Showing posts with label garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label garden. Show all posts
Friday, May 31, 2013
Garden pics #2
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Garden pics #1
Grapes two months ago.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Half garden planted
I already had potatoes, peas, several different kinds of cabbage, celeriac planted. Today I planted seeds for kale, sunflowers, several different kinds of beets (a lot), carrots and hubby planted his tomato plants. I'm going to wait until it gets warmer to plant some cucumbers, melons and such. I'm trying some companion planting this year. We'll see how it turns out. It is such a pretty day out. Rain is on the way tonight and all day tomorrow. Nearby farm has fresh strawberries. I need to get me some...yum. Other than that, not much going on here. I hope it's warming up where you are.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Gardening update
Hubby finally got the garden rototilled and then I planted my potatoes. Then I planted some peas in between the potatoes (they are supposed to be good companion plantings together). We have cabbage, celeriac and tomato seedlings almost ready to go in. Have to wait another couple of weeks to be past the last frost date here.
The chickens are really putting out the eggs. This is their third year. Hoping they live and lay for a while since we don't plan on getting any chicks for a year at least.
The blueberries and cherry trees have lots of buds. Keeping my fingers crossed that we will have lots of cherries this year as last year there were lots but they all dropped off...:( Not too worried about the blueberries, they are soooooo prolific every year.
The chickens are really putting out the eggs. This is their third year. Hoping they live and lay for a while since we don't plan on getting any chicks for a year at least.
The blueberries and cherry trees have lots of buds. Keeping my fingers crossed that we will have lots of cherries this year as last year there were lots but they all dropped off...:( Not too worried about the blueberries, they are soooooo prolific every year.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Hanging clothes
Note to self: Hanging clothes on the line in 33 degree weather is not a great idea.
Not much happening here. Can't wait to plant our garden. How about you?
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Long time no see
Yep I'm back again. I've been busy just doing day to day things. I've been selling things on Ebay and getting rid of other things just to get ready for the cabin adventure. I've been sewing a lot and knitting a lot too. Here are some pics:
Thought I better start making some socks as ours are getting rather hard to mend anymore what with all the holes :) Next on the needles are some socks for hubby. I also have on the needles a sweater for hubby and another one for myself. Yes I multitask LOL.
Don't know if you can see this but I wanted to show you how to piece batting on something you are quilting. You line up the pieces and sew them together.
And here's the top of the table topper. I have since finished this. Need to get a pic of the finished topper for you. To make this topper you need 5" squares and 2 1/2" squares. Place the smaller squares on opposite sides and sew from corner to corner (you can mark them on the back but I just winged it). Cut off the excess triangles. (Don't throw these triangles away. I have an idea I'll share in a later post) I squared them up to measure 5" and then tried out the placement on the table to see how they looked the best and then sew them together. I used a 5" border. I used two packages of precuts for this and had plenty left over to make another one plus. The squares I used weren't even from the same designer but I think they look great together.
On the home front, our chickens have started laying again. Boy did we ever miss our home grown eggs. We were getting them from an Amish farm but their eggs just didn't even compare to ours. They keep their chickens penned up and ours have access to fresh grass - big taste difference! We've been juicing and drinking our green juice every chance we get. I give the pulp to the chickens. They do not like carrots and their run is looking a little orange ;) but they do like the greens. I even had some chard and parsley growing in the garden so pulled some chard leaves for the chickens and juiced some of them for us too. I picked a little bit of the parsley (left some to grow) and dried it. mmmm parsley potatoes mmmm.
I started some seeds and the plants are up and just waiting to get bigger and the weather to cooperate so I can plant them. The weather today is pretty yucky. It's turning colder and it's raining. Last week we were over two inches above normal for the year. Hope it keeps up and we have no drought this year. I have to wait for a sunny day to hang my clothes out on the line so I did them yesterday since it was so beautiful out but the week before I had almost two weeks worth of laundry. No fun doing that much laundry. Took me all day.
Cabin News- We burned a lot of brush and small twigs. We pulled up some rotten tree stumps but need to take our saw with us next time so we can cut some of them out. The wet weather does help with this kind of job. It would have been so much harder if the ground would have been really dry.
I guess that catches you up on my life, how's yours been?
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Wow...
It's been a while huh? Well here are some pics for your viewing pleasure and some updates as well.
I had planted walking onions this year and these are the top set onions I had left over after replanting them again this fall. I thought I would use them in soups. They kind of look like pearl onions don't they? I just froze them. Took me a while to peel these because they are so small.
Here are the sloppy joes that I canned. Boy are they yummy. I also canned some regular meat sauce too.
When you have a cat and a box...well you know what happens LOL. Here is the pic without flash, can you see Tikki?
Oooh isn't he spooky LOL. By the time I took this pic he was ready to get out of the box realizing that he isn't invisible after all ;)
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Assorted pics from June and July

Monday, July 23, 2012
What I did on my summer vacation...
We went to Pulaski and did a little sightseeing one day, bought some corn and tomatoes from the Amish and then came back home.
No we did more than that LOL. One day I did six loads of laundry, canned spaghetti sauce, tomato juice and the next day did corn. We ripped out the carpet in our bedroom and laid down laminate flooring which took two days. And now we are sore, all over and tired. I think I need a vacation from my vacation ;) I did laundry yesterday and it rained...thought it was going to just be cloudy. Oh well it did dry and now it is rain water soft LOL.
We're still on vacation so we'll see what else we can do...and keep ourselves out of trouble we promise :)
No we did more than that LOL. One day I did six loads of laundry, canned spaghetti sauce, tomato juice and the next day did corn. We ripped out the carpet in our bedroom and laid down laminate flooring which took two days. And now we are sore, all over and tired. I think I need a vacation from my vacation ;) I did laundry yesterday and it rained...thought it was going to just be cloudy. Oh well it did dry and now it is rain water soft LOL.
We're still on vacation so we'll see what else we can do...and keep ourselves out of trouble we promise :)
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Little update
GARDEN/HOUSE:
We finally got rain. I could hear the plants and trees sighing, no actually I could, really. The seeds we planted while waiting for rain all came up so looks like we might be having some cukes and beans after all. DH has off this week and we are going to do some work around the house. We want to finish the floors in the living room and two small bedrooms. And we are going to tear out the carpeting in our bedroom and put down laminate in that room as well. We also have to do all the closet floors. Then DH is going to till the garden again and we are going to plant some more seeds for our fall garden. We have never planted a fall garden so this is all new to us. With the drought, there was one nice thing. Not very many bugs. But then there weren't very many plants either LOL.
I have been getting a lot of little peppers and tomatoes off the garden. I have been freezing them until I have enough to can up some sketti sauce. I found a recipe for hot sauce I want to try since the peppers that survived are all hot ones.
KITCHEN:
I actually canned some plum preserves the other day. DH saw them and decided to buy them. We brought them home, he tasted one and said they are sour and hard as a rock. Yep he was right they are sour and hard as rocks. After spending a couple of hours pitting and chopping them up, I told him do not EVER get these again. My fingers were sore until the next day. But and here's the thing, they made wonderful preserves. I had to taste test them before they were canned LOL. I put them in the slow cooker and let them go on high for about four hours. That softened them up. I still didn't use all of them either so I was thinking maybe I could put them with another fruit (blueberries or boysenberries since I have lots in the freezer) and make some jam. Has anyone done this before? I think they are Damson plums but I'm not sure.
I got some green peppers from the Amish last week and cut those up and put them in the freezer so I can make my grandma's pepper relish since we are on the last jar of that. When I make up a batch it usually lasts a couple of years. At this rate I won't have to make up any relish or jellies/jams/preserves for at least 2-3 years.
I also have all those potatoes I got from the garden. I'm thinking of canning most of those up. I had canned some store bought potatoes in the fall and those were real handy to make some hashbrowns for breakfast. I also have a bunch of hamburger I want to can up too. I don't want to wait until we loose electricity and then say I should have canned it up.
CHICKENS:
The girls are doing fine. We had been giving them watermelon and had a fan on them during the heatwave. Maybe we were giving them a little too much watermelon cause they kind of got the squirts, poor things. We have two that we are going to have to clean their butts up. This is something that we always look forward to...next flock we get will be handled more cause chasing chickens is not a lot of fun.
CATS:
The cats are doing great except Roxy who seems to be feeling his age lately. Penny is loving the outdoors and in all that heat she wanted to go out but she wouldn't come in when you called. Crazy girl! And she crawls under the door to the chickens fenced in area and stays with them. I don't know maybe they have a girl get together :) Tikki has been his lazy self but has been jumping up on the bed after DH leaves in the morning so I can make a fuss over him.
QUILTING:
I worked on a small quilt and got most of the quilting done on it. I just have to bind it and it will be done. I also started quilting on another one and almost have that done except the binding. I knitted up a little pair of footies for me. I only had one little ball of yarn in this particular colorway and thought I would try to make a pair. I even had a little bit left over. The ball only had about 200 yards in it which isn't quite enough to make a decent pair of socks. I have a couple of more 200 yard balls in my stash so I think I will be making some more.
READING:
Right now I'm reading Uncle Tom's Cabin. It's not bad and really interesting that it was written before the Civil War. If you haven't read it, it's about slavery. Some parts kind of slow down the narrative but when you think that the author actually lived during this time and saw these things going on it really makes you think. I have a lot more to read after I get done with this one. I checked my Kindle and I have 7 pages of books on there. Each page is 10 books so that's 70 I have to read. Like I don't have other things that have to get done...
NEW PLACE:
We called around to see how much it would be to put in a water well. The two places we called it was going to be over $6000. Crazy. Of course, it was just a guesstimate because they really don't know how far down they have to drill but that price was the minimum. We have a couple more places to call. Hopefully we can find someone more reasonable. We have decided to get a little cabin. We looked at a few and really liked them. DH is saying now maybe we should have bought a piece of land with a house and well already on it. I could say I told him so but I won't ;) He thought it would be cheaper to get a piece of property and put a cabin on it...ummm NO. We went to Marvin's (a building supply store) today to look around. And we kept saying we need one of those and a few of those and....you get the picture. This cabin is just the shell. If we have extra windows we want to be put in they will put them in for $50 extra but we have to buy the windows. Marvin's has excellent prices but I told DH that we should check at Home Depot and Lowe's because they have returns and scratched and dented things that they put on sale. Now of course I know that windows and doors can't be too dented. You have to be able to open and close them but a few cosmetic scratches doesn't hurt the operation of them and I have seen some pretty good deals before in those stores. Oh and the well situation, we asked about whether they douse (you know when someone goes around with a stick or two metal rods and locates water) and the one driller just laughed. Hey if someone can find water and there is less ground to drill through I think we might try it. Jeez Louise we all aren't made of money. Anyway I remembered that one of my books in the Foxfire set had something about wells in it so I looked and yes in volume #4 there is all about dowsing and well digging. So DH and I decided that we will try to douse. We're not going to dig however. That can be dangerous. Wish us luck! I'll let you know what we find if anything.
Well I think I caught you up on everything for now. I hope to get some pics up soon.
Talk to ya later!
Denise
We finally got rain. I could hear the plants and trees sighing, no actually I could, really. The seeds we planted while waiting for rain all came up so looks like we might be having some cukes and beans after all. DH has off this week and we are going to do some work around the house. We want to finish the floors in the living room and two small bedrooms. And we are going to tear out the carpeting in our bedroom and put down laminate in that room as well. We also have to do all the closet floors. Then DH is going to till the garden again and we are going to plant some more seeds for our fall garden. We have never planted a fall garden so this is all new to us. With the drought, there was one nice thing. Not very many bugs. But then there weren't very many plants either LOL.
I have been getting a lot of little peppers and tomatoes off the garden. I have been freezing them until I have enough to can up some sketti sauce. I found a recipe for hot sauce I want to try since the peppers that survived are all hot ones.
KITCHEN:
I actually canned some plum preserves the other day. DH saw them and decided to buy them. We brought them home, he tasted one and said they are sour and hard as a rock. Yep he was right they are sour and hard as rocks. After spending a couple of hours pitting and chopping them up, I told him do not EVER get these again. My fingers were sore until the next day. But and here's the thing, they made wonderful preserves. I had to taste test them before they were canned LOL. I put them in the slow cooker and let them go on high for about four hours. That softened them up. I still didn't use all of them either so I was thinking maybe I could put them with another fruit (blueberries or boysenberries since I have lots in the freezer) and make some jam. Has anyone done this before? I think they are Damson plums but I'm not sure.
I got some green peppers from the Amish last week and cut those up and put them in the freezer so I can make my grandma's pepper relish since we are on the last jar of that. When I make up a batch it usually lasts a couple of years. At this rate I won't have to make up any relish or jellies/jams/preserves for at least 2-3 years.
I also have all those potatoes I got from the garden. I'm thinking of canning most of those up. I had canned some store bought potatoes in the fall and those were real handy to make some hashbrowns for breakfast. I also have a bunch of hamburger I want to can up too. I don't want to wait until we loose electricity and then say I should have canned it up.
CHICKENS:
The girls are doing fine. We had been giving them watermelon and had a fan on them during the heatwave. Maybe we were giving them a little too much watermelon cause they kind of got the squirts, poor things. We have two that we are going to have to clean their butts up. This is something that we always look forward to...next flock we get will be handled more cause chasing chickens is not a lot of fun.
CATS:
The cats are doing great except Roxy who seems to be feeling his age lately. Penny is loving the outdoors and in all that heat she wanted to go out but she wouldn't come in when you called. Crazy girl! And she crawls under the door to the chickens fenced in area and stays with them. I don't know maybe they have a girl get together :) Tikki has been his lazy self but has been jumping up on the bed after DH leaves in the morning so I can make a fuss over him.
QUILTING:
I worked on a small quilt and got most of the quilting done on it. I just have to bind it and it will be done. I also started quilting on another one and almost have that done except the binding. I knitted up a little pair of footies for me. I only had one little ball of yarn in this particular colorway and thought I would try to make a pair. I even had a little bit left over. The ball only had about 200 yards in it which isn't quite enough to make a decent pair of socks. I have a couple of more 200 yard balls in my stash so I think I will be making some more.
READING:
Right now I'm reading Uncle Tom's Cabin. It's not bad and really interesting that it was written before the Civil War. If you haven't read it, it's about slavery. Some parts kind of slow down the narrative but when you think that the author actually lived during this time and saw these things going on it really makes you think. I have a lot more to read after I get done with this one. I checked my Kindle and I have 7 pages of books on there. Each page is 10 books so that's 70 I have to read. Like I don't have other things that have to get done...
NEW PLACE:
We called around to see how much it would be to put in a water well. The two places we called it was going to be over $6000. Crazy. Of course, it was just a guesstimate because they really don't know how far down they have to drill but that price was the minimum. We have a couple more places to call. Hopefully we can find someone more reasonable. We have decided to get a little cabin. We looked at a few and really liked them. DH is saying now maybe we should have bought a piece of land with a house and well already on it. I could say I told him so but I won't ;) He thought it would be cheaper to get a piece of property and put a cabin on it...ummm NO. We went to Marvin's (a building supply store) today to look around. And we kept saying we need one of those and a few of those and....you get the picture. This cabin is just the shell. If we have extra windows we want to be put in they will put them in for $50 extra but we have to buy the windows. Marvin's has excellent prices but I told DH that we should check at Home Depot and Lowe's because they have returns and scratched and dented things that they put on sale. Now of course I know that windows and doors can't be too dented. You have to be able to open and close them but a few cosmetic scratches doesn't hurt the operation of them and I have seen some pretty good deals before in those stores. Oh and the well situation, we asked about whether they douse (you know when someone goes around with a stick or two metal rods and locates water) and the one driller just laughed. Hey if someone can find water and there is less ground to drill through I think we might try it. Jeez Louise we all aren't made of money. Anyway I remembered that one of my books in the Foxfire set had something about wells in it so I looked and yes in volume #4 there is all about dowsing and well digging. So DH and I decided that we will try to douse. We're not going to dig however. That can be dangerous. Wish us luck! I'll let you know what we find if anything.
Well I think I caught you up on everything for now. I hope to get some pics up soon.
Talk to ya later!
Denise
Monday, June 4, 2012
And still more pics!
I think this is the last of them on my camera for now.
DH on the mower. This part of the land is really stony. He's already hit a few rocks and will need to sharpen the blades soon. Oh for you guys out there, it's a John Deere.
My Christmas cactus blooming in May. I put it outside on my porch every year for the summer. It loves the heat and humidity but has never bloomed out there.
This is my other lavender. This is what I use for my lavender jelly. If you look really closely you might see the bees. We have a lot of mason bees but not too many honey bees. That's OK we love all the pollinators ;)
Isn't this pretty! The blooms have just started on this. I will try to get a pic when all the blooms are out.
This is my frog I have in with my lavender...DH got a little carried away with the weed eater. He came in and said he took the eyes off my frog. We have a little toad that lives in our backyard and I thought he meant that he had hurt the toad. I was very upset but then when he showed it to me I just laughed. The frog is just a decoration, the toad on the other hand eats the bugs. I love my toad but only like my frog. Guess Mr. Froggy is going to have to visit the garbage can...LOL. (Oh and I don't know what happened to his eyes, I couldn't find them. Maybe the weed eater pulverized them)
Here are my sunflowers. These are the first ones that I have had that are short and stocky. I didn't plant them. These are from the sunflower seeds that the chicks didn't eat. We had about six come up. These ones here and three in the chicken pasture. Needless to say the ones in the chick area did not make it. They ate them down to nubs. When these get big enough and start to dry out in the fall, we'll put the seeds into the chicken feed. I might scatter a few in with the oats DH grows. Amazing he didn't mow these down LOL.
These are our blueberries. They are starting to come off now and I am overloaded with them. Whatever we don't eat fresh will be frozen to be canned later. The branches are so loaded with berries they are hanging on the ground. I pick them every day.
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