Hultafors Splitting Axe

Posted on October 30, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

In a world where so many things are made fast and cheap, when you can try and support business’s that create items to last. I was thrilled to see that Hultafors who have been making and selling Axes from Sweden since the 1700’s offer a 50 year lifetime warranty on the axe head.

When it comes to buying high quality tools locally in person, the best place to head to for garden tools, farm tools and wood working is Lee Valley who has a big old store in Ottawa. This is where i find and pay good money for high quality tools, like my steam juicer from Finland, and my garden tools from Germany and in this case a splitting axe from Sweden.

There were splitting axes at the local store for around 100 to 150, and i have had one for a good number of years or you could if you can afford to do so, pay another hundred including 13 percent tax for one that comes with this type of warranty

The first badly damaged set of old grandfather trees, was black willow so we had it hauled away by the semi truck load. However these were big old Norway maples and while not premium fire, it certainly gets the job done.

We have been very luck so far that we have had so few trees come down in some of the bigger storms, as others have had far worse damage then we have. Still when the storm brought down a number of my big trees, we knew they would need to be cut down and worked into firewood, but some of it is way to big to split by hand and we will be renting a wood splitter and or borrowing one depending.

Because we do not have our own forest, its not normal for us to do our big firewood, we do smaller trees and such but normally buy our firewood already dried, split and aged by 10 cords at a time delivered to the farm.

This year there will be a good amount of hand splitting on the smaller logs to stack and keep on drying them down. It was time for a new Axe. The first workout on the axe went very well indeed. Miss R got a very good workout and has informed me this morning that new muscles have been found lol, stretching is very good idea before and after.

What is your favorite splitting axe? Do you make a effort to buy from company’s that have been around for a long time? Do you buy your firewood or do you self harvest?

30 day mini challenge “get back into the habit of writing” -Day Seven! Thank you to the over 2 thousand folks who have read my posts and ramblings over the past week! I know that its been a while since i have been posting regular and i am grateful that so many are opening the posts by email and reading as well as the other ways folks get and read them.

Posted in 30 day challanges, Climate Change, homestead | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Fall Soups : Neeps aka Swedes Potato Bacon Recipe

Posted on October 29, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

Neeps or Swedes or Rutabaga all mean the same thing, that amazing winter root veggie that was created as a cross between a cabbage and a turnip in the 1700 in Sweden. In the garden because its such a long slower grower, it means that it gets a single season planting, averaging 100 days and can easily go 110 or longer in our zone.

They are much firmer, sweeter then regular white turnips and are worth the extra time it takes to grow them. They can be eaten raw or cooked. In this case i peeled and cubed and over roasted them to bring out their depth of flavor and added sweetness.

Neeps Potato Bacon Soup

one med neep or Rutabaga, washed, peeled and cubed into 1 inch cubes baked till tender or cook it in a pot of just covered water till tender.

3 medium potatoes, washed peeled and cubed and cooked in water till fork tender

1 small yellow onion

6 cups veggie or chicken broth

3 slices of thick cut bacon or 2 tsp of real bacon bits

Bonus small amount of cream or sour cream if desired

Salt, Pepper, Garlic and your favorite veggie herb blend if desired.

In my case, I made this soup because we had leftover mashed Neeps (over roasted) and leftover Mashed potatoes in the fridge. These two made the perfect base for a hot lovely soup for lunch for the crew.

If starting from scratch, wash/peel cube your neeps and potatoes and cook till tender, drain well, mash till smooth as desired. In your stock pot, add a bit of your favorite oil and or if cooking the bacon, dice your bacon and cook till browned, add your onion and cook till clear and tender, add your broth, neeps and potato to the broth and onions, add back in your bacon, heat though just till simmering, taste and add salt, pepper and garlic powder and if wanted a bit of your favorite herb blend for veggies. Adjust to your own taste, i would start with half a tsp of salt, pepper, garlic powder and see what you like, i like the flavor of the neeps to shine so i go light on the seasonings.

Serve into your bowls, can put a swirl of cream or dollop of sour cream on top, if you like a small pat of butter with a handful of herbed seasoned croutons is also a delightful touch..

In keeping with my post on beets yesterday, turnips and swedes are rock solid root veggies that grow very well in our zone. I personally find it harder to enjoy regular turnips then i do the swedes or neeps which i enjoy much more.

Farmgal Tip, Swedes have much less sugar per the same amount of potato so for those that are watching their sugar content, if you can take a recipe 50/50 you will cut the carb count by doing so.

30 Day Mini Challenge – Day 6 of writing blog posts

Posted in 30 day challanges, Garden harvest, gardens, recipes, Soups and Stews, Winter Eating Challange | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Roasted Beet are a late fall garden treat!

Posted on October 28, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

A fellow blogger from many years gone by who i am connected with still said something interesting a few weeks back (Yes Jess, that would be you) in regards to if we needed to eat more of what we can grow what would our food choices be like and while others listed different counties, given our zones we would be very German/Russian/Northern etc

It got me to thinking about my seed order for 2025 for the gardens and that while i am always game to push the edges of growing things for my zone, if i am really truly worried about food costs and availability in 2025 and beyond, then i need to make a list of plants that grow well, store well and can be eaten in a number of ways

First on my list without a doubt in our Canadian Zone 5a is beets! There are so many kinds of beets, spring ones that are perfect for itty bitty baby beets and their tiny green tops, golden beets, bullseye beets, round beets, and cylindrical slicer ones perfect for canning or pickling. With their fast germination rate and their hardiness to handle light frosts or in micro zoned even harder frosts. In our area, we can get three crops of beets, the early spring ones taken small and fast, with the thinning’s being done for salads or chopped into spring soups.

Late spring planted that planted right yield the canning push in mid july which is ideal as its a slower canning time, letting you put up pickled and making deep rich grated stuffed jars for winter soups, then the late planting in the first week or two of aug for the fall harvests, which is where we are right now.

These are being grown in a micro zone in the kitchen garden and they have a large full hedgerow of protection one side with the garden and then the house offering secondary wind protection along with a heat effect. They are beautiful!

I love roasting beets, whole beets, cubed and seasoned beets or as part of a veggie mix for sheet roasting, so good. Roasting brings out that deep earthy flavor that you either love or hate, i carefully put the leaves unwashed but sorted into my fridge keeper and then cut and washed put the stems in a different one. This picking of six big beautiful fall beets will serve up three different choices and uses, the beets themselves was washed, peeled (peelings go to the chickens and ducks while adore them) they were given a bit of olive oil, herbs and covered to slow roast away, then when done, butter added, everything tossed very gentle and piled into their tinfoil lid and twisted shut to let to sit for a few min in the turned off but warm oven.. till ready to serve.

Do you have a type of beet that you love growing that you think i should try? Let me know its name and type? Got a favorite beet soup recipe that you adore? that you have a link for, would love to have it and give it a try.

Mini Challenge 30 days of blog posts

Day 5 of 30 of writing a daily post!

Posted in 100 mile diet, Garden harvest, Goals, Kitchen garden | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

10 Tons of Well Rotted Wood Chip Based Compost

Posted on October 27, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

What a gift this pile is! I am so thankful to our friends that gifted these piles to us for the park garden. This is a mix of wood based bedding in a free stalled cow dairy by a friend who also raises most of the crops that are being used.

This is the third time i have had a delivery from them over the past five years, the first pile was 5 tons and it was delightful and dropped closer to the gate you can see the areas in the park garden that it was used in because you can tell the color of the grass where it sat even though most of it was used in creating beds, that’s how much the land wanted and is using what this provides.

The second deliver was much closer to the front of the park gardens and in truth we still have around a ton or ton and half to use up. They closed and sold their cattle, keeping only back a small amount of meat type to raise up, so I knew that access to this resource was limited, I asked if could get one more big load and was very happy when told yes.

What you ask is the difference between this compost and what i can produce on my own farm? The answer is turning, they have bedding fluffer that means that the wood based bedding, the urine and the poo are turned, spread and mixed to create a living always decomposing deep pack for the comport of their animals.

I have old aged sheep in aged hay/straw bedding, I have hot fowl in wood chip/hay blend and i have lots and lots of picked horse piles. What i don’t have is the ability to blend my horse piles with wood chip bedding and turn it over and over and over again in a living active way.

This pile will have some very small clods in it but overall its going to be loose and friable aged compost, its already a year plus in age as we had to wait for the winter freeze to end, the spring to wet, the spring/summer/fall crops season to be done to find just the right day to deliver, when crops were off, the ground was dry enough for them to drive in on the ground and so on

If you are looking for manure tea for use, then you want to make with much more fresh then this and i have to be very careful where its used this year, i can make new beds with it, i can add it to the garden to rot in over the winter etc, but i can’t put it on any overwinter plants or canes, or fruit trees etc.. it is totally the wrong season to be adding in extras to encourage growth. I want everything to shut down right now..

Once everything is fully died back, I will do some early winter spreading, a great example of that would be on the rhubarbs, they will all get a good solid inch of compost over the whole area to feed the plant for next spring.

As we have this pile now to work with, the plan for the remaining pile by the front of the park garden which is across from the main garden is to clean it up/edge it out and flatten it into new garden itself, take advantage of the fact that it has smothered everything under it, that at its age, anything will grow in it, i am going to plant it out into started plants for the next few years.

What type of compost are you working with in your gardens/food forests/or raised beds? Are you able to access locally produced extras be that sawdust, or switch grass/straw or wood chips or ? Different areas and different small farms/homesteads produce different types of compost, in 2024, we will wood ash, fowl compost, horse, plant based (nettle/comfrey and so on)

This pile should if used carefully allow us to amend and increase our production in the park garden as we continue to expand it.

Day 4 of my personal 30 day mini challenge to back into writing daily for the blog! Trying to get back into the habit of writing often.

Posted in 30 day challanges, compost | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Ticks

Posted on October 26, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

How has it been in your area this year in regards to ticks? With the crazy wet garden season it has meant that we have not been able to mow things as low as we have been over the past two or three years in terms of the walking paths and people spots.

We have even taken to mowing a huge part of the big dog yard down to make most of it non-tick habitat friendly, but there is still edges of the dog yard that provides idea pick up places.

Earlier in the year Dear Hubby picked up a nymph tick on his back, it was full in by the time it was found but was successfully removed, still he went the very next day to get the full treatment from the local pharmacy, never had any redness or bullseye pattern.

Boy are the ticks out at this time, they have been pulled of the horses, dog ear even though the dogs are on meds, and even much to my anger full feed females have been found, thankfully i have been able to kill them before laying.

Into a nice killing bath of rubbing alcohol! I have a feeling that we will be finding at least a few more yet before the season is done. Locally the rise of tick born illness and ticks carrying issues is increasing and i expect with our warmer and longer springs/summer/falls we will continue to see even more .

Full credit to these goes the Ottawa public health and as they would not allow me to save these other then in a pdf, forgive the screen shots. The information however is very on target and useful to what i am talking about.

and as if lime is not enough.. sigh!

Given the cost of testing your ticks, it is far to say that many people do not send them in for testing https://geneticks.ca/ I am glad that we do have the ability to send ticks out for testing and i have to admit that if i had one really into me, i would be willing to spend the money to get the results back to know how to move forward but i could not afford to test all the ticks we find here on the farm.

Have you ever sent a tick out for testing? Can you get testing in your province, state and do you have free tick testing anywhere near you?

For us we choose to use Deep Woods Off but i know lots of folks that prefer the treated clothing and most small homesteads an farms do try and use their bird flocks to help keep their populations down, of course our hunting cats and the local skunk/Snakes help reduce the mice populations which in turn helps reduce the ticks as well.

One trick for in the gardens where we tend to spend a good amount of time is wood chip pathways that are at least three feet wide, the ticks do not like the wide open and very dry tops of this and will go around it on the moist green, this means that if you have these types of pathways in the right spots you can help prevent the ticks from traveling into your gardens in the first place and second you can work in your gardens more safely but still always remember to tick check yourself daily!

Which brings me to the tick removal tools, there are many on the market but they are all a version of each other, some are for your key chain, you do need to two sizes one for the smaller ticks and one for the bigger. I personally like this tick kit i picked up a few of them, they have the standard tick removal type slide and pull slow, but also tweezers and magnifying glass and tick collection tubes along with a id card etc.

You can tell that mine are a few years old and have been hauled on trips, camping and so on, its looking a bit worn but that is a good sign, all the tools have held up well to years of use and while you do need redo the wipes and so on replacement wise i have found them to be of good value

Farmgal Tip Hunters and or on farm butchering, if your deer or ? had ticks on them, once they are dead and starting to cool, the ticks on them will release, drop off where that body is and start looking for its next warm blooded host. That very much could mean you, yours or your pets or your truck bed or yard etc as you work on the processing, worth being aware of and keeping a eye on for sweeping up and removal.

Posted in Climate Change, Critters, Food Forest, Health, homestead, Personal Care, Real Life | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lets make some goals! Getter Done

Posted on October 25, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

Written Goals are such a good starting point to at least try and direct the coming time.

Miss R and I have the same tracking and thought journals and we are enjoying finding a time (perhaps not daily) to work on them. We are also sharing the cooking and i must say that its delightful to hand over the kitchen and or meal planning to such a creative mind.

I took the goal list for 2022 done on our 50th year and used it as the starting point for this post.

They say that you should pick a word for the year. I very much want a Hygge house, garden, farm and year.

What does that mean you say.. it means good food, use the pretty dishes, buy the good coffee and tea, drink it out of the good tea cup or the big pottery mug with soft lap blanket with purrpot or puppy snuggled in while listening to music, or reading a book or gathering around the table for games night or card games or watching a movie together, outdoor gathered by the fire, walks down the garden paths and picnic’s..

  • Spend as much time in as many ways to enjoy and strengthen with continued active communication with Dear Hubby and in our overall household. The above really goes for everyone in my life that matters to me in different degrees..
  • Continue to work on different health issues within our household, some of which are stable an or improving and some which are currently not stable and are actively requiring care, surgery and treatment plans at this time. Ideally i would like to end the year in a full stable health place for the whole household.
  • Live, Love and Work with the land/farm.. Expand the plantings, working the current gardens, work the food forests, Meat, Milk, Eggs, Fruit, Veggies, Herbs and Medical Plantings..
  • Work on creating spots within the food forest, the kitchen garden and park garden that are both use for photography and for company.
  • Blog, Ok really i am paying for the blog and will continue to do so as long as i can afford it as there is a huge wealth of knowledge and i can see that every single day so many find and read posts but i really need to make a effort to write new posts, share photos and recipes and so on
  • Feed the birds in winter, continue to create haven on our farm for the wild birds
  • Continue support my gardens that have active breeding programs for my natives bees So MANY BEES
  • Replace, Repair, Rebuild in regards to continued farm/land/pasture needs. Drylot the horses again this coming spring and do a full reseeding and close off of some small sections of the pastures, clear the pastures carefully enough that i can use the big lawn mower to cut down and mulch for the soil health anything that the horses do not eat that the sheep would.
  • Photography, while i will continue to offer it for clients, i would like to also try and continue to do at least one passion project per month for the joy of it
  • Finish the kitchen to get my certification even more then i have now
  • Teach small classes again on all kinds of homesteading things
  • Host small classes, in the past year i have tree pruning and propagation including tree grafting courses offered here with me acting as the host.
  • Cut down trees to cut/stack for firewood, plant more tree babies for future fence posts and firewood
  • Would really like to do more fishing this year
  • Travel?? hmm maybe some short trips for my girlfriends and ideally at least one girl trip, otherwise no real travel plans for this year, its a stay at home year really.
Posted in At the kitchen table, Goals, homestead | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Another turning of the wheel onward to my 52nd year

Posted on October 24, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

Its hard to believe that the year has come and gone and that a new one is starting today. My 51st year was filled with ups, downs and lots of steady as she goes. You know when they say to think back on the past year and figure out what the “overall year” was like.

My highlights words of the year would be “creative” ‘flexible” “travel” “family” “friends”

Having said that i would also need to add a few more words for the rest of the year “health” “boundaries” “worn”

In many ways, it was a excellent year, including a month long trip across Canada with time spent with family in Alberta, visiting the mountains and more

Yet it was a year filled with health issues for me, for dear husband and even for our pets. The loss of Paris is felt even with Fancy taking up so much space in our home and hearts. Even when they pass away from old age after living a amazing life, they are still very missed.

Dear Husband continues to be his amazing self, i could not ask for a better partner to walk though this life with. He has allowed his creative side out at a few of my hosted themed photography events as a model so proud of him for stepping out of his comfort zone on these!

So far he has modeled as “trapper” in my western event, and mad doctor “Halloween Event” as well as personally modeling different ideas for me. I think its fair to say that we are both surprised and thrilled to find that he really enjoys stepping into a “character” as a model into a set. I am looking forward to seeing what “who” he will become for our next themed photoshoot project that we work on together.

I have worked very hard in the past year with regards to my photography and i have to give a HUGE shout out to the amazing folks i have meet in the ottawa an Eastern Ontario in terms of models, fellow photographers and clients.

The household end the year by growing by one person and a few more pets, as Miss R joined us here on the farm, she had been visiting and staying on the farm for farm sitting and just cuz for the past five years (man time fly’s by) I am also honored that she seemed to enjoy being one of my muses in front of the camera.

My own health has been up and down this year, rocky is the best way to say it, i have good days, holding on days and way to many rest/down days for my liking.

The farm itself had a major change in the past year, this spring, i made the very hard choice to send my remaining flock of ewes to a dear friend of mine farm, for the first time since we moved to the farm, we do not have a sheep flock, bringing our livestock down to chickens, ducks and our two horses.

I am happy to say that with the adding in of Miss R that the horses are getting back into work mode, Caleb is her hop on good old boy and take it nice and slow but she is actively getting Bojangles back into shape for a much more active work/ride life.

I am not at all sure what the coming year will look like but i am willing to say that the odds are in my favor that it will include the farm, the gardens, pets, farm critters, time spent with friends and or family, photography, some travel, creative outlets and more.

There is a lot of outside factors at play globally, in country in effect, Inflation is very much a factor, the increased cost in living is clearly seen everywhere and on so many levels. I am going to do my best to focus on things within my control and deal with things as they come.

Posted in Family, farm, farm journel, photography | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

What a garden season its been 2024

Posted on October 19, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

How did your garden grow? How was your final harvests? Have you had your first hard frost? Still growing, still harvesting?

My overview of the gardens for the farm for 2024

Hard Fruit, including Apples, Pears, Cherries, Plums, Peaches

Apples- Wonderful crop 8.8/10

Pears- First year three trees came on line, lovely fruit for the regular Pears and OUTSTANDING for the Asian pears 9/10

Peaches, first year for harvest from our seed started peaches, all three trees produced 20 plus pounds each, over a hundred pits of the best have been selected and saved to grow more peach trees from.

Plums -Total loss plum pocket

Cherries (5 types) best year ever, we picked bowl after bowl after bowl while the birds feasted until they got to ripe and we finally stopped picking and processing. (this was something that happened all around as as well, best cherry year!

Bush Fruits

Blueberries- very good, large, sweet and lovely

Haskaps -Fully loaded, all 8 types produced large amounts of fruit

Gooseberries -Good Year, not the best and not the worst

Jostsa Berries, Best year yet!

Highbush cranberry -Outstanding

Black Chokeberry – Good

Black Chokecherry- poor

Pincherry- average

Hawthorn – Outstanding

Nannyberry-average

Small fruits

Raspberries- average

Strawberries -outstanding

Blackberries- average

Logonberries-excellent

Now we get to the garden itself, o the rains, the rains did a number on us this year.. SO MUCH RAIN

So many days where spent watching it pour rain down, the farm was so lush and green this year, those that could handle the rains did very well indeed. It effected the crops around us, including hay, so wet!

Rain that washed out seeds, rain that made it impossible to work the ground, rain that killed or drowned out tomato’s and even killed a cherry tree that was as it turns out planted in a drain line that would not drain.

In the end raised beds and a version of strawbale gardening is what gave us what we got..

Garden Harvests on the farm in summer/fall of 2024

Potato’s excellent Grown in bedding, hilled three times with more cover

Carrots- In ground raised bed

Beets- In ground Raised bed

Beans – In ground Raised bed

Cucumber – In ground Raised bed

Zucchini – Raised mini mounds made just for them

Green onions in ground Raised beds

Salad Greens, in ground Raised beds

That’s it, everything else drowned, stunted, and or died, including tomato plants, pepper plants and a host of other things planted in other gardens. Potato’s grew in the main garden area well but only because we moved to the straw/bedding method which we did as it was so wet we could not work in there and it was the best choice we could think of to get the potato’s in to start the growing season.

The squash worked only because we made two 16 to 18 inch hills to plant them into on the top to control the amount of water/rain and even then we had to replant them twice due to rot of the seeds.

The kitchen garden with its built beds, its built in swales and its built in dry creek/rain garden leading to the pond was the winner winner of the year. it was what and where the found was produced and is still being grown.

First hard killing frost arrived Oct 17th and all tenders are done, but the beets/carrots and such are still looking good yet.

What a strange garden season its been, and we will need to try and figure out what the plan is for next year, seeds are already ordered for 2025.

Posted in Garden, Garden harvest, gardening, Kitchen garden, Rain Garden | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Tracking Year-May 2024 Report

Posted on June 12, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

Canning

  • 6 pint jars of homemade HP sauce rhubarb based
  • 4 pint jars of haskap/rhubarb bbq sauce
  • 6 jars of Pretty in Pink Jam

Yogurt- 2 gallons made

Mozza cheese – two batches

Butter -2 pounds homemade and in freezer

Also keeping me busy is garden planting, photography and this wee darling pup Miss Fancy.. 

Posted in Life moves on daily | 1 Comment

Ultra Frugal but Foolish Way to Get Garden Bean Seeds

Posted on January 23, 2024 by Just another day on the farm

Sometimes i adore when both ultra frugal and yet foolish things cross over my facebook feed LOL

This fits the bill perfectly!

On the frugal side of things, in the usa this appear to cost around $2.50 cents and i would need to go to walmart locally to see if i can find it and price point it out but lets just say its 3.50. Pretty sure it higher then that but i am rounding.

So the first thing to note is that the company itself recommends that you CAN in fact sprout out their beans from this soup mix, and that it can be done as a class project and so on in a cheap and frugal way!

NO, i am not getting any kind of kickback or gift for this post lol and i will point out that i often buy bulk bags of mung beans for sprouting from the store because they cost me a fraction of what “sprouting mung beans” would and that they are excellent.

    Photo credit goes to Monique Salinas for the sorted beans out of her bag she got.

Now on one hand these are the most common planted beans and if you planted them all and grew them out, the yield back would pay for itself and then some.

IF you are in need of a massive amount of freshly picked young green beans, then the odds are in your favor on this project, plant away and harvest, harvest, harvest.. For someone that really wants to harvest first picks only of very young beans for a road stand or youth group etc.. then honestly you are not going to get cheaper then this without using a seed library or a free seed program on a seedy Saturday table,

And with seed prices rising and the amount you get in the seed packages in many cases going down, its a viable choice for those in need!! Maybe you have a very long mild growing season, then in that case you can most likely bring some of these back to full mature and dry bean stage again.

Now for the foolish part of this

  1. Beans are one of the easiest plants to grow, give them soil, light and space and something to climb and they are good.. and they are also one of the most staple for gardeners to save. So the odds are good that if you ask on facebook to your local friends if they have custom grown local saved seed, the answer will be yes and you can get some gifted to you easily enough. 
  2. Not all beans are a good choice for fresh eating and many of the beans shown in the soup bean mix will have not been bred to be stringless. While you can sit and snap and pull the string if you need to, when it come to eating and selling fresh eating beans, everyone today will assume stringless. My generations still remembers sitting, top and tailing and pulling the string of the back end for many hours.
  3. Without knowing the seeds themselves there is no way to know how many days to harvest and how many days to dried. In short seasons and for those that like to do two plantings per garden season, this is critical

To be fair, it would only take one season of growing to get some of the answers, most dried beans can be eaten at a very young stage, you can pull the string on the beans if you need to do so and you could grow them out and track their timings.. So with a bit of work you could get your answers for most things listed above.

So for those that are looking for a cheap way to get seeds started for a homeschool project or a community garden, this looks like it could be a good choice

For those that are so lean this year and REALLY need to stretch their funds and grow some of their own food or who want to pay very little to grow trap crop, this is a great way to make it happen and i expect the yield return would be very high indeed compared to buying each of those types of seeds.

However for those that want to know what they are growing, want to know how much of a climber it is, want to know if its stringless, want to know how many days to dried stage.. Its a good idea to start with bought seed if you can and grow your own

So what do you think? Ultra frugal way to get into the garden game with some of the easiest plants to grow? Would you do it? If so what would get you to try this? Have you tried this? IF so how did it work? What was your results?

Posted in 100 mile diet, frugal, Gal in the Garden Series, Garden | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment