We’ll be settin out a few plants today, more Beefsteak tomatoes, and settin cucumbers out too. Although this time we’re goin in the ground with seeds.

I know the sun scalded our first cucumber plants and Beefsteaks, but we’d set them straight out of the greenhouse into the direct sun. This, we found out…is a no-no! At first I thought it was our compost was just “too hot,” and brought in topsoil to mix and possibly “cool the compost” down some.

We found at later, through good advice from “our friends” who watch our videos that, this was probably not the problem, but once again, we just were not hardening the plants up first. Still I’m glad I added the topsoil, as this will work out good for us, too.

Here’s a comment from our good friend Bobby. Bobby lives in Virginia and is one fine gardener. He’s a heck of a great guy, husband, Father, and good Christian man. Bobby has a couple greenhouses, and he takes care of 5 large gardens on his place as well.

Here’s his comments involving “hardening” your plants prior to settin them out in full sun, after having started them in the greenhouse.

“I found out about the hardening off deal last year, first hand. I didn’t lose any plants, but they sure did look rough for a while. Being inside under plastic is just so protective they aren’t strong enough to face the elements all at once. Lots to learn, but you’re doing good.”

This from another good friend, Bernard, who I believe lives in Virginia as well. Bernard is also a “master gardener,” not just by name, but by trade.

“The sunlight the plants get in a greenhouse is different from direct sunlight. They need to be shielded from the sun and exposed a little more each day for about a week.”
The main reason tomato leaves turn white is that the plants were not hardened off before being planted in full sunlight. They curl because there is no water left in the leaf. Plants will get sunburn if they are moved from a shaded place into direct sun. When I take my plants out of my greenhouse I have to cover them or they will be sunburned even though they have been exposed to the sun. I use a tarp over a frame and expose them at little more each day for about a week and then I remove the tarp. On cloudy days I do not cover them. When bad storms are in the area I cover them to prevent damage.

If the tomato plants only lose their leaves but the stems and roots are not damaged they may put out new growth and you will just lose time, do to a later harvest.

Here’s another from a good friend as well.

“Hey Dub did you harden them off before putting them in ground, sounds like that’s the problem.”

So you see, we learned a valuable lesson, even if I had lost about 50 plants. Since we’d never grew in a greenhouse before we just had no idea. It could have been much, much worse. Have you noticed that I’m using the word WE now, even though I made the goof.

You see, if they’d have taken off and done real well, then I’d have taken all the credit, but since I goofed, I decided I’d share the goof with ole Deb. Now…it’s WE! LOL!

I cringe to even think about…what if I’d have set out plants in the whole grow area?? All of a sudden you’re talking a WHOLE lot more we could have lost. I call it a beginner’s mistake. My wife calls it…ignorance, but I’ll have to compromise a little and say we’re both right! Dad-gummit!

So, we’ll now be planting 22 Beefsteaks, and 4 varieties of melons. Yep, I’ve hardened them all off for a week. I set them on a bench we made and they get full sun until about 2 in the afternoon. At this point the greenhouse itself shades them.

The melons we’ll set are 6 Georgia Rattlesnake, 5 Jubilee’s, 4 Sugar Baby’s, and 2 cantalope’s. We have 1 more Jubilee and 1 more Sugar Baby, but they’re not quite ready to set yet. They’ll be another week or so.

We’ll probably go ahead at this point and set a few more seeds of the melons and stagger them to get a couple crops hopefully.

Tomorrow as well, we’ll start settin out more plants on the bench to start the hardening process. We’ll be putting out three varieties of eggplant, the Listada De Gandia, Ukrainian Beauty, and the Florida Market. We’ll be settin out to harden 2 types of hot peppers, and 4 types of sweet peppers, too.

The tomatoes we’ll be hardening are the Homestead, Green Pineapple, and Rutgers to go along with the Beefsteaks which will already be in the ground. The Cherry tomatoes are the Mini-Orange, Black Cherry, Reisentraube, Isis Candy, and Fox Cherry.

We’ll set at least 15, and no more than twenty plants each. I’m talkin tomatoes still. We’ll set out 6 eggplants each, and the peppers we’ll set out probably most of what we have.

We’ve got 3 types of squash, 5 types of lettuce, 2 types of spinach, 3 types of carrots, brussell sprouts, 3 types of beets, radishes, 3 types of black tomatoes, and celery in seed trays that are sprouted now. Those won’t be too awful long from being ready to go as well.

As we set each new vegetable out in the grow area, we’ll be running micro-jet for each row. I personally, like to set my row, then install the lines. This shows me exactly where to put the heads for each plant to put the water right where it’s needed. After that screw up of killin those first plants, I SURE DON’T want to tick Deb off at me again!! The “heat’s” finally easin off from that go round! LOL!

I gotta say this though, it HAS been work, and a whole lot of it. Getting the pad for the greenhouse, erecting it, digging out existing dirt and going back with good soil, building our beds, setting up where we wanted to plant what, building seed tables, racks, and now planting and installing a water system. PHEW!!

BUT, it has all been worth every minute! The benefits of what we’ll be producing from a freshness standpoint, a nutritional standpoint, and a cost saving standpoint are tremendous. The very best thing though is that Deb’s having a good time with this!

She’s bending and stooping, she’s out in the sun and fresh air, she’s learning how to set seeds, transplant them into larger pots, she’s learning the different vegetable varieties, and is loving every minute of it.

The biggest part of the work is just fixing to be over with once we get all our water system in. Then it’s to see that everything is getting what it needs, and watching everything grow off. It then becomes less of a work thing, and more of a managing thing.

This project, like most any project you start, was heavy work on the front end, but with more of a keeping everything maintained, and just keeping an eye on things from there on out. This will be bringing us both much pleasure in the years to come!

Thank you guys for droppin back in to visit with us today. We sure appreciate ya’ll doin so! Please take care, and God Bless! Deb says to keep a smile on your face, and one in your heart!

Dub and Deb

Well, Deb and I have been busy in the greenhouse. This is so much fun. Yes, it is work, but it’s also something both of us really enjoy. There are some major pluses for us both in regards to putting the greenhouse up as well.

The first is health. Good, fresh nutritious vegetables…year round. You all know Deb has Stage 4 breast cancer, and that after taking one chemo treatment she opted to take the alternative route. She chose quality of life versus being knocked down through the effects of the chemo.

Today, 11 months later she looks great, feels great, and is one busy woman. She works outside with us, does her housework, keeps me fed, which in itself is quite a feat, and helps me in the greenhouse. Never misses a beat!

One thing though that we consider the very most important is…faith! Faith in our Lord, faith in herself, and faith in that the treatment she chose is working. She’s told me numerous times that her chosen treatment she’s involved in…God showed to her!

To be honest, he is smiling on her daily, and we are two blessed people. So far, so good!

So, as I said, nutrition is our first benefit from our greenhouse. We juice a ton of fruits and vegetables daily, 20 to 25 different varieties each morning. This will supply us with most of these year round. What a blessing.

Secondly, we eat a lot of vegetables too. This is hand in hand with our juicing. On top of that, we know exactly what they’ve been grown in, what we may or may not have sprayed or fertilized with, and we’re able to walk outside, pick what we need, then right back into the house and prepare them…how could you possibly have product any fresher than that?

Juicing this many varieties each day comes with a monetary cost. I’m sure you guys all know firsthand the rising costs at the grocery store. Deb and I have advocated since the inception of our website the importance of putting up some food supply. Today, we’re glad we did.

So from a product standpoint, the greenhouse, along with our garden, will save us “mucho dinero!” Plus once more put this produce on our table in its freshest sense!

Look at your own situation in regards to saving a dollar when and where, you can. It doesn’t take very much room at all to grow actually, quite a bit of your own vegetables.

Google up square foot gardening, raised bed gardening, lasagna gardening, or container gardening. These all will supply you with good fresh vegetables…at little cost. Again, you’ll be able to walk outside to your garden spot, pick some vegetables, and right back inside you go.

What’s amazing to Deb and I is the fact you can germinate seeds so cheaply, with not a whole lot of work. Get a few seed trays, some potting mix, drop in your seeds…and you’re in business. It’s that simple.

Tomatoes, 25 seeds, 2 to 2-1/2 bucks?? Onion seed, 300 seeds, 2-1/2 bucks. I mean…how can you possibly get more bang from your buck? Again, a week or so back, Deb and I went to the grocery store for a few tomatoes to juice…$7.38 for SIX tomatoes??

Seed wise you’d get almost 75 seeds. We’ve been getting almost 90% germination, if you average ALL our seed products. Some have been 100%. So factor that in. If you average 90%, that’s about 67 plants. Say you lose 6 plants for some other reasons.

So the end result is 61 plants, right? We have 9 plants in the greenhouse that just volunteered up out of our compost pile, so we set them. Those 9 plants have 90 plus tomatoes on them as we speak. If you used the pricing of our cost at the grocery store that we paid for those dern 6 tomatoes…the monetary compensation is incredible.

6 tomatoes go into 90 tomatoes 15 times. $7.38 times 15 equals…$110.70! Plus these plants will produce many more tomatoes than what’s out there on them now. Pretty good investment, wouldn’t you say?

Our greenhouse will help us in other ways too. Exercise, fresh air, bending and stooping, basically, staying busy outside, in the fresh air.

It’ll give us the enjoyment and the rewards of watching those little fellers grow off, come into their own, and start supplying us with their fresh bounty. We’ll nurture and care for them, and in return they’ll nurture and care for us through the nutrition they provide us with!

Also, in a small way, they’ll provide us with a little monetary return as well. Deb wants to set-up a little spot at our gate, and peddle some of our vegetables, and even some of our plants. This too will give her things to do with herself while I…count the money! LOL!

Anyway, these are the things that Deb and I are looking forward to with our little grow house set-up. Fun, exercise, nutrition, cost savings, and enjoyment of all combined. Once more…we are two very blessed people. Not from a monetary standpoint…but our lifestyle.

We’ve been working out there till about 6 or after the last few days, and we’re in the midst of transplantin a lot of our seedlings.

I believe yesterday, we put 79 Beefmaster tomatoes, 37 Green Pineapple tomatoes, 32 Homestead tomatoes, and 27 Mini-Orange Cherry tomatoes into 4 inch pots. We also put 35 Japanese cucumbers into pots too.

Today we’ll be potting Rutgers, and also a few more varieties of Cherry tomatoes…Fox Cherry, Black Cherry, and Riesentraube Cherry.

Before we leave today, let’s check out a couple of our friends videos!

The first video comes from a friend of ours in Thailand. Paul, I believe is Canadian by birth, but moved to Thailand. He works in the oil business and travels extensively. Recently he was working of the coast of Israel.

What Deb and I love about Paul’s videos is that through Paul, we can experience a life we’d only heard of. Thanks Paul!

Different world, huh?

Our next video comes from Paula. What a great person. She seems to be as nice as the day is long, and always is willing to share any knowledge she has. That’s what it’s all about, huh? Sharin knowledge! Paula I’m almost positive, lives in Illinois.

Our next video comes from California…it’s by Shadow of Juniper Hill. She always has good info and gives us many looks at her gardening! You can tell by just listening to her that her gardening brings her great joy!

Our last video today comes from that ole pair out Mobile way…Bill and Sandi, the Gator fans! LOL!!

Check this out. We LOVED it! What a way of life to just get away a while, and…enjoy! These fellers here have it all “figgered out!” I’d love to load up and go with em!

How bout them apples?? You’re sittin there just wishin you could get out there with em, huh? Yeah, you know ya are!

You guys have a great day and God Bless! Deb says to keep a smile on your face, and one in your heart!

Dub and Deb

The weather is absolutely beautiful, and we had an inch of rain a couple nights back. Good night it had been dry, dry, dry! I’m thankful for every drop, but this year rain is in short supply. But this is our dry season. We normally don’t have any and just catch them out ahead of a front.

In the average season we won’t see much until June, then, the afternoon showers start, many times daily. If it rains early and the sun gets back out, it’s just like a dern sauna. You catch one late in the evenin, sit out on the porch, swingin and that good breeze blowin through…that’s livin!

Well, the greenhouse is still coming along, and boy are we enjoying this. This really is truly a great experience for us both.

We had gotten our beds in as we’d told you guys earlier, and boy did we get a surprise in that we have dern weeds comin up in two of our three beds. Startin to look as if we’d planted a cover crop.

The two beds with this problem were the two beds we had used Miracle Grow garden soil. It’s amazing the amount of weeds, and grass, that are coming up in them! Plus, we’ve not put ANY water on them as there’s nothing growing in them at this time?? I honestly don’t know what this will be once we do start watering in these beds?

But, I’ll contact Miracle Grow today and speak with someone about this problem. I really, or would like to believe they’ll do something on account of this. We’d bought over 300 bags of their soil mix. This cannot be the product they are turning out consistently on a full time basis. If so, then I just imagine their product would not continue to be used period, if, this were the case.

I do know firsthand from being a small business owner that there are times…you’re only as good as the people around you. Someone not paying attention to what he or she is doing, or getting in a “bad batch” of material being used. This has happened before in our business, by simply having a bad mix of asphalt, for example.

So things DO happen from time to time that are what you’d call, out of your hands, or even human error. I want to think that this will be Miracle Grows understanding as well, and honestly I think that will be the case.

I’ll keep you guys updated in this regard.

On the flip side of the coin however, we had bought Lowes out of the Miracle Grow, and had to switch to Jungle Growth out of necessity. In this bed, there is NO weed, or grass germination at all…not one!

So I have to say, from our experience, the difference in the two products has actually been remarkable! No comparison.

But again, we are both of the belief that there are times things do go a little haywire, and until I speak with Miracle Grow, I’m keeping an open mind.

Let’s talk a little about our vegetables that we planted from seed, which we bought from Bakers Creek Seeds by the way. We’re “happy as a pig in slop” so far! For those unfamiliar with that term, it simply means…we’re ecstatic.

The seeds have done well, although our eggplants, and pepper plants had us a little worried. We went out this morning and looked over our seedlings, and lo and behold…little eggplants jumpin up everywhere. Yes!

Also I told Deb that I’d read last night that pepper germination sometimes takes considerably longer to “pop up” than say, tomatoes. Felt better immediately. LOL! I also read where the soil temp needs to be around 72, and honestly we’ve had very little of that.

Daytime temps, yes, but nighttime temps still dropping occasionally into the 50’s. So I’m looking for the peppers to be germinating any moment now.

We didn’t start any indoors on heating mats, or under lights either…straight into the greenhouse, the tray cells filled with soil, and then seeded. But again, we’ll be transferring a lot of seedlings into 4” pots over the next few days.

Ole Deb is already looking at other things now. She wants me down the road a little while, to buy her an umbrella canopy, and sit at our gate where she can sell some vegetable plants, and fresh produce on the weekends.

I told her that would be a little while cause, shoot, we really don’t have any vegetables to speak of even in the beds growing off yet. You know what she told me? She said, “I know that dummy, I’m letting you know in advance…so you can save up to buy my umbrella canopy!”

Dern if she ain’t right……….again!

Well, that’s kinda what’s been goin on here at Dub and Deb’s. As usual, ole Dub’s busy, and ole Deb’s crackin her whip. Nothin ever changes fellows….when they say, “I do,” without a doubt…you’re done!

Here’s our last video of what’s goin on in the greenhouse, and it shows what we’re experiencing in our beds from the weed standpoint. We hope you guys enjoy it.

Well, what ya think?

On a lighter note, we’ll leave you guys with an e-mail we got from our good buddy, AP. You may have seen this before, I had, but felt it worthwhile putting it up today…

Curtis & Leroy

(Don’t underestimate these good-ole boys)

Curtis & Leroy saw an ad in the Starkville Daily News Newspaper in Starkville, MS. and bought a mule for $100

The farmer agreed to deliver the mule the next day…

The next morning the farmer drove up and said, “Sorry, fellows, I have some bad news, the mule died last night.”

Curtis & Leroy replied, “Well, then just give us our money back.”

The farmer said, “Can’t do that. I went and spent it already..”

They said, “OK then, just bring us the dead mule.”

The farmer asked, “What in the world ya’ll gonna do with a dead mule?”

Curtis said, “We gonna raffle him off.”

The farmer said, “You can’t raffle off a dead mule!”

Leroy said, “We shore can! Heck, we don’t hafta tell nobody he’s dead!”

A couple of weeks later, the farmer ran into Curtis & Leroy at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store and asked.

“What’d you fellers ever do with that dead mule?”

They said, “We raffled him off like we said we wuz gonna do.”

Leroy said, “Shucks, we sold 500 tickets fer two dollars apiece and made a profit of $898.”

The farmer said, “My Lord, didn’t anyone complain?”

Curtis said, “Well, the feller who won got upset. So we gave him his two dollars back.”

Curtis and Leroy now work for the government.

They’re overseeing the Bailout Program.

You guys have a great day and God Bless. Deb says to tell you guys to keep a smile on your face, and one in your heart!

Dub and Deb

Rain…might have a shot at some the next few days. The percentages aren’t anything to write home about, only 20 and 30 percent chance, with a 50 percenter thrown in for good measure towards weeks end, BUT, it sure beats the chances we’d been havin!

We’ve been busy lately my friends as we’re preppin the garden and movin along with the greenhouse as well. Today we’ll try and get our lettuce, Romaine, Iceberg, and gonna try some Black-Seeded Simpson too…whatever that is! LOL! We’ll also be plantin some cauliflower.

We’ll be putting in some broccoli and cabbage once again. The cold got our first batch of these last two, so we’ll be using the age old adage…if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. LOL! Though it wasn’t all that funny while we were takin the little muthas up after the freeze!

Then, between the 10th and 20th, we’ll be plantin our onion sets, and potatoes. The potatoes though, might end up bein a problem?? Our supplier just got a batch of sets in…ALL rotten! So, I guess we’ll try and run some down in another couple spots…we’ll see.

But, like all things, gardening is not any different, you win some…you lose some!

The greenhouse. We’ll finish one bed today it looks like, in between plantin those few rows in the garden…in between rain showers! At least that’s what we’re hopin. We’ll get the bed finished for sure, but it’s the rain “we’re hopin for!”

We trenched our bed down 10 inches deep and 3 feet wide. This bed will be 50 feet long. We be filling it with Black Cow and a bagged garden soil, along with utilizing some of the soil we excavated from the trench as well.

Once we backfill the trench, we’ll literally make raised beds…we’ll probably be usin 2×6 lumber for them. We were goin to use 2×10’s…TILL I priced the dern soil at Lowes!! This will still give us 16 inches of good loose soil for the plants to root and grow in!

The existing soil actually isn’t very bad, but we’ll build a “screen box” out of 2×4’s with the bottom made out of hardware cloth, to shovel the dirt back into, catchin anything that doesn’t need to be in it. This on account we see a few rocks, AND some broken glass, but only just a very little. I sure don’t want to be digging around in there by hand and run up on a dern piece of glass!

I gotta tell you guys, this greenhouse is getting ole Deb and I excited. We know we’re goin to really enjoy this thing immensely! The bed we’ll be workin on today is actually goin to be our “juice bed,” or the one we’ll utilize for much of our juicing material.

Most know that Deb and I juice 20-25 different fresh vegetables and fruit each morning, and it is workin out well for both of us. Deb feels and looks great, and it’s such a shot of nutrition each morning…we love it, AND wonder why in the world we hadn’t started it before we did??

In all honesty, we believe EVEYONE should start juicing. Not to the extent we do maybe, but just to get some of “the goody” it provides for you! We’re total believers in it anymore!

You know, Deb and I are getting on up in age, I’ll be 27 next go around, and ole Deb is just a tad older than I am, (not really, but it makes for a better story! Anyway, with my bein “SO much younger” than her, on our first anniversary she took me down to…Toys Are Us!

Seriously though, we are getting a LITTLE age on us, but my point with this is simply we’re kinda set in our ways. Gardening being no exception. I’ve always believed that…tomatoes ARE GREEN, okra IS GREEN, etc., etc., etc…

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds showed us that this just isn’t the case, and you know, we JUST might be missin out on some dern good vittles! So when we put our order in, we shucked off “our blinders,” and ventured out into…the real world! LOL!

Let’s take a look at our order…

Bull’s Blood Beet (we needed to try the Golden Beets but forgot to order them. Our great friends, Judi and Brian of the CFP rave about them!)

Japanese Long Cucumber

Florida Market Eggplant, Listada De Gandia Eggplant, and Ukrainian Beauty eggplant (they were out of the regular Black Beauty)

Fife Creek Cowhorn Okra, Burgandy Okra, and we still have plenty of Clemson Spineless from last year.

He Shi Ko Bunching Onion, and Crimson Forest Bunching Onion

Anaheim Pepper, Corne De Chevre Pepper, Corbaci Pepper, Tequila Sunrise Pepper, Sigaretta De Bergamo Pepper, Sweet Chocolate Pepper, Emerald Giant Pepper

Pink Beauty Radish

Beefsteak Tomato, Rutgers Tomato, Homestead Tomato, Fox Cherry Tomato, Riesentraube Tomato, Mini Orange Tomato, Green Pineapple Tomato, Isis Cherry Tomato, Black Cherry Tomato

Jubilee Watermelon, Sugar Baby Watermelon, Georgia Rattlesnake Watermelon, Honey Rock Melon

Lettuce Leaf Basil, and Lemon Basil.

We’ll be ordering more herbs in the next week or so, BUT, we’ve got our work cut out for us anyway.

Once more, checkout this seed company. I know most of you guys already have, but for the ones who haven’t…you don’t know what you’re missin!

Well, we’ll be closing out for today, but before we do, I’d like to share a video with ya’ll. It’s just showin our garden durin our preppin stage, with a little on the greenhouse.

You guys can also see ole Deb…she’s GOT HAIR!! YES, she does! Her hair has ALWAYS been straight as a dern board, but since comin back in from when the ONE chemo treatment knocked it all off…it’s curly as it can be! Looks like she stuck her finger in a dern light socket!

Naw, I’m only pickin at her, but in all sincerity, I’m glad it’s comin on back, and boy, she is too! She hasn’t wore an ole wig in a couple weeks now. Ole Deb is BACK!

We hope all you guys have a great day, and God Bless you and yours! Deb stuck her head in the door and says to keep a smile on your face, and one in your heart!

Hugs from Central Florida…

Dub and Deb