Homemaking on the Homestead

I'm excited to have been able to plant my cabbages and get a little bit of lettuce started in my garden. Of course the day after I planted the weather report says a hail storm is coming. My hubby and I ran down to the garden as things were looking bad and put some gutter pieces over the cabbages to try and save them. As it turned out the hail never came and all was fine. They are doing great now. Oh how we loved the dry warm sunny days! Hubby got lots of property work done and even took the first swim of the season.. And as I mentioned the cabbages were planted... I have a little box that hubby made me in his shop to start my seeds. It is small and limited but I've made it work and was thankful for a place to start seeds. I recently asked if there was a way to expand what I had just a little to allow more room when I transplant my seeds. Just like that he made a few quick adjustments and doubled my space. I'm so excited. I now can fit 4 tray...

We've had some beautiful weather lately, finally! Last week I took full advantage of it. I spent as much time outside as possible. After a very wet and gray winter the sunshine and warmth was so motivating. I took several long walks, walks with my grandkids, and spent time cleaning up my garden. Last fall my garden ended and we were busy and by the time I had time to go and get it all cleaned up the rainy season had started. So there it sat all winter. Last week I spent about 4 hours just pulling up stuff and clearing it out in preparation for rototilling. My hubby did a lot of mowing and has started cutting up the trees that fell during one of our winter storms. After a few days of dry weather the ground was dry enough to do the first run through with the rototiller. This was the mess I was dealing with... After a lot of elbow grease here is what I have now.. My seed order arrived a couple weeks ago and that always gets me excited as well... I...

It is way to early to even think of planting anything in my garden. But it is never to early to dream about this years garden and buy seeds. I was at the hardware store with my hubby and picked up a few packets of seeds. One of those seed packs was cabbage seeds. I now have a my cabbage seeds planted and I'm excited for spring to arrive and get them in ground. I'm having a much smaller garden this year so I only planted a few seeds. We'll see how many come up and how many I end up transplanting. I planted each teeny tiny seed in the my smallest pots... Several years ago my hubby made me a little greenhouse box that is in his shop. It is very simple, 4 sides, a back and plastic that covers the front. Shop lights hang across the box. I put my planted seeds on a larger tray and put them in the box under the lights.. Then I put a plastic greenhouse dome over the top... I cover this with a towel so it is dark (just for the germination pro...