WE HAVE AN ACTUAL BUCKET GARDEN

OK...this whole bucket gardening thing is pretty cool.  With Fall coming sooner rather than later, we wanted to figure out a way to make this all a bit easier, instead of just random buckets sitting around.

Enter this:

We teased with this picture the other day.

What is this?

It's this!  This is what it will look like after it's finished.  It's made by a fence company, called Greenes Fence Company. They make all sorts of gardening products; raised beds, composting bins, elevated beds, and of course, these.  They are made of cedar (always good) and when you put the buckets in...

...they look like this!  Pretty cool, huh?

Could I build our own from scratch?  Probably.

Can I get to my tools yet?  No.

Do I know if I even have the right tools?  Not really.

  So, in the end, we figured it was easier and of course much quicker to get this and just make it happen now, so we had it before the Fall season arrived.

It was a lot of pieces that's for sure.  Plus, I had to put it together outside, so I didn't have to try to fit it through the door.  There were no screws, it was all dovetail type connectors so no tools required.  

It took about 45 minutes or so but after I was done, we ended up with this:

Behold!  Here it is finished and with the buckets loaded in just after I watered it. 

As they say in real estate, "location, location, location" and rather than just put it out in the middle of the yard somewhere, we have found the right spot for it. It needed to be close to water and close to us for just stepping outside and taking care of things, so we put it alongside the well shed wall.

This keeps the garden plants free of weeds, safe from rabbits, and it makes everything at a nice height.

We're thinking there might just be a second one coming soon and we might move them to the garage wall, but we need to see how much sunlight that area gets during the day.

That would mean twelve buckets...

My mind races at the possibilities for Fall gardening adventures!

ANY DAY NOW

So we were sitting down, eating dinner and I saw this out the window.

I literally thought, "what kind of animal is that?"  We were seeing it from a distance and it looked strange.

Then I realized what it was and went outside to get a better picture.

We're guessing she's going to give birth ANY day now.  We wonder if there might even be two in there?

We'll keep our eye out for some new calves soon, because that will be awesome!

Baby calves are the cutest!

MORE 5 GALLON BUCKET GARDENING

Oops, I did it again...(sorry Britney)

Well, I just couldn't stand it, so I went to the store and bought FOUR more buckets and some more soil!

As I mentioned in the previous post about us starting this new adventure, this time of year it's hard to find many plants at the garden centers, other than tomatoes and peppers.  But we do use a lot of all of those so...

...we added a Bonnie Bell green pepper, and another tomato, a Celebrity (also determinate).  The green bell pepper is one of the most common for backyard gardening and the tomato is another good one for our hot and humid climate.  I got both buckets drilled, filled (with some mesh in the bottom and some gravel) and veggies planted and watered.  They are happy.

And so are we.

Hey, it's the little things in life, right?

And there is something cool related to all this, post coming soon...stay tuned!

MOWING FINALLY DONE

Wow.  It was a hot day.  "Feels like" of a 103.

It's rained so regularly over the last few weeks that the yard has been too wet to mow.  Thankfully, we went a whole week with hot and sunny weather, no rain at all.  So this weekend was mowing time.

This is what it looked like.  Sure it's green and looks good but you can't see how tall it really is.  Wow what a mess it was to mow.

This was about a 1/3 of the way through.  I cut it short because there's a chance of rain again next weekend.

It was almost two hours and I STILL didn't finish.  Got about 90% of it done.  Still need to edge around the fruit trees, house and outbuildings but that wasn't happening in this heat.  I will do that one night this week after I get home from work.

 

But it was still a fun time as always.  I had a cool space to get into on my breaks and plenty of cold water.

GOOD FOOD AND KITTY CAT SUNDAY

Boy, it's been a hot week for sure.  But thankfully, no rain so today (in the heat) is mowing time.

We had a lite dinner the other night.  Some veggie potstickers, done in the air frier,  Garnished it up with the green onions, drizzled on some low sodium soy sauce substitute and had a delicious meal.

Babygirl had her delicious meal and then took a nap on the comfort of the porch.  She's living her best life that's for sure.

Now I'm off to mow and edge

BARN SWALLOWS

Looked outside one day and saw these.

Honestly, at first we thought they were bats, ha!

They are "Barn Swallows".  They are actually a protected species. You can't remove active nests or harm them but it IS ok to prevent their nests and encourage them to go elsewhere.

They use mud and regular nesting material to make a hanging nest of sorts.  "J" said they have had them before and they are very messy.  We had some years back at the old house.

This was as far as they got, definitely starting to be a mess. I stood on a chair and cleaned it up and then had to come up with a way to discourage them.

The ledge is not very big so we had to get creative and so I came up with this idea:

I bought a pinwheel at the dollar store (or $1.25 and up store, ha)! I used some painters tape to hold it in place and now when the wind blows it spins. We also saw them fly by a few times and the breeze from their wings made it spin. It works. It doesn't look the greatest but from what we've read in our birding books, they will come back to the same place year after year and so once they get a nest established elsewhere, that will be their "go to place" and we'll be able to take this down.

We went outside and told them we have 10 acres, there is a barn and shed too, heck, there are tall eaves on the house.  Anywhere but the white porch, ha.  "J" at the front of the property said that she has seen a pair building a nest in her old shed. We are hoping that it's the same pair.  We also saw some mud starting to accumulate on the corner of an overhang out near the barn.  We shall keep an eye on it.

5 GALLON BUCKET GARDENING

Recently, 2nd Man and I were talking about how we didn't get our garden up and running for this year.  So many other expenses we've had along the way, that was one we just couldn't justify this season (building raised beds, clearing land, putting a fence, the soil, etc is expensive).  Plus we aren't exactly sure of the spot.

Still, I've had the itch to grow some veggies.  Then I remembered a growing method I've seen online and after some research, off to the store I went one day on my lunch break.

An hour later, I had two 5 gallon buckets (food safe), a large bag of potting soil and a couple of plants!

Now this time of year, garden vegetable plants are few and far between.  Mostly tomatoes and peppers but hey, we're OK with that.

I grabbed a jalapeño and a tomato.  Got them outside and I was ready to start.  I was so excited.

Got the drill with a 3/8" drill bit.  That is a good size for the drainage holes, about the biggest you want to go without losing soil to draining.  Also grabbed a sharpie and a ruler.  The holes don't HAVE to be even but it bugs me if they're not because "I" would know, ha!

I marked them, eight around the outside and four in the middle.  Then I marked four around the sides at the bottom, about an inch up.  This just helps any standing water in the bottom drain out quickly.

Here they are after drilling.

I got the potting soil out. This is the brand we always used in our raised beds and it worked great for us.  This one bag was enough for both buckets with about a 1/3 left over for other uses (or other buckets, ha).

You fill them up to a little higher than you might think it should be and then you water it until water runs out the holes in the bottom.  This will also let it settle.

Here is a great example... you can see the soil had dropped a little and you can see the water running out the bottom.  All is good and ready for planting!

Next, I had to get the tomato ready for planting.  Tomatoes like to be buried deep so you should cut off the leaves and small branches on the bottom 1/3 of the plant so it can go deeper into the soil and develop a strong root system. 

Here it was when I was done.  Nice and bare and ready for planting.

I dug the hole deep so that it would be buried as it should and then filled in around it.

Here they are!  Planted, climbing cage put in place, and now both are ready to go.  Hopefully, they will provide us some vegetables.

We have a "Heatmaster" tomato and a "Mammoth" jalapeño.  The tomato is determinate, which of course means they grow to a certain height and stop, which is good for container gardening.  The jalapeño produces the larger size peppers like you find in stores.

This will be an experiment but at least we can have something growing.  If we have to, we can use these for some Fall veggies too.  It's kind of addicting, I'll have to admit, Or maybe I've just missed "playing in the dirt"!

Let this new adventure begin!

GOOD FOOD AND KITTY CAT SUNDAY

Ugh, it's been another rainy weekend.  Heavy rains Friday afternoon, so it was too wet Saturday morning and then another rain of round came in Saturday afternoon.  Then Saturday night/early Sunday morning, MORE rain.  No flooding (out here) but just SO wet. 

 

2nd Man made one of our faves, an Asian stir fry (but he roasts the pork and the veggies are just sautéed in the seasoning liquids so it's very low fat. Pork, veggies and great flavors all over rice noodles.

Can't go wrong with that!

Babygirl and Jack, just chilling on the front porch before one of the monsoon rains. His ear is clipped so he was trapped and neutered at some point but we don't see him very often.  "J" said he goes down there to eat too so I guess he's a nomad at heart, ha.

#catdistributionsystem

A LITTLE PORCH DECORATING

We're finally getting around to finding items we can use to decorate various places in the new house.  Found a few fun things for the front porch.

First up, the table between the rockers.

This wooden pig we got back when we sponsored a pig for a dear friend's son in FFA.  Then we had a cute sign in the mudroom at the old house.  Lastly, the metal candleholder adds the nice pop of yellow color we like against the red of the house.

On the bottom, we put our Christmas cactus, for now anyway.  Yeah, it's a little small, will find something bigger for down there but for now, it fills the bill, ha.

We might have shown this before but again, these are our outdoor fabric pillows that I picked up on clearance a year or two ago...just waiting for this moment.  Now we just need some hanging plants.  Oh and another thing we'll be doing shortly.

FERMENTING JAR A NEW ADVENTURE

In addition to canning, I think I'm going to try a new adventure now that we are out here.

I've been seeing these in the store and I would stand there and think "hmm, should I get one?"

Hey, it was only $15, what the heck, why not try something new.

It's all glass, except the fermentation lid of course, but the jar and the weight are both glass.

The instructions seem pretty straightforward...

...but just in case, I ordered a couple of cookbooks off of eBay just to get some ideas.  This is a small jar, so starting small seems like the best way to get a foot in.  2nd Man wants me to make some hot sauce first so I guess we have some fermented hot sauce coming soon (once I learn all the ins and outs, ha).

Anyone ever done any fermenting?