I always thought and dreamed about it but having a garden 365 days a year is possible.
Sandy Bottom Homestead was started to supplement our food supply. By Gardening and raising chickens we have been able to meet that goal and start to surpass it. Follow us as we continue to build out our homestead and become better gardeners.
Learn to Grow. Grow for Change
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Sandy Bottom Homestead
PO Box 64
Holly Ridge, NC 28445
Learn to Grow. Grow for Change.
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17 Comments
Love it! My little garden looks perfect under the frost covers. Amazing how much they help, good video!
Hey been glad to see everything made it. I ended up putting long pieces of bamboo across the top of my PVC pipes before I wrap them and I'm glad I did. Hey we could be in New Orleans Florida…. LOL
Thanks Ben! Setting up your low tunnels sure paid off. Everything is looking good 🙂
Snow is crazy.. the whole winter has been crazy.
Good morning.
It's great to see your plants survived the cold and pulled through.
Snow tires and sunshine are a game changer for the winter.
We have snow plows but you don't see them till noon or the next day out in the the sticks.
Have a great day.
Hi Ben, one Q. When you say you prewatered the plant roots…when? When you initially transplanted starts? I don't know anything about watering when using slow tunnel. Thank you. Really interesting to learn how quickly your stuff rebounded!
I know I garden year round. Although, only thing still alive from fall/winter is collard greens and Brussels sprouts. Onions go in next week, another 4-5 weeks my brassicas go in for spring.
We usually only get 1 or 2 days hard freeze, and this year its an entire week. 8 inches of snow here and that is unheard of. Hoping day 3 is it for the snow since we have never had it stay more than a few hours before.
Hi Ben,
Snow is nature's insulator, a blanket of warmth. Anything buried in snow stays at a constant 32F, 0C. The snow missed us Tuesday. It went south of us. It got too cold to snow. Yesterday's low was 9F here in Sylacauga. It is currently 17F, with an expected low of 15F. My 2024 garden is officially done with my carrot and parsnip harvest. All that is left are three chard plants, and they will go to the chickens. It made it two weeks past the year-round date, which is good for a 7A climate. Zero degrees doesn't happen every year, but it isn't uncommon. The new climate maps are a joke. I feel sorry for anyone who follows it, rather than actual recorded temperatures.
My 2025 season kicked off with starting seed starts for my, and my mother's gardens on January 4th. I was one day late getting started, but I did get my seed starting equipment set up, on the 3rd. I have seed starts started for onions, broccoli, cabbage, red cabbage, cauliflower, and Jolene Tomatoes. I have six types of peppers and two types of basil on the heat mat. The first sprouts poked up through the soil yesterday. I have room to add dill starts to the heat mat, but my potting soil is frozen solid. Maybe I'll bring it inside to thaw? My poor lemon tree has been inside my foyer since Sunday. Looking at the forecast, it will be Saturday before I can take it outside.
Ugh! I have to bring the waterer inside every night for the chickens, else it will freeze solid. Don't ask how I know. LOL. Thank God, all four hens are laying. I went Wally World yesterday, and the egg bunker was completely empty. The BS avian flu (PCR testing which has a 98 percent false positive rating from the CDC) had a million hens killed which will cause a nationwide shortage for at least 8 months. The price of eggs is going to skyrocket, and the value of laying hens with it. With four birds, I am getting 18-20 eggs per week. Not bad, considering they aren't supposed to lay that often in the winter.
Last night I finished writing Net Zero Asea, reviewing it, rewrites, and I sent it of to Merry Old England for editing, and translation from American Slang into proper English, so I can sell it internationally. It is close to Valentines, so I don't know how fast I'll get it back. My editor is primarily a romance, and magazine editor, but she makes an exception for me. She was floored by NASTI Business.
Net Zero Asea, according to Ghost (An AI construct in Ariel's head.), tells the true story of how the Titanic sank. It wasn't from a collision with an iceberg. That was the cover story used to conceal the true events, sabotage, explosions, and a German U-boat torpedoing it. Did you know German U-boats were put in service in 1909? Neither did I, but it is true. SM U-1 through SM U-4 were the first U-boats. They had a diving depth of 30 meters, 98ft, and operated with both kerosene and electric motors. Periscope depth was about 20 meters. At that depth, the periscope, snorkel, and exhaust duct would protrude five meters above the surface, allowing them to use the kerosene engine while submerged to periscope depth. A lot of research went into writing the story.
The next serial episode will be easy, a western—sort of. This time, the characters will be doing beta test of a simulation that takes them back in time to October 1891, Tombstone, Arizona. How dare Jenna insult the Clanton brothers, calling them smelly disgusting pigs, and telling them that she would rather wallow in the mud with a pig, than sleep with them. The pigs smell better, and are cleaner! And maybe they shouldn't have robbed the bank? But it was easy cred. These and other actions lead them to not one, but two shoot outs at the O K Corral. The first with the Clanton brothers, and the latter with US Marshall Wyatt Earp, his two brothers, and Doc Holliday. Okay, I did a little research for this one too. I'm trying to think of a way to bring Calamity Jane into the story. Hmm… maybe not her, but someone like her, wore men's clothing, a drunken dance hall queen, a fighter, and a prostitute. Well, I am taking a few days off writing to thing this story through before I write it.
Ugh! I just went out to feed and water the chickens, and let them out of the coop, and found that something tried breaking into the chicken run. I don't know whether it, probably a racoon, got inside, or not, but it didn't get past the Fortress of Solitude. The ladies were safe inside it. Six zip ties later, and it is fixed. Not fun at 15F degrees, and not being able to wear gloves.
Is that a heavy plastic over your low tunnels? Give got frost fabric covers but they aren't great at holding in the real cold weather.glad your gardens survived. It's been -23f with the windchill here.
This is great evidence that no matter what "unusuals" are thrown at us, we can still pull through with things we are able to learn and know. For me, personally, I give all glory and praise in blessed victories straight to Our Heavenly Father! HE deserves all praise and gratitude in all things. Amen.
Weather says it got to 22 but my system said 16 was the absolute low. We ended up getting 2 2.5" amazingly 70 miles south got upwards of 7 to 9"
Hello! Frozen here in SC. Frigid cold like I have never experienced. Stay safe all❤
Same thing happened to my low tunnels. I just never thought about the snow being able to weigh down between the hoops. They will be braced differently for next year. Lesson learned for me.
The snow is actually REALLY healthy for the soil!
Hello!
Mentioning this mainly because I'm so tickled to be able, after years of effort to get this term into my memory banks, to share that the "brace" on top of the low tunnel hoops is called a purlin. (Also spelled, historically, as purline, purloyne, purling and perling.) At least, I believe I recall Patrick Dolan of One Yard Revolution labeling these supports as purlins.
And, I know: it's not a difficult word, but for some reason I could never recall it when I needed it until relatively recently.
"Brace" is just fine.
And as for the road salt, the plows and the de-icing agents you folks don't have, I still have family in the Pittsburgh, PA, area, where they used not to do more than spread sand or "clinkers" (cinders) from the industrial furnaces, and if you couldn't drive on snow and ice with the aid of sand/"clinkers" then you needed either to walk, maybe take the streetcar, or just stay home and not endanger anyone else. Or so the preceding generation claimed. (Tough town. Today, though, the city employs plows and road salt, I read.)
Glad you've found good success with your low tunnels; gives me encouragement for the winter of 2025-2026!
Much gardening love from Northeast Ohio! 😊💚💚💚💚💚😊
I feel your pain. SE TX a got hit as well. I covered my onions frost cloth then tarp. They look terrible. Not sure they will recover.
The green onions I did not cover because they were not as valuable to me. They look much better.
Live and learn.
It was fabulous today. Mid 50s.
Spring is coming…someday!