Ah Freebies!

I really like the people my girls go to church with because they can be so helpful.  We were asked to drive over on Saturday, to pick up a few things.

We got two of these tractor tires, Silver cut the side walls out and we're going to put acorn squash in one (for now) and carrots int he other.  Our regular soil here isn't good enough for carrots but having something that big will give me the chance to fill with enough soil to do carrots.

Then these two barrels, there are at least 6 more waiting for us when we can get them.

See how it's sitting?  These are  going to be a bake oven for my outdoor kitchen.  We just need one more barrel but it has to be a food grade one.  The bottom one will have a rocket like fire chamber but permit larger wood pieces.  That top one will be split in half to be used as the way to let the heat travel around the baking chamber.  We're going to use parts from a barrel stove kit to make this.

This wonderful person who gave us these items also has more regular tires, manure and garden soil they're giving to us for free!  We picked up[ a load of the garden soil yesterday.. three "bucket" loads which only gave that poor 1/2 ton pickup 6 inch clearance on the road on the way home.  Silver said that it wasn't "bottomed out" yet though.  However I don't think i want that much in there again.  It looked like we had half a low rider when we got home and we scraped on our dirt road coming in because of it.

Oh as to the garden...  This is a sun choke sprout:

Eh ok a couple of sprouts, as when I tried for one it was too blurry to be seen.  However the sun chokes do have a war going on with a native plant that I'm not sure I want to kill as I'm like to harvest some when they are ripe.

Those are Mayapples... not a good idea to eat unless you pick when ripe and only eat the fruit.   Around here it's common to make jam with them.  I've been wanting to make some for years, but they don't like direct sun so I'm not sure why they haven't died yet.  They are trying to give my sun chokes a run for their money however.

I have elected as it's been so nice that I'm going to "test" plant a few things that have to wait till after last frost.  As technically normal last frost is about April 15th, however last year we had frosts till mid May.  So I am going to take a partial chance at some plantings and wait on the rest till after mid May to plant.  I am hoping for no more frosts.

Hope your garden is goign well!

Be Well, BE Safe, and Blessed Be...

It's Lives!

I have proof that my garden has some life in it!

This is one of the sun chokes, it has beaten my peas on coming out of the ground.  I'm still waiting on them coming up.  I have had a few peas whose dirt got uncovered showing me they will coming out of the ground any day now.

I swear it wasn't there yesterday, so it had to come out overnight.  I am so excited, I can't wait to see that sun choke bed covered in green life, and now it's a wait to see what comes up next!

Happy growing!

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Garden Starts!

Been busy in the last week or so. We've set up and planted a bed of sun chokes, as everything I have read on them (minus 1) says to plant them while it's still cold out, especially since they all also state you can just dig them as needed. Unless you are diabetic then they say dig them after first hard frost and store till you use.

I started my tomatoes and bell peppers today as well (here's to fingers crossed on the peppers), I have 12 pots of each set up. As I want six plants I am making sure I'll have at least six, I can always plant the extra (more for us then).

I went with my favorite tomato the Cherokee Purple (granted I like the orange smudge Cherokee's better but I can't find them), Silver eats them like they are candy. I am trying the Horizon Bell pepper, from what I read on them they seem to be fairly easy to grow. I just hope they start as I've always had issue starting them.

I have looked around and seems now Seeds of Change has my favorite beans again for sale as seed. So I am going to try to by maybe a pound of them to grow. If they produce enough I should have seed for saving.

We have to start cutting more firewood for this year as we're close to running out (YEAH second burner!), and our blasted chain saw keeps not wanting to start. So that is making life difficult for us there. I am hoping to get my apple trees this year so we can get them in the ground. We have decided on raising some pork, I'm thinking of starting with three animals one boar, one sow and one castrated one for butchering. This way we can raise our own and maybe if we get enough of the piglets sell a couple every year.

Well , that's about it for now.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be