FAT EARTH BACKYARD FARM

Hello garden gals and guys! I've got a great little garden nugget for you today and it's all about cucumbers. Cukes are one of my favorite things to grow, mostly because I love to see the tendrils they put out that grab onto anything in their path to pull themselves up on.

When I was in my garden this weekend, I saw a lot of the flowers falling off my cucumbers. My husband will tell you that I panic first and then try to figure out what is going on.  This is what I saw:



Flowers on the ground. 
I panicked. 
Then I did some googling. 
It turns out that the first ten or so flowers on a cucumber are the male flowers and it is common for these to fall off when the plant is setting flowers. So, thankfully, there is no cause for concern. 
But I will be watching them closely because I also learned that if both your female and your male flowers begin to fall off the vine, that means the female flowers aren't getting pollinated. 
Our little bee friends usually take care of this. But…

Hello garden gals and guys! It was a hot one this weekend, but I got out early to get my farm tasks done. Before I get to the pictures of the physical labor that I did, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about fertilizing your plants. It's pretty important stuff.

I fertilized this weekend because I saw flowers forming on my plants, and that is always when I give them their first feeding. I also give them another dose when I see the little fruits forming.

There are so many things to know about fertilizing. Let's start with those three numbers on the bag. Let's take a look at a bag of Dr. Earth fertilizer (which is a really great organic fertilizer, by the way). See those three numbers there on the right? Let's talk about that.

5-7-3. Those numbers always represent the amount of nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), and Potassium (K) which is sometimes called Potash, and always in that order.

A great way to think of what each of these does is this: up, down, all around.

Nitr…

Hello garden gals and guys! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. This lil' ole garden gal was busy from Friday until Sunday evening, and I'm TIRED. But it's a good kind of tired because we got a lot done here at Fat Earth! So, get your cup of coffee or tea (or whatever your morning cup of joy is), sit yourself on down, and enjoy a stroll with me through my backyard farm.

Where shall I begin? Let's start with the wood pile. We've had these large pieces of wood sitting in our side yard for a few years. They are from a tree my mother-in-law had cut down in her yard. I was so tired of looking at them. So, when we were having some wood delivered, I heard the man mention that he splits wood. He gave an affordable price. So he delivered 5/8 of a cord, then came back with his equipment and split the wood.

These are the two wood piles:



Here's a little video of them splitting the wood. It took about an hour and a half to get it all chopped up:






Below is the finished p…