KW Homestead

Pasture Raised Poultry & Edible Landscaping Plants Since 2013

Tag: seedlings

Cabbage = Yummy Sauerkraut!

This week we transplanted our two cabbage varieties from their pans and into the ground. The great thing about cabbages is that they are cold hardy, which means that during the early spring when there is still a risk of frosty weather they generally do just fine. A true freeze can harm them, of course, but cabbages usually do really well starting their growing journey in the early spring!

cabbages

Cabbages in their pans!

In addition to transplanting the cabbages (we chose the best 50 or 60 plants to put in the beds), we also started some other seeds, like:

  • slicing and paste tomatoes
  • spicy and slicing peppers
  • lettuces
  • herbs like basil, oregano, thyme, and many others
  • tomatillos
  • and more!

This year we haven’t yet gotten behind with planting (like we did last year because of all the wedding planning), which is encouraging news for us. For now, we await the cabbages and the delicious and nutritious sauerkraut this will result!

cabbages

Cabbages transplanted in their beds.

.:.

A Rainy Day on the Homestead

We got some much needed rain today here at Kuska Wiñasun Homestead, more than an inch and it’s still coming. Rain plays a role in the type of chores you can get done on a homestead, and today I spent most, but not all, of the time indoors, starting some more plants from seed, and potting up some small seedlings that germinated a while ago.

potting station

My planting station in the basement; potting soil, containers, root knife, and an iPhone for watching documentaries on Youtube.

Many of the perennial herbs that were planted in the middle of March (elecampane, marshmallow, and feverfew to name a few) were a bit crowded in the small pots they germinated in and so I transplanted them into larger containers so as not to stunt their growth. I noticed that while these plants were slow to germinate, they had well developed root systems much larger than I expected for seedlings that looked so tiny. I also planted a few things from seed that we are very excited about growing: Monkey Puzzle Pine, St. John’s Wort, Ashwaganda, Blue Bean, and Lovage.

elecampane seedling

A healthy elecampane seedling, a great medicinal herb for lung and digestive problems.

By this point it had been raining for a while, and our garden swales were starting to fill up. I noticed that they weren’t filling up evenly, and figured that it was a great time to get the hoe out and start leveling the contour paths. The small amount of water, about an inch or two, made it easy to find the high spots and then scrape that soil to the low spots. Then it was just walking up and down the swale, seeing how deep the water was at different spots and filling in with clay as needed.

garden swales

Taking advantage of some summer rain to work on the garden swales.

This was pretty fun work in the rain, and I felt like a rice farmer in China working on his paddies. The combination of a steady, rhythmic rain, and the watching the water slowly creep along the swale as it became level was very relaxing.

garden swales permaculture

So today was a rainy day not wasted. Some inside chores, and then some outside ones made easier with the help of the rain. We can also thank the rain for watering in our garden, filling up our ponds, keeping our shiitake mushroom logs moist, and charging up our forests with a much needed soak.

meet the homestead’s happy seedlings!

i recently wrote about all of the plants we started from seeds in pans and trays. i wanted to provide an update about how some of these guys are doing and show you what some of our plants look like in their infancy:

lettuce

the four lettuce varieties that we chose this year: speckled bibb, anuenue, bronze arrow, and sweet valentine.

sage

baby sage plants!

thyme

“thyme” for growing!

peppers

three delicious treats: jupiter red bell peppers, golden california yellow peppers, and tomatillos.

peppers

our spicy pepper tray: jalapeno, cayenne, and aji.

tomato

thriving paste tomatoes: black plum and san marzano. anyone ready for homemade tomato sauce?

tomato

black cherry tomatoes (right) and watercress (left). watercress is so cool… it can be grown in running water, i.e. a stream!

and the star of this season's seeds... erlene's green cotton plants.

and the star of this season’s seeds… erlene’s green cotton plants.

i’m not really sure yet what i’ll do with the cotton once/if the plants are fruitful but i am so excited to have green cotton! wow!

the lettuce and the cotton need to be transplanted into the ground soon, while the tomatoes and peppers will be transplanted into larger and deeper pans so they can grow a little tougher and larger before we put them in the ground.

and the other seedlings needs a little more time to grow in their current locations before they graduate up the “food chain.” just thinking about it is making me hungry!

.:.

 

© 2024 KW Homestead

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑