Love Lies Bleeding (Amaranthus caudatus)

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Amaranthus Caudatus is one of the new seeds we tried growing this year. I took some photos of some of ours today so I thought I’d throw up a blog post with some information about this lovely plant.

Known as ‘Love Lies Bleeding’, amaranthus caudatus is a beautiful, edible, annual amaranth plant that can grow up to 8 feet high (our largest is only about 2.5 ft high so far). We LOVE seeing this in our garden. We’ve got some growing in our herb spiral and randomly throughout other vegetable and flower beds on the property. 

It took us a bit of time to get our surviving amaranth plants to this stage. We started all of our seeds indoors and they were doing great until we transplanted them outside and the slugs got them. A few of those first transplants survived and are growing well now, but our largest plants were the ones that we left inside the longest (continuing to pot up into larger pots), only transplanting them outside a couple weeks ago. 

According to Wikipedia, there are approximately 60 different varieties of amaranth. Chris and I regularly buy amaranth grain and eat it in the same dishes we use other grains (quinoa, millet, etc) for. Amaranth plants are highly valued for their edible leaves, grains, and for their ornamental qualities (we haven’t tried eating ours yet, but we’re definitely appreciating their ornamental beauty!). 

We used Renee’s Garden seeds for this variety. Renee’s Garden seeds can be purchased locally from our friends at Grow & Gather (previously known as Trice Pond and Garden supplies) on Dewdney Truck Rd. near 246th street. It’s a great addition to the garden. I recommend trying it!

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Before & After: Tent trailer gets second life as garden bed

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‘Before’ shot of the old tent trailer shell.

A few months ago, Chris K. and I were busting our butts trying to build and prepare new garden beds in advance of all the planting we wanted to do for our new farmers market business. As we cleared away space in the garden for our long row beds, we crept closer and closer to the rusty, old tent trailer shell that’s been parked in a sea of creeping buttercups since before I moved here (photo above).

When Chris flew east to visit family for a month, I put some thought into this piece of ‘junk’ that sat parked behind our new beds and beside our cute, new greenhouse and knew that something had to be done. Recognizing that getting it to the junk yard wouldn’t make it onto anybody’s priority list anytime soon (inconvenient money and time commitment), I decided to get creative with it right where it stood. 

Since I was desperate for more planting spaces, it made sense to me to turn it into a raised garden bed. I propped it up so it stood level, cleaned it out, filled it with composted soil and topsoil, plopped in some trellises, and planted pole beans and three varieties of cucumber. 

I had intended to paint the exterior a bright, barn red colour, but since time and money weren’t something I had a lot of at the time, I figured I’d plant first and paint later (I’ll share a photo if I ever get around to that :).

I’m very happy with the result. Something that was ugly and useless is now playing an important role, keeping our cucumber plants out of reach of slugs, and looking much more beautiful now that it’s overflowing with vibrant, green life. A very satisfying DIY repurposing project! Glad everything is growing so I can finally share my before and after shots :)

‘After’ shots of the repurposed trailer shell below. 

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Just another Thursday on the Farm

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Today was a typical, awesome, summertime day on the farm. A great part of farming and running your own market business is that you get to be your own boss. There is always more to do than we manage to get done, but we do have some flexibility when it comes to deciding what to do when. Every day I wake up and think to myself, ‘What fun things should I put on my to-do list today?’. For real. It’s pretty amazing.

Here’s a list of what Chris and I did today – just another Thursday on the farm:

– let out, fed, and watered the ducks, pigs, chickens, and rabbits;

– watered the garden beds and the seedlings in the greenhouse;

– painted a large piece of plywood with chalkboard paint for our farmers market booth;

– had breakfast;

– baked three loaves of vegan zucchini bread;

– harvested potatoes;

– shovelled mushroom manure and wheeled it to a new garden bed space;

– had lunch;

– rototilled the mushroom manure into the new bed space & installed hoop house frames (go Chris!);

– collected compost from local, organic grocer;

– visited and watered veggie plants at two other local properties we grow on;

– chatted with the 4H folks who come to feed and play with the pigs in the evenings;

– harvested onions;

– snacked on raspberries right off the canes;

– hung out with Chris, Julie and Kai in the garden;

– snacked on Julie’s freshly picked snap peas;

– wrote on chalkboard signs in preparation for Saturday’s market;

– locked the animals in for the night;

– stopped to smell the butterfly bush flowers;

– ate dinner;

– decided to write a blog post;

Not so bad, right? xo

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