The Kitchens Garden

Sometimes we forget that the Kitchen Gardens are just as vibrant and busy as the Kitchen’s Garden Farm with all its animals.  Here I have big vegetable gardens and just as big is the flower garden.  

Big flower gardens are not usual out here on the prairies though most people have a vegetable garden. The borders are just starting to flower.  I have planted a number of lilacs and that combined with the apple and plum blossoms makes for a heady fragrance in the gardens this spring.

And yesterday was a wonderful gardening day.  

Being a Sunday Our John carted about piles of compost in the bucket of his tractor, planted numerous tomatoes, and Federico  continued to reclaim one of the old gardens.  There was a rash of weed trees that had got out of hand and even though it was the weekend and a day off for him he continued to wrestle with them digging them out.  He is a very determined young man.  After the first few days I like to allow my farm guests the room to work to their strengths, and Federico is our gardener. He has a real feel for plants and wide borders. We are also working on a design to move water about the farm that does not need me to drag hoses for an hour or so.  And this week we are going to design and build the turkey house.

The gardens get bigger every year, but with a short growing season it takes so long before we can harvest food, I always feel sorry for my early  spring working guests who weed and dig and plant and water but don’t get to eat much of the food they are growing.  Though we still eat well.

Though we are eating broccoli, kale, asparagus, lettuce, spinach, radishes and rhubarb.  Many of the beds are still empty as we wait for the early summer plants to grow in the glass house.

All these gardens are on the South side of the house.

This is just one of John’s tomato beds, with the horse radish in the background. We are eating that too.  And of course a big selection of herbs. These tomatoes were desperate to be planted out.

This year I am hoping to get a decent pick of blue-berries.  They came through the winter better than some of the big trees. The grapes are showing no signs of growth at all.  Many shrubs and roses are gone.  The weeping cherries are really struggling. Two mean winters in a row I suppose.

But the  blue berries are still rattling shakily along. I hope they really take off this year.

Oh and I forgot to get a picture for you but the pawpaw trees are flowering. Isn’t that great? Pawpaws are actually a North American native which surprised me as they sound so Tropical. These trees are five years old now.  On fact I only began gardening here seven years ago. There were no gardens at all when I came, so I am happy.

I hope you have a lovely day.

Your friend on the farm

celi