Container gardening

Unsurprisingly enough, I have very little written on container gardening. So I decided to ask my friend Robbyn from over at The Back Forty. She has been my go to gal for sticking things in pots.

A humble woman, she explained to me that she neglected to properly tag her posts, like that has ever stopped me. She did however suggest I check out a YouTube series by a man named John.

I have yet to fully vet this for you, as I have actually been busy, but as I have known and written with Robbyn for several years, I trust her judgement on this.

So if you are interested in cantainer gardening, check out Growing your Greens on YouTube. She says he is one of the better ones out there.

Let me know what you think.

Homemade gift for the teen boy ~Devil Sticks~

Luckily for me Large is a dork. No worries, he knows he is a dork and is very proud of his oddness. The Devil Sticks are not going to be for any boy (girls like them too). A kid that likes Hackey Sacks or juggling, medieval reenactments or RPG's (not video games). If you don't want to deal with the negative side of teen angst, be aware of what your kid is into, could make for a miserable Christmas morning.

These Devil Sticks are for the beginner.

You will need:

2 wooden dowels 
4 feet of 5/16" diameter
2 feet of 1/2" diameter

Athletic tape any color(s)

A hand saw

What to do:

Cut the dowels to 2 feet in length. You will need 1 of the thick dowel and 2 of the same length of the thinner dowels.

Take one of the tapes and pull down a long piece, keeping it attached to the roll. Spin the tape so that it spiral on itself, lazily. Wrap this around your thick dowel, sticky side out. Lattice the dowel with the tape, like this:

Reverse the direction, doubling up but creating the lattice look. Make sure you overlap the previous tape.

You can use the same color tape here, sticky side down, cover the lattice work thoroughly. On each end of your thick stick, you will need to make counter weights. Use the tape to do this. Wrap the tape around each end, testing out the balance as you add to it.

Wrap tape around your 2 hand sticks (thinner dowels) just the same as the exterior part of your middle stick (thicker dowel) but not the lattice work. However you will need to vary the direction in which you wrap and create small bumps as you go. You can do this in multiple colors.

This is your finished product. You can add tassels to the end of the middle stick with the tape if you want.

And when they get really good at it, you can add fire

If you don't know what Devil sticks are or how to use them, here is a video.

How to Use a Devil Stick in Juggling

Look for possible savings for supplies for devil sticks at Home Depot.

Making your own small scale silage

Now is a good time to start making and storing your own silage. It is rather easy on small scale.

The simplest is for those that mow their grass. Simply mow, allow to wilt, bag in a large zip type plastic baggy, or trash bag, and press out as much air as possible. If mold grows on it, the silage is ruined and should never be fed to your animals.

Depending on the animals that you are making silage for, you will need different plant materials. Crops suitable for silage are non-leguminous fodder crops rich in soluble carbohydrates, such as maize, oats, sorghum, pearl millet, and cultivated grasses are most suitable for ensiling. Materials can be grasses, legumes, fodder crops (sorghum, maize), crop residues or by-products. These items need to be harvested in the young age, before flowering, to help ensure that you have enough sugars for proper fermentation.

And don't forget your tree and shrub fodder. Just restrict the amount of tannins. And be cautious of the type of plants you are harvesting for your animals. Tannins has been shown to help with worm problems in sheep and goats, still restrict the amounts though.

If you are growing legumes, harvest leaves before your dry season, allow them to dry in the shade, then mix in with your silage.

If you wish to do it on a slightly larger scale, a pit works good for storage as well (cover with black plastic and weight it down with tires), as does a buried deep freezer. Place your silage in it in layers, then walk on it, pressing the silage down removing as much air as possible. Keep it cool and dry (plastic and weights work here as well).

Come winter, you can feed a nice nutritional "fresh" meal to all your lovely critters.

3 ways to preserve your broths

Before we start, does everyone here know how to make a basic broth?

There are 3 ways to preserve your homemade broths, be it beef, chicken or vegetable stock. (broth and stock are indeed different, however are interchangeable in your recipes). With all the following preservations, remove as much fat as possible. You can freeze the fat for use later in soap recipes.

The first is canning. Pour your hot broth into a pint canning jar and pressure can 20 minutes at 10 lbs (11lbs on dial gauges). Allow to cool for 24 hours and then stack up in your pantry.

Next is freezing.

Pour your broth evenly into an ice tray. I highly suggest you line your tray with parchment paper or foil. Allow to freeze, remove and store in a freezer bag. Each cube is 1/8 cup of stock. This is also considered a cold bouillon cube.

And finally, and my favorite, dehydration.

Pour 1 cup of stock onto a fruit rollup tray and place it into my dehydrator. Set it on the meat setting or 145F. It tends to withdraw from the center and pool along the edges. Let sit overnight.

Once dry, peel and crack off the tray onto foil.

Tightly fold up your foil and place into a zip-lock type bag. If you have a food saver I would use it, and remove as much air as possible.

You end up with a little packet of flavoring that equals 1 cup broth. Kind of like those Ramen packets. You can do more than 1 cup at a time, just be sure you keep track of how much you use. You will need to add the same amount of water to rehydrate it.

This packet makes 3 cups of broth.

Urban Homestead action day plus a BOOK GIVE-A-WAY

Today the Denver Based group that's Facebook page was shut down because of the new trademark is hosting a Take back Urban Homesteading action day.

Video's, story's and photo links can be found here> > > Action Day Videos.

To show my support I am giving away a copy of Urban Homestead By Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne. Google received a complaint and a Legal form letter stating that the title of this book is trademark infringement. Their Blog can be found here at Root Simple.

Just leave me a comment telling me why your are a homesteading Junkie (and just cuz does qualify, but I wouldn't mind hearing more) and your name will be placed in a hat.

The winner will be announced Wednesday morning.

Winter Projects

Some of you have noticed this photo on my side bar. I know you are curious, because you are clicking on it. It leads to my Flickr account.

Winter is a Homesteaders down time. No freakish garden demanding our attention, no outside projects to be fiddled with. Winter means inside work, and as I still don't know how to do somethings, like spinning, sewing or knitting, I have a list of winter projects that I need to do (any one out there want to teach me to spin?)

My winter projects have one rule, they must be repurposed items. Stephanie over at Adventures in the 100 acre wood, has me calling my white trash ways, "repurposing". Take an old item, and reuse it for something new. For my long time readers, this is replacing "Choose your Homesteader's Adventure" due to the lack of funds this winter.

Most of the project should only take a day to complete I will be posting a project every Friday until March, when it is potato planting time. If you wish to play along, on any of the projects, I would love to see a photo of the finished project.

ok, so what is this white trash food item every one seems to be making in my honor?

What's Light got to do, got to do with it

How is winter project #1 going? Are you waiting for the weekend? Me too. Sunday to be exact, Saturday I have that open house to attend. For now I want to talk to you about something very special in my life. It is important to know, and it does have a few things to do with a number of winter projects we will be embarking on. Come here, closer, we need to keep this between us. If everyone knew what I am about to tell you, then there could be a riot.

Light is important to your plants.

I can hear the gasps, I don't mean to startle you, but you need to brace yourself, it will get worse.

But before I give you the worse news, I feel it is my duty to tell you a little bit more on why light is so important. Can you say photosynthesis? I know you can. . . .ok, that's enough. i don't want you to hurt yourself. Let's get to the nitty gritty of it. Follow me.

You have all seen a rainbow, don't give me that. I know you have. The rainbow is an important visual for what I have to tell you. Plants thrive under a rainbow. The blue allows them to manufacture carbohydrates while the red controls assimilation and affects its response to the length of light and darkness. Far red works together with red in many different ways, Germination, stem length and leaf size. I know! Mind boggling. But oh so true. And when you mix the florescent lights, which has the blue spectrum of the rainbow as well as the red with the incandescent light which has the far red, you have yourself a rainbow fit for plant life! oh my! No wonder Dorothy was so obsessed with the rainbow.

Now we have reached the worse part, brace yourself. Are you sitting down? Good. Absolute darkness is crucial for plants. Doesn't that just blow your mind (ok have got to stop with the 60's jive talk. I wasn't even born in that time period. Even though you jive turkey is the cool new insult term to my 4 year old)

Remember to observe your plants, if they are long and spindly looking, they are not getting enough light, if they are burning leaves, too much light. Get yourself a timer, this helps a lot. Normal plants like 8-12 hours of light, while flowering plants enjoy 12-14 hours.

How much lighting does one really need? 10 lamp watts per square foot for fluorescent, mix it 4:1 with the incandescent light. Or just go out and buy some grow lights.

So how was that for boring? Ok boys and girls, I will see you back here on Monday, please read chapter 1-200, there will be a test.

Winter Project #1

By now most of you already know about the Phelan Box, if not, you must be new and I welcome you to my little part of the world. Those that aren't new and have no idea what I am talking about, where have you been? You are missing the coolest craze evah! Ok, no more about the box, I am going to lecture you today on modual planting. Yes lecture, now sit down and keep quiet, I will take questions at the end, and take notes, there will be a quiz on this later.

Modular planting 101

Welcome, I am your proffesor, Phelan. Don't care how you spell it as long as you pronounce it correctly. (sorry having flashbacks).


What is modular planting, it's a lot like bookshelf plants, but cusotmized for your pleasure. Take a moment and look around the room you are sitting in, notice something?



You in the back with the green hair.



Did you catch that? She was right, what you should be noticing is that the corners of the rooms are not being utilized correctly. Here my dear students is where you will be placing your modules.



Most people do not use their squared or in my case, rectangular homes efficiently when it comes to stuffing as much junk, I mean stuff, into them. There are a lot of hard corners that can be used, ones that get natural light, and those that don't. Building selves into these poorly used corners will help you find a place inside your tiny apartment or lavish home where you thought none existed.



You can buy premade corner shelves or, join me in Winter project #1 and build one or two. Rod's Wood Working Shop as free plans on building your own corner shelf. What he is lacking in his plans is how to turn it into a planter.


You need white paint, reflective white paint. You do not need to cover the entire shelf in white, only the underside of the shelves, this is where you will mount your lights. You can use specialty lights, like gro bulbs, or a mix of fluorescent and iridescent lighting. Keep your lighting at least 8 inches from your plants, and use a timer to give them the correct amount of light.



Use whatever wood you have on hand.






There you have your first winter project. Now go out and make me proud.

Next Step for the Starters

A few weeks back we discovered a mold problem in the master bath. Though not wide spread, it was a terrible mess. Some of the dry wall had to be removed, and we discovered a crack in the tub. Now what to do with this empty room.

Yesterday we finished the nursery project. It wasn't very eventful, and my husband did most of the work. I just stood around looking purdy. Oh and I took some pictures, Sometimes you should really try and be useful.

We have an old box spring frame. The wood is good, so we decided not to burn it. Good thing, because it took center stage in our project.

Using some reclaimed rope ( it was part of a cat scratching post. The rope was great, but the cardboard insert the manufacture used to keep in all together wasn't) and some shop lights, he hung the frame from the bathroom ceiling.

This frame is no wider then our bathtub was. A definite plus.

We then transferred the plants out of the egg cartons in to the larger pots.

They were getting close to being root bound.

As I was placing pots under the frame, I looked up to see the newest member of our household eager to help, or pounce on me.

Slowly the plants were placed in the nursery.

Using a pulley system, we lowered the far side of the frame, evening out the light distribution.

Garden in a Box, Week 3

On Friday I left you with this picture.

My husband spray painting some cups. The reason is simple, roots don't like light.

Here are our 3 week old tomatoes that have been transplanted into new containers, the cups.

Below is some of the other vegetables that have had an early start. Click on the photo to see the notes on what is what.

The good neighbor peas has been pulled from the box and transplanted into these planters. They are now under our bathroom counter, with fluorescent lighting them. They are thriving there.

Garden Check

Blogger just doesn't want to post pictures for me today.

1st week seeds

Here are the Good Neighbor Peas. On the right is the Brandywine tomatoes. In the middle, onions. (they are trying to come up)

The cauliflower is doing well.

My youngest turns 4 on Tuesday, and he is the only one excited about the sprouts. Many ooo's and awwws were forth coming, as well as squeals of delight. When I asked him if he was going to eat them when they fruited, he gave a loud "uh huh!" My 6 year old declared he would only eat broccoli.

To my LJ Friends, these are the seeds you sent me. Thank you, they are doing great!

Phelan's Box

A few of you asked about our seed box. The box is one of our tools as well as a repurposed item, (and to make Stephanie happy, it is made from scratch) Surprisingly enough, it is a relatively inexpensive item to make. Here is the run down.

You will need;
We have very little money into this box, most of the things acquired where given to us, or we had laying about.
3 1/2 sheets of plywood
We had 4 sheets of 3/8 plywood 6 feet tall given to us (one reason for the shape of the box) 1 for the front, 1 for the back and 1/2 for each side, and 1/2 for the top.

2x4s in the corners and across the top

You can use a variety of light sources or heat mats with low light water bed heater, just keep the air moving so you don't turn your box into an oven. We run 400 watts in ours using a grow light

1x material

reclaimed door hinges, screws

A reclaimed squirrel cage and dryer vent, and metal coffee can help vent out the heat so we don't scorch our plants. A small fan (was an osculating fan, but won't osculate anymore) that can be turned on to regulate any heating issues, and keeps the carbon dioxide levels up by exchange old air for new. The height helps with temp regulations as well.

Mylar or anything reflective is used on the walls and the doors (glossy white house paint works, and is the cheapest of all the materials that could be used unless you have stuff laying about that you could use). The reflective stuff is used for light refraction, keeps the light bouncing around the box, maximizing your lumins.


Drip trays are need for any condensation or over watering.

What to do:

Split one sheet of plywood in 1/2 for the doors. the 1/2 sheet of plywood for the top. This gets you the basic box. In one side cut a hole that you metal coffee can can sit in. Mount the squirrel cage in the opposite corner, attaching the dryer vent to the cage and to the coffee can. Mount the fan on the same side but different corner of your coffee can.

Then use 1x material for the door seem over lap and the hinge mountings on the doors. Attach the doors. Use your reflective material either before you put it together (as in the paint) or after (as in the Mylar). Hang the lamp.

We also use two reclaimed floor vents that have been placed on the bottom sides (either side) to help with air circulation.


Dimensions of our box is 6 foot by 4 feet wide 34 inches deep. and hidden behind our bedroom door (so don't give me that, I don't have the room). Using the egg cartons we have 264 seedlings, if we used the seedling flats, we could have close to 500 seedlings in our available space (egg cartons were readily available at this time).

You can scale the box way down, we just used what we had instead of chopping everything up. 4x2x4 can be accomplished with 2 sheets a plywood, doing seed flats. (they are about 1ft wide 2 ft long)

You can do this in the corner of your garage, just make sure the temperature is regulated, between 80-90 f

Planting a New Year

Some of your seed packages tell you that you should start seeds inside 8 weeks before last frost. And that is exactly what we did this weekend.

My husband sifted together the peat moss, chicken litter and soil. Even getting the boys to help out.

Once completed we prepped the grow box.

The soil mixture was then placed into one of my good stew pots {he thought he was being sneaking, but it does wash out} and then used a broken ice cream scoop to place the dirt into the egg cartons.

We planted onions and brandywine, celery, climbing tomatoes,

and Good Neighbor Peas.

Once these sprout they will be moved to the nursery while a new batch of seedlings are placed in the box.

Have you started yours yet?

On a side note; thank you to whomever sent my the gift certificate to the photo studio. We haven't had a proffesional photo done in almost 10 years. Thank you thank you!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!

The Catalogs Are Coming, The Catalogs Are Coming!

The seed catalogs have already begun to arrive. It is a little earlier than usual. Most of the catalogs I get I will not order from. Seed companies seem to like to sell your name, and send you catalogs from all of their daughter companies.

I made a mistake (back in the day) of ordering trees from a company the was in bed with Monsanto. I now know better and stick with companies that I have found to be more upfront bout their seeds. Jung's, is probably one of my favorites when looking at known seed companies. They clearly label their seeds as hybrids or heritage.

Skyfire Garden Seeds is a local company that I plan on trying out this year.

If you are looking for seeds (and yes, now is the time to start shopping) Here are some other good places,

Victory Heirloom Seeds

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

Seed Savers


Where do you shop?

Tools for Raising Poultry

This is Part 6 of the Tools (used on my 'stead) series. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5 can be found by clicking the links.

Currently the main livestock that we raise are Chickens. Yet we do raise or have raised, ducks, geese, and turkeys. Types of tools used can and have changed over the course of the years that we have raised poultry. We started with the chick brooder kit that can be found here, at the McMurray Hatchery. If you have the room, it is great. Unfortunately we do not have the room, and it became problematic. Next we tried a child's swimming pool and then our master bathtub. It worked great until the turkeys decided they could fly, we used shredded paper as litter. We stuck to the tub experiment for the next several broodings. Soon we were given a rabbit hutch, and successfully brooded our chicks in here, less mess. We are now in the process of drawing up blueprints for an outside hatchery.

Heat lamps, litter, feeders, and waters are important tools needing in brooding. Around 6 weeks you are able to move your chicks outdoors. (we have built a seperate nursery where the adults can check up and meet with the little ones, without the chicks getting hurt)This is when a chicken coop will come in handy. You will also need proper fencing, depending how far you want them to roam. We allow them out of their 1/2 acre enclosure when we are outside to keep 4 legged predators away.

The same needs are present, the litter to make nests, feeders (or feed them by hand, tossing the grain on the ground) and waters. Heat lamps are a good idea in the winter. Ours is set on a timer to ensure that they get the required amount of darkness, yet able to stay warm. A heated waterer or trough with a heating element in it, is a must have if you live in an area that freezes. I also feed them a mash that has been heated with hot milk. In the summer, ice cubes are placed in the water to keep it cooler.

Places to hide, nest or roost are placed in many different areas. We tend to "repurpose" items for this. Old work benches, buckets, washtubs, are used for nests. Metal pipes, parts of old bed frames and old timber are used for roosts.

A good litter that we found is a mix of straw and shredded paper. The hens love the shredded paper to build their nests. A good basket is important to gather large quantity of eggs, or even just a couple. More then likely while you are gathering eggs you will see something that needs to be taken care of.

More tools used, are a place to keep the feed, hand pumped well, a hose to fill the waters, hot fencing to keep predators away, and a long stick to protect yourself from that bad attitude rooster that is dead set on killing you. A large net is useful when it comes to catching those birds that are uncooperative.

Old tires are used for the geese and ducks to build nest in, these are placed close to a pond. Ponds are important if you are breeding geese. The males can get a little excited about the project and can seriously injure the female. If you have ducks, make sure you get both males and females. The males killed our hens because of the lack of females. They would chase them into the pond and be randy with them until they drowned. We ate the ducks.

Tomorrow, Tools Needed to Butcher your Poultry.