Summer At Peaceful Forest

Peaceful Forest Road

Summer at Peaceful Forest  is never easy for some reason. At least not for us here. The projects we hope to work on always take money and that is always hard to come by. It seems that summer should not be more expensive than winter, but it is always a difficult time. Here it is the middle of July and we have just started getting some vegetables from the garden. Our first vegetables, which we ate for supper the last two nights, was yellow summer squash. It was good to finally have super fresh, organic vegetables. Yes, I said organic, even though we are not certified by the so called "government."

Organic Homegrown Yellow Squash

We have bush bean plants that are loaded with blossoms. Our cucumber plants have tiny cucumbers coming soon. My mouth is watering thinking about them all! Our garden is organic in all ways. We never use any type of chemicals on it. Our fertilizer is our own compost made from our horses' manure, which is all organic, as they do not consume any type of chemicals. Even their hay comes from fields that has nothing added to it.

No fumes EVER is deposited on our garden!

Since it has been a cooler summer this year, with plenty of rain, our raised beds have not needed watering. They get hot in the sun, but not like normal for this time of year. We have been removing trees that shade parts of our garden, and that has made a big difference. I count about seven more trees that need to be taken out. That adds to our firewood pile for winter. Always thinking of winter!

Bush Beans

Hope your summer is going well and your garden is producing a lot of food for your winter stores. I will be getting my canner out soon. I can everything I grow for winter meals. Even the summer squash, which I know everyone will say you can't. I do. It is good and fresh when I take the lid off!

 I hope you have a happy homesteading day! 

Copyright © 2014 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2014 Kathleen G. Lupole

The Wheel Hoe

The Wheel Hoe

I have written about our wheel hoe many times on here. Today I was just going to post the pictures for Wordless Wednesday. Well, I couldn't do that. I had too much to say on the subject. Considering I have already written two different blog posts on this little piece of equipment, it still is one of my biggest traffic posts. It seems many people, around the world are interested in it. Why not? It uses no fuel except the human kind.

The bicycle tire on the wheel hoe

In my post, Preparing Our Raised Beds For Planting Season, I told about using the wheel hoe. Some people refer to it as a wheel cultivator. Whichever term you use, it is a nice little tool. What it means is that you can plow up your garden quite easily, if it is a regular garden spot. It is quite easy to plow up a garden area or raised bed with it. If you are a physically strong person, you can plow up a new piece of ground with it also. My husband has replaced the original wheel which was iron, with a bicycle tire. It made it much easier to use.

The front of the hoe

I won't show it in action here, as I did that in the post I wrote last year, Plowing The Garden With The Wheel Hoe. With the price of gas going up, using a wheel hoe is good way to cut down your use of fuels. What we like is that you do not have the smell of fuel in your face while you are working in your garden. Our garden has never been plowed with a rototiller......well, once. A friend of my husband's came over with his rototiller to start our garden area when my husband was injured at work. Well, that rototiller smelled up our whole yard, it kept quitting and it got tangled up in the weeds we were trying to get rid of before it even came near the dirt. He didn't finish. That was the only time ever we used one here.

Side view of the hoe

We use it for plowing up the raised beds and for removing weeds that grow between the plants. Some beds I can't do that on as I fill it with food. They crowd out the weeds. If there is a weed growing there that we eat, like dandelions or lamb's quarter, we leave it alone. A wheel hoe is a great addition to your garden especially with the price of gas going up. Try it!

Copyright © 2012 Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2012  Kathleen G. Lupole

Sights Seen Around A Homestead On Wordless Wednesday

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole

All Photographs Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole

My List Of Homesteading Essentials

Morning At Peaceful Forest Homestead

Homesteaders are different from the main stream masses. We already downsized before it became fashionable. When we chose to go into this lifestyle termed as "homesteading"............. what do you need a big screen television for? What do you need a fancy sports car for? And designer clothes and jewelry? None of that stuff has a place in our lifestyle. It just takes up room and then one day you notice that you haven't used it, viewed it or worn in a year. Out it goes!

So what does a "modern homesteader" need to maintain this lifestyle? I have come up with my list that I will have to keep adding to most likely. It changes over time and is unique to each individual homestead. Some raise livestock for food, some like us, do not. My list will not include them since I do not have them. My livestock are my horses and they are not for food. LOL For pleasure only.........not sure if it for their pleasure or mine!

1. Manual tools - Shovels, Pick, Rake, Hoe, Wheel Hoe, Post Hole Digger.

2. Chainsaw and manual saws such as the buck saw and crosscut saw.
    Essential for heating and cook stove wood. Also for clearing land or getting wood for posts.

3. Cast Iron Cookware - well seasoned and knowledge to use.
    I'd be lost without my cast iron cookware as I can cook in a stove, on a grill or in a fire pit.

4. Canners - Pressure & Water Bath.

5. A good supply of canning jars is especially important.
    Once you have a good amount of these you recycle them by using them over and over.


6. Wood stoves - for heat and cooking

7. Supply of containers to start plants in.
    I start most of my plants in March so I start them in the house in a whatever container I find.

8. Wheelbarrow and garden cart.
    For transporting wood, plants, compost, rocks, water, etc.

9.  Books, Cookbooks, Gardening, References for whatever you are doing.

    If the internet was down or in a SHTF scenario you'd still have references for help.

10. Large glass jars, wooden boxes, baskets, containers to store food in pantry & root cellar.

      Storing foods in your pantry and root cellar needs some kind of containers that pests cannot access.

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole
All Photographs Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole
Updated August 2016

Plowing The Garden With The Wheel Hoe

Raised Beds Last Year 2009 Full of Food!

Spring time seems to bring out our enthusiasm for work. Must be the birds coming back home makes us just want to be out there with them. No wonder they are singing while they work! It just seems so peaceful when the weather is nice, the sun shining, the sky blue and a gentle breeze swishing through the tops of our huge trees. Hard to stay in the house when the outside is calling to me.

My  husband has been experiencing that call to work outside big time this spring. He has been out there almost daily working on some project or other. Most of my projects lately have been inside. So here I sit while he is out there working physically hard. Sometimes sitting at the computer working online is my favorite job.......but on these beautiful, early days in the spring, after winter is over, I just want to be outside in the sun. I planted a couple of early beds of salad greens and look forward to them getting a head start. They like cool weather anyway. I never buy salad vegetables once summer is here and my plants are plentiful.

I told in my previous post about our wheel hoe which we use to plow our raised beds.......well here is a couple pictures of how it looks in action. As you can see the bicycle tire makes the job seem effortless. Seem effortless is what I said..........but it is not by any means effortless! He was working hard and he did all these wood beds in one day.

As you can see it fits right in the raised bed and you can walk alongside of it so you don't pack your composted dirt down in the bed. You could also walk with your feet on the edges of the bed if you can, but that might be easier for a younger person.

It may seem to be a lot more work than using a rototiller. But honestly it is not. A rototiller shakes and grinds while you are pushing it. It stinks from the gasoline fumes. It makes the air blue. It breaks down. My own father at almost 91 uses one, and almost every time I go over there he is working on it. Our wheel hoe can be used with your critters laying around watching you as you will see in my photo below.  You can be listening to the birds while you work.

When he was finished our raised beds looked great and seemed to be inviting me to plant something in them. So I am checking out my cold weather plant seeds now. Most of my seeds will be sprouted and ready to go in the garden by the end of May, depending on the weather of course. Our nights are still pretty cool here in upstate New York.

All our beds should produce enough food for us to get through till next harvest season. I am planning on really working hard at it this year. I will also add food I don't grow from our local farms and farmer's markets. My hope is to be able to build a safe secure little hen house for about six Rhode Island Reds. With them I think I can cut my dependence on store bought eggs. I will be writing more about eliminating many foods from the grocery stores. It isn't safe or good for you. Time for everyone to add a garden to their homes for their health and the health of their families.

As you can tell........our critters, Patches, Hobo and Nikita (our dog) got exhausted watching my husband do all that work!

Hope you were able to get a start on your gardens. I know many people in the south are a lot further along than we are. Even with a short gardening season you can fill your pantry and root cellar with much food if you just put in the effort. If you have children.........time to teach them how while you have the chance. It might just save their lives in the future.

Copyright © 2010  Kathleen G. Lupole

Fall Is On The Way

It is Fall already here in upstate New York. We have been feeling it in the air for a couple of weeks already. Our Robins are gone. The only birds I hear now are the Blue Jays and Woodpeckers. I miss the Robins singing while I work out in my garden. Every year, that is what I look forward to - seeing my first Robin. Now, it's time to stock up on bird food, especially for the chickadees. They come right up to me and demand to be fed, all winter long.

I canned more green beans today. And made some banana bread. So I wasn't on my computer this morning. Some days, I just have to get my household chores done. Neither one of those chores are really chores to me. I love to can food! I buy it in the grocery store on sale and bring it home to can. Once I mastered using my pressure canners, I became the canning queen! My father taught me to can, and what he showed me how to make was grape jelly. As he grows lots of grapes. Now I usually can it as juice, and if I need jelly or jam, I can can that. Last year, I canned lots of Elderberry Jelly, so this year, I plan on canning the Elderberry Juice. As it is good to have around, as a preventive measure for catching the flu - even the bird flu!

My husband knows how to can food too. Our first year that we had a garden, he canned 40 quarts of corn, 49 quarts of green beans, over 50 of pickles and I canned 48 quarts of pumpkin. I was working at that time, and he was home, so he was left to do most of the gardening and canning. And we have never used a gasoline rototiller to do our gardens. My husband has one of those wheel hoes, that he plows our gardens with. Both houses we had gardens at had never had a garden before. So he had a lot of hard work to get it in. But he doesn't like the fumes in our garden area. Last year, he started building beds for our garden, and we both like them so much better. I built some stone beds too. And we plan on adding more of those. Our plan is to grow as much as our food as possible.

My tomatoes are still green as I got them in late, due to heavy rains we had here earlier in the spring. So if they don't turn red, I will bring them in and wrap them in paper and turn them red inside like that. Or I will, slice them and fry up some good ole fried green tomatoes, which is something we love! A couple of years ago, Jackie Clay (my favorite author, who writes at Backwoods Home Magazine) said that you could put them in a pie, and tell everyone it was a apple pie and nobody would know the difference. Well, I did that. My husband knew immediately that it was not a apple pie! He ate it, as he will not waste food (unless you give him onions or mushrooms!), but he was not crazy about it. Sorry, Jackie.

My brother, Mickey Dran, better known as "The Marshall", puts on a wild west show called "The Spirit of The Old West", and he has been doing this for a number of years now. Tomorrow his show will be robbing the Cooperstown Railroad in Cooperstown, New York. His show uses black powder guns, and the kids usually love it. They dress in period clothes, and he is a stickler for detail. So it should be a fun time for all!

Well, I'll try to be back tomorrow. Have a great week end!