The blueberries taste like....blueberries!

Blueberries are one of my favorite fruits and have been for a long time.  After putting in the fence, I had the perfect spot to add blueberry bushes along the back. Last year I put in two and after they did well I added two more this year.  The blueberry bushes came from a nursery, so they were actually mature enough to produce fruit the first year.  If you purchase the little blueberry plants they sell at the hardware store, it may take a few years for it produce berries. There are many different varieties and different bushes have different flavors.  Some berries are smaller and sweeter, while some are larger and more tart.  I have 3 Patriot and 1 Chippewa - and I can certainly tell a difference between the berries.  You also want to make sure you are getting plants that flower at the same time so you get cross pollination.  Some varieties bloom early while some are late.  Just do your research about what kind of berries you want when shopping for the plants.

Four blueberry bushes and the net cage

With blueberries, you have to fight the birds to get them ripe.  To combat the birds, I built a net cage around the bushes and used rocks to hold the edges down.  I threw a rubber snake on the ground for good measure.  (The snake was an easy addition - found it at the local dollar store.)  You have to wait until the blooms are gone and berries have formed before you put up the net, otherwise it discourages bees and insects from pollinating your bushes.

Blueberries starting to ripen!

After putting up the netting, it was a waiting game.  Thankfully, storms cleared out and the bushes got some hot, sunny days so that the berries ripened.  To pick, I roll up the netting and pick the ripe berries.  It is important to check them every couple of days, because if you don't get them as soon as they ripen the birds and bugs will swoop in.  If you only get a few berries in one picking, you can rinse them and save them in the fridge, then add new berries in a couple days.  In this way, I got a cup and half of berries, which is just what my muffin recipe called for!

A pretty good crop for one picking

 This is the blueberry muffin recipe I tried ~  To Die for Blueberry Muffins.  The muffins turned out great - fluffy, lots of berries, and a fantastic cinnamon sugar crunch on top.  I will definitely be saving this recipe to make again!

Blueberry muffins - from scratch with homegrown berries!

All Around the Mulberry Bush...

As I cleaned out weeds and briars from the edges of the yard, I found large tree branches hanging with bright berries.  After doing some internet searching, I found out they were mulberries and they were edible!  It turns out the ones in my yard are the shorter variety and turn almost black when ripe.  They are sweet and not overly flavorful.  The best thing about mulberries is how easy they are to "pick".  Grab a sheet or towel and put it down under a tree branch.  Shake the tree and watch the ripe mulberries fall onto the sheet for collecting.

 There are lots of great recipes online that use mulberries and many recipes that call for other fruits (such as blueberries) can have mulberries substituted instead.  To prep the berries, rinse them gently and pick the green stem off as short as possible.  If there is a little green stem left, it won't hurt anything.  For most recipes, you will want to put the mulberries in last and gently fold them into the mix so the berries don't get damaged.  This site contains 10 ideas for using mulberries in recipes: http://sharonglasgow.com/2013/06/mulberry-harvesting-10-ideas-of-what-to-do-with-them/

I tried this recipe and it makes a dense sweet bread.  https://www.pinterest.com/pin/150237337544633028/  I used 4 mini loaves instead of one large loaf and shortened the cooking time.

I made this recipe last year and really liked the orange hint in the flavor.  I cheated on the recipe and just used orange juice instead of squeezing a fresh orange.  http://www.cyber-kitchen.com/ubbs/archive/BREAD/Sweet_Bread_Mulberry_Bread.html

Foraging in the yard can result in tasty summer treats!

Tomato Monsters!

While tomatoes seem to be what everyone starts out growing, they aren't my favorite for eating.  As a compromise, I went with cherry tomatoes - small and very snackable!  Tomato plants grow too large for inclusion in the cattle trough, so I planted my cherry tomato plants next to the house.  I put out little wire tomato cages and started watering.  Let's be honest - I was clueless how large these things would get.  By the middle of the summer, my four small cherry tomato plants had become full-blown tomato monsters.  They outgrew the cages early-on, growing out the tops and spilling over the sides.  The tomato octopus arms ran into the yard and mowing around them became difficult.  I couldn't always reach inside and underneath all the stems and leaves to pick the interior tomatoes, so the ones in the center that ripened soon rotted.  I was picking bowls full of cherry tomatoes - giving them away at work and through the neighborhood.  It was a disaster!  Even this year I have cherry tomato plants coming up next to the house from all the ones that were dropped last year.

When this spring rolled around, I knew things had to be done differently.  These tomato monsters needed major taming!  After scoping out options at the local hardware store, the fencing caught my eye.  Rolled galvanized steel fencing - 6 ft tall.  I bought two 6 ft sections (clipping the wire so that horizontal ends were longer and sticking out) and 4 posts.  Here I must include a warning for anyone that may try this themselves - those ends that were clipped are sharp!  I managed to slice my leg on one unloading it from the truck.   I rolled the fencing and turned under the clipped posts with needle-nosed pliers so that it would stay tubular.  Then I stood it up around my baby tomato plants and threaded a post through the wire mesh on either side, driving those into the ground to keep the cage standing.  My hands happen to fit through the openings in the cage, but you could also clip out some of the cage cross-hairs to create larger openings for picking interior tomatoes once your plants are producing.

At first, the tomato plant looked awfully small in that big cage, but now it's almost 5 ft tall and still growing!  As the tomato plant grows, I push the top growth back into the cage so that it continues to grow inside instead of spreading out too much.  Some still snuck out, but this year's tomato plant is much more tamed than the monsters of last year!  Now I just need those baby tomatoes to ripen.  Who has some great cherry tomato recipes?

Humble Beginnings

I grew up as a small-town girl with a country heart.  As a child, I got in trouble for digging in the neighbors yard and spent many an afternoon wearing rain boots in the ditch in front of the house.  I had a wildflower garden and helped my grandmother with green beans.  After spending a few years in cities for school and work, I needed to get back out to farmland and cows.  Thank goodness I found a nice place of my own where I could get a dog and dig in the dirt.  The yardwork and gardening have taken over my spare time!  After using many other blogs as resources for my outdoor ideas and questions, I thought I would start my own.  I've definitely learned some things the hard way and hopefully others can benefit from the lessons.  Gardening is a hobby of mine and I certainly don't consider myself an expert, but so far I've had luck getting things to grow.  I look forward to sharing my tips with others and learning about their own gardening experiences!

My garden ideas started small.  I wanted a little raised area for some lettuce and green peppers.  The mess in the backyard had come with the house, so it took a lot of work to get a spot of land prepared.  Given that I now resided in the country, I wanted to keep with the local flavor and decided to invest in a metal tub for my garden!  Luckily I made friends in the neighborhood and managed to snag an old cattle trough with a rusted-out bottom from a local dairy.  I loved that the trough still had the label on the side.

After delivery, it was cleaned out, sprayed with a clear Rustoleum, and holes were drilled in the bottom for drainage.  To prepare the placement area, I leveled the ground, laid out yard fabric, and placed boards down.  The trough was set in place and large rocks were added to the bottom.  To aid with drainage and keep the dirt from filling the space between rocks, I covered them with yard fabric (that was recycled from the overgrown mess I was pulling up in the backyard). 

Then the real filling began - loads and loads of dirt, peat moss, manure, and fertilizer were layered in and stirred.  It took over 2,000 lbs to fill the trough!  Raised garden beds are great for root plants like carrots, onions, and radishes because the ground is soft, allowing them to easily grow.  No tilling required!  It's also convenient for anyone with a bad back or painful knees because it reduces bending and squatting to weed and check vegetables.

Finally, I added my spring cool-weather plants - broccoli, lettuce, and Brussels sprouts for the first year!  (Who knew Brussels sprouts took forever to grow and produce?!?)  And so my gardening adventures began....

"Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce" 

Jeremiah 29:5