We harvested 2 lbs. of elderberries from seven young elderberry plants last year. We made elderberry tincture from the 2 lbs. of berries. We put the destemmed and rinsed elderberries in 1.5 litres of 100 proof vodka and let them sit for 2-3 months. Then, we strained out the berries and stored the finished elderberry […]
We weigh all of the fruit and vegetables that we harvest from our garden, with the exception of some herbs that we pick for cooking. This year we grew 1260 lbs. of food, which is over 250 lbs. more than last year. Our biggest crop by far was tomatoes, which we canned the majority of
We hope everyone spends a day with loved ones and is thankful for all of the family and friends in their life. Apple pie that Abby, Mitch and Sarah made….it was freakin’ yummy.
We purchased a Harbor Freight Portable Garage that we used as storage when we first moved here. The tarp covering eventually deteriorated to the point where even copious use of duct tape was not going to fix it. Fortunately, all the stuff inside could be put in the workshop, a utility shed or donated to
Recovering an Old Harbor Freight Portable Garage Read More »
High winds hit our area causing trees to snap and blow down. There are extensive power outages in the area and our electric company said to prepare for a multi-day outage. It sounded like a train was coming, but no tornadoes were reported that I’m aware of. We had a near miss on the cabin
I thought these mushroom logs from March 2015 were about done, but they are fruiting about 8 lbs of Shiitake mushrooms.
We needed a good way to take compressed blocks of promix, peat moss, or seed starter and break it up quickly into a nice useful mix free of chunks. So, we made this sifter primarily for starting seeds using promix from our local nursery. It works great, and here is the link to the Microgreensfarmer.com video
We have 3 young pear trees, only two fruited yielding 60 lbs. of pears this year. We canned about a dozen pints, and the remainder made 3 gallons of hard pear cider (perry). The primary fermentation is going full bore. Here is a good article on making pear cider from PracticalSelfReliance.com. Notice the bubbles coming out
We have our hands full keeping up with the garden. We eat all the fresh fruit and veggies that we can and preserve the rest by freezing, canning, or dehydrating. The freezer is full and canned goods are on shelves all over our tiny house. Good problems!
We needed a simple garden bench to sit and watch our bees and just enjoy the little orchard we planted this year. I had some 2″ thick cedar lumber that I had previously milled with an Alaskan chainsaw mill. I found a plan that we liked on ana-white.com. The bench uses only five 2 x