Ides of.............Well March

Happy March to everyone. I know the Ides are on the 15th but I thought about getting a head start.
Here on the homefront a few things have taken place. I finally reached to big 50 yesterday. No big deal for me, just another day. But I guess a milestone nonetheless. Well Bailey and the cat have had their rounds and rounds. She hates the cat. Period. After some time of trying to get it worked out it never did. So sadly we called and gave her back up to the spca where I got her. Maybe again some day.
On the garden front I finally got some seeds started. One platt. Beyond planting cucumbers, green beans, everything else is in one platt. We decided to go small this year to give ourselves more time to do other things.
I spent last weekend mowing (yes, mowing in February) and tore apart some of the beds because they were rotting out a lot. I'll have to replace them with something but not sure what yet. Also found plenty of my buddies, the fire ants.

Overall shot. Bad garden.

Ants galore.

Apple trees really blooming out.

Bed remains waiting to be burned.

Garden sign needs some attention.

A nice video to close everything out. 

Busy weekend coming up. A lot of work to do. On a side note we are in the process of setting up an Etsy shop so stay tuned for more information on that as well.

Crop Mobs and Layouts and

It's cold for our area. 3 degrees with whatever wind chill this morning when I left for work. I just bundle up a little more. As I have said, it's easy to put on more when it's cold but you can only go so far when it's hot! Got a few seed orders yesterday which surprised me as I ordered them on the 1st. One came from Oregon too. One order left and it has my WV 63 tomatoes in it.

I ran into an article a while back and saved it to post here sometime as I found it interesting. Crop Mobs. Heard of them? I haven't until I hit that article. Here it is as I can't find a web link to it.

So after that I did some more research and lo and behold, Crop Mob was started in my region of NC. Here's a link to their site. Crop Mob Basically what it is is a group of people that mob others to help. Not all are farmers either. Read up if you'r interested. 

I spent a little free time and made up an overhead view of this year's garden on Excel. I thought of using one of those garden planner programs but I honestly don't have the time to learn something new right now. Big To Do list. Here it is....

Definitely not set in stone but a general idea of what I want where. 

Speaking of lists, I took a look at the one I made at the beginning of last year just to see if i actually did any of it. Here it is BTW. And here it is with answers.

Build outbuilding CURRENTLY WORKING ON

Design and build water holding tanks to catch water from outbuilding for gardens Compost barrels SEE ABOVE

Finish framing upstairs for rec room and bathroom ONGOING BUT WITH DIL MOVING IN BETTER GET OFF MY BUTT

After electrical and plumbing complete, finish upstairs SEE ABOVE

Fix and finish side table NOT YET

Fix broken small chair NOT YET AND I NOW HAVE ANOTHER ONE TO FIX

Build two more card stock holders for The Wife ODDLY ENOUGH, DONE

Build trellis (pergola) over current garden beds NOT HAPPENING

Expand garden with in- ground plantings DONE

Start remaining seeds (a lot) this coming weekend DONE

Finish garage ceiling WORK IN PROGRESS

Yard sale WE NEVER GOT AROUND TO THIS BUT THERE WILL BE ONE THIS SPRING!!!!!

Fix cold water faucet in small bathroom NOT YET

Fix The Wife’s bathroom ceiling and repaint it HAH, NOT YET EITHER

Build Chewie’s new water and food dish holder NOT A BIG PRIORITY TO ME- FIL CAN DO THIS

Re- bend lawn mower blade bent when hitting big rock AHHHHH, LAZY AND WENT AND BOUGHT NEW ONES. I DON'T ACTUALLY HAVE A FORGE HERE ANYWAY.

Patch holes where I screwed up hanging living room curtains ACTUALLY FORGOT ABOUT THIS

Touch- up paint on walls around house HERE AND THERE

Finish and hang pictures in my bedroom DONE

Redo front flower beds and KILL ALL BERMUDA WIREGRASS! REDONE BUT THIS EFFIN WIREGRASS.... YOU CAN'T KILL THE SHIT. IT ACTUALLY GROWS THROUGH THE FABRIC!

Fix lazy susan in kitchen DONE

Greenhouse NOT FOR A WHILE

Fix small car and sell FIXING CAR FOR DIL USE NOW

Taxes (Uhhhggg) DONE. HATE TAXES. 

Fix small 4 wheeler and sell NOT YET

Build paintball enclosure WHERE IN THE HELL DID I COME UP WITH THIS IDEA????

Build golf club holder for bags and shoes FOUND CHEAP UNIT ON CRAIGSLIST

Invisible fence for the WOF's NOT YET

Pool? That means decking. NO POOL YET

Landscaping the side yards DONE

And I’m sure there’s more; stuff that pops up everyday

Winning the lottery IF I HAD WON, YOU'D BE SEEING DEAD SPACE HERE

So in looking at this list it appears I didn't do a whole lot but I did. I worked out of town A LOT last year, it rained and rained and rained and rained and rained, and I did other things. Painted the home office, painted Squeak's room, set up Bubby and DIL in new apartment, items that just pop up and need fixing, etc. Seemed like the year flashed by. Working out of town as much as I did really took up time I needed to be here, especially on the garden. This means that The Wife is going to have to step up and help me out some more. 

Now my 2014 list:

• Finish outbuilding, including rain catchment system and composting bins
• Expand garden with three new beds and more plowed area and run water lines for them
• Repair existing water lines and install valves at each bed (so I can control what gets watered when)
• Build seating area near garden to enjoy the gnats.
• Build bird houses for Purple Martins!
• Finish repairs on small car. 
• After outbuilding is complete, move all items for there out there
• After items moved out of garage, finish ceiling finishing, including two new lights
• Finish 4 wheeler repairs and sell
• Garage sale March 1st.
• Build three paintball marker holders
• Finish Wife's bathroom ceiling
• Finish upstairs
• Patch holes in living room. 
• Back splash in kitchen (needed)
• Fix small furniture pieces
• Power wash and stain back deck and front porch
• Gutters and downspouts on front and back of house. Garage can wait. 
• Invisible fence for dogs. This will be nice to do. 
• Play more golf so I can enjoy my membership. 
• Lottery (to pay for all of this crap)

That's my general list for this year and I will be happy to get it all or mostly done. Well this should wrap up this post. What's on your list this year?

Stay warm kids. 

Seed Orders and Layout

Been a pretty good Woffie type of day. Cruised through my seeds on hand then poured over the catalogs. I am going to try more varieties of the same type of plants this year. I always have my standards but I want to experiment some to see if some different varieties will do well in this soil.
What I have on hand and what I am ordering.
Tomato
Large Red Cherry
Big Boy Hybrid
Black Krim
Beefsteak
Rutgers
Brandywine Pink
German Johnson
Katja
Abe Lincoln
Cherokee Purple
Eva Purple Ball
Amish Paste
Kosovo
Better Boy
West Virginia 63
Crakovic Yugoslavian
Costoluto Genovese
Scarlet Topper
Yellow Brandywine

Pepper
Yolo Wonder
California Wonder
Big Dipper
Perfection (True Heart)
Sweet Banana

Cucumber
Marketmore 76
Sweet Burpless Hybrid
Patio Snacker

Other
Fordkook Zucchini
Straightneck Squash
Black Beauty Eggplant
Early Long Purple Eggplant
Sierra Gold Melon
Clemson Spineless Okra
Alaska Pea
Honey Rock Melon
Obsession Hybrid Sweet Corn
Silver Queen Swee Corn
Chioggia Beet
Romance Carrot
Utah 52-70 Improved Celery
Inchelium Red Garlic

Also have the allotment of herbs: Basil, Parsley, Mustard, Lavender, etc. Amazingly I still have a bunch of flower seed packets too. I am not sure if they are worth anything now but they'll be worth a try I guess. I am going to be companion planting around the vegetables with some flowers that will hopefully help ward off some of my pests that like to eat. Beneficial insects may make their way on the half- acre too. I have never used them before so there will be some more research.

Will be adding on to the garden again this year. Get a tiller and I go crazy, leaving no dirt un- turned. Rotating the crops around some; moving onions and potatoes into the 6 small beds, tomatoes in the upper plowed areas, build a new herb bed by request and two more raised 4' x 8' beds. I did a quick sketch on the  pad with a cool app that lets you write on pictures.

Well that's what I have for now. Things will change here and there (definitely not planting all of those tomato varieties) but for the most part this is the plan. Hope your planning is better than mine.

Last but definitely not least it is The Wife's birthday today. Happy Birthday dear :)

Finally Home for a Weekend

To start off with this is a picture of my boys fishing weekend before last over at Topsail Island. We did a quick weekend with family from WV.

Last weekend it was a two day paintball tourney from daylight to dark. 

So this weekend I got some work done around the homestead. Weeded the fall crops good. Now just sitting on my butt doing nothing. 

Looks 10 times better now.

I did plant some more cucumbers to see if we could actually get more than a few for the year and it looks like we are. 

I didn't take any photos of the lettuce but it is moving along slowly in spots. And apparently if you just randomly spill seeds it will grow. 

Year of the pepper. The Wife picked these earlier in the week so needless to say we put a lot up this weekend and also tried our hands at home made salsa. Waiting for it to cool down now but I'd say so-so on taste. We usually use the mix you buy in the stores and that always turns out great. 

Another things about all of the peppers is the abundance of seeds I saved. This is just from the green bell peppers this weekend. 

Sorry I haven't been around much but really not too much to blog about but I will try harder. 

WOF of the Week. Pretty much how I feel. 

Lounge around on your day off kids!

List Work A

Well it is decidedly cold enough outside that inside list work is on tap for today. I did roam out this morning to get a few things (Okra seeds and one more starting tray as you can never have enough of those :) but it's all inside today.

Cruised by the seedlings this morning. Wow did that kit of The Youngest Boy really take off! Another week and we may have to transplant.

Off to work on the list, part A.