Garden Giveaway Contest - Win before Spring!

It's time for a celebration! Thanks to all of you my blog is well on its way to 300,000 page views and so I think it's time for another contest and giveaway don't you? Besides, it gives us all something to look forward to during these dark and dreary days in the northern hemisphere. Unless you're one of my readers in India or the tropics, what is your weather like there in January? Does it stay fairly much the same all year except during monsoon?

You're a pretty darn loyal bunch so you deserve something awesome this time for prizes. My book is still not done, it's too early to celebrate with tomato plants, okay I've got it! I'll do a first, second and third prize and I'll let you pick.

I will draw the name and let you pick your own prize. If you've won before, you can still enter. If you live in my household you cannot, lol. Yes, you can enter and give the prize to someone else if you want to.

Prize Choices for First are any two of the following:

The Market Gardener- an amazing book by JM Fortier that will be helpful for anyone interested in growing for a profit, no matter how small the scale. I love my copy, the poor books only a few months old and is half beaten to death from over use lol. We will have an English language copy available for this prize, but I'm pretty sure it comes in French at your local bookstore.

or/

A box of fresh vegetables from our CSA. Yes, this only works if you live in NS between Annapolis Royal and Porters Lake. We will deliver.

or/

A handmade Swarovski crystal spider or dragonfly to catch the light in a nice sunny window in your home.

or/

A selection of non-GMO seeds from our garden, veggies and possibly a few flowers and herbs because what would life be without a little flavour and colour?

or/

Two grow bags. I will be doing a post about this later in the month. Fabric grow bags suitable for growing tomatoes or peppers on your doorstep, balcony or in your greenhouse.

Shipping is of course included in the crystal, grow bag, seed or book choices so feel free to enter even if you live a long way from Nova Scotia. We don't discriminate, we love all our readers and most of you actually live thousands of miles away. Last year it just happened to be that the winner of the tomatoes turned out to be a friend who lives fairly locally so that worked out well!

Second and Third prize will be at my discretion and will be one of the prizes listed above unless there's something you'd really like to have, and then I'm sure we can talk. After all I want you to be happy!


How To Enter

Send an email with you name, country you live in and email to hbfcontests@gmail.com  Please answer the following 3 questions:

1. What do you want to read about on my blog this year?
2. Why do you think people are reluctant to become more self-reliant?
3. How do we overcome the negatives and work together as friends, families and communities to build better self confidence and self reliance? You can relate this to skills, knowledge or food.

Contest is open to everyone regardless of age or postal code. Deadline is February 12th at noon AST.

Handy Farm Devices And How To Make Them

As you know, many libraries, organisations and private citizens are in the process od digitizing old books that are not covered by copyright restrictions. This makes them available for free and easy access on the internet, and for we preppers and farmers who are trying to combine the best of traditional ingenuity with modern techniques, it's such a terrific source of knowledge. Books like "The Book Of The Farm" and old cookery books a=provide an insight into everyday domestic life and farming techniques. Well, now I'd like to add to your collection by suggesting this book to add to your collection.



Have a look and see if there's anything in there that inspires you to go ahead and build something that you can use. Or maybe you just want to keep it for a rainy day. Either way it may prove useful while not taking up much space in your computer.

I'm going to finish my order to West Coast Seeds today. Not actually buying them, just finishing up the order form. I recommend that if you use this company you sign up for an account because then you can save your cart as you go along which means you can take your time.Today is going to be cooler than the 17 degrees we enjoyed yesterday but as Chris is home today he's going to help me clear up the little tomato garden by the side of the house and plan the flower and veg garden for next year. I'm using vegetables and flowers to create a micro-climate and some privacy from my neighbours, things like runner and pole beans, sunflowers, and corn. They're all fairly heavy feeders so I'm going to spend the rest of the nice weather putting down manure and leaf mold in preparation for spring planting and the greenhouse, which will go in in March probably. The greenhouse will be my usual poly tunnel but with more permanent wood framing on the end to give a good wind-resistant result. The soil isn't that great here so we're debating about also adding some raised beds and filling with bought in soil...but that's big expense for a garden we'll only use for one or two years. I guess that as long as the lawnmower can still fit between beds then it'll be fine. First things first. Clean up the side yard and measure.

Hope you enjoy the book and have a great day.

Our 10,000 Page View Celebration

Want to Win A Free Book?

We're just a little family blog, so reaching 10,000 page views is a big deal for us and will happen over the weekend or maybe Monday. It depends on how many of your friends you tell about this. Get them to enter and then give you the book for Christmas!  :)  To celebrate our first 10,000 we're offering a copy of Nicole Faires marvelous book to the reader who composes the best blog entry, question and answer or suggestion for this blog. So get your writers cap on and come up with an original written piece and send it to me, and we'll choose the winner on Monday night. Write about homesteading or growing in your country or something that you think is a great idea, whatever you like. Political, agricultural, funny, we welcome them all! You've got all weekend to write about it. Please keep things rated PG and submit to doulamum at hotmail dot com by Monday noon. I'm excited to see what you guys come up with and I'll feature the winning entry on the blog on Tuesday. Yes, if you're feeling really creative then we'll accept more than one entry per person. Open to everyone in the world but please submit entries in English. If you win I'll contact you to get your mailing address and get your book on it's way to you right away. Let the games begin! Nicole has written a great book and packed full of information. Perfect for dreamers, schemers and back-to-the-landers and the perfect book for reading beside the fire on the cool nights ahead. Also keep an eye open for her next book on permaculture which is nearing completion I believe.

If you're not the winner... this book is also available on Amazon 

The Ultimate Guide to Homesteading: An Encyclopedia of Independent Living

 So it's up to you now. Get writing. Tweet your friends. Share the news and start making plans for next years growing season (unless you're in Australia and the southern hemisphere...then keep up the good work and have a wonderful summer!)