Remember our indoor garden we planted a while back?
I meant to do an update on it a while back but never got around to it. Now that I have our outdoor garden in and growing, I’m getting just a little burnt out with the indoor one and am ready take it out. I think if we do this again, it would be better to plant it earlier than we did, that way it’s producing during the winter instead of this time of the year. Continue reading
I’ve had several people ask me what types of tomatoes I think are best to plant. There are several factors that you have to take into account when choosing the best type of tomato to plant. First you need to choose a type that grows well in the area you live. The best way to find out what grows best in your area is to ask other gardeners what’s worked for them. Just from experience, I’m guessing you’ll probably get a lot of different answers which could become a little confusing. Things like soil type, sunny or shady location, and growing conditions that change from year to year can vary a lot, even for gardeners that are all in the same area. What I suggest is to make a list of all types recommended and then do some research. You’ll want to think about what you plan to use the tomatoes for, whether it’s canning and making sauces or slicing them for salads and sandwiches, different types of tomatoes vary on how they’re best used. Once you figure out what you plan to do with them, choose the types that best fit your needs from the varieties that do best in your area.
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Yes it’s my favorite time of the year again, time to plant the garden! Greenhouses open up, full of all sorts of flowers and vegetable plants just waiting to be bought and planted. I love roaming up and down the aisles looking at all the different varieties of plants while mentally planning what I want to try growing for the year. I like researching new things I haven’t tried before and choosing a few of them to grow.
I haven’t had a chance to get any posts done this week because Miley and I have been working on a special project. When we started this project, we thought it would be an easy, quick, simple one… but there wasn’t one thing easy, quick or simple about it. We decided to make a video of a tour of our place to share with all of you. Sounds easy, right? Well… let’s just say it was way more time consuming and complicated than I thought it would be. But then you have to take into consideration, I’m not a very techy person, so maybe it is easy, just not for the technically challenged person like me. Either way, we managed to get it recorded, edited and finally uploaded.
Now that it’s uploaded, the frustration is gone and I now know what to do, Miley and I decided it might be fun to make videos to share here on occasion. If you enjoyed the video and would like to see more, be sure to like the video and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Summer before last we decided that we needed to get a fish or two to keep in the stock tank. I remember putting a few goldfish in a stock tank when I was a kid and enjoyed watching them grow big. I figured my kids would enjoy that too. So one day after chores were done, we headed out of town for a day of fun. On our way home, we stopped by the pet shop and the kids picked out a couple of koi. We brought them home and added them to the stock tank by the barn. One did really well and the other didn’t survive the summer for some reason.
The following winter was a tough one; there were endless days of freezing temps and more snowfall than normal. We were feeding a couple pigs that winter, so we got two de-icers, one for the tank out by the pigs and one for the tank by the barn where the goats stayed. The wiring in our barn is really old, and so the breakers couldn’t handle the amount of electricity both de-icers used. We had to move the goats out to the shelter by the pigs so they could all use the one tank. Unfortunately that meant the tank that had our little fish in it froze over. There was a period of several weeks where the temps were so cold and the ice froze so thick that it was impossible to break it. We all worried about our little fish and hoped he’d make it even though it seemed his chances weren’t good.
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Last year when we planned our garden, Miley told me she really wanted to try to grow carrots. I have tried growing them, without luck, once a long time ago and I don’t know why, but I never tried growing them again. So when Miley asked to grow carrots, I said, “Sure, why not!” Along with carrots, we also decided to grow radishes, spinach and lettuce.
I bought several bags each of compost and top soil, hoping that if we made a thick heaped row of it we wouldn’t have so many weeds. She and I worked hard dumping the dirt and forming it into a nice heaped up row. Then we planted our seeds and watered them in. The next day we went out to the garden and discovered our nicely mounded up row leveled and scattered everywhere. The chickens had gotten into the garden and totally ruined the whole thing. Miley was upset and I… well let’s just say those chickens were lucky they could out run me otherwise we would have had lots of chicken stew to eat… and I don’t butcher chickens… but that day I sure would have!
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Humble Little Homestead 