Welcome to this week's “What’s in Your Hand?’ edition
where we strive to inspire you to focus on what you have to work with,
not what you wish you had or hope to have in the future, but what you have
right now ...
With focusing on looking to get the most out of
what I have in my hand I often find myself turning to the online world for info
from people I’ve come to trust. This
week I came across this post by Amy Ferrell at The Fewell Homestead on 6 Herbs
for Your Chickens. Since I grow or can
grow all of these herbs and since we have chickens, I found the post to be most
helpful and printed it out for future use.
We started working on my list of outside jobs to do before gardening sets in in earnest. This week we got the trees and bushes on and around our property trimmed and cut back and the clothesline moved. For ease of mowing the yard, we needed to move one end of the clothesline, which is what we did.
We’ve been dragging brush and tree branches to a
pile along with wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of debris to be burned (when we have
another rain soaking wet day). After the
burning, we’ll scoop up the ashes and add them to our ongoing compost pile. Can we call this recycling in its simplest
form!!!
In addition to trimming trees and brush we’ve been gardening. This week we planted potatoes and onions. I was careful to write down detailed notes about varieties, planting dates, heirloom or hybrid, where the seeds/plants came from, etc in my gardening journal and on my gardening calendar (yes, I have a journal and a calendar). The calendar is for a quick ‘at a glance’ update of what was planted when, whereas my gardening journal houses all the details. Both are very useful items!
(In this picture you can see that we've planted the potatoes ... with the eyes up! I can still hear my daddy telling us kids when I was a little girl to place the potatoes in the ground with the eyes up. So, that's the way I've planted potatoes all my life!)
Our Little Marvel green peas have broken through
the ground and are up. It’s just so
satisfying to see God’s provisions in the making and look at it as God working
through us to provide what we need. As I
plant each and every item in our garden, I pray that God will bless our efforts
and give us a bountiful harvest … to meet our needs and to share with others.
We were given several heads of cabbage this week
from a friend’s garden. When she called
to see if I wanted any, I was delighted.
For some reason our fall/winter cabbage didn’t do well this year, so I
was grateful to get these. In addition
to having some for a couple of meals I’m going to try my hand at fermenting sauerkraut. If you’ve read my Goals 2022 post or page,
you’ll know that learning more about fermenting is on my list of things to
improve upon this year.
We do quite a bit of container gardening and the thing that is always needed is soil. We've found some really good deals on soil in the past by asking store managers if they have any old, discontinued or outdated soil. My hubby did that again this week and was told that they didn't have any this year. Later in the week hubby was back in the same store and noticed several bags of busted open soil so hubby hunted down a manager and ask if he would be willing to discount them if he purchased all of them (9 in total). The manager offered my hubby a 25% discount on each bag and my hubby took it! It's not as good a deal as some we've gotten in the past but it sure beats paying full price and none of the bags were missing much, if any soil. What's that in your hand ... think about ways to stretch your money and implement them. If the manager had said no discount, what had my hubby lost ... nothing but a few minutes of time to hunt down a manager. As it was, it was a profitable way for my hubby to use what was in his hand ... his willingness to ask!
I found a delightful new to me Youtube channel
that I’ve been devouring. It’s a
gardening channel of course and their climate/weather is similar to ours. They do a lot of container growing, as we do,
for the same reasons we do which makes a lot of their methods doable and
workable for us. I have gleaned several
things already that I’m either in the process of implementing or implemented
this week as a result of watching Hollis and Nancys Homestead videos. Check out their channel and tell them that A
Working Pantry sent you.
And finally, each week I’m updating my Goals 2022 page, check out what I ticked off the list this week!
Look around you, how are you using your
resources, your time, what’s that in your hand?
Until next time,
patsi
She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27
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I do a garden journal and calendar. We are using grow bags for the potatoes as there is no way either of us could handle digging them. We have raised garden beds, grow bags and million (or so it seems at times) of pots. I have used cleaned milk jugs, kids sand buckets and plastic containers from mushrooms from the store LOL
ReplyDeleteChef Owings, hubby and I were discussing, before we planted our potatoes, that this year we were going to try digging them with the tractor when it came time to harvest. If that doesn't work, next year we'll look at ways of growing them differently. In the season of life we're in, digging them by hand in our heat and humidity is just too difficult!
DeleteWe use all kinds of containers to grow in as well!! What's that in your hand ... why, it's something to plant in!!!
Wow! You two have been working hard!
ReplyDeleteNot much this week. Just a half loaf of homemade bread saved by making French toast for breakfast and milk near the date poured into our glass jugs to extend it's life a bit.
Lana, am I understanding you to say that pouring milk into glass jugs when its near the date will help extend it's a life a little? Yum for homemade bread turned into french toast!!!
DeleteIt really does extend the life and taste of milk. I picked up some old Tropicana half gallon glass juice jugs at a thrift some years back and they are our milk keepers and nothing else because I don't want other flavors in there. As long as you get the milk in there a couple days ahead of the date it can give you up to another week. Even after that first week the milk will not sour for a few more weeks so we use it for cooking and bread making. Don't be afraid to buy those old glass bottles even if the lids are rusted. I just looked through my saved jars and found some lids that would fit.
DeleteLana, thank you, I did not know this! Going to put this tip into practice today!
DeleteI will be working on our garden plan tonight. I have pulled out our seeds and will be going through them deciding what needs to be purchased. I too am looking for "more and more" containers for gardening this year. And we mark our rows with string also. :)
ReplyDeleteMamaHen, so we're not the only ones that use the string method for marking rows!
DeleteI now have a cast in hand for the next 4 weeks, and it's on my right hand. Recommendation to others, esp for those who are aging -- start using your non-dominant hand more, so that you become comfortable with simple things like eating, brushing your hair and using a toothbrush. Even using a knife to slice veggies or breads. I can finger type, but am teaching myself to use the mouse left-handed. wish it were time to plant and that the icy sidewalks were clear.
ReplyDeleteLori, Oh NO! I'm so sorry! That's a good idea about practicing with your non-dominant hand more. I had never thought of that! I pray that your hand heals quickly.
DeleteI used my left hand for several weeks when I was in third grade because I had surgery on my right hand and got pretty good at it. But, now they do not allow children to use the non dominant hand because it mixes up the way the two halves of the brain work together. After that I had no comprehension of how math worked and many other things so don't do it unless absolutely needed! At my age I am really afraid of that knowing what the first go around did to me. I hope you are healed up and back to two hands soon!
DeleteLana, Oh my! Thank you for that info! My brain doesn't need any help in getting things mixed up!!
DeletePatsi, reading and seeing your gardening activity has led to a case of serious garden envy. Can't wait to go out and dig in the dirt. In my hand this week I took a small amount of leftover roast beef and cut it up into bite size pieces, roasted some potatoes, carrots, celery and onions, put it all in a pot and added leftover green beans, peas and beef bone broth and we had a stew of sorts. It was truly delicious and I have 2 quarts leftover packed in the freezer for future meals, and all from starting with 8 oz of leftover roast beef. With leftover scraps of cardstock I made "match book" style notepads. On Valentines Day we went to Hobby Lobby and I saw them there for $3 apiece. I think the ones I made with my scraps came to less than 10 cents apiece and were added to the gift pantry. Scraps of cardstock were also turned into more card embellishments. More chocolate truffles got made. There's still a shortage of cream cheese here and what there is has become very high in price. I found a recipe to make it from scratch that just uses whole milk and lemon juice. I will making some this week.
ReplyDeleteCookie, I have to admit to loving being able to get in the garden and play in the dirt! It's my happy place, a lot of issues have been 'thought through' while gardening. It's cheap, effective therapy! What you did with the left-over roast beef really interests me, we had roast beef today and we had some leftover! I would love to see your matchbook notepads, and could you share where you got the info for making cream cheese, please?
DeleteI got the recipe from southern plate.com.
DeleteCookie, thank you!
DeleteThanks for the memory! That is how my Daddy planted his gardens, with the string and the hoe for trenches, and he planted the potatoes with the eyes up too. He would plant by the moon signs too, and usually had a good garden.
ReplyDeleteHope you have a bountiful harvest. It is needed more than ever, I think.
Kathy, I agree about the bountiful harvest being needed! This year is shaping up to be a doozy! I'll be sharing another memory from my childhood in the next What's that in your hand' post ... those childhood memories get more precious the older we get!
Delete