Redo?

Is it Groundhogs day or something? I swear it's Monday and not Tuesday.

Yesterday I was so busy I nearly forgot Harvest Monday and it seemed more like Friday than any other day. Now today here it feels like Monday. Go figure. My week is all whopper jogged.

I just wanted to report that I have gone insane. That is all.

What do you mean you already knew that?

PTHTHTH! :-P

Small garden update...

Remember these beans that were mislabeled?

 

Yep. Well, it turns out it didn't matter that they were not labeled right. I should have eaten them instead of planting them. They never sprouted. Not a single one. Figures. I got suckered. Just wish I could remember which seed company it was.

:-(

 

 

It rained and it poured and it thundered last night. The kids came running into our bed and snuggled up. I just don't get that. I sleep so well through the storms. Why do kids freak out? Why does our calmness not carry over to them? It never seemed to bother them until last year. Now it guarantees a sleep less night rather than a sleep filled night.

 

But the rain - oh so glorious. It mostly stopped for our long commute. If it hadn't I wouldn't have been so happy about having so much of the wet stuff. It does tend to bring out the crazy in the local drivers. Being Floridians you'd think most of us see it daily, but apparently not. *snicker*

 

Things are coming together for the 'Game Cleaning Station' that will be prepared on the Property in Alabama. So far we have the electrical wire, a new stainless utility sink and a stainless prep table. Unfortunately the work is the hard part. That starts in a few weeks and will be spread out between this next trip and 4th of July.

Wish my honey luck!

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 4.29.13

I can't believe I almost missed it!

 

It's Harvest Monday y'all! ;-) I don't know where all my pictures went this week. I only have 2 to show you. But one of them is mighty impressive. Well, at least to me anyway.

 

My shelling peas? They are blooming profusely because our nights are still cool. Problem is our days are now hitting 90* regularly and they just don't like that. At all. So they are past there prime. Taste is down, toughness is up... I'm thinking I'll have to pull the vines soon. Problem is those darn blossoms make it hard to just yank the vines. LOL. Must do it soon. I know that the peas they are producing are inferior and all I'm doing is creating a mess. Something else could be growing there. Good bye peas. See you again in 7 months. *sigh* The snap peas aren't far behind. :-(

One harvest this week:

Oh, yep. That reminds me. The strawberries are still hanging around. They seem to be shrinking these days. I'm also still getting a handful of blueberries each day. I'm having a hard time measuring them though. Only a few make it into the house... It's like the Bermuda triangle out there. Somewhere between the bushes, the garden and the house. *Poof* they just fall off the radar. The mulberries are still coming by the buckets, but I stopped picking them. I hate them right now. I despise the suckers. I...OK I love the tree, I just don't like it right now.

 

BUT! The cauliflower beast has been harvested. I have harvested a few small (normal for me) heads as seen in the above picture. They usually get to be you know- 3" or so but not this one!

This one weighed in at 4lbs 7oz! WAHOOO!!! I made a cauliflower pizza dough... well I should restate that. I TRIED to make a cauliflower pizza dough. It didn't turn out very well so I scrapped it off the pan turned it over and baked the crap out of it and made it into crackers instead... AWESOME flavor. Oh MAN... <3 serious cauly love here. 1/3 of it will be mashed cheesy cauliflower (like mashed potatoes) and the last third is destined for butter and salt and pepper and steaming.

 

YUM.

 

I've been spending a lot of time int he pool and even went out to the beach this weekend. It was relaxing and Oh so nice to get away even if only for a single day. Now it's back to the grind!

 

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~

Earth Day...

So, Earth Day came and went. The kids brought home a slash pine. We planted it. The HOA will love that, I'm sure.

 

The next day I was wandering around and there was a bag of pine trees (cedar? spruce?) sitting in a TRASH BAG y'all!

Check it! Here they are when I got them home:

 

I just couldn't let that happen. No way. No how. It's not so much that I'm crunchy, or super green. I mean, I AM green, but I'm not like over the top green. KWIM? But to throw away trees? Nope, not on my watch.

 

So I diverted my trip home to stop by the BOX store. I grabbed a couple bags of soil. A bunch of pots...

 

I don't get home until 6:30 or 7pm mind you, so I sat outside until the mosquitoes carried us away...

 

 

hehe... I told her I'd still use those pictures of her trying not to get her picture taken. LOL.

 

Anyway - I did stay out until dark and I did sustain a few bites. The end result was...

 

30 potted trees waiting for the next trip to Alabama. We also planted about 20 of them at the other house here. Then we called up everyone we knew around the neighborhood and handed them out. :-) All in all we saved about 70 trees. Works for me!

 

Now, To hit up Google to try to get an ID on them. It may be a while before I can get a good ID, but at least I can get a better idea of what to expect.

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~

FREE! You move it.

HA! If you could. You are welcome to it.

FREE Mulberry tree. YOU move it! Ever bearing. ALWAYS gives plenty of fruit. You'll get sick of it. (Trust me) Excellent for feeding chickens and birds if you have a flock. Will attract squirrels, wild birds, butterflies, other assorted critters. Will also attract people that are curious and/or want to steal your berries. Don't worry. You will have plenty to spare.

HEALTHY tree. Can't keep the stupid thing in check no matter how much you trim it back.Fruit in zone 9 from Feb - May or June and then from Aug - Dec. Prepare to be inundated.

Great for the compost (from cutting back, the fruit tastes fine)

 

Drawbacks include:

Kids like to get mulberry juice on their clothes - it STAINS

(See pic of my fingers after picking them and moving on to blueberries)

It also makes the birds who eat the mulberries - well, their poop turns mulberry colored, too!

Lovely, right? You should see my fence!

And last but not least, The fruit, if you should tire of picking a few cups every.single.day. for months on end? Well. the birds and critters can't keep up with it, so it winds up on the ground

It stains the sand in the sand box pink... well that is kind of cool, but see the first complaint about the kids clothes. It also gets all into the mulch where it is impossible to pick up. That means we are stepping all over it. Guess what THAT means? It means we are inevitably staining up shoes and/or rugs as we traipse back into the house.

 

So you see I am kicking myself in the head for putting in this lovely tree. It gives me fruit, for which I am thankful for - for about 6 weeks. Then I am annoyed. It makes me wonder what I could replace it with. That tree does offer me a LOT of privacy for the window that it is in front of. I just wish I had planted it somewhere else in the yard. :-( 

 

Another case for making absolutely sure that you are putting the right plant int he right place. This plant is NOT in the right place. If it had been place in the back with the other fruit trees, or int he front yard along the fence it wouldn't be on my nerves. Instead I fight with it and the kids lose their playground for a few months a year. Not fair to them.

 

So- FREE mulberry tree! Come And Get IT!

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~

 

Harvest Monday 4.22.13

What a week!

I don't have all the pictures for this week, because it was a complete whirl wind. But I do have a few.

Snap peas, and shelling peas are the stars of the show, but those blueberries? Well, the ones that actually make it into the house... Oh they are DIVINE!!!

I also got 5 jalapeno peppers this week, a radish a carrot (salad, LOL) a tiny tomato, a whole bucket full of eggs and I am keeping an extremely close eye on this little sweetheart: 

This cauliflower has at least doubled in size this week, if not tripled! I'm checking it each day and I'm ready to pull the plug! It's starting to get these little hairy things around the florets and I've never seen that before. I don't know what it means, if anything at all. Also I think it might be a crossbred variety as it's starting to turn slightly orange as it is getting larger.  I CAN NOT WAIT! :-D This one is destined to make a pizza crust and a side dish - it's actually large enough to do both!!! EEEK! (Over the moon here) I also have another heading up the normal way of - oh, that should make a good 3" head. LOL. Oh well. I'm just thrilled I have this one! You should see it on harvest Monday next week.

 

Linking into Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday like always! Be sure to check her place out. She's got the hook up of whats being harvested all over the world! When I checked out my archives last week I realized I've been doing this for THREE years now. Daphne - you are the BOMB for being such a wonderful hostess. 3 years and haven't missed a beat yet!

 

The rain that I was talking about for Saturday? It kind of spit on us here and there, but not enough to make me pull everything inside. (YIPPEE!) I made $230 and my parents made about $50 they only brought over one load of stuff. My friend sat out with me and she had brought one load of stuff. She also made $50. So between all of us $330 for 5 hours of sitting around? Not bad! I still have a table and chairs to sell on Craigslist. Hopefully it will be gone by Friday or else I'm going to take it to Goodwill. I don't like taking too much of my time to sell the stuff, I'd rather give it to someone who needs it. KWIM?

 

Time for some coffee. Hope you have a great day! It's looking like more rain today. I'm happy because this would make 3 days in a row! Remind me of this when I'm complaining in the Summer!?

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~

Oh Magosh!

Lookie! Lookie what I found hiding in my garden!

My potatoes are blooming! It's only been 30 days. How is this possible?

Wait. That is NOT what I came to show you. I'm just too excited about too many things at the moment. My ADHD is showing.

Ain't she Purty!? Oh, I've never actually managed to make a head of cauliflower before. What? I failed to tell you this? Like my massive carrot failure until the past couple of years cauliflower was one of the vegetables that has eluded me. I believe partly because of the fact that I lived farther South and on the coast. The nights never made it below 70 hardly and also because I am trying to grow vegetables in sugar sand. It's just dang HARD to grow good veggies here. Even with all of the composting and amending I do. But, this time, I DID IT! WAHOO!!

 

Only one problem. I have pretty much, no clue whatsoever as to when this head will be ready to harvest. I don't want to leave it so long that it starts to go to flower, but I also don't want to take it too soon and cut off any chance of it gaining size. I mean to mean it's massive just because until now the largest one I've grown was not much larger than a broccoli side shoot! LOL. I want it to be the best it can be. Let's not mention there is a passel of people to feed around me table. ;-)

So I'll be keeping a close eye on this winter white beauty and trying to keep the recent heat wave from letting it go to waste. *sigh* I <3 my veggies!

See you soon!

Barbie~

Rain?

Really?

 

Ya know I pray for the stuff all the time - but just what is it about a specific event that triggers the stuff?

 

There was no rain in the forecast until yesterday.

 

Now it's in for the whole weekend. Of course I have a HUGE garage sale planned this weekend. I NEED to get this crap lovely house full of stuff out of my garage. Now. I've been going through my house for 3 weeks gathering it all up. Now that I'm done, I want it GONE! Sheesh.

I want the rain. I do, I do! I just want it to hold off until 2pm or later, please! Then it can rain the rest of the afternoon if it so pleases. Actually I really do enjoy the rolling thunder and the pitter patter of the rain. *sigh* It's so relaxing.

Just not during a garage sale. LOL.

If you hear strange noises, don't be alarmed. It's just me out doing the hold the rain off 'till afternoon dance.

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~

 

 

The great circle of life.

So I went out to the garden to harvest this weekend and I came to find peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh. Wait. No, that would be peas. Lots of peas.

And into the peas I looked. It appeared to me

 

Yes, really it APPEARED to me

(LOOK - see him?)

Ahem. Yes, It did appear that someone was hunting. But what was this creature stalking?

A stalk?

Just two feet away this stalk stood. Not hurting anyone. But that hunter did see and would not move his eye at all.

It made me wonder what in the world he found so fascinating, and then I saw.

It seems this stalk was not just any, he was stalking his prey on...in this stalk. Oh my how confusing this is. I must remember before I grab that bamboo stalk next time or I may get more than I bargained for!

 

I like having the flying and pollinating insects living in my garden, but... Um... I'm pretty sure that one way or another I will be the one that pays for this one. I'm not sure who to root for. The lizard to get dinner or the wasp to get away. I need the wasp for pollinating, but don't want him living in the bamboo - Hmmm...

 

Tis the Great Circle of Life.

 

Now I leave you humming the tune of Lion King for the rest of the day. Enjoy.

*snicker*

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~

 

Harvest Monday 4.15.13

Tax Day. Have you harvested those yet? We have ours done. We didn't get back nearly what we have in years past, and according to our accountant we will get back even less next year. Oh, joy! :-(  Ah, well - no use worrying about that now.

I'm linking in once again to Dahne's Dandelions. Be sure to stop by her place to see what people are harvesting from all over the world. Thanks Daphne for hosting, once again!

This weeks harvest included massive amounts of peas. The snap peas and the shelling peas were very abundant. I also harvest a few jalapenos, blueberries, mulberries, and the first carrot thinnings of the year. They seemed to grow much faster this year than in the past.

Here are the few pictures I got:

 

Tally: 4oz Blueberry, 1lb shelling peas, 8.3oz snap peas, 1.5oz Jalapeno, 1lb mulberries (I quit weighing them), 6oz radish.

Went to Silvia's this weekend and then came home and had some swim time. It felt great to unwind by the pool. I managed to pick up a blush rose, a coral rose, some purple sweet potatoes, some new starts for garlic chives, a rose geranium, a red angel wing begonia and Cheryl gave me a couple pansy babies that will be gracing my desk here at work as soon as they are strong enough to be repotted. :-) So a great big THANK YOU! to Silvia for opening her home and for all the hard work that goes into the garden swaps . I really appreciate all that you do! Besides, I always walk away inspired to continue to work on  creating the environment that I really want to see in my yard for the future.

Lots of work to be done this week. Those new babies all need to be tended to, plus I have a VERY big garage sale to get ready for. It seems we are trying to sell nearly the whole garage! ;-) I'm kicking my precious car out of the garage, so you know i"m getting serious now.

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~ 

 

My 'Lil Friends

I've had a few visitors to my garden lately. Yup. I'm not completely recluse. Every evening they join me for a sweet drink. We sip natures' nectar and enjoy the setting sun.

OK maybe I am still a recluse. It's a critter. A really cute critter. A really hard to see at dusk critter...

A really tiny critter

that flies really fast, and well - you get the picture.

I may not get a very good picture because it's too dark, but you understand. They seem to be addicted to my orchid tree. I'm OK with that. I enjoy watching them take turns around the flowers, darting this way and that. When they do finally perch on the tree it is all but impossible to find them sitting there - they are so tiny. They are nesting in 2 different trees. One on each side of my house. I'm good with that, too because it means I get to see them more. :-)

 

I don't mind sharing my garden with hummers at all. They don't steal much in the way of my fruits and veggies. I watched one dive bomb my blueberries. It managed to stick the berry and lap up a bit of juice, but for the most part I think it was after a bug that was there and the juice was an added bonus. 

All along the front of the fence I have hibiscus, in the center of the yard spirea, along with other flowers and on the walkway ginger, azalea, and iris line the way. I'm not sure it's the perfect mix, but they apparently have enough around to keep them here. Perhaps I'll gather just a few more butterfly and hummer friendly plants to keep them coming back more often. I've seen them around before, but never more than passing through. Knowing there is not one, but two active nests in my tiny yard is exciting.

:-D

See you soon!

Barbie~

April's State of the Garden Address

It's April and the temps are no longer expected to dip below 50 degrees. Now, I could have said that a month ago and I would have been wrong. But, I actually believe it now. The new planter was sown, the lower planters have been sown that didn't have winter veggies, and I now know what did and did not make it through our few cold nights.

Things that made it through the winter include my little jalapeno plant. It has a good 10 peppers on it at a time. LOVE THAT!
 The few tomatoes that made it through are stunted a bit, but they are setting fruit! YIPPEE! I'll have fresh ripe tomatoes in another month or so. I can't believe it.

 

Peas are doing well from the winter.

 

The perennials are doing well, too. Avocados are finally a possibility on my tally list this year! WAHOO!!! This tree has only 5 on it, but it's the first year in fruit, and we had a massive windstorm not long after the fruit set. I have another tree that is flowering now and one that hasn't even tried to flower yet that is 3 times the size of these trees. I'm excited for the possibility.



The new container has Holstein beans for drying/soup and green beans, too. Its been a week now and the second leaves are beginning to show up. The lower section has Burmese okra, corn, and Lima beans coming along.


The older container has 2 cauliflower in it, potatoes, strawberries, and leeks. I was trying to figure out why this particular cauliflower is so much larger than the others and it dawned on me that this is the corner that I piled the chicken manure in to rot while we waited for the dirt. :-)

The apple tree is out of dormancy that I bought, but the ones that are int he ground are not yet this lush. The poor peach tree... Oh I don't think I'll ever have peaches again. Now that the dang squirrels know they are here it's all over with. See the fruit? This is only a quarter of what was there last week. I keep finding fruit with just a few bites taken out on the ground. It's keeps me fuming. The tree is way too big for putting a net over, so after it is done fruiting this year I may just whack it back to netting size. I'm not sure it will be good for fruit production, but it can't be any worse than not getting anything at all because of the little freaks.

Now, since these are the only pictures I had taken at the time this is the update you get. :-) But, I knew that as always if I just let it wait it wouldn't  get posted. So, I wanted to get it done. Things are looking good and Spring has certainly sprung around here. The harvests are on the upswing and the weather is beautiful. It's getting easier to spend time outside in the evenings, even if it's only 20 or 30 minutes. <3

See you soon!

Barbie~

Come again?

'Moonlight' A white-seeded runner....

Well, now seems as though someone, somewhere along the line screwed something up. Now, I know that runner beans are notorious crossdressers uh make that cross pollinators. But, seriously. I'm buying the seeds for a premium here people! These seeds are out of stock everywhere and have been since fall. So I paid $5 for 15 seeds (and got 2 packets!) only to get the WRONG seeds, or at least not pure seeds. This ticks me off.

Bad news is that I bought them at the end of season last year to plant in our cool winter to try to pull through our fall and into spring. At the time it seemed like it might be worth the effort. Now I think I've waited too long to do anything about getting my money back or an exchange. Good news is almost all beans are edible once they are cooked, I just hope they produce well. The moonlight bean is supposed to be a really fantastic producer.

Only time will tell. Until then - I can only have hope and faith in these little seeds. Maybe Jack's Beanstalk is among them. ;-)

See you soon!

Barbie~

Havest Monday 4.8.13

April is turning out to be a good month for harvesting. It always is, but since i had next to nothing for several months it seems that this month has just exploded. Feast or famine I suppose. :-)

This weeks pictures:

Mulberries are at the top of the harvest list yet again. They tend to steal the show this time of year. Here is just under 6 cups of the the little juicy wonders... I'm only harvesting them twice a week now. Not because I couldn't harvest them every single day, but because I can't mentally deal with them. I don't have time to tend to 2-3 cups each day and there are a few issues starting with them. I'll discuss this later in the week. I still love them, and the kids love eating them, but as in years past we tend to quickly get sick of them. So after about 10 cups a week I quit.

Snap peas joined the harvest this week along with my regular shelling peas, jalapenos, blueberries, strawberries, lettuce 

 

and always present eggs. My kids made me stick the feather in the picture. Apparently my girls are tired of carrying around the same plumage for the past year. Only problem is that none of them are molting entirely either so we have this half molt stage going on where they all look rather scraggly but non of them are doing anything about it. Yet another post I need to get to. ;-)

So tally this week: 5oz shelling peas, 3oz snap peas, 5oz blueberries (forgot to weigh the lettuce we just had salad with it and the strawberries) 1oz jalapeno, 4lb mulberries.

 

Hope your harvesting, too! Don't forget to check in with Daphne to see what people are harvesting all over the world! Thanks Daphne for always being such a great hostess and reminding us to link up!

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~

My new feed reader :-)

So far I'm pretty darn happy with it, and I haven't even subscribed to the 'real' reader yet. I don't know if I will. This reader fits my style and while the paid reader will also incorporate boards that I belong to and social networking I think it may get awfully confusing at that point. That's not to say I won't reconsider in the future, but for now I like it just as a reader.

So, May I introduce you to FeedDemon?

Here is the screen shot of what I see when I first open it up:

It has several options at this point. I can either click on the articles I want to read, mark as read, or manually browse them by selecting where I want to go by using the lists in the column. No matter how I open the articles I want to read, once I do they look like this:

Of course if I really want the full effect I just click on the title of the blog or the topic of the day and it will take me to the blog itself. That also allows me to comment when I feel my voice is necessary.

 

Yum, just look at that dried fruit and roasted nuts. Be still my heart. <3 Yes, this is why I blog and why I can't NOT read everyones blogs every. single. day. I might miss the Holy Grail of recipes! I might miss what someone planted, or harvested or who's kid scraped their precious knee and got a boo-boo, who is down on their luck or on cloud 9? I can't leave these article unread! It's up to me to save the world. ER, Uh - READ the words!

 

OK, so that being said the reader offers several views. Once I've picked around sometimes I switch over to this view. I like it because it offers articles form more sources across different topics. If I leave it in the original view it only shows me the current blog I'm reading usually.

 

Now, I understand that there are a gajillion (it's more than a gazillion) and one of these readers out there. I tested out 4 or 5 of them for myself and this one fit the format I was looking for the best. It does have a lag time of about 20 seconds to a minute after you open it up to update all of your feeds that is a downfall to it for those of us that are incredibly impatient. But, it has it's upsides, too. Unlike Google Reader it operates independent of your browser so once you've opened it and it has synced your feeds you can go back to them at any point in your day without having to move around any web pages or even having to open your Internet browser if you don't want to. For those of us that have certain restrictions on when and where we are reading (work/gym, etc) this is GREAT! It means I can put the blogs on my Kindle at home and take them with me and read throughout the day. YIPPEE!!! No Internet needed.

 

So that is my new feed reader. I'm still watching out for others opinions, but I'm pretty sold on this one.

May I jsut say once again, BOO Google Reader! And, I fully expect a paid version of Google reader to come out just in the nick of time for those procrastinators. LOL.

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~ 

 



To blog or not to blog?

Sometimes I have nothing to say. Other times I have so many topics to cover it's hard to know what to talk about.

Sometimes I shy away because I'm unsure of how to go about cramming so many things into the blog. Do I talk about this child today? That child? Work? Garden? Traffic? Weather? This craft? That thing I'm doing? Trip I took....

 

And because I can't decide my blog sits here and gathers dust. It makes me feel sorry for it. Can a blog do this you ask? Yes, it can. Guilt inducing blog syndrome. It exists. I think. At least in my mind it does, therefore -surely it must! LOL.

 

But seriously. There are so many times that I think to myself that I should put this on there, or that on there and never get around to it. I chide myself that I don't have anyone interested in knowing those details of my life. But, that isn't really what it's about, is it? It's about putting it out there and getting it out of my head and into the world. So, I'm doing just that. I'm going to try to get better at putting this project or that on the blog. I do notice I tend to put the more annoying things here so I'll start with my most current annoyance and work my way out from there.

 

OK so some random things, I know I complained about reader problems. I've found my solution. Spurred on by Granny's post I kept searching until I found the right reader for me. I really dislike the name of it, but that is not something I can do anything about. It's called FeedDemon. I'll post about it later today.

 

I also took my kids to the audiologist/ENT recently. I know I've talked about their special needs before. But, to me they are just my kids. I hate the label and I only think about any of the issues that any other them have whenever I am faced with this issue or that. I was faced with another one of these issues at this last appointment. Well, I suppose I should say I knew about the issue, it was just thrust up in my face and left to dangle there. (joy) 2 out of my 3 kids have hearing issues. It's no secret. I actually thought that this trip may have resulted in my oldest getting a hearing aid. I expected it. But, they didn't do that. Instead they said the same thing that they've been saying the last couple years. 'Come back next year and we'll probably fit him then.' I walked away feeling someone confident with this as I have heard it now for a while. Off and on since he was an infant really. But this time he was diagnosed with a severe hearing loss, not moderate or mild any longer. The doctor had explained that because his loss was almost entirely in the high range it wouldn't affect his speech hearing that much...THAT MUCH? As a teenager taking high school courses just a little is too much! So the more that I think about it and the more research I do the more upset I become with this decision to wait yet another year.

I'm going to seek a second and possibly a third opinion. I want my son to have the best chance for success. I don't want him to feel different, but I do want him to be able to understand those around him and not have to be embarrassed by that. He can always grow his hair out if he wants to hide the hearing aids, right?

Someone feel free to chime in here. I feel so torn on my decision! Teenage angst or better hearing? Wait another year until he's past his 9th grade and already settled into a High School? ARGH!

 

OK, so then I've also got this little sewing project I did. I turned this skirt that was way too short into something usable by  teiring it with the bottom of a shirt that was too small... smart way to reuse clothes if you ask me. :-)

 

See the extra layer I added? It fits my long legged girl SO much better now~

 

My beans are sprouting that I planted last weekend, it's raining outside, and I've got some other projects in the works as well. Some really major ones. We've got a really big garage sale coming up in 2 weeks. After that you'll see the big projects start. We're moving the kids rooms all around.

 

Rich and I are also starting to look at house plans for Alabama. We can't do anything yet, but we are looking. Trying to settle on what would work for us and give us the flexible space we may need for kids coming and going from college and what we may need in our retirement years as we don't want too much space then. It's rather interesting trying to get the right mix of space! The main reason we are doing this now is because of how much of the homesteading we are doing ahead of time. We've been planting a few trees each year trying to get the orchard planted, the blackberry brambles are in place now as well. We want to  put in the shed that we will eventually turn into the chicken coop and  start working on the areas that will be fenced in and... well you get the picture. Unless we know roughly where the house will sit we can't continue to do too much more work with permanent/semi-permanent structures.

 

See, I told you I have too much to talk about. I still have only scratched to surface. So, I'll try to blog more consistantly and try not to let the Harvest Monday post be the only post throughout the week.

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~



Harvest Monday 4.1.13

No April Fool's Jokes here. The only joke is the way I feel after a ton of work in the yard this weekend.

Not only did we get the new container filled up, but the playground got cleaned up and newly mulched, the hedges got trimmed, the lawn got mowed, the seeds got sowed, the chicken coop got cleaned... we spent the entire weekend outside. Except for the 3 hours Easter morning that we spent hunting eggs and doing the whole bunny thing.

 

Harvests this week? Peas, Jalapenos, mulberries, a head of lettuce, radishes and...

THE! FIRST! BLUEBERRIES!

Nom, Nom, Nom. Just for Easter morning. I didn't tell anyone. I didn't show anyone. I scarfed them. Most of the berries have been disappearing just before ripening. Much like my peaches. :-( But these I got to in time! Next year I'll net the bushes, but this year I just don't have enough on the poor bushes to make it worth my time and effort. I'll have to decide what to do with the bushes when they are done producing. Around here it's pretty common to see the big producers cut them hedge style at the end of picking in order to allow the new canes time to grow again before next season. I might do this as this is the second year these plants are int he ground. (They spent one yer in pots getting nursed back to health) They are now just barely large enough to sustain that treatment.

Of course we also harvest eggs. And, given the nature of the week and all, you probably figured out what I did with those eggs, right? Right. I boiled them suckers up and we played with them! The kids a blast this year. I don't think that they even really remember dying them last year. They remember seeing them dyed of course, but not the process and just how messy and fun it can be. I'm always on the look out for special things to do with our eggs, and since I'm just not willing to spend the money to go and buy WHITE eggs for this singular occasion we have to get creative to make them stand out. I think we did a pretty darn good job. If I do say so myself. :-)

 

As for the outside work? I don't have all the pictures, but the two boxes I have pictures of.

The newer box still needs the top finished in brick. They are there and waiting, but they were holding up the side bricks while they dried. LOL. The first box is fully planted now. I snapped a picture from the window of my living room. I don't know if you can really see or not, but it has lettuce, tomato, potato, leek, and strawberries. :-D

 

I'm really enjoying the height of the boxes. It makes it nice to have a seat and be able to garden without breaking my back. No aching knees and no itchy grass, either.

 

Sown this week: Early Sunglow? corn, Henderson bush Lima beans, Top Crop green beans, Burmese okra,  Sierra Gold & Minnesota Midget Cantaloupe, Sugar Baby Watermelon,  Kubocha Sunshine, Yard long cucumber, Cilantro, Genovese, Sweet & Giant basil

(BOX) Contender bush beans, Holstein beans, Sun Spot sunflowers, Eureka, & All Season cucumber, Ground cherries

 

I think that is everything. I may have missed something. I only sowed half the box. I'm still undecided on the other half. I may just wait 2 weeks and fill it in with green beans. Can't go wrong with them around here. :-)

 

See you soon!

 

Barbie~