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Sure gonna try. Har har...GO...yeh...give a GO!
I did a mental tally and uh, yeh...for the next 3 to 5 years, I better justify the thousand I jest spent on seeds, eh.

Looking at it like it is a grocery bill makes me feel a tad better...no pressure, none whatsoever to PRODUCE the produce!
Now picture Rick this late summer, peering at his dinner plate wondering "DEAR doG...What has she grown and is serving me up now...??? It's purple...and it looks like cauliflower but it's PURPLE!"

The beans, oh my I so hope I get a season conducive to beans...them beans, the more you eat, the more you toot...hee hee...no seriously, I want to do a picture like this one I saw that Hope Seeds has done, a single row of all the beans (and some I had to order else where like Orca--yeh, coloured like a killer whale!) they grow lined up and clicked. When I ordered from them, the lady said they take that display and never fails, someone steals some of the beans so they are forever having to tally up what kinda went missing in action...ha ha ha...beans - MIA, eh! And replenish their display for the next time.
Gardening here is such a challenge - it seems like it doesn't matter what you plant, there are dozens of things that are just waiting to take them down.
For example, did you know that deer like to eat peppers?
Box turtles love tomatoes - who knew? Apparently, so do a lot of other things, from opossums to birds. Forget heritage varieties; every disease known to nightshades is here, so we need a veritable alphabet soup of letters after the name to get the plant to survive long enough to bear.
My mother noticed that we had put bird netting on our blueberry bushes. She asked me, "don't you want to share with the birds?" "I don't mind sharing with the birds," I replied. "The problem is, the birds don't share with me. If we didn't have the nets, we wouldn't get any blueberries at all!"
Squash begin bearing right about the time the squash vine borers become active. If I'm lucky, I can get a few summer squash harvested before the borers kill the vines. They also take out the cucumbers, but that may be a mercy killing, because the humidity feeds mildews and fungi that make the plants look pathetic anyway.
I could go on and on, but it would be as depressing as our gardening efforts. Every year, I seem to spend incredible amounts of time weeding (and getting bitten by fire ants and mosquitoes) and have little to put on the table for my efforts.
I'm considering container gardening simply because it will keep the plants closer to the human habitation, and may increase the amount of produce that gets consumed by humans as a result.![]()
We get NO saskatoons at all and will have to net them some time if we even expect to get some berries in future--share...yeh totally laughed with you saying, "the birds don't share!"

I kinda address the weeding part to a bit of kindness to myself. Not like I am going to allow tours here, so if some places get weedy...who cares--this is my dirt and it grows stuff. I click pics and post those and if'n anyone wants to throw a fit because there might be a few weeds..."too bad for you, don't look" is my take. Choking out good plants, that is the objective of weeding to allow the good stuff to grow. Plus there are only weeds because the soil is so fertile and besides...a rose by any other name would smell as sweet...so a rose in the veg garden would be also labelled as a WEED. I have grazed the sheep some years in the veg garden...some of those weeds were not so weedish to their palates, eh!

Yeh, I knew deer loved to eat all sorts of veg and flowers. First thing we did was get the fences up and going. The veg garden one was not even soon enough because I gave Rick the stinky eye when I found my chives snipped close. I thought he had whipper snipped the chives but nope...the deer clipped them. We knew we had to get six foot and higher fences up before we even thought a veg garden or the orchards were viable.
We do sorta OK with the insects. I believe the nasty nasty cold weather we get is what KILLS most of the plagues that could happen. I also was a tad worried when the two bun buns showed up (snowshoe hares) but amazingly, while they bounced about and left lots of tracks IN the veg garden in the fall and winter...not a carrot, lettuce leaf or any veg of any kind got eaten. I am so glad I never panicked and RE-fenced the veg garden.
I have to express my green thumb...even if it is a few plants in the Man Porch...but have to have some green growing...always have. Even in a one bedroom apartment, the balcony was growing lettuce, carrots, herbs and flowers...sweet peas and nasturtiums... I simply can't breathe air without the green growth going on some place near me. Wither and die without plants!

We have a greenhouse, but growing stuff in there is challenging, too. During the summer it's a no-go - it's just too hot. During the winter, things like peppers and tomatoes will bloom, but getting them to set fruit requires keeping it relatively warm at night, and that means $$$ for fuel (and/or getting up a few times during the night to feed the fire in the wood stove). . . . which is why it was so frustrating for Critter when some beasty was eating the tomatoes as they ripened out there. Something is chewing off the spinach, too. Critter has tried cucumbers and squash in the greenhouse, but once again, humidity = fungus; apparently, if he wants to grow cukes, it's gonna have to be a variety specifically developed for greenhouse production.![]()
I get the too hot part...that's why Rick installed the louvers and fans on a heat sensor in the greenhouse. I've seen it easily go 110F and that's usually I believe when they fire up and begin cooling. We had a truck tarp on the tenplast roof to minimize the sunlight heating it up, that is until the baseball sized hail punched holes in it. Then he re-roofed it in coloured metal. That be that...hail on!
I have not experimented enough in greenhouses to be too experienced as of yet. Rick and I poured a very deep greenhouse foundation (he asked, how deep and I said, carrot deep which to me was at least 18" deep so I seem to recall he did 24 inches deep) when we had the house on the WEsT Coast...but we never stayed long enough to put a greenhouse top on the foundation. We did however remove all soil in the veg garden and greenhouse spot. Put down loads and loads of hand balmed washed rock for drainage along with a system of holed up drainage pipes. The thing we battled on the WEsT Coast was putrid mud. It rained and rained, poured and poured there and what we found was the moisture just sat there stagnating. Sure, sure, the snowdrops and flowering bushes all bloomed but we seemed to be always held captive waiting for the dirt to drain...putrid stinky mud...I still can smell the stench of me trying to turn over muck piles with a shovel...hoping against hope for it to PLEASE DRY OUT ALREADY! Nope...so we did have a good handle but never stayed long enough to reap the benefits of the drainage and the greenhouse fully completed.
I remember that greenhouse foundation quite well...Rick had woken up from a power nap (yeh, that be what men call it, eh!) and was feeling peppy. Truth be known, we were both fully crazy way back then; crazy, young, stunned and stupid. He woke up and we had the foundation to the point where the concrete forms were all up just waiting on the concrete...rebar all done up. Rick quipped, "Since it's Mother's Day, why don't we pour the concrete?" Yeh, crazy stupid youthful zest. Yeh, we had bought a small concrete mixer (can still hear it churning around and around like some cog was slightly off or a rock was stuck in it some place), so what the heck. Why not...you only live once. Yeh, nap in the afternoon, wake up and feel like pouring cement...sure...I remember we had to rig up some sorta lights as we continued our daft plan right into midnight and onwards...hee hee...Morons, but at least there were two of us, egging each other on to be insane together! I have fond memories but with age comes wisdom...never again be that silly, eh!

Bunny, you are right. It is very hard to get good veggies to grow in a garden here in east NC. Last year, my tomato plants were pitiful. Going to try a different variety this year. I always have beautiful squash plants and like you, I get squash until the borers come along. I did get a lot of cukes last year. Frustrating at times, but I love to garden. Here is an article about how to control those borers. Gonna give it a try this year.
How very kind of you to share this...THANK YOU!

So sweet...

Thank you EVER so much for clicking and posting...I am thinking a BIG ol' purse could scoop that one up...until the pup realized they were being stolen...faithful dawgs those ones...!! That cuteness would turn instant demonic jaws..."put pup DOWN now!"

OK...gardening...better address that because that is sure sucking up my time, resources and funds right now...such fun, eh!
Set out day is first week in June here...safe than sorry. My MIL who has lived here her whole life and gardened when it meant food on the table or starving...she says not to set anything out until the first of June...I listen to her up good.
So that means, ordered my catalogues end of December, hoping for all to arrive in January, many not here till February and some still dribbling in even now! NO matter.
Made my seed order to four companies, spent a $1,000 but the seeds I have ordered, some last to five years. Most are like 3 to 4 years to keep. Good thing. I have yet to receive the pamphlet I bought from Ontario on how to save my own seed but that will come in time for me to learn and learn I shall. This will help justify the cost of seed if I can take open pollinated ones that grow here and survive to make seeds...onwards and upwards I hope!
So in March, looks like my seeds should all arrive by then, have asparagus seed to plant because THAT takes three months, lavender and celery are at the 8 to 10 week marks. Then for April, the list grows of what I can start seeding up inside in the two four tiered mini-greenhouses...on that note, found a second greenhouse, not as nice as my first old one, but new version.
Picked up my second mini four tier greenhouse at a hardware store on Friday...on a shopping mission for the best buy and found prices ranged from $70, $50 to $45 and bought the $45 one. No castors but Rick told me just to grab one of the molded plastic struts and we can fit some casters to it that way. Add maybe ten bucks to the cost if'n I buy the same kinda cheapy ones my original $40 greenhouse came with. The metal has been really stretched thin on the new version...nothing like how sturdy the old one is. Oh well--them good ol' dazes, eh.

Got my one set of seedling trays all filled up and ready. Got the second one to do but need more mix.
Even thought to figure out how much seedling starter soil it takes to do up one flat of seedlings...5 liters will do one tray and the mix I bought is 25 liters...at five bucks, good to go as I need to buy one more and have both greenhouse minis done up. I am planning ahead and doing it bit by bit. I am sure I am going to feel way behind even at this rate, but slow and steady wins the race in the end, eh!
I posted some of this on the Dixie Chick thread but thought I had better post it here too or my thread will seem disjointed and missing holes of info...so here is some blah that has already been posted but needs to be here too to keep the thread relevant...

So mixed up what I already posted and added comments and more photos...get it all caught up to where I am at with the veggie gardening things, etc.
I been hording greenhouse pots and trays for over 40 years (yeh, I know...yell DINOsaurus and be done with it already would yah...40+ years of hoarding leaves you quite a stash...an organized one tho! Even moved from the WEsT Coast with my stash well seeded, eh). Me so ever proud that firing up the greenhouse this season is gonna be way economical. I see my seedling starter trays were regular priced at $4.99 and I bought those ones off season for $2.99 and there's eight of those per mini greenhouse...$25 bucks with taxes to fill one...I looked in town and now those exact same packaged up trays, lid, bottoms, inserts are $6.99...Holy Hannah, eh. That be $58.71...so double yer expenses to buy one mini and eight seedling starter trays on inserts and ten bucks fer the seedling sterilized but organic mix...that's $130 to begin one seedling setup. Yeh, me happy to have a greenhouse/planting stash...
So far, so good...only bought two seedling starter mediums (need ONE more) and 3 x 32 peat pots -
under twenty bucks if you ignore the oodles of seeds I got ordered

So both minis will be stored in the greenhouse till I need to start the seeds.
Love the helper dogs...
Inspectors, helpers and all round good company

I am learning about saving seed, so thought a new bin would be good thing to start with. I guess freezing some seeds will kill them, so best is to have cool, dry and dark for storage on a general aspect of keeping seeds well.
Picked up these two seeders, half price at $1.50 each. Should be good for lettuce and carrot seeding.
Now not all the spring sprung stuff is on full price...I had two of these fish watering cans from, oh maybe three years back, paid like six bucks for them...on for two bucks so I bought three orange (use to match the orange truck tarp on the greenhouse but now I have all sorts of new orchard decorations in orange...these will blend in well. And two blue...ten bucks. Love these widdle silly colourful cans. I'm a big kid, don't kick sand in my fun times eh!

Another find that I could have lived without...a small ornamental triangle dinner bell...$14! I can't even imagine making that, let alone buying the metal too..
Sans dinner triangle...
Dinner triangle... I suppose in an emergency...I can ring the ding and Rick will wonder why I am saying DINNER's DONE! and come check me out. Ha ha ha...

Greenhouse is looking quietly ready and waiting patiently on me.

Veg garden is still growing ice worms...
While I play in the greenhouse, I pop out and check on the girls...

Make sure no one is winning too many of the squirmishes...they sure enjoy the time we are spending outside...brat babes!

And yet so much fun!
Lots of progress on the Dog Bus...
Let's review because she is done, other than the front, she's done like dinner now...
Rick put the mud flaps on...finally showed up and he's been doing the final touches to her.
But of course, not without PUPPER HELP!
We have one set of these kind of mudflaps on the one ton...
Luv how the logo is on the mudflap and ties in with the badges on the sub!

So at the end of yesterday, even with Rick coming home from a day of work...he still worked on the truck here at home.
DOG BUS BEFORE...
Things left to be completed...Rick wants to order up chrome rings for headlights and a chromey grill...there are license plate lights too that need ordering, but for the most part...she is pretty much completed. Nice ride for them two muttleys...

Not caught up here on postings but done for now I guess...got me girls to go play with...later, eh!

Doggone & Chicken UP!
Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada