๐ŸŒทspring garden updates๐Ÿชป

Spring in Maine is here and with April into May showers my gardens have started to fill out. Here’s what’s been budding out and blossoming~

Unlike suburbanites with their cult-like obsession with the perfect green lawn, here on the Sweet Potato Homestead I go out of my way to encourage and spread the divisive Dandelion (left). At the moment, I’m admiring their sunny faces and lush greens but once they start to go to seed, I’ll begin spreading them to the back yard to start the process over. This ensures my dandelion collection grows which will make me and the bees very pleased. Additions to the side gardens and forest paths include the dainty Bluet (center) and everyone’s favorite, the wild Strawberry (right).

In the leafy greens department, the very distinctive and memorable leaves of the Common Cinquefoil (left) have started sprouting in their gravel patch. I harvested a couple of plants from this area last year and it’s hardly seemed to matter to this guy~ In the potted plants sub-department, a couple of common Valerian (center) sprouts have taken off and will need to be transplanted in a week or so. This wild Yarrow (right) I poached from the yard last year has really started to fill in this large pot and will be very useful for future medicine.

One of the first plants I identified when we moved here was the Lilac bush (left) in the side garden. Once it’s past the blooming phase, I’ll give it a hair cut and cross my fingers that it blooms next year~ After our first winter, I planted a more intentional Lilac bush (center) in our side yard. The pictures don’t quite capture how much it has grown in the past 4 years but with just one worm castings fertilizer application, it has become so bushy! I’ll give this one a hair cut as well and I may get to enjoy a blossom or two in 2026~


While not the most attractive part of the backyard, my Hugelkultur mounds have started to come back to life. After raking the loose brush, oodles of dead leaves and pine needles out of the way, little plants here and there have started to fill in. Mostly overwintered clover plants that I had sown last year to get more biomass into the area, but some wildflower seeds, Shrubby Cinquefoil and Evening Primrose have made an appearance. My most favorite update to the back garden has been the revival of my Honeyberry plants (left most). They had previously been planted in the shady medicine garden to the side of the house the first spring here, but I moved them out into full sun and thought I had fried them to the point of no return. But they have come back and were flowering on April 29th on a very sunny, 80 degree “Spring” day. I look forward to the next update after I’ve harvested a couple of berries. Other plants that have woken up include the versatile Comfrey (2nd from left), garden Mint and a big floret of Mullein (2nd from right), in addition to some Evening Primrose and clovers. Another way I’m trying to help my clay and rock-heavy soil and paths, I planted a mess of creeping plants (right) including white, red and yellow clovers, and eventually yarrow and dandelion plants since they put up with some foot traffic and will take over the area.

As for other new parts of the garden, brambles (right) that I dug up from along and at the end of our shady and sandy driveway have now been moved into the Hugelkultur beds out back. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to figure out what berry they are now that they’re in sunny and fertile spots. The already established blackberry brambles (center) have taken off as well and will probably stay where they lie until I get to that edge of the backyard. They’re clearly happy in gravel and scorching summer sun so moving them elsewhere makes little sense. Continuing my quest of grow spaces among the forest and gravel I’ve surrounded myself in, I’m experimenting with a makeshift garden bed from Birch stumps (left). I’ve woven branches around this 5 stumps and plan to add layers of small brush, leaves, moss and whatever rich soil the tractor can dig up. A lot of squash plants are waiting inside for their chance to grow in this area and I’m really excited to see how they do here. Finally, my collection of free plants continues with some small Lilac plants (not shown). The bush that established itself in the rock wall on the side garden started putting out baby plants which were easily dug out and potted. These should do well in the backyard once more space has been cleared of gravel and established plants that don’t fit my plans.

 

 

 

 

 

๐ŸŒผ Look for more updates including harvesting and maintaining my worm composter and new maps covering my property zones and wild plant locations coming shortly~

๐ŸŒธspring sowing~

April is finally here and the past couple of weeks have been a mix of seed sowing, organizing garden junk/tools and cursing any snow that shows up. While my outside garden chore list has grown by the day, I’m very excited for warm weather and bringing the garden back to life. Until then, here’s what’s growing!

My first sow from mid-February has started to bless our upstairs closet with colorful chard, some little lettuces and a few bok choy stragglers I wanted to use up. There’s almost enough to make a single salad with but once the weather stays warmer than freezing, we’ll be drowning in broad leafy greens.

The two trays above were sowed with even more rainbow chard as well as some luffa! I was so excited to get the luffa started as my goal for this year is to plant a few around a teepee and watch them take over. All but one germinated and they’re about ready for a bigger pot. In the other tray, a miscellaneous assortment of hot peppers, two broccoli varieties, rosemary and tomatoes. A few of these pepper seeds are a bit old and from my time in Rhode Island, so I’m not expecting great germination rates, but the next tray has some new seeds from Fedco.

For my third round of sowing, more lettuce and kale for the home garden as well as a couple of different hot and sweet peppers and another Amish Paste tomato. Since sowing last week, most of the kale and lettuces have sprouted and need to be thinned, but the tomato and peppers need a bit more time.

Finishing this week of sowing was potatoes! Namely, ones that were sprouted in the pantry that didn’t look very dinner ready. I don’t know how well they’re going to do as I usually plant them in the garden directly, but I’m hoping it gives me a head start on tuber production, since I imagine potatoes and squashes will be the main contributors to my 100lbs of food challenge.

Next up in the coming weeks will be squashes and gourds, cucumbers and melons and by then it should be warm enough to start direct sowing in the garden~

bitter cold start

It’s mid-February here in Maine and the bitter cold that comes with it is ever present. In order to fight the urge to burrow under blankets with the dogs and a heat pad, I started a greens shelf in the newly installed grow closet~ Rather, Mike complained I forgot to get greens at Hanny’s and it was a good excuse to put the closet together and start the grow season. Most of these varieties (chard, lettuce, spinach, kale, bok choy, arugula, and radish) were pretty old so this sow is also doubling as a seed test. Whatever does come up will be eaten, while the ones that don’t are already on my shopping list.

 

This year, I’ve got a few garden goals that I’m really excited to get into, one of which is growing 100lbs of food. I haven’t really kept great records of past harvests, mostly in the form of Snapchat pictures after harvesting or what I’ve cooked with them, so I don’t quite know how easy or hard 100lbs will be. Traditional producers like tomatoes and green beans will be an easy way to make the numbers go up, while my wild raspberries come and go and I can’t be sure how many I’ve lost to dog foraging. To get a more accurate idea of what this garden will produce, I plan on weighing every harvest and cataloging it all in yet another spreadsheet, as well as journaling and taking photos.

But first, we have to germ test some seeds. If you’re like me, you’ve got seeds coming out of your ears, and there’s a lot of old mixed in with new. 2018 was a long time ago for some of these seeds (carrots, onion, lettuce, spinach, etc.) so I already don’t have faith in those tests, but most of the beans, chard and some squashes should still be viable. This year, the idea of a vertical germination station of sorts came to me so a weird plastic curtain is what I made~

This weird setup was a great way to use a sunny spot and it didn’t seem like the cold window stunted any seeds from germinating. These sets of four and five groups were just taped together and attached to the curtain rod with a binder clip. It became part of my morning to check the seed progress and make notes on what I’d have to order for the year.

As I expected, the chard and pole beans germinated strongly, as noted by the orange X’s over visible sprouts. There were a small amount of 0% germination bags, mostly in the carrot, onion and lettuce mixes I had on hand. After letting them go until last week, I took them down, threw the seeds and paper towels in the compost, and washed the bags in warm soapy water and left to air dry. It was kind of painful in the zero waste part of my brain to use all these plastic bags but germination tests are so important, especially if you want to live out of your garden, so it’s sort of a necessary evil~

Next step is ordering the last of my seed list and waiting for March, when I can finally start sowing of the season. ๐Ÿ™‚