4/7/2013

Yesterday, we planted some more flats of bedding plants.  I did find that handling the tiny seeds with a pair of plain old tweezers made it easier for me to hang on to them and get them in those little disks:

11 jalapeno pepper

13 nasturtiums

12 sweet banana peppers

18 bell peppers

18 Marconi peppers

24 pansies

24 petunias

He spent his birthday yesterday at the farmer's market in Ava with one of our granddaughters.  They had a good time.  He sold all the Rhode Island Red hens but couldn't even give the rooster away.  He sold one of the Kiko-cross does, but brought the other one back home with him.  He also bought 5 big California/New Zealand cross rabbits for $3 apiece.  They are young rabbits but they're already good sized.

He potted up 3 big hanging pots of philodendrons day before yesterday, and put up a hanger above each bedroom window.  We'll probably put the third pot out in the greenhouse, as he and his sis put the shade cloth on today.  This morning, we also trimmed back the ice plant pretty hard and he worked up a basket that should look very nice when it starts growing in there.  

At this time, he is just putting the last screws on the plant rail that he hung out on the front porch for hanging baskets of flowers and veggies.  It looks great already, and the baskets will be just the right height for me to be able to water them from in the porch.  It's been a busy few days.

Garden 2013 (04/03/2013)

Garden 2013

Since we have 12+ cabbage plants in greenhouse, he will not start more or plant cabbage in the outdoor gardens till fall.  That will give us plenty of fresh cabbage, plus dehydrated cabbage for cooking with, and maybe even give him enough to make some homemade kraut.  In the meantime, he's been filling up little planter cells like mad.  So far he has planted the following for the outdoor gardens.

Starter Plants to go Outside:

24 Mortgage lifter tomatoes.

12 beef-steak tomatoes.

6 Chadwick cherry tomatoes

16 green peppers

6 habanero peppers

24 broccoli

24 cauliflower

24 brussel sprouts

Sounds like a lot of tomatoes, but we always can tomatoes, tomato juice, sauce, and salsa.  Tomato juice and canned tomatoes are the one thing we run out of every single year.  We got our order of hanging basket planters today.  That was pretty fast on the shipping for those.  We did pick up a few bags of potting soil in town to day to get a start on a few hanging baskets too.

04/01/2013

New projects will be under way soon.  Today, he brought home all the parts to build a "plant rail" along the front porch.  We ordered some 10" hanging baskets yesterday for this same project.  The rail will hold hanging baskets full of both flowers and vegetables.  Photos will be posted as the project gets underway.  He also got some more seeds for plant starts in the greenhouse and some for the hanging baskets also.

In the meantime, he took 7 goats to the livestock auction about 10 days ago.  He also sold a nice little Nubian doe kid a few days ago.  We do have a few little doe kids left, but he's only keeping one.  She is a little red Nubian doe kid with silver spots that he has been calling Frosty.  Then we're keeping the buck, along with Moon (who should be pregnant now), and of course we have the werther out there to keep the buck company.  He came home from the swap meet Saturday with two pair of BB Red bantams also.  He's going to get rid of a half dozen of our bigger Rhode Island Red laying hens and maybe one of the roosters, and we'll keep the banties instead.  Banty chickens forage for themselves better than full-sized chickens do.

The fat hog will be on it's way to the processing plant some time Wednesday.  This will probably be the least amount of livestock we've had for quite some time.

3/13/2013

We have cherry tomatoes on our vines out in the greenhouse!!  They aren't ripe yet, but they are actual tomatoes!  We're still enjoying fresh salads with all the lettuce, spinach, carrots, cucumbers, and radishes right out of the greenhouse.  I have no clue how much money we've saved by growing it versus buying it, but we sure have been enjoying it.  :-)

2/28/2013

Winter salads have consisted of a mix of gourmet lettuce seeds called Rocky Top mix:

Rocky Top mix lettuce

Plus we've been able to throw in spinach, carrots, cucumbers, and snow peas.

Danvers half-long carrots

sugar snap edible pod snow peas

cucumbers and wandering Jew in hanging baskets

He also has some cherry tomatoes, green beans, and cabbage growing out there.

Cabbage plants

Chadwick cherry tomatoes

Of course, we have had to heat the greenhouse at night due to some of the warmer-weather plants out there.  Next winter, he says he'll try it with just cool-weather crops and see how that does.

2/24/2013

Our visit with our son and family was all too short (as always) but a good visit.  It's been a while since we had four kids in the house.  We've been getting cucumbers out of the greenhouse now, and they are wonderful!  He did pull all the kohlrabi, as they were starting to bolt.  This morning, he planted 2 rows of carrots and 2 rows of radishes in the spot where he pulled the kohlrabi.

It's really been wonderful to have all the produce out of the greenhouse this winter.  We've had fresh salad any time we wanted.  We've shared salad with all the family members here on the mountain and with the neighbor lady down the hill too.

He has been busy working up firewood also.  Hopefully, we'll only have another month of burning wood; that is, IF the groundhog was right.  LOL  So far, since Groundhog day, we seem to have gotten more winter weather.

We didn't get much for snow during the "big storm".  We got a light dusting of snow, then about 1 & 1/2 inches of sleet/ice on top of that.  It was melting by the following day (yesterday).  Today, it is 58 degrees out, and we've been hanging clothes on the clothesline both days.

We were prepared for a power outage, but we never had a glitch, even though there was tons of thunder and lightening to go with the sleet and freezing rain.  We thought it might be a good opportunity to test out the solar system, but it didn't hurt my feelings not to lose power.  We've been using the solar lights on a regular basis at night, plus the dining room television, the laptop, and the radio all run regularly on the solar array.  None of that really seems to affect the power stored unless we get a couple of cloudy days in a row.

2/16/2013

The salad from the greenhouse has been so wonderful to have this winter.  He planted a Rocky Top lettuce mix, and it's excellent.  We've had enough lettuce and spinach to share with family and friends.  We've also used lots of carrots, kohlrabi, and sugar snap peas from the greenhouse.

We went grocery shopping yesterday and saw sugar snap peas for $3.99 per lb at the Amish grocery store.  We've gone through probably $30 or $40 worth out of the greenhouse already.  Today, he picked the first two cucumbers from hanging baskets.  We put them in our salad keeper with lettuce, spinach, carrots, onions, tomatoes and radishes.  We're getting a few ripe strawberries every few days now too.

This weekend, we're enjoying a visit from our oldest son and his wife and four of their five kids.  They'll be here till Monday, and it's been a great visit.  <3