On my way to becoming self-reliant I stumbled upon my garden I have one project I never heard of anyone doing before.

  Sometimes I kind of wish I wrote about politics, there is a never-ending supply of hot air hovering over the entire country. (If we were able to harness it just think of the winter garden we could have) But I realize that the people reading my blog are reading it because although aware of what is going on, endlessly hearing about it is well, crappy, that's where the blog begins, with manure.
 

The rosemary bush, that bench is four feet long. 

I spend a lot of time in the garden, around my worm farm, taking videos and pictures, I try to do productive things even in the winter. (Link to how to make a worm farm bin video I made.) The winters, like I've mentioned in other blogs is really mild here for the most part, so when it rains it's a big deal. Old Skunkpuppy does not like any kind of weather at all, she is suppose to go outside early in the morning, but it's turned into something else. She rarely goes outside without me or my wife going along with her so she will go to the door at 6:30 am like she is going out. It's a ploy to get a biscuit, she goes to the door, I open it, she sticks her nose out, looks at me, and backs into the house. I at that point totally manipulated go to the pantry, get a dog biscuit and give it to her, then she runs downstairs to show my 95-year-old mother in law. She wants that structure, she will go out if there are rabbits, turkeys, squirrels, or peacocks on the levee.

  She helps me in the garden, and that's where I am found at least for a part of every day, I am now trying to find an effective organic weed killer. I sprayed pure apple cider vinegar on a bunch of weeds yesterday, there are plenty of "how to do it" blogs on the internet. I decided to start with pure vinegar, due to some of the ingredients in some of the recipes. Most of the recipes I saw online were combinations of vinegar, salt, and dish soap, the main ingredients. (Link to vinegar weed killer recipes) I am leery of the vinegar, to begin with, but any time salt is used the soil will not support the growth of any plants. The Romans would spread salt all over the farmer's fields to kill all the vegetation and initiate starvation to their enemies civilian population. I went to look today at how the weeds did versus the vinegar, it's been raining so I imagine it has been washed off or diluted. I don't see any difference today, but I'm not giving up, it was sunny yesterday afternoon but got cloudy very quickly which weakens the effect. That's what some of the information on the internet stated, also vinegar alone takes longer, I will apply more after this weather passes onto Colorado and all points eastward. Salt is out as far as I'm concerned, I will not use any for weed control, I will add dish soap. I am not sure what the soap does to make the vinegar more effective, it may have something to do with making the solution "sticky". The vinegar alone does have a tendency to not "hang" on to the leaves really well, perhaps the soap helps the vinegar "hold on". So I will try it again on Monday, it looks like the weather will clear up for a few days next week, that generally means a warm up as well.

My worm tea brewer, simple construction.

  I brewed a batch of "worm tea", that stuff is better than commercially available products, I have not made a video of what is involved but I will soon. I like to brew the tea when the ambient temperature is above 70 degrees F. I let the water warm in the sunshine until it feels the same temperature as the surrounding air, it sustains the good bacteria better in a warm oxygen-rich environment. I brew 4 gallons at a time in a five-gallon bucket, I leave a one-gallon air gap between the tea and the lid. I have learned to never fill anything to the top, most things somehow become bigger after air, or even agitation is added. I will get a microscope to enable me to make sure the good stuff in the tea is still thriving. Anyhow, I watered all the plants with the tea, there was an amazing occurrence, my wife added it to some tomato plants she has in the kitchen window. I have started to call it the "magic window", it is on the South side of the house above the kitchen sink, it receives the full morning sun. She grows Orchids, successfully, worm tea was added to them, it's the wrong time of year for a flower but the leaves look great. A big change was seen in the tomato plants she placed in the magic window when they were about 3 inches tall, two weeks ago, they are now a foot tall. Those tomato plants took off like a rocket, I like to start the plants with seeds, I have yet to begin to start the tomatoes. She told me she wants to start the heirlooms in the window, I'm all for it because it's tough to get seeds to start in my outdoor starter box.

My seed starting box, it was taken a few weeks ago.

  I watered the Peach and Cherry trees with the worm tea as well as the Peachtree I started from seed a year ago almost to the day, it's now four feet tall I will plant it in the ground this coming November 2018. I see no difference in the trees yet after watering them with the organic fertilizer, it should make a difference we'll wait and see. The Peachtree is starting to bloom, there are several blossoms on it, normally that means they will be blown off by the wind. More blossoms will be on the tree after the weather turns fair enough, it takes about two days for them to appear. It's a strange Peachtree, the leaves are purple until the middle of August, most years, and the Peaches are really small and mealy. They are OK in a cobbler or a pie, but hardly worth expending the energy to pick, peel, and slice, they are just not that good. That's the reason I started one from seed, my grandson and I were going to cut a branch from a Peachtree down the road, it's where the burned down house is. I wish I could dig up that tree and transplant it, but I am not a thief, so I just took two seeds and planted them, they are doing well. I have been watering the new tree with the tea as well, it has a lot of good qualities and the small seedling is doing great These are cling-free peaches and on the mother tree they are very good and a nice size as well, I will not let it blossom this year or even start a fruit, I want all the energy to go into making the tree stronger.

The Artichoke occupies a five-foot-long raised bed, the Oregeno to
the left is in a ten-foot long bed. 

  The plant really showing the effects of the tea is my Artichoke plant,(the photo above shows it)  I started the mother plant from a seed about 5 years ago. Artichokes send off runners and they, in turn, start new plants, so once a plant is established the volunteers can be transplanted, purchasing more plants is not needed. The Artichoke plant is huge now, it's been in the raised bed for two years, it is well-drained, rich soil, and it is weed free. We get about six Artichokes a year from it, it's a good producer I am anxious to see if it does better this year, I suspect it will (forever the optimist). It's neighbor, the Oregeno plant is doing spectacularly as well, I have been watering it with the tea also, it may grow to be as large as our Rosemary bush. Rarely do I call an herb anything but a plant, however, our Rosemary bush is just that a big bush, we could satisfy the entire worlds need of Rosemary in that one bush. My neighbor had an Oregeno plant that went skyward, I thought it was a juniper when I first saw it.

  I have planted my onions, it may be a bit early but they will do fine, I planted just over 100 plants. My onion bed as all of the others is covered with a combination of straw and leaves on top of the cardboard. The cardboard is completely composted in most of the beds with the wet leaves covering it both the leaves and the cardboard renders down quickly. I will not cover the onion bed with cardboard as I commonly do after I plant the rest of the garden. I do that when for instance planting my cucumbers, I grow them on a trellis verticle, it makes for not only better looking straight cucumbers but they are not soiled and do not have the white or yellow bottom, not that it makes any difference at all. I will cut the cardboard around the plants to control weeds, then I cover the whole shebang with leaves, or straw, whatever I can scrounge up.
  I have a project that I started about a week ago, I have never heard of this before, and I'm not sure if it will work. I have two leaf towers, I store leaves in wire fence towers, perhaps you have seen the "potato towers" on Youtube.

I planted Cantaloupe in the leaf tower pictured here. 

They are the same, wire fencing formed into a cylinder then I fill them with leaves to compost and use in my worm farm and in the beds. I planted Cantaloupes in it at the bottom, I went up a foot from the bottom and drilled a hole with my finger about six inches deep then I planted six seeds. I moved up one foot and planted six more at a 90-degree angle to the first planting. The leaves on the bottom are partially composted, and they stay very wet, I poured worm tea into the top and I let it percolate to the seeds, it may just work, If it does I will make a video of it. I think it will work because I am always pulling seedlings out of the worm farms, and they have no sunlight to encourage growth, so I am optimistic about the whole adventure. There is nothing to report now except, yep the leaves are composting. I am thinking about spreading some Beet seeds on top just to see if they will grow
  I am prepared to start a Potato tower, I have the straw, the wire cylinder, and the potatoes that have gone to seed, I am going to wait another week, and I will attempt to make a video of it, even though there a lot them in existence already. I am thinking of growing watermelons on the bottom of the stack, but it would make harvesting the potatoes really hard, they will mature at drastically different times. I am going to plant my new Peachtree where I set up the tower. When we had an honest to goodness haystack, many years ago, we would plant the garden after the stack was used, right in its footprint. The nutrients from the stack enriched the soil and vegetables grew like they do in the magic window.
  I have a plant that has started in my Zucchini bed, I thought it was Zucchini at first after all I did plant some seeds under the straw in that spot of the garden.

Mystery plant in my Zucchini bed.

 I don't know what it is now, I suspect it's an onion, I am not sure where an onion would come from there, maybe a bird, or a possum. The possums dig up the roots in the garden, I don't really care if they dig around in there, they leave it alone during the summer. What I do mind is they have a taste for asparagus roots, as most gardeners know it takes years to establish an asparagus bed. Mine was wiped out last winter, I don't think I will get very much Asparagus this coming spring.
  Thank you for reading and sharing, if you recognize the mystery plant let me know in the comments, likewise if you have grown vegetables in leaves tell me about it as well. Do you think my Cantaloupes will grow? Let me know. Thanks again.

jacquesandkate  emergencykitsplus.com