Garden 2020, part 10

My garden has sustained damage due to hail and extreme heat, but we have also had small harvests so far... mostly onions, spinach, and chard.

Most of the transplants have not survived, so several have been replaced by directly sowing into the outside garden.  I think I will wait to do any more seed starting until I have a greenhouse... or at least a different house with better light.  ;-)

There were a good amount of cherries (that the birds enjoyed) and only about a dozen apples that I can find.

Our neighbor brought over duck eggs from their family farm... so pretty and delicious.

The melons and squashes are all looking good so far.

The onions and rainbow chard have been delicious sauteed with mushrooms and the spinach has been enjoyed raw.

I've gotten some use from the tiny herb garden... in here are rosemary, basil, winter savory, and chives.

The rabbits ate my peas and fava beans... :-(  But I'm still holding hope for tomatoes and corn.

For future reference, I think my garden needs to be in the dogs' territory, but protected from the dogs and alpaca, in order to keep the rabbits out.

It does look rather pathetic from this point of view, but rest assured, we are eating from this garden.

Garden 2020, part 9

My intention for this year was to increase the variety of foods we were eating.  Being home due to COVID-19 has helped a lot in this endeavor.

The idea is that the more whole the food and the more variety of the foods, the more nutrients you are receiving, and therefore the healthier you should be.

We've tried different cuts of meat and different recipes during this Stay-at-Home period and our garden will be providing a greater variety of vegetables.

Over the weekend I replanted some of the early-season starts that did not survive thru transplanting and added a few new varieties.

So my garden is now fully planted.  It doesn't look like much from this broad view, yet.  But the following are doing well:

Peas

Fava Beans

Carrots

Red Onions

Spinach and Lettuce

Chard

I have attempted 43 varieties so far.  46 if you count our fruit trees.  A few have definitely not survived and I'm holding hope for a few others.

Regardless, I think we will achieve my goal of adding more variety to our diet.  :-)

Garden 2020, part 8

I planted all of my surviving late-season seedlings in the outside garden on Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend.

Some of the starts didn't make it to planting.  I assume its a combination of limited sunlight inside the house and old seeds.

Then Sunday we received close to an inch of rain (when 2-inches is normal for the month) and Monday was relatively cool, so some of the starts have not survived transplanting, but many of the directly sowed varieties are doing well.

The neighborhood bees have visited the few fruit tree flowers, so I am expecting some fruit, but not too much this year.  Though there are definitely cherries in progress.

I have about 1/3 of the outside garden still available for planting and a few more varieties I'd like to get into the ground.

I am completely loving my garden this year, especially having the ability to spend a few minutes weeding each morning!  I also collected the first harvest of a few hail-damaged spinach leaves this week!

Garden 2020, part 7

Since I'm at home, I'm making a point to check on my garden every morning and weed a bit after feeding the alpacas.

This way it's more of a daily 10-15 minute task rather than a major weekend chore.  I can't tell you how much I enjoy playing in the dirt every day!

My spinach is getting close to being able to harvest (a little).  The chard and carrots are starting to come up.  The peas, fava beans, onions, and garlic are all looking good.

We had a mild freeze on Monday, May 10th...  So I'm now targeting the planting of my late season seeds to about May 25th, Memorial Day, which is next weekend.

I hope you all are having a great spring!

Garden 2020, part 6

The fruit trees are starting to leaf out and flower now...

and the outside garden has food growing in it!

Considering I don't have a great space for growing plants indoors, the late-season seedlings are doing much better than I expected.

Our last frost was on May 5th (so far) so I'm targeting the planting of these for about May 19th.

In the meantime, I  found this wonderful Salad Bowl at our locally-owned market.  This has been a fun way to get fresh greens while we're waiting for the outside crop to grow.

These mixed greens were especially nice paired with smoked cuts of local lamb earlier this week.

How's your garden growing?

Garden 2020, part 5

Last week, when the first few indoor seeds were sprouting... I said I was running out of suitable indoor space to start seeds.

Then a few hours later, at our (awesome, locally-owned) grocery store, I found a handful of seed varieties I've been wishing I had on hand, including Parsnips and Roma Tomatoes and a couple of herb seedlings.  :-)

Then I found a long/skinny water-tight container to start the Romas indoors.

The first of my early-season seeds have started to emerge from the ground outside and the late-season seeds are really fun to watch inside.

As of this morning, I have tomato, melon, pumpkin, butternut squash, zucchini, borage, lettuce, chard, onion, and garlic sprouts.... and my fruit trees are getting very close to leafing out.

I'm not sure if there is a better metaphor for hope than fresh seedlings emerging from the ground.

Garden 2020, part 4

We got a significant amount of snow over the last week.

While it is melting very quickly, it will be at least a week before the garden will be dry enough to sow more seeds.

So I decided to start two varieties of corn.  I wanted to plant more corn this year, but I'm running out of suitable, indoor, space for water-tight containers.

In the category of exciting news, my first round of late-season starts have begun to spout.  As of this morning, I have tomatoes, melons, acorn squash, pie pumpkin, and borage poking out of the soil.

In the category of less exciting news, I was laid off from my day job last week.  Thankfully, Hubba and his hunting friends have been keeping our freezers full of game.  I am also grateful to our local friends for helping us stock our freezers with quality farm-raised meats, and for the bit of canning and other freezing I have been able to do each year.  So while we are not fully self-sustainable, we have made huge progress over the years.

I hope you all are staying happy and healthy!

Garden 2020, part 3

While today is quite lovely, we are expecting hard freezes over the next several nights.  So I decided to hold off again on planting my mid-season seeds.

My early-season seeds have about two more weeks before I should see them starting to emerge... tho a few weeds are waking up now.  :-/

My fruit trees are getting ready to leaf out.... fingers crossed for a good harvest of Cherries, Plums, and Apples.

I took advantage of the beautiful day and started the remainder of my Amish Paste Tomato seeds.

I'm looking forward to canning tomato sauce and paste over the summer. :-)

I hope that you are having some fun improving your sustainability during this COVID-19 Shelter Order and I hope you are having a blessed Easter and Passover Season.

Stay healthy, my friends.

Slow Living: June 2012

After April and May, I feel like my life is regaining it's balance.  So I've had more time for other things.  It is pretty surprising that this is my fifth installment for the Slow Living Project (7/1/12: updated link) already.

NOURISH: Make and bake as much as possible from scratch. Ditch overpackaged, over-processed convenience foods and opt for 'real' food instead. Share favourite links/recipes/tips from the month here.

My yoga studio re-opened.  Yay!  And a friend of mine has opened her own yoga studio.  Double-Yay.  So there's plenty of organized yoga back in my life.  :-D

PREPARE: Stockpile and preserve. Freeze extra meals or excess garden/market produce. Bottle/can, dehydrate or pickle foods to enjoy when they are not in season. Aim to reduce dependency on store bought items especially those known to contain BPA and other suspect additives. Stocking up on dry goods when prices are low counts too.

I went to the Estes Park Wool Market earlier this month and picked up a stash of yummy fibers in preparation for the Tour de Fleece that starts today.  :-)

camel + merino

REDUCE/Reuse/Re-purpose/Repair: Cut down on household waste by re-using, re-purposing and repairing. A ladder into a strawberry planter? A sheet into a dress? Share ideas and project links here, allowing others to be inspired.

I didn't think much was going on in this category, but's it really is surprising when you stop and think about it.  We've been doing a lot of fixing around here... air conditioning, faucet, garbage disposal, car and the FOT.

Our house was built in 1974.  Which makes this toilet and almost everything else pretty much 38 years old... so we will be fixing lots of things for the foreseeable future.  :-/

F*&#ing Olive-colored Toilet

Between Hubba and I, we had purchased and tried a large number of guts for the FOT.  None of which worked.  I was ready to replace the whole thing, even though we're not ready to embark upon the whole bathroom remodel just yet.  Then Hubba asked our neighbor, The Plumber, to stop by.  He took one look at the FOT, went back to his shop and came back a few minutes later with the exact-right-part.  Sometimes it's just better to call a professional.  ;-)

GREEN: up our lives. Start (or continue!) using homemade cleaners, body products and basic herbal remedies. The options are endless, the savings huge and the health benefits enormous.

Regarding the algae in our alpaca's water troughs: both of the goldfish have passed.  I'm not certain what's going on with the snails.  When I last scrubbed, I found only one.  So I need to find a way to get oxygen into the water without  running extension cords from the house.  Is anyone aware of a small, solar-powered bubbler?

GROW: plant/harvest. What's growing this month? What's being eaten from the garden? Herbs in a pot, sprouts on a windowsill or and entire fruit/vegetable garden -opt for what fits space and time constraints. Don't have a backyard? Ask a friendly neighbour or relative for a small patch of theirs in return for some home grown produce, they may surprise you!

While we aren't growing them on purpose, the weeds have been growing very well.  So now that shearing season is over, we have turned much of our attention to them and enlisted a little help from one of Hubba's colleagues.  It has been a lot of pulling and cutting with absolutely no chemical use what-so-ever.  I think we are ahead in the game again. :-)

 

On to the things we're growing on purpose... most of our seeds have sprouted since last time.  We have tomatoes, squash blossoms, onions, beets watermelon, pumpkin and chiles all growing well.  I think we are ready to start harvesting radishes.  Mmmm, maybe I'll try a couple later today.  :-)

Spaghetti Squash

A very bold robin ate all of my nearly-ripe cherries and the rabbits have eaten all of my beans.  Grrr

I have a few plums and peaches and a ton of apples, so I need to get busy on the bird deterrent soon.

CREATE: to fill a need or feed the soul. Create for ourselves or for others. Create something as simple as a handmade gift tag or something as extravagant as a fine knit shawl. Share project details and any new skills learnt here.

I fixed my Challah Socks and cast on a Wingspan.

DISCOVER: Feed the mind by reading texts relevant to current interests. Trawl libraries, second hand shops or local book shops to find titles that fill the need. Share titles/authors of what is being read this month.

This one makes me laugh... Completely out of desperation because I was behind on laundry, I discovered that an old pair of running shorts is waaaay more comfortable than my cotton walking shorts when it's 100F.  I don't know why I haven't been wearing them before.  lol.


Also The Alpaca Dog discovered that he CAN catch mice.  Every morning, while I'm doing the alpaca chores, he heads over to the hay stack and hunts.  It's pretty funny watching 95-pounds of 10-year-old shar-pei and rottweiler chasing mice.  But this week, he caught one.  Certainly there's a lesson in believing you can do something even though the odds are against you in there.

ENHANCE: community: Possibilities include supporting local growers and producers, help out at a local school/kindergarten, barter or foodswap, joining a playgroup or forming a walking or craft group. Car pooling where possible and biking/walking instead of driving. Even start up a blog if you haven't already - online communities count too! Or maybe just help out someone trying to cross the street! The rewards for your time are often returned tenfold.

Anticipation Necklace - photo courtesy Criffin Designs

I wrote a post in support of a colleague of mine who is an exceptional artist.  He's offering a terrific blog special for two more months.  You should check it out... especially if you like turning old things into new, beautiful things... which I know you do since you're reading this post.  ;-)

ENJOY: Life! Embrace moments with friends and family. Marking the seasons, celebrations and new arrivals are all cause for enjoyment. Share a moment to be remembered from the month here.

Our family has gotten so big, that we now have "All the Birthday" celebrations a few times a year.  This month, most of us made it to my parents house to celebrate 17 birthdays.  Definitely a fun time.  :-)

Hubba is at the USA Track and Field Trials for the London Paralympics.  It's been years of hard work and sacrifice to reach this event.  I'm excited, nervous, anxious and proud.  It's almost surreal that we will know for sure if we're going to London in just a few days.

Lastly, I am happy to report the that High Park Fire, which started earlier this month, is expected to be fully contained this weekend.  We haven't seen a defined smoke plume in several days.  It's been more of a general haze.

We can't see everything in the distance, but it's whole lot better than it was.

It will still be some time before this fire is completely out and the haze is gone, but containment is a very big deal.  And for that, I am very happy.