Greenhouse & Gardens

I finally got around to getting a couple of pictures of inside the greenhouse.

Almost all the way down one wall there are about seven different kinks of tomato plants in about forty containers. I will say, even though we don't have the room for all those tomato plants it's good to be able to choose the best ones to go in the garden when that time comes.

 One side of a cut in half 55 gallon drum holds the spinach and the other half of the drum holds the lettuce. We only do the leaf type so we can go out every night and trim the tops for our dinner salads. The wife plants these in stages so we can have fresh salads all the time. This will continue until they start tasting bitter.   

All the herbs are coming up as well. Most of these will be planted in the cooks herb beds right out the back door of the kitchen. There are enough herbs planted to take up one full corner of the greenhouse. We are also doing a medical herb garden again this year so we can dry a bunch and make into salves or teas to cure any issue we are faced with, hopefully.

What is not shown here is the other side of the greenhouse that holds all the pepper plants and whatever else the wife has planted.
Right now we are having to keep a heater in the greenhouse to keep the temps at 75 degrees. I don't like it but it is a necessity right now to make sure these little things have a chance. All the greenhouse is watered by the harvested rain water and ran through the bio sand filter.

This weekend I am planting potatoes and carrots. I am trying a new way to plant the taters this year because the stacking wood towers I built did not yield as much as I needed them to do. We ended up having to purchase potatoes to put by to last all year. Even though I got them cheap, I still had to spend the money because of a failed attempt for the real thing. It was the first year I had to buy taters in a long time.
I will post on how I am planting them this time.

That's all I got for now,
Have a good day

Only 10 Minutes

I was sitting  out back this morning when the sun just started to poke it's head up and over the horizon. A light blanket of fog covered the bottom making it where I could just barely making out the lines of the barn. I sat, sipping my hot, steaming cappuccino and said a humbled thank you for my blessings. 

10 minutes is all it was going to take to pick up the barn. 10 minutes is all it would have taken to clean up the wood pile. 10 minutes was needed to organize the feed room. 10 minutes and I could have had the scrap lumber stacked. 10 minutes and I could have finished one of the raised beds. 10 minutes and...........

All it would have taken was 10 minutes to complete this or that around the Mini Farm for the last few weeks, but I was too busy to worry about such small things. I would use the excuses, it was too cold outside, too wet, the game is on and so on. All those little items added up quickly and now a full list of 10 minute things turned into a weekend of chores.

Something else that needed to be be done was getting the gardens going. I had planned to plant the onions last weekend, but the ground was frozen so that was a no go. Two bunches of Texas Whites and one bunch of Purple was planted.
I ran out of onions last year so I hope three bunches will last a little longer this time around. I think if I can stay out of them and quit picking the green onions for dinner, then I might have enough.    

The wife stayed in the greenhouse most of the day yesterday getting all the seeds planted. I would hear a sound every now and then coming from inside there signaling she was still alive and kicking so I just left her alone to do her thing. That little place is stuffed full now and I like it. There is more things planted than we have room for, but I like it like that. 

That's all I got for now. I have to get busy on the rest of my 10 minute list that will take me all day.
I hope y'all have a great day.

Reuse, Recycle, Repeat. It will save you money in the long run

"Good God Boy! You have got the junk in here"
That was what my dad said on one of his visits to my barn.

Yes I am, I admit it. I am a pack rat, a hoarder and a junk collector. He told me one time that if I keep going, by the time I get his age I will need fifty acres to hold all my junk.

You have got to have a junk pile or two or three and maybe even four. If not, you have to buy every little thing you need. I don't know how or understand why people throw away the stuff they do. If I throw it away you can bet your bottom dollar it needs to be thrown away. My trash has been used and used well. 

Here is one example why I have junk piles,
A few months ago I bought a greenhouse kit. No I didn't build it, I bought it. I thought it would be better that way by saving me time and money so I just did it. The first big storm blew through and blew out several of the plastic panels to the roof and walls of the new green house. I was only able to find three of the seven that were missing. I knew those cheap clips were not going to hold those panels in place for long with this wind out here, but I tried to have faith that the Engineers knew what they doing when they designed the thing and so I went with it. I should have listened to myself better and screwed them the first time.

I priced some new replacement panels and quickly found they cost more than the original greenhouse as a whole. Talk about a marketing scam, it would have been cheaper if I just bought a whole new greenhouse kit rather than buy the replacement panels. They don't sell just a few panels at a time. You have to buy all of them that came with the kit. I guess the Engineers did know what they were doing when they designed it. They found a way to make more money after the greenhouse was sold.

When I lived in town me and the girls built the wife a small greenhouse off the side of the back porch for Mothers day one year and when we moved I took it apart and saved the lumber and all the clear sheeting it had on it. I almost didn't take it, but like always I thought I might need this stuff sometime down the road so I took it and stored it.

The wife had already planted the fall/winter crops in the green house last week and I thought it was kinda sad she was working in a greenhouse that was missing panels so last night I found those old, used plastic sheeting panels and screwed them in place. It's not pretty but it works. 
The clear sheeting has been sitting for three years and turned a little yellow but it fits, kinda. With a little "Southern Engineering" it is good or better than new now.

By saving the sheeting and storing them all this time saved me $500.00
So I am okay with being a pack rat, hoarder and a junk collector. I have a functional greenhouse again and it didn't cost me a dime.

The moral of the story, think twice before you toss it and if you still want to get rid of it ask someone else if they want it before you trash it.          

The Calm Before The Storm

Here is a shot inside the little garden area of the Mini Farm and of the finished greenhouse we recently assembled. It is smaller than the one I was going to build but the wife says it will do just fine.
If you were wondering, yes that is the garden solar bathhouse to the right.






The potatoes have grown and now all the levels have been placed on the bins. All together they are five 2X6's high. One problem we are having is the potato bugs now.



This big boy to the right is the new and up and coming rooster who will replace the one we have if he does not start doing his job a little better. Even though we continue to hatch every month, the fertile percentages are only at about fifty percent with the other rooster. He can only find that right spot half the time. This one here is a little younger but he has already started topping the hens like a pro.

A friend of mine stopped by last night and brought me some more windows. Even thought the greenhouse is done, I still have a use for windows.
The two tall ones here in the picture will be used for the next project I just started, the solar dehydrator.
 Another friend of mine gave me this 1940's commercial incubator a few months ago and I did not have a clue what I was going to do with it until now.
This old non working incubator will be stripped of all the hardware and the windows pictured above will be set off to the side longways in a triangle type fashion to collect the heat. A little solar fan will draw the heated air through the windows, up through the box and out the top at hopefully around 140 degrees .
If you can't picture it then just wait. It should be done by next weekend.    If it don't work then I haven't lost nothing. I have everything to do this little project on hand.

The youngest girl "Wee" is a new momma. She is really excited about her new little bundles of joy.
They are baby rabbits if you don't know what they are.  

   




Huge storms are moving in tonight and the wife is getting ready to bug out as we speak. The wind is blowing so hard I feel like I am in a ship at sea with all the house movement going on.
If you don't hear from us for a few days then we will be in the van down by the river.
(If any of you ever watched Saturday night live back in the day then you would have thought that was funny)

SHHH Don't Tell Anyone

To me it is cheating, to others it is being smart.  I would hater for word to get out about me buying a prefab kit instead of doing it myself.

I have built everything here at the Mini Farm with my own designs and with my own two hands, except for now.
Last weekend I was at a new tool store they just opened up and they had a Greenhouse kit on sell for about a quarter of what it would cost me to build one. The wife and I stood in the store for several minutes debating one way then the other on if it would be feasible to do such a thing as to buy a kit.
We have been saving windows for a couple of years now and were going to have a scrap window greenhouse but now we have a prefab one in it's place.   
Last night the wife and I along with some help from the girls finished the assembly of the kit.
The picture to the right is not one taken at the Mini Farm but from the Harbor Freight website of the greenhouse because it was to dark to take any pics when we were done.

Today the wife plans to get the mulch to fill in the bottom and then put all all her shelving units in place. I have to figure out how to run water in it so we don't have to drag a hose in and out everyday. I am thinking some upside down sprinklers with a valve on the outside. Kinda like a fire suppression system. Turn the valve and the whole thing gets watered. Not sure yet though.