By thegardenergal on June 14, 2011
Last night, there were storms in the vicinity. We weren’t lucky enough to get any rain, but we did get a little wind. Like we don’t have more than enough of that. Ha! Then, on the 10:00 news, our local weather guy said that there was another “heat burst” event – this time in Augusta, Kansas (12 miles from the farm) – but that the temperature only rose 8 degrees in 8 minutes. Well, good? Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Green living, Homesteading, Kansas, Kansas farm life, Kansas weather
By thegardenergal on June 10, 2011
I’m ashamed to be writing this so late, but as I’m sure many people will agree, getting the vegetable garden in and growing takes priority in the spring – that is my excuse. That being said, this “thank you” is incredibly, awfully late, and I’m not usually this rude. Really. Don’t get me wrong – I can be really rude when I need to be, but it takes effort and energy that I just don’t have this time of year. So, please believe me when I tell you that this epic rudeness was unintentional. Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Gardening, Green living, Herbs, Homesteading, I recommend these..., Kansas, Tips, Tricks and How-tos
By thegardenergal on June 9, 2011
“Wichita experiences rare heat burst overnight” – that and similar headlines were all over the Internet this morning and everyone is talking about it. Have you ever heard of a “heat burst event” before? Me neither. And I’ve been living on this earth a long, long time. Well, not *that* long, but awhile now… Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Green living, Homesteading, Kansas, Kansas farm life, Kansas weather
By thegardenergal on June 9, 2011
Had I not been craving grits for breakfast this morning, I would have surely missed out on the unusual sensation of having Pickle Crisp run down over my arm and leg (and a cat), beginning a mystery and a 30-minute unscheduled cleaning job. Oh, lucky me! Continue reading »
Posted in Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Green living, Homesteading, Kansas, Kansas farm life, Preserving the harvest, Tips, Tricks and How-tos
By thegardenergal on June 1, 2011
I know that title isn’t grammatically correct… get off my back. I’m an organic gardener, not an English professor. I was living under the impression all these years that summer starts on June 21st each and every year. Yesterday, I learned that that is not necessarily true… not when you’re talking about meteorological summer. Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Green living, Homesteading, Kansas, Kansas farm life, Kansas weather
By thegardenergal on May 31, 2011
I’ve always prided myself on being a Kansan because we are the most common-sense, down to earth, pragmatic people I’ve ever met. I used to think it was because we live with the knowledge that everything can be taken away in a gust of wind, but when you rebuild it’s even better, and because we know just how precious life is and how tenuous our grip is upon it. Continue reading »
Posted in Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Gardening, Homesteading, Kansas, Kansas farm animals, Kansas farm life, Kansas weather, Peace on the prairie
By thegardenergal on May 23, 2011
I didn’t intend to take a break from gardening (or blogging) – it just sort of happened. A little period of anergy overtook me. It started with unsettled weather. I’m not eager to plant if there’s baseball-sized hail in the immediate forecast. None of that happened here, though, and we’re still in a drought, which is really disappointing but not at all surprising. This week is still unsettled with moderate risk of storms, but I’m back at it now, planting, weeding, maintaining, and mulching. Last night, even though I was dead tired and had way too much going on, I planted 32 okra plants that I had pre-germinated in a wet paper towel. There was some question as to viability, so I did that to have a better idea whether they would actually germinate or not, and about half of them did. That sounds like an awful lot of okra, doesn’t it? Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Gardening, Green living, Homesteading, Kansas, Kansas farm life, Kansas weather
By thegardenergal on May 19, 2011
I recently had a conversation about weather with a non-Kansan. His impression, I believe, was that Kansans in general (and me, in particular) have an odd obsession with constantly monitoring the weather. I don’t mean just knowing the predicted high and low temperatures, but I mean being really obsessed with it. Like having a website open with real-time Doppler radar running constantly, at least in the spring. As a Kansan, this is perfectly normal behavior, and I’m sort of amazed that other people aren’t as weather-conscious as we are. Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Homesteading, I recommend these..., Kansas, Kansas farm life, Kansas weather
By thegardenergal on May 17, 2011
Where we live, we are having drought conditions. We have cracks in our backyard that I don’t even want to try to measure – they’re deep. It’s worse in a lot of places than it is here, but since this is where we grow, this is what we’re concerned with. So, how thrilling it is to have the possibility of alleged rain in the forecast for not just one day, but several days! My plants were really dry yesterday, though, and my last experience with the local weather guys predicting rain was really disappointing. Continue reading »
Posted in Conservation, Country Lifestyle, Dieting and weight loss, Ecology, Gardening, Green living, Herbs, Homesteading, I recommend these..., Kansas, Kansas farm life, Reducing sodium intake
By thegardenergal on May 16, 2011
Well, I grew my tomatoes from seed this year, as usual, and I nurtured them and loved them and cared for them, then I almost killed them, saved them, almost killed them again, saved them once again and now, I’m going to put their lives at risk yet again, all for the sake of “hardening off” in a really difficult spring. Continue reading »
Posted in Country Lifestyle, Ecology, Gardening, Green living, Homesteading, Kansas, Kansas farm life, Peace on the prairie