"A Bushel and A Peck"

   These days if you ask most people under the age of 25 what a bushel basket or a peck is, they would probably say a bushel basket is something you put laundry in and a peck is their finger touching their IPhone, lol! Well I wanted to just go over some basics here before we get into harvest season for those who may want to understand what they are. These definition's come from Webster's Dictionary:   
   In the United States, a bushel is a unit of volume used for the dry measurement of things such as vegetables, fruits or grains and is equivalent to 4 pecks. In the U.S. Customary System, a bushel is equal to 2,150.42 cubic inches, or 35.24 liter.
   When used as a British capacity of measure, or in the British Imperial System, a bushel is used as both a dry and liquid measure and equals 2219.36 cubic inches or 36.37 liters.
   To better visualize the capacity of a bushel, one can use the following list to get a better idea regarding the actual size of a bushel: 42-48 pounds of apples, 60 pounds of potatoes, 45 pounds of tomatoes, 42 pounds of white flour, 56 pounds of shelled corn, 50 pounds of rutabagas, 48 pounds of barley, 32 pounds of oats, 42 pounds of turnips.
  A peck was used to measure liquid or dry weights in the UK and US. A peck was originally a small barrel which contained 2 UK gallons (approx. 2.4 US liquid gallons) or approx. 9.1 litres. Very rarely used these days.
  A peck is also 1/4 of a bushel and is still used quite frequently in produce markets. Apples are frequently sold by the peck or 1/2 peck baskets or bags.
  The average person may never actually measure anything in a bushel or a peck, but having a basic understanding of this form of measurement may certainly help your next visit to the orchard or farm.

Luke 11:22 “No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light."

Encourage Our Next Generation of Children!

   There are many lost arts and traditions from our past that are dieing due to the lack of teaching our young children how to do the things we were taught growing up. Instead of us teaching them things that are important and the skills necessary to be self reliable and self sustainable in life , we allow the T.V., XBox and other people to raise our children in the way they believe they should be taught. Not teaching our children simple things like gardening, needle work, hands on skills that built this nation, farming and (most important) fundamental Bible teachings is destroying our nation and its youth. Those are just a few things they need taught and I am not posting on a soap box, I am just trying to bring to the realization that if we don't start focusing on the things that matter most in our lives, we may end up raising a generation of children of unequipped adults that wont know how to responded after we are gone.

Being taught!

    So start teaching your children things of the past, things that will help them in everyday life after we are gone. They can't move forward if we don't know and understand where they have been. Find community gardens to get them involved in, 4H, stitching clubs, Sunday school, anything to get the kids involved in something besides a "dummy box". I guess what I am saying is this, kids are the next generation, lets prepare them!

Some of my wife's work!

  If you have any links or sites that you can think of please list the below for all of us to go visit. After the traffic dies down on this thread I will create a link group on the side of my blog for all the links. Anything that you can think of and any area you can think of will help. 

  

Here are a couple of ways:

Your local Church! 

My wifes blog, "Maple Cottage Stitcher" 

KidsGardening.org

4-H.org

Youth Farmers and Ranchers

American Needlepoint Guild

So get involved with the children. If you don't have a local organization for your area, start one! God Bless each of you!

Deuteronomy 11:You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.

R.C.H. Lenski said "As the flower in the garden stretches toward the light of the sun, so there is in the child a mysterious inclination toward the eternal light. Have you ever noticed this mysterious thing that when you tell the smallest child about God, [he or she] never asks with strangeness and wonder, “What or who is God – I have never seen Him,” but listens with shining face to the words as though they soft loving sounds from the land of home. Or when you teach a child to fold [his or her] little hands in prayer that [he or she] does this as though it were a matter of course, as though [it was] opening for [the child] that world of which [he or she] had been dreaming with longing and anticipation. Or tell them, these little ones, the stories of the Savior, show them the pictures with scenes and personages of the Bible – how their pure eyes shine, how their little hearts beat."

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"Going to the Goats"

Dawna and 2 of her new babies!

  Today is my wife's birthday and she wanted a little time to herself, so my daughter and I went to visit a friend of ours at their farm. Dawna and Doug's farm is just a couple of miles from our house. It is a special time around their farm because the have new babies being born. Just this morning as they were getting ready for church Dawna heard one of the nannies getting ready to have a couple of kids. So Doug being the fearless "goat doctor" that he is, got Dawna ready to go to the barn, dropped her off and he continued on to church, lol! You have to understand these are Dawna's babies, Doug loves to love on them and even built the barn for them but when it comes to the goats themselves Dawna is the expert! So after church my daughter and I drove out to see the newest babies that were born today. We had a blast!

Born March 25,2012

Eatin Away!

    "Away In A Manger"

Me and a baby

  We did have a fun time! Dawna taught us so much and was a very gracious host. She has 13 now and counting. I think a couple more have to have babies as well! We had goats growing up, one even accidentally stuck on of her horns between my front two teeth when we were playing around. Accident or not it still hurt!

  Thanks again to Dawna and Doug for allowing us to come out and share this learning experience with my daughter! Hope you all enjoyed the little guys as much as we did.

Matthew 25:32 "All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats."

"Idea's of Inspiration from my wife"

Just a little mess, Right?

   This Idea came from me being so disorganized and having stuff scattered in my our way. I just don't understand what was wrong, but I am a man.  I am trying to recycle and save us money on gardening supplies. I am trying to do my part in being a good steward to the planet God has given us. I just didn't understand, just because I was piling all my jugs, (Garden Cloche's), up beside the back door on the patio! I guess tripping over them and being an eye soar may have been my answer.

   I either had to clean them up or they were getting thrown away, so I remembered how my grandma used to store them. She strong them up on baling twine but since I didn't have any baling twine, I used what I had laying around the house and try to kill two birds with one stone by cleaning up other things I had kept to use at another time!

                                                                  

               

  1. I found a piece of old 1/4" nylon rope, I had. I cut the rope to the length I needed and burnt the end with a torch so that it wouldn't unravel. Note: Be careful, I almost caught the garage on fire, please don't tell the wife!

Look like 1 of the 3 used!

2. I tied a spike that I had found laying in the street onto one end of the rope, and look I told you wonderful wife we should keep things cause we might use them one day! :-)

3. I then strong the rope through the handles of the milk jogs and tied a loop on the end to hand them with.

4. And know I can hang them on the patio and we won't trip over them. They are all nice and neat now!

Can u find the toad?

     Well she probably won't like them hanging on the patio, so I guess I will hang them in my garden shed. So, you know the old saying, "happy wife, happy life!" No, really I do want to make her happy, she is my best friend! Because of my organization and trying to learn how to overcome this, I have tried to use some of my wife's organization skills and clean things up.

Ephesian 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, ²⁶ that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, ²⁷ that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. ²⁸ So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. ²⁹ For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.

Urban Garden in a little space for less then $100.00!

My little Farm

  As you know from other posts I grew up on a farm in Ritchie County, West Virginia. But now I live on a small lot in the city of Nitro, West Virginia. I have always wanted a small farm but I know that at this point in my life I can not afford one. I miss farming but I got to thinking why can't use the little bit of space that God had given me? Right outside my backyard fence, beside the railroad tracks is a 30'x65' space that isn't being used. I have to keep the grass cut back there but we don't use it for much else. That's almost 2000 sq. ft. of unused space, much more garden then I have on the inside of the fence. If I used this space it would do a few things, I would help clean up our little town, make my garden space much larger, keep my garden out of the way of flying volleyballs and my garden digging Spaniel would not be tempted. I also would be able to be able to fulfill the desire to have a little farm.    

Assembling

  First thing I did was clean everything up, there were some trees and brush that had to come down. Some of the trees were old and half dead anyway. Must of the wood was given to a neighbor to burn in his fireplace. It was amazing of the neighbors curiosity of what I was doing. I can't take all the credit though, my friend and neighbor J (which I will call him to protect his privacy) was starting to do the same thing in his smaller backyard and we both were sharing ideas with each other. J is a very good guy, he is a walking encyclopedia when it come to  just about anything out there. We have shared many different Ideas over the years.

After 2 were assembled

   Just 4 doors down from my house is our local greenhouse (I know awesome, right), the owner and I have become very good friends over the past 16 years. So after I got things cleaned up on my new 2000 sq. ft. farm I asked him if I could buy some of the commercial black weed barrier that he puts down all around his outside areas of the greenhouse to put down in my new garden are. I didn't need a whole roll of that stuff and it is very expensive for a whole roll, he sold it to me by the foot and the staples to hole it down. Total cost for what I needed was approx. $60.00! I have just started with a 36'x10'.

   Now to start adding my Raised beds! Went you pick what you are gonna build your raised beds out of, keep in mind the taller they are, the less bending, if they are too wide you will have to step into the bed and you don't want to do that. Also what materials are going to build the out of?  You can build them out of just about anything that will hold dirt but I went to the local Bid Box lumber store and went to what is called there culled lumber area. I bought enough 2x8's and 10's to build a 4'x4' bed and a 4'x8' bed for $16.00. A good rule of thumb for the size of garden you need is 160 square feet per person. You can go larger if you want to share and persevere for the winter months.  I use treated, some say you shouldn't but I used to work in a lumbar yard and I know they don't treat your lumber with the harsh chemicals that they used to, it's mostly done now days with a a salt type formula. But if you are concerned you can paint the inside of the boxes to seal them. Keep in mind, you only want to build these once and untreated will rot in know time. Note: I have seen people use railroad ties, something that I have an ample supply of ever few years when the railroad changes theirs out, but the have worse chemicals in them then the old treated lumber.

   Any way after I built my first 2 beds, I threw all kinds of fillers in the bottom of them to take up some of the space. Everything I threw in though is biodegradable. Anything from scrap pieces of wood to old news papers and even old bills that you never what to through out in the trash but within a few weeks the worms will make them so you won't recognize them. Note: Do Not use anything with colored ink unless it is bio friendly! Then I topped it all off with half of what was in my compost bins and the rest a mixture top soil and manure.

   Well now I am off to get more lumber I have at least 4 more raised beds to build and a fence to put up around it to keep animals and people walking up and down the tracks from eating my veggies. So far I only have about $100.00 for these 2 beds, the weed barrier, hardware and even the soil. I will post pictures as I continue this ongoing project.

2 Beds Finish!

Ezekial 17:8 "It was planted in good soil by many waters, To bring forth branches, bear fruit, And become a majestic vine.”’

By:Clint Baker

Jan. 29,2012

Garden Cloche's" Dirt Cheap"

   When my family and I went to Colonial Williamsburg on vacation one year, we stopped into there little garden area that they have set up in the historic town, so you can see how they gardened in the 1700's. I have so much fun in that section but I think I am the only one who does because I will be looking around and next thing I know everybody else is gone and I am left alone. Trust me its a very neat place. Maybe I will do a post and show some of the pictures from there. 

   Anyway! What I was getting at was this is were I was introduced to these big glass bell's that were setting over the plants. I ask what they were and she told me they were "garden cloches", I had know idea what she was talking about. So she explained, that they help make your growing season longer by allowing you to plant earlier. A mini greenhouse if you will! I thought that was awesome! I have to have at least one, maybe even two, But oh my were they expensive! Almost $100.00! I thought there has to be cheaper ones but even the others get costly.  I remembered what my grandma and great aunt used to use and they didn't pay that much. They used old gallon milk jugs! Dirt cheap and that's for me. I also use plastic juice containers since we drink lots of juice! I have also used full row mini greenhouses made out of plastic. 

All of these work but you have to allow them to breath in the hot part of the day!

Step 1: Clean out Jugs

Step 2: Remove labels and cut bottom off, don't through bottoms away, you can start seeds in them!

Step 3: When ready to use place jugs over plant and place a little soil around the bottom to hold it in place.

Step 4: When the temperature gets to warm just remove the lid to let the hot air out.

And there you go dirt cheap garden cloches made from recycled plastic jugs. Have fun and if you have other Ideas please post and let us all know!

Plant Food In Your Kitchen?

   I had been looking for more organic ways to garden, especially when it cam to fertilizers. I stumbled across this book written by master gardener Jerry Baker. He has a lot of good ideas for doing this, even using a lot of things you already have around the house. A lot of these i remember my own grandma using but really never paid as much of attention to my grandma as Jerry did with his. I sure wish I had because look at him today. I will list some of the ingredients and as the growing season goes on and I experiment with the tonics that he gives I will post the ones that I have good luck with. I can't wait to see if they work as well as others have said they do. I talked to my grandma and she said a lot of these she did use and they were proven. So I guess I will try them and see. If you have any suggestions please leave them in the comments.

Major ingredients and what they contribute:

Ammonia: is a readily available source of nitrogen, which helps to encourage leafy growth. However, it's really potent stuff! To avoid burning your plants, always dilute it as specified in the tonic recipe's. It can burn, too, so always handle it with gloves. Never, never combine it with vinegar or bleach! The resulting chemical reaction will release toxic fumes!

Antiseptic Mouthwash: does the same thing in your garden that it does in your mouth; destroys germs.

Baby Shampoo and Liquid Dish Soap: help soften soil and remove dust, dirt and pollution from your plants so that osmosis and photosynthesis can occur more easily. They also make plants taste bad to insects.

Beer: helps release the nutrients that are locked in the soil and helps to make your plants strong and healthy.

Banana Peels: Great source of potassium.

Cola: helps feed the good bacteria that condition your soil. be sure you use the real thing; bacteria need sugar.

Coffee Grounds: Worms love it and worms are a gardeners best friend!

Eggs Shells: A very good source of calcium.

Epsom Salts: deepen the color, thicken the petals and improves the root structure of your plants.

Oil: Nontoxic smothering agent for insects.

Sugar, Molasses and Corn Syrup: stimulate chlorophyll formation in plants and help feet the good soil bacteria.

Tea: contains tannic acid, which helps plants to digest their food faster and more easily.

Tobacco: poisons bugs when they ingest it or when they simply come into contact with it. It does the same to germs that cause plant diseases.

Whiskey: or scotch or bourbon provides nutrients and is a mild disinfectant that will keep bugs away.

  There are other organic fertilizers at most of your hardware stores, so if you don't want to try these you could use some of those as well but I think I will experiment with these this year.

Compost Tea: Compost tea is quite easy to make - almost like making a real cup of tea only on a larger scale. Shovel in some compost in an old pillow case or burlap bag. Sink it into a large bucket or barrel of water. Cover the container and just let it steep for a few days. Remember, the longer you steep the stronger it is. You may use this as a light fertilizer to give your plants a little boost. It can also be used as a foliar feeding medium.

Making A Rain Barrel

  With the cost of utility bills so high these days and needing a good water supply for your garden. Plus when my wife came to me and said that our water bill had almost doubled since the start of spring, I knew it was time to do something. So I looked into rain barrels. You can catch gallons of water for your plants and rain water is so much better for them. city water, city water has fluoride and chlorine in it. While city water won't kill the plants it does affect their growth. You will see much healthier and greener plants if you have away to save up rain water. You can buy them already made up or you can do like I did and make your own. You can use many different things to catch water in and as long as you place it at a bottom of a down spout and it doesn't leek, everything will work just fine.

  

  Here are my Rain Barrels completed! I made mine a little differently than in the information video I posted. The video is very informative and shows you step by step on how to build one. You can find these 55 gallon plastic drums at car washes, most of the time for free or very little. I have approx. 110 gallons of water and that goes along way. Make sure to drain it part way for the winter, so it will give the water room to expand and not bust the drum if it freezes. Well gook luck and have fun!

Linked up with: http://www.randeesorganizedchaos.com/


John 4:11  The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?

Chicken Tunnel in the Garden

   I recently came across an interesting idea for keeping chickens in the garden. Bruce Morgan has come up with a way to tunnel the chickens right to the area of the garden where he needs the work done.  I think that these smaller sections of tunnels would be easier for one person to move alone as well. This is a wonderful idea, one which I haven't tried myself but maybe in the future? It came from another blog

http://www.networkedblogs.com/blog/homestead_acres.

This is so amazing and if you try it or have other ideas, please share with us!

Genesis 2:20 "So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field."

Community Gardens in the Kanawha Valley

    I was browsing the web and stumbled across this neat site. Its called "The West Virginia Food & Farm Coalition". The site has a lot of good information but the article that I thought to be the must interesting is about all the "Community Garden's" in the Kanawha Valley and about the "Kanawha Community Garden Association". It is wonderful to see so many communities starting up there own community gardens for people to use. For example there are community gardens in Dunbar, Spring Hill and other West Virginia towns. If you don't have one in your city maybe you should start one.

http://wvhub.org/wvffc/news/lessons-learned-and-report-kanawha-community-garden-tour