Triple Clicks

Showing posts with label Garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Garden. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Making Summer Plans

 Well, here I go feeling over enthusiastic again.  Making plans to fix things, attempting to plan a garden-at least I don't have a tree in the way again! 


So I'm keeping it small.  My two oldest love to help with the garden, so I can pretty much put them in charge of that and we'll be set.  

I want to redo one of the rock gardens in the front...  So pulling out as much vegetation as possible, probably replacing (that's a BIG probably) and making the faucet able to be winterized. Grading the dirt away from the house. Taking the tiller to it, laying down something to help block the weeds and putting the rocks back over that.  There are some lilies and tulips I would love to save and  replant, but I'm also not against just tearing everything out and rebuying the bulbs for those two plants.

Now, as much as I would LOVE to do more than one garden, I'm not planning on it.  There's still general yard maintenance that takes a lot of time so I'm taking things slow.  The vegetable garden is a must to help with the grocery bill and the kids will love to be in charge of that. 


My other big project I'm enlisted my parent's help, which will probably be more of a "sit and tell us how to do it" kind of help. Which is just fine with me.  I learn better if I have to physically do, and so does hubby.  This project doesn't have to wait for summer, but it does have to wait for funds.. Most of the rock garden redo just take the ground the thaw and time, we have almost all of the supplies needed. 



My poor kitchen needs help.  The whole kitchen really does need help, but we can only focus on a bit at a time, so focusing on the worst first-the faucet is leaking and the dishwasher needs to go for storage.  We're saving up for a new faucet.  Under the cabinet needs replaced, the bottom of the cabinet is not fit to use.  The dishwasher is finally coming out, it's been broken for 9 years.  As much as I would love to replace the dishwasher, we simply do not have the money so shelving of some sort is going in for storage.  I'll try to work on getting the green stick on tile up without ruining the linoleum underneath, that's a project I started 6 years ago and am still working on, though every time the floor is mopped (so....daily) a little bit comes up by itself.  Everything from the corner on the left to the set of drawers on the right needs worked on.  I would love to do more, but we cannot right now.  So I will be satisfied with what we can do.  


As far as the healthy changes we've been making. Dennis is losing weight and feeling better.  I'm not losing, but I am starting to feel better until I eat excess sugar.... Then I feel horrible-go figure.  

I'm also saving up for a bucket or two of paint to start painting walls so they are white again.  It's a plan anyway.  


~Tabitha 



Tuesday, August 10, 2021

All The Updates

 Well.... There's good news, and bad news. 


So let's start with the bad news.  We killed our tomatoes our 5 year old named Bob.  We forgot to water them.  

And our elderberries are apparently infested with some sort of worm....  So we'll be trimming those back once winter hits and watch them carefully next spring. 

That's all the bad news. 


So now for the fun part-the good news. 

We had some awesome help from people at church getting a lot of the yard cleaned up.  It was a huge blessing and I am grateful for all the help we received.  

The kids and I started taking the fence apart to make shelves.. Then the heat hit and we haven't been able to do much outside.  I just don't do well in the heat.   Thankfully it's been fairly easy to take apart the fence as the screws aren't stripped-just rusted.  So we can just use the drill to take most of the screws out.  

We've been doing a lot of cleaning and sorting inside.  I need to go back to Dollar Tree and get more containers.  I was able to get about halfway through the kitchen cupboards before I ran out-but that part of the kitchen is much more functional now.  I'm also putting fresh shelf liner down as I go through cupboards, that's a nice addition to appeal to the "pretty part"... especially since I'm missing a lot of doors. 😂

We are 3 weeks into our school year.. We've tweaked a few things, but are loving our modified Robinson Curriculum method.   I took out the Grammar and Writing-and just put the older two kids into older Grammar books so we can learn the basics... Then as they read more they will learn the writing, a long with practicing writing.   The Write Bonnie Rose history is a little more involved that I thought it would be-but then I looked on her website and realized she wrote it for teenagers-not elementary.  Oops.  But the kids are *mostly* having fun with it..  It requires me to stay close by and monitor computer usage as our encyclopedias are too old to answer the questions.  We also have to use Google Earth for the geography as we don't have paper maps or a globe that is detailed enough.  I took Eva out of the homemade math books and put her in Everyday Number Stories.. It's an old math book that was used in conjunction with the McGuffey readers.  She is excelling at that and when she gets through the book we'll start her on Saxon.   We'll just use my homemade books for extra review or practice as needed.  


I was extremely excited to find the Robinson Phonics Flashcards on the CDs.  I'm horrible at phonics, these cards (to me, at least) are worth their weight in gold.   They have the letter or blend on one side, then all the sounds that makes on the other.  They are now printed and laminated.  Andrew told me we need a bookshelf just for flashcards.  😂


On the shopping front.. Things are getting interesting again.. Our local stores are having problems getting shipments in.. The city stores are starting to enact mask policies again... Now, I can do many things.... But I CANNOT breath in a mask, I CANNOT get my grocery list taken care of and make sure the kids are not only behaving by staying near me, but are also keeping masks on "correctly".   I just can't do it all.    Not to mention-where are all the tortillas going?!?!?!   

Dennis ordered me a tortilla press.  I learned to make tortillas last year, and am getting back into it.  We love homemade tortillas but I struggle to keep them round when using just a rolling pin.   

I'm also making homemade noodles again.. Homemade are so much better than store bought.  We started making bread again-I pulled down my bread maker and put it back in action yesterday.  The kids loved the homemade bread with almond butter and strawberry jelly.  


We go shopping again Thursday, so I guess we'll see how things go.  


~Tabitha

Saturday, March 20, 2021

Learning To Garden

 Well.  

We're at it again. We are learning to garden.  

I've been researching on the best way to start seeds..  Two years ago when I planted a garden we almost lost half our tomatoes because of frost (I was able to salvage and finish ripening in the house.  So seedlings it is...  I also figure if I kill these-then I can sew straight in the ground.  Back up plans ya know. 



I have no idea what I'm doing.  So the kids are experimenting with me.  

We have 18 Eva Bell Tomatoes (like beefsteak, I get my seeds from Seed Saver), 18 cherry tomatoes and hopefully 18 bell peppers.  

Now.. I think I may have thinned out too soon-but I did it for two reasons.. From watching YouTube videos, it seemed that using toilet paper tubes were a great option.   Ummm no.. ours found mold... so I took them out, thinned and just replanted.. So hopefully I didn't shock the young seedlings-or seeds..   

I also found the past few days that once they sprout, I need to take the greenhouse part off.... So I took it off.  The plastic wrap is over the bell peppers that haven't sprouted-not sure why, but they haven't (this is week 3).  

So my little greenhouse thingy...  I wasn't thinking when I thinned out the tomatoes... and completely mixed up my Eva Bells and my cherries.  *face palm*. 

I also realized this morning that we are going to have issues if all of these survive because this year I have very little space in my one little raised garden bed....  If they all survive, I have to give some away... I can't tell anybody what they are getting lol.  Oops.  But we overplanted because my seeds are old.. like I don't remember when I bought them old.. 

On top of this experiment, we will be working with the yard to build up the soil into something useful this summer.  

I found this  really awesome book on my shelf by Better Homes and Gardens.  All about gardening... ok, more so about "pretty gardening" than "useful gardening" (veggies and the like).  But it had some useful tips-like how to revive your soil..  While my arthritis and back much agree with the raised gardening idea.... my budget is laughing at me-so we are going to work all year to revive our back yard soil.  Our back yard used to be a driveway... so from the top down we have crabgrass, top soil, rocks, more top soil and clay under that.  But I am determined and that's the best way to be when trying something new, right?  Plus, when I planted elderberry bushed last year 22 out of 25 survived and we were able to harvest.  So there's good there!

So here's the plan (I'd take a picture and show you...but it's all snow out there....)  Till up soil a foot down, let the kids have fun and get out as many rocks as they can, till it up again-probably two or three more times with the same process.   After we get out at least the majority of the rocks we are going to start fertilizing.  While we don't have fresh cow/chicken poop (and I've no desire to go find nor spread...), we do have a ton of kitchen compost, leaves and sticks to wood chip..and a dog.  So that's how we're are going to build up our soil... Apparently you make your garden patch your dumping ground for compost for a year-till it up every month or so and just let God do his job in fertilizing. 


So that's the plan...  Guess we'll see how it works.  Because I have no idea what I'm doing.  

This year, we'll be using my raised garden bed and probably a few food grade five gallon buckets-mostly for potatoes.   I'll keep you updated.  


Have a great week! (month? lol)

~Tabitha