Yesterday was my birthday and it was a very nice day. Had the day off the OHJ and was able to work in the garden all day. Terri made me a birthday dinner and her and Mark gave me a new PC and Printer. So I was ready to get some pictures today and make a couple posts to let you see how the garden is growing.
But I got up this morning and found that BOO-BOO my 15 year old cat had pasted sometime late last night. And because she had not been sick and I did not take her to the Vet, I dig her a grave out on the back 40.
I had just cut that area last week (first time in two years) and there were several maple and pine trees that I left growing out there. I pick a spot near one of the bigger maples for her last resting place.
Boo was my sister-in-laws cat and she picked her up as a stray back in 1996 and when we moved back to tidewater in 98, her and Boo moved in with us. Lisa pasted away in 2003 and I kind of inherited Boo then. So I lived with her for 13 years. She was a once person kind of cat and up until Lisa's passing she was the only one Boo would have any ting to do with. But afterwords, Boo became mine and she would come to me only if she wanted attention or food.
So I have lost another of my kids to the Rainbow Bridge this year. Bella in January and now Boo!
I know that death is part of life, More so on a farm/homestead, But that does not make it any easier!
Next post will be better, I hope!
Tom
Life on a 3 acre Homestead raising 1 dogs, 1 cat and severial thousand worms.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
I WON!!!!.....And first harvest.
Its been a while sense I have had the chance to get back to the Blog and I took a look at the last post (18 may) and there were two comments. Carolyn over at krazoacres.blogspot.com made a comment and gave me the news that I had won her book contest! "Hen and the art of chicken maintenance" Thanks Carolyn! I do not have the chickens yet (Darn OTH JOB has me gone 5 days at a time....no time to tend to the chickens!), But I read up on them as much as I can and I spend a lot of time on other Blog's to see what I can learn. Carolyn's Blog is really great and very informative. As with all the other Blogging friends I have, she has great pictures.
And we have started to harvest from the garden! Cherry tomato's and Patty Pan squash so far. We had to pull the Kale we had planted as it had blotted and was trying to go to seed. Not many leaves from over 20 plants. But it has been HOT and we never did have a spring! It went from winter to summer in a little over a week and the cool weather crops did not do very well. But the heat loving crops are going gang busters. We got potato's (Yukon gold and Superior), Yellow squash,Watermelon and Cantaloupe planted just last week. So the garden is finally in and we will not do any more planting until we put in the fall crops in August.
Oh and the dog that was in my last post, we found her a new home. Four dog's are a little bit much and the family we gave her to has two young kids. So she is happy and so are they!
I will be back at the homestead next Monday and will try and get a post done then with pictures.
Every one take care and I will talk to you later.
Tom
And we have started to harvest from the garden! Cherry tomato's and Patty Pan squash so far. We had to pull the Kale we had planted as it had blotted and was trying to go to seed. Not many leaves from over 20 plants. But it has been HOT and we never did have a spring! It went from winter to summer in a little over a week and the cool weather crops did not do very well. But the heat loving crops are going gang busters. We got potato's (Yukon gold and Superior), Yellow squash,Watermelon and Cantaloupe planted just last week. So the garden is finally in and we will not do any more planting until we put in the fall crops in August.
Oh and the dog that was in my last post, we found her a new home. Four dog's are a little bit much and the family we gave her to has two young kids. So she is happy and so are they!
I will be back at the homestead next Monday and will try and get a post done then with pictures.
Every one take care and I will talk to you later.
Tom
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Two in one day
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| This is about two weeks later then the last post. Squash and Kale. |
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| Here is a picture of the newest member of the clan. She is a stray our neighbor found the other day and we took her in. |
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| Green beans and Beets |
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| Tomato's and more Squash. |
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| Bib lettuce |
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| Marigold |
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| And Sookie trying her hand at gardening |
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| Ellie showing her the finner points taking a dust bath |
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| A volunteer Potato in the compost that I will have to transplant... |
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| And some melons and more squash that have to be moved soon. |
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| Here is another volunteer in the compost. Any body know what it is? |
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| Sookie says "it's Miller Time" |
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| And I have to agree with her! |
Wordless Wednesday
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| Add caption |
The free wood that is used to make the box for each raised bed
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| Rosemary and a few Tomato's planted |
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| Volunteer squash |
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| More squash |
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| One of two pear trees on the place. No fruit this year. |
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| Leaves ready to go into the worm beds. |
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| No trees on my place, so I pick them up bagged at curb side. |
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| Use this to shred them before wetting them down....And |
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| Placed in the bed with the worms. |
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| This is the bed that I set up last year and it looked like the one above back then. But its ready to be harvested and sorted. |
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| A volunteer squash that made it into a pot. |
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| Four additional beds ready for planting |
Saturday, May 14, 2011
No Pictures, But lots of news!
Sorry it has been awhile, but major computer problems have kept me from making any post as of late. Got a virus and it killed my system and it took an act of God to get rid of it! And its still not right, and I can't seem to be able to down load any of the pictures I have taken of the spring planting.
But I can sure write about it here!
We started seeds in the house under lights in late February and early March. And as the weather started to warm up, I started to construct the boxes we would use for raised beds. All the wood I used was free for the taking and I built 7 boxes (4' X 8' X 10"). And we put together our own growing medium to fill each one.
The mix consists of 2 parts shifted fill dirt, 1 part composted cow manure, one part top soil and 1/2 part worm casts (This is potent stuff!). After mixing this all by hand, it is loaded into the boxes until the level reaches the top. And then we plant!
I did not keep very good records this year, But I know we have 5 kinds of tomato's, 3 kinds of peppers, Green beans, Beets, Kohlrabi, Turnips, Kale, Broccoli and 3 kinds of Squash.
The Squash is the funny part of this years garden! Back around Christmas I fead two rotten Pumpkin's to the worms I had in the house and they went through it like crazy! But they left the seeds alone and as the temps started to go up, the seed germinated right in the worm bed! We ended up with over 50 starter plants and have transplanted then throughout the garden area. Some in the raised beds and some in the area around the beds.
And speaking of worms! They did realy well through the winter. I kept them suplied with food material ( Kitchen scraps, Horse manure and cut grass) and bedding material (sherdded leaves, newprint, cardboard and cut grass). This past week I built them a second box and sorted out as meny of the worms (there is no way I got all of them out of the casts!) as I could and harvested eight 5 - gallon buckets of casts out of half of the first bed. The way I did this is two weeks before I wanted too harvest, I placed two buckets of composted hourse manure in one end of the bed. This being the only food sourse, the worms migrated to that end of the box. And last week I started shifting the material I shoveled out of the bed. I put it all through a home made 1/4" shifting box I made and picked out the worms I could see and placed them in the new bed. They seem to be settling in quite well.
But back to the garden. Tomatoes and squash have flowers and some fruit starting to show and thoes seeds we dirctly planted are starting to push up thrugh the soil.
Monday I will be putting together another box. It will be somewhat bigger then the others. At 8' X 8' X 10" and will be use to plant Watermellon and Cantilope.
I have been doing a lot of reading about Hoop House's and how you can use them to extened the growing season for fall crops. I think that will be my next project to tackle.
Oh, and I have two whole Red Pears growing on the pear tree this year! We got a heavy frost right after the trees went into bloom and one of the trees blooms were killed and the other has only been able to produce the two. O'well, the trials of a Homesteader!
Talk to you later.
Tom
But I can sure write about it here!
We started seeds in the house under lights in late February and early March. And as the weather started to warm up, I started to construct the boxes we would use for raised beds. All the wood I used was free for the taking and I built 7 boxes (4' X 8' X 10"). And we put together our own growing medium to fill each one.
The mix consists of 2 parts shifted fill dirt, 1 part composted cow manure, one part top soil and 1/2 part worm casts (This is potent stuff!). After mixing this all by hand, it is loaded into the boxes until the level reaches the top. And then we plant!
I did not keep very good records this year, But I know we have 5 kinds of tomato's, 3 kinds of peppers, Green beans, Beets, Kohlrabi, Turnips, Kale, Broccoli and 3 kinds of Squash.
The Squash is the funny part of this years garden! Back around Christmas I fead two rotten Pumpkin's to the worms I had in the house and they went through it like crazy! But they left the seeds alone and as the temps started to go up, the seed germinated right in the worm bed! We ended up with over 50 starter plants and have transplanted then throughout the garden area. Some in the raised beds and some in the area around the beds.
And speaking of worms! They did realy well through the winter. I kept them suplied with food material ( Kitchen scraps, Horse manure and cut grass) and bedding material (sherdded leaves, newprint, cardboard and cut grass). This past week I built them a second box and sorted out as meny of the worms (there is no way I got all of them out of the casts!) as I could and harvested eight 5 - gallon buckets of casts out of half of the first bed. The way I did this is two weeks before I wanted too harvest, I placed two buckets of composted hourse manure in one end of the bed. This being the only food sourse, the worms migrated to that end of the box. And last week I started shifting the material I shoveled out of the bed. I put it all through a home made 1/4" shifting box I made and picked out the worms I could see and placed them in the new bed. They seem to be settling in quite well.
But back to the garden. Tomatoes and squash have flowers and some fruit starting to show and thoes seeds we dirctly planted are starting to push up thrugh the soil.
Monday I will be putting together another box. It will be somewhat bigger then the others. At 8' X 8' X 10" and will be use to plant Watermellon and Cantilope.
I have been doing a lot of reading about Hoop House's and how you can use them to extened the growing season for fall crops. I think that will be my next project to tackle.
Oh, and I have two whole Red Pears growing on the pear tree this year! We got a heavy frost right after the trees went into bloom and one of the trees blooms were killed and the other has only been able to produce the two. O'well, the trials of a Homesteader!
Talk to you later.
Tom
Sunday, April 17, 2011
A night of destruction!
Hello everyone,
Last night was a very worrisome night! I was at work and out at the truck gate and could see the the storm coming! This is the worst thunder storm to hit North Carolina and South/East Virgina in 27 years!
There are reports of 11 dead in the county I live in (Bertie) and the destruction is horrendous! The town of Coletrain is a few miles south east of where my homestead is and 3 members of one family are dead!
I have not been home in almost a week, I stay in town with a friend dunning the work week to save on the cost of gas (115 miles round trip each day was getting to be costly!). And I have been having trouble with my computer ( That's the reason I have not posted much lately).
So tonight I will go home after work and have the next two days off. I do not know if there is any damage or clean up to do. But my neighbor's would have called me if there were. So I guess that it will be two days of working out side on the normal corse's of cutting grass and getting more of the garden in. and get some worms sorted out to place in the new box I built for them last week
I hope to have my computer problems fixed in the next few days (I'm posting this from work), because I have a lot to up date you on and pictures I want to post So keep your fingers crossed
Tom
Last night was a very worrisome night! I was at work and out at the truck gate and could see the the storm coming! This is the worst thunder storm to hit North Carolina and South/East Virgina in 27 years!
There are reports of 11 dead in the county I live in (Bertie) and the destruction is horrendous! The town of Coletrain is a few miles south east of where my homestead is and 3 members of one family are dead!
I have not been home in almost a week, I stay in town with a friend dunning the work week to save on the cost of gas (115 miles round trip each day was getting to be costly!). And I have been having trouble with my computer ( That's the reason I have not posted much lately).
So tonight I will go home after work and have the next two days off. I do not know if there is any damage or clean up to do. But my neighbor's would have called me if there were. So I guess that it will be two days of working out side on the normal corse's of cutting grass and getting more of the garden in. and get some worms sorted out to place in the new box I built for them last week
I hope to have my computer problems fixed in the next few days (I'm posting this from work), because I have a lot to up date you on and pictures I want to post So keep your fingers crossed
Tom
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
A little bit of spring
Last Monday and Tuesday (21 and 22 March) we had two days of spring. The temps were in the 70's and it stayed above 50 both nights! So we were able to get some outside work done.
The first of what I believe will be many raised beds was put together and filled with growing medium. You can see a pile of dirt in the back ground that makes up a large portion of that medium. I had my neighbor bring us two dump truck loads of dirt. It all has to be shifted to remove rocks and other trash from it and it is mostly sand, but we add peat moss, worm casts and compost at a rate of 5 to 1. This makes for a very loose mix and if (and when ) weeds get in there, they will be easy to remove.
We also got seeds started. Tomatoes and some lettuice. Because we used a lot of compost in the mix, we also got a lot of volinteer pumpkin plants. At last count, 46!
As you can see from the above photo, the whole thing will be covered with chicken wire. This will (I hope!) keep the rabbits and deer out of the bed until the plants are big enough to produce a harvest. And the coast of this construction project? $6.00! The coast of the 1/2" PVC pipe that forms the three hoops. The other materials I had on hand or got for free. The wood I get from a import company that would rather have me take it, then have to pay the city to pick it up and take it to the land-fill. You can see that we tilled the area before placing the box and that there is mulch around it. There is cardboard under that mulch and the next box will be placed to the right of this box. And as we add boxes, we will have two rows running back toward the shed.
This is the little work horse that we use to do all our tilling, mowing and bush hogging. Its small but it gets the work done. Mowing is the job that takes the most time (we have 6 acres to mow!). And when we get it done, we have to start all over again!
Here are some pictures of that spring day.
But old man winter does not want to let go his grip! The days following the two days of spring, came back with day-time temps dropping into the 40's and hard frost's at night. Today is the first time we have see the sun in a week and it may get into the 60's today. But the rest of the week is predicted to be rain and cold (still!).
So I better get out side and get as much done as I can. As "The Duke" would say "We are burring day-light" (and what movie is that from?)
Talk to you later.
Tom
The first of what I believe will be many raised beds was put together and filled with growing medium. You can see a pile of dirt in the back ground that makes up a large portion of that medium. I had my neighbor bring us two dump truck loads of dirt. It all has to be shifted to remove rocks and other trash from it and it is mostly sand, but we add peat moss, worm casts and compost at a rate of 5 to 1. This makes for a very loose mix and if (and when ) weeds get in there, they will be easy to remove.
We also got seeds started. Tomatoes and some lettuice. Because we used a lot of compost in the mix, we also got a lot of volinteer pumpkin plants. At last count, 46!
As you can see from the above photo, the whole thing will be covered with chicken wire. This will (I hope!) keep the rabbits and deer out of the bed until the plants are big enough to produce a harvest. And the coast of this construction project? $6.00! The coast of the 1/2" PVC pipe that forms the three hoops. The other materials I had on hand or got for free. The wood I get from a import company that would rather have me take it, then have to pay the city to pick it up and take it to the land-fill. You can see that we tilled the area before placing the box and that there is mulch around it. There is cardboard under that mulch and the next box will be placed to the right of this box. And as we add boxes, we will have two rows running back toward the shed.
This is the little work horse that we use to do all our tilling, mowing and bush hogging. Its small but it gets the work done. Mowing is the job that takes the most time (we have 6 acres to mow!). And when we get it done, we have to start all over again!
Here are some pictures of that spring day.
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| One of the two pear trees in bloom. |
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| And one of the raised beds we built in Marks flower bed last fall. Daipodils, Tullips, Pansy's and Flowing Kale. We built 10 boxes and planted lots of bulbs that are blooming like crazy! |
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| As you can see, the flowering Kale over-wintered well and as the weather got warmer, it came back in a big way! |
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| Elie (Marks dog) just soaking up the sun and chilling out! |
But old man winter does not want to let go his grip! The days following the two days of spring, came back with day-time temps dropping into the 40's and hard frost's at night. Today is the first time we have see the sun in a week and it may get into the 60's today. But the rest of the week is predicted to be rain and cold (still!).
So I better get out side and get as much done as I can. As "The Duke" would say "We are burring day-light" (and what movie is that from?)
Talk to you later.
Tom
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