Exploring Life In The Grit Of The Earth
Posted in Mothering, Organic Gardening, building our home on Jul 31st, 2010
365 eggs plums peaches tomatoes green beans eggplant cucumber squash (yellow and zucchini) mint black berries red raspberries blue berries And I put up 5 quarts of ‘mock’ apple pie filling, 5 pints of cucumber relish and 4 quarts of green beans. My counter tops are covered with squash and cukes! I need to do [...]
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, Organic Gardening on Jul 19th, 2010
Posted in Mothering, Organic Gardening on Jul 8th, 2010
Berries, herbs, and fruit (YUMM!) And Smiles!
Posted in Organic Gardening on Jul 1st, 2010
As a part of my plan to try to simplify things in my life, I am no longer weighing out all of my harvest…. Though the anal side of me really wants to know exactly how many pounds of summer squash I picked, and how many ounces of herbs, it’s just not a priority. So, [...]
Posted in General, Mothering, Organic Gardening, Sewing, building our home on Jun 21st, 2010
We’ve had a great spring here on our land. Things have felt really productive. But, I have to tell you, we are beat! I wake up in the morning, jump out of bed and get going. Laundry, taking care of the animals, garden care, kitchen clean up, etc. all comes before breakfast. Most nights I [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening on Mar 11th, 2010
YAY!! I’m so excited!! I can’t wait to have fresh food from the garden. This past weekend, we set up a straw bale cold frame to start our seeds in and seeded kale, lettuce, cabbage, and parsley! We are using a pane from a glass door as the top. The greenhouse in our [...]
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, Home Schooling, Mothering, Organic Gardening on Jan 16th, 2010
Finally, it’s gotten above 35 degrees!! The snow has been on the ground for a month and it seems like every morning I’ll wake up to a little more! The past few days it’s gotten up into the 50′s and it’s been wonderful! The chickens are having a field day taking dirt baths and stretching [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening on Oct 1st, 2009
Things have mostly stopped producing in the garden now. I still have kale, chard, snap peas, a little bit of tromboncino squash, and some arugula that reseeded itself. But, I’m not doing much harvesting. I’m so over the kale and chard. I haven’t felt like eating it in months! My plans for any type of [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening on Sep 9th, 2009
Just took 7 quarts of potato leek soup out of the canner!! Mmmm, Mmmmm, Gooood!
Posted in Organic Gardening on Sep 1st, 2009
Things are petering out in the garden…. well, I’m letting them peter out. The weeds have taken over, the tomatoes gave in to blight, the green beans are collapsing. The squashes have all succomb to mildew of some sort. The chard and kale are still going strong. There’s probably 10# of it out there, but [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening on Aug 10th, 2009
The other day when I went out to harvest the zuchinni, I found this: I swear, no one carved this! Kaia’s explanation… Bartelby Barnes, the fairy of the garden, carved it to claim his zuchinni. I think he was just letting us know that he has been hanging out in the garden beds.
Posted in Chickens/Ducks, Mothering, Organic Gardening on Aug 5th, 2009
Of course, we’ll start with the cutest!! Leif had a few bites of rice cereal yesterday, and he downed it!!! “Hmmmmm, I think I might have a bite, thank you!” “WOW! I LIKE! Give me that spoon!” “Mine!! ALL MINE!” “Yes, boys can too play with Barbies! They are very tastey!” I finally got around [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening, Sustainable Living on Aug 1st, 2009
From the garden this past month I harvested: Eggs – 70 Lettuce – 1oz Chard – 1# (although there is a bunch out there that needs harvesting… we just haven’t felt like eating it) Herbs (culinary) – 4 oz Summer Squashes – 15# 2oz Peas – 6 oz Kale – 3# 4oz Green Beans – [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening on Jul 23rd, 2009
Sorry for the lack of posting lately. It’s hard to sit at the computer during these busy summer days. Especially with a 5 month old banging on the keys I have started planing my fall/winter garden already! Seems crazy in these summer days to be thinking about what I will harvest in Jan! But, this [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening on Jul 5th, 2009
I just pulled one or two squash vine borers from every single winter squash, summer squash, and pumpkin in the garden!!! The leaves have become yellow and wilted, and growth has been stunted all in the past few days! I doubt I will get much of a harvest at all! I’m really sad, ’cause I [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening, Pets on Jul 5th, 2009
Or should I say, the thing that makes my back ache Watering the garden is not so easy when there is a cat attacking your head!
Posted in Organic Gardening on Jul 1st, 2009
I thought it was a good time to take a look at how the garden is faring, then in the years to come I can repeat (or not) those things that worked (or didn’t): Tomato bed – so far, they are all looking great! No ripe ones yet, but should be soon. The dill and [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening on Jun 19th, 2009
Posted in Organic Gardening on Jun 16th, 2009
Things are growing nicely in the garden! It was early blight on the potatoes. But, it was only on 5 of my fingerlin potatoes. So, I pulled them up and burned the tops. The potatoes looked fine, albeit small: We’ve got zucchini and summer squash starting to come in, cukes the size of my pinky, [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening on Jun 8th, 2009
This is on all of my zucchini… And this is on one of my potatoes… And what do I do about it??
Posted in Do It Yourself, Organic Gardening on May 31st, 2009
I know… way to many posts today… I’m just trying to get caught up! I planted 37 melon plants yesterday while the moon was in Leo… there was only room for 18 in the bed I’d made and I didn’t want to throw away the other seedlings, so I planted them in a big hill [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening on May 31st, 2009
Last month I decided to start writing down all the food we harvested from our land. In April, I only kept track of eggs, but this month I tried to remember to measure everytime we brought something in the house. I keep a little scale on the kitchen counter for just this. April Harvest 146 [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening on May 30th, 2009
Quick question… How often do you fertilize or feed your vegetables? I’ve not done anything since they’ve been planted, and everything looks great, but I imagine they would like a little food boost every now and then. I checked on my comfrey compost tea, but it’s not ready yet…
Posted in Knitting, Mothering, Organic Gardening on May 21st, 2009
Leif found his giggle tonight!! It had us all laughing up a storm! I’ll see if I can upload the video for you! I also finally finished his kimono for next winter. It’s a pretty easy pattern, I just haven’t had a whole lot of hands free time. I’m going to knit some pants to [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening on May 12th, 2009
Kaia’s flower garden: Looks like we will have a nice strawberry harvest this year: Onions are doing well! Potatoes are up and growing strong: Lettuce and other greens are overwhelming us! Here’s a view of the front gardens from the roof The plants on the roof are doing well… well, the ones that survived. Almost [...]
Posted in General, Organic Gardening on May 5th, 2009
Things are really looking nice in the garden! The greens are growing strong, my cucumbers and summer squashes are peaking their heads up, the potatoes are up, and the new asparagus has just broke ground. Yesterday, in Virgo (a fruit sign), I planted a hops vine, put in 22 tomatoes seedlings, seeded 3 types of [...]
Posted in Beekeeping, Mothering, Organic Gardening on Apr 13th, 2009
We had one of those wonderful weekends where you stay really busy with all kinds of fun stuff! Though we don’t really celebrate Easter, Kaia and I wanted to do something crafty for spring. First we made sweet little birds nests (and ate way too many M&M’s) We brought a few to a birthday party [...]
Posted in General, Organic Gardening, building our home on Apr 10th, 2009
I put out some roots yesterday while the moon was in Virgo… potatoes of all colors (red, blue, white, yellow fingerling, new potatoes). I did intensive planting of 50 potatoes in a small raised bed, each potato was placed 9 inches apart in all directions. We’ll see how it goes. I also planted beets (Lutz’s [...]
Posted in Organic Gardening on Apr 3rd, 2009
I set out my broccoli, kale, and lettuce/greens seedlings today. (The moon is in Cancer, a water sign good for planting leafing vegetables.) And tomorrow the moon moves into Leo, a fire sign good for planting fruiting plants, so I am going to start my tomatoes and eggplants. From reading other blogs it seems like [...]
Posted in Mothering, Organic Gardening on Mar 25th, 2009
… I’m still here I’ve just been away from the computer a bit… It’s hard to type with a baby in your arms We are all doing really well! Leif is a total sweetie! He’s very laid back, although he is a total snuggler and doesn’t like to be put down. Kaia is still in [...]