Have you been wondering where I have been lately? I am so sorry that I have not had to time to tell you about making Baby College Girl a apple pie when she came for the weekend.

Here is the picture of the deep dish apple pie I made for that apple lovin’ college girl.  Actually, I made two of them. One for home and one for her to take back to her little apartment to bake in her little Barbie size oven. This pie was a act of love, cause I did not get started peeling the apples till 8 o’clock at night and it did not come out of the oven till 10:30. Super Hero came home about that same time and came down to the kitchen to see what was baking.

I did not know that warm apple pie tasted so good at 11:00 at night.

I have not had time to mention some of my coupon deals, either,  at Walgreens, (beef jerky for $1.50 a bag and snickers for .33 cents a bar) and Schnucks (chocolate chips for .50 cents a bag and yogurt for less than .10 cents a container).

I have not had time to tell you anything……CAUSE of, “The Project!” (Jeanetta, if you are reading this, this project was kinda like us making all those cheese cakes and remember those 300 or 400 cupcakes????)

For the last week and a half, every free minute I have had after work and on the weekend, I have been helping Company with a garden project. I wish I could put all the blame him, but, it was my big idea. (Yes, the cheese cakes and cup cakes were my idea too….and I even forgot to mention those million of cake pops and whoopee pies…..)

Big ideas are scary….right!

My big idea all started when I went blackberry picking at the local pick and pick place, outside of town. The owners where talking about planting strawberry plugs this fall using a plastic mulch system. With this more commercial way of planting strawberries, you get more yield the first year and with a lot less weeds.

Sounded like a great idea…..Right?

It is a great idea, for those farmers that have the right equipment to actually make the rows and put the plastic down at the same time. That is why it is more of a commercial way of doing it.

But……guess what?????

We got it done!!!!

With a lot of help from ibuprofen.

I am going to start with step one that took us about 3 to 4 days after work to get to finish. Just keep in mind that by the time I drive to Company’s house after I get off work, we only have a couple of hours of daylight or less to work in the garden.

So here goes!

First thing….after Company took his tractor and disked up part of the garden, he took the tiller and loosened up the part where we were putting the strawberries rows in.

The we tried to measure rows of 2 feet wide…..see the tape measure on the ground….I think I need private lesson on how that thing works! After we measure off a somewhat 24 inch wide row, we measure another 24 inches for the walk way between the rows.

We did this three times. The rows are 2 feet wide and 60 foot long.

Did I mention that this was a project…..?

Then we started shoveling dirt between the rows and building up the dirt on the rows that we are going to plant the strawberries plugs in.

Here is a picture of me shoveling too. We had to time to shovel a row a night….so we shoveled…..for……….

…..three days….here is a picture of Company on one side of the row and me on the other, meeting each other, shoveling our last row! Don’t you love his worn out favorite pair of work boots?

Here is a picture of our rows after they were shoveled and dirt mounded up.

To finish our rows, we took a piece of wood and level off the top of the mounds of dirt.

Here is what a couple of the rows looking like after we leveled off the top.

The rows are not perfect, but we got it done!

Good thing too….cause…

….the strawberry plugs arrived!

Yep, the strawberry plugs arrive all the way from Arkansas. All 250 of them.

Yes…..250 of them.

What can I say….Company likes strawberries. ; )

Anywho….this was step one of “The Project.”

I will try to post step two tomorrow night, after I get my next, big idea, project done.

Company is helping me pick up 50 pie pumpkins from a local garden center tomorrow…..

Long story….don’t ask.

I promise to tell you all about the pie pumpkins later.

If you have any wonderful strawberry recipes, send them my way around April. I should be (better be) picking loads of strawberries about then.

Is anyone out there doing any winter gardening….or completing a big idea project?

I would love to hear about it!

Talk to you tomorrow!

Becky