pay close attention to the tires under the tree on the right hand side of the pic. my friend Pioneer Preppy thinks that they are ugly, among others who will remain un-named. those tires are beautiful to me - do you want to know why? once the potatoes reach 4-6 inches in height, we put another tire on top of them and fill them up to their necks with dirt. we have harvested at least 600lbs in potatoes over the past several years - potatoes that we didn't pay for!!! we grew them ourselves!!!
oh and please be sure to notice all of the junk in our yard. free stuff that has been re-purposed and re-used. we don't live in an old folks home with trimmed lawns and pools - bahahahahah! we love our land, our tires and our junk. we most especially love that we are healthy enough to live this kind of a lifestyle - it's sheer bliss being here!
anyway - look away if you are hungry - we've been eating some good food this past week! some loaded nachos:
chicken, broccoli, lemon and garlic stirfry on home-grown lettuce and jasmine rice:
how about kiwi and mango on fresh home-grown lettuce:
jambaloney's fave - steak and veggie shish-kebabs:
some little personal pizzettes:
and this morn, i just had to have hollandaise sauce on my poached eggs and toast, and some on the steamed broccoli. you can get my tried and true hollandaise sauce recipe here.
lots of beauty showing up around the Manor:
i don't know what those tiny blue flowers are called, but i love them. i call them tiny-tines!
and volunteer chives already going to flower - woohoo! there's some seed collecting in my future!
i don't know what these pretty pink flowers are called either. therefore, they are also called tiny-tines.
as are the white ones. more tiny-tines.
wild strawberry! we love walking around and picking them when they fruit. they are tiny - but they are everywhere on our land!
woohoo! radishes baby!
they should be producing soon too!
i transplanted my brassicas from the greenhouse to outdoors and they are doing well!
i also planted corresponding seeds to finish up each row. therefore, not all 20 bok chois will come up at the same time!
here's some pretty ferns just starting to uncurl!
and supper tonight is one of our favourite, old-time standbys - pasta with fresh chopped tomatoes, a ton of garlic and olive oil, a ton of parmesan, chives and parsely - yummeh!
i am off to catch up on blog-reading now. hope you all have had a good week!
And in your spare time you find time to jump in the hot tub to relax. Sending you an email
ReplyDeleteRob, buddy - you got it! there is always time for the hottub!
Deletei just read your post about being back in the hospital...i am sorry to hear it, but i trust that you are in good hands. follow the docs advice and keep your spirits up.
and make fun of PioneerPreppy as i always find that keeps my spirits up - bahahahahaha! our special healing prayers being sent your way, my friend. much love to you and yours always! xoxo
thanks
Deleteyour welcome my friend! xoxo
DeleteWhere the tires are is that where you planted 160 potato seeds? That many can produce about 400 lbs (or 200 kl ?) Yum!
ReplyDeleteMike - the actual potatoe tires are to the left of the right of the tires under the tree. the actual growing potatoe tires that we planted are lined up in 4 rows of 8 tires. the tires you see under the tree are the spare tires that we add when the potatoe plants in their "growing" tires (the rows) reach a height of 4-6 inches. once they do, we drop another tire on each and fill with dirt. so we need a lot of spare tires on hand to do so. we used to stack them 4 high, but are now stacking them only 3 high and finding we get the same yield. last year, using 24 tires, we yielded about 140lbs of potatoes, plus another 15lbs of seed potatoe. this year, we are very conservatively estimating approximately 200lbs not counting seed potatoes for next year. and yes - yummeh! any other questions - just yell!
DeleteKeep posting a photo diary as you add tires, fertilizer and amounts used and certainly when you begin the harvest!
DeleteMike - we will certainly document all of the steps since you asked...thank you for showing interest as we have found this to be an exceptional way to grow loads of potatoes! and i hope that you noticed the new search bar at the top on the right hand side - as per your request! much love buddy!
DeleteI think your place looks well kept up. Everything you have there is utilitarian, and that's the main thing. I wonder how you manage to find time to do so much cooking, with all the different things you two are participants in. I hope you are wearing socks with your fire boots now, I felt like you tore your feet up pretty badly!
ReplyDeleteHarry - thank you as we highly value your opinion on things! yes, the yard is full of stuff that we just don't have a place for yet as our sad-excuse for a basement is full, as is our 2 other sheds. once jam builds us our new shed, we will have a place for everything. up until now, we have been busy just trying to keep the house from falling apart and putting in a serious garden and this past year, building a greenhouse, which we felt was much more important than "prettying" the place up. we can't wait to get to a point where we can pretty things up but we just aren't there yet. right now and for the next few years it is about manual labour and building things up so that when we are several years older, all of the essentials will be in place and then it will just be upkeep, maintaining and pretty-ifying. and although some may think that jam is just out there, canoeing around and catching "some fish" - he's actually feeding us and keeping his skills honed should the day every come where that is the only meat (besides what he hunted) came from. i know i do a lot of posts that make it seem that all we do is run around naked and enjoy the river - but our regular readers, like you, know that we put in many hours a day of incredibly hard work. we just know how to enjoy each other and the hard work at the same time. and if you work your butt off in the morning - you can have the afternoons for fun. we like fun! and yes - we are heavily involved in our communities as well, so that eats up a bit of our days.
Deleteanyway, my feet are so tore up that i can't wear socks or shoes for a while but that's ok - i got a ton of flip-flops - bahahahahah! much love to you and yours Harry, always!
Just think about all those chemical and petroleum by products leeching out of that degrading processed rubber spread and right into any tubers which happen to be close to suck it up.... YUM.
ReplyDeleteAnd tires look ugly.
Now wood and metal, thats art there. Rubber not so much.
The food looks good as usual though!!!
thanks buddy - you know i will always feed you well if you ever visited.
Deletebut now listen wiener - you just don't like tires - PERIOD!!! and it takes 10 million years for those tires to start leeching and degrading - trust me - i've done my research. i love my tires - so there - ya wiener! but i have to admit that your gardens are coming along beautifully with all of the weeding that you have been doing (which must be a nightmare!). and the girls seem to be doing great as well. so congrats, ya wiener! xoxo
I want to know where you are finding these mythical tires that don't degenerate for 10 zillion years because I want to put them on my vehicles... SO cough up your source there gurlie.
DeletePP - since both you and i do not like re-inventing the wheel - and i wanted to give you a trusted and known source rather than direct you to one of my previous posts about the benefits of tire gardening....and because i don't like to toot my own horn - bahahahah - i direct you to a very good post by Patrice at Rural Revolution, in which she took some slack about tire gardening....she provides a detailed response and links to several websites where you can learn more about tire gardening. here is the link:
Deletehttp://www.rural-revolution.com/2014/01/in-defense-of-our-tire-garden.html
and remember - she started tire gardening about 8 YEARS after WE started doing it. just sayin'!
but i know that you, and a lot of others think of her as a trusted source. so there is the link for you.
listen to her. she's been tire gardening for almost 2 yrs now. don't listen to someone who researched the crap out of tire gardening AND STARTED DOING IT almost 10 years ago. again, just saying.
You mean those tires she keeps digging up and replanting every year? I like Patrice's blog but that still doesn't make tires ugly as sin....
DeleteNumber, the little blue flowers are forget me not. I have tons!
ReplyDeletelw - thanks for that! i could have just looked them up on the internet but just never remembered....kind of interesting that i could never remember to look and they are called forget me nots - bahahahahahah! but thanks again for sharing! xoxo
DeleteSweet Kymber,
ReplyDeleteI have to say it, "I LOVE ALL OF YOUR TIRES".........did you hear that PP????? I have tires too, and there in my garden with potatoes growing in them.
Your property is a piece of heaven sweetie, you live in God's country. The beautiful skies, wide open places with no stacked up buildings, plants, flowers, grass, hills, rocks, water, wild berries, wild herbs, and veggies were all happy for you.
Have they captured that lunatic roaming around up there shooting people? I pray for the people who have been shot, and the families of those who have lost their lives trying to capture this man. Please be careful, you just never know where this guy will be found.
Always great food made on your blog. I have a question, maybe you know.....can you eat the fiddles off of the wild ferns there? I've seen something years ago about eating fiddles and didn't know if they were fern fiddles or not.
Your gardens are really looking good my friend. Like you, I have planted a few of the same things at different times so we have vegetables throughout the season.
I've started to plant some of my fish heads and cuts deep enough in the garden beds not to attract critters but to help with fertilizing my plants. Do you and Jam use the fish heads when you don't use them for cooking for your garden beds?
Have a wonderful evening, sending hugs and love to you and Jam.
Your Friend,
Sandy
Sweet Sandy - i don't think they heard you yelling about the tires up in North Idaho - you might want to scream it out again! heck girl, i think WE even heard you scream it out the other night - bahahahahah! i love you girl!
Deletewe do live on a piece of heaven and we acknowledge that daily. thank you for acknowledging it, too.
yes, hon, they have caught the maniac...finally. it's tragic, really. 3 RCMP dead and 2 injured. that sort of stuff doesn't happy very often up here in the maritimes so it has a lot of people feeling jumpy. thank you very much for asking.
as for the fiddleheads....i am not sure if they are the proper and edible fiddleheads. normally the proper ones that you can eat grow near the edges of rivers, lakes, streams, etc.
good idea about putting the fish heads right in the garden - we'll have to call you Ruth Stout, although i like to claim that moniker for myself because she gardened naked too. if you haven't heard of Ruth - look her up - what an incredibly talented gardener and just all around beautiful, smart lady. but no, we put all of our fish heads and bones into our compost bin that has a lid. haven't had any probs with critters getting to it.
i hope that you have a wonderful weekend, my darlin! much love always to you and all of yours and give little Beans a big kiss for me! xoxoxo
kymer,
ReplyDeleteI really didn't think I was hungry until I scrolled down a bit! Everything looks SO good!
You guys have really been busy. I love the tires btw, Mars not so much. He refuses to even talk about them anymore. *sigh*
I'm sitting on the sidelines watching the weeds multiply daily while the rain keeps coming down in our garden. I have to use binoculars to see how things are doing out toward the middle of the garden. Yeah, it's THAT wet!
Keep up the good work, your plants look lovely.
Hugs to you n Jam!
Sci
ahh, thanks honey! now git yer Texan butt up here and teach me some of that Texan cooking. but keep the okra - arghghghghgh - bleck! ya, i know Mars has a thing for the tires. oh well - your garden is so beautiful and your rows so straight and pretty!!! you guys have done a great job! oh and bahahahahah - you know it's bad when you are using binoculars to see how things are going in the garden - now THAT'S funny! hugs back to you and Mars, buddy - and you guys keep up the awesome work that you are doing! xoxoxox
DeleteMmmmmmm. The food, as always looks lovely, and why not ? Nova Scotia has the best scenery and inspires the best food ! I think I will make a pizzette inspired by the gorgeous twins above.
ReplyDeletesweet Jane - it's always nice when you visit! i hope you had a little gorgeous pizzette - bahahahahah! much love to you and yours always! xoxox
ReplyDelete