Home Farm Herbery

3/13/12

It was a beautiful day today in the mid 70’s and we had the French doors open and the heat off.Ken brought the rest of the top soil in and Carl finished the 4 big planters and now they need to be filled up which Ken will do tomorrow for me.

The grape hyacinths are up all over the place and the fruit trees are starting to bud as are the Japanese weeping cherry trees and all the Bradford and Cleveland pear trees.The daffodils are rampant around here and the green house is really doing its thing. I see the violets are starting to immerge all over the place.

3/14/12

Ken built 2 new planters for me.He will build one more in the same area. He will fill them for me when he gets to make a couple of trips to town with his truck.

 

Carl finished the other planters yesterday and Ken helped me fill them today with me being the director and him doing 95% of the work.

Everything is popping out around here and the violets are starting to carpet many areas of our garden walkways.The temperature got to be 77 degrees today and blossoming trees are breaking out all over the place.All the Bradford Pear trees half way down the driveway are out in full force and one more good rain will bring the Cleveland Pear trees on the other end out in a day or two.

3/7/12

It was a beautiful day today at Home Farm, but very windy.

Carl and I worked on the new beds he is building.We got the weed bedding down dispite the wind and two sections of wood placed on each bed.  Rain is predicted for all day tomorrow so that puts the damper on this project and also keeps the workers from coming in to work on our other projects.

The herbs in the green house are looking good.

Ken brought the cardboard down for me today.

I got the last 12 solar lights installed today

3/4/12

It was very windy today and about 40 degrees even though the greenhouse was a balmy 72 degrees. Today I added 5’ x 3’ to the old Iris bed & I planted 25 Blazing Star Liatris.

I also added 15 African Corn Lily bulbs to the enlarged area of the old Iris bed.

Kate Kenny was here working on her stained glass lamp she is creating and she hauled down an 80 pound bag of mulch to new bed for me and then hauled 2 more up to the new bulb bed I am making towards the front of the house. It will have bulbs on the driveway side and perennial wildflowers on the lawn side.

I also planted 23 Oriental Star Gazer Lilies in that area. They are fragrant and return year after year. I added 10 Mixed Asiatic Lily bulbs to that area also and 10 Star Gladiolus bulbs. I want to have color in that area all the time so I have planted early, mid and late blooming bulbs such as these Ithuriel’s Spear bulbs which are mid blooming.

I also planted 1 yellow Seattle Dahlia in that bed. The Grape Hyacinths are popping up.

I got everything planted outside even though the wind was blowing me away and it seemed colder than it was. I started at 8:30 am and finished at 11:30 am. I was even able to install 12 more solar lights during that time thus finishing up one whole walkway.

I came in and did a half hour on the computer and then made lunch for Carl and Kate Kenny who was here working in the studio. They went back to work in the studio and I had a pile of computer work to do and then at 2 pm I was able to get back into the greenhouse.

I planted a large flat of Russian Tarragon seeds, and 40 pots of Sweet William seeds, a large flat of Chives, 2 large containers of Shasta daisy and a large container of Sweet Marjoram.

Chives are wonderful and they can be direct seeded. Established plants can easily be divided in the spring & fall. These perennials will self seed. The flowers are edible & this herb freezes well. They are perennials in zones 3-9 and you should remove spent blossoms regularly to prolong blooming.

I was able to get done just before the sky became grey so we may well have bad weather tonight.

Ken just dropped off all the landscape timbers I asked him to pick up for me.

To see the slide show of today’s efforts clcik on this link now.

http://www.kizoa.com/slideshow/d2380165k7844543o1/3412-a-day-in-arlenes-garden-and-greenhouse

2/29/12

Tornado warnings all morning today and big winds, rains, thunder and lightening until 2 pm. today.

3/1/12
Today was a lovely, but busy day in the mid fifties. Gloria came to clean today and before going over to George’s to do the same she did a lot of yard work for me. However, I had turned the heat lamps off in the greenhouse at 8 am and apparently she turned on the strip they were connected to when she vacuumed the screened in patio and neglected to turn them off so when I went into the greenhouse at 10 am and started watering I could not see that they were on again and bulbs started exploding when the water hit them.

I started a new 2 ft. x 12 ft. perennial wildflower bed down at the end of our driveway and will be adding to it over the next couple of days. I also added some Shasta daisy to it and I found a large envelope in a drawer yesterday that contained some marigold seeds I had saved from 3 years ago so I threw those in also just to see what will happen.

3/2/12

I awoke to a lot of rain and wind, thunder and lightening which Carl said was going on since 4 am. I never noticed. It was so bad that we just ran into town, did some bank business and was back before 9 am. While in the village I noticed the first blooming dogwood tree in someone’s yard and several people who have tulip trees will see them blooming in a day or two.

Upon returning I started a book because I did not want to turn on the computer or TV which I always unplug in lightening storms. By 10 am it had all settled down so I went out and planted the rest of the new bulb bed with 40 mixed gladioli, 4 mixed Cannas, 24 mixed Montbretia and 30 mixed Freesias, installed 10 solar lights and went down the driveway and finished planting the big new perennial wild flower bed. I finished at noon which was nothing short of a total surprise for this old girl.

Tosee the slide show of the flowers planted and what is growing around here right now click on the link now.

http://www.kizoa.com/slideshow/d2370156k4608464o1/march-1--2-in-arlenes-garden

Carl has started the new waist high planters that I will use just for vegetables.

The weather reports calls for rain tonight and tomorrow and we need all the rain we can get in the spring.

To see the slide show for the activities of 2/28/12 click on this link

http://www.kizoa.com/slideshow/d2362578k6121581o1/2-28-2012-arlenes-garden-at-home-farm

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Again it was 24 degrees this morning with a thin layer of ice on the little garden ponds. When I got to the greenhouse everything was nice and toasty and I was able to shut off all the heat lights. I worked in the greenhouse for about 3 hours and I potted the Japanese long cucumbers and the Marketmore 76 cucumbers. I potted 8 different kinds of bulbs for resale and started a new bulb bed out by the iris with 8 different kinds of bulbs for our garden.

I got two rows of Palco Spinach planted in one of the waist high beds and also 2 rows of gourmet blend lettuce. A lot of bulbs are up around here at home farm and I even saw some crocus. I was able to get more garden markers finished today.

Click on link to see all the slide show.

http://www.kizoa.com/slideshow/d2355442k8324872o1/feb-26-2012-arlenes-gardening-day

Well I do not know what is happening with this blogging website as I am getting all kinds of weird messages, but apparently there is no hyperlink thingamabob on this site, so if you want to see the slide show, just cut and paste the following into your browser.  or click on the link if it finally shows up.

http://www.kizoa.com/slideshow/d2355363k6924998o1/feb-25-2012-arlenes-gardening-day

Feb. 9th, 2012. The first of the heirloom seeds have arrived, plus all this years wild flower seeds I intend to plant. Our zone 6 Kentucky winter has been mild so far, but we were cold in the mid 30?s today.

Tonight we went to the Hart County Farmer’s Market meeting at the county extension office and we joined hoping that our Home Farm Herbery will be able to do something.

As soon as the weather breaks Carl will start building the new waist high planters. Heading into our 80?s requires less bending and higher planters.a

I will need to start cleaning out the green house in a few days and get ready to start the seeds for seedlings at the end of this month.

Feb. 16, 2011 50 degrees at 6 am

It was a mild, but overcast day today. Gloria came and cleaned out the green house. All the lumber came today for 4 new waist high 8 ft x 3 ft. planters and Ken and I went to E-Town to pick up 30 bales of straw.

Feb. 20th to Feb. 22, 2012

Carl has gotten the heat lamps and beds in the green house up and running again. All the heirloom seeds have been coming in. The weather has been extremely mild and their are all kinds of bulbs popping up ahead of time and I hope they do not get zapped. I have been painting new plant stakes in my studio.

Feb. 23, 2012

We got incredible rain, thunder and lightening all through the night.

Feb. 25, 2012

I awoke to a thin layer of ice on the little garden ponds. I checked the greenhouse as we had to put on the heat lights last night and everything in the closed beds was at 72 degrees so I was able to shut the lights off and open the big beds. I worked in the greenhouse for about 4 hours after breakfast. I potted 4 different kinds of peppers and 5 different kinds of tomatoes. I potted the stevia, several herbs and once it warmed up outside I got in a couple of rows of iceberg lettuce, a couple of rows of French breakfast radishes and a couple of rows of Paris market carrots in one of the waist high beds.

Click here to see our slide show.http://www.kizoa.com/slideshow/d2355363k6924998o1/feb-25-2012-arlenes-gardening-day

We got our first snow yesterday in KY for all of 20 minutes yesterday morning and hopefully that was that, but I doubt it.  However, after 8 days of rain we finally got a sunny, but cool day today. 

I went out and mulched some of the herb beds this afternoon and finally got around to putting two of our great seasoning blends onto our product list for approval.

One is Home Farm Herbery's Breakfast Sausage Seasoning Blend which is wonderful for a pork sausage and the other is Home Farm Herbery's mild or hot Sausage Seasoning Blend which is equally delightful, but can be used with basically any kind of ground meat.

Again we will ship free anywhere within the 48 contiguous states and outside just email us for a quote.

The past 3 days have almost washed us clear away with solid rain day and night.Fortunately it has been in the mid 60’s during the days with lots of wind and it makes for working outside kind of rough so I have taken time to paint us a new Home Farm Herbery sign for down at the gate.I also got our new poultry blend finished and it is quite good just in time for the holidays.

When anyone buys any of our blends we always give you a free recipe and a little history about one of the herbs or why and where the origin of a recipe or blend first came into being.

I also have been creating new herb bed signs and I even used one of my favorite plates that got broken as part of this project.I am a great recycler and use anything from old pieces of tiles to broken china.