His garden, her garden

I dream of having our own farmer’s market stand. One with the best variety of tomatoes and peppers, various jar sizes of honey, and farm fresh eggs!

Only with my husband’s amazing passion for gardening and beekeeping will this ever be attainable. Otherwise my stand would probably only sell eggs, and even that is questionable.

By the way, I should share that Daniel uses the ‘Back to Eden’ Gardening method, you can learn more about it on their site. A gentleman from church recommended it to Daniel last year and all I’ve heard since is “woodchips” this and “woodchips” that…. you can learn about it here:  http://www.backtoedenfilm.com/how-to-grow-an-organic-garden.html

Today, Daniel was doing some damage control of the greenhouse due to the heavy winds we had. We have this unique greenhouse that Daniel built and it works well for him, not so much for me. I don’t do well squatting or bending over for a long period of time, so I look forward to a bit warmer weather when it comes down which is hopefully just around the corner.

Duct Tape will do the trick!

I thought I would share what Daniel is growing this year so far.  I help throw out ideas of what to grow and occasionally buy him plants or seeds of things that I would like to eat. I did help plant corn today though, go me!  We cleared out a raised area around where we had a huge tree cut down last year. By cut down, I mean the tree guys cut off all the limbs and left us a 20 foot stump. We were a bit peeved at first, but have grown to like the odd stump. I intended on just planting flowers and lavender there but Daniel thought it would be fun to try growing some corn, so we are giving it a shot. That’ll be a site to see…. small garden bed of flowers, lavender, and corn along the fence-line!

Lavender, Ornamental Kale, Succulents, and other lovelies.

Stuck somewhere between winter, spring, and a lumberjack.

Here is the list of what is currently growing in our greenhouse, I’ll list the varieties of each and colors for the ones that we don’t have name labels for  i.e. purple potatoes 🙂

Eggplant (Varieties: Shikou, Ichiban, Satin Moon)

Cucumbers (Varieties: Sweet Slice, Burpless, Pick a Bushel, Burpee Hybrid)

Peppers (Varieties: Golden California Wonder, Chocolate Beauty, Giant Marconi, Golden Bell, Cayenne, Jalapeño)

Tomatoes (Varieties: Early Girl, Yellow Pear, Beefsteak, Striped German, Black Krim, Patio, Sunsugar)

Lettuce (Varieties: Salad Bowl, Red Sails, Parris Island, Iceberg)

Cabbage (Variety: Golden Acre)

Cauliflower (Variety: Snowball)

Potatoes (Red, Gold, and Purple)

Asparagus (Purple and Green)

Onions (Variety: Walla Walla)

Spinach (Variety: Space)

Beets

Carrots

Radish

Herbs: Coriander Cilantro, Parsley, Dill

Outside of the greenhouse, we have the following:

Strawberries

Blueberries

Blackberries

Raspberries

Kiwi’s

Fig Tree

Quince Tree

Concord Grapes (Purple)

Flame Seedless Grapes (Red)

Niagara Grapes (Green)

Fantasia Nectarine Tree (not doing so well this year)

Sun Grand Nectarine Tree (also not doing so well this year)

Grafted tree #1 has the following: July Elberta Peach, Fantasia Nectarine, Blenheim Apricot, and Santa Rosa Plum

Grafted tree #2 has the following: Empire Apple, Gravenstein Apple, Yellow Transparent Apple, Fuji Apple, and Red Macintosh Apple

Grafted tree #3 has the following: Bing Cherry, Rainier Cherry, Royal Ann Cherry, and Montmorancy Cherry

and lastly….corn 🙂

 

While walking around the garden tonight, making sure I didn’t miss anything, I was taking pictures of the buds on the fruit trees. They are so beautiful.  I can’t begin to tell you which ones go to which fruit, but here are a few of my favorites:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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HELLO WORLD, a little about me, etc.

I decided to create this blog so I could have one platform to share tidbits about my life, my interests, and my career. Lately, I’ve been anxiously wanting to connect with others in my community that also have honeybees or chickens in their backyards and/or are growing some of their own food. If I’m being honest, it’s my husband, Daniel, who led us in this adventure and does most of the hard work and I basically just reap the benefits and brag about him…

I hope to one day have the same passion about gardening and bees as my husband does. I’m just busy being obsessed with our four chickens at the moment. Their names are Buffy, Chappy 1 & Chappy 2 (lookalikes),  and Snow White. They produce the best eggs in town, in my opinion.  We actually tried to buy a real farm a little over a month ago, one called “Sweet Briar Farms” that came with 135 chickens and the prettiest greenhouses Daniel ever did see, but our offer was outbid by another buyer. It would have been a big risk for us anyways and a lot to maintain, so I think it all worked out for the best. Having gone through that experience though and spending hours dreaming of “what could be”, we now have a vision to someday move beyond just our backyard homesteading operation.

I also have a cat named Tesla that hates everyone except Daniel and me so the only way I can show her sweet side is through Instagram, which I just might do a little too often. Sorry followers.

Inside the “greenhouse”

Veggies from our garden

Buffy

Tesla

Daniel and the Bees

 

We moved to Kent, WA from Spokane, WA in 2012. The transition was hardest on me with leaving our family, friends, and church home behind, but after almost four years living in a suburb of Seattle, I think I kind of like it here.   The rain can seem over-redundant at times but all the green around us makes it a reasonable tradeoff for me.  I’m grateful to be a few hours drive from our Washington coastline. I always tell people that “nothing is more beautiful than where the mountains meet the ocean” and that place is basically in our backyard. So, I gladly endure the rain.

La Push, Second Beach

 

My husband is an Electrician for Local 46 in the Union (I think that’s the right Local, but don’t quote me) and I am a Realtor with Keller Williams Puget Sound.  “Do you know anyone that is looking to buy or sell Real Estate?” is what I should be asking, so hey, do you know anyone that is looking to buy or sell Real Estate? Kidding, but seriously though. I may occasionally share Real Estate news and statistics if I think it’s relevant to my community or just crazy stories here and there about a day in the life of a Realtor.

I started dabbling in running about this time last year and ran my first half-marathon in July 2015 and am registered to do the same one again this year (See Jane Run, Seattle). I don’t enjoy running, but I appreciate running, if that makes any sense. I like the way I feel after a run and the discipline it teaches me to endure something that is not pleasant knowing that it will have a positive outcome for my health. While we are on the topic of health and me,  I also like doing a Whole30 every now and again. Look it up if you don’t know what it is. I think everyone should know about it and try it.   #itstartswithfood

I just put a hashtag in a blog post, am I supposed to do that? No idea.

I’m not sure where exactly this blog is going. I’m not much of a writer at all, I tend to over-use commas and parentheses.  I’m also terrible at organizing my thoughts and my emotions, which may have already been evident from this post alone.

Anyways, it’s almost 12pm and I usually go to bed much earlier, so I need to wrap this up before my head falls on the keyboard and I accidentally delete all that I’ve written.  Thanks for reading the splatter of thoughts and ideas above! Comment if you have any questions about me, our backyard operation, or… anything I suppose.

Be Blessed!