Day 7

Growing Food

I know some of you out there are saying I have a black thumb. Or my association won’t let me have a garden. Well, did you know that there are several varieties of plants that you can grow in pots or even hide in among you perennials. Now is the time to see what you are able to do.  I consider myself to be the half-a$$ed gardener.  So I am not the best one for advice. But there are a ton of books on the subject and you could always contact your local extension office.

I have had a garden for the last 3 years. We will be revamping it this coming year. (If only I had more land). The area that I use to garden is on the south side of the house. It is in full sun all day and had no air circulation. With that being said I still get a great many things out of the garden. One of them being experience. The first year I did as the book said and had 16 tomato plants in each of the boxes. Then went down to 12. This year I did 9 per box and they were doing so good. ( See experience) I think I would have gotten at least 2 bushels. ( Had some problems with critters this year ).  I have a dwarf 5 in 1 apple tree in the ground and a dwarf 4 in 1 pear in a pot.  I now have 5 blueberry bushes growing in tires and two grape vines. Plus I have a bunch of mints, chives and sage all in pots. I also have Echinacea and lavender in the ground. I had raspberry’s but I dug them all up and put them at my mom’s house. I am also looking into hazelnuts or a walnut tree.

My best piece of advice here is to try, try and try again. Just because it doesn’t work this year doesn’t mean it won’t work the next. See what grows well in your neck of the woods and give it a try!

Need to Do or Get

1. Get more Heirloom seeds
2. Look into a nut tree / shrub
3. Get lumber to re-do garden
4. Try and find a 4 in 1 cherry tree
5. Look into window farming for winter greens

Yart

Science Fair Explosion

Everyone is fine… Though my dining room table looks like a science fair had a melt down. I have the sourdough out of the fridge proofing (so I can make waffles for dinner), I have the pickles that need to be vented all the time (as I don’t want the jar to blow up) and I have zucchini seeds sprouting in wet paper towel inside of a plastic bag. The date on the seeds is 07, so I figure I need to check the viability of them before I just toss them in the ground and hope for the best.

As you can see I have been making some changes to this theme. I really like it but the sizes didn’t fit my taste so I spent a couple hours changing things around. It has been awhile since I messed with HTML. I use to do it all the time. So it came back pretty quick. Just still not sure what some of the coding is for. But I guess that if I keep messing with it I will get it all figured out.

Today I pulled out some of the carrots. One of them is xxx rated. You will see a picture in a minute.

 

I also got some watermelon radishes, a cucumber (they have stopped with the heat), some beets, 2 vine ripened roma tomatoes. Oh, since one of the storms knocked over the potato plants I have been waiting for the right time to dig them up. Remember I used store bought potatoes to see if they would work. They did, I wish I could have left them longer but with them hanging down I was afraid of blight. Not a bad haul for 12 seed potatoes.

I also started cleaning out the garden. I pulled all the lettuce I left to bolt, pulled all the green beans, up came the swiss chard that I was to get seed from. Well, the seed all fell out of the pods. So next year I should have a ton of chard…. This year was the year of dill. I need to get everything ready for my first fall garden. And it needs to happen before the tomatoes come in. Because I can see it now. We have plans to go out of town for a couple days and the tomatoes are going to pop just as we are leaving…. as the new seedlings are needing the most attention. AHHHHHH! Everything will work out at least that is what I keep telling myself.

Yart

The most amazing thing

I found onions that I must have missed last year growing in my front flower bed! The chives in the front pot are up and my tulips that I planted in the fall are showing thier tips!!! Spring is finally here!!!!

The littlest monster were outside cleaning up the doggy mess. They did get out there several times over the winter but it still gets to be such a mess. It was a good thing they did it, since we ended up staying here and having a fire! Good friends, drinks and a fire, ahhhhhh spring!

I had a mole removed today. I even got a stitch. I go back on Tuesday to get a lump/bump removed off of my face. Then the following week I go to get the stitches out. I'm just happy they are going and gone.

If the weather holds then I need to get out and assess the winter damage to my yard. Teenage monster and I already had to dig at the bottom of a section of privacy fence to put in a board as the bottom came loose from the post. I'm just happy that we didn't have to replace the whole panel. I hope that the grapes, blueberries and the apple ! Even though I think I planted them way to early, they helped with the winter that wouldn't end.

Lots to do tonight... Our town does this thing once a month. It is to help increase foot traffic in the historic downtown. Tonight is all about shopping and beer! Like who can't get with the program...huh?!? So we will be down there. I hope to sign up with the women of our town. They do charity things and get togethers. I think it will be interesting.. LOL!

Enough rambling!
Gotta Run,
Yart

Rainy Thursday

It's raining here agian today. But I was lucky enough to get out in the garden for a bit before the rains came. I used my scissors to cut down some of the weeds that are growing around the potatoe tires. I got a great big blister that popped for my troubles. I used a vegetable oil, dish soap and water treatment on my tomatoe plants that are infested with those little pink bugs. It seems to have killed the larve ones. But the big ones are still holding on. So I will have to get one captured and take it to the garden center to see if they can help me to get rid of them. I don't want to use chemicals if I can avoid it.

My friend is still in critical condition. There has been no change. So I am taking that as a good sign. I keep praying for her and her family, as that is all I can do right now.

We only have 1 day left of school. I think I am happier then the kids about that. We have so many plans. Well at least I do. I think they just want to read, watch tv or play video games all summer. Not!!! We will be outside lots this summer. Even if it means a ton of moaning and crying.... I know I need to check myself with that. Its bad for the kids to see..... LOL! But I am sooooo looking forward to taking the knitting class. Plus I found a cheaper place to do yoga on Tuesday nights. And I found out that I can do aerobic at the city hall on Monday nights. I think I am just going to be a going concern soon. No point sitting still gathering moss.

We will be bottleing beer tonight. Woo Hoo! Then in 5 weeks we will have to have another get together. That seems to be the only time we get everyone over. But that is fine with me. I use to have a BFF, that was always here. The only reason she would go home was to shower & sleep. If her clothes were here I don't think she would have ever left... LOL! Ahhhhh, the good ole days. But alas, those days are over and I actually get stuff done now. Honestly, I didn't mind her being here. My DH works long and odd hours. He is on call. So I am alone alot. But now I have hobbies to occupy my time and am not quite as lonely when he isn't here.

I am cheating on dinner tonight. I am making hamberger helper tonight. We will have corn and bakery bought bread. I am hoping to get bread made on Sunday for next week. I should try and freeze a couple of loaves.

Oh, I have some links for Beets that I am going to share. But those will go into another post.

Gotta Run,
Yart

Showing off

Here are some pictures of the garden.


Chives


Spearmint


Chocolate Mint


Lemon Balm


Newly Fenced Garden


First Tomatoes


This Pepper should produce 11 peppers at least that's how many flowers it has right now!


Who knew green beans flowered not me. So this is very kewl

Title changed to save me from trademark infingment

I was super busy all weekend long. The birthday party and recital went really good. I was able to get 4 loaves of yummy bread made yesterday so I am back on track with that. I made meatloaf on Sunday and we had leftovers on Monday. Not sure what I am going to do for dinner tonight yet. I wanted to let you all know that on the left column I have included a link to Everyday Food Storage. It seems to be a site that has some really good information. With all of that said, I need to move on.

I have been trying to homestead on a lot of 33x107. I can't have chickens or any type of farm animal as we live in the city. Not a great big metropolis even though that is just a matter of 10 minutes North of here. It is a quite little community of a couple thousand. We are surrounded by other little communities all trying to get business. This area use to be very much automotive-ly dominated. We have a 3 bedroom home bungalow style with a basement and a detached garage. Now that you have all of the logistics of the homestead... LOL! I can tell you why I just told you all that.

I know that most homesteaders live on land that can have animals and huge gardens and animals to hunt right on the property. But there are those of us who are at least trying to lessen our impact on the earth and make a better life for ourselves and our families. We happen to be one such group of individuals... aka my family.

I hang dry all of my laundry, I have in the recent past had a container garden, I cook from scratch as much as possible and a ton of other things. But I want to start getting on to this topic more and more. As we can't be the only family doing these things and searching for information. I will include more things here. Instead of me just talking about my days.

Today I must make more laundry soap. Here is a video:
Click Here
The last time I made soap was back in November. So it lasted months.

My seedlings are doing really good. The eggplant have sprouted up. The only thing left to sprout are the peppers. I also decided to do some winter sowing. I got the milk jugs going. I put in lettuce. I figure that it is the best thing to start with as I am so jones-ing for some home grown greens. I did those up Sunday night.

If you don't know when you can plant safely. You can check here. Plus the National Gardening Association has a great deal of information. I'm area 5b. Now I need to find out what that means. LOL! My last frost date is 5/12 & 10/9 is the first. So as long as I plant within these dates I should be fine. You can also find out what your local frost dates are by clicking here.

I will try and get the pictures I took up on here later today.
Gotta Run,
Yart