greenhouse

WOW – WHAT AN AMAZING NEW THING WE HAVE FOUND!

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Nope, it’s not a dragon.  However, one would be welcome here- LOL.

Nope it’s not a unicorn, but around here it is just as rare to see.

It is the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (No – it’s not a strange creation in Looney Toons, it is real) was my gift this time!

yellow-bellied woodpecker-male.png  yellow-bellied woodpecker-female

I know some (ok most) of you are laughing at my minor miracle, however, you need to realize that it is the simple little things in life I treasure the most!  Relaxing in the living room, knitting up a pair of Christmas Bronco socks for my sister, I happened to look up and out the window and there they were!  Not just one but 3 – 1 male and 2 females.  I love sneaking a peeks at the trees out front while I knit.

We have a new huge picture window right smack dab in the middle of the east wall which faces the front yard.  There is a sad pine tree that managed to survive the fire and it has a bird feeder hanging in it, which is usually loaded with sparrows (not the cute Johnny Depp/Jack Sparrow kind).  Next to the large picture window, to the north, is a smaller window.  This one gives me a great view of a tree that has not been doing well (the Elm’s in this territory fall apart at the wave of a hand, so the winds we have had are beating the snot out of them), it is very old but is still hanging in there.  This time of year there are no leaves on it which aided in my great view of the new visitors.

We see Blue Jays every winter.  Chickadees, and the occasional Downey Woodpecker.  But these 3 were brand new.  I/we have been here 15+ years now, and they have never graced us with their presence until now.  Just before the fire, Red-Headed Woodpeckers showed up.  I thought they were extinct – but obviously not.  They are still around – yeah!  I now have an ear-to-ear smile while I am telling you this story.

bluejay

Chickadee Flicker

I love birds and bird watching.  It is a simple way for me to feel great joy.  Unfortunately, I am usually without camera when I spot them.  I even have a couple of binoculars placed in certain spots in the house to get a better view at the woods fields.  However, I never fail to miss a good photo shoot – darn it!!??!!  So, until I become a better photographer (I am trying friends -wish me luck!), I will continue to be a spectator in their wonderful world of flight and color.  I also pledge to continue to feed the birds, and hope you will too!  (P.S. A lot of them help me to destroy the bad bugs in the gardens and yards – BONUS – WOOO HOOO!!)

ATTACK OF THE KILLER TOMATOES?

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Time has finally caught up with us. Okay, maybe I should say the weather has finally caught up with us. Our first major frost is due tomorrow night, and I’m not ready – eeekkkk! The exterior garden is pretty much demolished – so no problem there. The decision now is do I want to keep the greenhouse tomatoes going through to next year or break out my Edward Scissorhands clippers and have at it?

My major concern is not devastating the bush, but how bad the bush will devastate me. The darn thing is from the nightshade family. Very poisonous prospect, and an oxymoron if you really think about it. How did anyone ever come to realize that a tomato was edible? I know that most of what we eat is from watching critters. If they eat it, must be ok – however- nothing will eat the tomato vine. The fruit (yep it’s a fruit) is, to me, outstanding! So many varieties of uses – ketchup, sauces, Pico, and best to me – raw!! We put them in tons of things from eggs to meats to noodles. When you combine several together you get an amazing flavor (that’s how we make our pasta sauce).

So what am I so worried about – the vines. Years past I was able to tear at them with minimal body covering (ok, clean it up, I’m talking shorts and a tank top then)…but not now. Now I need full body armor! Pants, socks, ankle high boots, long sleeve shirt or at least a long sleeve jacket, gloves and most important – a clean rag.

The rag came about when I found out that I could no longer deal with the treacherous monster without full body armor. I make the mistake of taking out the outside vines 2 years ago by simply hacking away at them. I knew what they were back then, but at that time they did not infest me. Well, on this fateful day it happened to be bright, sunny and on the warmer side. As I worked I began to perspire (women perspire – men sweat – what a crock but that’s for another day) and subconsciously wiping the wet from my face – using my hands which were not encased in gloves. I believed that gloves were for sissys that were afraid to get their hands dirty – also, not anymore!

The poison weeping from the vines as I hacked away at them was doing its dastardly revenge from the moment I touched them. It leaked all over my hands and arms, I lifted both to help remove the moister from my face and eyes and the damage was done! The killer tomatoes had gotten vengeance. They were stealthy – doing injury when I least expected it! This was a year, after all, just like the previous years so why should I do anything different? Ha, ha, ha, silly me! NOTHING ever stays the same!!

I did my dirty deed on the gardens. I took everything down for the winters’ rest, as it should be. I went to bed that evening feeling like a hero! I had accomplished every fall cleanup item on my “to-do list” in record time. I showered after a hard days’ work but it was already too late. The sneaky tomato was enforcing its revenge upon me without my knowing it.

I woke the next morning looking like a blow fish!

pic of blowfish

WWWHHHAAATTTT???? I was swollen from my eyes to my feet with the worst being on my face (of course!). I was awake, but my eyes were thin little slits to peek through. My sinuses were so plugged that I had to hang my mouth open to breathe a heavy breather on a nasty phone call. And the facial skin itself was so stretched from the attack that I could not see a single wrinkle (bonus!? Hee hee).   My fingers were so swollen I could not make a fist and a burning rash had broken out almost everywhere. The first think (yes think) I did was yell for help.

Well, help came but not before laughing hysterically for several minutes first! Very funny – not!!! My sister then reminded me about the nightshade family in the tomato. So that was the culprit. She continued to laugh while helping to rub aloe lotion on me, also reminding me of all the time I teased her about her “sensitive” skin (she breaks out in a rash at the drop of a hat). Now I was to learn exactly how she felt – in the most painful way!

The majority of the swelling went down after a couple of days, the rash took a bit longer. But I did learn a very valuable lesson. The tomato doesn’t care what your skin type is. It doesn’t care that you may have killed it in the past without feeing its agony. It only cares about the first moment you DO notice it. That moment when it can come out on your unsuspecting self and seek revenge!

So, now I know that I will attack the monster with full body armor, but I will display my kinder side. I will allow part of the plant to remain in the plot. I will cover it with extra protection and even add a small space heater so that the temperature will remain above freezing in its mini-tunnel. I will allow it to continue to provide us with fruit in a slower manner throughout the winter.

In turn, I believe, it will not decide to attack me. At least not until the next time I get stupid and try to clear it jungle style! It had better remember that revenge is sweet, especially served up in a pasta sauce!

Now, my older friends, you know where they got the idea for that wonderful “B” movie from back in the 70’s – Attack of the killer tomatoes. Enjoy!!  (oh, and of course don’t forget that great theme song )

I FOUND THE MEANNING OF LIFE!

/ helbergfarmstories / 6 Comments

So – it’s been about 18 months since our grandson/fire loss. There are still some hard days, but I am exceedingly tickled to announce that my sister is baking again! THIS IS A MILESTONE!! It is her passion and, in the terms of therapy for our family, a sign that things are getting better. This has made me come to realize what the meaning of life is…passion!

Now don’t get your nickers in a twist – I consider things like “caring for your fellow man/woman” to be a given! There are just some things in life that should not need a reason for being. It should be a subconscious action (I know it is not for many of us, but I like to believe we are trying?!) to look out for one another. The meaning of life though, should be an individual thing. It should be your reason for getting up in the morning and wanting to greet another day. To me that is –passion!

For the longest time, after the loss, I have been worried about my sister. Granted, we have had a lot on our plates that needed to be accomplished first; and putting our lives back together has been (still is) quite a task. It took me several months to find my passions again (you can check out my Pinterest page – GardenGlows  or my Etsy page.), but I am very glad to say they came back. Hers’ did not appear until just this last weekend.

DSC_0016  (one of my fav passions in life – knitting!)

I didn’t want to push her, since she was trying to handle the losses in her own way; however, there comes a time when a little shove can go a long way – as long as no one can tell you are doing it!?! I have to admit, I have the same basic problem – don’t rush me – and – leave me alone, I will do it when I am ready. Then there is a time when someone has to step in and let you know you are overdue for a bit of happiness.

I have been dropping hints for months! I bought her 2 fantastic magazine subscriptions on cooking. A couple of outstanding huge cook books (only a fraction of the ones she lost in the fire). Tons of cooking supplies/appliances/stuffs to help nudge her a bit. All this only seemed to be put on a shelf. Then, totally on her own, this last weekend she found her passion again!

Corned beef and potatoes, pecan bars (all from scratch even sat and cracked the nuts so they were fresh), homemade tomato soup from our own tomatoes (yep – prepped, processed, cooked and seasoned – yummy!), and one of my all-time favorites – homemade, from scratch, Italian Bread!

DSC_0018 DSC_0019

Now there are 2 things in life that automatically say home to me: 1) The smell of fresh baking/baked bread and 2) The smell of fresh baking/baked desserts – of any kind!  When you walk into someone’s home and they are in the middle of cooking something, it immediately brings on a warm, welcoming feeling. It makes me remember get-togethers with friends and family, where we three girls could be found helping dad cook everything up days ahead of time (yes – DAD – not mom, she was a terrible cook – melted a metal pot of water on the stove trying to make noodles? True story – LOL).

I hope that everyone reading this has a passion in their life and, more than that, I hope you are following it.  May it bring you excitement, comfort, joy, and a major reason to get up every morning filled with the desire to share it with the world!

CAN YOU HELP ME FIND THIS?

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Hey people, need some help here!  I am pretty good with computers and the internet, but this one has me stumped!  I am looking for specific garden plans for this:

 

cucumber arber-trellis

It is a type of garden trellis/arbor however, the plants are in buckets and looks like there is a PVC pipe watering system too (not sure, just guessing)?

I first notice it in Pinterest, then I found out one of our fellow word press bloggers: Town & Country Gardening  also had a picture of this in one of his older blogs (also found him/that in Pinterest).

I have followed every lead that I could possibly find to get the instructions for building one of these for our little green acres, to no avail. (all sad – boo hoo sad face)

So, I am reaching out to all of you – please help me find these plans!  If I can get a handle on it, I would also like to modify them to work in our greenhouse.

 

 

 

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OH HAPPY FALL, HOW DO I THANK YOU?

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We have finally come to my favorite time of the year – FALL!  Woo Hoo!  It is the time of year to harvest, to see my beloved colors! There was book that came out decades ago about “your color”. You matched which colors work best with your skin tone and that would give your select of colors that would look best on you. Well, I could have pegged that without even looking! It’s fall for me!

Winter is wonderful, Christmas is magnificent, but fall is brilliant! The colors, the farm fresh foods, the canning and food processing – yum! Up to this point we have been taste testing a few goodies, just here-and-there, but now we have the “abundance” phase!

Canning jars, vacuum sealers, pressure canners, freezer bags, dehydrators, old fashioned drying, oven drying, oven canning – take your pick, or be like us and pick them all! We have found over the years that some things just taste better done up a certain way.

DSC_0006

The other fun thing to do this time of year is start saving seeds. This, for us, goes hand-in-hand with food processing. Pickles just are not pickles without fresh dill. We have also found that dill is not just for pickles – excellent in pasta and potato salads, breads, dinner rolls and I even put a bit into my homemade chicken dumpling soup (sorry dad – I didn’t keep with the German family recipe.). It is just one of those great flavors that can go in so many different thing. Saving their seed is one of the simplest things to do.

When the dill stalks start to grow and begin to flower, I will start clipping “ferns” off the branches – NOT ALL OF THEM! You need to keep some on to help the plant. The ferns get clipped into a small brown back and left open to air dry. You can also spread them out on a sheet, but the bag is faster easier to me.

Then once the flower sets into seeds, I cut off the top again into a small brown bag. (Don’t clip off ALL the heads and don’t worry if some fall to the ground – it’s a good thing.) Then I sit down with my bag in front of a great movie and gently run my hand over the seed heads. This knocks the seeds to the bottom of the bag. I occasionally pull up the head to see if I have all the seeds off – if yes throw the stem into the compost pile – if no then repeat.

A large portion of the dill seeds get scattered to the winds in the beds all over the farm – on purpose – by us! Just about everything grows well with it. The Monarch and Swallow Tail butterflies love it (we also keep milk weed pods on the farm for them). It is a normal deterrent to a number of bad bugs, and I love the smell!

I hope by now you are hungry for both the gorgeous autumn colors and a huge bowl of dill potato salad! Enjoy.

(You can read more about my fall thoughts at my website: www.gardenglowsbydesign.com )

Where have I been for the last 3 years?

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That maybe the question some of my initial followers have been asking. It’s a long, horrible and tragic story – but I believe time has come to do some sharing.

The initial reason for this blog was to share my/our experience in building a 30′ x 86′ greenhouse. Yep, we did it ourselves, it is up and it is kinda running?! We are getting great produce out of it, which was the plan.

Two years after we completed the main part of construction, we had a house fire (Easter Sunday 2014). Unless you have lived through one, you may not understand the loss. My 4-year-old grandson was lost in the fire also – so the loss is huge!the piano(The floor had to be supported underneath here due to the 125+ year old piano in the far corner.  Amazingly it didn’t fall through-however it was too badly damaged and was trashed along with everything else.

In June of that same year I had to have part of my left index finger amputated (infection that got serious!). Those of you that know me personally, this was also devastating as I knit and crochet and that finger is important to the craft.

August was the discovery of osteoarthritis and the full reverse replacement of my right shoulder. November the full right knee. December the full left knee. March of 2015 saw the gutting and front tendon cut of the left shoulder (the ball is still in fairly good shape so the Doctor did not want to replace it just yet.). Then 5/1/15 was a major dissection of the left foot. It now has several screws, a metal plate, and a 2nd toe that will never curl again.

The foot surgery left me pretty much house-bound (close to bed-bound) for 3 months – not an initial plan on my part! During this time about the only thing I was able to do was think. I did a lot of thinking. My sister calls me the bionic woman – don’t feel so bionic. I feel better that I did before the fire – nice job doctors! But I still had a hole inside me. Something I was missing but couldn’t pin-point. So, in May of this year I did some major soul-searching and discovered that I maybe down, but I’m not out yet!

Check into my next blog to see how I have been getting through all of this! Thank you for viewing/reading!

Rachel

WORKING WITH METAL ON 100+DEGREE DAYS-OUCH!

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I want to apologize to my readers for not getting a post up sooner – got the spring fever bug from all this perfect planting weather we have right now.  Got my potatoes and onions in and covered (just incase a hard freeze sneaks in before May) so I’m ready to write again! This first picture shows the finished cement walls with the steel footer posts installed.  We had to wire the posts to the rebar to hold them in place.  They were wired at the top and middle areas – gotta tell you, reaching down into the space to wire up the middle caused a bit of blood to flow.  Funny how many things you don’t think of as sharp until they cut you!  Oh well, what’s a good project without a little bloodshed?

building the metal monster

putting parts together

   Check out the far wall-inside…it looks like shadows in the picture but it’s actually a ½ section of the roof framing.  Keith is working out how the 2 pieces are to go together for lifting and placing.  First we tried just laying them out on the ground to match the centerpiece to the 2 sides – didn’t work and too much dirt got into the piping.

 Then we tried setting a barrel in the center of the area with a ½ piece on either side.  The ends were on the ground, which was not a wide enough space for the whole thing put together.  We finally decided that placing the ends on the top of the wall, putting a barrel under the middle of each of the sidepieces, then a barrel at the center where the connector piece was worked.  It took about an hour at first to get everything level enough so the ½ sides would fit into the center connector.  After about the 6th one we got the time down to about 30-40 minutes for connecting – not bad for amateurs!!

 This next picture with a beautiful shot of me in all my glory (remember – its over 100 degrees out – we found that soaking a white cotton cloth and wrapping it around our heads, like in the picture, actually kept us cooler.  At least until the cloth dried and had to be re-soaked, unfortunately that only took about 2 hours on those really hot days!) show how the skeleton frames went up.  Keith is so smart and talented (couldn’t ask for a better friend!) that he actually constructed a special attachment to his bobcat  (see the long arm extending up from the bobcat to the top of the sections) that we could lower and raise to put each section in place.  I know that big construction companies actually have special equipment to do this sort of thing, but since we are neither big nor a construction company – I thought it was pretty ingenious of him!

proof I work!

Me in my glory-proof I worked on it.

We had to put together the 2 halves with the connector, and then attach the special arm from the bobcat with chains to the full frame.  Once all strapped together (not too tight because we had to be able to get the chain off the frame once it was secured in place – that fun trick was done by Keith shaking the bobcat causing the chains to unhook – freaky huh?!?) he would life the monster up into the air and, with my guidance, we would slowly move forward and backward until I could slip one side into the footer post and secure a bolt through it.  Now this is where the “hot metal” part comes in.

In order for me to get the frame to fit into the post I would have to push and pull the monster around.  At first it was not so bad – it was early morning and not hot yet.  Then, by around 11a.m., things started heating up.  Keep in mind we have all the parts laying out there for us to just grab and set up the next one.   Well, by 11a.m. I was not thinking about that fact, and just grabbed the next piece (that had been sitting in the sun all morning) to work on and proceeded to get 1st degree burns on my hands – IDIOT!  Gloves are a really great thing – when used (stupid is as stupid does)!!!  I tried a long sleeve shirt to protect my arms – but couldn’t stand the extra heat – so my arms got a bit of damage before we were done.

The picture below is a great view of some of the angles we had to go through with the ribs to try to get them into place.  The metal footers we were trying to hook into were only about 2 feet tall and 4”x 4” in diameter.  The ribs stand at least 20 feet from the top of the walls at center.  We are also down in the ground about 2 more feet inside the greenhouse.  So that gave us quite a lot of metal to play with in quite a bit of space.  The ribs alone took 3-4 days to get them all connected, up, placed, and secured.  That included some time with some really nice winds deciding to show up and “help” us!  That kind of help we could have done without.  Breezes were very welcome, but these were sand blasters!

how to handle the monster

In the end we installed 16 monster ribs on our beast!  Once they were in place the support pieces had to be attached to keep our ribs from separating and snapping off in our winds.  That took additional strength, in more ways than one.  There were no pre-drilled holes for these parts, so a lot of measuring and drilling needed to be done, and drilling up over your head or at a shoulder angle is the worst!  Take some aspirin before bed but expect to still wake up with little to no arm movement the next morning.

 Now I’m great on the ground, ok about 2 or 3 feet up – but scaffolding on the back of a pickup truck, putting me up about 20 feet – EEEKKK!!  Neither Keith or myself are “spring chickens” anymore, but I don’t consider myself (or him) to be at deaths door either.  I found out that I cannot climb the side of scaffolding now like I climbed up into our tree fort as a child, but with the help of a couple of ladders I could get up on top!  It’s a good thing it had side rails or I would have gone right over the edge a couple of times (one child like thing that I still do – not pay attention to where my feet are going!?).  I was too busy trying to get the darn things where they should be that I was not paying attention to where my brain was directing my feet to go – dumb think to do when you are 20’ off the ground!  Most of the time Keith did the installation (yea!!) since he is stronger – however his bodily functions are not much better than mine, so by the end of the day we were both beat.  I have to admit that a few times during our construction process, we did have to take a day off to recoup.

When all was said and done – it looked pretty awesome!!  We were very proud of ourselves and the fact that just the 2 of us put all these up – no major professional equipment – no professional contractors.  In retrospect, it was a pretty outstanding thing that we did, and I’m very glad we did it!  I’m a thinker by nature; I need to know how things work and why to understand them clearly.  By building this thing from scratch ourselves, I feel more connected to it.  One of my main goals is to know every inch of it, how it works and why it works incase something, in the future, needs to be fixed or replaced – I can say “I know how to do that!”

great supports

excellent support system in place.

The next phase is to clean up, seal and install end walls (God save my poor tiny knuckles!).

Greenhouse Project – Unique Walls

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A few hours after our interesting guest, a semi truck stopped in front of our house.  We are right off an interstate and this happens a lot!  Semi’s, pickup’s, and your average everyday vehicle stop here quite often.  Lost, out of gas, needing assistance – somehow they end up visiting our little piece of heaven.  (We must come across as some type of sanctuary – not exactly what we had in mind when we bought the place!)

This time the driver was actually looking for us-amazing!  He had our back-ordered special load – YEA!  The sidewalls are here!  These were a unique type of form with double insulated sidewalls for our greenhouse project called Greenblock (see their website for more info on their American made and environmentally friendly parts: www.greenblock.com )!  They had to be special ordered and then custom made to fit our design specs.  Took over a month to get them due to a backorder at a factory that makes the skeleton.

The whole concept of even using them for a greenhouse is a very new idea-but we were willing to take a shot at it!  The plan is to have a year-around working environment with as little expense on utilities as possible.  With these unique walls, we would be triple insulating the base of our greenhouse.  They are used exactly as a cement wall in a basement, however; they are permanent and have a “green” insulation inside and out and the center has a skeleton structure, which gets filled with cement in between the two insulated panels.  The looked like giant leggos!

I removed and stacked all the footer boards and hardware to expose just the cement footer with the 4-foot tall pieces of rebar sticking up from them.  Then the “leggos” fit together to form the base wall on top of the footer.  This was just as easy to put together as a leggo castle except they had to be staggered and set up over the vertical rebar footer pieces.  What great fun to act like kids again playing with these things!

Once the blocks are stacked tightly (see picture), then rebar is placed within them for added strength to the cement – pretty cool concept!  Additional smaller pieces of rebar are added to the corners for additional strength against our lovely winds in Colorado. 

Then 2×4 boards are pushed against the inside walls and secured with heavy metal ground stakes – this helps to hold them in place while the cement is poured (What a great idea that turned out to be!  Never realized just how strong flowing cement is until this was built!).

After all of the pieces are in place, the cement trucks were called in  (thank you Green Bros. Concrete!) and what a project that was!

I had never done any type of concrete work where a truck actually provides fast flowing tons of cement.  The footer was an experience – but was a piece of cake compared to these walls.  The complete footer was poured and done in about 1 hour – the walls took over 3 hours!

One of the biggest problems with using the walls was the metal posts.  Along each wall, square metal posts were set over rebar pieces.  These posts were then to be the foundation platform for the ceiling frames.  So, as we were moving along a wall with the cement truck, we had to move really slow and maneuver over and around each post.  The truck showed up around 10 a.m.  The temperature rose to over 100° that day and we did not finish until after 1 p.m.  I thank God for friends like Randy and Frank that worked in the construction field and knew about all this – they were truly a God send that day!!

I was not aware of how long the process was going to take.  Unfortunately – I was not prepared either!  We usually had enough bottles of liquid (water & green tea) to make it through our daily project – not this time.  We were down to our last corner and ½ the south end wall when I almost passed out.

I was alone on the inside wall holding a piece of ply-board that we screwed 2 handles to.  I held the board up and against my chest while the 3 guys on the other side of the wall (outside) directed the cement truck and flow.  My job was to make sure that little or no cement got into the inside of the greenhouse area.  Now you have to also remember that there are the 2×4’s on the inside to hold up the wall for additional support.  I had to climb over each one as we moved along (I say climb because I am short and they were up to my hips).  So between the climbing, walking, pushing against the rushing cement, the 100+degree heat, and having no time for a liquid break – I buckled (felt soooo stupid – I know better than to do this!). 

We had even learned to wrap a water soaked towel around our heads down the back of our necks to keep the top of the head and back of neck cool.  By the time we reached my point of breaking – my head towel was completely dry (at least it protected from sunburn!).

Frank was wonderful and climbed the 2 ladders over to my side (only way to get in and out was by ladders on either side of the wall) and took over for me – what a guy!

When it was all said and done – we were all so proud!  Even though it took two trucks of cement and hours longer than expected – we had a pretty good-looking base to our greenhouse project!  Can’t wait for the roof!