Hello! I want to thank all of you who visit this space and read these words, it means so much to me. You constantly inspire me, and keep me writing.
Wishing you a cozy and wonderful holiday season!
Taryn
Hello! I want to thank all of you who visit this space and read these words, it means so much to me. You constantly inspire me, and keep me writing.
Wishing you a cozy and wonderful holiday season!
Taryn
I told you that in May our family embarked on a beekeeping adventure. Jeff and B kept an eye on the hive, did a lot of research, and learned a lot about honeybees and beekeeping this year. Sadly, our bees disappeared. We were bummed about that, but were grateful for the experience nonetheless. We had issues with yellow jackets and bald-faced hornets, and that could have been the reason for it. We think we need to start with more bees initially. We’d like to start with more bees, and two hives (rather than one), and plan to do that next spring.
In addition to all the experience we gained, and everything we learned, we also received some gifts from the hive. The honeycomb was so beautiful! We loved seeing the different colored pollen in the cells. I was glad for the beeswax. The bee bread was delicious. And the honey? It was really something special. Having honey from right here on the homestead is such a gift.
*To filter out the honey from the honeycomb, we put it in a colander, covered it with a tea towel, and set it near the warm woodstove. It worked great!
We have been very grateful for these gifts from the hive, and look forward to continuing our beekeeping adventures next year.
I’ve been wanting to share with you something new we added to the homestead this year. Silkie bantam chickens!
We hadn’t raised chickens in a few years. Between the abundance of quail eggs and duck eggs we were getting, we had no need of more eggs for our family, so we were not looking to add chickens to the homestead for laying eggs. However, I was wanting to find some chickens for hatching eggs. Since we keep our incubator busy each year hatching out eggs regularly, I was hoping to find some broody chickens that could help hatch out eggs for us. Thus began the search for broody hens!
I started researching the breeds of chickens most likely to sit on eggs. That led me to bantam chickens (the small size chickens.) I liked the idea of small chickens, they would be cute, and less expensive to feed to boot.
As we looked at different kinds, I told my family “I definitely don’t want a breed that has feathered legs,” thinking they would get too messy and muddy in the winter. Little did I know…
I learned that many types of bantam chickens were highly likely to sit on eggs, but that there was a type of chicken pretty much guaranteed to sit on eggs. And that type was called a silkie. Over and over again I kept coming across the same thing- that silkies were hands down the very best chickens for hatching out eggs. (Now, I’m sure there have been plenty of wonderful broody hens in all different breeds, I’m simply sharing what I kept coming across while researching.)
I had seen pictures of silkies in the past and admittedly, they didn’t seem very practical to me. I do appreciate homestead animals that are good producers and pay for themselves, and I thought silkies seemed like fluffy pets. Could they even see where they were going with all that fluff on their heads? Also, did I mention they all have feathered legs? That was on my “No” list before. But… the more I read the more I was being convinced. And then the “maybe” we should consider getting silkies turned into “we absolutely MUST get silkies!” B and I were researching together and we might have started getting a little silkie obsessed…
{It turns out there was a whole world of people obsessed with their silkie chickens. People dressing their silkies up… hair accessories… you name it. We found it all quite hilarious, and entertaining.}
That was early this year, and chicks weren’t even showing up at the feed stores yet, so should be plenty of time to put our order in, right? Well, chickens of all kinds were selling out everywhere, and silkies in particular were very hard to find in stock. We searched all over the place, and finally found one company online that had not sold out yet. We placed our order for silkie chicks, glad we found some. But awhile later (months later, when they were supposed to ship), we were notified by the company that there was a shortage of chickens of all kinds for 2023, and absolutely all silkies for the year, and they would have to refund our money. Darn!
The search began again. We ended up purchasing silkie eggs online to hatch out in our incubator, rather than chicks, and Jeff called ahead and was able to reserve the last few silkie chicks the feed store was going to be getting in. So this spring we brought home a few fluffy silkie chicks from the feed store, and we hatched out some more.
We’ve grown very fond of these funny little chickens. They’re cute. They’re sweet. B likes to carry them all around, and we have a few that are very tame because of it. I didn’t realize how much I had missed the sound of a rooster crowing, until it became a regular occurrence again. To me, that is such a comforting, familiar sound. I also appreciate how great chickens are about eating up food scraps, and all the garden extras. It’s so nice to have chickens around the place again!
We currently have six silkies. Four hens- Muffin (white), Peregrine (black), Coco Bee (grey), and Peanut (gold), and two roosters- Treebeard (grey, and yes the name was inspired by the Ent in Lord of the Rings), and Pistachio (gold.) We had two go home with my dad and stepmom, named Bawk Bawk and Hey Hey. And we had a handsome rooster just go to live with our friends. [Edited to add: They named him Indiana Jones. I love it!]
Some friends of ours also got silkies for the first time this year, and we laughed about how we thought of them when we first came across them (she used the term “purse chicken”), versus how we feel about them now.
The first silkie eggs were a delight to find. Though the tiny quail eggs are still the most adorable eggs on the homestead, the silkie eggs are pretty darn cute. This time of year we won’t be leaving any eggs in the nest to be hatched out by the ladies, but come spring we’ve got lots of fun plans.
As I write this, in December, it’s our rainy season in Western Oregon. Though we have our silkie chickens in a covered area for the winter, they still get a little wet and bedraggled looking, as you can see in some of the pictures. B mentioned bringing them in the house so they can dry out and warm up. The fact that I hesitated before answering (rather than replying with an immediate no)… might show the effect these little fluffballs are having on me. 🙂
Our son, B, has been planting and collecting seeds since I can remember. He decided to start his own seed business, called Bee’s Seeds, and marigold seeds are the first seeds he is offering for sale!
B helped to water and care for the marigolds in the garden last year, and then set to work collecting all the seeds in the fall. He created the custom design for his seed packets (I love it so much!), and then carefully packed each and every one. I am really proud of how hard he has worked to create his seed business, and am delighted to now be able to spread the word about it.
We’re so glad to now be making these Organic Marigold Seeds available in the shop. Each seed packet contains over 50 seeds. B is really happy to be sharing his hard work so others can enjoy these beautiful flowers in their gardens too! Purchase these seeds if you’d like to support him in this work. They would also make delightful gifts for gardeners in your lives!
We grow marigolds in our garden every year, and we always manage to squeeze more into our garden beds, finding more places to put them. They are beautiful flowers, and we love them for that, but there are other great reasons for growing marigolds too.
Let me tell you some of the reasons we love marigolds so much…
Marigolds are easy to grow, and are a great companion plant in your vegetable garden- they can help reduce the harmful nematode population in the soil! They can bloom for a long time and are wonderful for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators throughout the season (which will help pollinate your vegetables and fruit.) The flowers can be used to make a natural dye (the big bowl of marigolds in the pictures above shows our marigold flower harvest for a dye project we did.) Marigolds can also be fed as an occasional treat to your chickens- they’re nutritious, and make the yolks a bright orange color.
Thanks for your support of Bee’s Seeds!
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*A note about shipping: The shipping costs more than the price of the seeds. We do our best to offer the lowest shipping rates, and we also offer *Free Shipping in the U.S. on all orders over $35!!* which is a really good deal, especially for a small family business like ours.
The weather has been changing. Can you feel fall in the air where you are? We are still enjoying all the fresh, delicious food from the garden, but knowing the days are limited makes me extra appreciative of each bite. One thing our family has been especially loving this summer are fresh salads with the addition of colorful flowers. Adding the flowers makes the most delightful and beautiful salads!
These pictures show a colander of garden ingredients ready to make into a salad. I’ll harvest a mix of lettuces, a handful of arugula, some fresh herbs- parsley, thyme, or basil, and then some flowers. When I discovered that you could eat calendula flowers, they started making their way onto every salad. Then the nasturtiums were blooming, and I started adding those too. (B skips the nasturtiums and arugula on his salads- a bit too spicy for his liking.)
I love making these salads. Once I wash all the lettuce and break it up into bite sized pieces, then I add the arugula, and sprinkle the herbs on top. I typically do a simple dressing with olive oil and apple cider vinegar (or brine from fermented vegetables, which I think is especially yummy on salads.) Sometimes I sprinkle some seaweed flakes over the top for some added minerals, and we all love dried cranberries on our salads. The final touch is to add the flowers.
Next year I want to plant more edible flowers because not only do they make for such a beautiful meal, they also make the meal feel extra special. Throughout my life, flowers have always been for looking at, admiring, and smelling… but not for eating. Eating flowers feels a bit magical to me!
What do you love on your salads? Do you have any favorite edible flowers? What summer foods are you savoring from your garden or farmer’s market?
In late July, our water pressure went way down, to the point where it was challenging to get basic tasks done- like watering the garden or washing the dishes. Jeff and I had a fear creep up- was our well running low? That was a stressful thought! Luckily, we discovered the water level wasn’t the problem. {Sigh of relief!}
Before we knew that, we were looking for the issue, and checking everything over. We saw that the capacitor needed to be replaced in our control box. We bought a new control box altogether, but that didn’t fix the problem. So we directed our attention to the well pump. We figured we would do some of the work ourselves and hire someone for part of it too. We knew the more detective work we could do beforehand, the better it would be when someone came out all this way- they could bring what they would need to do the job, reducing trips back and forth.
What we discovered though, was that the people we paid to install our well pump previously did a poor job. Ropes spliced together. (Ropes that were not even adequate to hold that amount of weight.) Poly pipe used on a well much too deep for it. (Much too deep for it, by a lot.) Well, upon hoisting the whole thing up, the ropes snapped, the poly pipe pulled apart.. and it all fell down the well. Can you say stressful?
All this while we were in the heat of summer… with an entire garden needing daily watering, and animals to keep hydrated on those warm days, along with all the other daily tasks requiring water. Now in the winter time we are prepared for power outages (which I’ve written about here on the blog many times before), which equals no running water. Winter is our stormy season, and being at the end of the line we are sometimes among the last to get our electricity back on when the power goes out. To prepare for that, we have lanterns, and a generator, and we place buckets strategically to collect rain water. Winter is our rainy season here, so it makes it easy to collect water. (And when we have plenty of rain water on hand, we can justify using it for things like flushing toilets.) We also keep a stash of emergency water on hand, so we’re no strangers to preparing for power outages and no running water.
But let me tell you, having no water in the middle of summer is an entirely different scenario! We went through our stash of emergency/backup water in no time, and it barely scratched the surface of our water needs. Here in the coastal range of Oregon, we experience an abundance of water. It was such a humbling experience to suddenly have to source our water elsewhere, and savor every single drop like it was our last. We drove down to the river near our house and filled water there, watering the garden jub by jug. We were grateful for our friends in town who let us fill up water containers at their house, and for our neighbors who let us come by a few times to do the same.
We ended up being without water for five and a half days. Those were some really long days. The entire experience was exhausting, overwhelming, stressful, and humbling. It was also a really good learning experience, and deepened our gratitude for water (and for the help of others) in a major way! We went to bed completely worn out at the end of every day. Keeping up with daily life around here on a regular basis is a lot as it is, but when you add hauling water for everything on top of it, it made for some tiring days. We were in survival mode, taking it day by day. Yet, we found humor and joy each day as we cracked jokes while we headed to the woods to go to the bathroom, or went wading in the river to fill up another jug. What else can you do but make the best of whatever situation you find yourself in?
We ended up finding someone who specialized in wells, and they were able to pull everything out of the well (thank goodness!) and install a new set up. They did a great job, (and in the future we will stick with those who have a lot of experience to do the job well.) Our family wanted to cry with joy when we could water the garden straight from the hose, fill up all the water buckets for the animals easily, wash all the dishes right in the kitchen sink, run a load of laundry, take a shower, and fill up a glass of cool, refreshing water to drink. How grateful we are for water!
We had family visit right after the whole water fiasco, and were feeling really grateful it was all fixed before they came. We were also grateful the garden was able to pull through all right. I couldn’t begin to convey the amount of time and energy spent in the garden this year- nurturing everything from seed and caring for it each and every day… and then watching it withering in the intense heat. That was stressful for all of us, especially for Jeff who lives and breathes the garden this time of year.
After that whole experience, I would love to encourage others to have emergency/backup water on hand, and felt inspired to say so in this post. Some of the backup water we were going through, I had labeled 2016. I filled up water other years too, of course, but I thanked my 2016 self for taking the time to do that!
I once went to a natural disaster preparedness class with a friend that had a main focus on earthquakes. The gal teaching the class told everyone to have a minimum of one gallon of water per person per day. That’s just for drinking water. Also extra water for pets, brushing teeth, etc. She recommended having at least a few weeks of water on hand.
There were some pretty radical storms a couple hours from here a few years back and I heard of people without electricity and running water for 2 weeks. Whatever the reason for needing water might be, it’s always a good idea to have backup water on hand! Right now we are preparing for a major heat wave in our area and you can guess one of the first things Jeff started doing- filling up more backup water!
Friends, I hope you will learn from our experience and start filling up some containers with extra water today! If you ever need it, you’ll sure be grateful you did.
Everything has a time, and a season, bringing us into the moment, inviting us to more deeply appreciate what’s before us. We harvested the very last rose from our rose bush yesterday. If the roses were always blooming, I surely wouldn’t appreciate them as much. Knowing their time is fleeting makes me pause to breathe deeply and savor their scent.
We also collect the rose petals. Last year I shared about making Rose Petal Water. We made it again this year, loving it, savoring each sip. We also did something new this year- we dried rose petals for the first time. Now we can enjoy the magic of the roses for a bit longer. I’m looking forward to making tea with the colorful petals, and B has already made some delicious (and beautiful) kitchen creations with the addition of blended up rose petals. Simply looking at our jar of rose petals in the kitchen makes me happy.
I thought I would write about this today to share this bit of rose inspiration with you, and ask for some rose inspiration from you as well. Have you ever made anything with rose petals? I’m curious to learn more recipes to make with rose petals, I’ve heard of making jam with them and it sounds amazing. I’m also curious to learn about different kinds of roses, wondering what would thrive in our Pacific Northwest climate (in the coastal range with very rainy winters.) If you have anything to share on growing roses, making things with the petals, or what you’ve learned about the different types- let me know, it’s always fun to hear from you.
The excitement around here last month was honeybees arriving in the beginning of May!
We got a call from the post office telling us it was time to come pick up our bees. When I told her, my grandma got such a kick out of the fact that our honeybees were arriving in the mail. I did too. (Then she told me stories about my great grandpa having hives on the family farm, and I couldn’t believe that my great grandma actually grew tired of honey because they had so much of it!) The honeybees arrived right as the apple trees were blooming, so there were plenty of blossoms for them to enjoy.
When I first met Jeff, he had honeybees on the homestead here. He shared some of the honey with me and I had never tasted anything like it before, it was incredible. The only problem was that the bears kept destroying the hives, so that put an end to things for a time. Since then, we’ve talked about having bees here again, but knew we would need to do some serious bear-proofing first. If you chat with locals, they all have different ideas and tricks for how to do that.
Well… Jeff, B, and I decided to go for it this year. Spring is the time to order bees and we didn’t want to wait another year to get started. We agreed that we wanted to build a cage for around the hives. Just when we were looking into what we would need to buy to do that project, my dad and stepmom told us they had some fencing panels they no longer needed and wondered if we wanted them. Yes! The panels turned out to be exactly what we were needing. They were perfect for the project, and the timing could not have been better. We were grateful!
When they visited last month, my dad and stepmom also got to be a part of helping us get the hive assembled. It was a great group project, and I think we were all dreaming of honey while we worked on it. 🙂
As you long time readers know, B has always had a fascination with insects. Ants, praying mantises, spiders, termites, butterflies, bees… you name it, he is very interested in them. Beekeeping has turned out to be such a great hobby for him! He loves it so much, and so does Jeff, and now it’s something they really enjoy doing together. Jeff cut out some plexi-glass pieces for a viewing window so they can easily check on the hive without disturbing them, and then put the cover back over the little window. I get constant progress reports, which I really enjoy. And I like visiting the bees too. Our family has learned so much already, and can’t wait to expand. We’ve been dreaming about bees for such a long time, I’m so glad we decided to go for it and get started this year!
It was March 17th. Solstice’s babies were 6 days old, and the tiny daffodils I adore so much were in bloom. Tiny goat babies and tiny daffodils seemed like a combination that somehow belonged together, and I had a sudden inspiration to take some pictures of that very thing. Yes, I had a long to- do list that day and there were many other things I could have been doing with my time, but the idea grabbed hold of me and I had to go with it. The adorable-ness of baby goats can inspire you to do all kinds of things just because.
So I got a tiny jar and a few daffodils, and set it down in the fresh straw. I crouched down with my camera and hoped that if I was patient enough, the goats would get curious about those flowers and wouldn’t be too shy of my strange camera pointed in their faces.
And sure enough… Smidge (the smallest of the batch) headed over.
I just adore this picture of her mid-frolic!
She came closer…
And closer… “Hmmm… what’s this?”
“Wait, what’s that over there?”
And then back to checking out the curious yellow things again.
I love how this looks like she’s just out for a stroll, sniffing some flowers along the way.
Then Smidge’s sister Mitzy headed over to see what it was all about.
And she wanted to smell them too.
And finally, this picture for the grand finale- a total heart melter. Look at that face!
Little Smidge was the star of the show here, with her sister Mitzy making an appearance. (Their brother wasn’t shown in these pictures.) The two of them are always together, and I often say their names together- Smidge & Mitzy.
B describes Smidge’s coloring as white and “carrots.” Mitzy has black and brown, with a white spot on her head and tail. Just like with Oak’s babies, there was so much variety in the colors with the goat kids born this year. (I also want to add something funny- in these pictures Smidge had a bent ear, but a few days later that disappeared and both ears were straight again.)
I hope you enjoy this series of pictures (I sure enjoyed taking them), and that they bring a huge smile to your face today!
Well, it’s about time I shared about the other goats that were born, don’t you think? Mama Solstice gave birth in March. Her birth didn’t go as quickly and smoothly as Oak’s did. It turned out that the first baby that was born was breech, so that explained why things were harder for her and progressing more slowly. Thankfully, once that first baby was born, the next two came out more easily. We celebrated triplets! Three, just like Oak had. Two girls and one boy, just like Oak had. Or so we thought…
The story of Dot…
As much as I wanted to be, I wasn’t there for the entire time Solstice was giving birth. I had seen her eating some afterbirth. (I know that doesn’t sound pleasant, but it’s a really important part of the process to keep the mamas healthy. Animals in nature know what’s good for them!) I assumed she had passed the placenta, but didn’t know for sure. She gave birth in the afternoon and I was out there for hours, making sure she was doing well, and her three little ones were doing well. The babies were smaller than Oak’s had been when they were born and I wondered aloud to Jeff and B if there was another baby in there, but when nothing else happened we figured that was it. We kept checking on them, and then I checked on her again that evening, before going to bed.
The next morning was a surprise when we went out to the goat house. Another baby! Only, it wasn’t doing well. I was shocked because I couldn’t believe that so much time could pass between births- how was that possible? The fourth baby was so tiny that it startled me. A little girl, and so beautiful. It didn’t have the strength to stand, but used the last of it’s energy to call to it’s mom. Solstice had clearly given up on it, not being able to feed the tiny thing when it couldn’t stand up. I knew she had tried to care for it, though, because it had been all cleaned off by her. At that point Solstice had sadness in her eyes and knew there was nothing she could do. But the other three kept her very busy!
We didn’t know if we could save the fourth goat kid. Jeff brought her inside and put her on a heating mat, holding her and trickling milk down her throat so slowly until she had the strength to start swallowing. Bit by bit, she started drinking. Then later in the day she was able to sit up! Then she was able to stand! If you had seen the state she was in when we first found her, you would have been as amazed as I was- Jeff had worked a miracle. We were so delighted. We officially had a “house goat” and were busy giving it around the clock care. We brought her everywhere, she was always with one of us. We took turns getting up in the night to feed her and check on her, and I was so tired and sleep deprived like caring for a newborn again.
With hope starting to grow, I brought her out to the goat house each day so her mama could see her, and so she could interact with her siblings, in case we were able to reintroduce her to the herd when she got stronger. I named her Dot, because she was such a little thing. Sadly, though, little Dot didn’t make it. It was sad for the three of us, we all loved her so much and had tried so hard to save her, but we had known from the beginning that her chances were not good of surviving. She had survived for a few days, and we took the best care of her we could in that time. When Dot died, we dug a hole for her and we set her gently in it, then our son picked flowers and surrounded her in flowers and flower petals. She looked so peaceful laying there, like she was sleeping in a flower bed. We appreciated our time with her.
We learned a lot throughout the experience. When the goat passes the placenta, it typically shows the conclusion of the birth process, but there can be multiple placentas and they can be delivered between kids. Be sure to have a bottle on hand in case you need it (more on that soon.) My goat friend said it’s important for goat kids to get colostrum within an hour or so, (and that they can’t digest food unless their temperature is at least 101.) There is so much to learn in the world of goats!
At first I didn’t want to overshadow the joy of Solstice’s new babies here by having this entire post be about Dot, but I want to share the sad stories here too, the heartbreaking parts of homesteading. Over the years, we’ve lost chickens, we’ve lost quail, we’ve lost dogs, we’ve lost cats, we’ve lost ducks, and we’ve lost goats. That is a part of raising animals. I think we can easily have the tendency to want to shelter our children from the hard parts of life, protect them from heartbreak, but I’ve watched farm kids who have been more comfortable with the experience of loss than some of the adults around them because they grew up with loss being a natural part of the cycle of life. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Sometimes it’s a chick you’ve had for a few days, and other times it’s a dog who has been an irreplaceable part of your family for years.
And Solstice’s other three? Well, they’ve been as busy as goat kids are- jumping everywhere, and being adorable. They’ve grown since these pictures were taken, and I will share another post to introduce you to them, but first this was the story that needed to be told.
Hi there! I wanted to check in. There were technical difficulties happening behind the scenes recently. We had some internet issues, then this website was down (you may have noticed) while we worked out some bugs. For me, I love taking pictures and I love writing here, but the more technical computer side of things is something that moves me beyond my comfort zone. I’m learning and growing. Before I might have avoided many of those things, but now I am glad to be taking more responsibility for the details behind the scenes that help make this space happen. I’m grateful to be back up and running here because I have so many posts in the works I’m looking forward to sharing with you!
P.S. The daffodils have been done blooming for awhile now, but I wanted to share them here with you. I loved the gentle afternoon light shining through the petals.
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Hi Gardening Friends! Any long time readers have heard me talk about vertical gardening many times over the years- vertical this and vertical that- I know, I say the word vertical a lot! But seriously, growing vertically is an incredible way to get the most out of your space. Over the years our family has done a lot of trellising in our garden to grow vertically and save space, and I’ve loved sharing about our discoveries with you so you can experience abundant harvests in less space too.
Then last year we tried something new to us for vertical gardening, and it was a game-changer! I’ve been so excited to share about this with you, and I’ve been so grateful to the friends who introduced it to me!
So here’s how it all started. I went to a friend’s house one day and saw an interesting vertical planter, different from anything I’d ever seen before. She had so many plants growing in it, and I thought what a cool idea it was. A seed had been planted. Then I came across some reviews about them online and later another friend was talking about those same planters and mentioned that they were on sale. Jeff and I looked into them some more. I was really curious about them, and they looked really cool, but I had some hesitations. We like to make things ourselves as much as possible, would we be happy enough with the results to feel good about spending that amount of money? Would we like it?
We finally decided to go for it and purchased our first Greenstalk planter during their Mother’s Day sale last year. We found a spot in the garden for it and liked how easy it was to set up. Our family filled it with good soil and planted it together. We marveled at how many plants we could fit in there! (We got the 5 Tier Original with 30 total planting pockets.) We mostly planted it with lettuce, and a few strawberries thrown in. It was easy to water from the top, and the whole system was very cleverly designed.
We love our salads and grow a lot of lettuce each year, but growing it in raised beds takes up a lot of space. We couldn’t believe how much space we saved by planting lettuce in the Greenstalk planter! Holy cow! That space in the raised beds was then available to grow other things- and with limited sunny garden space- we really appreciated that! The next thing we noticed, once the lettuce had grown, was that it was so easy to harvest and so clean. We’ve done a lot of lettuce washing in our day, and it was the easiest rinsing and cleaning we’d every experienced. That saved a lot of time when getting our salads ready.
And then… the strawberries! Oh my goodness, the strawberries we grew in the Greenstalk were the best ever. Being up off the ground, we didn’t have our usual issues with slugs or with little bugs eating them up. They had good sun exposure in the planter so they ripened beautifully, and they were so prolific! Overall, we were so very pleased that we felt that was how we wanted to grow our strawberries in the future. We continued to plant lettuce in it all season so we always had fresh lettuce available, and then later planted a bunch more strawberries in it. I couldn’t wait to start experimenting with growing other things as well!
*The picture above shows the results from our very first planting, and you can see how prolific it was! After that picture, we added a lot more strawberries. Funny, when I went to put this post together, I realized I only had one picture of our Greenstalk from last year’s garden season. How is that possible? I wished I had more pictures to share with you, and my first thought was that you could barely see the planter in this picture- BUT that’s a good thing if your harvest is so prolific you can barely see the planter underneath! To see what the Greenstalk planters look like, you can check them out on their website, more on that in a bit.
So, after growing in the Greenstalk for awhile, we all concluded it was awesome. It saved us so much space, and we loved the results of what we were growing in it. And what about the cost? We quickly discovered that the Greenstalk planter paid for itself in no time. I’m not sure what the current going rate for lettuce is these days where you are, but if one head of lettuce cost $4, and the planter has 30 pockets, you could grow $120 worth of lettuce in the first planting. (Or let’s say each head of lettuce was $3, that would be $90.) Awesome!
But that’s just lettuce, I wanted to share some lettuce math to give an example… there’s so much more you can grow! I know, that’s a lot of lettuce (we like to succession plant ours so they are ready at different times), but there are so many other things you can plant in the Greenstalk! We bought the Original that has larger size pockets, but upon learning more found out that the Leaf design with smaller pockets (which has 42 planting pockets with the 7 Tier size) is great for planting strawberries, greens, and herbs. On the site, they say “the Leaf design is good for growing strawberries, leafy greens, herbs, and root veggies, and that the Original design is good for growing large veggies & flowers, strawberries, and herbs.” Basically, they are both great, and both will give bountiful harvests while saving so much space!
Since Jeff and I loved our Greenstalk planter so much, we decided to invest in another one for this year’s gardening season. We’ll be planting lettuce again, we’ll be planting a ton of strawberries (I’m ALL about the strawberries!), and I also want to plant basil, calendula, chamomile, chard, parsley, marigolds, carrots… to name a few. I can’t wait to share the results with you!
I hear from lots of people who are interested in gardening and would like to have a garden, but they don’t feel they have enough space to have a garden, or they’re convinced they don’t have a green thumb. I want to give encouragment to reluctant gardeners. That’s why I’m so excited to share about the Greenstalk planters with everyone because they give you the ability to garden in a small space! Even if you only have a small deck available for gardening, this gives you the ability to produce so much abundance in that space!
Also, if you are a beginning gardener and you feel intimidated, I feel like these planters are such a great way to start. I love how the Greenstalk planters make gardening easily accessible for so many people. Even if you have no experience, you can have great results with these planters and it will give you the confidence you need to delve into the world of gardening. And if you are away from home, it’s much easier to ask a friend or neighbor to water your planting tower (it’s so quick and easy), than to water an entire gardening space.
There are a lot of things to love about the Greenstalk planters- you can save space, save money (I know we all appreciate that with the cost of food these days!), and everything is easy to harvest and easy to water. I wanted to be sure to write this post during their sale- there is a huge Mother’s Day sale happening right now (through May 15th), and I wanted you to know about it. (I think it’s one of their biggest sales of the year, but if you miss it, they do have other sales periodically.)
I love their product so much, I signed up for their refer-a-friend program. If you are a first time customer and use my link to buy your Greenstalk planter, you can get an additional $10 off the sale price! When you use my link, it also gives me $10 credit to use in the store- that helps our family save up for our next planter, which allows us to grow more food in our backyard- and we thank you for that! I am so grateful to the friends who told me about the Greenstalk planters, and I want to pass the word along to others who find it to be a blessing in their gardens too.
Our family is on a mission to share the joy of gardening and good food- and we want to see food in backyards everywhere- the Greenstalk planters are an awesome way of helping make that happen!