I baked up a big smoked half ham from one of our pigs for Easter dinner. Our son and daughter-in-law, Bill and Kelly, along with our grandchildren, Mason and Ava were at our place for dinner. My sister Sue and her son Sean also joined us, so along with Will, David, and I we had a real nice visit and meal. Nearly all of our meal came from the homestead including caramelized baked squash slices, two pies, and Will’s favorite cheesecake, of course.
As our stored potatoes are still holding up very well, I also made a big batch of potatoes au gratin and we scarfed down mustard bean pickles and other goodies with our meal. We still had nearly two feet of snow in our yard, so we didn’t have an Easter egg hunt here. Bill and Kelly held one for the kids at home before coming. They DID love the huge green emu egg!
We had so much fun watching Mason and Ava playing and Ava eating chocolate and cookies. But today it’s back to the old grind. I am continuing to plant seeds indoors and getting ready to transplant our first tomatoes, which now have three sets of leaves. I was sure tickled when I went to our local nursery, The Watering Can, and found that Dianne was stocking and selling bags of Pro-Mix! I’ve used it for years and years and have found no better seed starting and growing medium. I did weaken and try a small bag of Jiffy-Mix seed starting medium this spring and found that they haven’t improved it a bit. It is SO hard to get to it absorb water! It takes me half an hour to dampen one small container. What a pain.
I also trialed a small bag of Miracle Gro seed starting medium. A few years back, we tried it and were really disappointed in the results — yellow spindly plants and poor germination. This year, they have changed the formula and I can say that they did a good job. (Don’t make a mistake and use POTTING soil!) Even worse is the cheap, very dense and heavy “top soil” or “potting soil” that is wet peat moss. It is too acid and dense and seedlings just won’t grow in it.
Our snow is continuing to melt and I’m truly thankful. I’ll be so glad to get into the dirt and even pull dead debris out of my flower beds. Whew, winter has been long.
By the way, any of you who live in northern Minnesota might want to stop up in Mt. Iron for the Earth Fest on April 6th. Will and I will be manning the Backwoods Home booth at this show and we’d love to visit with you! Stop by and say hi! — Jackie
Gee whiz Jackie! Your granddaughter looks just like you! What a sweetie pie. :)
Your granddaughter is beautiful!
Jackie….your grand-baby is absolutely adorable.
Thank you Jackie, you made my day. You are the reason I came the first time and you are the first booth I look for when we get there. Lee just enjoyed seeing every thing. And he enjoyed his visit with Will.
Ruth Ann,
We start most all of our peppers at one time, then two weeks later, our tomatoes. We don’t have a long enough season for succession crops of these. We do plant broccoli in succession so we have a nice fall crop. Here our last spring frost is usually around June 15th and the first fall frost comes about September 5th so it limits us a bit. The hoop houses and Wall’O Waters sure help out a lot, though.
Nancy,
I hope Lee is feeling better, but I know it takes a long time to get back up to par. But I hope by the MREA Fair he’s feeling much better and you can come visit with us at the BHM booth. It’s always great talking to you. It’s one of the highlights of the weekend for us.
Ginger,
Oh yes, we DID get the hulless oats and will definitely give them a try! Thank you so very much.
Ginger,
My Pro-Mix is Pro-Mix Micorrhizae but I think any Pro-Mix would work fine. Some has different ingredients to prevent damping off (a big problem in some very humid greenhouses; not so at home), nothing that would change the germinating and growing of your seeds.
My friend told me that she got hers at Menards, so if you have a store near by, you might check out the garden section.
Bobster,
Wow, that sounds great. You can bet I’ll try it next time I cook a ham!! Now you’ve made me hungry.
Oh, and by the way, we use Pro Mix to start plants also. My son starts several hundred tomato plants and then hopes to sell tomatoes. He is trying to grow out some new crosses that he made a couple years ago and last year and has tomato seeds listed in Seed Savers Catalog this year. Has actually gotten a few orders for them too.
Live in Michigan in lower part of the lower peninsula. Today its 42 out. Started some plants a few days ago but they aren’t up yet. My son started several flats of tomatoes and they are up and growing well. On April 1, I did plant some lettuce seeds out – kinda an experiment to see if they will germinate and grow in this cold weather. Do you start all your plants at the same time or do you start some later so you have a longer season of harvest? I only started a few plants of each variety and plan to start some more in about 2 weeks. We will plant outside around May 15, depending on weather.
Would love to come to the Earth Fest but Lee had open heart surgery on March 28 and he is not up to going far. And we just picked up a fair durning the MRE. I may have to cut out on the fair. We both want to come back. Heres hoping. Have a God filled year. Didn’t even start anything this year except strawberries. never started them before. they are growing good.
I agree on the Jiffy Mix, I used that last year and had a disaster! I made sure I did not buy that again! I have used the Burpee Tomato seed starting mix in the past with excellent results. This year I did try the Miracle Gro, so far so good! I also bought this year the Espoma Organic Seed starting mix, I just used it this weekend to transplant my tomatoes into larger pots, it’s a rich black mix that is easy to wet, we’ll see how that does.
Jackie, I so look forward to your posts. I have been reading and following you for a while and look forward to learning from you. I tried the jiffy mix and it is very hard to wet. Also the seeds did not germinate very well. I didn’t know if it was the mix or the seed but I have replanted and a few more came up. I will try mixing up my own next year using soil, vermiculite, perlite and peat moss. Growing a garden here on the coast is a challenge but we usually have a pretty good one. Our tomatoes usually sunburn before they ripen so we are going to try putting a shade cloth over them this summer. Thank you for all the info. Best wishes to you and your family.
Hi Jackie, Is that Pro Mix Hp, Bx or something else? I was looking for it on line and can’t find one in a bag Just like yours. Don’t want to get the wrong thing. Thanks, GingerB- Northern Colo.
P.S. Did you get the hulless oats package we sent?
dinner sounds great! we also had a smoked shoulder from one of our pigs. here is a cooking suggestion….
Put the chunk of meat in a big pan. cut up carrots, turnip, parsnips, potatoes and a few whole onions, then scatter them round the ham when it bakes. the smoky juice runs into the pan and flavors the veggies in a heavenly way :-).
I agree about the bagged stuff; its well worth some research before buying…
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