Lawn to Edible Garden

Lawn to Edible Garden
Welcome to our family's journey as we respond to some of the large issues we are all faced with in today's world: Peak Oil, Climate Change, destruction of natural habitats, population explosion, depletion of resources...We have tried to address these issues both by learning as much as we can about them and also by walking with a smaller footprint on the earth. We have tried to respond in a personal and practical way. We live in a small, relatively energy efficient house, we are learning about gardening, we are vegetarians, we serve on community boards and teach university classes to raise awareness...but we are by no means experts about any of these subjects.

It is because we are not experts that we are writing this blog! We have realized that it might be helpful to others to share our journey with its ups and downs, mistakes, misunderstandings, and confusion - as well as all the things we have learned along the way. We hope that you will find the inspiration to jump in and do what you can, even if you have no idea what to do!


Be sure to read the 2009 posts because they cover the basics!!

Monday, June 21, 2010

Summer Solstice 2010


Today is the Summer Solstice and we have just about finished most of our planting, at least for the time being! It is difficult to get it all in when I am working, but I finished teaching for the year the first week of June, so we have been very busy trying to get all the annual vegetables planted - beans, squash, carrots, radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes, and herbs. We planted a huge bed of cilantro because Saul loves it, so we'll see how that goes!

This is only our second year and it is so exciting to see all the perennials that we planted last year coming up and spreading. The raspberries are multiplying rapidly as are the strawberries. The blackberries have grown quite a bit and we are seeing berries on them. The asparagus isn't doing very well - don't know quite what to do about that yet. Lots of potatoes came up from the bed last year and the safflowers and nasturtiums are happily coming in again as well. The Jerusalem artichokes are huge - we have a sort of forest of them!



This year we planted a LOT of rhubarb because it's actually a very pretty plant and it is a perennial. It seems to be very happy and it thriving.






In our front flower bed we have some of the rhubarb, edible flowers, blueberries, sweet potatoes, and potatoes mixed in with both perennial as well as annual flowers. It makes for an attractive and edible landscape!


Today is sort of stormy and rainy - my favorite time to work in the garden. It is hard to believe it is the longest day of the year in which we have the most hours of sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere. Summer has officially begun!

2 comments:

  1. Good update...

    Happy Solstice! Now the days get shorter...Seems too soon!

    Hope the garden flourishes!

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  2. We finally caught up with your blog, not realizing that you had all those beautiful photos and comments in June, July, and August.

    Well done!

    Love,

    Dad and Marie

    ReplyDelete