Moving to Blogspot

I’ve decided to move over to blogspot for a more complete blog…

http://aspiringhomesteader.blogspot.com/

If I can figure out how to export from WordPress to blogspot I’ll be moving these posts over. If not.. oh well.

Its seed starting time, and I’ve got a few going already. Above is a snap shot of my Green Bunching Onions that I panted a couple of weeks ago. They’ve just started to show some green on their tips in the last couple of days. I’ll let them get a couple of inches tall and I’ll thin them out. I don’t think I did too good of a job getting the seeds covered up though as some of them sent out roots on top of the ground and have now stopped all activity (like the one in the middle bottom of the pic above, the white stuff is the roots). Who knows, maybe I’ll be able to pull some of the plants from the ones that have two or more growing in them and transplant them to the ones that have none. These are the little Jiffy peat discs in this tray. I don’t really like to use these because what happens if Jiffy goes out of business or decides not to make the little discs anymore? I’ll have to start over from scratch. I’ve looked around town for just the little trays that you refill but everyone seems to have something that you have to buy refills for every year. I really would rather not have to do that. So, I think for this year I’m just going to purchase a cheap pack of paper bathroom cups and plant my seeds in them. I won’t be planting too many seeds so it shouldn’t be that big of a deal. Plus I know we have 10 or so small clay pots that I can use as well. I’ll be starting some catnip seeds and some Yellow Pear Tomato seeds tonight hopefully.

Getting ready for 2009

It won’t be long now. The seed catalogs are rolling in. It’s funny, I’ve bought from one company and for some reason I’ve gotten about 20 different seed catalogs this year.

Update 7-15-08

We just picked a few more items from the garden. We picked more cucumbers some okra, potatoes, peppers and two tomatoes.

Pickles

Susan and her sister made some pickles yesterday from cucumbers that were picked from our garden as well as some from her sister’s garden. I forget what kind they made but I believe they were some kind of sweet pickle.

Here’s our cucumber harvest:

Here’s a few of the pickles they made:

Raised bed update

The raised bed I have at our house is doing good. The German Queen tomatoes are up about 4ft now and have some small green tomatoes on them.

First pic of bed right after the catnip and the carrots were planted:

Pic right after I installed the irrigation system:

Pic taken this morning before I tied up the tomato plants again:

Blackberries

Susan and I have gone out to my parent’s house twice this week to pick some of their blackberries to make jelly out of. We picked just shy of a gallon on Monday (7/7/08) and last night we went back out there and picked probably 1 1/4 gallons. Susan made the first pickings into a little over 4 pints of jelly. I think this next batch she is going to put them into half pint jars. I’m going to guess we’ll be about 12 half pints from this batch. Maybe a little more. Here’s a pick of last night’s berries.

…and here’s a pic of Susan braving the “stickers” on our first picking.

Pic of said stickers:

Making Squash Pickles

2lbs Firm Squash
2 Small onions
1/4C Salt
2C Sugar (or less)
1tbls Celery Salt
1tbls Mustard Seed
3C Cider Vinegar

-With just enough water to cover, let the squash, onions, and salt set for 1hr. Drain but do not rinse, combine sugar, vinegar, mustard seed, celery salt and bring to a boil. Pack squash and onions in jars, cover w/ vinegar liquid. Put them in a large pot with water up to the top of the jars and boil for 10 - 20mins.
-Only had 1 1/2lbs of squash. Went with recipe as is. Canned 2 pints and 3 half pints.
-Just realized as I was typing this entry out that I completely forgot the sugar. Oops

Update 6/20/2008

Susan planted two types of pumpkins out at our garden at my parent’s house. Cinderella pumpkins were one type, not sure what the other type was. We also weeded the corn by hand. Made a wall around the squash plants and gave them plenty of water. Picked some more squash from the garden. Plan to make pickles this weekend.

Irrigation system seems to be working great here at the house. Will check soil on all container plants to make sure they are getting good coverage.

Raised Bed status

Row 1 = 4 catnip plants
Row 2 = Thumbilina Carrots
Row 3 = Thumbilina Carrots
Row 4 = 3 German Queen Tomato plants
Row 5 = 3 German Queen Tomato plants
Row 6&7 = Nothing

- Carrots don’t seem to be doing anything at all. Soil wrong maybe? They seem to need sandy soil and I have compost.
-Catnip appearing more healthy. Perhaps due to a lot of rail we’ve gotten lately.
-German Queen tomatoes growing good. No bad spots on them. Twice as tall as when I purchased (~2weeks)

Blogroll

• Gardenfork.tv
• Susan B. Designs
• The Beginning Farmer
• The Deliberate Agrarian

Archives

• March 2009
• February 2009
• January 2009
• July 2008
• June 2008
• April 2008

Categories

• Berries
• Container Gardening
• Gardening
• Seed Starting
• Uncategorized