What to do with extra Sunflow Seeds

I planted giant sunflowers and had an abundance of sunflower seed.  What to do with them..... ?

Watch how big his cheeks get.  He ran off and came back for bowl after bowl.  I hope I don't have sunflowers popping up everywhere next spring.  No telling where he stored them.

Fall Harvest

It's getting colder and rainier in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.  So it was time to get the last or almost last of the vegetables harvested.  Still have a few winter squash on the vine hoping to get a bit ripper before picking.

Was a good year.  No pest problem, everything seemed to produce well and overall I'm very happy with how this year went.  Here are some pictures of the last harvest.

 

It's Hummingbird Season

There are 4 species of humming birds that are seen in Kentucky.  Can you tell which ones are visiting my feeders?


KENTUCKY (4)

1. Green Violetear --PHOTOS
2. Ruby-throated Hummingbird, n --PHOTOS
3. Black-chinned Hummingbird --PHOTOS
4. Rufous Hummingbird --PHOTOS

  

Here's a video of the group that are fighting over my feeders.  I have several out but they seem to like this one the most.

 

 

 

Edible Roots

I love root vegetables.  Potatoes, carrots, onions, turnips everything except beets.  Not fond of beets. 

I planted the usual onions and Yukon Gold potatoes.  The onions didn't get very big this year but they are sweet and tasty just the same.  And the Yukon Golds are terrific.  Pretty good crop for the small area I planted (I have a couple more tubs of potatoes and onions).  I could have gotten more if I used deeper boxes and buried more of the potatoe plants as they grew.  But I have plenty for myself and plenty to give away to friends and neighbors.







This year I've added carrots to my list of root vegetables grown in the garden.  I purposely picked a short variety since I knew my beds probably weren't deep enough or had enough good loose soil to grow regular size carrots.

Some came out very short as you can see.  But turned out to be just the right size for popper carrots.  Trim and pop in your mouth. 









I still have sweet potatoes to harvest, but I will wait till the end of the season for them.  They usually do very well.  And I do love sweet potatoes. 

Next year, more Yukon Golds, more carrots and maybe I can get to like beets enough to plant some.

The 3K garden in Buffalo

This spring I helped my sister in Buffalo NY start her garden at her new home.  She's not as urban as I am and has more than my 1.09 acres, though we followed an urban garden concept for her garden same as I did with mine.  Goes to show it will work for everyone, no matter now much space you have or don't have.

My sister's name is Kathy, her daughter's name is Kristina and her granddaughter's name is Kira so of course the name 3K Garden seam obvious.  Here are some picture the 3K garden so you can see how easy it is to create a workable garden.  From start to finish this was a weekend project. I did have several family members helping so I don't want anyone to think I did it all myself.

Being a fan of Mel Bartholomew and his Square Foot Gardening books I use many of his concepts for my own garden as well as for my sister's.  Building raised beds and planting by the square foot is definitely the way to go.  Now if I'm talking about rows in my garden it's rows of garden boxes not rows of plants.

Start with a design.  Graph paper works great for this, though we changed the design as we went along.    Since we did the square foot concept each square on the graph paper equaled one foot.  Only needed a ruler so my lines were straight.

 

The K box was the most complex. Fortunately I had access to family with carpentry skills.  Lots of sawing (thanks Mike), some deck screws (again thanks Mike), a lot of mulch and a variation of Mel Bartholomew's soil mixture we were ready to plant (thanks Everyone).

 

A couple of month's later the plants were off and running and my sister and her family got to start reaping the benefits.  If only she can keep her granddaughter from picking and eating the vegetables before she can get them into the house and on the dinner table.