Green Talk Community Shares Summer Homesteading Adventures

I love my readers.  I truly do.  When I send out an email with a question, I inevitably receive the best responses.  So, my recent question was how was your June?  Mind you I was complaining like a little girl about how pathetic my garden looked.  The rain is killing me.

My readers just brightened my day with pictures!  How lucky am I?    So Green Talk community meet your fellow readers:

First Time Grower Shows Off Her Garden

First time grower Anastasia is having a banner growing year.  Check out her bed.  (Note, her tomatoes are thriving and mine are whimpering from the rain.)  She is naturally blessed with a green thumb. Way to go, Anastasia.

 Reuse in the Garden

Neil sent me about five pictures of his garden.  I am loving how he waters his garden.  He writes:

“This is a stock tank that I use to water my garden. I put in Llama manure and water and it’s a good source of feed for my plants. With all the rain we are having, I don’t have to add water to keep it full.”

I bet his garden grows like a weed.

Neil’s watering gardening device

Plus, he is a man after my own heart.  He loves to reuse “trash” in his garden.  (You all know I am a garden reuse nut.)  He rescued sticks from landfills which were originally used with erosion control netting  for his peppers and tomatoes.  Um, 36 pepper and tomato plants. I thought I was nuts with 14 tomato plants.  Neil, seriously?

Chicken Drama

Long time reader Leah writes:

“Several mornings ago there was a bit of excitement in our neighborhood.  My husband came running into the house to tell me that Oreo, our next door neighbor’s dog, was after our chickens.  Henrietta and Berniece, the hens, and Lord Fauntleroy, the rooster were frantic, trying to escape Oreo.  The neighbors came running past the house calling Oreo.   Finally, they managed to catch Oreo but Berniece was nowhere to be found.  We thought “oh well.  We will just have to get used to half the eggs everyday”.  That means that since we only get one egg a day from each of the chickens we would only get one a day.   Later on I went outside and found Berniece hiding in the shade at the side of the house. So, we are back in the two eggs a day business.   However, as it turns out, we had to leave for four days and had asked our “next door neighbor”, the owner of Oreo the dog, to feed and water the chickens and gather the eggs every day- and to keep the eggs for taking care of the chickens.   When we came home we were told that there was only ONE egg in the four day period.  Now, Dear Readers, before  you get thinking that we are having trouble with our next door neighbor I need to let you know that said neighbor is – our daughter.”

I hope Leah will send me pictures of her “girls.”

Garden Camaraderie

Misty always sends me the nicest emails.  When Hurricane Sandy hit, she sent me an email to see if I was okay.  I wish I could hug her in person.

She writes:

“Yes, all of my plants look pathetic. The only thing I started that looks great was just for fun, and that was avocados. I started several with kids, but they look surprisingly good, but not sure if they will ever produce good fruit. However, there is a plus to all of this.   My neighbor on top of the hill hasn’t been able to use his yucky pesticides do to rain. Hooray I don’t get his yucky run off coming down our way!!! We do have some land in between, but I am sure were getting those chemicals, too.

By the way, Misty, I failed miserably on several occasions to  get an avocado pit to become a seedling.   Like being drummed-out-of- the-gardening-club failure.

So now that it is July, how is your summer going?  You don’t have to send me garden pictures. I take all types of pictures.  By the way, love dog pictures, cute babies, solar panels, etc. I am not picky.  I just love hearing from you.

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