To Garden… Part Two

Last years harvest turned out so wonderful. I was sincerely surprised at how well I did after swearing off vegetable gardening for 15 years. We grew tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash, zucchini, muskmelon, cantaloupe, 10 different varieties of lettuce, chives, scallions, onions, radishes, bush beans and carrots!

Yes, we really grew all that in two small 4 x 8 foot raised gardens. We were giving away extras by the bushel! The amount you can produce in such a tiny plot is unbelievable.
Plus we had fresh food coming out of the garden every day way late into the season. Well past the time our neighbors in ground gardens had stopped producing. And there is no maintenance involved. No weeding, hoeing or soil turning. No back breaking rotatilling. Nothing. Just plant, water and enjoy! I am/was very glad I decided to Square Foot Garden.

As spring arrived this year I just couldn’t wait to get out there and get planting! With SFG you can plant much earlier in the season because the soil warms faster than in traditional in ground gardens. I set out to plant seeds in little peat pots so I could plant early. Well… those didn’t do so well and out of probably 40 pots only 10 gave me something to plant. Oh Well. I tried to get an early start at least. Maybe I’ll do better next year with those!

Two things that came back on their own were our chives (delish!) and lettuce! We have had fresh lettuce for months now. MMMMMM! So good! Hubby likes salads a lot so that makes him happy!

We planted pretty much the same this year. Tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, yellow squash, zucchini, muskmelon, cantaloupe, lettuce, chives, scallions, onions, radishes, bush beans, and carrots. And we added peppers, broccoli and peas.

I can’t wait to be pulling bushel fulls out again. I’m sure it won’t be long.
Here are some pics of our Veggie garden this year so far.

To Garden... Part One

When I was a young child we always had farm fresh foods to eat. Most came from our own land. I grew up on a small but working 18 acre farm. Be it eggs, dairy, meat, fruits or vegetables… my mom was the master of good wholesome foods. Today they call them “organic” or “natural” but she didn’t do it to be healthy as is the fad these days… she did it because if we didn’t produce our own food… we didn’t eat. That’s just how it was. Plain and simple.

Part of that farm fresh food came from a garden that was probably about ¾ of an acre. It was gigantic. Enormous to me at least! My mom grew everything imaginable in that garden. It would be easier to tell you what she didn’t grow that what she did. And while the food that came from the garden was plentiful and great… so were the chores. Hrrrpmh!

Oh how I detested that garden growing up. I really, really did. So much work to be done. Weeding and hoeing and turning and picking and digging and, and, and… it never ended. I never grew to appreciate what a beautiful thing it really was. I can still remember to this day begging mom to let me and my childhood best friend, Vicki, go swimming before weeding the garden. She always held steady though… chores first then swimming or creeking or exploring the woods behind our house.

Today I appreciate the foundation of ethics that hard work instilled in me but the memories of that chore ridden garden from my childhood will never fade. I loathed that garden so much that as I came into my adult life I swore I would never, ever, never garden and I held steady to that swear for nearly 15 years.

That is until last year…. last year, I put in a real garden. But my garden is not the old fashioned - in the ground, backbreaking, daily weed pulling chore pit that I grew up with. Oh no! I can never waste my days away like that. I have far to much to do! I wanted a garden where I could enjoy the fruits of my labors from… but I wasn’t about to sacrifice my life over it. As I researched I realized that Square Foot Gardening was for me. (Google it!) It’s a simpler – smaller spaced way to grow just as much as a garden 2 to 3 times the size… and there is minimal work involved! Plus… they said a sfg garden thrives and grows much faster than a traditional in the ground garden.

So I drew out the plans and hubby and I went to work building our new gardens. Two Beds. Each bed measuring 4 x 8 Foot. Framed into a simple rectangle and plopped directly onto the ground and filled with dirt.








And then planted right away!



They didn’t lie. The SFG garden is the simplest, fastest, most wonderful way to garden. You don’t have to break your back or spend all your time slaving away doing garden chores to enjoy a “share with your neighbors” bountiful harvest all year long! There is nothing to it and the only work involved is picking whatever grows!

I love our vegetable gardens!

~Kat~

Welcome to Primcats House!

Hello friends!

Today is the day I’ve decided to start blogging, after a push… er… rather shove… from a friend. I’ve waited so long to blog because I really didn’t feel I had that much to blog about. I read everyone else’s blogs and I think “Wow… their life is so interesting!” I just didn’t think mine was… but when I sit back and look at all the things going on around me… I realize that I have so many things I could share with others in blogland too.

The most important thing I want to share with about me is that I’m passionate about cats! They are my life. They consume me. We, my husband and I (he loves cats as much as I do too!) live with 14 of the most beautiful cats you will ever meet. (Except for your cats of course!) 13 of those cats are indoor only with access to an enormous outdoor cat enclosure that I’m sure I’ll blog about some day soon. The last cat, Pierre, owns and protects my husbands 40x50 shop. She’s our guard cat.

I’ve been active in cat care and rescue for about 10 years but I grew up on a farm and have spent my whole life surrounded by all things furry, feathered and scaled. My mom was a licensed wildlife rehabber so on top of the cats and dogs and farm animals there was always a wild animal in the house being rehabbed too. Raccoons, squirrels, skunks, chipmunks, rabbits, baby birds, fawns… whatever landed at our doorstep was cared for an released back into the wild when possible. But in the end… my passion came back to cats. I am forever devoted to advocating for the health and wellness of all cats in every aspect of their lives. I’m a Feline Wellness Advocate. (I coined that term. Pretty catchy huh?)

My other passion… is primitive décor’. I L.O.V.E. decorating our home and I spend a lot of time doing it. Prims are how I ended up here in blog land. Reading other peoples blogs about their primitive homes for inspiration. I just love seeing everyone’s different ideas on how to use primitive pieces in their homes! I think it’s so much fun! I hope that others will enjoy my sharing my home as much as I enjoy them sharing thiers!


So there you have it… the two reasons I’m blogging. I have many other passions that I’m sure I’ll talk about but in the end everything is connected to cats and prims in some way. Hence the name… Primcats House!

Come back and visit me soon!
Blessings to you and yours!

See you next time...
Carmen