Got a Garden

Today we finally got a garden in; a task that's been two and a half years in the making. When we first bought this house, the area that has become the garden was a mess. This is what the area looked like. Look a the laundry line buried in the middle.


Clearing out the area is what took most of the time. By last fall we had it mostly cleared out as you can see in the picture below. The laundry line in this picture is the same one as before, but painted. You can get a feel of how many trees there were because they're still in the picture, only in the form of a pile of shredded wood chips.


After that picture was take we cut down a tree, and the branches wound up in the same area. This spring we cleared out the branches ... again. Today I finally was able to put in some garden boxes.

I built two 4'x4' boxes for square foot gardening and an octagon that's about 5' wide for rose bushes. First I built each box taller than I wanted. Then each box was buried it in the ground to keep roots from getting into, or out of the box. Finally they boxes got soil. You can see the three stages below.


We also planted some cold weather crops in one box, and I'll post those pictures soon.

Are you a victory canner?

It's that time of the year again. Time to start planning and starting the gardens. Once again I'm going to try a canning garden, only this time I'm going for pasta sauce rather than salsa. (Well, maybe salsa too) :)

So I was searching for canning recipes, and I came across this website showing several posters from WWII to encourage home gardens and canning.

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/history/can.htm
It makes me wonder though, would they be promoting the thriftiness of it if they hadn't just come out of the great depression?

This blog has moved

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