Homestead Update

Mr. Marvelous is marvelously happy.  One might even say he is "Happy, happy, happy!!!"  The garden has moved through dreaming to planning and he is now busily working in the basement with his hands in the potting soil. 

The basement has been tidied and reorganized.  The light stands have been built.  

The calendar has lists of what things are to be planted in what weeks.  He has planted multiple varieties of lettuce, some hot peppers, tomatoes (of course), and a few herbs.  Green shoots are peeping up through the dirt. 

Or in some cases, getting ready to take over the basement.

Mr. Marvelous is walking around with a smile on his face and every night it is a gardening book he brings to bed.  "What do you think about this plan for an herb bed?"  "Would you like for me to try planting some of these?"  "I think I'm going to try a little of that!". 

Whew, I'm glad I am writing about this right now.  It reminded me that the artichoke plants we have babied through the year were not covered today and the temperatures are plummeting.  Now, where was I?  Oh yes.

Do you like the little newspaper pots we have this year?  So do we!  Last year Mr. Marvelous tried to make them by hand.  It was a less successful experiment than he might have wished.  This year as he was thumbing through one of his (many) garden catalogs, he came across a little gem of a tool.  He wondered if perhaps Santa might see fit to bring him one.  Santa sent one by way of Jack South.

Isn't this the niftiest little gadget?  Mr. Marvelous is in love with it.  It is made by Secrets du Potager in Belgium and you can find it here on Amazon.com.  For $12.52 (we have free shipping), we can make innumerable little pots.  In our county the little weekly newspaper is free; we don't even have to pay for that.  For the next 50 or so years we can make as many little starter pots as we want.  That is a big deal in our house, because we go through a LOT of little starter pots in a year.  Remember those SIXTY tomato plants last year?! 

Every Wednesday evening we go down to the local shopping mall (also known as Jeeter's Country Store) and pillage remove the remaining unwanted newspapers to kindly make room for the new edition that comes out on Thursdays.  If we also pick some up on Friday I'm not telling.

We bring them home and Mr. Marvelous gets to work. 

He measures.

He cuts into strips.

Lots of strips.

And he turns into little pots.

The one on the left was the first one he made.

The one on the right was the first one he made after he read the directions.

How many has he made so far?

A few.  Hundred.

See the ones down below?  Each one of these flats contains 60-70 pots and he has at least 8 filled.  So far.

That is what we have been doing the past week or two.  That and babying artichoke plants.  

Mostly we are just having fun.

Stay tuned; baby bunnies are coming in less than three weeks!