Homestead Happenings

Garden update

Here are some recent garden pics.


The beans are doing OK.  Wish I had planted more.  According to the Mother Earth News site I can still plant beans.  I plan to plant them next week.  A lot!


Here is my solution to our sprinkler problem.  You see my garden was a yard and I need to control the water flow to control the weed and grass growth.  So I dug down, removed the pop- up sprinkler and replaced it with a riser that I topped with a hose splitter.  eventually I will buy soaker hoses but for now I am using old hoses with small holes drilled in them.


I got the hose from our local freecycle group.  The end was mangled so I cut it cleanly and tied it off with a hose clamp.  So when the sprinklers come on the water will go to my plants and the grass will die off.  At least that is the plan.


A friend was thinning her strawberry bed and blessed as with several plants.  This is 1 of 2 barrels.  The plants are pouting now but they will perk up.


This is my herb barrel that is recovering from sprinklers that quit working long before I found out.


A gerber daisy given to me that I put in the garden just because.


One of the two kittens that we need to find homes for.  Any takers?

Bye for now!

Our first 'no-till' garden bed is done

Here is the other end of the bed.  This is where I made a "test bed" last fall.


 I laid down a thick layer of straw and grass clippings to see if it really would smother all the grass beneath it.  It really did!  Wish I would have laid down all the beds last fall.  It would have been much better.  The ground is softer from all the composted material too.  Live and learn!


Here is a (sideways) picture of how we measure the blocks as they were laid down to make sure the bed was fair straight.  Handsome Hubby, being a military man, would prefer PERFECTLY straight.  But since he had to go to work he settled for my version.


Our first blocked bed!  We chose block since wood boarder wrap quickly.  Having a boarder keep feet out of the growing area.  Compost and seedlings coming soon.  The children were a great help.  They rotated between helping me outside and tending to the littles and laundry.

Here what we will be planting:


Spring had sprung!

Look maw! I can drive a lawn mower!

I put it off for over a year.  Learning to drive the lawn mower looked scary.  Compared to our hand mower it looked huge.  Then one day Handsome Hubby taught the two oldest girls to drive it.  I could not allow myself to be outdone but my own daughters!  So I asked Handsome Hubby to teach me.  As I was sitting on the big green beast he pointed to each lever and explained what it did.  My children were actually laughing at the sight of it!  Guess it's funny to see your teacher being taught something.  So here is the result....


Yep, that's me. Driving the thing was really not such a big deal.  It is actually kind of fun.  Here I am mowing down my new garden spot.  But (as Alton Brown would say) that is a different show post. 

The best laid plans of chicks and gardens...

Scary creature!!!

OK I just had my first scary creature encounter. Try not to laugh to hard at this city girl who is trying to put down country roots, OK?

I was wetting down my compost pile when I noticed a hole.  There was a pile of freshly dug dirt so I turned my hose that way and started to wash the dirt down the hole.  The muddy water ran in for several minutes as I vainly tried to fill it when out came this wet, angry, creature.  Gopher?  Mole?  I don't know but it was wet and mad and it started walking toward me.  The only weapon I had was the water hose so I kept the stream of water in it's face.  It just kept coming then started going faster (did I mention towards me?).  Then when it got 3 feet from me I heard a shriek and it veered away from me, ran up the compost pile, turned back to look at me (really) and then it jumped over the pile and out of sight.  Would it be wrong to leave out the detail that the shriek came from me?    How sissy is that??? 

How can I kill these things without poison?  They must die!! 

Good day

Today was a good productive day.  I made a double batch of bread which yielded 5 loaves of bread and 3 dozen dinner rolls.  

After that those fruit trees finally were planted.  Yipee!  We planted a Myer Lemon in November and today I planted 1 each of plum, peach, and an apple tree that grows 5 different kinds of apples.  I picked a combo tree since buying (or planting) 5 different apple trees is not something I want to do right now.  We might later.  I thought a grafted tree sounded neat and wanted to try it.

I also learned that my children really like my bread.  How can you tell if your children really like your bread?  When you find this......

My 2 year old, Munchkin, decided to help herself to some "yummy bread".

Now... where will we put the grapes and berries??? 

Stay tuned.

Fruit Trees

The Lord said it himself: "The mind is willing but the flesh is weak."  How true this is.  There are so many thing I want to do but my body can only do some much.  Time and energy are not unlimited.

We were at Costco last week and they had bare root fruit trees.  We picked up one peach and one plum.  Guess where they are?  On the porch still in the packaging of course!

Now the question is........ where do I plant them?  I am not sure if they need to be kept away from other fruit trees.  I need to do some research.  Time to (yet again) get out my copy of The Encyclopedia of Country Living.   

Guess my "city" is showing.  By saying this I am not bad mouthing those who l ive in the city.  After all, we did until just a few month ago.  What I mean is that I don't know how to do this and that most who live "out here" do.

Live and learn