I am sure many of you have noticed my crazy obsession with growing things. Life is life in all forms. Plants, animals, and tiny humans are miracles to watch grow day to day. As Spring approaches I am steadily starting seeds and gathering trees and bushes to add to our yard. My dream is to have a yard I can send my kids out to, to pick their own snack.
I am gathering the tools and learning every day to can, dehydrate and store the things we will grow to get us through the winter months. I don't know how many of you have a house full of mouths to feed but it's expensive. These kids eat from sun up to sun down. Being able to cut the cost of the grocery bill, feed them healthy snacks and teach them to self sustain are huge reasons for what we are doing out here. Let alone the fact that playing in the dirt and growing life is amazing medicine for the soul!
If you follow my Facebook Page Be Well With Martha then you have seen some of the work that has been going into what I refer to as the food forest (Although we aren't anywhere near a forest, Hey goals are important). If you aren't following my Facebook Page than you should be. You can also find me on TikTok (this is new and I am still learning so bear with me)
One of the big things we did this year was add an indoor greenhouse. We put this green house in our shop to make room for more seed starts on my kitchen counters. We found this particular greenhouse to be cost effective and the perfect size for our space. (I really did have it in the garage for like two years before we got it up, in my defense I got pregnant and then had a newborn) I then added some strip LED grow lights to the bars. (this link will not take you to the exact ones I used, They no longer carry them, probably because I bought them when we bought the greenhouse forever ago. But these are pretty much the same thing and there are many other options) I put a simple space heater in there to get us through the freezing nights as the shop is not heated itself.
This picture is before I filled it with seedlings and bushes and trees to save them from the most recent freeze.
I has worked out perfectly for this space and I will get some pictures of it with the plants in it soon.
We also built a larger outdoor greenhouse it is a King Bird 10x6.6x6.6 Tunnel. I absolutely love it, however we didn't brace it well enough upon our 1st attempt and it sustained wind damage within days of being built. The manufacturer has sent us replacement parts and we are in the process of securing better and getting it back up. I highly recommend any Greenhouse build in West Texas be done with the utmost caution and definitely take the wind into consideration.
I will get a post about the build of that greenhouse going so I can show you the precautions we took the 2nd time around.
Besides the greenhouses I have started a hugelkultur mound, (I will do a whole post on that build soon) and gotten the raised beds cleaned out. The mound and the beds will be where most of our vegetables and herbs will planted. I'm working on some trellis ideas for cucumbers, beans, peas, and melons. We shall see how that goes.
In the fall (late November) we planted 2 apple trees and a pear tree. I have 2 blueberry bushes, a Nanking Cherry, Rasberry, Blackberry, Grapes, a Peach Tree, and a Plum tree all ready to be added to the yard this year. Some of those I may leave in pots this season and plant in the fall.
We are 19 days away from the 1st day of Spring and I couldn't be anymore ready to be up to my eyeballs in the gardens and the green house.
If I am missing checking the Greenhouse!!
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