What about a "natural - organics" forum?

and a goat... and chickens.
and a bigger garden
and solar panels
and a wind turbine
and geo-thermal

You convinced me.

I think a garden would be neat. When I was renting a room years ago, the guy who owned the house had a simple garden. It was great to be able to go out, grab a tomato and bring it into the house.

Most of our backyard is a slope. Putting a garden on it wouldn't be impossible, but would take a fair amount of grading.

Are you sure? Really? No, I love all of our land, I really do and wouldn't trade it for the world. MIL says we don't use it like we should - have cows, chickens, goats, or even a bigger garden, but hey whatever, lol.

The pain is mowing it. There is only roughly 1.5 acres that is mowable, but it takes a LOT of time to mow and weed eat. Also, with that much acreage you don't have a nice green lawn - you have acreage that is being taken over by weeds and you succumb to the fact that it will never look like the lawns you see in subdivisions. It's just too much work, time, and money to make it look gorgeous, but we still love it.

and a goat... and chickens.
and a bigger garden
and solar panels
and a wind turbine
and geo-thermal

touche

You convinced me.

I think a garden would be neat. When I was renting a room years ago, the guy who owned the house had a simple garden. It was great to be able to go out, grab a tomato and bring it into the house.

Most of our backyard is a slope. Putting a garden on it wouldn't be impossible, but would take a fair amount of grading.

Just make garden boxes. Our back yard slopes and it sucks that it slopes, but we don't have the time or money to haul in a ton of dirt to flatten it.

We have clay soil so we can't grow things in the ground, nothing ever grows. So we made garden boxes (and some are on the slope, lol) and grow our veggies in there. Making the boxes are expensive as well as bringing in the dirt, but it's worth it. Our problem is keeping the deer out of our garden so we actually can eat all we grow.

and a goat... and chickens.
and a bigger garden
and solar panels
and a wind turbine
and geo-thermal

You know I think it would be great to have chickens for eggs, goats for cheese/milk, cows for milk, meat, etc but boy that would be a LOT of work. We also have to deal with coyotes (wolves, whatever they are around here) and so we'd have to do a lot of fencing to do so. I just don't think we have the time with working full-time.

Are you sure? Really? No, I love all of our land, I really do and wouldn't trade it for the world. MIL says we don't use it like we should - have cows, chickens, goats, or even a bigger garden, but hey whatever, lol.

The pain is mowing it. There is only roughly 1.5 acres that is mowable, but it takes a LOT of time to mow and weed eat. Also, with that much acreage you don't have a nice green lawn - you have acreage that is being taken over by weeds and you succumb to the fact that it will never look like the lawns you see in subdivisions. It's just too much work, time, and money to make it look gorgeous, but we still love it.

I always want what I can't have so once I had 3.5 acres, I'd probably want 50. But yes, I'd like more land.

I lived in Colorado and we had a couple of acres in the backyard that was our pasture, so I know what it's like to have a bit of land. I don't mind if it isn't pristine green manicured grass. We used one half for our horse and the other for my motorcycle.

My father-in-law has chickens and LOVES the fact you can go out and get eggs. I think I could handle chickens. Probably not cows and goats, but who knows.

Are you sure? Really? No, I love all of our land, I really do and wouldn't trade it for the world. MIL says we don't use it like we should - have cows, chickens, goats, or even a bigger garden, but hey whatever, lol.

The pain is mowing it. There is only roughly 1.5 acres that is mowable, but it takes a LOT of time to mow and weed eat. Also, with that much acreage you don't have a nice green lawn - you have acreage that is being taken over by weeds and you succumb to the fact that it will never look like the lawns you see in subdivisions. It's just too much work, time, and money to make it look gorgeous, but we still love it.

I always want what I can't have so once I had 3.5 acres, I'd probably want 50. But yes, I'd like more land.

I lived in Colorado and we had a couple of acres in the backyard that was our pasture, so I know what it's like to have a bit of land. I don't mind if it isn't pristine green manicured grass. We used one half for our horse and the other for my motorcycle.

My father-in-law has chickens and LOVES the fact you can go out and get eggs. I think I could handle chickens. Probably not cows and goats, but who knows.

I dunno about being pecked. And the chicken poo, they really are filthy animals from what I gather. But it would be AWESOME to go out and get my own eggs. We get ours from our farmer right now, but when I run out I have to wait until the next time we meet with our farmer.

I like that idea but don't know anything about them. I'm assuming I can find information online ??

We have clay soil too, so perhaps you just saved me from a failed attempt and lots of work.

Have you ever heard the term "opening the box". A comedian used this term to describe men's and woman's brains saying we open boxes with each thought. He went on to say that men can only handle opening one box at a time and can't concentrate on anything else until that box is closed... i.e. the project is finished.

You have now officially opened the "garden box"... box. I am going to be useless until I work out how I can do it... or change my mind about doing it.

I like that idea but don't know anything about them. I'm assuming I can find information online ??

We have clay soil too, so perhaps you just saved me from a failed attempt and lots of work.

Have you ever heard the term "opening the box". A comedian used this term to describe men's and woman's brains saying we open boxes with each thought. He went on to say that men can only handle opening one box at a time and can't concentrate on anything else until that box is closed... i.e. the project is finished.

You have now officially opened the "garden box"... box. I am going to be useless until I work out how I can do it... or change my mind about doing it.

I hadn't heard it termed that way, but I completely understand it.

DH just bought a bunch of 2 x 6's maybe???? And cut them down, screwed them together to make boxes. It looked simple enough, just expensive! Then we bought large amounts of organic dirt and filled in the boxes.

Yeah, clay soil sucks and what did grow didn't taste very well. Carrots were the worst! Now that we have the garden boxes, carrots taste great - well my kids and Dh thinks so. I don't like them.

What is great is watching the kids enjoy gardening so much. The girls love to watch what they plant grow, watering the plants, weeding the garden, all of it -they love it. Kylie's problem is she is so impatient she likes to pick things before they are ready to be picked. She pulled my potato plants out before they were ready, so we didn't get a lot of potatoes this past year. I just tell them to go out and get what it is we want for dinner and they do it. Kylie cuts the lettuce, picks tomatoes (although you have to reiterate only the red ones, lol), pulls the carrots, cuts the broccoli, etc. It's great experience for them.

Kaitlin and I want to do a veggie/fruit garden. but I want to do it NOW with all this talk about it. I am going to need some help.
like
what can I plant when, what needs sun what does not, when do I know they are ready...ect....

I think this is an excellent idea. I apologized that I got side-tracke and didn't create the forum earlier. We have a forum for this now.

I think you all ahve already posted some excellent ideas. Can some of you post your ideas in the Green forum so that we can find them easier when we want to reference them.

Awesome!!! Thanks Dee Dee.