BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED

Choo Choo takes the high road!

The bears had a great time putting this together.  I almost didn't have the heart to tell them that we have to take it apart to move it out doors!  They just couldn't wait for spring, and I wanted to make sure all of the parts were there and went together.  That's why I'n the one reading the plans!  Blu Bear

NEW GREENHOUSE....some assembly required!

Blu Bear ponders the hundred parts to this thing!

Adding another area to grow plants is always a dream priority.  We've been using the small shelf type green houses for a couple seasons now.  But, we've really needed one we could walk into, and one that we can heat during the cold months, and the frosty nights that are expected before planting season.  So, we bought this little one to get started.  I hope us bears can put it together!  Wish us luck...Blu Bear

NO KIDS HUNGRY passes the 60,000 mark!

Congrats to our pals @ Twitter NOKIDSHUNGRY on passing the 60,000 follow mark! With your help, it jumped over that mark pretty fast.  Next  shoot for 100,000 ?!!!  Us bears just love it when everyone works together., Add you voice and help make a difference.  Hats off to all of you & NOKIDSHUNGRY!!!   Blu Bears Garden!

Trouble & Sissy

With 18 animals to care for here on the farm, us bears really have our paws full.  These two "kittens" are the newest arrivals from last fall.  The boy is named TROUBLE, and he lives up to it every day!  Sissy is the pretty one, and she is spoiled rotten.  Naturally, by the time I figured out how to shot this little video, they had stopped fighting over the milk!  Better luck next time.  Field Reporter O'Beary

Our own breed of pumpkin....

"STRAW BEARY" pumpkin a winner!



On display last October

 This 12 lb. beauty has finally been cut open to harvest the seeds and to bake!  Yes, fresh pumpkin in late February!  The texture is "fine"  pleasantly scented, and the seeds are the biggest, plumpest seeds I've ever seen.  This pumpkin really passed the 3 important tests for being worthy of its' own name, and a permanent place in our garden.  1. Eat ability  2. Beauty 3. Storage.  This one really is a long keeper, and the seeds are so plump that the pumpkin is worth growing just to eat them roasted!  Baked down to a little over 7 pounds, this is one of the denser food pumpkins we now grow.

And,, this one is our own cross breed.  F1 hybrid... which means that is a cross of two other pumpkins that come together and create a whole new line.  If this years planting of Straw Beary Pumpkin produces a similar result, we will make the seed commercially available for 2014 planting!  For now, we can spare a few seeds for our readers who contact us @ Blubearyfarms@Gmail.com  You friend Choo Choo

LIFE IN THE BLACK SWAMP




 

Flexible Drain Pipe

 It was really cold out side when this work was being done!  But, when you live in the "Black Swamp" this kind of work is always in progress..  Back in the 1800's, they got this idea to drain the area of northwest Ohio that we live in.  Life was hard back then, and they say it was common to wake up to local Indians sleeping by your fire!  Funnier yet, Ohio actually went to war with Michigan over swamp land and access to lake Erie.  Now they just fight it out with our football teams of Ohio State and University of Michigan. Go Blue!  ( Hey, it is called Blu Bears Garden, we don't have a red bear yet!)

We have a maze of drain ditches that criss cross the farms around us.  The strangest thing, is that in spring asparagus grows wild along the banks!  It's almost a friendly competition to see if you can get to it first...

You can see more if you go to OLDER POSTS from last spring.  Keep warm and dry...your pal Blu Bear

OUR "little" BACK YARD

Yes, it may still be winter, but a few months from now this will all be corn and soy beans.  Well, not all of it.  Hopefully a garden the size of a foot ball field will be growing strong too!  It might seem strange, but almost nobody around us grows produce any more!  Farm after farm, acre after acre all sown in crops that you don't find in a grocery store or on you table.  Blu Bears' Garden wants to change all of that.  And, even if you only have a little deck or patio, you can still grow some great plants that will make supper time so much better.

This year, we are planning to add more container plants to our seed bank.  By growing stuff that is perfect for a patio pot, hanging basket, etc. we can harvest the veggies for next years seed give away.  Seed saving is something that is becoming more important than ever.  And, it is easier than you would think.  Groups such as Seed Savers.org have really easy to follow instructions for almost every thing.  For most veggies, it is as simple as removing the seeds from the ripe fruit and letting them dry.  The most important part is to pick the very best tomato, cucumber, pumpkin, etc. that you can.  Let it fully ripen, separate the seeds from the rest of it, and once dried, store in an envelope in a cool, dry place.  Some people even freeze their seeds!  I've been told that a quick freeze prior to planting helps them germinate (grow).   Read up on it, and give seed saving a try.  Then, you can have seeds to share like us bear do!!!  Choo Choo   transportion & information manager

THEMED GARDEN KITS SURE TO BE A HIT



@ $2.49 These little garden seed starter sets R sure to be a hit!



These little kits are a neat way to try your hand at seed starting indoors, but they won't fit on a window sill, and may not work out well, if you don't pay close attention to them.  Follow our seed starting here on  Blu Bears' Garden, and if you use something like these kits,  don't give up if they don't work out for you.  We often have to start a tray of seeds over again for a bunch of different reasons.  The biggest challenge we have is to not have the amount of light that we'd like.  And, a full size out-door heated green house would sure make life a bit easier for us bears.  But, for most of us, we have to make do with a sunny window sill, and hope that winter ends really soon!  After all, there was no good snow bear  building weather here at all so far this year!  Your pal  BLU BEAR

STRAW BEARY GETS A VALENTINE GIFT

Tiny Tim Tomato Basket Kit



Bears just love giving plants and seeds for gifts

 Blu Bear came across the gardens favorite gift tomato plant in a boxed planter set with seeds and potting mix.  He knew that his gal would just love it!  Even though we grow tons of plants here on the farm, our hearts start  racing when we see one of our favorites available in stores.  Most of our seed is large special order,  and the little packets you normally see are only used by us for trials of a new variety we haven't grown before.  "Tiny Tim" a small cherry tomato is one you hear about from us often, but you can rarely find the seed in stores.  Sometimes we can't even get it from all of the catalog companies, which makes seed saving even more important to us.  We hope you had as much fun as we did yesterday, and  a happy "Valentines Day" from all of us bears! 

For many of our readers around the world that don't have a St. Valentines Day, here in the U.S., it is just a silly made up holiday to give a card, gift, candy, & flowers to the one you love. Not that you should ever need an excuse to do that!  Happy Valentines to All Straw Beary

Spiced Pumpkin Hot Chocolate

I just ran across this recipe in the Cresent News for a pumpkin hot chocolate...YUM!  Credit Georgia Kohart for this "pumpkin dessert in a mug"

5 cups milk
6 ounces white baking chips
1 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup "canned" (cooked) pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamon
                                                                                     dash allspice & ginger

Now you can use pumpkin pie spice in place of the last few ingredients.  (see my personal recipes for pumpkin pie spices in older posts)  That would be about 1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice.  Add cinnamon to taste.  Top with whipped cream or marshmellows!  Love always...Straw Beary

TIME TO PLAN YOUR GARDEN!

17 Varieties of Pumpkins!

With so many new readers, we hope that they go to some of the older posts to get a good idea what Blu Bears' Garden is all about.  We grow a very large garden.  Last year, it was the length of a foot ball field, and 1/2 as wide.  Almost all of our pumpkins are grown for bakeing, although we did add a few "carvers" this last season.  But, we also grow a large variety of veggies, with the best going to our local food banks. 

Seed sharing is another one of our big "projects"  Us bears just love to see children of all ages grow stuff!  There is nothing so amazing than to see the pride in a childs face when he or she gets to share something they worked to make happen.  And, we hope you will also share your seedlings with others.  As always, if you would like to grow a garden, but can't afford seed, we'll do our best to help you out.  And, if you would like to grow a garden to share with your local food banks or meal programs, you can just e-mail me and we'll help all we can!  Blubearyfarms@Gmail.com  Straw Beary
 

Best Little Green House!

Seed starting  time!

We add 1 or 2 of these seed starter greenhouses each year

Hard to believe, but that is what is inside the box just added to our seed starting greenhouses.  We now have 5 in use, and add more each season.  We give this product a 4 Claws UP!  They seem to make it a little better each year, and we really put them to the test.  They have survived being loaded with heavy stuff year after year, and are still all working just fine.  And, the price has gotten down to $20.00 on sale!  Our first one cost $50, so we were glad to see the changes.  Blu Bear 

Bears are such photo HAMS!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLU BEARS' GARDEN

StrawBeary & Blu Bear

Well Blu, what can we say...you've been a busy little bear this last year!  In fact, you now have been writing BLU BEARS' GARDEN  since February 7th, 2012.  Bet when you started, you didn't expect to have readers from all over the world "tuning in"!  We all love you!  All the bears around the World!

RED WARTY THING!

Strawbeary looks over her favorite baking pumpkin

It has a very thick creamy sweet flesh & lots of seeds!

We only save seeds from the best pumpkins!

This baking pumpkin weighted in at 14 lbs, once completely cleaned and baked, it was just over 7 lbs.  When you bake with pumpkin or squash, most recipes call for baked ( squash ) to be used.  Its kind of like "twice baked" for most stuff like pies, breads, muffins, etc.  But, it really is good to eat "as is" with a little maple syrup, or brown sugar and cinnamon, or butter, salt & pepper....OH I COULD GO ON FOREVER!  Keep Baking!  Strawbeary

Febuary 5, still baking with fresh pumpkins!

Yes, that is a "pumpkin saw" in Strawbearys paw.  She is about to cut open a Red Warty Thing.  Its a baking pumpkin considered one of the best in the world.  But, it has a really thick skin!  We use this saw to cut open all of our pumpkins and squash.  A knife just isn't safe.  They have little pocket saws that would be perfect for your kitchen, and if you do any baking with fresh pumpkin or squash I strongly suggest you get one.

Video of our "neighborhood"

This is a short little test run of shooting some video from the barns to the front of the farm house.  It was really cold out, and I couldn't get any of the other bears to take the camera on a "full tour"  Besides, it all looks like a giant frozen lake covered with snow!  The only trees are the ones that surround the few acres the house & barns sit on.  The rest is just waiting for spring planting!  Your pal  Blu Bear

Wind Farming Grows in Ohio

Our neighbors personal power plant

Paulding County Wind Farm

Northwest Ohio is really flat...not a hill to be found anywhere worth sledding on.  And, these last few nights the wind topped 45 miles per hour here on the farm.  But that's during bad weather.  Normally there is a steady breeze perfect for generating electricity.  Our neighbor sure made a great investment when they put in their own "power plant"!!!  Even a local school (Pettysville) put up a giant wind mill to produce the power they need.  Plus, the educational aspects, (teaching the children about how it works) gives math & science a real life feel.  Field Reporter O'Beary