Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Orange Marmalade, Potato Towers and Kids in the Mud

Well, I guess I'm having a hard time keeping up with the 'once a week' posts.  I don't think I'm doing half bad tho; especially since I've never blogged before.  And my diary keeping as a young girl went for a week then inevitably fell by the wayside - or under the bed.

So, in trying to keep track of the 'what have I been doing to keep going towards my goals' goal I had set for myself - here we go.

Canning:  YAY, I LOOOOVE canning.  Right now is a REALLY good time of year for buying oranges (or any citrus I believe).  So I made Orange Marmalade. YUMM  The only downside being, after I got it all sealed in jars and done I had a tiny bit left I put into a cup in the fridge to enjoy with my morning toast.  The next day I check it and it's still watery.  =(  Aww bummer.  I had to waste all those canning lids by opening them BACK up and re-boiling the whole batch.  This time I have it right and we've got it all done again.   Sorry the pic is sideways.  Still trying to figure that one out.

Planting:  I have my seeds started, of course cause I mentioned that!  The peas, beans and tomatoes are growing like weeds!  I had to replant then to give them more soil and extra room till I can trust putting them outside.  I started my herbs in the kitchen window in little tiny pots and egg shells.  I got a load of dirt last week and got my 2 planting beds filled in YAY!  I did it in the rain - took an hour, had to pull the truck RIGHT into my yard and Thank you Lord I got it back out!  Lol  I think hubby would have been a bit upset with me if I'd stranded his truck in the mud in the yard.  Lol
Then yesterday I got my potato towers built.  You take welded wire (I used 2"x4" at 3' tall) and make it into a circle and attach it to itself.  You add straw around the outside with dirt in the center and do 'levels' adding potatoes, then more dirt and straw (which I used dirty from the rabbit house because we all know rabbit pellets are GREAT for plants.  It doesn't burn the plants so you can add it right to your garden without fear of burn like other farm animal waste.



The tower as I started it.


Potatoes on the first level as I started it.  I did NOT use store bought but instead organic ones directly from a local farmer.  Store bought has no guarantee if it's non-gmo, and the thing about gmo is it doesn't reproduce well.  You have to constantly buy new.  You can't ever seed save from a gmo crop.  A way the gmo people are making money huh.


And my finished tower.  I have one more to build on the other side of my garden.  This ended up using about 25 potatoes and had 5 levels.  The plants will grow right out the sides and when they wither and die, all I'll have to do is go push the thing over and harvest my crop.  Four pounds of potatoes is said to give you about 25# when harvested.  I have regular whites, reds, and blues in there.  =)

We finally got off our behinds and went and got our kids' playhouse back from a friends house.  The kids were so excited when I brought it home.  Our littlest hasn't ever really ever played with it.  She was only a year old when we moved last year and it's been down since then.  They ALL had a really great time including the 11 year old.  We had to get it all cleaned up first as it was covered in mud!  Sorry no pic, I tried to post one, but it's from my hubby's phone instead of mine and the server won't take it.  Go figure?!

All in all a good week or so.
God Bless!

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