Yay, White Oak!

Jason got his wood in last week to do his board and batting walls of the shed-ma-hall. Why white oak and not pressure treated pine? Cheaper (60 cents a board foot, no chemicals, and it is somewhat naturally rot resistant.

Picked my first potatoes. We ate some for lunch today. Yum! To know they came from my backyard gives me much pleasure. And now, to know how simple they are to produce, I will definitely grow them every year... In fact, I believe I have time to go at it again. I just need to prepare a spot for them. We already put in the sweet potatoes... I put cucumbers where the white potatoes were... and I want to plant more green beans... Yikes, my brain is starting to overload... My energies are not up for what my mind would like to do yet, so I must constantly remind myself that it is okay to take it easy and enjoy some slow time with Zachary.

So Zach and I have started going outside in the mornings. He naps in his jogger, and I piddle around in the garden... And each day is a new day.

Thoughts on Fall Garden 2007

Well, after everything I planted, the survivors were, Mesclun (no surprise there), Turnips (handles the winter marvelously), and Garlic (easy cheezy).

I picked a salad today for our guest, Jason's aunt and uncle from New Hampshire. Aunt Carol was delightfully impressed as I picked it just before lunch. This made me happy.

So, I wanted to try an Early Spring Garden this year, but managed only to plant sugar snap peas, broccoli, parsely, and onions. I did not even prepare the soil, just punched holes in the ground with a stick and stuck in pea and broccoli seeds. Who knows if anything will pop up. I am hoping this rain we just had filled in the holes better with soil as I only scratched over them with my hand rake. I have to say, that this pregnancy is pooping me out.

I do want to have a garden this year, but it will have to be a small one. I am actually going to The Farm for the month of April to apprentice in organic gardening and permaculture. I am really hoping to learn alot, so I can apply it to my home garden, and share my knowledge with my garden friends. I am also taking a trip in May to visit family up north, then will return home to begin a summer garden--oh, and get ready for labor, hehe!

I am thinking that I will purchase a load of compost manure this month (March) and spread it over my garden to let rest until the end of May till I can get to double digging. It is an expense that I would not usually make, but I feel like I need to nurture my soil this year since it's been a couple years since my last addition of manure. I will probably spread some more leaves, too (we did cover with leaves in the Fall).

Right now I plan to do companion gardening like last year. I loved all the colors, and attracting all the honey bees! I've actually seen my first honey bees of the year buzzing around the purple flowered ground cover (clover?). Their heads were a fuzzy bright pink. I wish to plant a bee garden just for them...

I have many plans for the garden, but the hardest part is keeping it simple. I will just have to take it day by day, and allow the garden to arise of its own accord. In the very least, I will revamp my garden with my acquired knowledge from the April apprenticeship. Perhaps, even, start from scratch.

Jason Puts Up a Wall

Our Library is on its way to completion. Jason put up a wall near the entryway just before he came down with the stomach flu, Yuck! Poor thing... So, now I just need to put together the final bookshelf for the living room to finish our library.

Other things:

J built the compost bin higher

I am sewing more and more, mostly baby stuff and maternity items

Composting Toilet is still working out great, although J did switch to the city toilet during his illness. We are about to store the peat moss in a covered trash can to protect it from rain (not necessary, just something to make me feel better--I don't like the wet peat moss at the bottom of the bag)

The Garden is going pitifully well. There is still mesclun to pick. Turnips survived without any protection, although I didn't eat too many. J pruned the fruit trees a couple weeks back. I have started my Spring/Summer garden plans. They will be nice a simple to accomodate my pregnant state. I'm thinking, potatoes, sweet potatoes, peppers, radish, and beans, lots of marigolds and cosmos, and, if I feel up to it, some other things.

I've started started laundering my baby stuff. We are starting to implement a greywater environment, meaning, switching to greywater friendly soaps. First is the laundry detergeant. We found a recipe to base a liquid soap made from our bio-deisel supplies. We need to do a couple of experiments, but it looks easy enough.

Bio-Deisel, by the way, is going fine. Production is much slower in the wintertime, saved for warm weekends. We use 70% bio-deisel, 30% regular deisel in the winter, but we drive less too (summer we use 100% bio-D).
So, still, overall, throughout the year, we emit 10% of what we were with our old Nissan gasoline Stanza.

Well, I can't think of any other homesteading updates. I'm just taking it day by day with this pregnancy thing, and nesting when I feel like it. Housecleaning is kept to a minimum, but I am having bouts of deep cleaning too, which is always fun. "J, can I get rid of this? or J, can I build this?"

Oh, forgot to say, drying laundry outside on the clothesline still going fine. I just have to remember, watch the weather, although rain-washed baby clothes are great! (We've had our line for 2 years, now? and probably for the last year I have been using is regularly. I've only used the dryer 4 times in the past year...)

Merry Christmas-time!

I guess I'm in the mood for Christmas, although the weather has been strangely WARM? Well, I've been enjoying my mesclun salads, and spreading around the fallen leaves for compost.
Actually I am almost through my first trimester of pregnancy, and finally feeling a little more like myself. I've had a little nausea, and much fatigue, so I haven't been getting too much done around the house.
Now that I am feeling more energetic, I've got plenty to do. Christmas gifts, baking, mailing cards, etc...
Next house project is my spice shelf. I've got the boards cut, but they've been on the floor for the past month. I can't wait to get them up. It should free up some cubbard space in my utterly tiny kitchen.
Also for the past month Jason's been down with a hurt back. So no composting toillette. We do miss it though, because it surprisingly kept the stench down!
Now that we're expecting, I am hoping to finish setting up the rest of the house before June, my due date. No problem! Ya right! We'll see what actually gets done. After these spice shelves, I plan to build my built in bookshelf (and get rid of a free standing one.

Mesclun, So Pretty, Yet Smells Spicey

It's Alive! Cackle! Cackle! Cackle!

Finally some rain! And thank goodness no tornadoes. I couldn't sleep very well last night, because I was waiting for the storm. But as soon as the weatherman said it was breaking apart, I turned off the laptop(which doubles as our tv) and slept until the storm actually hit; woke up, and shut all the windows in the house to keep the rain from blowing in. Then, back to bed.

It was just 2-4 days before that I started putting seeds in the ground, and already signs of life!
So far I've planted:
Swiss Chard
Turnips
Beets
Mustard
Kale (Nero Toscana)
Kale (Red Winter)
Broccoli
Endive
Lettuce (Salad Bowl)
Mesclun

Within the next couple days I plan to plant:
Garlic
Green onion
Leeks
Onion
Parsely
Cilantro
more Mesclun

This is all pretty much experimental for me, as I have not grown this much before, and do not know how well everything will survive, much less produce.
I did only mesclun last year, so I at least know I will have it for the next 6 months.

Time to Plant Some Greens and Jot Down Ideas

I planted Arugala a few days ago. Sprouts are coming up.

I was tentative to plant greens earlier because of the hot weather and draught conditions.

This will be my second year of having a Fall Garden. Last year I grew simply a 4x4 of mesclun. This year I plan to expand.

I can't wait to get my mesclun seeds in. I ordered them from HarrisSeeds.com. because I was having a hard time finding them locally.

I will be planting other greens and veggies later than recommended, so I will have to see what will happen. Last year I place a window pane over the mesclun to hold in the warmth. I may need to plan for more covers (glass, straw bales, etc...)

I will be collecting my neighborhood fall leaves soon for compost/mulch around my yard. I am planning to begin a front yard herb and flower garden for the Spring. I can't wait to utilise this space.

Jason and I set up a couple rain barrels this summer. I am wondering how they will hold up in the winter. Out Winter is about 3-4 months long, and not extremely cold. Zone 7b.

I had to kill 5 big Black Widow spiders and 2 egg sacs the other day in my garden. Yikes!

I went ahead and mowed over the pumpkin vines to prepare for the fall planting.

Today I pressure canned 8 quarts of pumpkins and still had some leftover to make pumpkin butter. It's been a long day.

I will need to write a post on my summer garden. It did well, and I want to make an overview so I can more clearly improve upon it. I also should do a post on the Fall Garden plan.

Ideas
small pond
honeysuckle perfum
dried herbs (stevia, sage)
blueberries
milk paint living room
start herbs in house.