The beginner gardener grows some grass.

Yes, it's true.

I am growing grass.

The sprouts that sprung from my blocks are not butter crunch lettuce.
They are not eggplant.
And...they are not lovage.

The little sprouts that I was so excited about are grass. The sprouts were getting pretty leggy and I was ready to transfer them into pots until the garden is ready, however, now...well, I won't be putting blades of grass into pots.

But...

if you look closely...

hiding in the grass is what I believe to be a legitimate sprout of some sort. I believe it is lovage. I will have to wait and see. I will also wait to see if the other blocks produce something other than the grass. And, I know I must help the blocks along and clear the grass but I am not so interested in removing them. These blades of grass. The first thing I ever grew

On another note, the weather is not quite ready to give it all up to Spring. Forecasted temperatures for the weekend are lows in the 20s. I don't mind so much. Plan for the weekend is to play with rocks. Rock work I am sure is better when it is cooler out.

Fun on the farm and some micro alpine flora, maybe it is Spring after all?

Today I spent the better part of my day at the "Kelok Illahee" farm owned by Dick and Melinda Springs located in Gannett, Idaho just south of Bellevue. The farm, which means home of the sandhill crane in Chinook, is an amazing place and I am grateful that Dick and Melinda share what they have created with others.

I was there attending the third session of my Vegetable Gardening 102 class, offerend through CSI and led by Dick and Melinda. We were there to learn how to build a hoop house which is often used to extend the growing season. Little did I know how fun and interesting the whole day would turn out to be. Not only did we learn all about hoop houses but we also learned about raising chickens and pigs and we toured the whole farm. Animals to be found at "Kelok Illahee" include: emus, chickens, pigs, pygmy goats, geese, ducks, dogs and cats.

I need to sort through all of my photos and create a few different slide shows but for now here are a few photos from a very fun day on the farm!

And...

Since there is nothing that is going to bloom anytime soon in my own yard I am posting a few photos of micro alpine flora from my first spring hike up Heidelberg Hill in Ketchum.

The forecast calls for snow!

Yup it's true. One to two inches of the stuff by morning.

But...

The forecast also calls for temperatures in the 60s by the weekend. Welcome to the high desert mountain region of central Idaho.

And...

As of today I have almost completed the new composting structure. So far I have only invested a half an hour of time and a couple of new self tapping screws into the structure itself. I did however spend about an hour regrading the area where I am to install it.

Here is an overall update photo of the backyard. The compost is to the right of the shed. The dog in the foreground of the photo is a new found friend who comes to visit daily, Jackson the Dog, and in the background is my ever faithful companion and friend, Tucker the Dog. They have both been contributing daily to the toils in the yard. And... all of my gardening planning will be affected to some degree by the Tuckster. i.e. additional fencing around the composting, fencing around the veggie beds, etc, etc... Wouldn't have it any other way though.

Oh and note the last little pile of debris near Jackson to be taken out with the trash on Wednesday. Then, all that will be left will be organic material in the yard. Well, except for the dang cigarette butts...

And here is a photo of the compost structure.

It doesn't look like much, in fact it kind of looks like it is being created to keep in some sort of animal, but hopefully it will someday contain some really nice decaying organic matter. With earthworms to boot.

First though, I need to learn a little about layering the green and the brown and adding moisture and turning properly and keeping the dog out and keeping other critters out and well...first I have to finish creating it. It's not that stable yet. If you look closely the branches to the right are hopefully to be used to create some sort of fencing. Perhaps...

As I am looking at the photos I really cannot wait until some color is to be found in the yard.

24, 48 and 72 hours later

I must admit I'm extremely excited about my soil blocks. Posting photos from 24, 48 and 72 hours after they sprouted.

Whilst it snows outside...

Yes, it's snowing and sleeting and raining and dripping and generally just not the type of day where you want to be outside. Unless of course you are a duck, a frog or perhaps an earthworm and earthworms are aplenty in the backyard.

The beginning of this week more time was spent in the backyard cleaning and removing debris and...under all the debris I found big fat earthworms. I wish I had a picture or two of the nice big fat earthworms but I only took a few more pictures of the debris in the yard. The following two pictures are some of what was found just outside the french doors to the back yard.

Wednesday is trash day though and all has now been carted away. I now have a blank, albeit leafy, twiggy, cigarette butt strewn canvas to work with.

And...

My soil blocks have sprouted! There are little green shoots poking out of a few of them and the ones that don't have green shoots poking out the top I checked the bottom and they have root growth. The root growth blocks are bib lettuce and the green shoot blocks are eggplant and lovage.

Lookee here!

Also, my composting expirement in the kitchen has almost reached a point where the scraps need to be posted to a pile out of doors. The compost structure needs to be built though. The plan for now is to create one from what once was a metal futon frame found in the backyard. It will be a three sided structure with some sort of removable door on the front. The door may be made from a discarded piece of plywood that I saw the other day on our daily canyon hike. As a bonus the piece of plywood has already been painted an attractive green. I do need to inspect it for rot and general usability though.

Bowl #1 - Coffee grounds to be used in homemade fertilizer

Bowl #2 - Kitchen scraps to be composted

Bowl #3 - Recyclables






Old futon frame soon to be a compost enclosure.

Looking forward to a less wet day tomorrow so I can get to work outside again!

And so the adventure continues...

I have just moved from an apartment at the base of Bald Mountain in Ketchum, Idaho into a newly renovated tiny little house in Bellevue, Idaho and as a result I have decided to use blogging as a journaling medium to track all of my new experiences that will come with living in my new great space.

Blogging is completely new to me and I am fully expecting it to be as much of an adventure as the rest of my ideas that come with living in a house that has a great big fenced back yard and a beautiful front yard resplendent with numerous trees including some fruits as yet to be determined.

I should mention that although the house has just been completely renovated all of the out of doors was woefully neglected for the last four years (as was the in of doors hence the complete renovation) and will require much work and TLC to bring it round to it's full potential. Below is a picture of pick up load number two of things found under the snow to be taken to recycle. When I first looked at the house back at the beginning of March there was four feet of snow on the ground...

Pictures of the backyard including from the top of the dead end street (yes, I'm the last house on a dead end street and it is quiet, quiet, quiet, well...except for all the birds, including cooing doves) and a picture from inside the fence.




















Picture of the front of the house.

Things to be learned, created, accomplished while living at the 'Casa on the Corner':

The Short List
composting
gardening: including vegetables, herbs and flowers
canning
dehydrating
bread making

In general just live a more sustainable lifestyle.

The Long List would include things like learning about raising chickens and goats and things but that's for later. Waaayyy later!

The next few posts will include lessons learned from this past week including information about composting and gardening. Did you know there is hot composting, cold composting, vermiposting? It all gets really confusing really quickly but I have started composting my kitchen scraps and I believe I will be creating a hot compost out in the backyard. We'll see.

And...I've started a gardening class and I came home with some soil blocks which have seeds started in them. I really hope I can nurture them to full bloom.