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Woohoo! The gardening list!

I managed to get my entire 2100 square foot garden weeded this week! That’s probably a first.

I found it was much easier when I could sit down right next to the plants. I don’t have trouble sitting on the ground, but I have trouble pulling weeds while kneeling because of my shoulder. Sitting down, it was actually very relaxing to pull weeds.

I’m already adjusting my plans for next year’s garden to include more sitting space. I probably will never get the whole almost-2-acres weeded, but I can focus on the corn and veggie patch. 3 rows planted and one left blank ought to give me the space I need.

The garlic is getting closer. I picked scapes this week. But I also accidentally pulled some volunteer garlic while pulling weeds, and it was too young yet. I’m making spaghetti sauce now with them, though :)

My corn and beans sprouted fast, but the tomatoes, herbs, and melons haven’t shown yet. I know they have another week before it’s time to worry, but I can’t help it. They were late enough getting out there, and other people have little green tomatoes already.

Right now, I’m looking for a sickle mower attachment that will fit my little tractor. The grass in the big field is too tall for the regular mower, and I’ll need a sickle mower at some point anyway, just to harvest my herbs and grains with.

The elderberries are blooming. And my strawberries are producing already. Life is good :)

I found four cucumber plants that are not yet deceased. The cabbages are now in the tummys of the varmints. So are the strawberries.

They have left the little hot pepper plants alone so far.

They haven’t touched any herbs.

They have escaped from the havahart traps TWICE.

I became very ill on Monday, so I don’t know what is in store for me or that weed patch garden/ ground hog buffet this summer. Today I felt much better so I did water my raspberry bushes - that began as one bush. Heritage (I think) and it SPREAD. Took about four years, but now this fifth year - WOW.

While tidying up some things, I came across the bucket thresher I built last winter, and the bags of grain I harvested that prompted the thresher. By the time I had the thresher ready, it was below zero outside, so I put everything somewhere safe and forgot they were there. It's definitely not too cold now!

Since in a few months, it will be time to harvest grain again, I thought it would be a good time to show my bucket thresher, so you can see how it works. I'm not very good at keeping the names of things straight, so forgive me if I use descriptions instead of technical terms.

To build a bucket thresher, you'll need:
-A 5-gallon bucket with lid
-A power drill. Faster is better, but it doesn't need much power. Kind of the opposite of what a good drill should be.
-A threaded rod. Slightly longer than the bucket is tall, and that will fit into the drill.
-2 lengths of chain, slightly shorter than the inner diameter of the bucket.
-4 washers that will fit between the links of the chain without the chain slipping over them.
-1 bigger washer, with a large interior hole. This is to keep the thresher from tearing up the lid of the bucket.
-4 nuts, that will fit on the threaded rod.
-Loctite glue

Thread the hardware onto the rod as shown:

(Ignore the laundry basket. I forgot it was there.)

You can play with the placement of the chains until you find a spacing you like. When you decide on a spacing, use the loctite to glue the nuts in place. If you don't, the chains will spin themselves up and down on their own while you're threshing, and that doesn't work so well.

Cut a small hole in the center of the bucket's lid, and tape the big washer over it.

After the loctite has set, you're ready to thresh! I've found short pieces thresh out better than long ones. Just fill the bucket loosely, about 1/3rd full:

Thread the rod through the lid, and attach the lid securely. Hook the end of the rod up to the drill:

And spin! I found it works best if I hold the bucket between my feet while threshing, otherwise it tends to buck a lot.

With the drill I used, it only takes about 10 seconds to thresh out the lambsquarters and amaranth I picked. I use a spaghetti strainer to sift out the stems from the grain:

The grain still has hulls and chaff in it that will need to be winnowed out:

Winnowing is best done with an electric fan. That gives you better control over how strong a breeze you use. With small grains that becomes especially important, it doesn't take much for the grain to blow away!

I didn't get a chance to winnow this batch yet, so I'm afraid I don't have pictures of the finished product. But that's the threshing part.