Phenomenal Colors

Springtime Color

Hyacinth Flower

Easter Lilies

Sharpen Your Teeth

My superdigger has teeth. By close observation, you can see the teeth are wearing down. I have a great solution, I bought a Pittsburgh 8" tapered file. It only cost me a few bucks at Harbor Freight. Now my superdigger has sharp teeth, ready again for my junk filled soil.

Preparedness Expo in Lebanon Missouri

I went to a preparedness Expo today. I listened to Dr. Norm Shealy - Holistic practitioner.

I learned about controlling high blood pressure (which I don't have) with nitric Oxide (which I also don't have). https://normshealy.com/kyani-nitroxtreme-a-safe-botanical-extract-for-hypertension/

He also talked about how magnesium is not in our soil and in the foods we buy. We should add it to our garden plants.  http://www.ancient-minerals.com/magnesium-sources/dietary/

Maybe it is not a bad idea to give our plants vitamins. I used to grind up my old ones and feed it to my plants. I might start it again.

Epsom salt is a good additive for soil. We should buy a box and sprinkle it all over our garden.  I used to use Epsom salt but must have forgot about it. Read about fertilizing with Epsom salt:

http://www.garden.org/articles/articles.php?q=show&id=68

Mulch From Green Food Scraps

I would like to show you a picture on what the surface of your topsoil looks like with  mulch. This particular bucket with pepper plant has scraps left overs from juicing. You can make your own mulch in an old blender if you prefer.

Even though compost piles are great, you don't have to put all your food scraps in a compost pile, just blend, and pour them around your plants. If you do juice, it becomes even easier to get mulch and pile it around your plants.

Mulches from your kitchen scrapes makes a beautiful mat around your plants. They say mulches help retain moisture and keeps the soil from splashing on your plants, reducing disease. I like the aesthetics of kitchen mulches; they beautify any garden.

Why Make Your Own Juice?

I am a proponent for healthy foods and juicing is one of the best ways to get nutrition. For instance, I am told that those who juice wheat grass and drink a few ounces are getting the nutrient value of many vegetables.

I haven't always been faithful in juicing, but now that I'm nearing 60, it's time to make more habits at healthy living.

 "Juicing is not a fad. It will help you feel better and have more energy."  

Most gardeners know that growing their own food takes a long time (at least a few months). Unless you have a green house, you can't have great nutrition all year round. Even juicing has its limitation. What are we going to juice in the winter time that is fresh? It is hard to find good nutritious food to juice in the winter months. I think the only solution is to have a green house that will help us continue harvesting some plants in the winter months.

Now that spring is here, lets juice while we are waiting for our garden plants to grow. I like to juice dandelions and garlic together but there is nothing wrong with juicing herbs. I have used mint and Greek oregano.

If you have time, read this article on oregano:

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=73 

Dr. Cass Ingram wrote a book on the subject:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Cure-Is-Cupboard-Oregano/dp/1931078270

I know most healthy juices taste like crap, but so does medicine. Have you tasted an aspirin lately? The movie "First Blood" had this famous line, "You don't seem to want to accept the fact you're dealing with an expert in guerrilla warfare, with a man who's the best, with guns, with knives, with his bare hands. A man who's been trained to ignore pain, ignore weather, to live off the land, to eat things that would make a billy goat puke."  

Are you willing to eat things that might taste bad but are healthy for your body? If you can drink a shot of whiskey than you can drink a shot of juice. You can always chase down the bitter flavor with water or juice.

Health all comes down to this fact: we must find an unusual path for ourselves to get results that are not the norm. Look around, do you really want to look and feel like most men or women, living on junk foods?

I read a quote the other day that said we should concentrate on the inner man instead of our face and body. I say we can do both. we can develop our inner man while we make our outer man stronger. You can be a complete person mastering your inner (spiritual) and outer self (physical).

It takes work to grow your own food, and also to take care of your body. I have noticed  that once you get more energy, doing the things that used to make you tired are now fun.

Today is a new day. Let's grow young together, and let the naysayers continue with their fast decline to old age and nursing homes. No, that sounded harsh. Let's be examples to those around us and mentor those eager to know our health secrets.

Sagittatum Epimedium

I like epimediums. They have pretty flowers and compliment your garden. In the fall you can cut your sagittatum leaves and grind them for tea.  

http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/natural-medicine/herbal-remedies/horny-goat-weed2.htm

I grew Sagittatum not for myself but for resale. However it is a slow grower. In a few years it has only multiplied its size about four times. I think if I would have sub-divided my plants, I would have had more plants.

TEA

I washed the leaves and dried them in my electric pizza cooker. I then cut them up and put them through a coffee grinder. As you see, not very much herb.

To make tea (I mixed it with green tea), I opened a tea bag by making a slit at the top of a bag and poured some into it. I then re-stapled and used it. 

Dog Food

I used to feed my little Chihuahua, named Belle, with meats like chicken breasts or ground beef that was cut up and topped off with cheese. However, it got to the point she couldn't handle chicken anymore so I sought professional help on-line in order to make dog food she could handle. I found a good recipe.

I now make her food with one potato, sweet potato, small cuts of meat, green beans, peas, chia seeds, carrots, barely, and pasta with no seasoning. I cut up all the ingredients really small ( 3/8").

It looked so good after I made it that  I started making me some with seasoning. It goes good in tacos and tortillas or just plan slop.

I like to save money. Instead of buying loads of meat and canned items, I am going to continue with my thick stew that is  good for me and  Belle. My thick stew can easily replace canned soups or refried beans. Most of your cheap soups that you buy in a can tastes more like canned dog food than the stuff I make.

As we get older, we need more nourishing foods. If we don't give our body what it needs, we will break down and grow old. As we get younger (as opposed to growing older), we need to eat better than we ever did before.

3/25/15

I went to the store today to buy tomatillo seeds, and cilantro. I like Taco Bell Green Verde Salsa. With growing the right ingredients, I am going to make my own salsa and place it in the old bottles that I saved from buying it.

Honing our Skills: Update on Superdigger, Swimming pool, and Biochar Can

Superdigger: I found that by using the superdigger in moist or wet soil it clings, like it should, to the inside of the PVC pipe. I now use a piece (3-4 ft) of 1/2" conduit tubing (instead of wood) to knock out the mud or dirt. You just feed it through the top and leave it there while you dig. It is simply dig, and knock out the soil in another spot.

Be careful not to dig in rocks. If you hear grinding, stop and use a small trowel and remove the rocks. The sharpened teeth are strong but can wear down in time. I suppose a small file would come in handy to sharpen any dull teeth. I'm not there yet, but I'm thinking about it, especially when I chipped some teeth on chunks of metal found in the soil.

Biochar Can: You do not need the copper tubing, unless you want a piece stuck into it for a handle. The tubing fills up with creosote. There is enough gaps in the loose fitting caps that lets enough vapors to escape without tubing. I would suggest cementing the bottom cap to prevent spillage.

It is also a good idea to keep your can inside a building. You do not want premature rusting.

The swimming pool is great for hot weather but when it is wet in the springtime, I keep the water out of my pool. You don't want to overly water your plants. After a rain, I removed my buckets and dump the water out of my pool.

For my hay bales,  I use a container and remove the excess moisture or just leave it alone.

Trench Gardening without Hay Bales

My book, "Hay Bale Garden Habitat," lays out my technique for growing in trenches. Here is a sample:

The Solution

Deterioration is what we are seeking for when gardeners use hay or straw bales. Moist compost made from rotting hay bales is a good way of improving your soil. Compost contains valuable nutrients and rich humus. Humus is long lasting in the soil and can be beneficial in providing for improved physical, chemical, and biological conditions. Humus improves soil structure and increases water retention. Its nutritive qualities include trace elements and several important organic acids but do not include nitrogen or phosphorus.

My habitat uses the water that is absorbed from above and below the ground. Hay bales partially buried in the ground helps to absorb water.  From the bottom of a previously dug trench or pit, the hale bale habitat will slowly wick up the water and moisture that resides in the ground. The water that flows into the trench or ditch and the soil’s slow rate of absorption will determine how much hay bale wicking will occur.

My top soil is only about five or six inches deep.  When I dig through the top soil after a rain to make a pit, I find water is immediately filling my freshly dug hole. It is not unusual for dug holes to fill up with water. Ground water can rapidly fill holes by simply seeping into the freshly excavated hole. The seeping water along with earthworms and microbes in the ground will help to deteriorate my hay bales.

All we need to do in this system is to dig an area large enough to fit a hay bale in a depression or hole. We then proceed to bury the bottom part of the hay bale in the pit. Water is greatest at the bottom of the pit where water is slowly absorbing in the clay and rock layers. END OF SAMPLE

Another Solution

In this alternative, we are still going to use trenches but also our chipper (or lawnmower). Chipping leaves, wood, weeds, grass and old plants is a way to make finely cut mulch. We are also going to use a 6" PVC pipe in our trench. We will simply stick the PVC pipe (at least a few feet long) into the place where we will be growing a plant. The PVC pipe will be removed after filling the trench with mulch and adding soil medium to our PVC pipe. The PVC pipe is only used as a guide for our soil medium.

The next step is to fill the trench with your finely cut mulch and place it around the PVC pipe. For each section, cover the mulch in the trench with regular top soil or any ground soil. Pack the soil down on the mulch (1-2 inches). Now fill your PVC with your special soil medium as you slowly remove the pipe. Pack the soil medium and refill and plant. Keep doing the same thing until all your seeds or seedlings are planted.

Benefits 

Not only will weeds not grow in your debris or mulch trench but as time goes on it will become compost. The thing I like about trenches is watering is easy. Stick a slow running hose on one in and the trench will fill up with water.

This idea of mine is so revolutionary, I'm going to try a section this year. Not only will it benefit your plants this year, but wait til next year. You can scoop up the rich compost and make the best soil medium to re-use in your trench. Just add a little biochar and manure and you'll be set for another year with the garden of your dreams.

Become a Star (Health and Fitness)

Everybody wants to be a star. When you walk into a room, do you want people to notice you in a positive way?  

In my book on Wise Fitness I wrote:

THE NOBILITY OF OUR LIFE STYLE

Attractive people exercise to stay beautiful. 

The glamorous are treated like nobility, while commoners are also treated according to their looks. 

   People can't resist helping those who have the look of royalty. However, those who look according to how they feel, haggard, and worn, will seldom enjoy an act of spontaneous courtesy, unless it's done out of pity.
    In a kingdom, we find the King and Queen, the top monarchs, who are treated with awe and respect. Have you ever been treated like a King or Queen? Do you get waited on hand and foot by those clamoring for your attention? Or are you more like the royal food taster? When at a party you are found amongst the appetizers and h'orderves, preoccupied with tasting and indulging in all the delicious food.
    To have a royal presence, you must invest in yourself. By exercising and looking your best, you can achieve the look of nobility. Continue daily in your quest for health and fitness and success will come to you.

    MY FINAL THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY: Use dumbbells. Everyone should know some dumbbell exercises. In a small house, dumbbells do not take up much space. I go from one exercise to another. If I get tired, I'll stop for a while to get my breath and then continue. I do arm curls, shoulder shrugs, overhead presses and more. I have a few exercises in my book but I really wrote my book to encourage people to exercise.

Biochar Update

I used to break up my biochar with a little dent fixing hammer. Now that I think back, it was quite a chore breaking up all the char with a little hammer. Now I use my sledge hammer. I use it like your would a mortar and pestle. In a up and down motion, I use the top of my sledge hammer and lightly pound away. I also add about a 1/2 gallon of water to get rid of the dust, I don't want coal miner lungs.

Growing Garlic by Using My Superdigger

I had some hard soil around my potato bed and decided to grow garlic. I used my superdigger.  My superdigger was the best invention I've ever made. It is so easy to make, that I show you in a short video. Here is my link: SUPERDIGGER YouTube Video.

Usually when you use new ground, you have to rotor til the soil. You end up spending $$$$ for all the soil additives in order to make your bed able to sustain garden plants. I planted six garlic cloves today and used only a bucket of my soil mixture. I didn't have to waste my precious soil medium on a whole garden bed.

I dug down to about six inches. I want the surrounding pathways to be hard as brick. I don't want a bed with freshly dug soil just to promote weed. That's what you do when you rotor til your garden. It seems like you break up the soil just for weeds to grow. I want my soil mixture where my plant is going to extend roots.

I think you are blessed if your soil is mostly clay. I just don't want to grow in it. It can make great pathways when you walk on it all the time. My holes that I make to plant seedlings will help retain moisture due to the surrounding clay. Instead of water running off, it will fill the holes I made for my plants and stay there a while.

I've decided to grow some corn using my superdigger. Have you ever noticed that corn plants fall over, being grown in well tilled soil? It will be interesting to see if they do by planting in hard soil using my superdigger.

Homemade Watering Bottle

I could not for the life of me, find my watering can so I made one out of a 3 quart coke bottle.  I used a heated up poker wire or clothes hanger and made holes up near the top. You can even squeeze the bottle for faster flow.

You can experiment with wider spacing or smaller holes. Which would you rather do, buy a ten dollar watering can or one for free?

Trench Gardening

I was astounded at all the rich mulch that was left behind from last year hay bale garden. I live in a place where the clay is so bad that you could make pots. I used to rotor till my whole garden and distribute the top soil and clay all over the place. Now I grow in trenches. I tell you all about it in my book, "Hay Bale Garden Habitat."

Did I have to double dig my trench fillings? No! All I had to do was add two buckets of my prime soil mixture and rake it smooth on top of my trench. I didn't even worry about making it into a raised bed. The idea about raised beds is to make a bed that has rich soil and is conductive to growing. In my trenches I have the richest soil that will even get better as the years go bye.

I planted lettuce, radishes, and carrots. I then covered them with left over seeding soil. If you took a scoop out of my trench you would see countless worms. The best part about my trench is no wood frames. Why give bugs, like sow bugs, food to multiply.

Use Your Food Scraps

This is what I wrote in Hay Bale Garden Habitat:

Blenderized

Use an old blender to add garden waste to your topsoil. I recently blended up eggshells and lemon peels. I mixed the ingredients in my wheelbarrow with some soil just before adding it to my garden bales.

That's a good idea but  I also pour the liquid mush in my trenches or on top of my hay bales. It is still probably a good idea to add soil to lemon mush. I don't know how plants would like all that acidic juice.

I have been using my juicer a lot lately. The pulp comes out of my juicer fairly dry. I take the pulp and put it on the top soil of my buckets

I am a great user of Biochar. Today I found a whole package of moldy hot dog buns. I took the buns and dumped them in my Biochar can and added the plastic to my garbage to be burned. I find bread makes great biochar.

Are you starting to see a picture how everything we use in daily life can be useful. There is dollars wasted on our property or home garbage that we should use and manage.

Let's Get in Shape

I got nothing against fat people. I consider myself overweight. The simple fact that I was trying to show by this picture from my Wise Fitness Book  is that we put more effort or work into our possessions than we do for ourselves.

We need to exercise, eat right, and have a stable frame of mind. Here is a portion from my book:

 Anything is possible if our willingness to succeed outweighs our desire to procrastinate. 

Today is the day of new possibilities.  There remains a door in your way.  Open the door and walk in.
Don't fret about yesterday's regrets.  Today can be the beginning of a new and improved you.  The best part of systematic exercise is that you will gain a new self-esteem with a desire to succeed.  Your stronger desire will strengthen you for any battle or hardship that may come your way.
       Today is the day of new possibilities.  Do you want weight control, a stronger heart, and more energy?  Then do the things that most people have little time for, exercising their body.  Your fit and improved body will astound your friends and most of all, amaze yourself.
       Have you ever notice, how many people are more concerned about acquiring and maintaining their possessions than they are in exercising and eating for health?  We all have time consuming chores to do in life, but we also have physical obligations that need tending to.  We need to work our bodies by exercising and then refueling ourselves with healthy foods that have plenty of vitamins, minerals and proteins.

I Embrace All Forms of Gardening

I embrace all kinds of gardening. If it improves your landscape and provides food, I am all for it. I don't care if you grow in a mud hole. If you grow something, it is bound to beautify your once ugly mud hole.

I used my Superdigger and dug down about 12" before adding my newly mixed soil medium. No, I didn't grow in a hay bale. I would be bored doing things only one way.

I used to wait till the ground dried out before rotor-tilling. By using my Superdigger I can easily make a 4" growing hole. No spading or shoveling required.  I plan to use my digger in my last year hay bale garden bed. I'll find a spot among the decomposing hay bale and drill away.

Some plants need more room than using a straw bale or hay bale to grow in. The plants pictured in the photo are cauliflower plants.

Hay Bale Replacement for Buckets

I went to the stores the other day looking for buckets. I am not going to spend $3-$4 for a bucket. I want them for a dollar that you get at the supermarkets. They didn't have any. I got things to plant. How dare them to run out of buckets (just kidding).

When I was at Wal-Mart I bought another swimming pool for $9.88. I am ready to plant but no cheap buckets could be found.

As I was heading home an inspirational thought came to me. I'll make my own buckets out of hay. I'll use my PVC pipe and make the smallest bale with my bale compressor attachment.  I have the equipment so why not use it.

This is a experiment. How will the bale hold up being drenched in water from the pool. Will it collapse in time? I do not know. My hay bale is not one of those conditioned straw bales you find in most straw bale gardens. My hay bales I do not want to become decompose or mushy. 

I added my usual soil mixture containing rabbit manure, peat moss, biochar, and soil from my trenches. That's right, I grow in trenches. I make a bale and bury it in a trench. Watering is like irrigating and next year left overs (decomposed hay/leaves that become rich mulch) becomes this year soil medium.

Make sure your remove the PVC pipe. You are not growing in the pipe. It is only used for making a hole in your hay bale.

Scooping from the trenches is easy. The rich mulch is light and easy to dig. I fill my bucket and add it to my wheelbarrow containing my other ingredients.

For some reason I think it is going to work. Straw bale gardeners grow above ground all the time with no problems other then shrinkage at the end of the year. Their bales do look more like mush at the end of the year, but then they cook their bales with urine, fertilizer, bone meal and other ingredients.

Here is my final picture of my bales in the pool with strawberry plants. I should be able to get five plants to a pool. They are a little bigger than a bucket but I'm pleased. By the way, I sheared off some of the hay like giving it a hair cut. You could probably make them smaller by shearing off some more hay.

One last thing. Don't leave your growing hole without a bottom. You can either use hay, plastic sheet with holes or cardboard with holes. You do not want your soil falling out of your bale. Also make sure you compact the soil with your fist. 

   

Sprinting Your Way to Health

With all brain diseases today, we need to pump our blood into our head. Cholesterol can harden our arteries and narrow our veins. We may not be getting the blood supply to our brain that we daily need.

Life is in the Blood. When we don't circulate our blood like we should, we will begin the process of muscle, and bone atrophy. Exercise all of your body. The picture below shows that all our parts need to work together for health.

https://youtu.be/vkfUmxNNoSU

Garlic and Dandelions

It is time to harvest dandelion greens and roots. I also added a couple of sprigs of garlic.

My sister claims that she hasn't been sick for ten years due to garlic. I must say it tastes great mixed with dandelions.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265853.php

Read this article. It is your study for the day.

I add water to my juice and eat a piece of candy afterwards. Candy helps get rid of any bad flavor left in your mouth. Don't overuse juice. It might overpower your stomach and cause nausea.

Also don't forget exercise. Look at this picture from my book on Wise Fitness. There is a war going on and age want to defeat us into senile years of a broken down body. I've seen those in rest homes, I don't want to end up in one. How about you?

I used to suffer bone and joint pain. When I got out of my car, I  was always hunched over. What is my secret to relieving back pain? Buy the best bed you can afford. I bought a bed that has memory foam that adjusts.

I'm going to be sixty this year. I run differently than I used to when I was young. I run as fast as I can and then stop when I'm tired. In my mind, my running should improve my circulation and pump my blood throughout my body. 

A slow jogger keeps a happy medium but doesn't work the old pumper. I want circulation that pumps fresh blood to my brain and organs.  

Exercise has very much to do with gardening. Bad joints, back pain, and exhaustion does not help when gardening. My type of gardening is not labor intensive, but no gardening is fun when you are suffering pain. 

Let's get in shape and look younger. It can be done. I got rid of my back and joint pain, so can you.

Let's grow in Buckets

1. My method is simple. After making holes in the bottom of the bucket, put in your PVC pipe. The one I used was six inches.

2. Stuff old grass, leaves, or spoiled hay around PVC pipe.

3. Add your soil mixture. 1/10 biochar, manure, peatmoss, and soil in PVC pipe.

4. Twist and remove PVC pipe.

Now it is like a jelly filled doughnut. Instead of jelly in the middle, it has your soil medium.

5. Scoop out or push to the side some soil to make a planting hole.

6. Add more soil on top, covering the hay or leaves.

In this particular pot planting, I planted a pepper plant. Later on as it grows, I'll put a cage in my bucket to help stabilize the plant with its load of peppers. 

It is too early to be growing pepper. If it becomes too cold at night, I'll take my pepper plants indoors. It will be easy to transport, being made with less soil and becoming light weight buckets.

Why use this method? 1. The buckets are light and don't use much soil. 2. By setting the bucket in a container with water, you don't have to water daily. 3. The wet hay or mulch helps your bucket to retain and regulate moisture.  

Bio-Char for Pennies

It was a windy day but perfect for my little trash can burn. See the vapors pouring out of the top vent pipe made out of copper tubing. This was my second burn for biochar. Sometimes if the wood is solid, it needs another barrel burn.

Today I put some old moldy bread into my biochar maker. You can put anything in it. I also like to use bones.

The biochar burned so hot that my tubing vapors lit up like a torch.

In a few hours, I had cooled biochar for my next pot plantings. I use 1/10th of  biochar that is added to my soil mixture.

When you burn in a can, add the garbage loosely. If you get a compacted burn, the vent holes in the bottom of can will plug up and you'll have a warm burn. It is better to cook your biochar twice in your barrel than have a long compacted burn that doesn't burn hot and doesn't make biochar.

Potato Bed

My potato bed looks small from the photo but is really large. I did an experiment last year by burying hay or straw bales under my raised bed. I grew potatoes in only three inches of soil. I now recommend using a lot more soil (at least a foot) above your bales.

This year I need no preparation in my bed. I simply bury the spud whole (1 inch) and then heap a pile of top soil over the spud by my hands (three inches). This year all the hay from last year has decomposed. All I need to do is simply plant the potato starts.

All this hype about conditioning bales with fertilizer seems hard work. Straw Bale gardeners have to condition every bale before use it (it may take weeks to condition). I also use conditioned bales--conditioned by earthworms and microbes. You'll be amazed how fast these little soil conditioners work. That is why my garden is called a "Garden habitat." There is work going on in my garden but not by using toxic fertilizers.

I am going to use early potatoes. When they begin to bloom is when you harvest young potatoes. I like tender small potatoes.

Holes in a Bucket

The easiest way to put holes in a bucket is by a long piece of close hanger wire or a piece of wire of the same size. Use your torch and heat up the tip of your wire. You can make about four holes before having to heat the wire up again.

The bucket is now very effective at soaking up water. You can add pebbles of rocks at the bottom part of your growing portion of your bucket.

Buckets can be expensive. I bought three buckets for a dollar a piece at my local bakery store. Go to your store and ask, "Do you have any buckets?" They might just give you some. Meeks have 5 gallon buckets for $4.00-WalMart and Lowes are about three dollars. What a rip off.

Let's go Swimming the Larry Zoro Way

I should get about eight buckets of plants in this pool. These are all strawberry plants. I bought two white strawberry plant today at the Amish store for just $1.59 ea.

I know people buy kiddy pools for growing. You can cut the bottom out of your buckets and fill the pool and buckets with soil. I do it differently.  I use a 6" PVC and layer straw around the PVC before filling the PVC with soil and pulling the PVC out. It doesn't take much soil and the holes at the bottom of the bucket sucks up the water from the pool.

I paid $9.88 at Wal-Mart for the pool. I could envision all my gardening from buckets in small swimming pools. As much as I like hay bale gardening, my bucket technique works as well as my bales in trenches.

I can't wait to show everyone my cardboard garden. I plan to grow in cardboard just to prove that with the right soil medium you can grow in anything.

I went on-line and looked at some bottom watering systems with 5 gallon buckets. I just can't see the extra expense in making them.

If for some reason you are not getting enough moisture with my system, you can prime your buckets with a cup of water that you scoop up from the pool. Only put a few inches of water in your pool. It is better to dry out than breed mosquitoes.

When it comes time to mow the grass underneath the pool, it's simple. Pull out the light buckets and move the pool.

My buckets are light because I use half straw or hay and soil in the middle and on the top. I couldn't believe how I did not find any straw in the buckets from last year. The hay disintegrated and I was able to reuse the same soil with new bio-char. You can always add a little fertilizer, that's what straw bale gardeners do.

Straw bale gardeners are just fluff and bluff. They use fertilizer and bone meal and then give credit to the straw for growing great plants. Hay and straw is great for compost or helping in wicking up the water to the plants but besides that, it all show.

The thing I like about my system is that it using little watering and not much soil. I have heaps of top soil just waiting to be used.

I did need some soil for my buckets so I used the soil from my decomposed garden trenches where I used to have strawberry plants. The soil is so rich with worms and compost that I find gardening with last years hay bales, now decomposed, very beneficial soil medium.

This is Larry Zoro; make sure you buy all my books on gardening, watch my videos, and read all my posts. For a few measly bucks you can have all my secrets in growing your dream garden. I spent more today on plants than what my books costs on Amazon. My techniques will save you more money than what they costs.

Gardening in the Evening

I like to garden in the evening. I planted two potted white strawberry plants and a small bed of potatoes.

Strawberry Buckets

I planted eight quinault (everbearing) strawberries in four buckets. The toilet paper roll with paper towel held its own. They were easy to plant with my PVC pipe technique. Time will tell, I hope to have a great harvest of strawberries.

Wheelbarrow Restoration

1.  The first thing I did for my wheelbarrow was to buy an inner-tube for the wheel. Nothing works better than having a tube inside your supposedly no tube wheel.  Without the tube, it will constantly leak and give you headaches.

2.  Replace the handles. I'm cheap so I cut out some pieces of wood from a 2X6. What would you rather do, buy handles for forty dollars or rip a piece of wood for $4? Make them the same size as the originals.  You might have to cut some new shims or wedges. Be careful. This part of cutting tapers could cut off your hand. I use an extra long piece of a two by four and traced the old taper on the wood. I free hand cut the taper, but my hand was far away from the blade. After I cut the taper, I ripped it to size (cutting off the excess wood that I used to hold the two by four.)

3. I bought all new bolts. Most of your old rusted bolts will have to be replaced. Use a hacksaw on the stubborn bolts.

4. I drilled all the holes in the handles by using the old handles as hole guides.

5. I found some instructions for a wheelbarrow online and followed its PDF in putting it all together.

6. I used mineral oil on the new wooden handles. Belt sand the edges of the handles. You don't want splinters going into your hands.

7. I wire buffed the loose rust and painted the barrow with rustoleum.

Note: If you are not skilled in using a table saw it might be worth buying new handles instead of loosing fingers. Table saws have a tendency to kick back wood or pull your fingers into the blades.