasty work in the spring preparing yet another garden, this time well away from the path of the plow.

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ChapStick and Five Other Gardening Essentials

01 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by a3acrefarm in Top Five

≈ 20 Comments

Tags

boots, Buck knife, ChapStick, clogs, cultivator, garden essentials, lip balm, list, Lucerne Farms, mud boots, mulch, must-have, Premium Ground Cover, rototiller

I have begun to believe there are two types of people – those of us who are addicted to lip balm, and those of you who are not. If you are uncertain to which group you belong, check your pockets now. If you find a tube of something to apply to your lips, chances are you’re with me.

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A quick rummage through pockets, bags and drawers gathered this embarrassingly large assortment of lip balm.

An affinity for lip moisturizers seems not limited to humans. Years ago when our Boston Terrier puppy friend visited, he ate a ChapStick belonging to our daughter, Hannah. The tale of Willie’s supple lips continues in family lore to this day.

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Willie, puzzled by Hannah’s outrage

How, you might wonder, is lip balm relevant to this list of gardening essentials. A preference for objects of small size and high function provides inspiration for my first item of garden must-haves.

1. The Perfect Knife

Last summer, when I mentioned to my husband that a simple pocket knife “no bigger than a ChapStick”, would be helpful, he found the perfect knife – small, but orange and easy to see if I dropped it onto the ground.

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2. Comfortable, Functional Footwear 

It’s essential for this happy gardener to have happy feet, and that requires three kinds of footwear. Most frequently I can be found in my beloved old wood and leather clogs, many times repaired. My mud boots are simple and black. Work boots, which fit so well I believe they were made just for me, complete the trio.

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3. Premium Ground Cover – The Right Garden Mulch

As the gardens here on our land grow in size and number, I’m challenged with the task of working more efficiently. This land is my work, and we want to make a life and a living here. Finding ways to spend less time weeding and watering has been critical, and mulch (www.PremiumGroundCover.com) has proven to be a solution. The soil is well nourished as the mulch decomposes during the growing season. Soil, not carrots, onions or herbs, always is our first and most important crop.

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One day’s harvest

4. A Favorite Tool

My oldest tool, a three-pronged cultivator, originally may have had a long handle. It has been with me so long that I don’t even remember where I got it, but it was old even then. Somewhere in its lifetime, someone wanted to kneel and scratch the earth, so the handle was sawed, and it suits me well.

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5. The Best Partner

I’m blessed to be on this journey with a good-natured husband, who shares my constant longings for a few more fruit trees and bushes, a bigger garden here, another garden there. He’s willing and cheerful and often silly, and he works hard away from the farm so I can be here doing what makes me happiest. Then he comes back home to help. With a common vision, we work this land together, and that, we believe, is what’s most essential.

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Tim breaking ground for another garden

Fritz and Ollie

20 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by a3acrefarm in Top Five

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Fritjof, garden, gardener, gift, giving, Journal, mulch, Olive, Premium Ground Cover, Records

Fritz_Ollie

Fritjof was the fiddler at the dance where he met Olive in the summer of 1928. They were both smitten. After courting only four weeks, Fritjof explained that with the potato harvest approaching, there would be no time to call on her. He asked the lovely Olive to marry him immediately, but not wanting to rush into it, she made Fritjof wait until August 24, two more weeks.

During their years together, Grampa kept journals. Every day he wrote a few sentences about hunting or fishing trips, rainfall and snowfall, who came for Sunday dinners and birthday parties, and what he and Grammie were canning from the garden. There he recorded the events of their days, so on December 2, 1986, after 58 years of a fine marriage, Grampa wrote only two words, “Olive died.”

Sometimes without intending to, we carry on the habits of our ancestors. So it happened that I began to record small significances – visits with friends, what I wore to school, thoughts and poems – on bits of paper and in notebooks. Later as a busy young mother, descriptions of our daily lives together were written on calendars, and each child had a book filled with precious first words and sweet sayings: “The maid was in the garden clanging out the hose. Along came a blackbird and sniffed off her nose!”

My record keeping these days is more disciplined. Planting, weeding, mulching, harvesting and other farm chores are documented in a day planner. A gardener’s journal contains similar information, along with records of plant varieties, diseases and insect pests, successes and challenges, and what grew where.

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So what advantages have I discovered as I’ve kept journals?

Prioritizing and Focus: The chores are endless and always will be. It’s all work that makes me happy, but it can be overwhelming without a plan. Creating a work list and checking jobs off as they are completed help me to accomplish more, even when inevitable interruptions change the course of my day.

Plant Identification: I wish I could always remember every plant’s name and variety, where I got it and when it was planted, but I can’t, and I don’t have to.

Buying Seeds: Records remind me what has grown well or tasted good to our family in the past and what we might not want to try again. Seed catalogs are delivered to my mailbox frequently at this time of year. If I want to add something to my wish list, tucking just the page containing the item and the ordering information into the journal reduces the clutter on my desk.

Tools and Equipment Purchases and Repairs: It’s helpful to know when and where I bought my tools, and who can help me fix them if I can’t do it myself.

The Fun Factor: Whenever I read about past seasons, there are moments of “Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.” There are entries about hail storms peppering holes in the bean plants. An after supper visit with a neighbor and her children in the sandbox became the perfect end to a day. A moose sighting on the snowshoe trail with a new puppy provided an amusing memory. As this often too busy life claims my attention, how long would I remember these things?

In this season of giving, a garden journal for a friend or for yourself can become the gift of recorded accomplishments and memories – a tool and a treasure for the keeping of days.  

“Here, Mum. Here’s some flowers for ya with bugs in ‘um, but that’s OK. I squished ‘um. Smell ‘um, Mum!”

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