Garden Update

This is the first year I have honestly felt like this garden thing might pay off.  We have been trying our hand at a garden since living in Tennessee, and it never fails that something seems to go wrong.  In TN we deployed all the time in the Army, so watering was a challenge.  In Mansfield things just never worked out until we moved, quite honestly – then things came in great!

Since arriving here we have been dabbling in the garden with minor successes : Tomatoes in 2011 were good, cucumbers too – in 2012 not much was harvested in general, except Purple Hull Peas and I had not clue what to do with them.

New Year – New story!!  Yeah!  finally our learning and hard work seems to be paying off a bit!!

Now I know this is just our early spring garden, but so far things are looking good in the Tomato and Pepper section too!!

Garden Fun

All I can seem to think about these days, as the temps hover in the high 60’s and low 70’s – is SPRING!!  I love, love, love spring!!

This year my focus is on our garden.  Making it beautiful to me, abundant in its fruit, and smart in its design – those are my goals.  So far we are truckin’ right along!

We have Kale making a come back, today I will plant some more Kale where a few plants died this winter.  Next we have cabbage starters that I planted, and other cabbage seeds that we planted.  Spinach and Lettuce went in as seeds about 5 days ago and are starting to sprout!!

I’ve already transplanted my tomatoes into 3 inch pots, for more room and to make for stronger stems.  I have lots of herbs started in doors, and pepper plants too.  I did put my pepper plants under a low heat lamp today, trying to get them to sprout.

Whew. 

Meanwhile I have had some fun too.  I saw garden markers on pinterest, and while mine do not have the perfect lettering, I sure like them.  We have some bricks that we got from family,and I plan to make markers for each row.  My sweet helper even got in on the bricks, I outlined the letters and she colored them in!!

Finally, in the back yard I want to put in a stone pathway – with garden stones – to get from the porch to the gate.  These kind of stones are not cheap, so I decided to make them myself.  I made them ages ago with little hand prints and kids names, this time I just wrote in some words that I will like to read as I walk along them.

These were made from a bag of mortar mix, some water (about a 4 cup mix to 1 cup water ratio).  Then pour into your molds. 

Let sit for about 5 days – depending on humidity and how wet your mix ended up.  After 1 day of drying I used a paint brush handle to write my words in, and then brushed the stuff off with the paint brush. I could paint the letters for some color, but honestly, I think I like them they way they are. 

Fun on the Farm – never a dull moment!!

Did you know? It’s Garden time!!

Yes, I know it is January, and well, you may not live in East Texas.  But, if you do it is time to be thinking about your garden!!  I have been thinking tons about mine.  Tonight I started 72 tomato plants, well, maybe 5 of those were basil – and 5 cabbage – so I guess 62 tomato plants – but either way I am thrilled!!  I have a few heirloom seeds (which if you do not know yet, those are the ones you want!!). 

Also, onions need to go in now!

Also right now, in Zone 8 (my zone) it is time to throw seeds into the garden outside as well!! Not all of them, mind you, but many. And in case you are not sure what to do for your zone in January, you should check out Organic Gardening – when you get there search for “what to do in January” and so on. I cut and pasted and threw all that info into my gardening notebook. So now each month, I will get it, and check out my list.

Meanwhile, my other Amazing idea – not so much my own, I think I merged a couple ideas to figure this out – but I am storing all my seeds in baby food jars. My friend graciously gave me about 100 last fall when she was feeding her baby. I held on to them knowing I would figure out a perfect use. And Voila!!

I did! I had some seeds in a brown bag from the feed store and weevils got in and ate through EVERY one of my purple hulled peas!! UGH!! NO MORE!! And for peas, I will use smaller canning jars. Make sure your jars are clean and very dry, and your seeds are dry too!!

I also rescued an old soda crate at an antique store (my sister in law gave me one I use to hold tea, and knew I could find a use for another) and plan to paint the lids and then store the jars with lids exposed and their contents labeled.

 

Okay – 2 more great ideas I thought I would share.  I was hoping Hobby Farm magazine would have the info, but online you cannot see what I am looking at.  So, if you get the magazine, check it out – if not, check it out at the store.  There is a tiered seed drying rack.  Where you make these “drawers” with screen bottoms, to put your seeds on to dry when you, say scoop out a squash.  Then they dry out in your dryer.  It has a base/frame that the drawers slide into.  This is going to be my big boy’s project this spring for me.

Can you tell I need this?  Because right now I am drying some organic pepper seeds this way…

The next one, my next son is going to make a rack to dry herbs on.  This has dowels that go across and you would bundle some Basil, tie it together and then drape it on the dowel, kind of in the middle of the bundle.  And it would dry out too, to save to use in foods or whatever. 

I cannot wait to get my new projects – maybe for my birthday!  A great excuse for Robert to work with them, teach them some wood working and have fun!!  I love it!

That’s all for now.  Off to think more about my garden and other fun projects blooming around here!!

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{I’m sharing on The Prairie Homestead Barn Hop}

Gardening

It is gardening time around here.  Hard work, but, so rewarding!

I think we will be outgrowing out 3000 sq ft garden this year, just a hunch, but time will tell!  So far we have lots of potatoes coming up – plants are about 8-12 inches tall! 

We planted three times more of these than last year, to include Dakota Pearls, Red, and Yukon Golds.  We are hoping for a huge crop and a few more meals this year!

Spring Garden : In

 

I love this part of the garden, not as much as the final product, but I still love the planning, the excitement of what we are going to put into the ground, the hope of what will spring forth from the ground in the coming weeks and months!!

We had a wonderfully productive day on Sunday!  We arrived home from church, and after we ate some lunch we all headed out to work in the garden!  The weather was so nice, almost 70’s, even though the wind was blowing like crazy!

We planted 2 rows of three different kinds of potatoes, hope that is enough this year.  Then, we also planed lettuce (bibb and romaine), Swiss Chard (my favorite), radishes (a family, minus me, favorite), beets, onions, and some Pak Choi, not really sure what that is!

Everyone planted something, which is another favorite part – they are all so excited about getting seeds in the ground and planting things!  They love to watch their row grow and occasionally help weed too!

Back on track

I need to get things back in order.  I think it is the spring bug!  I want to organize everything, I want to get back into a set routine, and I want order.  Ahhh, order – the thought already calms me!

Meal planning has been lacking unless we have company coming, and the family would love some real meals instead of what is on hand – sometimes resorting to ramen noodles (with peas to justify it).  I am ready for some new & yummy meals too!  So I am going to stalk THIS blog (thanks to Jenna) this week and get some recipes to try out with our family.  Healthy, yummy and cheap (relatively on all the above I think).

I need to get my room back to looking like a Master Bedroom and not a laundry room/mud room/man’s workshop like it does right now.  I am taking our bathroom back – I need to fix a spot or two on our walls (sand off the spackle and re-prime the underneath, and then re-spackle) but I can do all that while we are using the room!! So no more showers in the kids bathroom at some point this week!!!  That is the plan anyway!

Sweet Saturday

I love waking up with no where to go!  I really love being the first one up, to get ahead a bit before the gang descends on the kitchen.

This morning I was up first, after the best night of sleep in a while, and I was able to get the kitchen picked up, the dogs out (for my little boy), and then I helped the big boys with the chickens.  I do not always help with the animal chores, but today I did not mind.

Then I headed to the front porch to see if I could catch the Cedar Wax wing that my mother-in-law, Betsy, saw the last two mornings.  I was able to sit out there and make my gratitude morning entries.  (my favorite entry for this morning was that P went for a solo bike ride and was able to spot a few deer!  How sweet!)

Composting & Going Green”er”

I am certainly not a “Let’s all join hands and worship the Earth” kind of girl, but I do want to be a good steward of what we have so we can pass on something we are proud of to our kids. 

One way we try to do this is composting.  We started just about the day we arrived in our house.  We had a big plastic tub of pretzels (from Sam’s) with a screw lid that we use as our temporary container.  I keep this under my kitchen sink.  The kids can get to it, put their banana peels, apple cores, or whatever in it – and then they are also the dumpers.  So about once a day they take it back to the compost to dump it.

Some things we usually add : Coffee grounds, potato peels, fruit remains (cores, peels, seeds, etc), egg shells, some sparing citrus

 

Blooming

I love spring.  I think for the same reason I love Mondays.  A new start!

I love to walk around and see a tree that showed no signs of life yesterday full of new growth!   I think it is even more exciting this year since we are in a new home and it is going to be an adventure to see all that blooms, buds, and grows!

I have always loved Crepe Myrtles.  About 2 years before leaving Mansfield Robert brought one home and I loved it.  But I only had 2 years to see its blooms.  Here in our new home, however, we have at least 10 very mature crepe myrtles and I cannot WAIT to see all the blooms on our driveway! 

Plus we are adding lots of fun stuff as we go along.  Our garden is still doing well – we may have to give up on a few colder weather things we should have gotten into the ground sooner, but the Sugar Snap peas are thriving, lots of onions are doing well, and we finally got our tomatoes in the ground last week.  In the last 2 days I have planted all our pepper plants we started indoors, a few cucumber plants we also started, and then LOTS of seeds!

Busy mid-week Weekend

That is how it seems here.  We are ending our 3-day weekend.  Robert worked Monday and Tuesday then had the last 3 days off.  We love this crazy schedule (most of the time). 

But, whew!  I think he is ready to go to work and get a rest, and I think I am ready for him to go to work to get a break too!

He cut down the top of our pear tree one day:

Then, he hung the rest of the drywall in preparation of putting up tile:

Then, we spent some time putting down mulch in our flower beds, did not get to all of them, but wow!  What a difference!!

 

We made sure to take some breaks.  We sat out by the chickens, let them run around, brought some popsicles and our current favorite read-aloud!

 

While we sat and read, we had a visitor come over several times – and finally she wanted to get friendly!  We love sweet Freedom – our only buff who has a name!

We all spent some time in the garden.  We planted a row of potatoes.  We also planted seeds for Kale, Mustard, Radishes, and Carrots.  The kids are helping so much to clean out the rows and take trips to the compost pile with roots and stuff, but I am not sure how much more work they want to put into the garden!  I cannot blame them, I am glad we are almost done getting stuff in – I am ready for a break too!

Today, Robert put in Berry Lane – 5 blue berry bushes,  3 blackberry bushes. 

Today we put up tile, finally!!  I love it – cannot wait for this bathroom to get done!!  I loved tiling it too!!  SO much easier than I thought!

 

Not sure when I will get to finish it – the next parts require some cutting and Robert will not be here to do that, so maybe Monday.

Finally, this afternoon I dug up about 200 Day Lilies – in order to rid a flower bed being taken over by brambles.  So tomorrow, I need to find them new homes – and then we need to clean out this bed!  It is a mess!!

{brambles to be cleared soon}

{a few of our lilies – need a new home too!}

{here are a few transplanted – I hope they do well!}

Lots of stuff done!  Lots still to do – but we are definitely almost done with our spring garden!  Cannot wait to see what the harvest looks like!!

 

Oh yeah, we did add 2 more turkeys to the mix too!  No pics yet, but they are cuties and seem to be integrating well with the 2 we already had.  I think we are about to stop add animals too!  But, it sure is fun!!

Now, it is off to the real weekend – and I think we are going to relax!! 

Spring has Sprung!

Or so it seems here in my little corner of Texas.  The sun has been shining for more than a week.  The flowers are blooming, others coming up promising blooms soon.

 

But, there is always a but!  But, the calendar tells me it is not spring yet, in fact only March 1st.  We all know in Texas it can nearly snow on Easter – many a year we have foregone our cute Easter clothes in place of warm winter ones for that Sunday service. 

So, what to do?  Do we press on?  Or do we hold back?

(the conundrum of life if you will, wouldn’t you say?)