You've got mail!

Garden Mail that is!  This is a great storage idea for garden tools and those berry baskets and work gloves that are never where you need them!  Put them in a mailbox and close the door.  Weatherproof (mine stays out all year), and easy to use.  I used a two by six as a base and screwed that into a wood post, then I screwed the mailbox to it all around the bottom.  The moose knocked it over one year but I just popped another wood post under it and voila!  I've still got mail!  I got one for my greenhouse as well that is a top opener and holds all sorts of tools, snippers and gloves.  Both of my boxes came from the Salvation Army store - just keep an eye out and you'll get lucky one day!  You can also put fun covers on your mailbox - or paint it with a mural - I just havent got that far!  Its a great place for imagination to wander and it can also work as a vining stand for clematis, beans, or roses! 

The top photo also shows one of my rain barrels with a leaky hose draped over the top - thats an easy way to gather water that otherwise might be wasted!

Huglekulture Dreams

We are having a great strawberry year here at Wicked Raven Farm!  I changed over my strawberry patch to the hugelkulture system you see above.  The top photo shows a completed hugel bed and the bottom photo shows one that is in progress.  It is layers of what most of us would consider yard rubble(twigs, branches, rakings, mowing leavings, clippings and in Big Lake lots of burned/dead/rotting logs, and other organics) layered up and covered with a layer of good soil.  Then I used landscape fabric to have some weed control and covered that with a layer of wood chip mulch (which I got free from the side fo the road - the State does chipping and gives it to the local residents).  You can get more information and directions for the hugelkulture by googling Sepp Holzer or hugelkulture.  One of the benefits of this system of gardening is once the initial work is done it is easy and low maintenance!  It also seems to keep the birds out to the strawberries a little as I dont think they like the raised openness of the beds now.  Ill keep you posted on that theory.  The other big benefit of the beds is that it feeds itself as the materials that it is built with break down it is a perpetual composting system that you dont have to work at! 

Ths system is also great for kids!  All kids like to help in the yard (at least the non teenagers) and with this system they can feel really helpful as no matter what branch or log they bring will pretty much go into the hugel bed!  It is also very exciting for them to be able to see how well things grow in there and participate in the harvest!  A learning experience from start to finish!  Have fun!

PS - the little black dog is a fantastic rescue from a grocery store parking lot!  Dont be afraid to get/give some love!

Sunchokes - harvesting the sun in Alaska.

These are Sunchokes - planted in the fall of last year in an empty row of my garden!  They all came up (I planted a pound of the tubers - about 20)  These are like potatoes in the way that they grow but you dont have to hill them and they are VERY low maintenance!  This is in Big Lake Alaska and although we did not have -52 below and we did have great snow cover, I think they will probably do well here in any type of winter.  I planted these very late in the fall too (it was already freezing at night here), and they did not seem to be bothered by that at all.  Sunchokes grow on top like sunflowers and their flower looks similar to that.  The taste is hard to describe and we all like to say they taste "fresh".  They are crispy raw and they cook up to be a little softer than a potato, more like a sweet potato.  We have not tried them as fries yet but it is on the list to do soon.  The kids around here like to eat them right out of the ground raw, like a carrot.  Give some a try and see how you like them!  My Sunchoke seed came from Johnnys Seed, but it is available from a few other places as well.  I will be saving some of mine and replanting them this year to try that, and I will also order a few more to put in as new starts.  Ill keeep you posted on what works the best!  Wicked Days and Blessed Be!

PS These are also called Jerusalem Artichokes, and you may be able to find seed more easily with that name!

Keep the Kettle on!

Heres an easy way to lend a little bit of sanity and safety to your life during a power outage or other crisis; always have your tea kettle full.  When you use it refill it right then and you'll always have clean drinking water (at least a little) for any emergency.  The kettle can be carried outside to release a tongue stuck to a metal post, to use as an eye wash for those dangerous splashes of fuel or other chemicals people use around the house and garage.  It can also be heated up on a camp stove, fire or in the BBQ grill for that emergency tea or coffee.  For those of you who dont have a tea kettle; what?