All About Silkies, Nigerian Dwarf Goats & More
If you have laying hens, you probably get a lot of eggs and therefore, end up with a lot of eggshells. Do you have any uses for eggshells? What do you do with them all? Well, you’ve probably been just throwing them out.
If you have just been throwing your eggshells out, stop! We try to use everything on our homestead. And, there are several uses for eggshells that you can start with to keep from wasting them.
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Starting a garden can be fun and overwhelming. There are SO many types of vegetables you can grow, it can be hard to decide what types you should add to your garden. One veggie that no garden should be without is a good variety of types of summer squash.
Summer squash is a great choice for any garden. These squash plants are fairly easy to grow (unless you get the dreaded squash bugs) and they are often extremely prolific producers. There are several types of summer squash ranging in size, color and shape.
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I am going to admit this here, but pllllease don’t laugh. When we were thinking about our first garden, I thought winter squash had to grow in the winter. I didn’t read the seed packages and I learned later….too late for that season….that isn’t exactly how winter squash got it’s name.
Winter squash come in several different varieties. And as I found out the hard way, winter squash is not actually grown in the winter. It is grown through the summer and harvested in the Fall. However, it can typically be stored (if in the proper conditions) through the winter. Winter squash, unlike summer squash, is harvested when its skin is hardened. This trait is what helps it to be able to be stored for a period of time – ya know, like through the winter.
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The first year that we started plants inside, it felt like a huge task transplanting plants from their little tray pods and into the ground safely. I mean, they look so fragile.
What if we break them? Or what if we pull their little leaves off getting them out of their pods? What if they don’t grow once they are set in the ground? There were so many questions that need answers. But, it turns out that it really isn’t that hard.
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Even though Spring and Summer garden seasons are over, and we are not planting a Fall garden this year, we are thinking about our garden planning. We usually start garden planning for our Spring garden in the late Fall/early Winter.
Having a solid plan for the garden well ahead of time to actually plant just makes things run so much smoother.
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So, gardening season is upon us and we can’t wait to get things growing! There’s hardly anything better than going outside, picking a fresh vegetable and bringing it in to use for dinner. Starting plants inside (called seed starting) is a great way to get a jump start on the growing season and also for some plants that need longer growing times to production.
Growing our own food is part of how we save $2500 per year homesteading!
The first time we started plants inside, it felt so very overwhelming. (If you need some help transplanting your started plants, we have you covered.) There are a ton of decisions, what kind of soil to use, what containers to use, where to put them. And, well, despite a ton of reading and research, the result – an epic fail. I am talking, all of our plants died within a few weeks. Seed starting shouldn’t be difficult, but it can be.
After trying a lot of different things, we have come up with a seed starting system that is reliable and works well. So, here is how you can start plants inside successfully!
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