Raising Seedlings in the Cold

 My first reaction upon seeing the above sight, was "Joshua Martin Brueggen, What the f&%k am I going to do with all of these tomatoes!?" (The kids were asleep...) They were three and four tomatoes deep near the middle of the table.  Plus this actual picture is missing the tomatoes I used to make 11 pints of the salsa below! I was overwhelmed, not just whelmed. The idea of processing these tomatoes, and in a timely fashion, made my head spin. I may have the patience of a saint (I am a teacher after all), but I have the attention span of a five year old. The twelve pounds I used to make salsa took me up to 8 hours start to finish to process. I cried and swore I would let these tomatoes rot rather than spend hours over the stove and sink peeling each frickin tomato. Oh and that I would never go hungry again, as I took a juicy bite. Damn Good Salsa Damn Good Salsa Add Mrs. Wages Salsa mix and 1/4 cup vinegar to (6lbs tomatoes, 2lbs onions, cilantro and jalepeno to ...

 amount  OK, time for an update.  To the left is a photo of the greenhouse currently.  Due to the warm early weather I did a lot of planting of summer crops early in March.  On account of this we are about 45 days into the growing season.  I have begun constructing raised beds according to the grand plan, and filling them with soil removed from an area of my basement.  Below is a string of close up photos of a few of the crop beds; they are looking pretty good considering without a hoophouse most of these crops would barely even be planted yet.  First Planting of sweet corn, green beans, and sweet potatoes.  The green beans are beginning to bloom, and the corn is about waist high. This bed contains the second planting of green beans, sweet corn, and sweet potatoes which have been planted as sister crops.  Visible in this photo are tomatos, and sweet bell peppers.  Note the heavy bloom set on the tomatos. Thi...

The greenhouse from the outside  A Greenhouse Update      The greenhouse has now been covered for just over one month, so it is time for an update on the progress so far.  I began planting inside the hoophouse on February 20th, and planted lettuce spinach, radish and turnip.  Some lettuce and spinach survived the winter, and began growing as     soon as the greenhouse was covered.  The locations of the raised beds to be built were marked with string before serious planting began.  To   the right you can see plywood walkway placed to avoid compressing    soil around the overwintered greens.  Deeper into the greenhouse          hardwood mulch was added to the future walkways, as this breaks       down it will be added to the growing beds as compost, and the mulch    replaced         ...

Building an Economical Greenhouse. March 01 2012        First, I think it would be valuable to have a little background on just how it is that I became interested in greenhouse gardening.  Going way back to the beginning briefly may provide some interesting perspective.  So, childhood; I grew up in a large, thrifty family and gardening was a large part of my childhood.  All of my siblings helped out in the garden which was roughly one-half of an acre in size, but somewhere along the line I took a special shine to it.  During high school I even did a little truck crop gardening.  I grew roughly one acre of crops, mostly your average Midwestern garden fare, which I sold at a weekly farmers market in town.  In hindsight my methods were pretty crude, and the amount of work I put in was pretty huge for the amount of rewards I reaped.  After college I moved here to Rock Island, Illinois, and bought a small house on a small ...

We have been recently inspired to do more for ourselves, and live a slightly less consumer led life style. No, we are not hippies. But we have come to realize that businesses and the media control far to many of our choices, and we have decided to take a few back. Josh and I recently watched the documentary Food, Inc. This video shows how just a few organizations (I won't name names) control the food supply in the United States and exactly what they do to our food supply.  I promise you won't look at chicken nuggets the same way again. We are each contributing something different to the household to accomplish this goal. 1. Josh is going to garden and produce organic vegetables 2. We will be getting grass fed beef from an Amish source 3. I will be attempting to can and freeze as much of what Josh produces as possible. 4. We have decided to dedicate ourselves to DIY whenever possible. (I am currently making the new purse I wanted, and Josh has constructed shelves...