day one of my hot sauce concoction

Just started receiving a great magazine called "Mother Earth News", and i love it.  In this issue there was a recipe for homemade hot sauce.  So today i went out in the garden and picked all the hot peppers that were ready, threw them into the blender, and now have this smooth sauce.  I ended up with about a cups worth and according to the recipe i added a teaspoon and a half of salt to start the fermentation.  The process takes alittle over a month so more to come.  Special thanks to my mom for giving me this bowl 6 years ago that i thought i had no use for, I geuss i was wrong its perfect!

A Better Way to Fertilize Your Garden: Homemade Organic Fertilizer - Organic Gardening - MOTHER EARTH NEWS

A Better Way to Fertilize Your Garden: Homemade Organic Fertilizer - Organic Gardening - MOTHER EARTH NEWS

Here is my broccoli and cauliflower.  The broccoli did very well and has been a nice treat for dinner now and again.  The cauliflower however did not really produce good cauliflower, grubs got into the florets.

The corn is ready to harvest and have had quite a few excellent ears over the past few days.  The tomatoes and peppers are kind of hit and miss.  The tomatillos are really growing great and cant wait to make some homemade salsa verde out of them. I did not add any manure to the soil this spring which Im sure hurt me all around but will have access to plenty of it for next year at my new homestead..

Here is the first watermelon of the season carefully protected under chicken wire because the deer love the sugary vines.

Now my espalier has room to grow.  Since the branches have hardened i will plan to start training it again next spring.

I successfully transplanted all my apple trees to my new homestead.

My house plans

I found this little cabin and think it would suit my needs just right and would be very easy and cheap to build. 

Meat harvest location

  After some walking around the property i found this tree stand.  Upon entering the woods the first thing I saw was a pile of bear pooh:)  There is also a ton of deer activity so I am hoping to have a great opening day of deer season as long as everything works out financially.  7/26/11 is the day that I will know if its a na or YEAH.

Im gonna need a john deere for xmas!

As long as everything goes as planned, I just purchased this ten acre piece of property.  It is about a 50 percent mix of open land and woods and the price was very nice!  Now I can grow what ever and as much of what ever I want, have chickens and beef cattle.  Ahh, bright days ahead.

greenhouse progress

                           Got the door installed today to access the greenhouse from my garage.

Windy week

The beginning of my greenhouse.

Before

After

The lone asparagus shoot.

Memorial weekend

Done stamp! Until it outgrows its new home at least.

Before

After

Well i've got a wide variety of peppers, tomatillos(husk tomato), big max pumpkin, zucchini, vegetable spaghetti, watermelon and musk melon in here with alittle room to spare. The bad news is that i dont have enough room for onions or all the tomatoes that I need to plant to make 75 jars of spaghetti sauce and chili prep sauce.  Time to get acquanted with my shovel again.

 Tried grafting some cuttings to this struggling apple tree.

 Still no asparagus and just planted some broccoli and cauliflower.

 corn is progressing nicely.

 Planted peas and beans on may 8th and both are growing vigorously.

Abby and roscoe about to run through the corn.

my orchard

Got the hat trick in the ground today and managed to get some fencing around it so the deer wouldnt eat all the buds tonight.  Rosco helped.

I also transplanted these three apple trees to the backyard so all four trees can work together for pollination.  I thought the deer had completely destroyed them this spring but to my surprise they budded out okay.

life in the garden

 Its 5/15 and the corn I planted on 4/23 has started to sprout just in time for frost warnings, ugh.

 This is my corn plot with dims of 15X30

On top the rhubarb is growing nicely, but may need to cover it for the next couple nights.  Below that will be first year jersey knight asparagus which are hangin out in the fridge for now until I can do some much needed weeding.

cold temps ahead

It looks like I finished installing this new wood stove just in time for the next couple nights of 30 degree temps.

Day one of my new espalier 'Hat Trick' apple tree 5/8/11

Well I went to the local greenhouse today without any intention of buying anything until this tree jumped in front of me.  As soon as I saw it I new I had to have regardless of how hard I tried to talk myself out of it.  This tree will grow three different kinds of apples and is self pollinating.  The three types are Honeycrisp, Sweet Sixteen, and Zestar.  I am very excited to see this tree age so lets watch this thing grow.