Are you tired of weeding? Have you spent countless hours pulling, cutting, and digging weeds? I know I have. Now, we have the chickens we can at least put the weeds to good use.
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| Weeds aka Chicken Treats |
Continue reading “Tired of Weeding? Cardboard the Eco-friendly Weed Barrier”
Jon and I had discussed we wanted to plant a few herbs this year. We both thought oregano, basil, cilantro, and parsley to start off small with the basics. But I also wanted mint. Jon is not really a fan of mint and just doesn’t understand my need to plant it. I just cannot wrap my head around him not liking mint.
I love mint ice cream, Andes mint chocolates, peppermint patties, peppermint hard candy, candy canes, mint tea, mint gum (but it has to compete with cinnamon). Did I mention mint ice cream and Andes mint chocolates? Yum! Mint is such a refreshing and clean scent. I even put it in my wallflower scented plugin. Who doesn’t love a minty fresh mouth from brushing your teeth? Did you know that mint repels ants? I bet Jon will start liking it now. We have a serious ant issue at our house. Hopefully between the chickens and the mint we’ll rectify that.
So, a couple of weeks ago we picked up a 4 pack of peppermint plants at the farmer’s market. We planted them in a pot and set them out on the deck. They are doing quite nicely.
Early in February we bought 4 bare root raspberry plants. As mentioned before, last year we did not have any success with some bare root raspberry plants we purchased online.
The raspberries from last year were shipped with some gel on the roots. Although this year we bought our plants at Tractor Supply Company, they were also bare root packaged in peat moss. Just a little over 2 months ago, we planted the raspberries outside and covered them with lots of pine needles.
Continue reading “Bare Root Raspberries 2 Month Progress”
Last year we planted our first garden late in April basically all at the same time. We did have some successes, but we had some failures as well. For instances, our onions we planted in late April from seed! Our oldest even laughed at us for that. He knew we were not going to have any success from them.
Among several things that we have done to amend the soil for this year we were also determined to have a good onion crop. Back in November we planted some winter onions that Mama gave us. Then we bought onion and garlic sets from Tractor Supply in February. We planted the onion and garlic sets in late February and they are doing wonderfully! We are trying to mulch in between rows with leaves to keep the weeds down.
Continue reading “Winter Onions – 5 Month Update vs. Annual Onion Sets”
The blueberry bushes are flourishing and the fruit trees are growing like mad! Every day Jon and I like to “walk the grounds” to look at everything. This time of the year there are so many changes that spring up over night.
Last year we planted two blueberry bushes. They grew nicely last year. The blueberries and the grapes are the only thing that survived from our two large orders of trees, vines, and bushes. The blueberries are looking awesome already this year. Maybe we will get a few blueberries this year!
I was wanting to try growing our own strawberries this year. I said I would never try bare root plants again, but here we go. Tractor Supply had Ozark Beauty Everbearing Strawberries for $4.99 for 10 plants. I figured even if they did not turn out well, there would not be much lost.
Back in November we posted about our first time planting winter onions. There were several interested so we wanted to be sure and give an update on them. They are growing nicely and are starting to really get some thickness. We are very excited as last year our onions were disappointing (albeit it our fault).
Our First Winter Onions
4 Month Update
5 Month Update (Comparison to Annual Onion Sets)
6 Month Update
Harvesting and Curing Onions
One Year Update
I love wind chimes. I do not think Jon shares my passion for them. I believe to him they are more of a racket than melody. On our front porch we I have three wind chimes. Two of them I got years ago at the same time. They are identical except one is black and the other is just metallic.
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| Black “Coated” Wind Chime |
I love daffodils. I like flowers in general, but I believe I love daffodils so much because they are usually the first flowers to bloom. Many times I am almost surprised when I see them. I excitedly think “the daffodils are blooming already”. They are the first signs of spring around here and it just makes me smile.
Saturday morning as I pulled into the driveway after running some errands I caught a brilliant yellow glimpse of spring in my flower bed. As soon as I got out of the car I had to go right to it and soak in the beauty.
Continue reading “For the Love of Daffodils”
New grapevines can be propagated from the cuttings pruned from your grapevines. Since grapevines must be pruned every year, this gives you the opportunity to plant more and more grapevines every year without going out and spending hard earned money for more. We like free.
You will want to plan your pruning with the plan of planting your cuttings. The cuttings must be planted in the same direction they are growing, that is the end of the cutting that is closest to the base of the vine needs to go in the ground. An easy way to keep track of which end is which is to cut the bottom of the cutting straight across, and the top of the cutting trimmed at an angle. This way you can always tell which end of the cutting goes in the ground.
Continue reading “Growing New Grapevines From Pruned Cuttings”