Suspending This Blog

I just don't have time to work on this blog right now.

Hope to get it back up someday. Meanwhile, please peruse the postings here ... lots of information on how I garden and produce food for my family. Believe me, if **I** can do it, so can you!

Thanks... and enjoy!!

Indoor Garden

I keep meaning to take pix of my indoor garden. Maybe next week. See, in Colorado, it gets cold in the Winter. Brrrr... very cold! (I know, duh!). So we can't continue to grow food outdoors.

About 3 weeks ago, when the daytime weather started getting in the 50's, I brought in all of my potted plants: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, rhubarb, blueberries, asparagus, etc. I put the pots on drainage trays (to avoid messing our carpet!) and set up plant/grow lights.

We're still getting some great looking veggies. Yum! I even planted more seeds for cucumbers, green beans, lettuce, scallions, summer squash and carrots. Good way to get fresh organic veggies during the winter without paying high prices.

Note: since there are (hopefully) no bees indoors to pollinate, if you do this, be sure to take a q-tip and hand-pollinate your veggie flowers. Tomatoes to tomatoes. Zucchini to zucchini. Etc. I use the same q-tip over and over again, leaving right in front of the appropriate pot. That way, I won't cross pollinate.

Just a thought!

Need evergreen vine to hide animal pen

We plan to build a second chicken and goat pen along a weird perimeter line. Since we're on the top of a hill, it will be seen for miles, so we want a little privacy, and to hide it. Most of it will be a 6' tall fence, but part of it will be a 6' tall goat house and a 4-6' tall chicken coop/house. We might even put an alpaca here. Will do sometime in early Spring 2011 so we have plenty of time to decide.

There will be about a foot of space between the fence and the "houses". Enough space for a vine to grow but not really enough for a person to walk through. Comfortably.

Located on the eastern plains of Colorado, it gets very windy here, and can often have negative 25 degree temperatures with huge snow drifts. Summers bring blazing heat.

The pen will be along the south-east perimeter of the property, so will get much sun (there's really nothing on the other side except the neighbor's lawn).

We're looking for an evergreen vine that will grow up along the fence and goat/chicken houses to hide them, plus provide a cooling effect during the summer, and help keep in warmth in the Winter. Needs to stay green year-round. It can't be poisonous just in case the critters nibble on it. Thorns would be good too, to provide our animals protection from the foxes and other predators in the area. Needs to be drought tolerant because it will be a little difficult to water.

Suggestions?

Possible Change to Blog

Posted this on my other blogs, but thought I'd post it here too ...

Keeping up with these blogs is very time consuming ... not that I mind, usually! We're getting ready to embark on an intensive homesteading adventure, and may not be able to work on blogs daily.

So... I'm thinking about combining our blogs (cooking, gardening, homesteading, survival, storage, homeschooling, etc.) into one. I would eventually move posts to the new and combined blog.

We have a lot of readers, and I value your opinion. Thoughts?

Meandering Around...

Not much to do when the indoor garden has been eaten up by beetles (except for the stevia and aloe), and we're soooo close to getting our homestead. Out looking and hoping that the one we want will be available for the price we can afford.

Meanwhile, yes, I've bought seeds! I usually can't stand to wait, so I've placed my orders for veggies. I've made my list of herb seeds to get in December, and the fruit trees, bushes and vines I plan to order in early Spring, after we close on the property and map out where to plant what.

Dreaming. That's what Winter is for.

We'll have enough room for nut trees, and I've noted how many of what kind I want: heartnut, butternut, almond, pecan, walnut (English and black), chestnuts and whatever else I can find to grow in Zone 5.

Then there's the fruit trees: apples, pears, apricots, peaches, nectarines (the Kid doesn't like the puzzy peaches!), plums. And the cherry trees AND bushes. Then there's the elderberry bushes, blueberry, and brambles of raspberry and blackberry.

Oh my... my mouth is watering!

So... have you started thinking about your next year's garden?

To-Do-List for November and December

November - December:

Why not get started early for next year?

• Save seeds from your harvested plants.
• Spread manure, rotted sawdust and leaves over the garden and plow them under; you'll be surprised at the difference this organic matter will make in the fertility, physical structure and water-holding capacity of the soil.
• Take a soil sample to allow plenty of time to get the report back. Lime applied now will be of more benefit next year than if it is applied in the spring before planting. Always apply Dolomitic limestone in order to get both calcium and magnesium.
• Save those leaves and pulled/spent vines and plants for the compost heap.
• Take an "inventory." Maybe you had too much of some vegetables and not enough of others - or maybe there were some unnecessary "skips" in the supply. Perhaps some insect, disease or nematode problem got the upper hand. Make a note about favorite varieties. Start planning next year's garden now!
• You're wise to order flower and vegetable seeds in December or January, while the supply is plentiful. Review the results of last year's garden and order the more successful varieties.
• You may have seeds left over from last year. Check their viability by placing some in damp paper towels and observing the germination percentage. If the percentage is low, order new ones.
• Before sending your seed order, draw a map of the garden area and decide the direction and length of the rows, how much row spacing is needed for each vegetable, whether or not to plant on raised beds, and other details. That way, you won't order too many seeds. This same advice applied to the flower garden. Try new cultivars, add more color, change the color scheme, layer the colors by having taller and shorter plants - don't do it the same way year after year.
• Once you get your seeds, spend the rest of the cold Winter months making seed tapes. Be sure to label, dry well, place in bags, seal against moisture, and stack flat.
• Look around for tools you do not have and hint for these for Christmas presents.

Invasion of Beetles

I guess we brought in some beetles when we moved the outdoor potted tomatoes and cukes indoors, because SOMEBODY has chomped on everything green and it's dead.

Lesson: don't bring outdoor pots indoors unless you're very sure there are no bugs in them!

Task: once the current blizzard abates, I'll be moving the now-dead plants to the patio, and getting some potting soil to start over. Oh well... that's ok.

Sidenote: I just got my order of seeds in, including those Black Aztec corn seeds, herbs, cukes, squashes, beans and more. I think once I have "clean" potting soil in clean pots, I'll start some carrots, onions, lettuce, beans and cukes. Again. Argh. But still... sounds great when I just think about the foot of snow outside my office window.

Hmmmm..... I love winter!

Corn Harvesting

Here's a wonderful post from a blog I follow: http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/harvest-corn-from-beginning-to-end/


We couldn't do corn this year because of our move. Very sad because it's absolutely delicious, pulling back the husks and chomping on it before even leaving the corn patch.

I should be receiving our corn seeds for Spring.... bought Black Aztec, since it can be used both as a sweet corn, and after it dries on the stalk, as dried corn for feed and cornmeal, etc. Yum!

Potatoes beget potatoes!

I posted a notice on my cooking blog (http://www.survival-cooking.com/) about a sale that Safeway is having for potatoes ... 10 pounds for just .99 cents! A regular reader commented about a post she'd made about how just one pound of potatoes can grow into 100 pounds of potatoes. Check it out at: http://preparednesspro.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/100-pounds-of-potatoes-for-a-buck

Since Saturday, we now have 10 bags of potatoes, each with 10 pounds. That's 100 pounds right there for ten dollars. (I actually bought 11 but gave one to mother-in-law.) As I bring out a bag of taters to cook with, I'll look through and put aside any that look like they'll sprout. We'll use the un-sprouting taters over winter. Those that sprouted or look like they'll sprout, we'll quarter, sprout and plant in the Spring.

Good way to utilize my money, don't you think?

Used a whopping 4 potatoes to make crockpot potato soup for dinner. Yum!

Tomato Harvest

Even tho we had freezing temps last week, my potted tomatoes on the back patio (which faces South) survived. Obviously, it was the heat of the building. I just harvested 1 really big tomato and 2 amish paste tomatoes. Yum!

Wish I knew where my camera was!