Tag: seeds

Happenings Around the Homestead

Posted by Steve On February 2, 2015

Seeds.

I know I am not the only home gardener who struggles with this. Each year I find something new I want, but I have more seeds now than I know what to do with. I went through and organized all my seeds the other day, and was shocked at the varieties I have, and even multiple packets of the same seed.

While I attempt to organize this, I don’t do a very good job. I do separate the seeds generally by the type of plant they are, and then I put a rubber band around all those packets. That, in turn, is then thrown in a box which I keep in a refrigerator in the garage.

Sometimes I see other people with fantastic organization of their seeds, and I druel a bit, but I haven’t decided yet it is worth the effort to achieve what they have. As I was searching for a picture of what I am talking about, I became a little convicted, as it is not that hard to do. I just need to make the effort to get some photo albums. Yes, I am going to just give you a link to more information: How to Organize Seed Packets.

It’s Sunday morning as I am writing this post, and I still haven’t finished the winter sowing I have been mentioning here. I am going to try to get to this today, though we are expecting rain which might put a glitch in those plans. We’ll see.

Well, I am updating this very early on Monday morning. Winter sowing did not happen, though we had an interesting afternoon. Let’s see if this tells the story better than I can:

Busted Water Pipe

Evidently sometime over the winter we had a pipe to an outdoor faucet burst. Yesterday while that faucet was being used, one of our bedrooms ended up with water halfway out into the room. SIGH.

While I worked on this some, my two oldest boys did the bulk of the work, and I appreciate them for that. It is a basement level bedroom, so I don’t have to worry about floor damage, but the carpet may still have to be pulled up. We have a dehumidifier and fans running in there now, and the boys have used a wet-dry vac to clean all they can.

Where was I at? Winter sowing. Perhaps that will happen during the week. We’ll see.

Happenings Around the Homestead

Posted by Steve On January 26, 2015

I think I am probably like most every other gardener in the northern hemisphere right now, perusing through seed catalogs trying to decide what I am going to grow this year. There sure isn’t much going on around the homestead otherwise.

Wait! That is not really true. My middle son has been working hard all week getting all the leaves cleaned up from our yard. He has dumped many of them in my garden to supplement the wood chips that are already there, but he and his brothers started a fire last night with some of them, as well as some old wood we had in the yard. Besides making a great bonfire for roasting hotdogs and marshmallows, it should have left behind a considerable amount of ashes which will be tossed on the garden soon.

Did you know that wood ash is a great supplement for the garden? It is often considered so because it is a good source of potash, but it also contains minerals such as iron, manganese, zinc, copper, and more. In other words, wood ash helps add back the trace minerals into your soil that are so often depleted and ignored, which makes for healthier food.

The other big thing around here is the beginning of winter sowing. I had intended on completing the first round of winter sowing last week and getting a blog post up on it, but that didn’t happen. I am expecting to finish it today though, so if I find the time, there will be a post this week. I also have a few other posts I am working on that I cannot seem to find the time to finish. May this week allow time for that as well.

Happenings Around the Homestead

Posted by Steve On December 29, 2014

Wow! I logged in today and noticed it has been nearly a month without a post! Needless to say, the last month has been very close to chaotic continually, and what little time I have had has been spent on living, not writing about living. 🙂

Despite the chaos, I have had a pretty productive month or so around the homestead, mostly in planning for the upcoming gardening year. By next week I should be able to share the plans for my garden for 2015, which will be a very different garden than any I have planted before. You have already read of the Back-to-Eden style gardening change that has been made, but I am also planning on a much wider use of companion planting this year in order to get the most out of the garden. More to come on this soon.

I was pleased this Christmas to get a few new yard tools that I have been wanting, including a pole pruner, a pruning saw, and pruning shears. The pole pruner is the only one of the three I have used yet, and it did great. We have a couple of pecan trees on our property, and one of those has branches that stick out above the power lines coming into our house. Twice since we have lived here those branches have caused and issue with our power after a winter storm and both times cost a considerable amount of money to fix. I was able to safely trim the branches back for the most part where they didn’t extend over the power lines. There is still one troublesome branch that is just a bit too high for me, but I may try to trim it back using a ladder on a warmer day.

The other pruning tools have a more interesting purpose. I plan on pruning back my three fruit trees this year: two apple trees and a cherry tree. I have been learning quite a bit about pruning, and I think I am ready to give it a shot. More to come on this as well.

Finally, I have been blessed to already receive numerous seeds for the next growing cycle. Today I am hoping to take some macro photographs of the seeds to share their amazing beauty with you. Who would have thought a seed could be beautiful? Just wait and see!

Oh, did I already say finally? Hmm – I have one more thing. 😀 First, let me begin by thanking those who saved babyfood/small jars for me. They have come in so handy. Several of you have asked what I am using them for. I grow popcorn, and I selectively save the seed from the popcorn in order to grow better popcorn next year. In order to do this faster and better, I need a controlled environment for the popcorn so that I can ensure all the corn has the same moisture ratio. Moisture is a key component of popcorn’s popping ability, and if I am going to truly save the best each year, I need to be sure the moisture is the same during the popping trials, which commence soon. So, here is a picture of the filled jars:

Popcorn Jars

Even though I have enough of these for this year, I still need about 300 more jars, so if you or someone you know is feeding a baby babyfood, I would love to have the jars. Even better are pimento jars or any other jar that holds about 4-6 ounces. Bigger or smaller also work, but I don’t want anything larger than a half-pint.

365 Days of Me