It pays to shop local!

Today I headed out to the local feed store to try to get some straw for my potato towers, and garden beds to use as mulch...Unfortunately he had sold his last bale of straw yesterday, and wasn't expecting the farmer to bring him more until tomorrow. I was a little bummed, but planned to return tomorrow to get my straw. When I told him my plans for the straw he stopped me and said..

"Well, if you're just using it in your garden, I have a bunch on the floor of the barn over there where I keep the straw. If you have a way to haul it, you can have it!"

I tell you I jumped on that opportunity. The hubby and I left to empty the bags of dirt off the trailer, and returned with tarps, and rope to collect our straw. It took about a half an hour, the feed store man also let us use one of his tarps, we filled an 5'x14' about 6" deep with straw, covered it with his tarp, he also gave us 4 pallets to place on top, to hold the straw down. We tied it all down and returned home with WAY more straw than we had intended to purchase originally. When we returned his tarp, I also gave him 11 of my tomato seedlings, which he was very happy to get. And we got 4 more pallets in return!

IT PAYS TO SHOP LOCAL!!! 

The people in these stores become part of your lives and sometimes you can be mutually beneficial to each other! I got the straw I needed, and got rid of some of my over abundance of tomato plants, and he got his barn cleaned out and ready for a new straw delivery for free, and HE got 11 tomato plants!

I was also able to give my neighbor some of my tomato plants today, and planted my tomato beds with 13 plants. I plan to plant some out by the chicken run as well as in my raised beds.

Tomorrow, if the weather holds, I will be busy playing in the dirt, mixing my planting mix, and my straw and hopefully be ready to plant my garden! 

It's a dirty job but...

I have been a bad blogger lately! SHAME ON ME!
But I have been REALLY busy! So busy in fact, that MY projects have all come to a virtual stand still! But I have been learning new things too! I've learned how to lay hard wood floors, how to use the circular saw, and also how to hang drywall (although I don't think I have the strength to do that alone)
We did take the time last week to go out and purchase the "ingredients" for the soil in my raised beds. For my 4-  3'x6' garden beds we purchased 3 big cubes of  peat moss. This helps hold moisture, and I LOVE to use peat in my garden. In addition to helping the roots stay moist longer, the dirt doesn't seem to get as hard as a lot of garden soils do. I also purchased compost. The one I have commonly bought is composted manure. NO-it does not smell like manure, so don't worry about that, but it is a nice dark soil with a natural built-in fertilizer, after all, it WAS manure! And I also bought top soil. I never use top soil alone, in my experience it is always hard as a rock! I mix these 3 ingredients to make my own rich soil that my plants really seem to like.
In my 2 raised beds I made last year, I didn't even buy the top soil, I just used the composted manure and peat. My tomatoes REALLY took off in that mixture!  Off 4 tomato plants, I canned over 48 pints of stewed tomatoes. Not too shabby if I do say so myself! :)
The other day I took a short inventory of the tomato seeds I'd sown off my tomato plants from last year and I am up to 109 in small pots. There are still more in the raised bed to transplant into small pots so I can give them to friends and family, and since there are so many, I will probably also sell some. I plan to plant some over by the chicken run as well, to give the chickens a treat from every now and then!

So Busy Lately

I wrote this about a week ago and forgot to click publish...

I have been SO busy lately, I can't even think right anymore! What with the school semester winding down, building the fence, (which still needs gates) building the chicken coop, (which still needs a couple doors) and we haven't even gotten to building my garden boxes which I am starting the feel a desperate need for...

I feel like everything is just sitting here 1/2 done, or not quite started. I can't even find time to crochet, which is one way I relax! The house is a mess, the chickens are staring to get crowded and NEED their coop...I'm about to move them into the dog cage and I'm sure that the dogs wouldn't appreciate that one bit...but at least the chickens would have more room to move.

The sad thing is, for as busy as I've been, I'm still feeling like I'm lazy, probably because nothing is getting done.

Here's hoping we can get the doors mounted on the coop and the chickens moved out today & then I can clean the dining room and actually be able to use it again! Maybe then I'll feel like I've DONE something!

I realized that its been a while since I gave you an update...WELL, since I wrote the above on my "down day" last week, I did move the chicks into the dog cage for a couple days and then we DID get the chicken coop completed and the chicks moved in. They seem to like it out there too. More room to move.

 We also got 2 of the 3 gates made and hung on the fence. I was surprised to find that Walmart had the fence hardware that we had been looking for since the project started, at a reasonable price. We had seen the gate hardware other places, but not at a price we were willing to pay. So THAT project end seems in sight.

My raised bed garden boxes are also assembled now. I have them in the place where I want them, I just need to get the dirt into them. I have tiny vegetable plants all over my picnic table waiting to me moved into their permanent home. So I am feeling a little antsy about getting the garden working now too.

I also went out yesterday and Weds and helped my hubby work at his parents house, laying hardwood floor. Now, this is not a "green thumb" type project, but I did learn a lot. I can now select, and randomize hardwood planks for floors, set them in place AND use the pneumatic stapler to secure them. I also used the 10" compound sliding miter saw. I am not proficient at it, and it takes a little more muscle than I thought it would, but I can make a straight cut with it!