Posts under ‘Gardening’

2009 is starting off as a great year for the garden. As you can see here, the plant babies are growing strong. We started the plants in the green house, rather than using plant lights, and you can see by comparing these photos, just how well they are doing.

My two youngest, inspired by [...]

This year, we are starting our plants in the greenhouse and they are growing great.  In the past, we’ve used lights to start them, but this year we wanted to see if we could do it without electricity.  
The greenhouse isn’t quite up to the task of a hard frost, so we bring the plants [...]

I have a new page in the project section for a straight snath, made out of hickory.  Since I was building my own snath, I was able to incorporate all the advice on snath design and make the just right for me and it works fabulously.  This is a very straight forward project, taking a [...]

Some inspiring and amazing videos…
The End of Cheap Oil and Rise of the Scythe:

A Good Scythe at Work

I used to have a hard time using the scythe for any length of time.  These videos made it look so easy, so I did a bit of research, and tested my theories this weekend.  Here is what [...]

This weekend, we harvested 12 1/2 pounds of tart cherries.  It was our largest harvest ever, which is a surprise because the top half of the tree is dying.  Maybe trees and plants set more fruit when under stress. Whatever the reason, cherry mead has always been the best and I’m looking forward to using [...]

We built a house for the chickens a few years ago, similar to the cattle panel hoop house, except it was covered with tarps instead of clear plastic. Here in Michigan it doesn’t provide enough protection for a year round coop, but we let the chickens use it during the warmer months as a [...]

I purchase a scythe from Lehman’s and found it a bit awkward. I ordinarily don’t have problems with tools from Lehman’s so I thought I just needed to learn to use the tool. After reading this page on snath making at scytheconnection.com I realized that it was the tool that needed to change, [...]

I have used a scythe for a while now and thought I had learned all I needed to know. After looking at Scytheconnection.com, I can tell I have a lot to learn.
There is a buyers guide that is quite through, with information on where you can buy a blade and snath (handle). A [...]

Erroll, of WashingtonWineMaker.com stopped by and recommended I put bird netting over the grapes. I had thought about putting up something to keep the deer out, but forgot about the birds.
I attached some boards to the top of the posts, then attached 1 inch deer fencing. The fencing is 7 feet wide and comes [...]

According to an article published on Energy Bulletin, Organic farming can feed the world.
From the article:
ANN ARBOR, Mich.�Organic farming can yield up to three times as much food on individual farms in developing countries, as low-intensive methods on the same land�according to new findings which refute the long-standing claim that organic farming methods cannot produce [...]