I haven’t posted for a while. I’d like to post every day but hate posting trival things just to post something.

That being said, I want to post more often. I enjoy writing, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned numerous times.

I find myself in a situation where I must better my situation for the boys’ sake. So I’ve decided to start up a small engine repair business.

I pretty much have all the tools I’ll need and know my way around engines. There was a mower that had sat outside and unused for around six years. I tore into it, the oldest was convinced I was wasting my time. Took longer than it really should have to troubleshoot and repair.

You should have seen his face light up when it sputtered the first time we were trying to fire it up. It runs like a beast but needs a new blade and blower housing cover, but I’ve mowed with it twice now.

Knee high weeds, and it never bogged down on me. I plan on digging another out of the boneyard and see if I can fix up a better-looking mower to sell. I have at least thrityfive mowers and assorted other equipment with small engines to fix up to sell.

There are a couple of antique engines that I’d like to see roar back to life. It will take some serious research to see what they actually are and then figure out how to repair them.

That’s all for today. I did a lot of mowing and working around the grounds. The food forest is slowly but surely coming along, and I’ll post another video tour before much longer.

Have a great day. Thank you for stopping by. May all your ventures be met with success!

  One of the earliest flowering plants and an important early food source for pollinators.

  Many frown upon the lowly dandelion as it’s bright yellow flowers pop up in their nicely manicured green lawns. They’ll dig them out or spray them with chemicals to kill them off.

  Meanwhile, children make wishes as they blow the seed heads apart and watch in delight as the seeds float away on the air currents.

  Probably to land in someone’s yard that won’t appreciate or understand why those pesky dandelions keep coming up in their yard.

  If one really looks into the dandelion, they will learn it has many benifits and uses. As well as a rich history. It was cultivated as a food source at one point. And has medicinal properties.

  A word of caution to those people with kidney problems, gallbladder problems, or gallstones should consult their doctors before eating dandelion.

  Tea’s, jellies, wine, soaps, and much more can be made with the common dandelion.

  I have eaten the young leaves in salads and found them to be palatable. Bigger leaves tend to be on the bitter side.

  I do not claim to be an expert on many things, I am, however, a lifelong learner and am fascinated with many things. I try to share what interests me in hopes that others who share similar interests may find what I post useful.

  As always, any input is welcomed. May your ventures be met with success!

https://thenerdyfarmwife.com/12-things-to-make-with-dandelion-flowers/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/circulatingnow.nlm.nih.gov/2016/06/07/the-dandelion/amp/

I’ll start out by saying there are as many ways of doing something as there are people doing it. You may like my way, or you may choose another that works best for you.

I’ve had good luck so far using my method, and so I thought I’d share, incase it might help someone else.

My seed starting mix came from the Dollar General and another bag from walmart. The mix from Walmart held much more moisture than the Dollar General mix.

The seed starting mix from Dollar General was a bit hydrophobic, to be honest. I had to put it into a bucket with water and mix it in. While it did absorb water, it took longer than it should have, and if allowed to dry out, it will once again repell water.

Sadly, my own seed starting mix will not be ready until next spring. But I’m getting sidetracked. I fixed the cheaper seed starting mix by mixing about double the amount of a good potting soil mix and giving it a thorough soaking.

After soaking, I took the pot I decided to start the seeds in and lined it with a paper towel in the bottom. The holes were pretty big considering the small sized bits in the mix.

Afterward, I filled the pot with the soggy mix.

I spread the seeds and covered them with a bit more soil. I then set it off to the side to drain for awhile. If it’s hot and dry out, you can place your seeds into a zip lock bag until they sprout. Otherwise, you can leave them outdoors or in a sunny windowsill until they sprout.

For what it’s worth, I used Dollar General seeds and expect a good germination rate. I can honestly say I have had good luck with their seeds and have saved a lot of money buying cheap seeds. But how much you spend on seeds and where you get them from is completely up to you. Though places are now running low on seeds.

After they reach a few inches tall, they can be transplanted to where you want them to grow. Starting them this way may cause them to become crowded sooner rather than later, but it’s easy enough to dig and separate them, giving you more clumps of chives to harvest. If left alone, they will self seed in the second season. Or at least that is my experience.

Best of luck, and may your ventures be met with success!

My raised bed Garden I made is doing well, plants are thriving, and the soil is alive, as witnessed by the fungi that keeps popping up.

I planted one hundred onion sets, not sure how many radishes and black carrots I planted, but the carrots are coming up good. And there are a few leeks. I’ll put more leeks in it later today.

I still have many plants that need to go into the ground and quite a few containers to get filled with soil.

I’ve been so busy dealing with things that I must admit that I have been letting some that I enjoy slip by the way side.

One of those things is the writing course I’d started taking some time ago. I really enjoy writing and wouldn’t mind if I could make a living with it.

I need to post more, and I apologize for that. I haven’t been feeling the best, I’ve had a wicked cough since about the 1st of the month, and I don’t seem to be getting any better.

A raised bed has been started with a pallet. Sadly enough boards were junk that I wasn’t able to complete it with only one pallet but that’s okay.

It’s a little too rough to try sell, though it makes for good practice for when I find some decent pallets to build beds to offer for sale.

If you should decide to try your hand at building a raised bed from an old pallet, you’ll want to try to find one that was heat treated and not treated chemically. Also, pre drill your holes a bit smaller than your screws or you risk splitting your wood and having a pile of kindling instead of a garden bed.

Any input is welcomed. I wish you the best of luck, and may your ventures be met with success!

Sometimes, plans change. At times, it’s out of necessity, and other times, opportunities drive change.

I have just had such an experience. A friend asked me if I would like some tubs to grow things in.

I had been looking for some, so yes, came easy. When asked how many I simply said surprise me. Thinking I’d be lucky to get two or three.

When I went to the back of the house, this is what I saw.

From what I’ve read, they are around twenty-five gallons. I’ve used a couple of these for the last couple of years, and they work great.

So, instead of multiple raises beds, I will be using these. A trade-off that will save hours of labor building raised beds and money on materials, each one can be dedicated to raising one or two types of plants.

I plan on starting to fill them up tomorrow, assuming, of course, I feel better. I’ve been sick since Friday evening.

These will be filled along the lines of Hügelkultur. I have tons of old dead wood just waiting to be used for something. Also the winds have blown in a mess of tumble weeds.

I used to throw them in the dumpster but this year I stomped them flat and have been using the lawn mower and my small shredder to break them down.

Figured it was kind of lame to throw resources away when they could be used for something. I’ll put them at the bottom of these, along with tree branches and limbs, it won’t take a great deal of soil to finish them off.

To be honest, I may not get all thirty of these filled this year. Just yesterday, I planted a ten pound bag of potatoes that had chitted into my well broken down compost piles, or I’d use it for these.

May your ventures be met with sucess.

  I hate the flimsy light-weight seed starters they put out every year.

  They work, but they do not hold up. If you’re real careful, you may get two seasons, but it’s doubtful at best.

  So, I set out and designed my own. Whether or not what I end up with is something better or not remains to be seen.

 

  They are flexible enough that getting plants out should be fairly easy yet strong enough that they should hold up for multiple season’s.

I will fill one with potting soil and seeds tonight and see how it goes. I’ll report back and update you on how it goes.

Thank you for stopping by, and may your ventures be met with success!

  Long story short, I never realized an herb stripper was even a thing. Yesterday, while searching for an herb chopper, they popped up.

  Now I’m convinced I want one. I read up a little and looked at designs for a bit and designed one and am 3D printing it now.

  This is my 3rd rendition of the idea and hopefully the last. This solves a couple of problems. One, I get something I believe will be useful as we continue adding herbs to our food forest. Best of all, I’m making my own.

  Two, it will hopefully get Brayzen, the youngest off my back. He has big dreams of being a youtuber and hammers on me fairly often because we don’t have merch..lol

  For the uninitiated, merch means merchandise to sell. Granted, there are plenty of other herb strippers for people to choose from on the market.

However, this is the first one that I am aware of that may help fuel the dreams of buying some land and being more of a real homestead.

I’m not the best designer, but I enjoy trying to make something from nothing. I may tinker with it one more time to get a neater looking line up of the holes. Or I may just leave it alone so it doesn’t look like some mass-produced item. What do you think?

While I like the thought of 3D printing these, I may offer some made from wood and some made of metal. It just depends on the amount of interest.

There will also be other products as time goes by, I’m not sure what at this point in time but as we get more independent I’m confident that tools will be created to make our lives better and I’ll more than likely share my new ideas.

Best of luck in your ventures!

  I have several red buds in the yard and can’t help but notice that they have a tendency to spread. Though it’s only in the last three years or so that they have started what looks to be a full-on invasion of the property.

  I only fairly recently learned that the flowers that form on these trees are not only edible but also delicious.

  While they have a sweet, almost honey like taste, and I suspect they would be perfect in a salad from time to time, we should leave some for the pollinators as well.

  The young leaves, buds, and seed pods are edible as well. I have mixed the leaves and seed pods into stir fry and found them quite tasty.

  The boys haven’t warned up to the idea of eating trees just yet, though I have gotten the youngest to try the flowers. He said they were delightful. Not really something I was expecting to hear from a five year old, but I’ll take it. He’s becoming more adventurous in trying new foods and loves growing plants from seeds.

  Above is a surprise flower he brought home from school. His teacher had planted the seed, and he’s been taking care of it since it sprouted.

  I’m trying to get all three to learn as much as possible about foraging. With the ever looming threat of food shortages, I feel obligated to teach them as much as I can about securing as much of their own food as possible.

  My grandmother’s family on my mom’s side survived the great depression by eating peanuts. They barely pulled through, and she developed scurvy and suffered some bone deformities.

I remember my grandfathers backyard was filled with two huge gardens. He grew a great many plants, and grandma canned and stored it all. Nothing went to waste.

They also had an apple tree that bore five varieties of apples, and I believe he had grafted them all, if I remember correctly.

I sincerely wish I had half of their knowledge about growing my own food, though they had little choice but to secure their own food or go hungry. I fear we may be once again headed in that direction, so I’m preparing now for what may be. I pray I’m wrong, but like a seat belt or a parachute, it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

May your ventures be met with success. For more on red buds, below is a link, and there are likely thousands of other sources for information using a quick Google search.

https://eattheplanet.org/redbud-a-bold-and-beautiful-tree-with-edible-flowers/

  It’s still a work in progress to be sure but I want an area where all of my compost can be kept together. 

  I got the idea from the sustainable me channel on youtube. I lined the bottom with several layers of cardboard, then some woody material that was lying around waiting to be used.

I put what I cleaned out of the fridge dead center, covered with another piece of cardboard and some dirt to make sure there’s enough microorganisms to give the compost a boost.

Yard waste and kitchen scraps throughout the year will finish it off.

  I put a layer of plastic on the inside and then a layer of weed blocker cloth. The outside is painted to slow deterioration. Or so I hope. My pallets are already pretty rough. There will be three bins like this when it’s all said and done.

  There will be one more pallet added to each side for length. It will get a cover to keep heat and moisture in.

There will also be doors on the ends to keep critter out. I compost things that most don’t recommend composting. Meat, for example. The only thing I have not and will not mess with is cat waste.

We don’t waste much meat here, but I don’t generally throw it away if it spoils. The way I see it is that if a human body can be composted, a part of a forgotten roast or a pork chop here and there isn’t going to hurt anything.

I’m not recommending or suggesting you do the same thing, only stating what I do and have been doing for years without issues.

May your ventures be met with success.