Author: kris

This post is part of a seasonal community sharing series, Grow Together Tuesday. You’ll find posts from myself, and award winning gardener Monika Thiessen, of Prairie Girl Pottery.  I love seeing what others are doing in their gardens, and since most of us aren’t neighbors, let’s peek over each other’s virtual fences, be inspired, and learn from one another!  Post a link to your weekly garden notes, updates, photos, and more in the comments – any time this week!

This Week in the Garden…
Kris Antonius

We’ve been away from our garden for weeks at a time, and it’s always a joy to come home to see how it’s grown and changed, and what new treasure it has produced for us, for the bees, and for the critters who share our community. Photos taken with the iPhone, excuse the poor quality!

The borage has grown crazy huge with dozen of blooms. We used some to make borage lemonade the other day and it was delicious (post to come). The bees can’t get enough of the borage blossoms -there are a half dozen bees on each plant almost all the time!

We’ve harvested borage leaves, nettle leaves, and chickweed, and dehydrated them. These days each work period in the garden will end in something being dried or fermented!

The borage is planted in a  sort of companion group or guild, with tomatoes, basil, and chard, with cucumbers growing up some trellis here and there.

As the season progresses, I’ve been looking for blank palettes to sow more seeds into – I find little spaces here and there, and add some beets or fast growing greens like tat soi or lettuce.

Two planters on either side of our front door hold some lovely herbs – here are Asian Cilantro (i think that’s what it was called), and Basil.

The raspberries are still going strong, and the strawberries are prepping for round two of fruiting.

A lovely xeriscape plant gifted by a friend. Does anyone know what it is? Is it a type of straw flower?

The purple striations in Dragon Tongue pole beans are really beautiful. These beans are best eaten while small, as they do get stringy and tough as they get larger.

Some kale and golden beets keeping each other company.

The potatoes and peas are getting along nicely.

A three sisters garden with corn supporting the beans, and some squash growing below. The squash might not make it, as they weren’t quite growing enough by the time the other plants shaded them out. There are also beets planted around the border of this grouping. You can see the bean tipi in the background – a late addition, but the kids are still loving it even as they watch just the beginnings of the beans curling their way up the poles and twine.

As we’re gone for stretches here and there, a lot of what we do when we are there is weeding! We have a couple huge weed piles around the yard…

Last week for night snack we made some impromptu Strawberry Haskap Chia Jam, after a modest harvest from the gardens. After rinsing the berries, de-hulling, and measuring the other ingredients, we simply blended everything together in the blender for a few seconds. So simple. Incredibly delicious.

Recipe

/ 1 cup berries

/ 1 tablespoon honey

/ 1 tablespoon chia (more if you like thicker jam)

/ 1 teaspoon vanilla

/ 1 taste-tester

We would have added lemon juice, but we were out, and the results were still enjoyed by the whole crew. It’s nice to be able to just whip up a small batch of jam with these harvests every now and then, rather than waiting for a large haul of fruit – and without having to have a supply of whey for fermenting, or pamona’s for canning, even though we enjoy those other methods as well.

This post was shared as a part of Simply Natural Saturdays, Thank Goodness It’s Monday and Fat Tuesday.

Homeschoolers often worry that they aren’t doing enough, that they’re doing too much, or that they aren’t doing the right things, whether too little or too much! We’re faced with pressure from society, family, and friends and sometimes feel like we should go big, or go home (or rather, back to school).

Even within the context of learning in nature, it’s easy to feel like we should be embarking on grandiose adventures, visiting distant wild areas, learning from knowledgable nature interpreters, and more. A visit we had at our neighborhood park last week turns that notion on its head. This is a natural area less than one full block from our home. It’s a space that we are becoming intimately familiar with, as some weeks we might visit three times for picnics, sketching, tree-climbing, and foraging for healing plants.

On this particular visit, we spread out our blanket, and said hello to our favourite grandfather tree that stretches his arms out over us, providing shade in the sweltering heat of summer.

The kids took off to visit their evergreen climbing trees, only to find that the lower ‘rungs of the ladders’ had been cut off, which would sadly mean no climbing. However, the sting of the loss was momentary; because of the trim, running out of the trees was a sticky sap to engage with. The kids marveled at, touched the tree sap. Milo even tasted it, and wasn’t impressed with his findings. While observing so close to the bark, they found sapsucker holes, and even what Cohen called a “nature spile” on one tree’s trunk.

Breann spotted both a bird and a swallowtail butterfly in the trees and prompted us all to be still and quiet in order to observe and capture the moments in photographs.

Excitement grew as we watched the busy work of bees on creeping charlie and dandelions and also shared in the joy of said dandelions by spreading their seeds through human-powered wind dispersal.

While searching for healing plants unsuccessfully in the freshly mowed areas around the trees, we were joined by a cat, who enjoyed prowling through the forest undergrowth, to pop out for visits now and then.  In previous years, we have found an abundance of chickweed and plantain in these areas that are now mowed. We did find a small patch of chickweed, and decided to leave it unpicked so that it would have a chance to flourish. Hopefully the park staff won’t be regularly mowing these areas!

Not ready to go home empty handed, the kids diligently harvested the smallest spruce tips from several of the trees, and we took them home and turned them into Spruce Tip Tea, and Spruce Tip Shortbread for Father’s Day gifts.

Each of us found a natural item to bring back to the blanket and we sketched for a while, had our lunch, and then went to explore the flower garden at the nearby museum. Throughout our time there, the kids visited with several park goers and their dogs. They also approached a staff member at the museum, and inquired about volunteer opportunities.

Next time someone asks me what I did for school with the kids, I won’t be ashamed to say that we just hung out at the neighborhood park.

This post was shared as a part of Thank Goodness It’s Monday.

This post is part of a seasonal community sharing series, Grow Together Tuesday. You’ll find posts from myself, and award winning gardener Monika Thiessen, of Prairie Girl Pottery.  I love seeing what others are doing in their gardens, and since most of us aren’t neighbors, let’s peek over each other’s virtual fences, be inspired, and learn from one another!  Post a link to your weekly garden notes, updates, photos, and more in the comments – any time this week!

Bittersweet Surprises
Kris Antonius

The past couple weeks in the garden have been bittersweet. The gorgeous Three Flowered Aven seeds were a treat, as well as the strawberry blossoms, chive flowers, many seedlings popping up and growing strong… The lavender came back, and despite no fruit last year, the apple trees are in the least, not dead! We’ve already enjoyed garden spinach in our smoothies, fresh lettuce, and dill.

Yet, this year, unlike pretty much the previous decade of gardening in it’s entirety, I am dealing with pests. I don’t enjoy the somewhat creepy feeling that I am engaging in strategic warfare in my own yard. There are little worms or caterpillars eating the haskap leaves, another type are eating the grape leaves. Something is munching my cucumber and squash plants right at the stem, cutworms, I presume. The borage also has some nibbles. The espaliered apples have some leaf rollers, and something nearby is making pretty, yet unfortunate lace out of the hollyhock leaves.

If anyone has pest management advice, I’m all ears. I have always wanted to learn more about which insects and creatures in the garden are friends, and which are foes.

The back gardens…

Volunteer peas & lettuce.

Pole beans and corn from saved seeds. There is also squash in this garden, for a three sisters grouping.

Flowering chives that will make their way onto our plates this week, and what I think is volunteer lemon balm.

Borage, started from seed indoors. Another of the plants is being chewed on by something. Any ideas?

Strawberry patch. The white blossomed plants came with us from our previous home. We moved seven years ago, so we’ve had them for quite a while. The pink blossoms are from Sage Garden Herbs, and are called Fragoo Deep Rose.

Over by the espaliered apples, a bit of a food forest is growing…

Some more strawberries and a patch of monarda / bee balm / bergamot.

Three flowered avens surprised us with these crazy and beautiful seed tufts.

Volunteer field pennycress. Pennycress can be eaten and also has healing properties. I found a great overview here.

In the front yard…

The lavender is making a come-back. This is its third summer in our yard, and despite hearing that lavender won’t over-winter here in Manitoba, our plants have survived two winters!

The grape vine is taking over and I better get some more trellis up pretty fast. Having to trim it back from growing into the neighbour’s yard. There are tiny little barely visible pale green worm/caterpillars chewing on the leaves. I am not happy about that because the plant needs those leaves for photosynthesis, and I would like to save some for fermenting – the leaves help to keep veggies crisp during fermentation.

Another volunteer plant, that sprouted up in a planter. I am not at all sure what it is. It looks similar to motherwort or wild geranium, though each part of the leaf is quite separate down to the joint, whereas those other plants’ leaves seem to be one whole leaf with lobes. Any ideas here?

The haskaps are beautiful this year. They’re full and lush. Unfortunately, some kind of leaf roller or other agrees, and has colonized our bushes and set to the work of eating them up. I’ve been hand-picking them, and also whipped up a garlic spray based on a suggestion in one of my favourite gardening books, shown below.

Better late than never, hopefully applies to planting potatoes! We picked up some seed potatoes this weekend, cut them up and set them out to dry before planting this week once the soil is also dry (to prevent rotting).

Breann has been working on a book with a page for each garden area, and a list of the plants that are growing there. Kind of like a little plant guild guide of sorts.

Please note that we are a part of the Amazon associates program. If you visit Amazon.ca through a link on Tiny Peasant and make a purchase, our family will receive a small percentage of the sale. The products that I specifically recommend in blog posts are products that we love in our home – if they aren’t they are on my wish list and I will note that. Our bookshop (coming soon) has a mixture of tried and true, and wish list items. If you ever have any questions about a product we link to, please don’t hesitate to ask! Thank you for your support! 

Generally, we have at most two outings a week in order to maintain a sense of peace and rhythm in our home. This week, however, had us out of the house almost every day.

We went to a provincial park beach, where I commented to my friend how nice it is to be around kids who know how to play. We moms simply set our blankets down, sipped iced coffee brought along in a thermos, and watched the children get down to the work of learning through play and exploration.  The important work of collecting and inspecting insects, leeches, and other marsh creatures ensued. A group of the kids worked on a dam of sorts, collaborating, problem solving, and simply engaging in being and working together.

Our crew was excited to find and identify poison ivy and get some photos of it for future reference.

The kids love the Nature Playground at one of our city parks, where they can swing, climb, play with sand and water (more dam-making), and explore. It’s a great blend of playground and natural green space.

Another local treasure is the St. Norbert Art’s Centre, with it’s overflowing permaculture gardens. We hunted for stinging nettle, climbed willows, tasted rhubarb, and took in the sights, smells, and sounds on the property. Milo had an unfortunate run-in with what is likely wood or stinging nettle, and got an instant and painful rash, which we alleviated with our favorite salve and it cleared up within a couple hours. When the nearby splash pad was sadly found closed, we ended up stopping for ice cream cones, which was a welcome alternative. There is just this one place that we know of where we can get our tall order of dairy-free, gluten-free, peanut-free, and egg-free ice cream! They make a delicious coconut based soft serve, and have new flavors all the time. This week we had strawberry-guava-chocolate. Yum.

Chives are one of those plants, like zucchini, that are so prolific that it can be a challenge to use most of what they produce. We have about a dozen chive plants in our yard right now with swelling buds about to blossom. I want to commit this year to embracing this tasty plant – both stem and blossom.

In years past, we’ve chopped up chives for dips, and to add to various recipes. We’ve also made chive flower butter, using our homemade butter recipe. This year I’m going to be more intentional. Which is why I chose these three recipes to share – they aren’t just another recipe with some chives tossed on top as a garnish. Aside from the second one – but it is so unique and tasty looking, I had to include it!

Share a link to your favorite chive recipes in the comments. Also, stay tuned for one or two of our own recipes in the next week or two.

1. Chive Pesto / Bon Appetit

2. Apple, Manchego and Chive Salad / A Couple Cooks

3. Chive Blossom Tempura Salad / Veggie Belly

Volunteer Wormwood

Looks like a delicious salad of volunteer lamb’s quarter.

Yarrow. Helps improve essential oil potency in herbs.

Pea shoots.

Lemon balm bordering the back patio. The citrusy scent is supposed to deter mosquitoes. With a bat house nearby hopefully we’ll be able to enjoy many mosquito free backyard fires.

A mish-mash of tulips, garlic, lilies and strawberries. I’m keeping a really close eye on the lilies this year in hopes of staying a few steps ahead of the beetles. So far, so good.

Salvia starting to bud out. Bees LOVE this plant!

The ferns have shot up like crazy over the past 10 days or so.

Clover seed doing pretty well in our little white clover patch. The dandelions and quack grass are also doing very well.

Wild bergamot and tomatoes.

Oriental poppy buds.

Brewing up some comfrey tea.

Prairie Magic apple blossoms.

Cherry blossoms!

Kale sprouts! Better late than never.

Little maple weeds. Will have to remember to spread corn gluten in between the bricks next spring in the hopes that it stops the seeds from germinating.  Imagine all that time not spent weeding!

Tomatoes planted and staked.

Ancho peppers finally in their summer home.

Nasturtium sprouts.

Squishing lily beetles and a thorough spray of neem oil has proved to be an effective method thus far.

Volunteer vetch

This years squash treliis. A two-year version of the three sisters garden.

Gorgeous colours of spring.

Sign of a healthy mycelial network.

Nanking cherries in full bloom last week, but hardly any blossoms left today.

Volunteer sorrel plant.

Monika Thiessen is a potter, permaculture designer, urban homesteader and all around prairie plant girl. She’s happiest with the sun on her back and her hands in the soil.  To check out Monika’s pottery, visit Prairie Girl Pottery.