Raised Bed in Your Garden? Might Want to Watch This!

Today I wanted to share a youtube video that I found very informative! I hope it is helpful for you as well! 

"Beginner Gardening Raised Bed Do's & Don'ts"

Sometimes the Body Rebels

The last few weeks, who am i kidding, the last couple of months have been so very busy for us here around the homestead. Getting ready for the baby chick, garden and everything that goes along with all of that has had us working hard. Many days I have had double the amount of steps that I normally have. Well Wednesday morning my body let me know it had had enough. My knees had hurt for several days but Wednesday morning my right knew, the one I fell on concrete in 2020, hurt so bad. In fact, when I went to go into our living room - a little step down- I heard a weird pop. I guess I had not been at the right angle to step down and popped my knee and it hurt. It hurt so much I knew I would not be able to take care of our grandson. I was pretty worried for a while that I may not be able to make it out of the living room. And it would be several hours before my husband got home from work to help me if I were stuck. Thankfully after sitting for a while I attempted to get up that small step. I was happy I knew where the cane was that my husband had used when he had knee surgery. So slowly I figured out how to use it to help relieve pressure on my knee. I iced my knee many times throughout the day. I learned that walking on the ball of my foot with that right leg helped there not be so much pain in my knee. Sadly it has caused my calf on the right leg to be extremely sore today. And another day that I can not take care of the 15 month old grandson. I am taking it easy again today with ice on the knee here and there throughout the day. 

I still have a whole lot of things to do around here but doing my best to take it easy so I can heal. It is so hard to know all the things that I want to do and not be able to get up and get them done. I am sure some of you can relate to how I am feeling. Anyway I just wanted to spend a bit of time to up date you on what is going on around here. 

I am SO very thankful that I have most of my plants planted out in the garden! It would be even harder for me if I knew that there were a lot of plants that were way past time to go into the garden. 

Before my injury - I got a bit job done that I am very proud of. Several years ago we had a Rosemary bush that had grown pretty bit but the year that we had the big freeze Feb of 2021 I believe it was - well it killed off most of my rosemary plant. Well I bought a plant and I planted it in a tin wash tub that I had. I knew that this was a temporary home for this plant. Rosemary really needs to be planted where it can thrive for years to come. Anyway I had a spot perfect for it in our garden. And this week I was able to get that job done. I had to dig out a lot of the dirt around the rosemary plant in the wash tub. I moved the tub next to the place I wanted to transplant it to. It was a small hole left from where we had lost a tree and the tree stump had rotted away. I dug up the hole a bit and then transferred the rosemary plant to that spot. I am so proud of getting that job done! 

So the plant has some dead spots on that one side. I thought I would leave it for a bit and see if maybe it would start thriving now that it has room to grow. If it does not, I will cut out the dead area of the plant. So thankful that I figured out that this would be a great spot for my plant! I have wanted it permanently added to my garden for a while. 

Well I better close for now. I hope you all are doing well. :O) 

Perfect Advice

 

Never Underestimate...

Even with as busy as my life is right now - I am SO thankful to have my garden. And this is just one reason:

 It is best to have the goal of being a gardener - when having a garden instead of just starting a garden to grow food. The reason being is that when gardening - you will not always have success. Some years there will be a lot of successes but the next year - you may do the exact same things and not have success. There are a lot of variables when it comes to gardening. Some years there will be lots of rain, other years a drought. Some years the temps will be nice and mild, other years hot and miserable. You just never know what each year will be like. But when you approach having a garden to be a gardener and you find fulfillment in the intangible things - like the peace that comes from working in the garden - you will come away successful no matter how much or how little food you produce. 

Saving Money Technique for the Garden

So we bought 10 buckets a while back. The idea was to use them to cover plants if we got freezing temps. Well fast forward a few weeks and I ended up with more plants than I had places for in my garden beds. So we drilled some holes in the bottom of these buckets and we used a technique that helps save money by using less soil in raised beds and container gardening. This technique is called - Hugelkultur. You can look up more information about it on the internet and youtube videos. But basically what it is- is filling up the bottom part of your containers/raised beds with leaves and twigs and such and then putting soil over the top. This way you are using less soil. And as time goes by those things will break down creating great additions to your soil. 

So I took these Best Deal green scoopers thingys that I got for like $2.00 at Aldi's and I took my buckets over to a section of our yard that had excessive leaves and stuff piled up. And I filled my buckets 1/2 + full of leaves. Then I took my buckets to my garden and I filled them up with soil. I pressed down a bit and added a bit more soil- just wanted to make sure there was enough soil. 

Before my grandson arrived in the morning - I had the first 5 done. I planted extra yellow and orange bell peppers in these.  Later in the afternoon I was able to get the other five taken care and of filled up. I planted 2 extra cherry tomato plants, 2 rosemary plants, and 3 cilantro plants in these 5 buckets. 

Please excuse the jumbled mess of firewood. We had plants to move some things around so that we could add some space to garden- so I didn't want to stack all the wood because our firewood stack would have to be moved. I do have plans, once all garden is planted to move firewood and try to make it look nicer over in that area. 

Anyway things on my to-do list are slowly getting done and I am feeling not quite so overwhelmed. It feels good to have so many things done. It has taken quite a bit of work and effort to get so much done. And I have been sore from all the work, but that feeling of being overwhelmed was no fun and it was well worth the hours put in to get things done. I have lots of things still to do but I am seeing so much progress. 

I hope you all are doing well. :O) 

 

 

Praising God

Praising the Lord for what He has done for us and continues to do for us!! 

 

Behold the Man!...series

 "The cross is the greatest of all evidences of the love of God. After the death of a certain prisoner, there was found on the wall of his cell a picture of a large cross with the word "Love" written at the four ends of the two beams indicating that the cross alone measures the height, depth, and breadth of the love of God 'which passeth knowledge.' While the highway of holiness is sprinkled with blood, it is also paved with love,. The cross is the science of salvation, and it will be the song of the redeemed throughout all eternity. E.G. White writes: 'To remove the cross from the Christian would be like blotting the sun from the sky. The cross brings us near to God, reconciling us to Him...Without the cross, man could have no union with the Father. On it depends our every hope. From it shines the light of the Savour's love; and when at the good of the cross the sinner looks up to the One who died to save him, he may rejoice with fullness of joy; for his sins are pardoned. Kneeling in faith at the cross, he has reached the highest place to which man can attain.' - "Acts of the Apostles," pages 209, 210." 

Behold The Man! ...series

As you all know this is the book I have been reading. It has been a very interesting book. I highly recommend it. Especially if you are interested in the unjust trial that our Lord and Savior went through. This author Taylor G. Bunch uses many resource that investigated the trial of Jesus and share so much of how the court system worked back then and how it was a travesty of justice. But Jesus held His peace throughout it. It truly was a great book to read and as we approach this week end when so many are celebrating His death and resurrection - it seemed very fitting that this was when I finished this awesome book! 

"From every viewpoint, the evens in the life and death of Jesus prove conclusively that He was the Messiah of the Jews and the Saviour of men." pg.183

"Through it all Jesus maintained a dignified silence, and conducted Himself with a kingly bearing that astonished even His tormentors." pg.148 

 "The cross was the weapon that sealed the doom of the great rebel leader, who know that it is only a question of time until he shall be stripped of all authority and power and shall be imprisoned in the bottomless pit to await a just sentence at the close of the millennium."

Long time no see

 As my sweet grandson takes a nap I thought I would jump on here and type up several blog posts.  My grandson is getting into a good schedule and it is making it easier to plan our days together. And add a few odds and ends of what I want to accomplish throughout the day. 

Things are still very busy around here. Baby chicks - 7 weeks old now- take a lot of work. And then there are our other 5 chickens that still need to be tended too. There is my garden and the many plants still in the green house waiting to be planted, some for the lows to rise a tad bit and others - I need to figure out where they will go. Some flowers are waiting on a old bathtub that my husband has had for years to be moved to my garden area and filled with dirt so I can plant them there. I can not wait for this to happen!! 

Oh and I can't forget we have been working hard to get our chicken run done- got it done Tuesday and the baby chicks love it! When I let them out into it every morning they run around like wild little Indians!! I love it!  

We have a lot of projects around here that we are trying to get done before the heat sets in. And then, of course, there is all of the regular stuff that keeps me busy already. 

So be on the look out for the next several posts I will be sharing. It is amazing how God leads me to just the right book to read at the right time. And you will see what I mean with the next several posts I have. Come back tomorrow to see what I am taking about. See you soon!! :O) May God bless you in a special way! 

# 18 Jack Sequeira- Life in the Spirit of Romans 8