Welcome to Growbox Hill

Welcome to Growbox Hill
Welcome to Growbox HIll!

Saturday, June 28, 2014

Summer catch up

So been busy. With fencing and such of course. But that's another post that was posted then pulled so I could attach pics. That might get re-posted later.

Today was a regular garden working day.

Got the dirt back into the septic tank hole- that was sort of a PITA, kind of ganked my black wheelbarrow. But all the dirt is back into the hole.
Got the tomato cages in, what cages I had. Still need a bunch more. But hooray! I have some baby tomatoes growing. Got some zukes starting to come in too. One of my potato bags has keeled over in the last 24 hours- I suspect the couple holes in the bag means critters got into it. Ok, so I will use proper bins next year.
Got the mint beds properly weeded and the mints pushed over- by this time next year, I will have some very plush mint beds. Got the lemon mint and toothache plants put into the ground as well.
Got all the growing beds weeded out properly- I have a ton of volunteer tomatoes popping up amongst the peppers. 

In anticipation of the nasty neighbor potentially spraying the fenceline, I took 13 cuttings of that 150 year old rose bush potted up- hope at least a couple of them take off. They are now sitting pretty in one of the little greenhouses in the shady part of the porch.

Otherwise, the rest of the yard is growing like crazy like it should this time of year.  The lawn got mowed yesterday. The cherry trees and mulberries need some serious picking tomorrow!

And this morning I tossed a turkey on the smoker. Just a wee bit till the green bean casserole is done as well as the mashed taters... So off I go to feed the family!

Monday, June 23, 2014

Been busy

Been busy and beyond busy. Got the family moved- now I'm behind on everything else, lol. But I'm so damn happy to have my family all here, it's ok. It's all good now.

Not much going on in the yard except growing. The grass needs a serious mow, but when we have had the time it's been raining, and when it's not raining we have had to hustle with moving stuff. The last truckload was in the rain anyway, yuck. It was a scary last ride from Wisconsin for sure. So now it's a couple weeks of unpacking and sorting, putting away and cleaning.

But pretty much everything in the yard looks great! The garlic scapes are curling and the tips of the leaves are drying nicely. The orchard looks good except for that darn peach tree- it dropped all it's green fruit overnight. But the sweet cherries look great!
The gardens look pretty good- the maisi beans, if they came up they got eaten. Ah well. The zukes are plush, as are the summer squashes, spaghetti squash, and the Long Island Cheese pumpkin. The tomatoes are glorious, I seriously need to get caging and bagging done there. The peppers that survived are all looking good, as is the one melon that pulled through. The pole beans are ok, Eye of the Goat is looking great. The one lonely cuke that survived is struggling along. The potatoes are growing like mad and need some more bag stuffing. The hops are astonishing and crawling right up their ropes as they should. The glads are getting big, there should be bud stems starting up soon. The nasts are all in blooming glory, getting some seed formation. The herbs all look great- especially the chamomile, it's actually surviving on trouble hill!! And blooming!! The regular basil in it's tub is looking right fine- as are the cinnamon and lime basils that I still need to transplant into proper pots. The lemon mint is almost to the point of putting out into the yard too, as is the hardy hibiscus.
The spinach is getting overblown, I seriously need to get at least a little picking done before the whole batch goes to seed. The strawberry spinach is starting to produce what looks like flowerheads, so yay I might get some seed for more serious planting next year.
The wild chives I have left alone have formed their seed heads, now it's just wait time till I can harvest them for next years seed. Grandma's poppy has two seed heads on it too, so I'm hoping for the best there.

My phone died on the big moving day :( I was terribly bummed. I like my old fashioned keyboard phone because I pretty much only use my phone for calls and texts. But the gal at the phone store was nice, and I ended up with a smart phone for the replacement. Way more device than I need, though I keep being told that I will indeed want to use apps and stuff like that. We shall see. It does make some pretty cool noises and I can speak to text now- though the phone does screw up some words, lol.

I'm happy to say we now have a chest freezer in the house. Been dying to have one of those for quite a while now. Family brought it with them. I will be utilizing that well I can assure. I can finally properly backstock my stocks, switch from canned veggies to frozen, and when meat is on sale I can take proper advantage of it. I'm a little worried about when we get power outages, but I think if the fridge freezer survived, so will the chest freezer.

Been smoke free for almost 4 months now- beginning in July will officially make it 4 months. I love vaping. Much cleaner, less stinky and messy. Less shit in the lungs like tar and whatever else is in cigs. I now have my full sense of taste and smell back. And it's so much cheaper. Used to spend 15 bucks every 3-4 days on smokes, now a 15 dollar bottle of ejuice lasts 2-3 weeks at least. Kind of depends on the juice, some are more tasty and get vaped up quicker than others. I'm working on finishing the last couple small bottles of 18 and using some of the 12, hubby has been on 12 for a while now. I'm thinking when I finish off the last of the 18, we might step the nicotine down some more.

But I figured I hadn't posted in a couple weeks with all the busy, and felt like I should do at least some sort of entry to catch up. Now I need to get some cleaning done, pay bills, take nasturtium leaves off the dehydrator and jar them up.

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Summer is on!

Even with some evening temps dropping into the upper 40's... Summer is on!

Had a minor setback for about a week or so- burnt the hell out of my hand making peirogies. Oooops. So I didn't get much done for several days. Then my sister was here and we got back on track.

Planted in tomatoes. 8 Woodle Orange, 6 Tobolisk, 5 Juane Flamme, and 5 Roughwood Golden Plum. Lost all but 4 of my Dwarf Taylor bush bean to a critter who simply snipped the things in half- so those 4 got transplanted into a container and are now safely on my porch. Replaced those spots with Top Crop seed and hoping for the best there. Fucking bunnies. They also snipped some of my peas :( Picked up a tomatillo and a jalapeno at my sisters suggestion and those are planted in. Got the melons and cukes in. Put in a second round of Masai beans
Got an oregano, lemon thyme, salad burnet, and lovage- all planted in. Some Corsican mint that still needs to get into the ground. Got borage, columbines, and pink snap dragons in. Larkspur is now planted over Moons grave, and the cleome is in the solarium border. All 48 plugs of chamomile are in on trouble hill- some are blooming, a couple look pretty ratty. Calendula is in.

The wild chives all have fat blooms on them. My garlic is glorious! Scapes are starting to form and turn, I'm looking forward to the harvest in a month or two :) The peppers I planted in are doing right fine, only lost one. Some are even starting to bloom! And all the nasturtiums are in bloom now- and the leaves are tasty, I need to start harvesting some to dry up for the pantry.

My sister picked up a pretty trio of asian lillies, white with purple speckles- those are potted up. She also picked up a Royal Purple Smoketree- we are still debating about where that one will be going.

And of course, a bunch of cleaning, shuffling, moving stuff around. I'm so glad next weekend is the big move, and after that I will have mom and sis here and no more fussing around.