CntryBoy777 - The Lazy A** Acres Adventures

[misfitmorgan]

@misfitmorgan the garden has been worked for close to 20yrs now. Each yr we rake leaves and work them into the soil, so the top layers are fairly rich and workable. We grow potatoes in tires. You can actually grow them in a mixture of sand, soil, and leaves. As the plant grows, you add medium, leaving the top 1/3-1/2 of the plant exposed to light, add a tire as necessary. When it is time to harvest, ya just push the tires over and pull the taters from the inside of the tires. If ground vermin are a problem, you can put a piece of hardware cloth under bottom tire. The tires being black draw the warmth of the sun, so you can plant a bit earlier, not having to wait for grounds temps to make it to ideal range. The is a guy in Florida that grows them in sawdust.

Joyce does cross stitch and embroidery, that was embroidery, my Mom taught her.
I am not sure of the cost of the well, but around here there is a set price down to 100' and then they charge by the foot to go deeper. It was dug back in '92....

We talked about different options this year old tires was one of them! We have about 30 or so old tires left by the owners and there are tire piles at the dealerships,repair places, etc that they will usually give you for free. Also try the landfill/local dump ours here will let you have tires for free. No one here wants them because it costs $5/tire to take them to the dump lol. Also i have seen lots of free tires on craigslist.

If we did use tires i would definately have to do something like this
http://www.goodshomedesign.com/diy-tires/
To make them look nice.

This just looks to cool.....i however dont want it in my yard lol.
http://how-to-recycle.blogspot.com/2012/08/creative-sculpture-made-from-old-tires.html

We do have old tires in the pasture for the goats to play on, some bigger tractor tires.

We also saw a few videos on youtube of a guy who specializes in rare potato varieties or something and he was doing tests. One of the test was everytime the potato plant emerged from the soil when it was just starting to grow he would cover it with more medium and on and on until the bag was full, he start like half way down. What he found is the long that main root is the more potatoes you get per plant.

ME!
But I have to get new summer tires (*) next month so I can choose to have 4 tires for the garden and not pay for disposal. Just had a thought (big surprise), tires would be a better plan than a wire cage for early planting. The black tires will absorb heat during the day to warm the "planting medium".

* for those in the south Summer tires are the ones that have less rolling resistance so better MPG, longer tread life, stop well on wet and dry roads, all things winter tires DON'T do. But they don't do well in snow, something winter tires DO, which is kinda important up here

Potato's need a bit of space but not like squash no because they dont vine out. We only planted so many because it was the first year for potatoes here and we had a pretty good idea of what was gonna happen and we got some seed potatoes given to us for free and DH was experimenting with some store potatoes to use as seed. We have a pile of ready compost maybe 6ft tall by 7-8ft wide and 24ft long, plus another approx 2ft in the drylot which is midly hot and the barn which needs cleaned that will be turned into the soil for the tomatoes and some made into compost tea of sorts but hot. The problem with the compost is it needs to be screened because of all the junk from the owners that is mixed into everything. We also have a large pile of round bale that is composting for the garden. The idea is to put in enough medium to lighten up the soil and raise the garden all at once.

 

[CntryBoy777]

In low lying areas or lesser worked areas I prefer to plant in raised beds, but not in the traditional way of wood or structure for the sides, I just take a hoe and pull dirt to the middle from around it. If ya have compost or organic material, just pile it in the middle of the area you are raising and pull the dirt on top to mix in with it. This limits the use of the compost to the areas that are being utilized and not wasted in the middles where you walk, stand, or kneel. This also can save wasting water in those areas too. Unglossed cardboard and feed bags make good walkways to aid in weeds and grass from growing and entering beds. They can also be used on the beds, but leaves work really well for the moisture flow, and adds to the soil as it decomposes. They are also handy for the early and late season, depending on one's location, as an insulator during cool snaps and spells. They are easy pull to, around, and covering plants depending on how severe the temp drops are. If they are piled in the garden area, they are readily available for quick use. The earthworms really love them too. I haven't worked in a garden for several years now, because I am busy with other things and don't have the energy that I once did, I leave it to Joyce, but she has her own ways that don't really make sense to me, and not the way I was taught. So, to maintain Peace, I just let her do her thing without my interference. If we were dependent on production, I would....but, since it isn't I just bite my tongue...cause she doesn't want to hear it. She is from Michigan, I am from 70 miles N of here and we live in Mississippi, but she has no intention of learning about here. Oh well, life goes on. My Mom tried to teach her too, to no avail....

 

[CntryBoy777]

I don't want anything said earlier to "Cloud" anyone's opinion of Joyce, or our feelings for one another. We strive to be on the "Same Page", but as ya age, less and less things are dynamically important....so, ya just let go of those things cause they really don't matter, when ya can't do all ya wish to do, there isn't any need to have "Hard Feelings" over things ya wouldn't do anyway. However, here are a couple of pics of the last garden Mom and I worked together...
but, enough of that.

We have a B'day boy today.... ....Cheetos is 2yrs old today, he was stalking Star. I got a pretty good one of her today too... ...she sure has turned out to be a really sweet old girl. I even got another Spring shot.... ..this is a sizeable group of Robins out in the field today. Those white things are old bird houses that have been damaged by storms and limbs....I'm going to put them in the pond for fish structure.

We have rain coming tonite, suppose to be fairly heavy rain, but outta here by 8am, so I'm going to work tomorrow and Sunday getting the bracing done for the fence. I also need to change filters and oil in riding mower, so it will be ready to use. Things have been slow for long enough, and now I have to do all I can before temps get too hot for me to do much, that is in the mid 80s....

 

[Mike CHS]

We have had huge numbers of Robins and some kind of finch with blue feathers the last week or so.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Here's a pic of an Indigo Bunting, we have many around here along with Titmice.....we found a Thrasher nest today with eggs in it, and the Bluebirds have eggs in their nest in the box in the garden.

 

[NH homesteader]

Wow beautiful garden! Eh don't worry, I don't think anyone thought that you were speaking ill of Joyce. I pick on my husband all the time, but I would say it to him as quickly as to someone else so I get it!

 

[CntryBoy777]

@NH homesteader if ya look at the 2nd garden pic and the 1st pic of Cheetos, you will see the same storage bldg, Cheetos is walking on the area that the garden pics are of, a lot of yrs of neglect. That is why we are cutting it in half and only working the one end. We physically can't work that much ground, and neither could Mom from '07 on...she passed in '12.

 

[Baymule]

Haha, most of us are lucky to find somebody to put up with us. So why would we want to pick a fight over something that don't amount to a hill of beans anyway? Suck it up, shutup and let it go. If we pick too hard at our SO, they might pick back and it would remind us we ain't so darn perfect either!

 

[Baymule]

Wow what the heck were they doing, just burying trash? No pigs injured by broken glass I hope?

I don't have trash service either but have some respect for your land people.

There are two layers of trash on this place. One layer is about 50 years old and the other layer is trash the previous owners threw out. The old layer is from a shanty shack that used to be here, has been gone for a long time. Back then, there was no trash pick up, it was burned and what didn't burn was dumped in a low spot. So there is lots of old pop bottles (broken) shards of canning jars, little bits of blue, green and brown glass. Old cans from when they were made out of steel, Prince Albert tobacco cans, coffee, all rusted to oblivion. Bits and pieces of ancient car parts telling the story of years gone past. The earthen berm looks to be a clean up job, a pile pushed up and left. There are trees growing in it that look to be maybe 20 years old. And there is an old car hood, bent to the point of being unidentifiable.

The new layer of trash was totally unexcuseable. There was insulation on the ground, sofa cushions, plastic bottles, 3 sofas, toilets, shower glass doors, shoes, toys, above ground swimming pool liner, every tree had bonus beer bottles under it, beer cans everywhere, broken metal folding chairs, broken glass (picked up by the buckets) wound up finding 5 old bedspring units, nails, screws, trash, garbage and more trash. On one trip, I hauled back 16 bags (to our old house where we still lived-I went back and forth, painting and putting down new floors). One trip DH and I made, we hired 2 day laborers, they bagged up 32 bags of trash, and picked up over 1700 pounds of metal. They used bed spring units as sideboards on their truck and filled it up. The bumper barely cleared the ground. We paid them to pick it up, gave them $20 for gas and they sold it and kept the money. As happy as they were, we were happier that WE didn't have to haul it off.

 

[CntryBoy777]

So much for the "Heavy" rain here....we got 0.1". Cloudy right now, but suppose to have sun out in a couple of more hours. Really glad we were passed by, the ground is soft enough as it is. Well, there is work to do so I best get started....