Tag: #EpicGardening

How do you know it’s spring in Montana?

If your hat rack can’t make up its mind.

A week ago, our family sunbathed shirtless for hours out on the deck. The next day, it snowed, then rained, then blew. The day after that, the sun tore apart the gray clouds and we laid out again with a friend who had dropped by. Together, we drank in the warmth of the deck, giggling about how good sunshine feels after five months of winter. I was just beginning to feel a bit hot in my jeans and sweatshirt when the snowflakes began to fall and chased us back inside. Then, last night, an unwelcome, gusty guest tried to blow our house down. But this morning, a cheerful little robin greeted us with a lovely splash of hope as bright as his plump breast.

This bipolar weather can only mean one thing. Spring, and all her tempers, has arrived on the mountain! It’s time to begin warming to the arrival of the growing-season project list, but not without a final farewell to winter, and with it the slower half of homestead life.

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EVERYTHING WE DID OUR THIRD WINTER ON THE HOMESTEAD:

*This post contains an affiliate link. I only ever share links to products I personally use and love.

This is it. The end of our third year on the homestead! Can you believe it? This spring kicks off our fourth growing season up here in mountainous Montana. And I am more excited than ever because year four is supposed to be the turning point for the homestead. “Wait until after year three!” they all said. “Just get through the third year, then it will get easier.” Well, easier sounds great, my friends. Do stay tuned on that one. In six months, I’ll give you all my honest assessment! But before we start on that Spring To-Do List (ok, we’ve already bit into it, you caught me), come along with us as we take a cozy little look at everything we did our third winter together on the homestead!

We rested, played, crafted, and feasted. A LOT.

We learned the hard way two years in a row NOT to fight hibernation season. Winter is a farmer’s friend, not her foe. We’re all for extending the growing season, but there comes a time to throw that pitchfork, laugh up at the sky, and gratefully welcome the snow as it covers up the last of your autumn mess.

Winter for the farmer serves quite the same purpose as it does for her crops. The soil needs to rest. The seeds need to stratify. The water reservoirs need to build. A season of dormancy is essential to build up the energy and willpower to muck about once more.

This winter we really hibernated with abandon. We read, we cooked, we did 12 days of Christmas crafts, we played games, we did giant puzzles, and we sipped hot cocoa as the snow fell. Ok, yes, we dinked around with some other projects and hobbies as you’ll see, but mostly we just settled in and truly enjoyed all the fruits (and veg) of our labors!

In other words, we ate our way through the deep freezer and fed our bodies on the year’s harvest to fuel us to plant the next.

The results? We feel so refreshed and excited for spring! We’ve become big fans of hibernation season and will be happy to see its promise turning orange on the faces of the pumpkins some months from now.

We built a storage mezzanine in the barn!

This was an exciting project, and I’m so glad I wasn’t a part of it.

Before building this barn, our property had no out-building other than the gardening shed. This means that all of our storage, and I mean all of it, was in our basement (see photos above). We emptied the “storage room” in the house and transported it all to its new home on the mezzanine. The emptied closet is now in the process of becoming a fun bunk room for friends and cousin sleepovers. And we still have plenty of storage room on the mezzanine left for all the lovely (and dirty) “farm stuff.”

We processed our year supply of pumpkins & potatoes!

In the fall, you just run out. . . of everything. You run out of time. You run out of energy. You run out of freezer space. You run out of joy. And so you stop. You store that wheelbarrow of potatoes and that crate of pumpkins in the basement and you close the door because frankly madame, you just don’t give a . . .

Thanksgiving comes, you cook up a turkey, and a little life comes back into you. You throw some snowballs, sip some hot chocolate, decorate a Christmas tree, and a little more comes back. Then, one random January day, you wake up full of energy and you think, “I’m back, baby!”

You bust out those pumpkins and taters and hack away the day. Seven hours later, your deep freezer is full again and you’re ready for a good book and a cup of tea. Ok, a pot of tea.

How we processed the pumpkins: hacked them up, scooped out those seeds, rubbed them down with oil and salt, and baked for about an hour at 350 degrees until we could scoop out the meat like butter. Then we blended them to a smooth puree with just a bit of water, spooned it into jars, and threw the lot of them in the freezer. We pull out a jar to add to stew, soup, chili, or to make pumpkin-spice muffins.

How we processed the potatoes: pulled off any sprouts, scrubbed and dried them, then cut half the lot into country-potato size and half into fries. Then we blanched them all, one pot at a time, which means we submerged the potatoes batch by batch into boiling water for five minutes each. Next, we let them dry and cool on towels all over the kitchen. Finally, we bagged or tubbed them, labeled them, and locked them in the freezer. Twenty-four hours before burger night or a big Saturday breakfast scramble, I defrost a bag or tub. Homegrown taters all year long.

We kept the Lettuce Grow & Mushroom Tent humming!

Through the long hibernation months, sometimes you can use a little growing fix. Mushrooms and lettuce are perfect low-maintenance crops to grow inside through the winter. We love serving up a “blizzard salad” or a tray-bake of gourmet mushrooms on a frightful January night, half for the nutrition-burst, but half just for the kick we get out of it! Growing produce in the dead of a Montana winter is just our way of having good, old-fashioned FUN.

For more about how we “Lettuce Grow”: Everything we did our SECOND WINTER on the Homestead

All about how we “flush”: 🍄March of the mushROOM🍄

We stocked up on some spring things!

A few things we ordered ahead:

• seeds (a box from Baker Creek as well as a sample set for me to trial from Botanical Interests; I’ll keep you posted!)
• seed starter mix
• perlite and coconut coir (to make Mel’s Mix, of course!)

I also received these planting cells and tray (below) from Epic Gardening. Now, it’s true, I am an affiliate with these Epic people. . . but I’ve been a truth-teller for much longer, and I can honestly affirm that this planting system is far and away the best I’ve ever used. Yes, they cost more than the ones you can buy at the garden center. They are also so sturdy that you can run them in the dishwasher and use them for years, if not decades, to come. Personally, I think they are worth the investment. More and more, I’m learning the value of the call to BUY ONCE.

We gave “winter-sowing” a go!

When a friend of mine told me about her “Milk Jug Winter Garden,” I thought I’d heard everything. This is Montana. It gets cold in Montana, if you didn’t know. In fact, it freezes, HARD. This winter we had a few days below zero. Last winter, we had weeks that smacked twenty below! And yet, my friend sprouts her roots and greens in milk jugs outside in the snow as early as February.

Well, I just had to give this a try, if only to satisfy my curiosity! The only problem with my plan was that our family doesn’t drink milk, well, at least not milk of the cow variety. So, milk jugs we were without. Luckily, we do keep the boxed greens industry going through the winter months and I just so happen to be the daughter of a hoarder (sorry for ousting you, Dad). What could be more perfect than using old salad tubs to grow new greens out in the snow?! Plus, they have the added benefit of already having lids, which means I got to skip the Exacto-knife and tape step! WIN!

Two weeks after sowing, we have Bok choy and radishes sprouting out in the snow, even with below freezing temperatures at night! I’m in awe. If this continues to go well, I’ll write you all a little trashy tutorial for upcycling yourself some mini greenhouses! 😆

We welcomed the thaw & weeded it, too!

Yet another lesson we’ve learned the hard way three years in a row is that weeding in the summer is a complete and utter misery. The best times to weed are late fall or early winter (right after those first rains or the first snow has melted) and late winter or early spring (as soon as the snow has melted and the ground is warm enough to release roots). Weeding up on the mountain is an absolute breeze AT THIS EXACT MOMENT. The ground is exposed and gooey. Everything comes right up. A month from now, I will have to wait for a rain every time I need to weed.

So, after the lovely nature walk above, we began warring on the road weeds. I don’t know what they are called, and I haven’t looked it up because I don’t want to give them more power by giving them a name.

Jesus’ parable about the seeds has made something incredibly clear to me as I’ve been out weeding our driveway. Seeds aren’t supposed to grow in the rocks or on the road. So, any weed that is thriving over a rocky road is clearly of the devil.

Right now, this no-name driveway devil is a dead, red beard and I’ve been ripping it out with no mercy, probably scattering its seed into the wet ground every time I do. But we try, right? 😆

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Thanks for dropping by!

Love, Candace Arden

Check out all our seasonal highlights posts here:

🌱Everything we did our FIRST SPRING on the Homestead🌸

🌻Everything we did our FIRST SUMMER on the Homestead🦗

❄️Everything we did our FIRST WINTER on the Homestead🛠️

🐞Everything We Did Our SECOND SPRING on the Homestead🐓

🐿️Everything We Did Our SECOND SUMMER on the Homestead🐈

🧄Everything We Did Our SECOND FALL on the Homestead🐓

🍄Everything we did our SECOND WINTER on the Homestead🌱

🌸Everything we did our THIRD SPRING on the Homestead⛰️

🌻Everything we did our THIRD SUMMER+FALL on the Homestead🪚