What did you do in the garden today?

[Sueby]

1 out of 15 didn't seal. Darn, we have to eat a jar. It was probably my fault too, I was in pain & just wanted to get them done so I probably didn't wipe good enough or get the top on great. My bands were pretty rusty & giving me a hard time - I need to throw some old ones out.

I feel like there should be a recipe out there for cowboy candy green beans. I have more beans than I know what to do with, candied would be great! Slap em on a burger...yum.

 

[akroberts1085]

Have you ever tried making homemade green bean casserole. If you grow shallots it's the same as the squash fries. Milk bath lightly seasoned flour and deep fried. Who needs French's fried onions. They taste far better too.

1 out of 15 didn't seal. Darn, we have to eat a jar. It was probably my fault too, I was in pain & just wanted to get them done so I probably didn't wipe good enough or get the top on great. My bands were pretty rusty & giving me a hard time - I need to throw some old ones out.

I feel like there should be a recipe out there for cowboy candy green beans. I have more beans than I know what to do with, candied would be great! Slap em on a burger...yum.

 

[CNJ]

Those look bigger than the Earth Boxes online. Are your DIY Earth Boxes also bigger?

It looks like you are putting one tote into a second tote that is probably the water reservoir. Is that correct?

It measures 30 inches x 20 inches on top and yes, I am stacking them, but I have a skinny wood on a fatter wood on top that total 2.25 inches and the lip on the tote is one inch, so the space on the bottom is 3.25 inches and my 4-inch net cup is 3 inches deep, so I put a 1/4 inch wicking rope through the bottom of the net cup to make up the 1/4-inch space which really isn't necessary. It's just that I started playing with wicking ropes and have a lot of them. I also drilled a drain hole 2.25 inches off the bottom, so I have a one-inch air gap. It holds about 3.50 gallon of water.

I am going to use 2x4's for the reservoir space on my next build. I don't know why they call it 2x4 when it's 3.50 inches, not 4 inches?

 

[JedJackson]

I collected seed from peas for next year, harvested cherry tomatoes and zucchini, and did some watering. Pretty warm and smoky here so I wasn't outside for too long.

 

[JedJackson]

Have you ever tried making homemade green bean casserole. If you grow shallots it's the same as the squash fries. Milk bath lightly seasoned flour and deep fried. Who needs French's fried onions. They taste far better too.

I've had green bean casserole made exactly that way, with also some red bell peppers in it. Much better than the usual green bean casserole, which I am not fond of. A lady who has now passed made it one year for Christmas.

 

[akroberts1085]

I've had green bean casserole made exactly that way, with also some red bell peppers in it. Much better than the usual green bean casserole, which I am not fond of. A lady who has now passed made it one year for Christmas.

Sounds good. I will have to try that this year for the holidays.

 

[akroberts1085]

Can you send me the recipe for your homemade green bean casserole. I would love to try it.

I've had green bean casserole made exactly that way, with also some red bell peppers in it. Much better than the usual green bean casserole, which I am not fond of. A lady who has now passed made it one year for Christmas.

 

[gtaus]

It measures 30 inches x 20 inches on top and yes, I am stacking them, but I have a skinny wood on a fatter wood on top that total 2.25 inches and the lip on the tote is one inch, so the space on the bottom is 3.25 inches and my 4-inch net cup is 3 inches deep, so I put a 1/4 inch wicking rope through the bottom of the net cup to make up the 1/4-inch space which really isn't necessary. It's just that I started playing with wicking ropes and have a lot of them. I also drilled a drain hole 2.25 inches off the bottom, so I have a one-inch air gap. It holds about 3.50 gallon of water.

I am going to use 2x4's for the reservoir space on my next build. I don't know why they call it 2x4 when it's 3 inches, not 4 inches?

Thank you for that info. It looks like a very nice DIY version of the Earth Box. Have you considered using the tote lid as the separator at about 3-4 inches, and placing that inside your tote, which would eliminate the need for that second tote? I believe it would effectively be the same but cut your cost in totes in half.

From my work with sub-irrigated planters, that 1 inch air gap is essential to the design concept to prevent drowning of the plants.

As to the 2X4's not actually being 2X4 inches....

I work with lots of pallet wood projects, and there the "2X4" stretchers can be just about any size. I have seen 1 inch to a full a 2 inch thick but usually all are all 3-1/2 inches wide. I made the mistake, once, of using mixed sized pallet 2X4's to make a raised garden bed. When the 2X4's are not all the same size, the framing of the bed got out of square. Not by a lot and for a raised garden bed who cares, but I ended up having to cut that last vertical side board on the raised bed with a 1/4 to 1/2 inch taper to fit properly.

In any case, I applaud your efforts in making your own DIY Earth Boxes and would suggest you might be able to further reduce your costs if you used the lid of the original tote as a separator instead of adding that second box.

Check out this short YouTube video. It could end up saving you a lot of money. Since I have never actually built a DIY Grow Box or a DIY Earth Box, I would love to hear what you think of this concept using only one tote...

 

[ShrekDawg]

Picked a few bell peppers

 

[gtaus]

Where, or how, do you guys plant your squash plants?

In my backyard, I have all my raised garden beds spaced out nicely so that I can drive my riding mower between them and cut the grass. This year, Dear Wife got an Upo plant (white gourd) and wanted to plant in one of my raised beds. She said that it would grow like a squash and spread out.

Since Upo is a tropical plant, I thought it would be no big deal and probably would not grow out very much here in northern Minnesota, zone 3b. However, to my surprise, that one plant has grown out over 40 feet on the ground from the base of the plant in the raised bed. That means I can no longer mow the grass with the riding mower.

Long story short, I had to take out my little Ryobi 18v 12-inch electric mower to mow around the raised beds. I used the bagger on the mower to collect all the grass clippings, which I toss into the chicken run to feed the chickens fresh greens and the grass not eaten gets turned into compost. By the time I finished mowing around the raised beds, I had filled my 10 cubic foot garden cart with grass clippings. That is a lot of mowing for a 12-inch mower!

Would have loved to post a nice picture of that 10 cubic foot mound of grass clippings I dumped into the chicken run, but my composting chickens had it leveled out flat in about 5 minutes! Even though some of my chickens are too old for good egg production, they still earn their keep in making compost for my gardens.

If you don't use your chickens to make compost, I believe you are missing out on their most valuable contribution to your homestead. We sell our excess eggs and that pays for the commercial feed bill, which is about $15 per month for me. But the amount of compost I harvest from the chicken run amounts to hundreds of dollars every year in cost savings of compost that I no longer buy in the big bags at the big box stores. All that great compost feeds the raised beds, which feed the plants, that produce food which feeds the family. So, yet more savings which all started from those composting chickens.

To show my appreciation for all their work, I tossed them some overripe tomatoes this afternoon when I was harvesting some of my cherry tomatoes. My chickens love those tomatoes. One hen will pick up a cherry tomato and run around the chicken run with 4 or 5 other hens chasing her trying to take it away. Good exercise for the old girls and lots of entertainment for me.

Your gardening life will be a lot easier for you if you can have your garden next to your chicken coop and run. When I pull weeds from the garden, I just toss them into the run for the chickens. They eat almost everything. Overripe food or damaged food gets tossed to my chickens before it ever gets into the house. Saves me time and effort. And, like I have already mentioned, I harvest the chicken run compost and use it directly in the garden beds right next to the chicken run. No more hauling compost all over the property to add to the gardens. Although I still have a few plots of garden at the other end of my property, almost all my gardening has been moved to raised beds by the chicken coop and run. It just saves me so much time and labor and, at my age, I can really appreciate my new setup next to the chickens.

Here is a quick picture of my backyard setup of chickens and raised garden beds...

Every year I have been adding about another two pallet wood raised garden beds. Plants are looking a little worse for the wear this time of year, and the chicken coop is the process of repainting and getting some new trim, so that will look better in a few weeks. That tarped contraption in front of my chicken coop is my cement mixer compost sifter. Again, everything right next to my coop and run, saving me all kinds of time and effort. The compost sifter stays there all summer long but will be moved behind the coop for storage before we get winter snows.