Welcome to Growbox Hill

Welcome to Growbox Hill
Welcome to Growbox HIll!

Thursday, December 31, 2015

Wow, two months and the end of the year...

I haven't written a post in two months, whew. I can't say nothing has happened, though life has mostly been a blur of split up days of work mixed with losing my mind and depression trying to get everything done.

So a few brief highlights... Sold some stuff on Esty, yay! Still have that last small handful of tomatoes from this years garden to eat up, which is a triumph in and of itself. Weather has been bizarre- just yesterday was our first real drop down into freezing and icy snow crap.  It was in the 60's for Christmas. The plague went around here a few weeks ago, and that totally sucked ass. Got to see one of my brothers happily married, and that was supremely joyous.

I am already in midst of plans for the 2016 yard of course. So far, I've been able to overwinter quite a few plants. And have a ton of seed planting planned too- the veggies are starting to really form up, now I need to figure out the flower and herb planning, lol. I sowed the first of the wintersowing jugs today, four of them full of hellebore starts. I had kind of forgotten about the seed packets in the fridge, and sure enough, some of them had sprouted. So potted up they needed to be.
There will be extra rotation going on this coming year with all the problems that erupted this year- that will teach me to try to keep the beds static, lol. Right now the kennel beds, the north side is planted in with garlic, and the west side is empty- I want to give that one a serious digging in and work over before doing anything else. The three lasagne beds need a good digging in too. The raised beds need a serious weeding and turn over. The "new" beds need a lot too, heh. And I still want to seriously consider digging in some more front border.
Yipes, what I wouldn't give for a tiller, lol.

The close of this year also brought us the greenhouse that blew away- and needs to be fixed. Sis and I ended up traveling around the whole pond and back 40 before finally finding it in the neighbors back 40, lol. It was for sure an adventure walk, I ended up waist deep in a ditch. Good times of living in the boonies, hehe. I really loved having that season extender on hand. I'm starting to kick around ideas of wrapping the kennel runs in plastic and seeing how that works for an "instant" hoop house. I have some pretty high hopes that we can get the chicken coop up and running, and probably get a hive or two set up in the year to come.

This year coming brings our first round of comparison tomatoes. Jaune Flamme will be coming back along with Snow White to go up against a main crop of blacks, and some container varieties of interest- including a second year of Dwarf Wild Fred. I will be growing fewer super hot peppers, and more mild and sweet peppers- but overall reducing the total number of pepper plants. Back on deck for sure are Aji Lemon and 7-pot brain strain yellow so long as the plants I have inside fare well. My mystery CA pepper too if the cuttings I took fairly late into the season ever decide to start doing well. Fish and Black Hungarian for beauty and tasty. Going to try to get a cherry bomb crop again. And for sweets- not sure yet.

I put in my 2016 seed order already- 12 packets of seeds spread across three companies.
High Mowing had my Jaune Flamme and free shipping- so I ordered those and a pretty sounding bread poppy seed.
Since Garden Watchdog listed Seedsnowas a good source, I picked up a few 99 cent packets. Ordered a couple packets from my long standing favorite, Pinetree Seeds- and for the first time ever, I didn't order any veggie seed from them, only some flowers.

But I guess I should pop off this post while I can... try to get my shit together for next year.

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