Back From the Staycay Vacay

Cranky Puppy has been strangely silent the past couple of days and I apologize for that, but we were super busy finishing up our vacation, our own "honey do" list (which included getting the truck into the shop and the garage repaired after this incident), and tackling this project for J.'s brother:

I tried to talk them into using half of this for a chicken coop so that my girls could have a vacation home, but they didn't seem convinced.

Man, we couldn't have asked for nicer weather while we were on vacay.  Except for the one day at the Baker Creek festival where it was in the 90's, it was basically in the 70's and sunny.  We got lots done and there's lots going on in the garden now, so let's take a quick tour. 



Early Girl tomatoes are already outgrowing their cages.

I snagged some Purple Cherokee and Rutgers heirlooms yesterday at Home Depot, as I managed to neglect my tomato seedlings enough that they died when I tried to harden them off.  So much for starting from seed.  I may try some more pepper plants this season, since it's really not too late.  But I wanted to get the tomatoes in the ground and going.

Cute littel Yukon Gold potato plants are now almost 5 inches tall.  I'll have to mulch these with straw by the end of the week, I bet.

The green beans are going gangbusters and already have flowers on them.  Since this is our first year growing these, I was surprised.  Shouldn't they be taller?



The bean flowers sure are pretty, aren't they?  They're so dainty and delicate.

 Just to the right of this picture is the spaghetti squash that will be overtaking these beans if I don't get off my duff.  We had the trailer out as part of our shed-building project, so I took it over to Tractor Supply and finally got my goat panel, which I'll be using as an arched trellis.  Basically, I'm going to have the cucumbers go up one of the arch and the squash up the other side, where they'll shelter the beans underneath.  We'll see how that works out.  I'll be putting that in later this week, so I'll have pics in a later post.

I did get one of my "to-do's" from April done this weekend finally - my friend, Paula, and I had our garage sale on Saturday.  That forced me to organize the garage, basement, laundry room and dining room as well as go through a bunch of our books.  I made $73 and change in 5 hours and got rid of 8 Rubbermaid containers of stuff, so I'm calling that a success.  Even if I was a month late.

What's up in your neck of the woods?

I've shared this post with this week's Barn Hop and Garden Life link ups.  Clicky to find out what everybody's up to this week!

It's National Dance Like a Chicken Day!

And these birds have some serious moves!



Thanks to J. for the calendar reference. It's amazing what you can find when you take a break from reading a week's worth of vacation email at work.

Good Ol' Downhome Cookin'

One of my items on my to-do list for last month (oops...I'm late) was to get ready for the garage sale that a friend of mine and I are having tomorrow, so I figured I better get around to figuring out what I wanted to sell and get it priced.  It turned into a much bigger organization project than I expected and I ended up completely reorganizing the kitchen, pantry, basement and laundry room yesterday.

That's when I came across the long-lost box of cookbooks that included all of my grandmother's old books and handwritten recipes and I knew I just had to share this gem with you!

Originally copyrighted 1966, printed and purchased by my grandmother in 1975 for $1.25 in Osage Beach, MO.

Peppered with categories like "Side Vittles" and "Jest Plain Foolishness", this little cookbook is ripe with mispellings, interesting folk language and a dizzying array of somewhat scary recipes for things like pigs feet, baked coon and possum, and snapping turtle stew.  I think I'll pass on those, but there are actually some really good recipes in here as well for southern style biscuits, bread, cakes and pies.  Yum!

In addition to recipes and colorful language, there's quite a bit of sage advice like this thrown in. :

• Tea made from hot water an' corn silk will cure bed wettin' in young'uns.
• Th' root of rhubarb, worn on a string 'round th' neck, will keep off bellyache.
• Tie a big red onion to th' bedpost an' it keeps th' ones in th' bed from havin' cold.
• A live snake put in a barrel of cider will keep it frum spoilin' an' keep it sweet.
• To cure chicken pox - after th' sun goes down, go to th' chicken house, lay down an' let a black hen fly over you.
• If you keep a mule shoe in th' stove oven it will keep hawks away frum th' chickens.
• Thunder sours milk an' kills th' chickens in sittin' eggs.
• A buckeye carried in the pocket will cure rheumatism.

That last one is kind of funny to me now, because I remember that my grandmother used to put a buckeye in her bra every morning.  When I asked her why, she said it "cured ills". 

Of course, I can't end this post without giving you one of the recipes and, with coffee as expensive as it is, this might come in handy.  So here goes and I hope you enjoy!

Hard Times Coffee

Short of coffee an' too pore to buy any? Here's yore answer if you have the' followin' ingredients.

Mix well 2 quarts wheat bran with 1 pint yellow corn meal  Add 3 well-beaten eggs and 1 cup sorghum molasses.  Beat well; spread on pan and put to dry in oven.  Use great care by stirring often while it is browning-this is the secret of good coffee. A handful is sufficient for two persons. Sweet cream improves the flavor of the brew, but, as with store-bought coffee, this is a matter of personal taste.

Let me know if you try this recipe - I'm afraid I don't have any sorghum molasses!

Shared as part of this week's Country Homemaker Hop.

Visiting Laura Ingalls-Wilder

I suspect, if you're reading this, that you're familiar with and may have even read the Little House books (or even seen the TV series), so I doubt the name Laura Ingalls Wilder needs an introduction.  The house that Laura lived in and ultimately wrote the Little House books in is in Mansfield, Missouri and not far from the Baker Creek seeds location, so J. and I took an afternoon out to go visit her farm.  It has now been designated a National Historic Site and is being preserved, pretty much the way it was when she and Almanzo lived there.

For a small admission fee, you can tour the house and a museum that has a staggering amount of photos and personal items from Laura, Almanzo, Rose, Ma and Pa, Mary and Carrie.  The star of the show is Pa's Fiddle, which is still played annually at a local festival.

The house is a quaint little farmhouse with a large beautiful yard.  We toured through the downstairs (the upstairs bedrooms are off limits), and the entire house is filled with the furniture that Laura used when she lived in the house.  Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take pictures inside the house so I can only share exterior shots of the house.

Laura, 27, and Almanzo, 37, moved to this location in 1894 after a series of misfortunes left them in debt and in ill-health.  After a 6-week journey over 50 miles and with a $100 bill representing the last of their savings, they purchased the 40-acre farm and named it "Rocky Ridge Farm".  The tour guide told an interesting story about the trip from South Dakota in which they arrived and couldn't find the $100 that had been tucked away for safekeeping.  It ultimately was located hidden away in Laura's desk.

The "back porch".  The window to the left is the music room and library and to the right is the sitting room where Laura liked to write.  I am love with that stacked stone fireplace chimney, aren't you?

Another view of the screened in summer porch.  It's evident that the house began as a smaller one and was added onto as the farm grew and became more profitable. 

I wish I could share interior pictures with you, as I found the kitchen to be really fascinating.  Laura was just 4 foot 11 inches tall and Almanzo custom built all the cabinetry and countertops for her, so they are shorter than today's modern kitchen fixtures.  An accomplished woodworker, Almanzo also built much of the furniture and the built-in bookcases throughout the house.

We were very surprised to hear that there are actually two homes on the property.  Their daughter, Rose, was a very successful free-lance writer and had a more modern house constructed as a gift for her parents.  Laura never wanted to move and refused to visit the building site until the day they were to move in.  Rose moved into the old farmhouse until she ultimately left the farm for good 8 years later. 

Despite the fact that the house was within a 15-minute walk of the old farmhouse, Laura had never wanted to move from the house that she and Almanzo had built with their bare hands, and they moved back into the old house where they lived until their deaths in 1949 and 1957 respectively.

The stone used to build this house is gorgeous and I fell in love with the tool marks in the mortar.

Nestled among the trees and on the downslope of an Ozark hill overlooking an immense field, you can see forever from this house.  On the side overlooking the field, the entire wall of the living room is a bank of french doors that open up to take advantage of the view. Rose certainly knew how to pick a location!

Well, I hope you thoroughly enjoyed the visit to this historic landmark as much as we did.  I'll leave you with a quote from Rose, one of the most influential Libertarians in the 20th century:

"Everything that an American values, his property, his home, his life, his children's future, depends upon his keeping clear in his mind the revolutionary basis of this Republic. This revolutionary basis is recognition of the fact that human rights are natural rights, born in every human being with his life, and inseparable from his life; not rights and freedoms that can be granted by any power on earth."

I'm sharing this post as part of the Rural Thursday Blog Hop.  Hop on over and see what everyone else is up to!

Scenes from Baker Creek Spring Planting Festival

As promised, here are some pictures from the beautiful "town" and grounds of Baker Creek Seeds where J. and I headed for their annual Spring Planting Festival on Sunday and Monday.  They were expecting around 7000 folks to show up from all over the country and I believe it - we saw licenses plates from Minnesota, Alabama, and Illinois to name a few.

Baker Creek is nestled in the Ozarks and situated about 45 miles east of Springfield and a little over a mile north of Mansfield, Missouri on Highway 5.   Highway 5 is a little of a misnomer, as the pavement on this twisty road quickly ends and you find yourself on a very dusty country road.  Of course, Baker Creek would have lost cool points in my book if they had been on a paved road.

It was hotter than tarnation on Saturday, with temps in the low to mid-90's but a good breeze to cool everyone off.  The only time you really noticed the heat was in the buildings themselves.  The air conditioners  just couldn't keep up with the fanning of the doors from people coming and going.

A look inside the seed store at the racks of heirloom seeds for sale.  This rack extended the entire length and width of the building on both sides. 

When I saw it, I made a beeline for the seed store.  You could find just about everything and every variety in there, but I was looking for something they didn't have:  comfrey.  Not only do they sell seeds, but these seeds are from plants that they grow themselves on the property, so they are VERY knowledgeable about the plants.  Tomato and pepper seeds were just $1.00 this weekend so we picked up some Brocade Marigolds, Stupice tomatoes, Cherokee Purple tomatoes,  and Orange Bell peppers.  Outside, they were selling seedlings and some decently sized plum, cherry, apple and pear trees.

In addition to the seed store, the little town consists of the main house (scroll for pics of this beautiful house!), a vegan restaurant, Harriett's Mercantile (below), a livery\stable,  a flour mill, and some other smaller buildings.  It's not at all hard to imagine that you are walking the streets that Pa and Laura walked in the Little House books.

Think Harriet Olsen is in there?

No Harriet, and these ladies were much nicer than her.  I love the butcher paper roll on the counter - just like the old days.  On the other side of the room, a lady was handspinning yarn from alpaca hair.

How would you like to pack up everything you own in this little wagon and move across the country?  This is a perfect replica covered wagon that is true to size at 4 feet wide and 12 feet long.  That's about the size of a PT Cruiser!

Down the hill from the town was a huge area for different vendors to display their wares, which included handmade quilts and baskets, forged knives, gardens seeds and plants, custom garden tools and homemade soaps and candles.  No commercial stuff here!  Interspersed throughout were straw bales for lots of seating, water stations (which were busy!) and different musicians playing old time folk and mountain music.  That was really relaxing because we were serenaded as we strolled.

The craftsmanship in the buildings on the Baker Creek property were amazing.  Here's a small log cabin from hand-hewn logs that helds a pottery vendor who was actually making pottery as a demonstration.   At 6 feet tall, we had to duck to get through that door because people were smaller in those days.  Laura Ingalls-Wilder was just 4' 11" and Almanzo was 5' 4".

And I've saved the best for last.  Here's the main house at Baker Creek Seeds. 

Look at those quilts airing on the 2nd floor porch railing.  And I believe those are Climbing Blaze roses on the archway into the garden.  I want to live here!

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Baker Creek Seeds and will definitely visit again now that we know what to expect.  These pictures just don't do it justice in terms of how neat and beautiful this property is.  If you're within driving distance, I recommend you consider checking it out next year as a weekend trip.

I've got more pics to share with you in another post - these are from the Laura Ingalls-Wilder home that was nearby.  Hope you enjoyed our view of Baker Creek!

Sharing this as part of this week's Barn Charm,  Homesteader Blog Carnival and Barn Hop.

Quick Garden Update

Home again, home again...lickety split!  Even though I had all the best intentions of posting pictures while we were at the Festival, it seems that my Android tablet didn't fully like Blogger's new interface.  Specifically, I couldn't alter the size of pictures.  Phooey!

So, since it's so late and I still have to unpack and re-orient to home life again, I'll finish this post that was supposed to go up on Saturday.  It's a quick look at what's growing in our fledgling garden right now.

Cabbage with a head starting to form?  What's weird is that we have 3 cabbage plants and, while 2 of them look normal like this, the third is twice as big and standing straight up.  I think it might be some kind of freakish, maneating cabbage possibly grown from irradiated seed.  We may see it dancing as it destroys Tokyo later this year.

Something is chomping on my cabbage.  I sprayed them with an organic pest repellent and they do look better, but there's still damage.  Could be slugs.  But I've been unable to locate exactly what's doing it.  If you've got any ideas, let me know please!

Here's one of the beds with the lettuce in the background (coming along nicely), cabbage next to it, and beans (left) and spaghetti squash (right) in the foreground.  I planted some Straight Eight cucumber seeds just to the left of the beans right before we left and we came back to discover that they have already sprouted!

Too bad there's not a blue ribbon for growing weeds.  I'd be a shoe-in!

And, finally, a shot of the onion and strawberry bed, and the potato bins in the background.  And more weeds.  *sigh* 

Well, tomorrow, I have a TON of pictures to share with you from the planting festival, so I hope you'll stop back by and check them out.

Signing off for some much needed shut eye,

Linking up late to the Country Garden Showcase.  Click to see what is goin' on in other folks' gardens this week.

Movin' On Up!

Today's the day that J. and I head off into the sunset toward the Baker Creek Seeds Spring Planting Festival.  I'm so excited!  But that means that we won't be around to give Henrietta her room service so she needed to move out of her basement apartment and back out into the world. 

Poor thing....not quite a year old and she's already on her third house.  This one is a dog house I got at Tractor Supply and then J. and I spent the morning building an exercise pen for her underneath it out of some cedar pickets that we had.  Part of the floor wasn't installed so that the ramp could go up into the house when she's ready to go to bed.  The whole thing is covered in hardware fence, so she's safe from marauding racoons, dogs, rabid squirrels, or whatever might happen while we're gone.  Not too shabby for last minute if I do say myself.

Here we see the normally timid little Henrietta is taunting the chicken bully from the bottom floor of her new DE-luxe chicken townhome.  "You can't touch me!" she squawks as she flips her tail at them.

We butted it up against the existing run so that Henrietta could socialize without actually being in there with the others where she could potentially get bullied again.  Her feathers are coming in nicely and I would prefer to see how this goes and get her fully feathered before we try reintroducing her to the flock.

The other furcritters, our Pomeranians, just got shuttled off to the doggy sitter where they'll be pampered and played with and completely spoiled while we're gone.  Not that they don't already get that at home.  I miss them already!

Early Girls...No Kidding!

It's gorgeous out today but I'm home sick.  Doesn't seem right, does it?  Once again, I'm dealing with a cellulitis infection on my left and a slight fever.  I'd really rather be out in the garden but I'm too tired and achy to get out of the house.  This will be a second test of whether tea tree oil is a good alternative to antibiotic treatment for the infection.  It worked the first time, so I have high hopes.

But enough about me.  Check out what I found in the garden last night!

Those are tiny little Early Girl tomatoes hiding on the inside of the plant.  Aren't they adorable?  I guess these are aptly named since it is WAY early for tomatoes.

Over the weekend, we ended up at Lowe's and I found a stellar clearance deal on some rose bushes.  I've got a soft spot for roses and just can't resist them, so I couldn't pass these up for $1.00 each even if they look a little rag tag.  I'm hoping that I can nurse them back to health.  There are a couple of different varieties here - mostly red, but there's one red and white one.  Now I just have to figure out where to put them.  Am I the only one that buys plants without a plan?  :-)

Just $6 for all these rose bushes!

And I have one last picture for you.  This one is actually for fellow blogger Mary Ann over at Calamity Acres.  She commented on my earlier post that she loved my Climbing Blaze Rose.  So here's a picture of another one that we had planned on training up a trellis on our front porch.  This thing was a huge maneater and grew faster than we could get the trellis up (we were doing other renos at the time).  It quickly grew over the sidewalk and, after "biting" J. a couple of times when he was mowing the lawn, we had to pull it out.  I actually cried when we did it.  :-(



Prolific bloomer Climbing Blaze rose looked like this all summer!


As I write this, I'm listening to the weather and they're talking about calculating a heat index tomorrow, so I guess it's going to get steamy and hot here.  Oh, joy! I hope it moderates by the weekend, because I'm going to be blogging from the Baker Seeds Spring Planting Festival about 2 hours from here.

What's going on in your neck of the woods?

This post is linked up to the Country Garden Showcase, It's Blooming Tuesday, Garden Tuesday,  Tuesday Garden Party and Sunday Best hops.  Clicky to find out what other folks are up to!

Sunday Slice of Life

Yesterday was pretty much a washout - lots of storms rolling through dumping over an inch of much-needed rain on us.  Once the rain stopped in the afternoon, J. and I ventured out to grab some lunch and these babies:

These were too wet to get out of the truck for a better picture of them.  Sorry!

Food grade barrels from Craigslist!  These are rare to find listed here in KC and, when they are, they're expensive and gone already when you call.  We wanted some for water storage so we're thrilled to finally find them.  These came from the Panera Factory and had tomatoes in them, so they're safe to store drinking water in, and they also have a locking steel rim.  We bought them from the nicest gentleman who invited us to a birthday celebration at his church.  I know some folks have had terrible experiences with Craigslist sellers, but we have only ever met really nice, down-home folks.

On the way home, we decided to swing by and see how the neighborhood community farm was doing.  They sell raised beds or traditional beds here really cheap, which I think is a great way to teach folks about gardening, get them out of their houses and support community.  We need that desperately here in the inner city.  There are large garden plots to the left and right of the sign (you can just see a peek of one of them on the right.)  They've also got some of those huge reinforced water tanks for watering but this garden was so huge I couldn't get it all in one picture.  I'm looking forward to seeing what this looks like in a month or so.

Back home again before the rain started anew and I just had to capture a picture of this rose still kissed with raindrops.  

This is the Climbing Blaze rose that I planted last year to climb up the front of the coop.

 What's going on in your little slice of the world?  I'm off to blog hop and find out!

Those Naughty Onions

I've been crowing for a couple of weeks now about how good my onions look and I should have known better.  I jinxed myself, I think.  Because look what I just found in the garden.

See that little bulb on the end of the stem in the center of the picture?  That's a soon-to-be onion flower.  Some of the onions have bolted because of the crazy weather we've been having.  I knew this was bad but, since this is my first time growing onions, I had to do some research on what to do about it.  I mean, do you just snip the bud off and let them continue?  Do you harvest them?  What gives?

Well, it IS bad news. Onions flower during their second year and temperature fluctuations can cause them to do this.  Once they start, you can't do anything about it except harvest them.  And they probably won't store for very long.  I pulled the three that had the buds on them and here's what I found.

Absolutely nothing.  While these are still good to eat (both the white and green parts), there's no huge bulb on the end.  Aaaarrggghhh!  I thought I had done everything perfectly - side dressed them, good dirt, etc.  I really hope it was the weather.  Any ideas?  I guess I'll have to plant some more and see how that goes over the summer - they take about 8 to 10 weeks, so I could be harvesting again in June or July.

On a good note, though, I just pulled (and J. ate) our first strawberry grown here at Cranky Puppy Farm.  He reported with a grin that it was very tasty and sweet.  So at least I can grow s-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g.  It is rather cute, isn't it?

Toodaloo 'til next time,

Linked to: Garden Life, Farm Girl Friday, and Ole' Saturday Homesteading Trading Post and Monday Barn Hop hops.

Overreaching Youth Farm Labor Rule Overruled!

Morning, everyone! 

There's nothing better than waking up to good news and that's certainly what we have today.  Based on pressure from lawmakers and, well, just about everybody, the Department of Labor has decided not to pursue their proposed rule that would prohibit young people under the age of 18 from working on family farms and participating in agriculture programs including Future Farmers of America and 4-H.  You can read the proposal here if you want to see what they were planning on doing.

Folks, when I heard about this a couple of days ago, I went into a fit that probably looked something akin to somebody that just had a wasp's nest dropped on their head during an earthquake.  It got even worse when I started to read what these kids would no longer be able to do:

• Operating a tractor larger than 20 horsepower, or connecting/disconnecting implements.
• Operating or assisting with machines, including a corn picker, combine, hay mower, forage harvester, hay baler, feed grinder, crop dryer, forage blower, auger conveyor, wagon or trailer unloading mechanism (powered or self-unloading), powered posthole digger, post driver, non-walking rotary tiller, trencher or earth-moving equipment, fork lift, and a power-driven circular, band, or chain saw.
• Working in a livestock yard, pen, or stall occupied by a bull, boar, or stud horse maintained for breeding purposes, and sow or cow with newborn offspring.  Employment at stockyards, livestock exchanges or auctions are out also.  No more 4-H!
• Working with timber or tobacco.  (Wow...I helped build a log cabin when I was 7!)
• Working from a ladder or scaffold above 20 feet, including tasks that require painting, tree-pruning, or fruit harvest.
• Riding on a tractor or transporting passengers in a bus, truck, or automobile.
• Handling or applying farm chemicals classified I or II by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act.

Dust bowl kids, circa 1936, by photographer Dorothea Lange.

Farming is not just a job - it's a way of life.  Alot of what I learned, I learned by walking in my grandfather's footsteps and those of his friends who were true farmers who made their living by working the land.  They didn't need a nanny government to tell them that they needed to watch out for my safety.  Many small family farms depend on the extra hands that are provided by their kids that help out with chores, and it's a valuable learning experience in responsibility and hard work for those kids who at one point will probably inherit the farm from their parents.  In introducing this rule, the DOL is ignoring hundreds of years of tradition and way overstepping.  Not that I'm surprised, as I think the Obama administration has made it abundantly clear that they would like push small farms out of existence in favor of big agribusiness.  For example, look at how the FDA is going after anyone selling raw milk.

Well, the good news is that they've stated that they will not pursue this for the "remainder of the administration" and will instead work with the American Farm Burea Federation, National Farmers Union, FFA and 4-H to promote safety among young workers in ag.  I wonder, however, if that means THIS administration but, if he's re-elected and free to do whatever he likes, will they pick up the mantra again?  They've already increased staff by 30 to 40% in order to monitor family farms.

Good for us and folks like Kansas Senator Jerry Moran for putting a stop to nonsense like this.  We need to remember that we do have the power and we CAN stop an overreaching government.

Well, that's my 2 cents on the subject.  What do you think about this proposed rule?

Planting Potatoes in Laundry Tubs

Home again, home again, lickety split...

I came home to discover a pack of dogs that needed to be petted, chickens that needed to be let out to free range, and some garden beds that needed to be weeded.  It's so nice to be home!

What I couldn't believe is that Kansas City hit a record high temp yesterday of 92 degrees.  My Jeep has a temp guage in it and I was watching it go up as I got closer to home.  When I left Indy, it was 63 degrees.  4 hours later, as I cruised through St. Louis, it was 83 on the east side and 91 on the west side.  Guess I found the front.  :-)

Before I left for the trip, I got ahold of some organic Yukon Gold potatoes and wanted to get them planted but I just didn't get to it so, as the chicks free ranged last night, I took advantage of the time to get that done.  Before I left, I did manage to get the potatoes cut into pieces and they were sprouting nicely.  You'll want some nice 2" minimum pieces with a couple of eyes on each one.

Organic Yukon Gold seedling potatoes, cut and sprouting nicely before being planted.

I debated whether to buy some grow sacks, trash cans or even building boxes, but I ultimately picked up some $5 laundry tubs from Walmart to grow these in.  The main reason I chose those is because they're bigger around and shorter (and I didn't have enough scrap wood to build boxes!)

Growing potatoes like this is pretty easy and I already talked about growing Yellow Finn potatoes in boxes in another post.  Step 1 is to drill some drainage holes in the bottom with a 1/4" drill bit.

You don't have to do a fancy pattern like this.  J. started drilling those center holes without supervision until I noticed and told him they didn't need to be so close.  Just evenly space them.

Then turn it over and fill it with the equivalent of a bag of dirt or about 6" deep.

And then plant the potato seedlings about 3" deep and cover over with dirt.  You'll need to keep the soil moist but not drenched - since it's in a plastic container, these will dry out faster than your in-ground garden or larger raised beds.

And that's it!  As the plants grow, we'll dump in more dirt, leaving just the top of the greenery exposed until the tub is full of dirt.  As mine grow, I'll show you what I mean by that.  We'll also have to build a rudimentary trellis for these, as these are going to get tall!  And, when it's time to harvest, we'll just push the tub over on a tarp and harvest some tasty taters.

Potatoes are easy to grow even if you don't have a green thumb.  So get out there and grow and some spuds!

We're linked up to this week's Tuesday Garden Party, Country Homemaker, Morristribe Homesteader Blog Canival and Homestead Help hops. Go check out what everbody else is doing!