Ceaberry's Homesteading: My Square Foot Garden Plan 2018

I have been working hard on figuring out where everything is going in my newly installed raised beds for square foot gardening.  I should note that you may notice containers. I am in a competition with Mr. Native Farmer over potatoes (more on this in a later post) and a few of my other things are in containers because they already are in a container or need to be (like my mint and cotton). There is an Asparagus bed with tomatoes on the side, that is part of doing companion planting. This is NOT how the beds are laid out in my actual garden, I have a compost bin and in the very middle of my garden is a rhubarb patch that has been there for well over 40 years (not kidding, it is practically an heirloom in itself, just like our grape vines). 

So here is my plan for the lower garden for next year!

There are 75 seeds on my list, not all of them are going in the garden and by the chart of "containers", not all of them are going into the raised beds. So here are my seeds I will be planting at some point in 2018. The sprouts, however, are not being planted. You see the main groups of my garden. Some of the extra seeds will be planted in my two raised beds at my house and I have a whole hillside of roses, berry bushes, and wildflower mixes to attend to next year.

Asparagus, Mary Washington	Blueberry, Highbush	Lavender, English	Potatoes	Tomato, Beefsteak Pink
Basil, Mix	Blueberry, Pink Limonade	Lettuce, Gourmet/Mesclun Mix	Pumpkin, Jack Be Little	Tomato, Brandywine, Yellow
Bean, Bush, Borlotti	Broccoli, Romanesco Italia	Melon, Banana	Pumpkin, Wee Be Little	Tomato, Cherry Red (small)
Bean, Bush, Calypso	Brussel Sprouts, Long Island Catskill	Mint, Spearmint	Radish, Champion	Tomato, Cherry White
Bean, Bush, Harvester	Cabbage, Acre, Golden	Onion, Walla Walla	Spinach, Matador Viking	Tomato, Gardener’s Delight
Bean, Bush, Landreth	Cabbage, Copenhagen	Onion, shallot, Holland red	Sprouts, Alfalfa	Tomato, Oxheart, Orange
Bean, Bush, Provider	Carrot, Chantenay, 5” Long	Pea, Austrian Field Pea	Sprouts, Broccoli	Tomato, Roma
Bean, Bush, Romano	Cauliflower, All Year Round	Pea, Little Marvel	Sprouts, clover	Tomato, Tiny Tim
Bean, Bush, Slenderette	Celery	Pepper, Banana Yellow	Sprouts, Rainbow Chard	Wheat, Sampler Pack
Bean, Bush, Tendergreen	Corn, Sweet	Pepper, Cayenne, Purple	Sprouts, Sunflower	Wildflower, Celosia
Bean, Bush, Tiger’s Eye	Cover Crop, Clover, White Dutch	Pepper, Chocolate Bell	Squash, Crookneck, Yellow Early Summer	Wildflower, Low grow scatter
Bean, Pole, Dry, Cherokee Trail of Tears	Cover Crop, Fall & Winter Rye	Pepper, Hot Holiday Marbles	Sunflower, Autumn Beauty	Wildflower, Marigold, Sparky Mix
Bean, Pole, Lima, Henderson	Garlic, Early Purple Italian	Pepper, Orange Horizon	Sunflower, Mammoth	Wildflower, Nasturtium, Black Velvet
Bean, Pole, Lima, King of the Garden	Gourd, Luffa	Pepper, Purple beauty	Sunflower, Sungold	Wildflower, Snapdragon, Mix
Bean, Pole, Lima, Thorogreen	Gourd, mixed (small)	Pepper, Sunbright Yellow	Sunflower, Sungold, Dwarf	Wildflower, tansy

Hopefully, this inspires you to make your own garden plan. Happy Homesteading!!

Ceaberry's Homesteading: Cotton Growing

You may have seen my previous updates showing my cotton plants. I bought seeds at MRC Seeds (not paid endorsement). I got some white cotton seeds and some green cotton seeds. I placed them in three pots to begin with and something happened and I transplanted all the healthy ones into 1 pot. I went from 20 seeds to 5 plants. Not a problem except I didn't remember which variety was where so I had no idea what plants had actually made it. I now have 3 healthy plants in one pot.

Here are my cotton plants, my uncle-in-law told me sometimes on how to grow the cotton. He used to grow some plants here and there on this very property. So I was encouraged to try it myself, global warming couldn't have affected here too much right?! 

After a LONG wait, flower squares showed up. I was so excited. I would peek in the bigger ones watching the little flower buds starting to form.

Then... on Monday August 28th, my wait was over! A flower! One beautiful, perfectly wonderful, YELLOW flower. Yellow?! Cotton flowers are white normally. But green cotton flowers are yellow!! I may have done a bit of a happy dance.

Then a second one appeared the next day! These are all on the same plant.

This is the first flower after 24 hours. Cotton flowers don't last long, 24-48 hours before the next gorgeous stage happens.

The next day, that beautiful yellow flower looked like this, yup pollination happened and now the flower turns pinks and closes to create the boll. 

Here is the second flower just pink in the edges and a third yellow flower! 

So now to wait for the other flowers to bloom before the frost hits and then the long wait for bolls. Cotton takes 180 days (thats 6 months) to be completely dry. I have 2 weeks before frost and I need to bring the plants indoors, something I haven't quite told Mr. Native Farmer yet...

A note on my reason for growing cotton. Although I know it is a touchy subject for some of my readers, I am growing cotton because I am a spinner. Yes, I am from Texas, and I am a proud southerner. I live in West Virginia (which was neutral in the Civil War), where growing cotton isn't illegal. West Virginia isn't known for its abundance of cotton farms. Now, that being said I have been up against racism from people who told me I should be ashamed of being 1. white and 2. a southerner because my family had enslaved their family. I would like to kindly note, my family (from both sides) wasn't even in the USA until the 1920s. My father's side came from Austria before WWII to escape persecution from Hitler, they were Catholics (Blechl means bell ringer in Austrian, meaning church bells), and they were under Hitler's target list just as much as Jewish people were targeted. Now my adoptive father's family history is Native American. My mom's side came from Mexico (legally I might add), actually she is only 2nd generation born in the USA. My family has never been on the side of pro-slavery, quite the opposite.

Ceaberry's Homesteading: My mom's garden

I am truly jealous of my mom's garden. She has raised beds enclosed with some deer fencing (it is the same method we used for the chicken run with t-posts and wire and Zip-ties). She uses Shenandoah Screened Topsoil (not a paid endorsement), it is located in Winchester, WV (can't get much more local than that for the quality we receive). I think her true key is the topsoil, because even though it is labelled as that it is a rich mixture that she DOES NOT fertilize. You will see how amazing that fact really is when you scroll through the photos below. She orders an entire pallet of topsoil bags in the 40lb bag quantity. Then, they sit at least 6 months but most of the bottom of the pile is over a year old and it is black gold when you open the bag. That is probably her second successful secret, she basically composts the top soil and adds just that to her garden.

Now for some pictures! She does "rowish" gardening in her raised beds. They are semi-permanent beds. For her beans she puts up more T-posts with that nylon square netting.

This is her beans, you are correct in thinking there are weeds in the front. Now they have been removed and the bush beans are happier. Her pole beans have lovely purple flowers and she always gets an amazing yield.

This is another raised bed. She has peppers, squash, tomatoes and corn growing in one raised bed. The sea of green is just amazing to watch!

Now this is the last true secret of my mother's garden. Sunflowers... Yup, sunflowers. Now by accident my mom discovered their very nice side effect. She got some plants from Burpee (not paid endorsement), and there was a sunflower seedling in it. Burpee seems to have this occur quite a bit with their seedlings. These are intentionally planted ones. The bees, oh the bees!! She doesn't have to worry about pollination, ever. She also has humming bird feeders nearby and butterfly bushes. For some reason she doesn't have cabbage loop worms either (lucky her) but does get Japanese beetles because of the blueberry farm down the road.

Now to see just a few things she harvested recently.

I know... you secretly are jealous too. Those cabbages were "as is" from the garden. Notice no holes!

This was a different day, her broccoli in there are actually the side shoots that are supposed to be tiny... yeah right. You can't see them but she gets 6 or so banana peppers every few days!

Why am I jealous? She doesn't fuss with her garden after planting and it grows despite the lack of tending. I think her three accidental things have helped her garden grow so well!

1. Get good topsoil. 
• My mom orders it from a mom and pop business but you can find it at Lowes in some places.
• There is topsoil at Wal-Mart but we have found it to be wildly inconsistent. We got bags from two separate cities (about 3 hours apart or around 100 miles), but the SAME topsoil was rich and black at one place and completely clay at the other place. I am not kidding we bought them within a week of each other and the only reason we bought them from two different places is because we liked the first stuff so much we had the truck in another city near us and decided to get more... which was clay... yucky. 
• Read the labels, really. If you read what is in the bag it will help you decide what is best for your area and growing habits. You can get raised garden bed mix but we were lucky with a local producer.
2. Let it compost
• Buy some extra bags and let them sit, out in the rain and everything. My mom just piles hers up and forgets about it until she needs it. Little buggies (and composting worms) will get in there are really make it a treat. I suggest a tight stacking method and keep the area around free of tall grass, it may just bee too tempting to snakes otherwise.
• You don't have to let it compost but why not? You are going to need to add to your raised beds eventually, having richer topsoil then when you started is always a good thing.
• I put my bags my mom graciously gives me into my worm tub (upcoming post). I use that as a nice medium for the tub and I get back even better soil!!
3. Bring in the pollinators 
• My mom has found that sunflowers, butterfly bushes and hummingbird feeders are all she needs to bring in the good and keep out the bad. 
• I have loads of flowers and multiple beneficial species. I also have deterrent species as well and it has served me pretty nicely. 
4. Feed your garden
• Feeding and fertilizing are two different things. My mom does not fertilize, she feeds. She puts eggshells and spent tea in her garden and that is it. 
• I fertilize but I also amend my soil plus my worm bins and composting bins with tea, coffee, and eggshells. 

Happy Homesteading!

Ceaberry's Homesteading: Gardening Life Hack -- Seedling starters

Quick post, I used egg cartons cut in half to make seedling starters. I poked holes in the bottom of each egg cup and added soil. I used it to start sprouts for my chickens (I used soil to keep down the bugs) and the water collects in the bottom or you can use it as a bottom waterer. The flap from the top fits into the base making it pretty snug.