We Like Making Our Own Stuff

Seed starting is underway on our little urban homestead! We had a year's worth of toilet paper and paper towel tubes to work with.  We cut the toilet paper tubes in half, and the paper towel tubes into quarters.  Then, we lined them up in trays and filled each with dirt (we made our own soil this year by blending some topsoil with our compost).  Finally, we planted one seed in each tube, and watered. We also had some seed starting trays and inserts left over from previous years that we used.  We hope to stick with using toilet paper tubes in the future, rather than the plastic inserts.  The toilet paper tubes can be planted right in the ground and will decay with time; whereas the plastic inserts will end up in the landfill. In other news, my husband is still working on a solar method of heating the greenhouse during these cold spring nights.  For now, we are using a kerosene heater: He is hoping to have another, cleaner, heating method in pl...

Joseph has been working hard all week preparing our greenhouse for spring planting.  He has made a lot of progress on the floor, and is also replacing the poly sheeting with corrugated plastic.  This sturdy plastic makes much better walls than the poly.  One or two storms is all it takes to put holes in your greenhouse when you use poly sheeting, so it is definately a good investment in our eyes. Last year's storm damage: We are going to have a "Planting Party" this weekend.  We invited friends and family over for a Saturday afternoon of planting.  Everyone brings some containers and dirt to share with us in return for using our greenhouse to start their plants.  We're going to cook a big meal for when we are finished planting and make a party out of it! Our new floor:

Spring has finally arrived, which means gardening season will soon be here for us Northerners! To get a head-start on our plants, my husband built us a small greenhouse last year. This year, he will be making some improvements to it, including adding a floor (we had a muddy mess last year) and replacing the flimsy poly plastic with more durable material. He also has some interesting ideas on heating our greenhouse. It is still cold and snowy right now, so our plants would surely die without some extra heat. I will post further updates on his progress in the next couple weeks. Hopefully, we can give others some useful ideas so that those living in colder climates can garden more successfully! Spring 2010 Late Summer 2010