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?

GOOD FOOD AND KITTY CAT SUNDAY

 It's another rain on and off again weekend.  Did manage to get some yard work done. More on that later this week.  Time for some good food.

2nd Man made us some carnitas, just seasoned roasted pork and then filled some corn tortillas and topped with chopped onion and cilantro.  Of course, I had to make our new favorite margaritas, ha.

Our Ring camera captured this.  "A cat is lying on the porch".  Ya think?  Ha. She is living her best life, that's for sure.  The only thing she needs is a catnip 'rita, ha.

#catdistributionsystem

 

SHOE COVERS OUTSIDE TO INSIDE HELP

Here is our latest idea.  Now I know we didn't think of this but it works out so great we thought it would be fun to share.  

The other day I was taking my boots off after being outside in the dirt and grass when I just needed to run inside for a bit and back out.  I thought "there has to be a better way to do this if I just want to run inside for a few minutes?" You know, to get water or something to eat or the inevitable item I left inside that I need.

Then it hit me!

These!  I figured, this would work perfectly for going in and out for quick things.

 
I ordered them, got them and have already put them to good use.

Here are my boots for example, as I was ready to come inside for a few minutes.  Some dried mud and grass on there that I don't need to be tracking through the house.  I pulled out a pair of the shoe covers...

...and put them on.  Aside from the pointy toe shoe vibes (ha!), they are perfect.  I was able to roam around the house without worrying at all.  Then when I went back outside, I just slipped them off and put them back in a drawer in the garage to use a few more times.  If they had been wet and/or muddy, of course I would just throw them away.

I ordered them HERE ON AMAZON.  100 pair for $9.99.  That's only 10 cents per pair.  Seems like a no brainer for clean floors!  2nd Man is happy that I am not tracking stuff on the clean floors and so that makes me happy.  It's a win/win for sure!