The Average Dude

I’ve become a bit of a blueberry nut. Over the past few years I’ve planted 11 bushes and I’m planning to add 4 jelly bean brazelberries to one of our ornamental flower beds this spring. Most people thing of tasty when they hear about blueberries but their landscape value is just as awesome. Our fruit trees have shed their leaves and gone dormant but that’s not the case with our blueberries.

Yesterday I got the brilliant idea to check honey stores on one of my hives without smoking them. That turned out to be a terrible idea!!! They ended up stinging me three times so I will definitely be suiting up for ALL future “quick” inspections. FWIW: Honey bees put out an attack pheromone when they feel threatened. When I opened their home they did what their instincts told them to and stung the crap out of me.

Winter can be a tricky time to grow vegetables. You have to fight with cold weather, frost, snow and were we live boat loads of rain. I wanted to keep our vegetable production going into winter so I decided to install hoop houses over our raised hugul beds. Hoop houses have several benefits. They help retain heat, keep snow and frost off of your vegetables and provide a nice barrier to keep pests out.

A year or two back I built a couple of potato towers. Various magazines recommended this approach for growing red potatoes so i decided to go all in. My two attempts to grow potatoes this way failed miserably and resulted in a handful of potatoes during each growing season. Not being one to accept failure I decided to try once more this spring. This time I went with a smart pot and used their suggested growing method.

If you keep up with the latest musings on the permies forum you will definitely see Jerusalem artichokes brought up in various discussions. These amazing little tubers provide a tasty root vegetable as well as gorgeous flowers that resemble sunflowers. They are also supposed to be super easy to grow! After perusing my garden area I decided to prep the area directly behind my fence for a spring planting. To retain water and add fertility I decided to create a hugul trench to support my tubers.

I have always been intrigued by honey bees. I’m not sure if it’s because of the grace they show when collecting pollen and nectar, the stinger they use as a last resort to protect their “peeps” or if it’s because they are responsible for pollinating a large portion of our food supply. Whatever the reason I decided to become a beekeeper this spring. This was an extremely challenging undertaking but at the same time it was one of the most rewarding and therapeutic things I’ve ever done.

This question has peaked my mind for several years now. Is it because of laziness? Not sure what to grow? “I don’t have a green thumb” syndrome? Too hard? I’m heard all of these answers from my friends and it’s unfortunate that more people don’t add fruit trees to their property. They produce fruit. They look gorgeous in bloom. And numerous varieties provide AMAZING landscape value. I’ve been adding fruit trees and bushes to our property for the past several years.

My initial experience with hugulkulture beds has been amazing. I’m now on my third year and am starting to see some AMAZING vegetable production. The first raised beds I put in were 18” tall and sat on top of clay soil. When our HOT summers hit I noticed that the beds were drying out and I had to water more than usual. So this fall I set out on a mission to hugul these beds.

I previously discussed my hugul pot experiment. Well it’s been a few months since my seeds went in and I’m finally starting to see some results. We’ve been picking approximately one squash a week from each hugul pot, though we have been getting roughly the same production from the non-hugul pot as well. Here is one of the yellow squash pots: I have definitely noticed that the hugul pots have more yellow leaves than the pot that contains just planting mix.

Like most people, I love the taste of fresh sweet corn. My parents used to get fresh batches of Peaches & Cream each summer, and there was nothing better than having some steak and biting into a freshly picked ear of corn! Hoping that I could re-produce that experience at home, I decided to dedicate part of my 8’ x 8’ raised bed to sweet corn. While some of the corn is coming up and producing ears: