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. 

I had a friend at produce co-op ask me the other day how we recycle onions for regrow, so I decided to post this. In another note, I also reuse the skins and onion waste to keep with things like potato skins and the like when I make bone broth. Back to recycling/reusing onions... When cutting up onion, save the bottom inch or so. Place in a shallow dish with water and wait for the roots to grow.  These have been in water for a few weeks now and have started to sprout, so it was definitely time to plant them.  You plant the onion start like you would any other plant start and leave the new leaves exposed.  This is one planted previously by the garden wall.  There is one onion in the foreground here and three more in the background. One of them is very small.  And, three more planted before along the garden wall.

I am prepping for Spring. One of the pallet boxes that my husband brought home for me to use in the garden was turned upside down to make a garden table in the garden. I plan to make it a raised bed, only I will not have to bend down to work the food grown in it. I lined it with two layers of weedcover. This will allow the soil within it to be contained while water can be contained through. An after thought is to put a worm bin beneath it, as the nutrients can then be caught in the bin and the soil can be reused, while maybe making a worm food supply for the chickens. But, that is a thought for later. The finishing part of the project is to measure off a board to contain each side and pile in some dead leaves and used chicken fodder to break down with some soil for placing seeds in for this Spring.  

   Apparently, it does not take much to make me happy today...been yucky sick all day...did still have to go out long enough to feed the chickens, gather the eggs, and made a gander through the garden. I am less than impressed with how the straw bales are progressing with the cabbages and broccoli. The broccoli and cabbage and kale in the raised beds are doing well. The same crops, placed at the same time in the bales are still puny. Lettuce seems to well in either. The chard in the bales is doing well also. On another note, it seems some little squirrel or some like critter has been having fun with my radishes.

 Bones were added to deep pot and veggies added as well. The pot here contained chard, kale, onions, garlic, bay, oregano, peppers, apples, mushrooms, some other stuff, and bones. :)  After 48 hours on the stove, the liquid was strained and separated from the leftover veggie and bone parts. This was fed to the chickens...recycle, reuse!!  The broth or stock was poured into pint jars.  Each jar was filled - four in all.  Three were placed in the pressure canner. One was refrigerator. These are the three pressure cans of stock or bone broth.

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 ...