Planning Spring Gardens

Today in North Alabama we have a brilliant blue sky with a bone-chilling wind.  It feels barely above freezing today.  Definitely a coat-worthy day.  Temperatures make working outside for very long difficult.  Not to worry though because I am toasty warm inside and planning my spring gardens.  I have just ordered:
Burpee's Boost Collection because it promises "best in class" for taste and nutritional oomph and

3X6 Galvanized Steel Raised Bed because tilling gardens is so in the past.  My spring gardens will all be raised beds with the wonderful compost from the chickens filling up most of the beds.

And finally I ordered two pear trees that will be planted to the side of the chicken pens and after a few years make great pear preserves for us.

Rest in Peace, Mom, and thank you for everything!

My Step-Mom raised me from the time I was five years old.  Like any Mother-Daughter relationship we had our ups and downs.  She did things wrong as I did.  I had a smart mouth and she was quick to punish any sign of it.  She believed in corporal punishment and I was beaten regularly between the ages of five and thirteen.  I hated her for that.  Then at thirteen I discovered how to keep my mouth shut and she started to teach me to cook.  She was a superb German-style cook while I lean toward Italian-style cooking.  I so appreciate the skills she taught me.  I didn't realize until recently that I was a prep chef long before the popular cooking shows featured it.  Together we cooked for a large and extended family.  We were poor monetarily but my Dad hunted and fished and had a large garden every year.  "Mom" made fresh baked rolls that would melt in your mouth.  We never lacked for food because we grew it ourselves or Dad caught it.  One year she taught me how to can and another year taught me how to make jellies and jams.  Summertime at our house was very active preparing for the next winter.    She never learned to make decent saurkraut; it was her only failing.  Spoiled kraut is bad, very very bad in the house.  She also failed to can the fresh sausage correctly one year and it spoiled.  The smell was horrendous.  Everything else though was so good to eat.  I can not eat mediocre food because of her; she set the food standard in my life very high.  Here is a picture I snapped on my phone of her during one of her last "good" days.  Her mind was clear to the end but her body failed her.

Welcome to the Northern Alabama Homestead!

Pickled eggs made with 12 of the smallest hen's eggs, hardboiled, shelled and then packed into a wide mouth mason jar with pickling spices and 5% acidic vinegar.  Goes into the refrigerator for 2 weeks.  Then we will use in place of dill pickles for eating out of hand, on sandwiches, and in salads.

 A white orphington hen lays the largest eggs on our homestead.  These eggs are very thin shelled and prone to breakage before collection in the morning.  Wish she laid a slightly smaller egg; I worry about her getting egg bound when I'm away from the homestead.  Her name is Prissy.

Peck, Pick and Penny

Prissy

 The smallest eggs are laid by speckled white sussex.  Their names are Peck, Pick and Penny.  They each lay a unique but consistent size.

The hens live within a electric fence enclosure with a top bar hive full of Italian honeybees.  The fence and their chicken coop is moved every few months but rotate around the hive.  The hive remains in place.  Bees and chickens are compatible.  The chickens eat the mites that are parasites to the bees.

   Our garden is producing a fine batch of leaf lettuce suited to the hot/cool spikes in our spring time.  I will sow a row of black seeded simpson next weekend that will stand up to our hot June and July days.

My hot weather crops, peppers, basil and tomatoes are planted.  The garden is mulched and ready to grow.

 Squash in a container surrounded by rosemary and lavendar.

 I found some $1 containers of azaleas on deep discount at Wal Mart - obviously intended for Mother's Day. I purchased all they had and then planted them along our property line.  Should be gorgeous next year with their flowers.

 

My nemesis alive and well in the North Alabama heat

North Alabama has seen severe weather this year.  Evidence of the last storm remains over our house.