The Home Depot sells 4″x4″ x 9′ long fence posts for about $25 each. Since we needed 14 of them for the garden fence it would have cost me about $350 had I purchased them instead of cutting them out of the wood lot. Though it doesn’t account for the price of property, I prefer [...]
I inherited a food rack from the barn on a previous property several years ago and have always wanted to turn it into an Appalachian-style food dehydrator. I still plan on making the conversion this summer, but spring use as a portable greenhouse or cold-frame is another option for these restaurant food racks… The trays [...]
I had the opportunity to cut a new garden out of the forested area surrounding the new house this year, and figured the best way to go from woods to garden in a season would be to lay down a layer of cardboard and bring in some topsoil/compost and mulch to go over top of [...]
It seems like I am always starting a new garden on a new property. Hopefully this time will be the last for many years unless I start another new garden on this property. The good news is I’ve gotten pretty good at turning virgin ground into a productive garden in the first year without tilling [...]
Spring is fastly approaching. This evening after watering my peas (yes, they are up about an inch now!) I went for a walk around my property starting at the creek and noticed the skunk cabbage is about 3-4 inches out of the ground already. A little further I saw a bunch of new greenbriar growth, some [...]
We didn’t move to the new place until most of the garden was gone, but there are still some roma tomatoes, lots of bolted basil and a few pepper plants still producing. I even found some forgotten onions when mowing down the cover-crop. Although we won’t have the pretty stocked shelves of multicolored canning jars [...]
I learned my lesson last time and won’t be attempting to get this all done in a single year, but there are several things I’d like to take care of as soon as possible. However, this time around we have Waylon, which makes a HUGE difference in the amount of work we can get done. [...]
It is high season for fresh, local peaches. My peach trees have beared and the fruit now gone, but there are plenty of other peach trees in the area still waiting for human hands to come pick their bounty. Or if one had a few extra bucks they could buy them by the box-full, ready [...]
Today I filled the second trailer and truck-load full of stuff to take over to the new place. The first load, yesterday, was of compost and wood. This load will include chicken-wire, 100-feet of flexible drainage pipe, a generator and some fencing. I love the fact that moving for us these days involves the transport [...]
This will probably be the last garden update for awhile since we’re moving to Floyd in a couple of weeks. I’ll post more about that later, but we’re set to close on our current home at the end of the month and are set to close on our new farm at the end of August. [...]
Everett writes about voluntary simplicity. This blog catalogs his search for "the good life" as he tries to strike a balance between work and play, freedom and responsibility, simplicity and comfort.
