May 11, 2009 2:40:54 PM PDT
I am so sad. Somehow I deleted my long post.
I live in NE Oklahoma on 7 acres (rural) on a lake. We also have about 3 acres that we can use that belongs to the Corps of Engineers. I was raised on a ranch/farm and spent my life working cattle and/or working in a large garden or canning or, oh, you know. I've spent the last 33 years staying away from all that work other than a few small gardens.
This year we planted a 20x40 vegatable plot. We only tilled the last years smaller plot and extended it, so there is still a lot of tiled grass in it. We added a fertilizer and planted. We did not make raise hills or mounds. We were fighting to get it in between the rains. We were thinking of building an ark! I don't know how it will do, but it will be the biggest garden that we (my husband and I) have ever planted or tried to maintain. I seem to have desires and hopes, but I don't like sweat, heat, dirt or work! LOL! But I love food!!!!
We planted corn (forgot to plant the KW pole beans in the corn rows) okra, tomatoes, cucumbers, zuncchini, summer and winter squash, cantelope, watermelon, eggplant, pumpkin and sunflowers. I have strawberries and onions planted in our flower beds.
We have two Keefer pear trees and two small apple trees. Considering all the trees in this part of Oklahoma were devasted by two years of horendous ice storms, they are doing pretty good. I have a few mulberry trees scatter on the property, a nice fig tree, and hopefully the blackberries come back. I have a small sassafras tree that my son mistakenly cut down last year, but it sprouted back and is a 10 ft tall spike with a few leaves.
I am interested in foraging my acreage for edible things. I know that there are persimmons, wild plums and wild blackberries in the area and I love wild sand plum jelly. I want to look for mushroom in the creek and have a friend that knows about them. I want to know more about eating dandilions.
We have rural water, but we also have a well. I want to become as self sufficient as I can, but there is a learning curve and a major rearrangement of my life that I will have to come to terms with. I do not work, but I homeschool my grandson. I'm glad to have found this website and getting to know you all.
