It has been a year...

Hello All!

I know it has been a really long time...and I have missed you all!  My computer got a virus that took out my keyboard on my laptop  in addition to some other miscellaneous items and programs...it was a three hundred dollar fix or buy a new laptop!

I never knew how much this blog would mean to me...or how much it would cost when I started it for the ladies on Rate My Space...I never factored it into my lifestyle or thought it would be so complicated to keep a form of trustworthy internet in such a rural place...my sympathies to the folks that struggle with that! I think it is the ONLY thing I agree with Mr. President Obama about...he had a wish to provide internet to EVERYONE!

I am not going into the details of the struggles I have faced in the last year...I survived and that is what is most important, Hee Hee!

I have persevered with my little hut and was hoping to just stay there and out of the big, wide world but it seems that that world just encroaches and seems to want to make me pay in big green dollars instead of living the lifestyle I choose!

Anyways...on to the house and garden...I am going to start where I left off...

Remember when I started talking about sheet mulch gardening? and how my front flower beds and vegetable garden were all started with this kind of "dirt making"?  In March of 2011, the snow started melting... I started with  taking the rest of the siding off the house and planting seeds in the basement under lights...

I had been throwing all the chicken manure and straw...and the household veggie scraps  in the compost bin...it was decided that I needed another bed..why mow when you can grow?

 There was an enormous wild rose bush...it must of been beautiful at one time...maybe...but it was a horrible eyesore and garbage collector! The thorns were so thick and the bush was so rampant it was 20 feet around and 3 feet tall in the middle of my yard!  I sent the Honey out there with a chainsaw...and then with a rototiller...and then...I piled 10 pallets on top of it and lit it on fire...it was STILL GROWING! Nothing killed that beast!  I collected cardboard for two weeks and decided to just sheet mulch over the top of it...I piled all the little rocks and broken bricks from the post holes I had dug.. tree trimmings, logs...anything I could find for drainage and then covered  rosebush, rocks and all...with 10 inches of cardboard....then grass trimmings...then 6 bales of moldy straw...then grass...then chicken manure...coffee filters, egg shells, veggie trimmings...ANYTHING!

 and I mowed around it to kill the little suckers the bush was sending out...and by June...I got this...a big, ugly pile of...stuff...it wasn't all decomposed...it looked like a compost heap but it smelled wonderful...like forest dirt..and you could still see the coffee filters that hadn't decomposed...the Honey had found an old coffee can of seeds in the cabin...from the late 70's and early 80's....pumpkin and zuchini mostly...and I was pretty sure they wouldn't grow...and I was NOT sacrificing MY precious seeds to an experiment...so I planted those old seeds in this pile...

Hmmmm...I had pumpkins and zuchini coming out my ears....and no more rosebush!  The best part about it? the snow that was melting left it so wet that I didn't have to water it...AT ALL...not one drop...

In addition...do you all remember the other beds I was making?

Well...those turned out even BETTER!

This is..was...the start of my tomato garden...the deer were decimating my crops...and I needed something they could not get into...same combination...alternating spoiled straw with grass...and some chicken manure/straw combo...same veggie scraps...coffee grounds plus filters...lined it with rocks and scored a truck load of wood chips from the city compost pile...

I scored old fencing from the back yard along the alley...it was buried in the dirt...and the posts are treated landscape timbers...they are 2 dollars a piece if you buy the crooked ones at any lumber store...but I got mine from the plywood plant for 1.00 a piece...scrounging chicken wire was another ordeal...I ended up buying a roll...to the tune of  $39.00...that just burnt my arse but it was worth it!

I had no fencing in for the first month, just the skeleton...but look at them go! After procuring the chicken wire..I could only afford one roll...but I did have a roll of orange construction netting...lol!

and a door...and a scrounged bunch of doo dads from the auto salvage place...he gave me an entire truckload of old wash tubs, enamel ware, hinges.....just awesome vintage ware for ....get this...TWO DUCKS!

And here it is at the height of summer...

It was tomatogeddon in there!

Pumpkins growing up the fence...

OH Deer.....

Living in the UP has been wonderful....after all, I am from Montana and excluding the mountains, it is a whole lot like my other home...  After working so hard and rejoicing that my gardens are finally starting to grow....and they are starting to look like something other than piles of dirt....collecting heritage, exotic seeds that no one has seen in 50 years...planning Potager gardens that are not only functional, but beautiful...babying seeds in February and setting them out in the spring sunshine...flats and flats of them....and then hauling them all back in..digging, shoveling...layering..SOMETHING...SOMETHING...has the audacity to put their lips on my plants!  They went thru my whole garden and nipped off the buds and the tops of EVERYTHING!

I lay awake at night hoping to catch them in the act and when I finally went to sleep? I dreamed of venison steaks and stew meat and deer slippers....In the day, for 3 solid days  I poured over every inch of information regarding animal and deer repellent...I went to the dreaded Wal Mart and looked at their products and to the Ace Hardware to peruse theirs...

WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would pay $26.99 for a quart of Liquid Fence? or $8.97 for a 1 1/2 cup of granules that would not even do a quarter of my yard? It would have cost me almost $100.00 every time it rained to repel the varmints....that was one option...

The other option was netting and fencing...THAT option would have cost me triple the liquid option....not to mention that it is UUUUGLAAAY!

Looking around at people's garden's, which I am apt to drive around and do...bothered me...all those beautiful trees and flowers....vegetable gardens... were covered to a height of 8 feet with ORANGE deer fencing...from people trying to guard their hard work and have something to enjoy in the summer months...to me, bright orange fencing is counter productive in a flower garden...

I found another way....I went back to Wal Mart....I read the back of every bottle I could find of every animal repellent I could find...

They ate every bit of lettuce(bald spot to the left)

Do you KNOW WHAT THAT STUFF IS MADE OF?  Rotten eggs...the thieves! Eggs are cheap...so is the castor oil and white pepper that make up the balance of the ingredients in Liquid Fence...basically what you are paying for is that white plastic bottle with the pretty picture of the cotton pickin deer!

For a total of a $12.00 investment...I made my own...

It has been extremely effective and I have not had a deer in my garden in 3 weeks! I also sprayed the neighbor's garden and she has no problems!  Here is what I do:

I bought a one gallon garden sprayer from Wal Mart for $10.00, that made up the bulk of my $12.00 investment....

I had eggs...and ground Chili Pepper..I didn't have white pepper....so I bought Castor Oil in a one quart bottle for $1.09 and a $1.00 bottle of  minced Garlic  from the Dollar Store...

The first time, I did not wait for the eggs to spoil...I mixed it together and sprayed it on my plants...it worked then, too...I was having deer ravage my garden on a nightly basis...

Here is my recipe:   4 whole eggs

                         
ALL the juice from a small jar of the minced garlic(fill it back up with plain tap water so you  have garlic water for the next time you  mix the spray)

2 Heaping Table Spoons of Chili Pepper, White Pepper or any Pepper

 2 Tablespoons of Castor oil or Mineral oil would work(even veggie oil, it helps it stick to the plants)
 Shake the daylights out of it! You can even stick it in the blender first.... Add water to the top and shake again...I had to take off the sprayer tip because it got clogged...

Paste Tomatoes...

As I mentioned, I didn't let mine sit the first time I used it...it was still effective...but when you let it sit? WOW...it smells to high heaven! Don't ever open your container in the house...it takes about 45 minutes for the smell to dissipate!   Ask me how I know that? I will never do it again!  I just add water to whatever is left over from my spraying...it does smell bad but the smell dissipates after it dries and only the deer can smell the residue... Every 2nd spraying, I add more of the ingredients to what is left over so I never run out...I am the only one, besides the neighbor I sprayed, that has flowers left...and tomatoes! Even with the bright orange fencing, the deer just lean over it...

Now I dream of canning....although, those tomatoes would make great spaghetti...with a little deer burger...