Things We’ve Done Lately on Blackberry Homestead

January 12, 2025 With the snow coming and trees ordered, it was time to do some sheet mulching to get ready for the pecan trees. On Wednesday (January 8), I took two large cardboard boxes from the barn and flattened them. I carried them out to the front yard. I also brought some large rocks […]

Checking on the RV and Ordering Topsoil

January 9, 2025 In the early afternoon on January 4 (Saturday), we drove to the Florence Alabama RV Park to make sure the RV was OK. While we were there, Bruce replaced the RV’s propane tank regulator. It had been acting up, so he wanted a new one installed before the cold weather arrived. The […]

Winter Storm Watch Warning for Friday

January 8, 2025 While we got a few flurries of snow on and off earlier this week, we didn’t get any real accumulation. This morning, I woke to an alert for a winter storm watch. The polar vortex is about to arrive. The National Weather Service is predicting snow to start at 12:00 AM on […]

Seeds on the Way

January 5, 2025 I love planning my garden at this time of year. I was busy ordering seeds online from Southern Seeds, when by chance I looked out my office window on Friday (January 3). The moon was a beautiful crescent with Venus nearby, brightly shining. I took a picture through my window, then I […]

A Busy Couple of Days

January 2, 2025 On New Year’s Day, Bruce noticed a couple of flickers in the backyard, fairly close to the house. We walked over to the sliding door and watched them for a while. The wind calmed down and Bruce decided to use his chainsaw to cut the branches off the fence. He also cut […]

Happy New Year!

January 1, 2025 I wish everyone a Happy New Year! Wow! It is hard to believe that 2024 is done! I’ll have to get used to writing and typing 2025. This always takes me a while. Last week, Bruce complained the tall garden beds hid the short garden beds. He also mentioned that if we […]

Putting Together a Large (12 Piece) Tall (29 Inches) Raised Metal Garden

December 25, 2024 Yesterday, we finished putting together the large (12 piece) short (15 inches) garden beds from Epic Gardening’s Amazon shop. Our configuration is 4 feet by 8 feet. These garden beds are from Australia and the company is Birdies Garden Products. For their USA customers, they sell their garden beds through Epic Gardening. […]

Merry Christmas!

December 25, 2024 Besides a new roof for Christmas, we also bought twelve metal garden beds. The first six arrived last week and the rest arrived yesterday, just in time for Christmas. We finished putting together the short beds (17’) beds yesterday. Thanks to a reminder from Leslie from https://www.lbowmanstudios.com/ and https://theadventuresofbiteydog.com/ about her experience […]

Putting Together the Birdies Metal Garden Beds

December 21, 2024 With the disappointing results from the soil tests, we decided to use raised garden beds with premium topsoil and compost. We are going to purchase topsoil and compost to fill the beds. Yesterday, the boxes for the short beds arrived from Amazon. We bought Birdies metal garden beds from Epic Gardening’s store […]

Putting Together the Leaf Sweeper

December 17, 2024 We ordered a leaf sweeper to tow behind the mower from Amazon. It arrived yesterday and we spent this evening putting it together. It was more complicated to put together than the cart. Ready to try out when the leaves dry out!