By thegardenergal on June 14, 2011
Last night, there were storms in the vicinity. We weren’t lucky enough to get any rain, but we did get a little wind. Like we don’t have more than enough of that. Ha! Then, on the 10:00 news, our local weather guy said that there was another “heat burst” event – this time in Augusta, Kansas (12 miles from the farm) – but that the temperature only rose 8 degrees in 8 minutes. Well, good? Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Green living, Homesteading, Kansas, Kansas farm life, Kansas weather
By thegardenergal on June 10, 2011
I’m ashamed to be writing this so late, but as I’m sure many people will agree, getting the vegetable garden in and growing takes priority in the spring – that is my excuse. That being said, this “thank you” is incredibly, awfully late, and I’m not usually this rude. Really. Don’t get me wrong – I can be really rude when I need to be, but it takes effort and energy that I just don’t have this time of year. So, please believe me when I tell you that this epic rudeness was unintentional. Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Gardening, Green living, Herbs, Homesteading, I recommend these..., Kansas, Tips, Tricks and How-tos
By thegardenergal on June 9, 2011
“Wichita experiences rare heat burst overnight” – that and similar headlines were all over the Internet this morning and everyone is talking about it. Have you ever heard of a “heat burst event” before? Me neither. And I’ve been living on this earth a long, long time. Well, not *that* long, but awhile now… Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Green living, Homesteading, Kansas, Kansas farm life, Kansas weather
By thegardenergal on June 8, 2011
I’m so excited to share this news – those roasted cauliflower leaves were AWESOME. My husband even liked them and said he would eat them again, and when a man says that about a “new” vegetable dish, well, that’s something big! Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Dieting and weight loss, Ecology, Gardening, Green living, I recommend these..., Kansas, Kansas farm life, Recipes, Reducing sodium intake, Tips, Tricks and How-tos
By thegardenergal on June 7, 2011
I’m not arguing for or against climate change – that’s a big issue and I’m not qualified. Yesterday, however, I was working in the garden just before the temperature hit 100 degrees for the fourth or fifth consecutive day, much, MUCH too early in the year for that to be happening in my area, and maybe it was a heat-fueled hallucination, but even after I came in and cooled off, I began to wonder… what if this is the new normal? What if the average dates of last frost are all wrong, and what if the temperature trend stays this way with much hotter temperatures much earlier in the year? Specifically, what does it mean to me, an individual organic gardener trying to feed my family? Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Dieting and weight loss, Ecology, Gardening, Green living, Kansas, Kansas farm life, Kansas weather, Recipes, Reducing sodium intake, Tips, Tricks and How-tos
By thegardenergal on June 6, 2011
I’m an organic gardener…. would I use nonorganic mulch on my garden? Only if hell froze over. Yeah, I said it. My mulch of choice for the flower garden is wood chips, preferably from a local source. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with mulch from outside of my zone, but why would I want to take a chance on introducing pathogens that are not native to my area? I guess I’m a mulch snob and I didn’t even realize it until just now! Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Gardening, Green living, I recommend these..., Kansas, Kansas farm life, Kansas weather, Teaching, Tips, Tricks and How-tos
By thegardenergal on June 1, 2011
I know that title isn’t grammatically correct… get off my back. I’m an organic gardener, not an English professor. I was living under the impression all these years that summer starts on June 21st each and every year. Yesterday, I learned that that is not necessarily true… not when you’re talking about meteorological summer. Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Green living, Homesteading, Kansas, Kansas farm life, Kansas weather
By thegardenergal on May 27, 2011
This morning, I began weeding my raised beds at 9 a.m. At 10 a.m., my gardening angel joined me. By 11:20, we had weeded 3 large beds, a medium bed, and 3 small beds. We still have 9 small beds to go. What was the most frequently found weed out there? Bindweed? Chickweed? Henbit? Dandelions? Noooo… it was grass. Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Gardening, Green living, Kansas, Kansas farm life
By thegardenergal on May 23, 2011
I didn’t intend to take a break from gardening (or blogging) – it just sort of happened. A little period of anergy overtook me. It started with unsettled weather. I’m not eager to plant if there’s baseball-sized hail in the immediate forecast. None of that happened here, though, and we’re still in a drought, which is really disappointing but not at all surprising. This week is still unsettled with moderate risk of storms, but I’m back at it now, planting, weeding, maintaining, and mulching. Last night, even though I was dead tired and had way too much going on, I planted 32 okra plants that I had pre-germinated in a wet paper towel. There was some question as to viability, so I did that to have a better idea whether they would actually germinate or not, and about half of them did. That sounds like an awful lot of okra, doesn’t it? Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Gardening, Green living, Homesteading, Kansas, Kansas farm life, Kansas weather
By thegardenergal on May 19, 2011
I recently had a conversation about weather with a non-Kansan. His impression, I believe, was that Kansans in general (and me, in particular) have an odd obsession with constantly monitoring the weather. I don’t mean just knowing the predicted high and low temperatures, but I mean being really obsessed with it. Like having a website open with real-time Doppler radar running constantly, at least in the spring. As a Kansan, this is perfectly normal behavior, and I’m sort of amazed that other people aren’t as weather-conscious as we are. Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Homesteading, I recommend these..., Kansas, Kansas farm life, Kansas weather