Pioneer Cabins Organic Gardens with Flowers Herbs and Produce

Organic Garden

We have organic gardens around drive way, office and next to the horse pasture.   We grow local plants, fruit trees, wild flowers, vegetables, and herbs.   We harvest the herbs, vegetables and fruits when they are fully ripe, and we put them in the customer center so you are more than welcome to take them for your gourmet meals.  You can also pick vegetables, fresh flowers or collect seeds in the garden as well. 

We use compost and natural fertilizers as our plant foods, and we grow natural pest repellants (scented flowers and herbs) around fruits and vegetables to minimize the damages from bugs and birds, and make a spray mixture of herbs and water to spray on the plants as another natural pest repellent.  However, we wouldn’t mind to share some of our fruits and vegetables with birds, butterflies, bees and cute baby rabbits.   Our horses, donkey and goats enjoy them, too.

Our growing seasons start in late April through early October.  Here are some of the vegetables and herbs you can find in our gardens:

Vegetables

Asparagus – We grow Jersey Giant and Sweet Purple.  They can be harvested from late April to September.  The fresh asparagus from the garden is so sweet that you can eat it raw.   We still recommend to cook it lightly and drizzle with butter.

Corn – We grow Black and Gold sweet corns.   The best harvest time is from Late June to July.   They are our customers’ favorites, but it’s hard to tell when the corns are ready for harvest.   The tip is to wait till it’s firm and big when you touch it, and the top of the corn should be brown and dry.

Cucumber – They can be harvested from June to August.   They are great for salad.  I like to slice them and put a few pieces in drinking water.   The taste of the water can be so refreshing.

Greens – We grow all kinds of salad greens and cabbages.  However, because bugs love them and there are limited customers like them, so they tend to grow old and bitter pretty soon.   We enjoy them for their beautiful leaves and flowers in Summer, plus they attracted all kinds of butterflies, it’s fun to watch.  

Peas and Beans – peas start really early in the season, they don’t like heat much, so they will die down when summer starts.   It starts from April and last till late May.   Beans like heat, the harvest time is from June till August.

Pepper – We like the color of all sweet peppers, so we plant one of each every year.  Of course, we will add some hot peppers to spice it up.   We use hot pepper to make pest repellent some time.  The best insect repellant recipe is using hot pepper, garlic, soaps and water mixture to spray on the infected plants.

Potato – we mainly grow Purple Peruvian and Cranberry Red because they are healthier and we think they taste better than Idaho potato (did I say their flowers are prettier, they are lilac and pink colors).   We just have to convince some of our customers to try new things…. It’s hard to see your mashed potato in pink or purple color.

Summer Squash and Zucchini – They grow fast but have a short season, they can be harvested from June to July.   Add some olive oil/butter, salt and pepper, they are wonderful on the grill.  Some of our Italian customers like to stir fry them with onion and tomato.

Sweet Potato – The only kind we grow is the Japanese Yam.   It has the texture of potato, and with sweet taste to it.  They are ready from September to early October.

Tomato –we have three to four kinds of tomato every year, it starts to ripe from late May to early September.  They are great for salad or soap.  Some of our customers eat them as snacks, especially the cherry tomato.

Turnips and Carrots – Turnips are pretty easy to grow.  They can be harvested from April to June and from September to October.  However, not many people like turnips.  Carrots are pretty hard to grow, our neighbor “little rabbits” can spot them earlier then we can.  If we ever have any luck with carrots in the garden, our young customers love to pull them up and give them to the ponies (their way to say thank you for the pony ride).  

Herbs

Basil – Basil is a great companion plant with Tomato.   They grow well together and they taste great together.  Basil is available from late May to October (till the last frost).   

Bee Balm – They are available from late April to early October.  Some people like to use the leaves to make tea, we like them for the pretty flowers.  Butterflies love them.  They are also great for soap making.

Chives – Chives are for all seasons, they grow from very cold winter and die down some during hot summer.  Their leaves are great addition for soup and salad.  Their purple round flowers are beautiful, they can be added to salad dressing or decoration for the salad plate.   It has light spring onion flavor.

Garlic – We grow a few kinds of garlic plants around roses and salad greens.    Some customers really like our garlic, especially the native mountain garlic and the elephant garlic.  We have to beg one of our neighbors to share the mountain garlic plants with us, we can’t find them in the market (We tried to reserved some seeds for the next planting season, but they were gone so fast).  

German Chamomile – The flowers are great for tea or cosmetic.  They bloom from May to July.  I like to use them when they are in full bloom, it’s such a treat to take a chamomile bath.

Lavender – They are almost available for all seasons. Some people use them in tea, we only use them to make soaps or dry flowers.   They are addition to our guest shower soap.

Lemon Balm – They are available from late April to early October.   They are great to be added in tea.  It has light lemon fragrance and flavor. 

Mint and Pepper Mint – They are available from late April to early October.  They are great to be added to ice tea or water.

Onion – We grow Siskiyou Sweet Onion and Red Onion.  We like to put them around the cabbage plants and greens.  Their flowers are beautiful so we managed to keep a few for the seeds for next year’s growing cycle.   They are also the very popular.

Rosemary – They are almost available for all seasons.   They are great with potato or chicken.  We use them for the fragrance of our guest shampoo.   The fragrance is great as flea repellent.

Sage - They are almost available for all seasons.   They are great with chicken or turkey.

We also grow Bay Leave, Australian Tea Tree, Lemon, and Lemon grass around the office porch.  They are not winter hardy, so we have to put them indoor for the winter season.

Fruits

You can find wild blackberries growing on the property (around the cabins and along the hiking trails).  They are delicious, but watch out for the blackberry briars which are sharp!    We added Hardy Kiwi, Muscadine grape, European plum trees and fig trees in 2008.  We also added Gooseberry, Raspberry, Apricot, Pear, and Apple trees in 2009.  

Flowers

We like to grow flowers around vegetables to attract lady bugs, bees, butterflies and birds.   Our favorite ones are Cleome, Cosmos, Four O’Clock, Dahlia, Holly Hock, Lamb’s Ear, Marigold, Mexican Sun flowers, and Zinnia.  There are also hundreds of natural wildflowers growing on the property.