Now that winter is rearing it's ugly head here in Eastern Canada, finally took the time to winter prep the strawberry beds.  Reminder to cover them up with straw for the winter.

Last year we did not cover our beds with straw, but we had lots of early snow before very cold freezing weather so were lucky.  The snow acted like a thermal barrier from the harsh cold.  This year we picked up 6 bales of straw to cover them up.

Straw is a good cover cause it's light and easy to remove in the Spring and reuse as mulch.  You want to use straw not hay, since straw has no grains in it.  Straw only contains the stalks of standing plants that contains no grains.

It's best to cover the plants with about 6" of straw when the temperatures start to dip into the freezing mark and leave it until just past your local last frost date.  The new flower buds are tender and susceptible to late spring frost so better to be safe than sorry ;o)

We plan on moving this bed out of the row garden as we transform it into raised beds, but that's another post all together.

This was our first full year in our digs in the country.  We had an OK productive year, no thanks to the wet and cool weather over the summer.  Our garden consisted of one large row garden, approx 20x40ft, and some pilot projects like SIP containers and upside down hanging planters.  We had some good trout fishing this summer and so far hunting has provided good source of wild meat.

The self watering containers worked excellent!  Unfortunately our issue was they worked too well.  We planted our less than stellar seedlings and they just took over and choked themselves.  We planted too many per container and didn't thin them out enough causing them to stunt some and not produce as many tomatoes.  We won't make that mistake next year.  We will also come up with another idea for staking the tomatoes in the buckets.  We used traditional tomato stakes and they didn't work well.

Our hanging planters didn't do so well, but I assume this was more due to their placement.  I don't think the tomatoes and snow peas got enough sun where they were placed unfortunately.  We planted tomatoes underneath and snow peas on top which worked out pretty good, just not the yield expected... so we have some changes to their location for next year.

Extending the garden into the fall didn't go as planned as we got caught up with putting in a new septic bed.  We were planning on putting together some cold frames and some row covers, but timing was never right.  This was unfortunate, but we'll do a bit more research... we're shaking up the garden next year to convert the current row garden to raised beds.

So now that year 1 is almost over, we're already planning for next year.  We have the following goals for next year:

• Start beekeeping... our first hive this Spring and still reading all we can on this topic
• Planting our mini fruit orchard: Apples, Cherries and possibly some Peaches/Pears
• Raised garden beds which includes provisions for row covers & cold frame covers
• Proper documenting and tracking of the garden: planting dates, harvests, etc...
• Front and rear decks including fire pit & pergola. Planters for herb garden and grape vines

Our extended plans should finances and time permit:

• Plant dual layer tree wind break to help manage the crazy winds we get
• Plant our grape rows in the front yard, table and wine grapes
• Put up fencing to separate the different areas: Family Fun, Gardening, Mini Orchard, Animals
• Finally add chickens to our homestead.

I'm sure our plans will change and grow over the winter, but you have to have a plan with some goals so you feel like you're getting somewhere.  Year 1 rant/summary done ;o)

In Eastern Canada it's in the middle of the hunting season.  On Sunday, Seb and I took the dogs for a walk out the back... they were due.  Seb brought his new BB Gun and I brought my .22 inn case we saw any rabbit or partridge.  We didn't see or catch anything, but did have a neat learning experience... We had fun building his first stone Rocket Stove.

The back of our property used to be farm pastures, long since overgrown of alders and brush.  We were walking the old fence line and stumbled on a hill of rocks when the fields were originally plowed.  This was neat since we found other sorts of old tin items in the pile as well.  Since hunting was not very eventful, not even one piece of rabbit poop to be seen, I asked Seb if he wanted to learn how to make a Rocket Stove.

He was excited and so was I... We dug through the pile of stones and found 1 large flat stone for the base and started piling stones around it in a U shape.  On the second layer we put another longer but narrow flat stone and stacked a small chimney.  Kinda looked like a boot with an open toe at the end.

For those of you who don't know what a Rocket Stove is, it's a very efficient cooking stove using small twigs and sticks that burn at high temperatures due to small combustion area and heat convection that draws in air into the combustion chamber.  They have come a long way from their humble beginnings, but you can't argue with efficient design and use.

Unfortunately we didn't have anything to cook, but Seb had a blast building it and creating a nice little fire.  Next time we go out I'll be sure to pack some soup or beans and a small cast iron pot ;o)  I'll also bring our little flip video to capture his enthusiasm of the build!

Happy Halloween 2011

Wishing everyone a safe and happy Halloween!