The Old Folks Home

[chickadoodles]

Wow Ron thanks for sharing the pics! Beautiful!
Here everything is still dead.

I am sprouting seeds on my dining room table. And my apple tree cuttings are budding out.

 

[ronott1]

Wow Ron thanks for sharing the pics! Beautiful!
Here everything is still dead.

I am sprouting seeds on my dining room table. And my apple tree cuttings are budding out.
View attachment 1255034 View attachment 1255036

I have some seeds sprouting--Thyme, basil, tomatoes, squash and watermelon. It is a start for the garden.

The thyme has sprouted

 

[microchick]

Way to early here to even think about starting any seeds but I did find a half package of Basil seeds and managed to get 4 seeds to sprout. The little plants are about 1 1/2 inches tall now.

Nothing better than fresh Basil.

My Rosemary plant from last year is thriving in my south window. Rosemary is such a lovely herb. Every time I water it it gives off the most delightful scent of Rosemary, almost like it is thanking me.

Reminds me, One of our Amish neighbors stopped by and tied his horse outside our gate. Said horse left me a pile of horse apples that I need to shovel into a bucket and pour water over so I make fertilizer tea. My mother used to do it with a cow patty and her plants went nuts growing when she watered with her special poop tea.

 

[pennyJo1960]

We had cattle Ma would have bring cow pies fresh for allot her roses or dalias

 

[microchick]

With the exception of the areas on our farm where the previous owner housed sheep, goats, horses and beef, our soil quality is pretty crappy. Lots of clay. I mean LOTS of clay. Three years ago we had a conservation officer come out and look at our timber for us as it was just starting to recover from having live stock turned out in it. They had grazed down all the new growth oak and left just Hickory and old growth oak. The officer pointed out all the red cedar that we had growing on the ridges and told us that in our area the ridges were notorious for poor soil quality and as a result the forgiving cedar would readily grow there.

Well guess what? Our house and barn are sitting on top of a small ridge. We have been trying to enrich the soil for the past 5 years. DH has been dumping ash and working chicken compost into my garden area. Things are getting better but I still cannot grow tomatoes that are worth the trouble of babying the plants along. Root crops do well as do my squash and pumpkins, but not much else. Very frustrating. By the time it's to the point that I can grow anything, I'll probably be too old to plant it

Strange thing is my garden is sitting on the area where the goat pens were. You would think that soil would grow anything.

 

[pennyJo1960]

We do have pretty good soil here finding there was probably another house on the property or something finding different old pieces of stuff in the chicken yard best thing I did was pickup a big bunch of old tires to plant in bought black garden dirt to put in them
along with 3 year old chicken crap

 

[Beer can]

Wasn't subzero here this morn, just 0..
The sun out was nice though. I like my outside wood boiler, everything stays outside.
Wood heat is awesome, warms you up twice! When you cut it in winter lol.
My grandmother had a in basement huge Kalamazoo wood furnace/oilburner , could use either. Worked awesome, could use either, worked fine just using oil.
If the wood went out, stack it up and fire up the oil burner. Was like a big jet engine afterburner got the wood fired up quick. Had a woodchute outside with a lid, just open it up and toss the wood into the steel chute would shoot right down into the basement.

Let one coop out to play today, moved our old van so they had some grass to peck.
How to scratch yer butt with your spur Lol!

 

[CapricornFarm]

I

We do have pretty good soil here finding there was probably another house on the property or something finding different old pieces of stuff in the chicken yard best thing I did was pickup a big bunch of old tires to plant in bought black garden dirt to put in them
along with 3 year old chicken crap

I have a guy willing to let me get hay and horse manure , aged a year. That will be great for helping our awful clay soil. Pretty much everywhere we lived we have had either sand or clay soil. Always adding something.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Nice thing up here or also a curse to close to the mountains there is glacial rock all over and about all you can grown get back a bit there is soil on our town not to bad but not super find the spots where there was a pump or barn in years gone buy good soil

 

[Beer can]

Started watching a new series on Netflix this afternoon called 'Rotten' about the food industry.
We had a discussion awhile back about honey. I really didn't think there could be any real fake honey. I work in a food plant, there is some serious rules and regulations, labeling requirements, everything from the actual food to the cups to the cardboard has documentation, a paper trail.
But, ... we import a lot of food don't we?...
I'm glad we only buy local honey.
First episode was on honey. Was pretty interesting first half, I fell asleep around the middle so I'll have to re-watch it. Been doing that a lot lately, falling asleep mid afternoon, reminds me of those old people that have to take naps during the day