Thursday, August 4, 2016

A Tour of This Year's Garden

I have been working hard on my garden this year, and it has responded by growing quite well. So, I thought I would show you some of what I am growing this year.

We are completely out of tomato sauce, so here are most of my tomatoes. Some are in the ground and some are in pots. You can also see one of my rain barrels on the right. This fall, this area is going to get re-landscaped.


I am growing these sunflowers to produce my own cooking oil. This is a Russian variety that is specifically for making oil.  It is the first time I have grown them. I think the heads look a bit small. (Don't you?) Not sure how much oil I am going to get.


In this picture you can see one of the green bean beds (I have two). The fern looking things behind them are asparagus. You can also see the blueberry bushes in the back with three more tomato plants in front of them - in the blue pots. The blueberries are still producing and covered with nets. The rocks are holding the nets to the ground so birds won't get under them.


Here is the squash. I have both winter (bush acorn squash) and summer (vine type tromboncino). The vines don't want to stay in the mulch. I must move them every other day or so to keep them out of the grass. The 'dirt' you see on the leaves is food grade diatomaceous earth. It is doing an excellent job of keeping the squash vine borer and squash bugs off the vines and the fruit. The netting on the left is a shade net for the winter squash. They don't like the summer sun this year. In the lower right hand corner is my second green bean bed.


The grapes have been my biggest success this year. I have so many I can't count them all!
I have two lattice screens around my hot tub. Each has a grape vine - one purple grape vine and one white grape vine. Here are the white grapes.


The white grapes were not happy just playing on their own trellis and decided they also wanted to go over and play with the purple grapes. This is an overhead shot of the vines in between the two trellises. I didn't need to cover the overhead part with netting, the birds didn't bother these. The white grapes are just about ready to pick. I see canning grape juice in my future next week!


As you can see, the purple ones are not ready yet.


The last picture is of the popcorn. To the right of the popcorn you can see a vine growing over my fence in a gray pot. I have three. They are loofah gourds. I had them in the ground but I don't think they like my clay soil. They kept dying. I had to put them in a pot to get them to grow. You can also see another of my rain barrels at the edge of the picture. 


I have not sprayed any chemicals on these plants this year. In fact I have used very little chemicals at all in the garden. The exception being the cotton and some orchard spray on the apple trees.

I will show you pictures of the apple trees, peanuts and cotton next time!

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

I Am Finally Back!

Well, I did miss the July deadline that I set for myself, but I am back now!  I expect to post twice a week or so for the rest of the year and hopefully more next year.  I will continue to post on living a frugal life, trying to minimize the use of electricity as part of daily living, and highlighting the ways of the past to work towards the future - with highlighting a church video every now and then.  I am also working on a 'new' look for the blog and I expect to have that ready by the end of the month.  

Let me talk a bit about what I was doing for all this time. I was involved with a project that had a lot of scope creep and my help was really needed. For the most part, I have been working this way for almost two years. I found myself working many 80 hour weeks!  Let me tell you that is very difficult for someone who is getting older (aren't we all!)  I am exhausted!
  
I have also lost some family members over the past 18 months (this too, is part of life!) Two of them were cousins (one first cousin,once removed and one second cousin) as well as my mother-in-law and younger brother.  This really makes you think about how short and precious life is and how it should be spent with those you love doing the things you want to do instead of always working.

Having said that, I can add that I have missed living life the way I want.  I like to make or grow what I need. It is not possible to do that when you work 80 hour weeks.  It requires the assistance of electricity and the convenience of the grocery store to make it work. Both of those are incompatible with my DNA!

I can honestly tell you that I am very glad these past two years are over! It does give me even more respect for those of you who can't stop working or switch to part time.  I hope I can give more hints and tips to help those of you who find it difficult to set aside a spare minute too!

Thursday, May 12, 2016

I will be back to Blogging in July 2016!

To All:
I am very happy to announce that my work contract is coming to a close. Soon, I will be back to a more 'normal' life for me and that includes blogging!

I will be back in July 2016!  Stay tuned!

Kate

Friday, January 1, 2016

Happy New Year!

Here is a wonderful New Year's message from the Mormon channel.  Enjoy!


Thursday, December 24, 2015

Merry Christmas!

Here is a beautiful Christmas video from the Mormon channel.

Enjoy!