The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

New garden, new lessons

Strawberry flower

Both in the garden and in the forest, this seems to be the week when life explodes. The strawbery plants we brought from Virginia are in full bloom...

Lettuce bed

...our lettuce bed is so bountiful I'm going to have to start giving some away...

New perennials

...and our new perennials are beginning to show signs of life.

Broccoli comparison

Of course, with any new garden, there's always a learning curve. This picture illustrates two changes I haven't quite worked into my garden routine yet --- cold soil and high winds.

Up here on our ridgetop, mulch blows around like crazy, which is why I ended up planting two broccoli next door to each other. One was hidden under the straw!

And did you notice how the plant on the right is half the size of the plant on the left? I definitely set out my first round of broccoli too early --- the plants are still there, growing slowly, but they were stunted by such a slow start on life. Live and learn!



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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