Winter Gardening & Junk Collecting

These last few days have been unseasonably warm for February and I have taken advantage of the warmth by doing some things outside. The horse manure that I picked up last fall has now cooled enough to put on garden beds and the 20 asparagus crowns I bought at the local farm service have been placed in trenches. I bought two year old crowns in the hope of getting a light harvest next year. I also bought some seeds to start this year so that I can add to that. Why seeds and crowns, you ask? Seeds are cheap but asparagus crowns? Not so much! I also took advantage of the warmth to plant Waldo Peas, and onion sets. My indoor makeshift greenhouse has tomatoes, squash, eggplant, zucchini, herbs, cukes, and okra in it. I have high hopes for my garden this year and am hoping that the manure and leaves I piled in last fall has ammended my North Carolina clay.

As warm weather has arrived, I have realized how much I miss my chickens and I have been scouring building plans to find a coop I like. On a trip to town, I noticed that some buildings thathad been burned to make way for commercial property had a storage shed behind it so I found the owner and asked if I could take down the building. To my delight, she said I could and could have anything I wanted. I have stumbled onto a goldmine. Items for the chicken coop, a couple of old chairs that will be great decorative items, canning jars, and an old horse-drawn garden plow. I was an absolute beauty in my pink mucking boots going through the "junk" as I found "treasures" to take home. What have you done to recycle or reuse this week?

Spring is Garden Time

Well.... Last year I decided to do my own garden.... had a man come out and plow up the dirt and then rented a tiller and tried to till the garden myself. The NC red clay was impossible but even with the difficulty, we had several good meals of salad, squash, zuchinni, and other garden spot offerings.


This year, my sister-in-laws' dad came out and tilled the garden for me. I then spent the afternoon hoeing, getting out more rocks, and making hills and rows where plants would go. We have a wonderful farm service store here in town and a trip there yielded all of the plants I would need. The kids and I planted and planted and planted some more and here is what we ended up with....


8 Thornless Blackberry Bushes which I will trellis as they get bigger (given to me by SIL's dad)

Two blueberry bushes (also courtesy of SIL's dad)

The garden spot ready for planting. Since this pic, it now has 21 tomato plants, 12 pickling cukes, 4 eggplant, 4 eating cukes, 4 squash, 4 zuchinni, 6 okra, 6 bell pepper, 3 sweet banana pepper and 3 jalepeno

And one last picture.... my pear tree has a good offering of pears this year... not bad for it's 2nd Spring in the ground!