Building Up the Traditional Tilled Plots with Drip Irrigation
Irrigation Setup: Take One Running into dehydrated plants this summer, we looked into automating the watering. We stumbled on an inexpensive drip irrigation kit online with bending adjustable sprayers. We’d already harvested what was available in the traditional plots but wanted to test if we could manage pumpkins before Halloween. (We couldn’t- squash bugs. Enough…
Moving Forward with Blueberry Plants After Our Class
Finally Getting the Ball Rolling I’ve wanted to buy blueberry plants and wanting to get started with berry growing since long before we took the berry class in September. Taking the class just strengthened the goal and gave us a path to take to accomplish it. On Veteran’s Day, we called Bluegrass Berries back up,…
How to Collect Free (or Cheap) Seeds
At the last home I was renting, there was a lot of wildlife at the back tree line- honeysuckle, blackberries, goldenrod- I loved wandering and seeing what I could find. Finding seeds was especially exciting for me because it felt like I was collecting the setup for the next year. Wild seeds aren’t great, however,…
Building A Container Stand and What We Grew
Another aspect of the self-sufficiency book is areas of container gardens. The northeastern part of my yard plan calls for containers at each end of my raised keyhole garden (which doesn’t exist yet but one step at a time.) Seeing a bucket plant stand online seemed like a perfect match! Only 12 buckets don’t feel…
Taking On Sacrificial Fruit Trees: Apples and Peaches
I figured one of my longest plans would be fruit trees. They take a good while to get established and then another while longer to actually bear fruit. The trouble is I have a general idea of what apples I like, but not the specific varieties of other fruits I want to grow. Plus, where…
Inverted Stuffed Peppers (Hidden Veggie) Recipe
My son and I are both picky eaters with texture issues. We like the flavor of bell peppers but something about that crunchy slimy texture doesn’t sit right with us. The recipe started with using a single bell pepper cut in half that held 2 meatballs but gave the whole pot a bell pepper flavor.…
First Steps: A Tree and a Shed Kick-off Our Growth
One of the first things I did when I bought the house was to buy a tree to match my homeownership. Remember, there are no plants on this land, save for some hostas left in front of the porch. It needs a tree-even an ornamental one. I wanted something pretty to build my imaginary dream…
One Garden Closer to Homestead: The Traditionally Tilled Block
In the beginning I mentioned a book that promised you could be self-sufficient on a quarter acre. I was excited by this notion because the land I bought matched what the book planned out on a larger scale. My house is situated towards the east, the land is a large flat rectangle, and since it’s…
The Beginning! Failure to Failure…. For Now!
It’s said the best place to start a story is at the beginning! Initially, I considered the purchase of my home to be the beginning of Chayotix Homestead. Recent times spent with other homesteaders around the world taught me that homesteading is a state of mind. So, if we’re calling *that* point the beginning, my…