~ Gardens are Rock'in ~

Still needs some weeding.

Fifty-seven tomato plants, just about as many pepper plants and lots of eggplant.

Kids square foot garden.

~ Garden Progress ~

My camera is broken so I couldn't take pictures of the peas or any of my other seedlings. My mom rocked the house and planted the entire big garden by herself, the boys did help with the potatoes by dropping them in the holes. We don't have all of our garden space planted yet but we (I) am working on it little by little. Our major priority is finishing the fence around the pasture.


 


We don't know what this is. Any ideas?




Dandelions




Heartease or Jonhy Jump-ups




Plum Blossoms




Apple Blossoms




Asparagus




Garlic





Phlox

 


Newly fenced pasture that is finally GREEN




Rhubarb





Bleeding Hearts
















This post is shared at the HSV Garden Challenge

~ Our Recycled Polytunnel ~

This kind of happened by accident. We were going to use the black pipe to make a hoop to drape the deer fence over the asparagus but when I saw how nice the pipe arched I just couldn't do a little hoop cover.

I found some medium fence posts in the garden shed, I think they are around a $1.70 at Menard's. The black pipe was one great big coil that we had used to water the horses before we had a hydrant in the barn. It ran from the house spicket to the pasture. I don't remember how much it was but I will look on Thursday and report back.

The black pipe fit over the fence post, creating a lovely arch. I thought I had a picture of this but maybe not. Kids were playing with the camera so one never knows.

We made the base 8' wide by 12' long. Eight posts were used with four pieces of pipe cut 12' long. To figure your arch take the width x 1.5

The plastic was just what we had one hand, the left over stuff that was on the ground under our ice skating rink. It had some good holes but we tried to just work around them. We will buy some nicer stuff, 12mil, as soon as we get the chance. We are going to build another door frame so that both ends have doors making it easier to vent. We will also frame in the bottom with some lumber so that we have something to staple the plastic to.

The high temp for today was 67 and inside the tunnel with the door wide open it was 98. The peppers and tomatoes are loving it. I finally have all the pepper and tomato seedlings in bigger pots. It should have been done long ago but was so cold outside and I just didn't have the room inside for all those 2" pots.

Fence post 8' apart.

At the moment, its not pretty. As soon as we get a chance we will get some heavier plastic for it. This will be the small tunnel and we will still make a big one by the chicken yard.

This was so easy to do, I could have done it myself but it was nice to have some muscle to help with bending the pipe. I had no idea how much faster it is to plant seeds and seedlings when you don't have to be neat. It only took me about an hour to re-pot 48 pepper plants, 12 eggplants, and 12 more tomato plants.

So, Thursday I go to the "big" town and I will add up the cost of what it took to build this little gem of a garden tool and report back.

This post is shared at:

Homestead Barn Hop

~ Asparagus ~

Last year I order asparagus seeds but never planted them because we just ran out of time. Most people order asparagus crowns but it still takes at least three years till you can harvest. With the seeds it takes an extra year but the yield is suppose to be greater. We will see. This particular variety is a heirloom Martha Washington. The asparagus shoots are small and tender. Lightly steamed and topped with lots of grass-fed butter and fresh lemon juice, hmmm...

We planted the seedlings 6 inches deep 12 inches apart. Hubby tilled a new spot for them. The ground had some top soil but we have lots of sand so we tilled in lots of compost. We covered the whole patch with deer off netting to keep the critters out. So far they look good. Hopefully the time will fly by and we will be eating and freezing fresh asparagus in no time.


I ordered my seeds from Baker's Creek. There was supposed to be 75 seeds in the package but there were at least double that. We have 90 seedlings in the patch and another 90 to find a home for. 



This post is shared at:

Homestead Barn Hop

~ Cold Crop Veggie Boxes ~

After realizing that between the dog and my youngest, garden row just would not work, they would get trampled. Jairden tries hard to stay out, but the dog has no concept of rows when he is chasing chipmunks. 

So, I found some extra lumber, cut it down to two foot lengths and made some easy 2x2 boxes. I found another use for those plastic blind slats, they make great dividers. I planted eight kinds of lettuce, four kinds of radishes, and two kinds of carrots.

This is going to be the future home of our polytunnel. The book “How to Grow Food in your Polytunnel all Year Round” is awesome. We are really excited to be able to have fresh veggies in the near middle of winter. We figure that the cost of the tunnel will pay itself back if the only thing we grow is lettuce the first winter. Right now we spend about four dollars a week on lettuce and that is just for my husband's dinners at work.

Right now we are using the space as a place to till soil for the planter boxes and new garden beds.

All of the seedling enjoying some shady sunshine. Hopefully they can go in the ground soon under the cover of some hoop row covers at night.

This post is shared at:

Homestead Barn Hop

~ Wordless Wednesday ~

~ Pepper Seedling Starts ~



This was in March, they are much bigger now.

Peppers are started. Some varieties got starter earlier than other because, gosh darn-it, there are just not enough hours in the day. You can read about the tomato seedling here. This year I started:

Jalapeno, Traveler Strain

Cayenne Pepper Blend

Orange Sun Pepper

California Wonder Gold

California Wonder Purple

Red Cherry Sweet Pepper

Beaver Dam Pepper

Sweet Pickle Pepper

Purple Mini Bells

Red Mini Bells

Yellow Mini Bells

Jimmy Nardello's Pepper (the packet was empty but another packet had twice as many seeds as it should have so I will have to identify by the type of peppers we get to see if I actually will get any of this variety)

Apple Green Eggplant

Rosa Bianca Eggplant

~ Gardens are Coming Along ~

While we haven't planted anything outside yet (it was snowing yesterday) we have been very busy getting everything ready. My seedling desperately need to be potted up to the next size. I have raked the leaves out of all established garden space. Some landscaping has been done, partly to make things look nicer, partly to keep the chickens out and cut done on the amount of grass that we have to mow. I hate mowing grass, I would rather pick weeds and water and get something for my effort. Hopefully it will warm up here and we can get to planting. I took lots of pictures just to show some of the things we have been doing. I think my yard is cleaner that my house, but oh well.

This was grass/yard last year (barely) but will be garden this year. It will be for herbs and edible flowers.

Left side of the picture above.

This is the garden by the side of the house. This was tomato territory last year but will be for melons this year. Another spot that used to be grass. The chickens have done a good job of turning the dirt for me.

The small garden behind the garage. We need to take out some trees so there is less shade. The strawberries are under the lattice so that the chickens won't eat them. Lettuce, peas, and other cold crops will go there this year once the chickens have left.

Flower boxes I built last year for the cucumbers. Revamped them a bit, put post in the corners to hold the fence and created space for growing vines. I don't know whether I will plant flowers or pole beans there yet.

Space at our house that is going to become garden instead of mowing grass. The fruit trees are planted at the edge of the yard in the back.

Big garden at the big house.

Flower garden at the big house.

Small garden at the big house.

Strawberries

Garlic

Raspberries

This post is part of the HSV Garden Challenge Link Up #2

~ Busy Week ~

I can't believe the week is almost over. I was really excited for the Ultimate Blog Party and then we (I say we but I really had nothing to do with it) had a baby calf and moved the baby chicks outside (yay!!!). It has started to get really nice outside so I have had very little time to check out new blogs or even blog on my own blog!

 This was early morning, hard to believe that by afternoon they were all running around in t-shirts! Jairden is a farm boy through and through. I swear he can hear that tractor start from the next county over.

For all those who visited from the UBP and left comments know that I am coming to check out your blog soon! I stole a few moments today and whipped up a reusable produce bag and will find time to make a couple more for the give away!

The asparagus plants that I started from seeds came up, so much for ten weeks till germination. All of my seedlings are doing really good and I will have to pot up the tomato and pepper seedlings soon. Now that it is nice I can make some hoop covers to start warming the dirt for my melon plants. I am determined to get melons this year. Last year was just to cold and rainy. A few very small melons were harvested but nothing big enough to eat.

Our homeschooling is still going well! There are weeks that are not as structured (no structure?) but full of practical application, like cooking and baking to learn fractions and Celsius/Fahrenheit or building chicken coops for wedding presents to learn about architecture.

My Little Cowboy!

~ Easy Recycled Plant Tags ~

 In a house with four kids, three being boys, for long winter days keeping the house in one piece can be challenging. After one particular, wild, adventurous afternoon of play it was discovered that the blind in one of the bedrooms had a few broken slats and one of the strings to pull it up was lost "down the hole".  I wasn't really upset, with a Menard's rebate we paid a dollar a blind eight years ago and because we have such a moisture problem we can't have the blinds down anyway. Good thing we live in the country!

Because of said moisture issue, the blind had to come down. It moved from location to location for awhile. I just couldn't throw it away, it had to be good for something. Plant Labels!! I cut each slat in half length wise and then cut them to length I need to mark each cell. I use a permanent marker to write what kind of seeds were planted. Since they are plastic they won't rot and as long as I keep little fingers from pulling them all out I will know which tomatoes are which this year.

~ The Homeschool Village ~

For all my homeschooling mommy friends out there I want to share with you a fabulous new blog that I found. The Homeschool Village. The organizational, OCD nerd in me has found a new love. She uses a system call workboxes. You can also use workstrips. Not only do they help the kids stay on tract but me too. My brain is swimming with the ways that they can help our house run smoother, now to just find the time to get it all done.

Right now Jolanthe is hosting The Homeschooling Village Gardening Challenge. You don't have to have a huge garden or even a blog to participate, a flower box or container will do! So, go check it out and link up. She also has some great gardening challenge preschool packs that are chalked full of fun!

~ Tomato Seedling Starts ~

The tomatoes are started. We are anxiously watching and waiting for those little green sprouts to start poking out of the soil. This year we planted:

1. Anna Russian
2. Black from Tula
3. Riesentraube
4. Jaune Flammee
5. Mule Team
6. Amish Paste
7. Pink Ponderosa
8. Baxter's Bush Cherry
9. Aunt Ruby's German Green
10. Kellogg's Breakfast
11. Box Car Willie
12. Druzba
13. Green Grape
14. Eva Purple Ball
15. Valenciano
16. Purple Tomatillo
17. Pineapple Tomatillo

Now the trick is going to be digging up enough new space to plant all of those. Hurry up and melts snow, we want to get outside!!!

~ Garden Plans ~

I love this article on Food Freedom about growing plants vertically to maximize your gardening space thus maximizing yields. We created tipis last year for our pole beans and they were so pretty. We used Ironwood trees for our poles and twine strung from one side to another for extra supports. We had 28 plants on each tipi. The mistake I made was planting one variety too close to another and they cross pollinated so I couldn't really save seeds. We did get very interesting looking beans! This is a close up of the flowers that adorned our tipis. This particular one is from a Scarlett Runner Pole Bean. We also planted Rattlesnake Pole Beans and Hidatsa Pole Beans. The Rattlesnakes had lavender flowers and the Hidatsa had light pink flowers. These would be absolutely gorgeous growing up the side of a house. They will grow between 10 to 12 feet so they wouldn't really work for a front yard fence. You could grow peas that grow around 32" on a front yard fence and get the benefits of flowers, pretty greenery, and food! What more could you ask for? This is one of my favorite green bean recipes. The original recipe comes from Laurel's Kitchen, I have change it just a bit to our taste preferences.

Creamy Sesame Beans and Celery

3 c green beans, 3/4" length
1 c celery, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
2 tbsp arrow root powder
1 tsp of sea salt
1 c raw milk yogurt
1/2 c full fat cottage cheese
1/8 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp oregano dash of garlic powder
1/4 c toasted sesame seeds, ground
1/4 to 1/2 cup sourdough bread crumbs
1 tbsp of butter

Cook green beans, celery, and onion in a small amount of stock until barely tender. Drain and reserve liquid to mix with arrowroot powder. Mix stock, sea salt, and arrowroot powder and mix with veggies. Add yogurt and stir; place in a deep casserole pan. Mix seasoning with cottage cheese and spread over vegetables. Melt butter and add sesame seeds and breadcrumbs, then spread them over the cottage cheese. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. This post is shared at :

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