Sleep in the Beds

The beds are finally complete (well, for the most part)!

I spent about 3 1/2 hours today, with approximately 2,000 pounds of peat moss, compost, and vermiculite, "making" soil today. I ache all over :)

Here's a picture of me preparing some soil. You can see all the bags of soil-materials (that isn't even all of it).

From Blog Photos

Instead of weedblocker, which is outrageously expensive, I just laid down a lot of newspaper under the beds. This will, over time, decompose into the ground. At that point, well, who knows...

Here's the completed beds. Yes, I know the tomato cages are upside down.

From Blog Photos

Last, I leave you with a pic of my complex rainwater collectors. See, the way it works is:

1. The bottom bucket fills up with water.
2. I put the lid on the bottom bucket.
3. I put the other bucket on top.
4. That bucket fills up with water.
5. I put the lid on that bucket.
6. No more rain collects in the buckets.

It's complex, I tell you.

From Blog Photos

In the next week or so we'll begin planting a few vegetables. Hopefully I'll still be able to move.

Now we're rolling...

2 or 3 sprouts in each pot now (for tomatoes, anyways). I'm not really sure when to cut the "weak performers" in the pots so that only one is growing.

Looking good though, so far. This weekend I'll be driving around like crazy to get a LOT more stuff done before Monday. I need to get:

weed blocker
tomato cages
lattice netting
garlic or germaniums or rosemary
2 more super-large bags of vermiculite
mosquito netting
3 more bags of compost
2 bags of peat moss
some large sticks (small branches?) to use as poles for the pole beans.

Not to mention the stock show this weekend...more on that later :)

We have sprouts!

Very exciting yesterday, as this is the first time I've ever grown a vegetable.

From Blog Photos

and

From Blog Photos

Still waiting on one more pot to produce a tomato sprout. The bell pepper pots probably won't sprout until next weekend.

Beautiful Weather

The past week's weather has been phenomonal. It's a shame it can't stay this way year round :)

After next weeks paycheck, I should hopefully be able to finish off all the purchasing for the garden. Because I went with a 10" wide boards for raised beds, it's considerably more soil that needs to be "made."

Side note - I have had the seed-pots going for just under a week now, and "Mel's Mix" (soil) has absolutely amazing water-holding capabilities.

I also realized I should probably put down some weed-blocker under the beds, as a way to take a little work out during the summer. Add those to the list...

I am still working on a *secret* rainwater collector. *Secret* meaning none of the neighbors can know it's collecting rainwater. I have a trash can on the back porch, and I have a 20 gal. black tub which I'm going to set next to it. If I remove the lid and attach some screen material, it should collect rain runoff from the roof. I'm just not sure how much it will collect. I need a big rain here soon to test it.

Thanks for stopping in!

Chicks!

Some of these guys will be on their way to Tara's house.



Then, around April, we'll head down to butcher them when they're full grown. It may not be raising my own backyard chickens, but it's pretty close.

Finally

The seeds are in!

From Blog Photos

So I gathered my Vermiculite, Compost (more on that in a minute), and Peat Moss. 1/3 to 1/3 to 1/3 ratio of each, and you have "Mel's Mix" - perfect soil. Add that into the pots, put a few seeds in each, and here's what we have:

From Blog Photos

The compost ordeal - well, I tried making a compost bin. It was mildly successful until I added all those Oak leaves. It probably will get going eventually, but I had to bite the bullet and buy ~100 lbs. of organic compost from the store. I bought all different kinds, then mixed them together - that way it's a good "overall" mix like in a regular compost bin.

Hopefully those seeds will start sprouting up in a couple weeks.

Notta Lotta

I haven't posted recently, but I haven't forgotten. I just haven't had anything of real interest to post.

Have a pleasant week everyone!

Isn't it ironic?

It seems that when we were children, we hated school. Sure, some of us liked going to school, and some of us liked learning about school, but very few of us loved everything about it. There were some kids who could play a masterpiece on an instrument, or create a work of art, but they could care less about Math & Science. Some kids loved history and knew how to handle situations because of their research; but they couldn't tell you (nor would they even care about) which way to hold a violin. The engineering-type of kids loved math and science, and wanted to know everything about it; and maybe they lacked in English. I fell into the latter category. Want to know how many books I read from 7th grade - graduation? One. One book... That's one problem, I believe, with the approach to learning. I didn't really have a problem with reading - sure I read a tiny bit slower than others, but I could easily finish a book in the allotted time. I just didn't care, at all. I didn't care about some guy from the 30s and 40s telling us about some totalitarian regime. Now, I can't wait to read 1984, as I see what an impact it would have had.

Isn't it ironic that now, as an adult, I have read more than 8 times the number of books, in 2 months, that I read in SIX YEARS? Isn't it ironic that I am desperately trying to learn about so many things, now that I am no longer in school?

Whatever the topic may be (this month, I am very interested in studying the Mosaic Law dealing with Jesus Christ), it seems once I am interested in something, I stick my mind to it, and research until I can research no more. That's kind of why I'm here to begin with - lots of studying about homesteading, farming, composting, animal keeping, etc.

So maybe one day, when I have kids, and those books start coming home for them to read, I'll have an answer for "but why do I have to read that!?"

Back to the "real world"

But what is real about all electronic digital manufacturing and engineering, anyways?

The vacation is over. :(