Dirty Fingers Muddy Toes

27/04/2021

The radishes are popping through! If you’ve never had roasted radishes, you don’t know what you’re missing! They lose their bite and take on the most wonderful complex flavor! This year we’re growing pink and purple radishes for food and black radishes for medicine predominantly.

08/03/2021

This year I am using a new-to-me seed starting technique called “soil blocking”. No more buying peat pots, no more root bound seedlings! Pictures here are the tiny blocks to start out and these will be potted on to the larger blocks as they grow. Stay tuned for more on this great sustainable gardening practice as well as other tips and tools!

08/10/2020

Accidentally dug out this meaty toad while digging up potatoes! He’s a hefty guy!!

05/09/2020

Long Pie Pumpkin and Winter Luxury Pumpkin. Two of the best pumpkins to grow for making delicious pies!

01/09/2020

Unlike store bought tomatoes, home grown ones have more substance to them and rarely leak the bulk of their contents onto your cutting board. Not to mention they just taste better in every way! Heirloom varieties pictured are Pantano Romanesco, Prudens Purple. Also pictured is Large Barred Boar in lower right. Second picture shows the Brad’s Atomic Grape, still@green when ripe and VERY ripe ones will have a blush inside. Last picture is Large Barred Boar where you can really see it’s darker interior as the result of its breeding from a black tomato parent with a brown tomato parent.

22/08/2020

🌈 Rainbow from the garden!! Picked a few peppers 🌶 for the pepper steak dinner. 🍴 🌱

20/08/2020

Even the cats love on the veggies!

20/08/2020

Broccoli coming on!!

16/08/2020

Time to start processing some tomatoes for sauce. I won’t finish it off until the season is over so it’s a partial process and freeze until the final sauce making and canning at the end!

15/08/2020

Part of Today’s garden. The rest was left for the 8yr old who likes to pick and will be here later. ❤️🌱

15/08/2020

I’ll take gardening barefoot over perfect nail polish and primped feet any day. And of course, this is why we have the name we do!

12/08/2020

And so the canning season pops up all of a sudden! Some things were small this year due to a very wet start to the season followed by extreme heat and dry conditions, but it’s all tasting great despite its size and it will all get used or canned for winter use! The flavors of organic, heirloom, homegrown food is incomparable! The work is SO worth it!!

05/08/2020

Heirloom tomatoes just coming on a few are giants!

23/07/2020

Poblano Peppers anyone? These plants are just starting to produce and look like they’re going to be productive!! They just keep making peppers!! ❤️🌱 Stay tunes as I’m sure some will be given away!

23/07/2020

The BEST pumpkin for pie is the Long Pie Pumpkin! These vines are cranking out some beauties!

23/07/2020

BORLOTTO DI VIGEVANO NANO beans almost ready!

03/07/2020

Here ya go! A little garden tour of what’s THRIVING and what’s STUGGLING and a few tips on tomatoe pruning, insect issues, and strawberry matted row beds.

28/06/2020

Wild on the property here as volunteers one day. If I can get them before the birds it’s a good day!

07/06/2020

Follow me on Dirty Fingers Muddy Toes for more gardening fun (and failures).

Additionally, picking in the morning, BEFORE they convert their sugars to starches in the heat, is a pro strategy!

07/06/2020

Additionally, picking in the morning, BEFORE they convert their sugars to starches in the heat, is a pro strategy!

07/06/2020

And this is where DIVINE things come together....just a wink of time each year....

dipped in REAL ! Strawberries form the back yard and honey from a recent trip to , courtesy of the tiny there.

07/06/2020

dipped in REAL ! Strawberries form the back yard and honey from a recent trip to , courtesy of the tiny there.

03/06/2020

Yesterday’s and today’s patch haul. They’re JUST starting. Yum! Going to try dehydrating slices as well as fruit leather this year.

24/05/2020

It’s getting there!

19/05/2020

A few of the radish from this year. (A dash of salt makes these even tastier!) The “Purple Plum” are tasty but the spiciest so far and with less overall flavor and a spongier consistency as compared to the “Pink Beauty” which are crisp with a broader flavor spectrum. The WINNER so far is one of the darker pink/red from the “Valentine’s Day Mix” with a complex and broad flavor mix, mild spice and surprise sweetness! Totally amazing. So far I haven’t been able to name the variety in the mix but will message to see if it can be determined! Great production this year!!

13/05/2020

Blue Oyster mushrooms fruited beautifully and were super easy!

13/05/2020

First radish this year! It tasted AMAZING! I’m going to have to make kimchi or learn to pickle these babies!

13/05/2020

Frosts/freezes are OVER and it is time to plant! What are YOU planting this year?

10/05/2020

Radish are coming along!

10/05/2020

Free ranging chickens while I work outside.

05/05/2020

Edible (if used within hours) mica cap mushrooms. We didn’t harvest these but they looked lovely!

05/05/2020

4 of the 14 beds in the garden. Using landscape cloth has drastically reduced the w**ds and w**d seeds from last season!

05/05/2020

Some of the seedlings hardening off In the pop-up to protect from downpours.

18/04/2020

This chicken sure is TRYING to left that BLUE egg. Fingers crossed!

14/04/2020

Sad morning. Lost the Blue Ameracauna to a hawk or an owl.

11/04/2020

Burning! Flame w**ders are the way to GO! **ding

10/04/2020

Our first attempt at clipping Chicken flight feathers. Complete with chase scenes. Thanks Clint Kiehl for the help!! Lol. https://youtu.be/aAXsBFvP8ew

A quick tutorial on clipping chickens’ flight feathers to keep them from flying over the fence.

09/04/2020

Kale plants that survived the winter, producing now and will make seeds this year! Kale is a biennial and will flower and seed in its second year.

09/04/2020

Radish seedlings are up!

07/04/2020

Rainbow chard, three types of kale, peas and a few broccoli plants got planted yesterday. The radishes are already coming up too!