Best plants to shade your veggies.

For some of us spring has not arrived but rather summer has jumped right in it's place. My plants are either loving it or hating it. Usually by this time of the year the weather is cool and comfortable. Not muggy and insanely hot. Furthermore, the trees that are usually fully leaved in about another month are still naked. My garden however has started to set root. I noticed the other day that some of my squash that's in direct sunlight are being troubled by the heat. The same plant in a different location with a little shade is growing strong. So my brain started to get thinking about how I can provide shade to plants that need them. Well fortunately for us growers we have a few options in our arsenal of heat loving plants. The idea is to grow these heat loving plants in the direction of the sun so that they can cast shade on plants that don't well with intense heat. Some of these plants that I will use are Pepper Plants, Eggplants and Okra. These plants love the heat and when everything is choked out these guys are basking in their glory. All it takes is a little shade to make a plant happy and it's good to know I can find them a companion to perform this duty.

EPIC FAIL for Sustainability

I think of myself as a guy that enjoys people and experinces derived in sustainability. But when criusing the net I found something so completely obsurd that I had to share. Horse shoes.... Really!! What idiot decides that this is fashionable. Im no PETA freak by any means. Anyone that has read my blog for any length of time knows that I am definately a meat eater. But come on, Horse Shoes!! Like Literal Horse Shoes. Someone; call it creative genius, I call it creative stupidity found a use for horse legs as a fashion statement. Like real horse legs, for real!! Big Sigh!! SMH!! WTH!!

Release the Hounds!!!

My long awaited, highly anticipated little warriors have arrived. I'm a military man; war, strategy, opposing sides, you name it, I'm all over it. So when those little buggers (aphids) picked a fight with me by chomping down on my succulent new growth for this growing season. I was torn between using chemicals and using nature to fight back. I conceded from the chemicals and went with mother nature. I received 1500 lady bugs today from Hirts on Amazon today. The lady bugs came in excellent health. I watered my plants before I set them out so they will have some water. As the sun set I released the hounds and they began to relish on the delicate but highly destructive aphids. The aphids knew something was amidst. For the first time I saw the aphids retreating from their intoxicated cover and scatter about the branches to escape the perils of the Lady Bug. This was very interesting because as soon as I released the ladies at the base of the plant, they instantly knew to climb higher. It almost seemed like they knew this was going to be a one sided battle and the males stopped eating and started mating. When lady bugs feel like they have found a place that can provide an abundance of food they start to mate. Well, let me rephrase this. The Males started to mate; the females who are bigger than the males just wanted to eat. Lady bugs can live up to three years and the bigger their spots typically depicts that they are older.

 As the ladies ate, gorged and hooked up with horney males they began to prepare for the next generation of lady bugs. One lady bug can eat up to 50 aphids a day. There larva which resemble small little crocodiles are also notorious for eating aphids and other scaly bugs. I feel like a General of the Garden Wars. More to follow........................................

Koto Preparing for the Molt

It's that time of year were we falconers have to make a decision. To keep or not to keep. Most years I release my birds back into the wild so that they can go back and contribute to the gene pool. Its certainly an option and every falconer is different. But sometimes there comes along a hawk thats just special. Koto and I have formed a prettu good relationship. She is not the tamest of hawks that I have encountered. But she is definatelty the most tolerant of people and especially dogs. This year for the first time I hunted Koto with my GSP Jackson and they did wonderful. We took one flying squirrel and one grey squirrel on that particular hunt. Those are the qualities that are hard to come by and im not sure im ready to just give it up. So for another season I will keep Koto around. For now she will eat to her hearts content and soon Molt into her new feathers for this upcoming hunting  season.

Some people just don't have a clue

Today I was checking around to see if some of my local garden centers carried lady bugs. I am putting my money where my mouth is and I'm committed to attack these aphids organically instead of chemically. They have gained some ground and I see physical sign that they are winning. So today's call was to find out who in my area can help me locally. One out of four garden centers can order the Lady Bugs but will only do so well into the spring. My last resort was to call pest control companies. I mean pests and pest control go hand in hand right? Well at least I thought so. So I called the first company and I asked the guy does he have any lady bugs? He said, "Yup those lady bugs can sure be a problem." I said, "No Sir, do you have Lady Bugs?" He said, "WHAT!" I said, "Lady Bugs; do you have them sir?" He said, "What the hell do you need Lady bugs for?" I said, "Dude Really?!?! I need them to kill aphids. I have an aphid infestation and I use them to kill aphids." He said, "Nope we don't carry no lady bugs." WOW!! I can't believe I had that conversation. But than again his job is to hunt and destroy. I'm going to put this out there to any pest control company that may not know about this side of the house. It will Behoove you to get smart on the use of beneficial bugs for gardeners like myself who want to get rid of "Pests" I'm just sayin, It might be profitable.

Quick and easy Window Shelves to grow plants.

Sue from http://suesgardenjournal.blogspot.com/ gave me the idea about this post. For sometime I have been trying to utilize every piece of useful space to grow veggies in my sun room. With a little creativity I came up with this workable design that can be added to any window.  .

This is how I did it. I cut two 2x4s approx the length of the window. Most windows are framed and it should be easy to anchor them right next to the windows with screws. When that was done I installed my brackets. The ones that are shown, I bought from Ikea you can pick them up here for $2 a pack. So I bought 3 packs for what I wanted to do.

After installing the brackets to the 2x4s, I added the wooden shelves. The shelves are 1 foot wide and 4 feet long. I purchased each plank for $7 at lowes. They are not anchored in although they could be. Since I use them for plants I sprayed the top portion with a protective base of paint to repel water. These shelves have absolutely been great and I am currently using them to germinate seeds through the window. Each shelf costs approximately $10 to make. Just a simple design for some practical work

Trick Your Leafy Greens into growing faster

Plants for all they are worth grow extremely slow. But in the plant world you have your sprinters like bamboo and your really slow movers like cactus; one such variety is known to grow only 1 inch within it's first 10 years of life. I'm the I gotta have it now type of person; so when my leafy green veggies seemed to be stalling in my garden, I tried something for the first time. I took hay from one of my left over hay bales and covered them just enough for them to get some air and see speckles of green through the dense brown. Something amazing happened. In less than 48hrs all of those leafy green veggies pushed through the hay and it somehow jump started a growing spurt. (The picture shows greens pushing through, but two days ago there was more brown than green.) If you think about this it makes perfect sense. Plants like all life on this planet are struggling to survive, even the one that only grows 1 inch in it's first 10 years. (So Depressing!!) So couple that with the need to survive and grow strong and you have the perfect atmosphere for competitive behavior. This is only my assumption based on this one observation and it shouldn't be construed as fact. Nevertheless, if the right variables are in place you might achieve some amazing results and  this is what I did. My thoughts are; by covering the plants slightly it will put them in a state of panic as though they are being smothered. Another variable that was thrown into this equation was the fact that over the 2 days this growth spurt took place there was severe overcast. I am convinced that smothering these plants lightly caused them to grow faster. Now I know there are the nature gurus how say don't mess with nature and cause any imbalance, blah, blah, blah, blahhhhhhhhhhh.............. I got it. However, I grow to eat and enjoy and if there are natural ways to spurt growth production in living things we farm, I am all for it. I know I am not the first person to witness this, but if your growing this season and you feel like your leafy greens are lagging a bit, give them a shot of caffeine by throwing a light cover of hay over them.

Prepping hay bales for the growing season

Over the past few years I have learned a great deal from Hay Bale Gardening and have had pretty good success. Many people I talk to are surprised you can use hay bales to grow in. The quickest way to get started is to buy a few hay bales. The other day I drove by my favorite garden store and there in the back laid several almost rotting bales of hay. They were waiting for another shipment to come in and treated as outcast. To a keen eyed urban farmer dweller man such as myself, those rotting hay bales were like gold. So I took them off of her hands and put them into my garden. The first thing you want to do when you grab your hay bales is place them in a spot that is going to get some sun. On average a hay bale takes approx 3 weeks  to get prepped. But if you can find some left over hay bales from last year rotting somewhere it will take half that time. The trick that I use for Hay bale garden is adding Ammonium Nitrate or any fertilizer in a pellet form that slow feeds into the ground. Take a cup full of the stuff and pour it on the hay bale and for a few weeks keep the Hay bale wet. The hay bale will get hot and this is the reason you don't want to plant right away. So getting started now to prep your hay bales for this spring is very doable. This year I am using the hay bales to grow squash and melons. You can also grow Tomatoes and cucumbers but keep in mind that they need to be staked. For all that it is worth hay bale gardening is a blast. It is definitely for the lazy man gardener who just likes to stand over his hay bales and with hose in hand water his hay bales and in the other drinking a beer, it's great for people who don't have good soil and limited space that don't want to tear up their ground, and perfect for older people like myself who don't want to bend that far.

My Buddies Graduated from Man School RLTW

Today my buddy Lawson graduated from Ranger School. He Graduated with Distinguished Honors!



For the Rangers of the Past and the Present the legacy will continue to live on



 

Haskel was awarded the Leadership with Honors



His dad has a lot to be proud of





It seemed like only yesterday when he was in Diapers



Kennedy is so proud of his guy graduating from Man School



Lawson and Libby lovin life. Now go eat at Ranger Burger!!




Honor Grads takin home the Gold!!



The look in his mothers eyes is just priceless

The Elusive Ranger Tab less than 1% of US Soldiers have it. Many will try only few will succeed.



This moment will never be forgotten



Support your Habit, Sell some plants

This year I am taking this homesteading thing to another level. In another post I mentioned I had a seed addiction and it's only getting worst. So over the past few months I have been given some thoughts on how to supplement my passion for growing vegetables. I have decided to sell vegetable plants this spring. Although I will not become a millionaire selling vegetable plants I can offset some of the cost incurred by my sporadic need for seed. I have a sun room with southern exposure and it works great to start plants from seed. This year I have purchased several seed trays to start my seeds. 

Why does this make perfect sense? Many people love to grow vegetables especially where I am from. But many of these people don't have the means to start their plants earlier. Tomatoes have to be the most popular fruit to grow in the spring through summer. But in the summer in our region Tomatoes shut off because it's way to hot for them to have proper pollination, nevertheless, they pick back up towards the end of summer and produce all the way out to December. So if someone wants to plant tomatoes from seed in my area they will often wait until mid to late march to put seeds in the ground. Give or take 90 days to see the first fruits depending on the variety and that puts the plant right smack in the heat of summer. So here is where I come in. Germinate seeds from January, February time period and with the proper set up even earlier and raise strong plants that are ready to be transplanted in the spring with only a few weeks away from bearing the first set of flowers.

Pricing is a sticky subject, but as you peruse through catalogs and local markets you can get an idea for what the pricing should be like per plant. I am under the notion that people should not undercut the market by cutting the prices of plants drastically. The majority of Bonnie Plants sell for approx $4.00 at the local markets this year I will sell one plant for $4, two plants for $7 and three plants for $10.

Specializing in Heirlooms has drawn alot of interest in my plants this year and growing varieties from different parts of the world has seem to cause alot of interest as well. All in all this has gone viral and I could only wish that I can make a living from this. Who knows where this will go but as for now it's alot of fun.

 Advertising, plants is very easy by using craigslist. Also my local flea market has booths for $5-$25 that can be rented on the weekend. Well it certainly looks like I'm going to be that guy. Spending his weekends under a huge a umbrella with a Hawaiian shirt and sipping on some iced tea selling vegetable plants. I'll probably find something from American Eagle because whatever I do it has to be sexy, even if it involves selling vegetable plants:)

Urban Critter Stew

This has been the most anticipated meal of the winter season. My Urban Critter Stew it is a mix of critters that I took hunting this season. My hawk Koto and I killed several squirrels, took a few rabbits and even some quail. I saved all these critters and today I made my stew. Um Um Ummmmm Goodness!!! If you taste this stew I will guarantee you will be heading out the next day to shoot some squirrels, rabbits and quail. This is how I make my Urban Critter Stew:

Materials-

• Crock pot

Ingredients-

• 2-3 squirrel carcasses quartered
• 1 rabbit carcass quartered
• 3-6 quail breast
• 2 cups of water
• 1 glog of Better than Bouillon chicken base
• 1 sweet onion
• Few cloves of Garlic crushed and minced
• 1 stick of butter
• half packet of 15 bean dry bean mix bag
• your favorite hot peppers ( I picked some Cayenne's from the garden and Thai peppers)
• Crushed Black Pepper

Directions-

• If you have a small crock pot like I unfortunately do you have to use half of the dry beans in the 15 bean soup package. (Throw away the seasoning)
• Pour half the packet into the crockpot and fill halfway with water.
• Let set for 24 hours to soften beans.
• After 24 hours pour water out and and rinse beans.
• Add squirrels, rabbit, and quail to crock pot
• Throw in garlic, onions, and sliced peppers
• Take a glog of Better than Boullion chicken base and add it to the 2 cups of warm water and stir until dissolved
• pour into crockpot
• soften 1 stick of butter in microwave and pour into crock pot
• add freshly crushed black pepper
• Cook until Meat is falling off the bones.

This recipe is an exclusive and will make you want to smack your momma. Umm Ummm UMMm Goodness. Enjoy

Give Mother Nature a chance to fight your garden wars.

My overwintering project has been very successful. Nevertheless, I have found that I have had a serious problem with aphids in my sun room that I have not paid attention to and they have went viral. So much so that they have destroyed some plants that I have overwintered for the past couple of years. Now that the weather has warmed up a bit I'm at odds with trying to quelch the rise of the aphids. The other day I went and bought all kinds of bug killers; at that moment I had enough. The hell with organic gardening, if I was going to enjoy the fruits of my hard labor I needed to kill every goo sapping green, red, brown squiggly, crawly thing on my plants. So I bought this concentrated stuff and put it into my spray bottle and started spraying away. With every spray I felt a devilish satisfaction knowing that I was causing the death of all these bugs that were causing heartache to my plants. This stuff had to be bad; as I was standing down wind and taking slight whiffs gettin very nausea's. As I turned the leaves over to search for intruders and jumping from plant to plant I lifted the leaf of one plant and saw movement and low and behold was an anole lizard gorging himself on aphids. On a plant above from him was a lady bug chomping down on some delicious aphid belly and in that moment, I said, "What am I doing?" so I stopped spraying. I walked 

inside of the sun room and placed the spray bottle on the shelf. I couldn't help but to look into that lizards eye to see how happy he was after just awakening from his winter nap and finding a smorgus borg of tender bodies just waiting to be eaten. Mother Nature for all she is worth can take care of herself. Im not a tree hugger by any means, but as an Urban Homesteader, Farmer, Gardener or whatever I feel like that day; I owe it to all my garden buddies, to not poison them. Simply using products that are not destructive to the dynamics of your garden is important. Instead of setting out the nuke; assist, play a supporting a role. What I should have done was keep the pigs at bay by applying products that make them hard to take root, until I could let the Dawgs out. When beneficial bugs make your garden their home, you have an obligation to be a good host. I will certainly do a better job.

Do our Farmers care about Quality or Quantity?

One of my favorite desserts is to eat fresh strawberries drizzled with sweetened condensed milk. Delicious!!!!!!!!!!! However, there was nothing that the sweetened condensed milk could do to make those juicy red strawberries taste any better and in an instant my dessert went from hero to zero and it just simply sucked.

What are our farmers selling to stores these days? I see a lot of fruit that looks great but taste like cardboard. Apples, Grapes, strawberries you name it. Grant it for many of these fruits they are not in season, but that leaves me to think if they are not in season and we have them available, how are they made available. Farmers, Gardeners should produce vegetables and fruits like a well seasoned Chef prepares a meal. A seasoned Chef constantly tastes his food. Unlike some who just throw whatever is ordered on the table without tasting only to realize they suck from reading bad reviews. Sadly enough I want to say that the over whelming majority of veggies and fruits that I have purchased from the super market really suck. Ok I know I am ruined because I grow alot of my own produce;  But that's my point because I know what a vegetable or fruit should taste like.

I guess as consumers we do have a choice, some of us have more choices than others. in many parts of the states people have the opportunity to purchase locally grown food. I have used a great website Local Harvest.org to find local farms in my area. That strawberry must have really been bad for me to rant this long. But I hate being tricked by good looks and bad taste. Disappointing...... Big Sigh!!

No land; Try Urban Container Gardening

Many people who live in apartments dream of the day when they can have land and grow there own vegetables. What they don't realize is that with a little balcony space they can grow just about anything. There are those individuals like myself at one point that lived where the sun never shown. It was so depressing. I do reccomend if your apartment hunting and wanting to grow Veggies on your balcony try to make sure you get a place with good sun exposure. All green Leafy Veggies can be grown in pots ( keep in mind Cabbage grows big and take up a lot of space, try Brussel Sprouts if space is an issue) Onions, Garlic, Leeks and Herbs can all be grown in containers with proper sun. If you can do that, then the following plants will grow great in containers:
( I have linked the individual vegetable or fruit to a website to view and or purchase)

Beans-

• Dwarf Bees
• Thorogreen

Cantaloupe-

• Minnesota Midget
• Short n Sweet

Corn-

• Golden Midget
• Asian Baby Corn

Carrot-

• Thumbelina

Cucumbers-

• Baby Cucumbers
• Bush Champion

Eggplant-

• Morden Midget
• Little Fingers

Potatoes-

• Fingerling potatoes

Tomatoes-

• Patio Tomatoes
• Burpees Patio

Watermelon-

• Bush Baby
• Petite Sweet

These are only about a few of the varities that have been known to do well in containers. So bottom line if your in an apartent and you want to grow, there is no excuse. Start growing this season..... Happy gardening

Seeds planted today

Im taking advantage of all this 70 degree weather thats going to be around for the next 10 days and planted the following seeds:

Baby Bok Choy
Pak Choy
Kamatsuna
Spinach
Cabbage
Brockalini
Snow Peas 4 different varieties
Potatoes
Onions
Garlic

Coon Hunting

I went over my Buddy Matt's House today for a squirrel hunt and ended up getting two squirrels and two coons. I told Matt it was more like grocery shopping than hunting. Growing up, I was always amazed at the stories my dad told me about coon hunting. Although him and I never got a chance to hunt together, those stories instilled in me the need to be a patron of the outdoors. Although we didn't hunt these coons in the traditional way coon hunters usually hunt them, ( Matt with his eagle eye and the aid of Natural Ice Light, Said, "Hey what the Hell is that?!?!" as we walked to the edge of a beaver pond)  it still closes the circle with my strong lineage of coon hunters. I remember vividly the many coon dinners my dad made when I was a kid growing up. In the south for some people eating coon is as American as apple pie. If you never had Coon before imagine roast beef and BBQ ribs. I can't tell my dad about these guys because he is going to want me to ship them up north. I on the other hand have my own plans and that's baking these jokers the traditional way with yams. Um..... Ummmm..... Ummmmmm..... Goodnesss!!

Product Review- LL Beans' "The Original Maine Hunting Boot"

I want to start off by saying, I don't receive any benefits from endorsing any product. But some of the best things I have purchased or heard about, come from the honest assessment of consumers who are not pressured to sell items.

 I bought these boots a few months ago for hunting, fishing, gardening and believe it or not to wear out when I'm just kickin it at my local pub. These boots have absolutely been the best purchase I have made for a pair of footwear in a long time. I chose these boots because I wanted something that was extremely durable, water proof, and they look cool. This past week I have been hunting hogs in central south GA, and I have been trekking through some nasty bogs at above ankle deep water for several hundred yards. I stepped in what appeared to be quick sand up to my shin and amazingly my feet stayed dry all the way through this. The waxed canvas is amazingly durable, which makes the boots very light and weathers great as you use them more. The best thing about these boots is the fact that they are extremely easy to clean. As we walked out of the swamps to the vehicles, my boots were cleaned by walking through the wet grass. Defiantly a Boot worth every penny spent. They run a bit larger than expected for a boot because they are made for folks who where thick socks. I wear a size 10 and I bought a size 10 and there is a lot of room in there. But when I wear thick socks they are dead on comfortable. If your looking for a sexy pair of shit kickers I suggest you take a look at LL beans Signature Original Maine Hunting Boot.

The Growing Season has Begun

We planted seeds on the 28th, 30th and 31st of Jan and a few days ago my Tomato seeds started sprouting. I bought these guys in from the sun room because even though the ground hog didn't see his shadow it's been really cold these past several days. While reading the Indoor Gardeners' post on seed I saw that he mentioned that he had an addiction. I concur. I have a Seed Addiction. It seems like everytime I go somewhere, whether it's Lowe's, walmart or the neighborhood garden store if I see seeds I have to buy something. It amazes me that when you put a seed in soil add moisture and top it off with a little patience, you get these seeds that are lifeless suddenly sprout forward into the world. It's amazing. I can just sit there and stare at the seeds. I know it may seem boring and pointless, but for me it's just so much fun watching seeds grow. My wife thinks I'm nuts, because the most tiniest things amuse me and catch y attention.. So here we are, the growing season has begun and we are off to a good start.

When should you start planting indoors?

When I started out taking this gardening thing seriously the first thing I came across was trying to figure out what Zone I lived in. I heard all this Zone talk and quickly realized that this Zone word was going to be an integral part of my vocabulary. But even though I started to understand what "zone" meant, I didn't fully understand until last year how I can use the information around each zone for planting. I'm pretty much the type of guy that reads something for the first few seconds and quickly loose steam anything short of brite lights and whistles wont get my full attention. Below is a chart for the last frost date in your area. 

 And pretty much this is easy, simple, stupid for people who are just getting started in gardening.  Locate your zone  and you will notice a starting date and an end date. The first date is the first possible date that your frost will end in your area. The Last date would be the last possible date frost will be in your area. Some seeds have specific guidelines for when to start them in doors; nevertheless, the majority of seeds will fall under the guidelines to start planting indoors 6-7 weeks from the last frost date. Keep in mind these are suggestions. But if you have a sun room or a sunny window sill, this will give you an idea for when you start planting your seeds indoors. There is one thing that separates green thumbs from non-green thumbs and that's timing. Happy gardening!!

•Zone 1: June1 - June 30

•Zone 2: May 1 - May 31

•Zone 3: May 1 - May31

•Zone 4: May 1 - May31

•Zone 5: March 30 - April30

•Zone 6: March 30 - April30

•Zone 7: March 30 - April30

•Zone 8: February 28 - March 30

•Zone 9: January 30 - February 28

•Zone 10: January 1 - January 31

•Zone 11 Frost Free Year Round

Squirrel Control

When I lived in Pennsylvania I had to protect my garden from groundhogs. It got so bad, that I took off from work so I can sit at home and watch when the groundhogs attacked my garden. And I developed a plan to take them out. That is a bit to censored for this blog, but it was a necessary evil to save my first ever garden. When I moved to Georgia, these first few years have been great. I have never had any issues with large pests. I understand the bugs and other insects that will eat up my garden every year. But I never had to deal with Squirrels until this winter. The squirrels in my area are everywhere. I live around several oak trees and pecan trees and the squirrels hang around the area when the trees are in full bloom. But these squirrels have went above and beyond the norm. Squirrels visit my garden all the time but I noticed one day that my lettuce were devoured and ripped apart. I didn't know what happened until one morning I walked outside and saw several squirrels dart away with lettuce in their mouths. I couldn't believe it. I noticed the squirrels stuck to one green leafed veggie at a time, first the lettuce, then the broccoli, then the kale and so on. So enough was enough. I employed the only method I know that works and that's shooting these guys one by one. It has become apparent to e that the word in the tree house is that the urban self-sufficientist has all the goodies. I have watched squirrels run from down the street in a file on power lines headed toward y home. This is not a house party. But they think so. Until they had a run in with my new Remington Crossman vantage.177. This is a pellet gun with a break barrel that absolutely puts the smack down on squirrels. Even though it's a pellet gun this is not a toy, you can seriously hurt somebody with this pellet gun. At 1200fps Squirrels don't have a chance anywhere near my garden. I currently killing at least one a day and my hawk is loving me for it. Shoot responsibly.

Grow $700 worth of Food In 100sqf

Click here to read the article.

As the year starts I have been giving a lot of thought to how much of an impact I want to make on my garden this year. I started searching around the web to see how I can translate my garden growth into dollars and cents and thier is really nothing that stands out except the post above written in the Mother Earth column. I will start to catalouge how much veggies cost per vegetable in another post so that I can translate that into money. I will have to call up mom and tell her that she was wrong; Because Money does grow on trees:)

Winter Fishing, Yes Im out of my mind!!

I had a wonderful time yesterday with my buddy Todd and Scott. Scott works with an organization called Freedom Outdoors Adventures; they provide hunting and fishing expeditions to veterans and really focus their time and energy on wounded veterans. It's a great organization centered around people who really care and put in the work to make dreams happen. So yesterday Todd and myself accompanied Scott on a winter fishing trip. It was cold!!! But we had so much fun!! I have been trying to put together the pieces of the puzzle to target Hybrid Striped Bass. Which by the way are crossed with the White Bass and the Striped bass. As hybrids they don't have the ability to reproduce, but they have all of the tools that make them go through the motions. Currently the Stripers and Hybrids are feeding up getting ready to travel up river to spawn. Stripers need moving water for thier eggs to hatch and thats why year after year stripers leave from Large lake impoundments and the Ocean (Because they live in both) and head up stream to spawn. The Meat is wonderful. but the real treat is the immense size that stripers not hybrids get, which is around 30-50lbs. Hybrids average around 10-12lbs but I am willing to bet that you will never fight a harder fighting fish at that weight class. Pound for Pound they are tougher than any other species of fish with comparable size.

We had a great time out there and Scott is a first class individual. In a month or two the stripers will be headed up river to spawn and I will be there with pole and carolina sinker waiting for them.

8 Cheap and Easy Raised Beds for under $100

I really don't like spending a lot of money on things that seem so easy to make. I am a retard when it comes to building stuff, so when I engage in a project, the scales need to tip my way for success. And I came up with a pretty nifty outfit that cost me under $100 to make eight 3' x 6' raised beds. If you do a search online you will quickly see that most raised beds will cost you $50 to $100 for ONE raised bed. Who has that kind of money? So with a little time and ambition I figured this all out and will like to share it with anyone thinking of giving it go this year.

Materials to make 8 raised beds 3'x 6' each:
(48) six foot privacy fence planks

(32) one foot 2"x2"x 12"

Box of Wood screws

Drill

Skill Saw

For the first two years I only used half this order and it worked great, but looking back at it, doubling up on the height of the planks makes a lot of sense from the beginning. The privacy foot planks cost me $1.59 at Lowe's for one piece. I purchased deck material at .99 cent a piece and cut them down to 32 one foot pieces.

3 x planks are needed to make one raised box and 4 x one foot 2"x 2" pieces to support the raised beds structural integrity. Take one of the 3 planks and saw it in half to a three foot section. Take the 2 six foot pieces and attach them to the two three foot sections forming a rectangular box to make one raised bed. Take two raised beds and place them on top of each other or build the second raised bed on top of the first one.

Raised beds are a great way to grow veggies in small places and especially if your soil is not of the best quality. The Raised beds give you the ability to manage your dirt appropriately and build it This particular design can also be used to compost organic matter and direct grow right in the box.

Composting done Right

When it comes to compost there is one thing that you have to put into it that you can't purchase from the garden store and it is called patience. With out it you just wont get the desired effects your looking for. Two years ago I decided to make my own compost and I have a system that works for me. In the pic there are two bins. On the left are all the leaves I have collected from this fall along with grass clippings and veggies from the kitchen. On the right is what it will look like after one year of having worms, microbes and moisture work it. That deep black crumbly chocolate cake look is the desired effect. In a few days when it stops raining I will take all of my black gold "not oil" and lay it in my garden beds ready to prep for this growing season. What a growing season it will be. In theory I should be able to do better than I did last year. We shall see. Lately I have been plagued by squirrels eating my kale and and other greens. The Garden Wars have begun- Such is the life of a Urban Homesteader:(

2010 Falconry Season

This hunting season I trapped another hawk it turned out to be a Female Red Tail hawk. I named her Koto after my wife protested me naming her Madia. Two of her tail feathers were broken when I trapped her, but I didn't care to much about that because she was fearless, I trapped her in town harassing the local pigeons and causing hell to the city squirrels. As a wild hawk she didn't pay me any mind as I watched her closely one day hunting squirrels. Hawks who are accustomed to the city tend to be a lot more tolerant of people and the busy life that the city brings. It makes great for a hunting hawk. She has manned very nice and is very calm around people and dogs. All of these are big plus. Down here in GA we have alot of leaves that are still on the trees. It makes hunting squirrels really tough. However today she scored on a huge buck squirrel. That guy was fat. When I released her into the canopy I saw the squirrel shoot up the tree and Koto saw the squirrel jump into it's nest. Immediately Koto flew to the tree examining the nest for a few minutes. I guess she realized that there was a big huge squirrel in there and the risks might outweigh the benefits of slamming the nest. I shot a BB into the nest and that peaked her interest as it got the squirrel to move around in the nest. Koto Slammed the nest throwing her talons into it, but that ol buck squirrel grabbed her leather jess and pulled it into the nest. She had a look on her face like, "What the Hell!!" there was just a pause she didn't know what to do as the squirrel was holding onto her jess inside the nest. After a couple of minutes of analyzing the situation she became furious and started tearing the nest apart. The Big Buck Jumped from the nest circling the tree towards me with Koto in hot pursuit crashing through limbs. The squirrel stopped short of coming down the tree as him and I did some sort of Mexican standoff, He was just out of reach for a good stick whacking and would not move knowing Koto was on the other side. I pulled my daisy BB gun out so that I can pop him and get him to move and when I popped him he stood still holding his ground not moving an inch. Koto Swung around the tree to a branch to see what I was looking at and the squirrel immediately lept towards me. EEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!! I jumped out of the way and Koto slammed the ground just missing the squirrel as it bounced from the ground and back onto the tree. But what do you know Ole Buck squirrel was too heavy to move faster than Koto was and she nailed it as it tried to scurry back up the tree. A great hunt and looking for many more this season. Now all I need is 4 more squirrels for my amazing stew.