Mavis Butterfield on Instagram – Follow me as I share some random goodness
New on Dig For Your Dinner this Week
- Planting Heirloom Beans, Harvesting, Radishes, Pulling Weeds and More
- Mulching the Garden Bed for Summer
- The HH Checks in with West Coast Garden Pictures
- Lettuce, Tomatoes, Squash…We’re Growing it All!
- Planting Guide – Starting Pumpkins from Seed
- Five Things Friday 6/10/2016
Recipe of the Week
Mornings with Mavis
Tips and Tricks
- How We Spend Less Than $100 a Month on Groceries Week
- 52 Ways to Save $100 a Month | Use the Library {Week 23 of 52}
- Penny Pinching Tip | Freeze Your Credit Cards
- 6 Things to do in the Coeur d’Alene, Idaho Area
- Avoiding Stings this Summer
Weekly Shopping Trips and Other Stories
- My Goals for 2016: Week 23 of 52
- June 6, 2016 – National Gardening Exercise Day
- Redefining Malls – Goodbye Anchor Stores, Hello Experiences?
- Zoe from Lancaster, Pennsylvania Sends in Her Garden Photos
Videos
Peace Out Girl Scouts, have a great weekend!
♥ Mavis
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Summertime comes with inevitable sting. It’s just how it goes. Bees and wasps are out and about doing their thing, and occasionally we tick them off or get in the way. They retaliate. Sure, it would be nice if they would “use their words,” but since it ain’t gonna happen, I say we lower our expectations and try to work around them.
Basically our whole backyard is devoted to gardens. First is the “small garden”. It’s on the east side of a barn next to our driveway. Along the barn wall I have red raspberries. Having the wall on one side means I only need to control the shoots on one side since they spread so readily!
In the one corner of this garden my husband built a skid house for the kids. They have their little garden area here. You can see their tiny lettuce, carrots, and beets popping up.
To the north of the same barn is our chickens. I have 22 hens and a rooster. Their house is an old storage shed that was on a property my dad and brother were fixing up. It works perfectly since putting in windows and a small door. In their run are a few apple trees. Big mistake. They peck every apple they can reach! Oh well. Cheap chicken food!
Just east of the chickens is the orchard and “big garden”. It looks unimpressive from this angle but it’s about 5 times larger than the small one. We’ve had a cold wet spring this year so it doesn’t look like much out there yet. Strawberries are at one end and there’s corn, green beans, and vine crops planted. I’ll do several more plantings to get successive crops. The orchard has cherries, plums, peaches, and another apple.
I recently learned how to use our riding mower and I’m now obsessed with mulching. Not sure if it will help with weeds or just make them worse by introducing even more but at least the nitrogen will be good for the plants!
Here’s a closeup of one of my beds. Early spring, as soon as I can work dirt, I plant small amounts of some early crops, just to see if they make it. Kohlrabi, lettuce, carrots, beets, and turnips.
The first lima bean poking through! And a good crop of weeds…
Next to the raised beds are the grape arbors. We have six concord vines and two of some type of red grapes that aren’t very tasty. I want to rip them out.
Chives! I love their pretty purple flowers. And they are usually the first green thing to poke up in the spring. I love them on my eggs.
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