Kitchen Garden Mulched, a 12 Green Salad, Shading Young Pawpaws and Plant Salvage - Weekend Homesteading Report
Mulching and enjoying a 12 green salad were the highlights of this weekend for me. It was a fun weekend with some nice weather and my kitchen garden is mostly finished!
But this weekend also involved a lot of blog/business work. I ended up writing 2 blog posts and some extra content that goes with them (cheat-sheets, etc.).
Luckily I was not stuck inside during this computer work. What do you think of my new "office"? ;)
The New Kitchen Garden
If you have been following my posts for a while then you know this project has been ongoing for a while now. I'm really happy with how it is turning out!
The big open area in the middle is meant for family and friend gatherings and I will be getting a picnic table next weekend. In the future there will also be a small outdoor kitchen.
I can't wait!
I'm also happy that a lot of my seeds have germinated and are coming up! I can't wait for the garden to fill out and become green.
I'm also looking forward to being able to mulch the garden. In the future I will always have mulch on top of it but at the moment it is bare while I wait for the seeds to germinate.
But it is really great to have the new kitchen garden!
I really like how the new garden fits with the existing plants and growing areas. In the above picture you can see a path along the garden and a hedgerow. This path also goes by one of my raspberry patches :)
The mulching was done using burlap bags and woodchips. Given that this area will see a lot of foot traffic I decided to use burlap bags since they will hold up better to the traffic.
I still got more mulching to do but at the moment I'm almost out of woodchips :( Time to get some more!
More Plant Salvaging
I also did a bit more plant salvaging. I focused on getting Pacific water leaf which is a really great native perennial green (salad and cooking). Pacific water leaf likes shade and spreads to form a nice groundcover.
This makes it a great perennial vegetable for shady areas.
The leaves are very mild but a little fuzzy. I enjoy them in salads and you can also cook with them.
I'm adding them to all my shady areas so I can get a harvest even from these areas.
Shading Young Pawpaws
It is hard to see in the picture but there is a young pawpaw hiding among those sticks.
The sticks are setup to work as a shade cloth to provide partial shade for the pawpaw. I thought the sticks would be a more environmentally friendly (and cheaper) way to shade the pawpaws than buying shade cloth.
Pawpaws don't like full sun when they are young so I need to provide shade for my 2 pawpaws until they get established.
The 12 Green Salad
One fun thing from this weekend was making a 12 green salad using greens that overwintered or volunteered. Though I did use 2 store bought greens.
Here is the complete list of greens which includes a few herbs.
- Bloody dock
- Pacific water leaf
- Chives
- Oregano
- Cilantro
- Lettuce
- Spinach
- Dandelions
- Chard
- Miners lettuce
- Sea kale
- Turkish rocket
The salad was really great tasting and so healthy! I also added some dressing and chopped tomatoes.
Each plant provides its own micro-nutrients making it great to have a diverse salad. I'm hoping to have a lot more 12 green salads in the future! :)
Plus it was great that these plants all overwintered or came up as volunteers.
Moving Forward and a New Contest
I'm trying to get through a few more tasks this week with a focus on mulching some plants I planted earlier.
But I'm also happy to announce a new contest! I will be making a post about this later today with the full details. But here is some basic info.
To enter the contest wait till I make the contest post and then write your own post sharing what you did in the last week to grow your own food, or work on your homestead or in your garden. Any task related to growing food, homesteading (includes raising animals), or gardening counts.
Once you publish your post leave a comment on the contest post with a link to your post.
I will look through the posts and pick one as the winner which will be announced on Friday.
The winner will get a full upvote, resteem and a SBI unit from me.
I hope that this will help inspire others to start their own homestead or garden and to keep going if they already run their own homestead or garden.
The contest will run weekly so if you don't win this week just keep sharing!
Watch for the contest post later today!
Thank you!
Weekly Blog Post
- What is a Food Forest? (And How to Get Started)
- Companion Post on Steemit - How to Get Started with Food Forests
Related Blog Posts
- What is Mulching? The Complete Introduction to Mulching
- 5 Ways Your Homestead Will Benefit from Native Plants
- 5 Essential Steps to Plan Your New Garden
Follow me for more posts all about homesteading, working with nature, and growing your own food: @wildhomesteading
And check out my blog - www.wildhomesteading.com for weekly in-depth posts on working with nature to grow your own food and start/build your homestead.[