Truck Blow Dry

Pretty funny video of my neighbor Joe using the gas blower after washing his truck. You dont see that in the big city!!!

Spring Shower

We had one hell of a spring shower today. I would guess 3 inch's in less than 2 hours. The field looked like the Ohio, and spilled over into our Tomato patch a bit. Will have to see how everything survived in the morning.

Veggie Time

Back to the veggies!!! We put the first patch of cucumbers in the ground tuesday night. Its a little early, but they were about to bust out of there peat pots. Hope they make it! Still have 18 more to hit the ground.

The 1st batch of brocoli is starting to form heads. Maybe 2 weeks till ready to eat!!!

Derby Week

Its been way to long since my last post. Derby week was a blast!!!! Damm that Calvin Borel!!!

Here are a couple of pics. Little Cammeron just loves to run up and down the paths. He is picking up on all the going ons. Now if we can just get him to pull weeds. He is the perfect height.

The other pic is me weed eating the border. Have to cut down thru the dirt to keep the pesky crap grass out!!!

Soggy Sunday

Well, it was a nasty rainy Sunday. We had a great Saturday, actually got a little sunburn. Here is an update on the broccoli patch and cold frame. The broccoli is doing well. The second batch is in the ground and growing well. WE have a new organic spray to keep the cabbage worms off, hope it works. The cold frame is filling up. Have about 1/2 of the tomato's in there now. Its been working great, but I'm thinking greenhouse next year.

New Plants

Here is a look at some of the new plants we have added this year.The first pic is the strawberry's. We planted 50, they are doing great, most have new leaves after 1 week. The second pic is the asparagus patch. Ricky thought we had a bunch of gophers, but thats the way I read to plant them. Fresh asparagus sounds so good!!!

Beets

The beets that Jennifer and Ricky planted are starting to grow. They are a pretty purple. I dont know if I like beets, but I think they will love the new raised bed.

New Plantings

These two pictures are pretty funny. We have tomato plants blooming in the cold frame, just a little bit early. The other is our freshly planted strawberry's. First try at these, have 50 in the ground, bet they turn out good.

Good weekend of work.

We got a good bit of work done on our little patch this weekend. Got the second bunch of Broccoli planted, under the row cover fabric. I am checking out the first batch in this pic. We also built a wash table for the garden. Turned out really good.

First Saturday of April

What a beautiful first Saturday in April. To bad we have two days of 40 deg. weather coming up the next couple of days. You got to love this first picture. Jennifer is painting the barn bench, with plenty of help. Four supervisors critiquing every brush stroke. Someone get them some shovels to lean on!!! Later we had a nice fish fry. The crappie were the best I have ever had.

New Plants and Techniques

Well, the new Blueberry plants look to be doing really good. They have a good bit of new growth. To bad we have to limit the production the first year, I bet fresh blueberry's taste great. The other pic is the sheltered broccoli plants. There are 36 plants under that cover. They are doing great. I'm really impressed with the fabric cover we are starting to use.

Outdoor Gardening is Kicking in Gear

Here are a couple of pics of what we have been up to in the garden. Had some spring like weather the last couple of days. The cold frame is filling up quickly, looks like Ricky is right, we need a greenhouse!!! The tomato plants started in late January are damm near 2 ft tall now. If we can keep them growing, we should have Tomatoes by mid May. I also added a second chamber to the compost bin. This should help us turn the compost for quicker production.

Mom's Quilt Show

Here are a couple of pics from Mom's quilt display at the quilt shop. We practically had a family reunion there on Saturday. The display was very impressive, great job Mom!!!!

New Gardening Techniques

Here are a couple of pics of some new ( to use) gardening techniques. The first one is our just finished raised bed. We are using fabric row cover over some freshly planted beats. We tryed the row cover on our first batch of radishes, and the covered ones came up well before the uncovered. Looks pretty promising. The other picture is of the early started flowers and herbs in the cold frame. They are doing very well.

Broccoli Plants

Here is the first batch of broccoli. Came up great, and growing even better. There is nothing like fresh broccoli!!!

Updated Seedling Room

We have been hard at work in the seedling room. Build two new shelfs to store the new plantings. Just have to hang the lights on the third level. The tomato plants we started early are growing like weeds. Had to put them in some bigger pots. We will see how they do when they hit the dirt in a couple of months. The may be 2ft tall by then.

Is Spring here?????

We had a beautiful day here in Shively today, near 75 degrees. The storm damage clean up continues, the first pic is the fire pit with a nice stack of logs and branch's. We also got the potato bed tilled, will be planting the Yukon Golds tomorrow!!!!

Seed Starting Update

Here are some updated pic's of our seed starting. The first is the onions we planted on 1/17. They are doing well, already had to give them a hair cut to stimulate root growth. The second is three different tomatoes. They are doing good, we will see how big they get by planting time. We started them 2 months early. I see them spending some time in the cold frame this early spring.

Seed starting Experiments

Here are a couple of pics of some seed starting experiments we have going. The first one is our first attempt at growing onion transplants from seed. They are doing pretty well, just started a whole flat on Thursday. The second pic is the marigolds we started from seed about 3 weeks ago. They are growing really well.

2009 Storm Cleanup

Well, we finally had some nice weather here. Its been in the 50's the last two days. I have most of the yard cleaned up, there are about 6 different piles of logs around the yard like the first pic. The rest of the branch's have been halled to the back. Next stop for them is the fire pit.

Ice Storm 2009

Here are a couple of more pic's of the storm damage from Tuesday. The first is the front of the house. The limbs are covering my power line, but its still on. The second is the back side, where the biggest branch's fell.

Winter Hell!!!!!

Well, we got hit again by bad weather. 3/4" of ice on these tree's is not pretty. Here are a couple of pics. There are Branch's everywhere. Its hit and miss on power. I have power and cable, but both cables have limbs hanging on them. More to come...

Winter storm

Its a winter wonderland here in Kentucky. We received about 3 inch's of snow last night. All day today we have had sleet and freezing rain. Its supposed to turn to more snow tonight. I hope the power stayes on, 28 degrees right now.

The Garden is all iced over, kind of pretty. The shed is getting some nice sized icicles forming. I am ready for spring.

Small farming

Wow that looks good. Here is a pic from a blog I follow. Great site, http://tinyfarmblog.com/

They are in Canada and put out this kind of beautiful produce.

I'm sitting here in my winter boredom thinking of things to do next year in the garden. I'm looking into starting up a little co-op this season. Maybe setting up 10 or so people on a every other week vegetable delivery schedule. Something like a old school milk man, but you get fresh vegetables.

More to come on this, I still have to work out my business plan. All I know is, if you could could get baskets full of veggies like this picture I would have all kinds of customers.

Experimental Seed Starting

Well, its way to early to be starting seeds, but we have several flats of experiments started. The first pic is our trial of saved seeds. From front to back you have: 6 cilantro's ( 2 out of 6 have sprouted), 6 Marigolds (5 out of 6 sprouted), and 6 Black Eyed Susan's (4 out of 6 sprouted). Not to bad of a success rate. The second pic is baby onions coming up from seed. We are trying to raise onions for the first time, so this is promising. They are only 6 days since planting here.

Bird Houses

Well its cold as hell in Kentucky these days, so I have been working on some new bird houses. Pretty cool plan I found, based around a coffee can surronded by wood. I made four, now looking at building some bat box's.

Well, we couldnt set up the seed starting room without starting some plants. We saved some seeds from last years Marigolds and Black Eyed Susans. We were wondering if the would sprout. Good news so far, 5 days in and we have growth.

We saved several thousand seed from last year, so there should be flowers everywhere this year.

I think we are going to go crazy this weekend. We are going to start early plants for everything. See how big we can grow tomatoes and other plants under grow lights. We dont have anything else to do, damm its 8 degrees outside...

Me and Ricky got the new seed starting room set up this past weekend. We moved from my spare bed room to the basement. We have two 4 ft tables set up and a work table. We have already talked about adding on levels. Shit could get out of control with our winter boredom......