Spring Knocking; Ammo Cans; Garden; Feedlot Panels

It finally looks as if our snow is gone until the next winter.  Everything melted, YAY…….spring is knocking at our door.  

This weekend, its spring a head time………for those of you who don’t know this or forget……………set your clock ahead 1 hour on Sunday for Daylight Savings Time. 

Picture from NEWFRUIT.ORG

The recent happenings on the homestead; we received a couple of deliveries of ammunition boxes for our son.  Apparently Tank found himself a good deal off of Amazon he couldn’t pass up.  He had ordered, I believe, about 10, 50 caliber boxes, and 5, 40 mm boxes.  I found this out because they were in the middle of my living room when I came inside the house.  At first, I thought I had walked into an Army Surplus store, lol……. The boy has another package or two coming. He’s waiting on another delivery from UPS/Federal Express.  

Late this morning, after the temperatures warmed up outside, I removed the plastic covering on my onion bed.  I also removed the feedlot panels holding the plastic, along with the bricks, to expose my planted onions to the sun.  Once the onions were exposed, I was happy to see they survived our radical temperature changes, snow, and ice.   As it warmed up outside, I gave the onions a nice long drink of water.  

Our dog, Beans, decided he wanted to stay outside with me while I continue to work in the garden.  He was in the middle of everything, smelling, and playing.  I guess he wanted to plant some lettuce seeds with me.  He grabbed a packet of seeds and ran around the garden box holding them as if to say, “Come on Mom we need to get started planting”.

I planted 4 different types of lettuce….Red Romaine, Paris Island Cos., Great Lakes, and Butter Head, in one of my smaller garden boxes.  Throughout the planting season, I generally will plant several different varieties of lettuce, to get us through until the end of fall when the temperatures start to change.

Initially, I was going to plant my lettuce in with my onions….companion planting.    Companion planting sometimes helps with confusing insects by luring them away from the plants they normally target. With onions you could plant beets, carrots, lettuce, cabbage, and summer savory vegetables.  I realized after uncovering the onions, I had no space to plant my lettuce or beets.  I’ll give the onions a few weeks to get bigger and see if there’s any way I could possibly squeeze some beets or additional lettuce seeds in between each onion.

While piddling out in the garden today, I noticed we have several strawberry plants producing new leaves.  It’s time for me to pull out any old leaves, cut and remove several runners, and place more straw around the base of each plant to prevent snails and slugs from getting at the leaves.

See this picture of feedlot panels? This is just one stash of several panels waiting to be used this weekend (weather permitting).  Bulldog Man and I will need to pull up the old fencing, move old T-posts, install new T-posts, and line the bottom of the feedlot panels with a smaller wire to prevent critters from getting through the squares on the bottom side.

What are your plans this weekend?