Dorothy Pohorelow

I also have about a tenth of an acre and after discovering the book recommended already I have a tiny orchard ie 3 apple trees.  I picked apples because they are extremely versatile from fresh eating, to cooking to cider I felt I would get the most bang for my buck as it were.   I grow bush squash in my small beds, have added vertical planters where I can put greens, beans, etc.   Micro and dwarf tomatoes can work if you are carful which means I have more ground space to dedicate to things like corn... this year potatoes will go in the bottom tiers of the Greenstalks with a some in the front yard.  Since corn needs to be in a block and my raised beds are only 6 by 3 so  I am still deciding where to put that  and of course all the paste/sauce tomatoes I want to grow this year

Mine arrived today and boy can I see why they are popular.  Thank you for your offer.

This may help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfCEE3Ewfic  he has some very clear diagrams.  

Have yall checked out the PEA version of SKIP.   It was designed with apartment dwellers in mind.   I am doing a PEA garden challenge this year if anyone wants to post in that thread.  https://permies.com/t/274535/PEA-gardening-skills-challenge

More changes in how I am setting up our garden.  
We will have 5 Greenstalks in the tree area, yep I bought a new one as we are going to fill the bottom of each one with potatoes, Kennebec for our main potato and Magic Molly and AmaRosa for fun fingerlings.   The top half of each stack will have herbs, beans, peas. strawberries, and various types of greens and lettuce.

We lost at least 2 of the 3 trees we planted last year so  I took advantage of the Starks Pi weekend deal on shipping and ordered two new trees.  A Snow Sweet that can pollinate the Williams Pride which I am hoping survived the winter and a Starkrimson Red Delicious which can pollinate the Snow Sweet but not the Williams Pride.  Hopefully all 3 trees will do well this year.      

More potatoes in the front yard along with basil, chives, and marigolds in the big square bed.  

Tomatoes, squash, beans, lettuce greens in the other beds.  

Still need to figure out where the corn is going to go...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

John Weiland wrote:Just want to slide in on this conversation in a way that may help Pearl and possibly answer a question I've had about laptops in the past 8 - 10 years.

First, if the place that you are purchasing from can offer you a 'loaner' of the machine you hope to buy, I would advise doing that.  I've had several laptops over the years issued at the workplace that ranged from Dell to HP to Micron.  For my work needs, nearly all did what they were supposed to do and I grew accustomed to the functionality of the offerings.  I think I got spoiled!.....because they tended to be higher-end, workstation replacement laptops.  Now retired, I've gone through several laptops, some died from hardware issues, some grew obsolete with respect to Windows upgrades, and yet admittedly, most were mid-range price point in what each company offered (Gateway, HP, now LG).   Perhaps the most frustrating aspect to me....which may be user error....is the 'wigginess' of the wrist rest and the trackpad.  I use 17" laptops for the greater screen size for aging eyes and opted fo the 'over-sized' trackpad relative to most machines.  It just seems like some movements throw all kinds of unwanted commands and page changes.  Should I not be resting my wrists aloing side of the trackpad?  I've already adjusted the pad sensitivity to its least sensitive level, but still little improvement.  I'm hoping this spurs additional commentary on how Pearl may be able to 'pre-test' a machine before purchase to see if any strange irritations arise within the process that may help to guide the purchase.  Thanks....

Nope you should not be resting your wrists along side the trackpad it makes it do crazy things.  IF you don't mind using a mouse you can turn that track pad off which will remove that irritant totally.  A friend showed me many years ago since my hands tend to make random movements and it was driving me crazy trying to use a touchpad.  There is a setting in Accessibility  then go to Mouse and Touch, open Touch and there is a setting you can use to totally turn off your touch pad OR tell it to turn off when a mouse is attached.   I tend to use the turn off touchpad if mouse is attached that means if I forget the mouse or it dies or needs batteries I can still work on the laptop.   While in Accessibility  Mouse and Touch  I also enlarge the size of my cursor AND use the option to make it change colors depending on what the background color is.  Nothing worse then losing your cursor on a matching background...    Yeah aging eyes and hands make those laptops harder and harder to use... I have a laptop for use when I am on a 3  to 5 day trip for shows but  at home I currently have a underpowered All in One.   Of course somehow we ended up with a Mini PC attached to the TV as a monitor and with the wireless mouse and keyboard set it makes it easy to use that big screen for many computer projects.
It is set up with local accounts for dh and I plus sigh I messed up and said I had internet during setup so was required to sign in with a Microsoft account.  OF course that means we use the local accounts for most things and some day I will get around to deleting the Microsoft account.  

Sadly most new systems come without the ports you need or with very limited number of them.  CD/DVD aka optical drives are not included in most new systems.  So there is a strike against buying one off the shelf and there aren't very many independent builders who build laptops most build towers.  
It sounds like you don't need the latest and greatest tech out there which which is going to make things a bit harder actually

Wired mouse and keyboard will require at least 2 USB ports, plus an extra one for an external CD/ DVD writable drive.  So  minimum of 3 USB ports.
You will need the ability to hardwire your system into your LAN and yep that is still the same port.

You will need a hard copy of your Word program and the installation key for it.  The same goes for any other programs you want to move from old system to new system.  

Microscrew now wants to totally take over your system and life but you can still turn off many of the anti privacy features. BUT  it is getting harder and harder to do so. In fact the new Windows 11 won't even let you set up your system without a MS account unless you are very careful at the beginning and tell it you don't have internet...  It also will not run some of the legacy programs many of us love.  It may pay to take a really close look at the actual requirements for the programs you need to use and be able to access now.  Write them down and use that information when shopping.

You can still plug your laptop into a battery pack but yes many of the newer laptops can no longer have the internal battery replaced.  When the internal battery dies your machine is dead.  The more money you want to spend the more likely you can find something suitable.

Read descriptions carefully.  You DO NOT want a Chromebook which keeps everything on someone else's server system and you download or access as needed.  Google has an operating system this is is what makes a Chromebook possible but you will sometimes see it on a normal laptop instead of Windows.

While hard to find you really do want at least 16 gigs of ram since most new machines have built in graphics and  "shares" the ram.

Hard drives can be as small as 256 gigabytes because they expect you to use an external hard drive. They are also frequently SSD drives which means NO DEFRAGGING.  In fact many of the routine maintenance we learned to perform back in the 90s and early 2000s is no longer needed or can actually be harmful to your system.`

Depending on what you need to do with your laptop now may be a good time to learn another operating system especially if you have been using Windows 7, 8 or XP.  The new Windows are nothing like them.

We recently had to replace my husband's laptop as the CPU fan died and to get it fixed would cost more then a new system (new laptops are now designed to be discarded not repaired)  Since he doesn't take it out of the house often and really has no need for that portability we opted for one of the new Mini PC designs with a separate Monitor.    There are folks who are using these Mini PC with a smaller "travel" monitor as lap top replacements.  Just as with a laptop you need to keep an eye on how many ports and which kinds the little box has but some will have more then most folks need.  MANY if not most of the ones I looked at came with at least one LAN port, 2 ways to connect to a monitor for use with multiple monitors and the needed  4 plus USB ports for a wired mouse, keyboard, and external CDC player/burner.   The little systems can have up to 1 Terabyte hard drives but many are only 512 gigabytes or smaller so a USB port for an external hard drive is considered a necessity by some folks.  I would recommend an AMD Ryzen 5 with at least 16 gigs of ram if you go this route.  

Please take what I am saying with a grain of salt as I have no actual knowledge of growing conditions in your area.

Do some research into the tree fruits. There are now some varieties that will bear within 1 or 2 years of planting and if you use the techniques in the book "Grow A Little Fruit Tree" you can keep them at about 6ft tall making them easier to care for and harvest.  Remember that many types of fruits and berries require 2 plants to get a harvest so always plan on two..

Apples mostly need two apple trees and you must make sure the varieties are compatible.  However many Crabapple varieties work very well as pollinators for eating apples and some have longer blooming times so can pollinate more types of apples.  I have found this web site  really useful when looking at apple varieties to add to my little tree area.

Looking forward to hearing more about your plans as they develop

Rebekah Harmon wrote:I think it would be fun to lead my kids through this challenge over the summer. Gonna try it!!

Can't wait to see what yall do :)

Whoo-hoo!  I was looking for something to grow for microgreens on Amazon and stumbled across stainless steel "germination trays" on sale for under $16!  They are suitable for sprouting larger seeds and for growing them on until they are ready to harvest as micro greens.  To be honest I do have a small plastic set of trays designed  specifically for raising small batches of microgreens that I got from Home Microgreens  a few years back.  The setup works very nicely for small batches of microgreens and their information on growing various microgreens were a great help to me when I grew them the first time.   The metal trays are larger and will allow me to grow more at a time and allow me to either move away from my little plastic setup or include it in a rotation that will give me a more continuous harvest of microgreens.
A few reviewers mentioned that the trays worked best with larger seeds like peas but one reviewer stated she uses unbleached paper towels in the tray when using smaller seeds and she can then transplant the sprouted seeds or let them keep growing and harvest as microgreens.