more tires and junk - bahahahhaah! - a pile of other stuff and food....oh ya baby!

we had a most-awesome-fabulous day today....well, minus the black flies, of course. i really detest those little things. but anyway - wow - what a day!



it was 20C with a nice little breeze and we got a ton of stuff done. hey everybody - high-five us! we're feeling pretty awesome right now! it might be because we knew today was going to be georgous...so i made a bodum of coffee last night and let it sit in the fridge over night in order to make vietnamese-style iced coffees to start our day....have a peek:



yummo-deeeelishous! and so strong! it really got us moving - bahahahahah!

oh hey - wait - i need to backtrack a bit. last evening, we were enjoying a gorgeous sunset:



that's when the phone rang. my sister and next door neighbour called to tell us that her husband had 2 more cooked lobster for us - can you even believe this stuff???  needless to say, jam went over to get them and before i even knew it - all that was left of those two babies is in this bag:



my goodness we have good family, friends and neighbours. i'm sorry i didn't get a pic of the actual lobsters. they were beautiful 1 and a half pounders. and we just dove right in before i even thought of taking a pic.

oh ya - i forgot to tell you all that the summer bedding is out. we washed all of the summer bedding, used apple cider vinegar in the rinse cycle, hung all of the bedding on the line and let it sit overnight to collect all of the fog, mist and dew...then let it air dry in the beautiful sun - this bedding smells like heaven!

we've been working like dogs in the garden/greenhouse for the past week. and when doing so, you need to eat good. here's a delicious BLT on home-made sourdough bread. it's big enough to feed 80! no worries - we can eat for 80 with no trouble at all!

how about some toasted ciabatta buns with homemade hamburgers? jam had his usual relish, mustard, onion and tomatoe. me? i smeared my bun with homemade guacamole, baby! you can get my guacamole recipe here.

anyway - how about some tires and junk?!?!??!? can you imagine - taking things that people throw away and making them useful?!??!? it's an awesome skill to have and THE man, jambaloney has it in spades!!! here's 3 tires, that he got for free. then, when we first arrived here, he invested in 4X8 concrete re-inforcement wire sheets. it was a superb investment as we are re-using them every year. here's 3 ugly tires, with the re-used sheets for 3 kinds of pole beans. i planted 16 beans in each tire, corresponding to where the lines on the sheets are. once the beans are big enough, we will train them up the wire. not bad eh?

here's some more ugly tires and junk. how about 6 tires of bush beans, of 5 different varieties and they will be trained using discarded sections of old lobster cages, that jam got out of the garbage and wound them in circles so that each tire contains a minimum of 15 bean seeds. pretty impressive eh?

how about turning our hugelkulture bed into a permanent strawberry bed? we have, on our land, cranberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, wild strawberries and now we have a permanent strawberry bed!

just wait until jam builds us another greenhouse - a year-round greenhouse with heat, using all of the extra windows - oh i mean junk! - that he has been collecting for years. then we will try to grow exotic fruit like lemons and limes...oh and don't forget mangoes. and avocados. wouldn't that be awesome?

here's some tadpoles in the pond - aren't they soooo cute?!??!?!?!?

we have no idea what they are...and really don't care.

PioneerPreppy coined the song "tadpole, tadpole - all named frog"....and i sing that song everytime i visit my little tadpoles and tell them how much i love them! no really - go check his post - it is the funniest thing i have seen in a long while! PioneerPreppy really should record the song on YouTube at least. perhaps Usher would see the video and turn our beloved PP into the new Justin Bieber!!! i'd buy the album....wouldn't you all????

oh lookee here...more tires and junk! that would be 12 tires of peas, made out of an old, rusted swing set that jam found in the garbage and the fencing is made out of discarded display racks from Home Depot. and people have the gall to call this junky???? ya, whatever!

here's all the overwintered peppers moved to racks in the front of the greenhouse. jam got these racks out of the garbage and they are just perfect for our huge pepper plants that now look like little bushes and/or trees. they are full of blossoms - can you believe it? and some of them are already producing peppers?!??!?!? oh joy!

and here is a pile of cucumbers, zucchinis, squashes and melons that i transplanted from their little styrafoam cups into little pots that jam got out of the garbage a few years ago - we re-use those garbage pots every year - they work like a charm!

here is a little...well, getting kind of big, volunteer sunflower that planted himself in a pot. he did it, or a squirrel did it. i now need to transplant him in the front yard.

the tomatoes are going hog-wild-crazy and need to be planted IN THEIR TIRES.....like soon! oh me oh my! i love these kinds of problems!

this last pic is for my friend Mike from the blog Living Prepared. his blog is full of great information - you should really check it out. anyway, he asked that we document our potatoe procedure. Mike, as you can see, we planted our seed potatoes in the first layer of dirt, mulch, seaweed and compost and covered each tire with some dead grassy material. you can see the potatoes poking up now.

once the plants reach 4-6 inches tall, we will drop another tire on them and put dirt and compost up to almost their necks. once the potatoes grow another 4-5 inches after that, we will drop another tire on and fill up with dirt and plant material.

we planted 160 potatoe seeds and are conservatively expecting....based on our years of knowledge gleaned from growing potatoes in tires.....probably 200lbs of potatoes and about 20lbs of potatoe seeds. i will keep documenting our potatoe experience throughout the season as Mike has asked that we do so.

for anyone who has never grown potatoes in tires - if you have any questions - just yell in the comments section and we will do our best to answer any and all questions. we have been tire gardening for several years and have learned much from our successes and failures.

well kids - this post has probably put most of you to sleep by now, then there are some others who just scan the pics, then there are the others who will see how long the post is and just go to another blog....no worries. this is OUR blog. and we blog about what we are doing and what interests us. we are happy if anyone finds it interesting....but we lose absolutely no sleep if you don't.

tomorrow is supposed to be another gorgeous day. oh man - what kind of trouble are we going to get in tomorrow? you'll have to check back and see.

off to catch up on my other favourite blogs. my favourite blogs are listed in our blogroll. you should check them out. there's a lot of really interesting people there doing really interesting things. have a great week!