width=”549″ height=”309″ /> This weekend we picked up our chicks at Keep It Simple Farm. Our three kids, my two nieces, and one of my daughter’s friends each picked out a chick and we ended up with one Silkie and five Ffrizzles. They are currently two weeks old so I now have four weeks to finish building a chicken coop. Fortunately the first weekend was very productive. My design…
width=”350″ height=”418″ /> A week before I was about to move to my new house with a much larger yard I got an email from the nice people at Mantis asking if I would like to review their 4 cycle tiller/cultivator. Given I needed to start from scratch of a new garden and had a decent amount of land to use it on it sounded like a great idea….
width=”549″ height=”309″ /> So after decades of living in home in suburbia with a minimal amount of land this month I have moved to a new location where we have 1 acre of land to work with. Great news is there is awesome potential for gardening here, it also means I have to start over from scratch leaving my previous more mature plants behind… Though this definitely provides me…
width=”550″ height=”309″ /> My three year old was really excited to start planting some seeds so we planted some red onions and put them in the grow box. This is a little ahead of my usual planting schedule but only by about a week. Though the grow box does have automated watering my daughter insisted on watering them herself with her favorite yellow elephant watering can. If all goes…
alt=”pumpkin_cheesecake” src=”https://i0.wp.com/www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/pumpkin_cheesecake.jpg?resize=550%2C320″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/pumpkin_cheesecake.jpg?w=550&ssl=1 550w, https://i0.wp.com/www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/pumpkin_cheesecake.jpg?resize=300%2C174&ssl=1 300w” sizes=”auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px” /> I made my first pumpkin cheesecake a few years back and has been a recurring addition to our Thanksgiving dinner ever since then…though baking cheesecakes can be/sound a bit intimidating with a few techniques mentioned below it can be pretty easy to have success on your first attempt. In addition this is also a great way to…
width=”550″ height=”309″ /> So past few years I have been collecting seeds from my luxury pie pumpkins to plant the next year. Everything was going as planned, they sprouted on the grow box brought them outside when the temperature was right and planted them in the garden. They made a long vine and sprawled throughout my hard, then came the fruit… Instead of the typical nice small round baby…
alt=”” width=”425″ height=”286″ border=”0″ /> While going searching my logs I noticed the query in the topic. My first response, in my sarcastic mind was, “Uh red paint, maybe a red permanent marker?” After some more serious thought I did get some more helpful ideas. Don’t be greedy: I know it is hard when you want to get as many delicious tomatoes as possible and you let your plants…
src=”https://i0.wp.com/www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/IMG_4118.jpg?resize=500%2C371″ alt=”IMG_4118″ width=”500″ height=”371″ /> I am attempting to grow the best pepper plants I can indoors (grow box) so I started with jalapeno peppers. They grow relatively small 2-3 feet and require 2-3 gallon container for growing. While this is fine for an outdoor garden, though indoors I can only sacrifice 1 gallon container. This summer I grew several jalapeno plants which spent half of their life in…
alt=”001″ width=”525″ height=”394″ border=”0″ /> It is really easy to save tomato seeds is a little more difficult that other vegetables seeds, but with a little patience and the right technique you can save your seeds with very little effort. Step 1: Get the seeds. The easiest way to get to your seeds it do cut the tomato across the hemisphere as shown below. This will give you easy…
On of a common questions I still get is, do you still grow tomatoes upside down? Does that really work better than just planting in the ground? Well I decided to do a little experiment and start several tomato plants from seeds and grow two in an official Topsy Turvy planter, two in the ground with fertile soil, and one in a homemade self watering container. Each plant was…
width=”549″ height=”412″ /> Got that little bear of honey but it is all chunky and won’t come out? Just place it in a mason jar and fill with hot water (tap or boiling can work) and loosely add a lid to keep some of the heat in. Check on it in a few minutes and you should have nicely flowing honey again. Still a little chunky? Repeat the process…
width=”549″ height=”412″ /> This is definitely a first for me, sort of a happy accident so the bananas do not ripen all at once and end up with a bunch of overripe ones before you can eat them…if only I could determine how to make this happen on purpose I could make millions 🙂