Big Universe, Small World... ©2013-2020

I had a plant holder that I have not used in a long while. I actually have two of them. I had placed them in the recycling long ago. The recycle men kept taking it out of the recycling and leaving it on top of the mailbox. After three times of this, I brought them back to the garage and porch and there they have sat for well over a year.  Today, I had an idea. This project happened in between the pallet wall project .   This is one of the baskets.   I suspended with two nails from a board on one of the pallets of the wall. It is actually between the red tip and buttercrunch lettuces.  I cut a coconut fiber thing to fit the basket.   Romaine lettuce was transplanted within the basket.   :)

We made a garden wall from reclaimed pallets about two seasons ago. All winter, I have been looking at these pallets and thinking about things to do with them...So, here is what some of the wall space has become...  This is where I started. I did not use this specific pallet for the first set of planting. Although, it is the same idea.   Weed control fabric was doubled and tacked in the space to hold the plants and still allow for proper drainage. The excess was trimmed back some.   Buttercrunch was transplanted into the space and dirt was placed around to fill the space.   This is another shot of the buttercrunch area.   This is a second space of red tipped lettuce. 

My hubby and younger child helped me to finish the recycled pallet wall this past week!  view from the back.  gated entrance. lock on gate! :)   I did (and am still) going around the base on the inside of the garden to apply spare netting and left over caging material to piecemeal a way to keep the chickens (and other smaller animals) out between the cracks in the pallets.  This is the view from inside the gate. Please excuse the mess of some of the beds and raised tables. Some of these are being prepped for the spring.  This is the view from the top looking down!

I actually think that the crops growing in the bales are producing better and having a better grow rate than the

The strawbales are coming along. I have to say I think this might

The hubby picked up the straw bales I requested. They were conditioned and prepped for

I pulled up all the dead stuff out of the raised beds this past weekend. All the weeds were pulled and the soil was turned. I added new pine shavings to one bed and extra soil to another. There are 5 raised beds. Only two were cleared and cleaned and turned. One bed is full of tomatoes that are late season bloomers. This bed was planted with cuttings we had cut back from other tomato plants. Earlier this summer, several tomato plants were producing lots of foliage, but not lots of fruit. I cut them back and they started to produce. So, the cuttings were rooted and then planted into their own bed.   This is when the bed was first started back at the end of June. The tomato plants have zoomed over the sides of this bed. They are going everywhere. I have left them alone to see what they would do...no cutting back or trimming at all. The other day I noticed we have a huge tomato plant. One huge tomato. It may be one, but it makes me happy. :)  I raised the plants in this b...

I bought this new kitchen gadget, because I have been using a veggie peeler to make veggie noodles...this new gadget is supposed to make the noodles for you. I was skeptical, but after one use, I am sold! (This is the first review I have written, without being asked, and where I bought the product first just because I wanted it.)     It is some type of German product I think...maybe not...who cares? I think it is nifty. For dinner tonight, we had chicken with a homemade cream sauce and goat cheese. I added onions, garlic, mushrooms, carrots, and zucchini noodles made from this gadget.                      Dinner was yummy tonight!

I was preparing zucchini casserole tonight for dinner. I went to go cut up some shallots and they have started to sprout in the refrigerator. For anyone who knows me, if it sprouts...I have to plant it. Although, you are not supposed to plant shallot bulbs until the fall and then harvest next year.       To be able to still use the shallots in the casserole and still save them for harvesting to plant...I carefully peeled back the outer levels of each bulb and then cut the pieces I could use and saved the rest to plant. I guess I will be starting an indoor shallot container. I am thinking that setting the container(s) in the freezer through a rotation schedule could prompt a false winter to them to start a growth pattern?  Who knows?  

my younger son broke and crushed his wrist in may. he had surgery then. now, at the end of the first full week of july, he is in his 5th wrist wrap appliance. he has about another week or so in this current contraption. in the meantime, he went to camp with scouts for a week in june - fully casted and all - and came home with a nasty ingrown toenail. we have had to go to the doctor twice now for this. he is scheduled to have surgery on his toe later this month...he could not swim the entire time of the broke wrist due to the cast and open wound into his bone. now, due to the toe and it being wrapped, he still can't swim. summer is half gone and the typical stuff we would do, we are hindered from doing. all of my younger son's normal activities are not capable of being done...no guitar, no bow practice, no boxing, no fishing, no hatchet throwing, no whittling, no biking, no hiking, no shooting, no no no...even wii playing is limited due to limited range of motion... :/ it has ...

It seems there is always so much to do... Chickens:  A few months ago, a cousin/friend gave us 3 leghorn chicks. The dog killed one and we were left with two. I recently put them in with the bigger chickens. It seems like though we only have 9 chickens, we have 3 small flocks: the tetra tint flock (3), the brown chicken flock (3 americaunas and 1 buff orpington) and then the leghorns (2). My younger son says the buff is multiracial, because she is accepted by the americaunas and the tetras. Funny how we observe our social status situations upon the chickens we have. Odd. :) Since the chicken family grew, Charlie made two new laying boxes from scrap wood of old pallets.     The leghorn chicks are getting bigger and I hope will be laying soon...but, they will have several weeks before this happens.   These chicks are quite confused about the night time routine of their new home. They do not understand that they are supposed to be in the coop at night....