Category Archives: Organic Gardening

Busy bees

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We have been staying really busy here! After delivering my order to Weaver Street, I got 3 more orders through my website and wiped out my stock. So, I have spent the last 3 days making soap, ordering supplies, labeling, etc. Toby went out of town for work, and I would have been sunk trying to do all this stuff without a hand with watching K. But, my mom-in-law came to town for a visit and a little relaxation, and she was my savior! She and K played all day and they both slept like logs at night 🙂

I also got a sink (cast iron, enameled in great condition!) off of Freecycle. So, we are going to take the old one and plop it in my garden, fill it with soil, plant some flowers, fast growing seeds and such and let K run free with it! She will get her own watering can and shovel and if she ‘destoys’ everything, that will be fine with me! I have some squash and tomato seedlings without a home. I will get some flower seedlings for her to pick and lots of seed for her to plant. It will be packed with stuff, or not. It will be her own space. Hopefully she will be as excited about it as I am 🙂

Bees and Garden

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We did our 3rd and mite treatment for my hive yesterday. The girls are looking great! Lots of pollen and nectar stored, some capped honey and lots of worker brood. We also spotted the queen, which is always a plus since we are looking in a hive of about 50 thousand bees! My 24 hour mite count is down to 55, which is 1/3 of what it was when we started (it was 161 just after the first treatment!)!
We went into Toby’s hive today to check and everything looks good in there too.

Here is a picture of the beautiful pattern they have drwan out of this 4.9 foundation:

But, here’s another frame that they got a little lazy on 🙂 I’ve also heard that they draw the comb out larger when there is a honey flow on… which there is right now.

On this frame you can see lots of capped over brood (baby bees) and some nectar drying out and getting ready to be capped over (see the shiny stuff in the open cells?).

How does my garden grow? Very well thank you! I am having some flea beetle problems with my eggplant, but not too bad. I go out there once a day and just squish them by hand. I also made a spray of 4 cups water, 6 cloves garlic, 2 slices onion, handful of basil, and ~10 drops peppermint essential oil blended up really well!! It seems to get rid of the flea beetles. But, I have to put in on after each rain. My beans are looking pretty pale too, so I added some dried blood for nitrogen. Hopefully that will help. Otherwise, some tomatoes, squash, zuchini, beans, and even a pumpkin and cantaulope are starting to develop flowers! These warmer nights have really helped things take off.

Spiral Update

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I’ve been filling in my spiral garden and it is looking nice. It’s going to be stuffed with plants! So far it has Comfrey, Motherwort, Bee Balm, Johnny-Jump-Ups, Chives, Marjoram, Thyme, Magenta Lambs Quarters, Yarrow, Lemon Balm, and Zinnea. I moved the Jeruselem Artichoke and Bay Laurel to another bed once that was set up so they have lots of room to spread out.

We also did the 2nd sucrocide treatment on my bees today and they are looking good. Lots of worker brood and even some capped honey!

Herb Spiral

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I’ve been trying to make another raised bed for some poor little herbs that are in desperate need of a home. But, I seem to keep finding reasons to put it off. Well, I have finally been inspired by Stella and Steph to build a spiral herb garden. I needed to build something more creative than a rectangle. Thanks for the advice ladies!!

Here is the bed before the dirt and plants:

And after:

So far, there are only comfrey, chives and jeruselum artichoke in the bed. But, I will be getting a bunch more from another herbalist this weekend!! Yay!

And just because I am so proud of myself for taking a fairly decent picture with my camera, I have to post this. It is the flower of the pitcher plant that is in the ‘pond’ in our back yard. Cool, eh??

And just because I am so proud of myself for producing something so damn scrumptous I have to post this, too. She likes to pose for the camera and squints because she know the flash will go off. So, this is what happened when I said, “don’t squint, open your eyes.”

And after a little practice…

I could just eat her up!!

Full up to here!

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For this mornings snack time, we had strawberries. Then, for lunch, we had more strawberries. For afternoon snack, we had fresh strawberry muffins. For dinner, we had fresh strawberry pie! Can you guess what K and I did for our morning activity?? You got it – Strawberry Picking at a local organic strawberry patch! And after all that strawberry eating, we still have a quart in the fridge and 1 1/2 gallons in the freezer!! Yahooooo.

K and her cousin enjoying the harvest!

Feeding the hungry

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I went to visit the Crazy Tomato Lady for our weekly toddler playdate and after looking at her lettuce, kale and greens I realized that mine are very stunted! They look pretty much the same as they did when I put them in the ground a little over a month ago. So, I went home and sprinkled on some cottonseed meal (for nitrogen) and some liquid mineral fertalizer. I hope that will do the trick. Does anyone know how long it will be before I see results, or what else I should add if I don’t see any results? The under leaves have started turning yellowish and there is very little growth. That’s why my initial reaction was to add nitrogen.

On another note, my business is picking up all of a sudden and it seems to have nothing to do with the Kiplinger’s article. I’ve gotten a emails from people I don’t know wanting to carry my products in their stores, Earthfare is thinking about carrying my products, and tomorrow I have a meeting at our local co-op to figure out which of my products they will carry. I decided that it will make the meeting more memorable if I bring something yummy to munch on while we talk. So, today I made “Cleopatra’s Love Nuggets”, an herbal recipe from Botanica Erotica. It is not my plan to get them horny just to give them a taste of a really yummy herbal treat 🙂 They are delicious!!

    Cleopatra’s Love Nuggets

  • 1 cup of raw sesame tahini
  • 3/4 cup honey
  • 1/2 tsp each of cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, and aniseed
  • 2 Tbsp cocoa powder
  • 1-2 tsp. damiana cordial, vanilla extract, Amaretto, anisette, or rose water (I used a cordial that I made a few years ago that I call “Love Potion #9”)
  • Some optional additions: 1 Tbsp finely chopped mint, 1 Tbsp powdered nettle leaves, 1 drop peppermint essential oil, 2 tsp grated orange peel, 5 drops orange essential oil

In a medium bowl, stir together the tahini and honey. Add powdered herbs and flavorings and combine. Roll mixture into balls and then roll to coat. I divided the batter into thirds and added 5 drops of orange oil to one batch and rolled this in seseme seeds. To the second batch I added 2 drops of peppermint essential oil and rolled it in shredded coconut. To the third batch I added 2 drops of rose geranium essential oil and rolled this in cocoa. They are SOOOO yummy!! You should try it. It’s really simple and quick.

Vege Garden Update

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A few people have been asking for pictures of the garden. So, here you are. It’s doing pretty good. I’m hoping that the warm weather we are having will get my greens going. Here is what the whole thing looks like right now. Everything is still very small. (If we ever use all the mulch in the huge pile, I am going to have to find another spot for taking garden pictures 🙂

This is bed 1: white clover as a ground cover, corn, squash, pumpkin, aster, and radish

This is bed 2: potato, beans(black, cannelini, and toungue of fire), zinnea, parsley, cilantro, and sorrel

Bed 3: nasturtium, canteloupe, watermelon, radish

Bed 4: green onions, red onions, carrots, beets, chard, cosmos, blanket flower, calendula, peppers, and soon eggplant and a blackeyed susan.

Bed 5: nasturtium, cucumber, marigold, zucchini, sweet alyssum, nigella

Bed6: lettuce (3 types), spinach, kale, arugula, basil, tomatoes, and soon borage

I know this sounds very professional. But, all I did was get a book on companion planting and do what she said. This is the first time I have done this, so we’ll see how it all turns out and if the bugs really do stay away.

Beetle

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I’ve found this beetle in my garden and I’ve never seen anything like this. I thought I had a bunch of honey bees around already, but when I looked closer, it was a brown beetle. It would fly around, land on the garden soil or straw and burrow a little way in, then fly out again. Maybe it is laying eggs? It is similar in size and shape to a June Bug, but it’s back is almost like brown camoflage. Anyone know what this is?

Deer Control 2

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Well, the deer have found the garden! I don’t think they know there is stuff growing there, just that there is a fence around it. I found a huge rip in the fencing where I think a deer got caught. But, there was no sign of a struggle, or tracks. So, I think they took off as soon as they got free. So, this morning I pulled out all the stops! I tied pie pans to some of the fence posts to make noise in the wind. I tied a bar of Irish Spring (which I hear deer hate) to each post as a deterant, and I wove red and silver “bird flash tape” through the fencing to make sure the deer saw it and didn’t try to run right through it! I hope that works! Everything is starting to take off with the warm weather we had this week. So, I don’t want the deer to try again and find a smorgusborg(sp?). I checked the 10 day forcast and there are no freezing temperatures in sight. So, since April 15th is the average last frost date and the lowest predicted temp in the next 10 days in in the 40’s, I planted some summer squash, pumpkin, zucchini, and cucumber seedlings and also some corn, bean, aster, zinnea, and radish seeds. Wish me luck!

For dinner tonight we had a salad with fresh greens, chard, arugula, and parsley from the garden (there weren’t many to harvest, but enough to say “we had fresh greens, chard, arugula, and parsley from the garden”). I also added some chickweed, violet leaves and flowers from the yard. Non-home-grown stuff added was spinach, tomato, strawberries, kalamata olives, walnuts, feta cheese, sprouts, and broccoli. I have to say, it was very yummy!

Now, I am sipping on some sage tea to help dry up my milk. I’m not really engorged, but I can feel a fullness. K didn’t ask for ‘boobie’ all day and I am doing pretty good mentally. I have heard that there are certain astrological signs that are easier to wean under. Do any of you know about this?

My first harvest

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I harvested my first vermicompost today! As some of you may remember, one of my first postings to this blog was about my new worm bin. Well, I finally got in there and dug out some of the compost. I wasn’t expecting much. I’ve been dumping all of our food scraps in there since last July and the pile never seems to grow. So, I assume the worms are eating it up. But, I just never see much going on in there. I see all kinds of other bugs and the occasional mouse, but I thought there would be more worm action. Well, I figured out today that I just wasn’t looking hard enough before. ‘Cause, when I dug down to the bottom, there was a ton of compost and lots of worms. I started off with ~2 1/2 pounds of red worms (Eisenia foetida), and I must have pulled at least that much out of the compost that I sorted, which was only ~1/4 of the bin!! Plus, there were lots and lots of baby worms and eggs, too. I ended up with ~15 pounds of compost, nice and black!! I put in some fresh bedding for the worms into the bin and tossed them back in to the side that still has all the food.

Other happenings today: Puddle jumping (or as K likes to call it “Walk on water!”) and bread making!

Monsanto Sucks!

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I can’t believe that we can ban people from smoking in public places and we can’t get rid of crooks and killers like Monsanto!! I try so hard to make my home and environment a healthy, nurturing one. It makes me sick that these huge corporations are out there dumping filth into my world! When I hear about all of the babies in Vietnam that have been effected by Agent Orange (an herbicide made by Monsanto), it makes my body shake! What if things had been different and I was born into a vietnamese family? That could have been me or worse, K!! AAAARRRGGGHHGGHH!! And they have just been let off the hook for all the horror that has been caused by this herbicide. We have got to take a stand!! (YES! I am screaming!) Now this company, who is huge into genetically modified crops, is sueing small farmers for saving their own seeds! (It cuts in on their profits, ya know.) What the F*%#?? Go away Monsanto! You Suck!!

Haven’t pooed in 12 days

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I’ve got your attention now, eh?? No, really, I am doing an experiment with my hair called No ‘Poo. And I haven’t shampooed in 12 days. I have washed my hair, I just haven’t used shampoo. See, Toby hasn’t used shampoo in his hair in years and it looks great! It is thick and shiny and he doesn’t have all that shampoo/chemical build up. So, when I read a little more about it, I decided to give it a try. Now, when ever I take a shower, I use a little baking soda and apple cidar vinegar on the ends of my hair, and give myself a great scalp massage. I thought it was going to be an oily mess, but after a few days my hair has already started to adjust. My scalp isn’t over producing oil anymore and my hair has lots of body and wave and looks like it’s been styled. The only thing I don’t like is that it feels heavier. Maybe that will go away after the full adjustment period. We’ll see how it goes. The baking soda and vinegar are supposed to pull out all of the daily build-up of sweat/pollution/etc, but I really use to like sudsing up my hair and the smell of it after using a good fragrant shampoo. But, I also like not putting the sodium lauryl crap in my hair.

Ok, other happenings…
Today in the garden I planted some Cosmos, Sorrel, Fennel, Love-in-a-mist, Cilantro and Arugula (all seeds). I hope all this stuff that I am putting in so early grows well. I could wait a little longer, but I am so antsy to get in the garden that I am taking a risk with frosts and cold weather. I got a report back from the State Ag. Center about my soil and it has a pH of 6.8 and great nutrients and minerals. All it needs is a little more Nitrogen!! Yay!! (Good thing I put in the raised beds with new soil ’cause the soil on our land has a pH of 5.1!!)

So, I am hoping to take a weekend away. Meaning, for the first time since K was born, I hope to get some quality time by myself and leave Toby and K at home. I have put it off for this long since K is still nursing. I didn’t want to force her to wean. But, she is almost two, and I am desperate for some time independant of my little side-kick. I love her, but 24/7 365 days a year is a lot of time to spend with someone! So, what should I do?? Any ideas from my fellow bloggers? My first thought was to head just north of Asheville, and get a cabin at the hot springs up there…

Fasting– Another thing I am desperate for is a good fast/cleanse. I use to do a cleanse every spring. I would either juice for a week or do some form of a cleanse to clean my body out after ‘hibernating’ for the winter. It always felt great! But, with being pregnant and nursing, I didn’t want to fast and have all those toxins get in my breast milk. So, maybe, if K does wean with my weekend away, I will get a good cleanse going. Has anyone ever tried the Master Cleanser Fast? I think I am going to try this one. I like the juice fasts, but they always mess with my blood sugar. The Master Cleanser, is supposed to be different and so far I have only heard good things.

Today’s plantings

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Happy Spring Equinox!

Today in the garden, I’ve been busy! Here’s what I’ve been planting:

In raised bed #1 -Seeds of white clover to use as an undercrop (corn, summer squash, radish, aster and pumpkin will be added later)
Bed #2 – Potatos and parsley seedlings(bush beans, cilantro, dill, and a zinnea will be added later)
Bed #3 – (watermelon, cantaloupe nasturtium, and radish later)
Bed #4 – Onion, carrot, and beet seeds planted, Chard seedlings planted (eggplant, pepper, cosmos, calendula, blackeyed susan, and blanket flower to come later)
Bed #5 – Sweet Alyssum and nasturtium seeds planted (cucumber, zuchini and marigold later)
Bed #6 – Lettuce, Spinach, Kale, and Arugula seedlings planted (tomato, basil, borage, and cosmos later)

I also have some sorrel and other yummies that I want to fit in somewhere. I will probably start a big ‘perenials’ bed with herbs and more too. Busy, busy, busy!

more plantings

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We back from our conference, which was wonderful! I really enjoyed all of the classes I took. The “Planning your vegetable garden” class was a great refresher and synopsis of the things I should be doing now! The “organic beekeeping” class, again, a great review of all the things I have been reading. (We mainly focused on how to tackle varroa mites without using conventional chemicals. We went over screened bottom boards, mite resistant bees, organic methods like removing brood frames, 4.9 cell foundation…) The class on “high-production raised bed gardens” was actually the same class I went to last Fall, but it was a good review. Then I decided to go to a class on cooking with medicinal and culinary herbs. It was great. We ended class with a herbal pesto (made with chickweed, green onion, mustard greens, toasted sunflower seed, and a few other things!), and an herbal salad dressing (made with herbs and a vinegar prepared from blueberry wine) on top of greens. Mmmmmm…

The weather was amazing today. It was supposed to be chilly and overcast, but instead we got into the 70’s with sunshine all day. We finally got all of the posts up for the garden fence and got up the fencing. Good thing too, cause I found some deer poop just outside of my garden!! Hopefully they will stay out once I get things planted. I have been holding off on putting anything in the garden until we got the fencing up. But, tomorrow, I hope to get Kale, Lettuce, Spinach, and Radish in the ground. I just finished putting some hot peppers, cosomos, alyssum, marigold, calendula, aster, and nasturtium in flats (I’m using all the flowers as companion plants in different garden beds). We’ll see how it all goes. I’ve never tried flowers in flats before. I usually just throw them in the ground and rant and groan when they don’t come up 🙂

Feng Shui Gardening

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We got out in the yard early today and finally got the garden beds put together. I still need to put down more mulch in between the beds, and we need to put up the fence. But, the beds look great, don’t they? Very Fung Shui!

We cut some cedar to make as fence posts. But, the water level seems to be really high in this part of the yard. So, the bottom half of the post hole is just mud. We need to rethink what we are going to use… I guess metal posts.

Most of my seeds seem to be doing pretty well. The kale, lettuce and tomatoes are growing great. (Except my cherry tomatoes). The chard isn’t putting on a great show, so hopefully I can get a few more growing before time to transplant. This is my first attempt at growing from seed. So, so far so good, really.

Well, my body is exhausted from working in the yard all day! I’m off to veg in front of the TV!

Lion, Tiger, and Bear

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These past few days have been filled with fun projects! On Thursday night, I got to go to my monthly herb class/meeting! One of the local herbalists holds a monthly class out of her home and this months topic was “Pain and Herbs”. As always, I felt like I had gone home when I was there (does that make sense?). The smell of the fire burning, being surrounded by wise women who were all wanting to open their minds to the power of plant medicine, it was so calming and nurturing! I love these classes. One other fun thing about the class is the samples. As we discuss an herb, we pass around a tincture of that herb and those who want to can taste it. So, as you can imagine, I was without any pain by the end of the night!! We discussed White Willow, Meadowsweet, Kava, and Jamaican Dogwood to name a few.

When I got home from the class Thursday night, I noticed that the neighbor’s sheep (she has 3) were making a lot of noise. I commented about it to Toby as soon as I walked in the door, but thought, maybe they were just braaaaaying at the full moon or something 🙂

Today, we got up early to start working on the garden again. We have been digging post holes and clearing the area for most of the day. As you can see, K and Suki helped.

In the afternoon, my neighbor dropped by to apologize for all of the sheep noise lately. She said she came home on Thursday night to find one of her sheep, Dorothy, had given birth to triplets!! She hadn’t even known that Dorothy was pregnant! (That explains all the sheepy noise when I was coming home from my class) Since the mama’s name is Dorothy, she named the babies Lion, Tiger, and Bear. Tiger was much smaller than the other two and passed away. But, here are Lion and Bear, doing well and growing strong!

One other final fun note… we picked up our beekeeping equipment today! A local beekeeper made our hive bodies for us out of Cypress. So, I am going to give them a coat of my beeswax varnish and hopefully we will have them up and running in the next month!!

Today in the garden

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This afternoon, while Toby was out of town and K was playing at her cousin’s, I went and got a facial!!! (Thanks mom for the gift card!) I had never had one before and it was heaven. I actually fell asleep! After the facial, I headed home for some alone time! I got all my seeds in the mail today, so I broke out the potting mix and planted some kale, lettuce, chard and tomatoes in flats. If you are reading my site for clues as to when to plant stuff in your flats, don’t do what I do. I have no idea what I am doing. I have never grown stuff from seed before. I usually run out to the garden shop at the last minute and grab whatever scraggly vegetables they have left. I have never been ahead of the game with my garden. Here’s why: early spring 2004 – house on the market, traveling every weekend to house hunt, finally took our honeymoon in April…in Tobago for 3 weeks. Missed every planting opportunity. Early spring 2003 – very pregnant, put a few veggies in the ground but let them get taken over while I tried to care for a newborn. Early spring 2002 – spent 3 weeks traveling out west, too enthralled with my new boyfriend to care if my veggies were covered in powdery stuff. So, you see, this year is going to be different!! Wish me luck!

Deer control

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K and I went out today searching for deer fencing for our garden. The plot is going to be 40’x40′. I am only going to have 6 raised beds to start with (triangle shaped 8’x10’x10′), but I would also like to have a sand box for K to play in while I am gardening. Plus, this leaves lots of space for more raised beds. But, deer fencing is either very expensive, or flimsy, crappy, plastic stuff. One salesman told me about this stuff called Plantskydd that is suppose to be this fantastic deer deterent. But, it is basically pig and cow blood. Aside from the Mad Cow thing, why would I want to use pig and cow blood on my plants? The directions also said not to get it on anything that would be ingested… isn’t that everything in a vegetable garden? So, I started thinking. If blood is supposed to deter animals from eating the garden up, why couldn’t I just use my own blood? (I do ‘shed’ once a month…) I could mix my own very diluted healthy blood with garlic and mint or other repellant plants and spray it on the garden. Sound too gross?? Menstural blood is full of nutrients and minerals since it was supposed to support a baby. I’ve actually known a few women who would use the Keeper, catch their menstural flow, and then use it in their plant fertilizer. Their gardens were gorgeous.

What do you gardeners out there use to keep deer away?

Manly men

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We rented this monstrosity of a machine today to chip up all the pine brush that was left from cutting down the trees to make a garden space. We had a lot of work ahead of us, so we invited friends over (Thanks Eric and Mark!) to help out, and Toby’s dad (Thanks Vick!) came up from Charleston to lend a hand. I, of course, was on baby duty. I tried to find someone to watch K so I could get out in my soon-to-be-garden and do some work, but no luck. I felt pretty guilty having all these other people doing my work. I know Toby wanted the trees down as much as I did so that we could get some sunlight in our house. But, I was the one who kept pushing to get the chipper so that I could get my garden going, and there I was sitting on my kister playing in the sun. My plan was to get the area organized and straighten up the grounds where the garden will go. The men’s plan – destruction!! When I saw the look of utter happiness on their faces as they tossed tree limbs and shrubbery into this metal monster and watched it chomp the wood into tiny pieces, all feelings of guilt diappeared. Once K went down for her nap, I got my gloves on and went to work. The smell in the air was fantastic! It was like someone had dumped a truck load of freshly cut orange peels in our front yard!

Now, I have to start working on putting up the garden fence and building the raised beds. I am thinking of building 6 triangle shaped beds that all point to a center area. I’m not sure what will go in the center yet. I may put a perenial bed there… we’ll see.

planning

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So, I’ve been working on my garden plans for this year. The pine trees have been taken down in the front and we now have a great sunny space for the bees, vegetable garden, fruit trees, herbs, and all the other stuff I want to plant! I have a busy spring ahead of me. Once we have cleared all of the tree debris, I am going to start by throwing out a bunch of wildflower seeds. We got a huge amount of seeds for our wedding 2 years ago. So, hopefully some of them are still good. Then I need to make a path the where the garden is going to be, fence off the garden (we have a lot of deer) and build some raised beds. We are going to hit the local lumber mill and see what scraps they might have available for the raised beds. My old way of gardening was to just put stuff in the ground. But, this year, I would really like to become more aware of which plants are beneficial to others and which plant families go well together. I would like to learn to plant by the moon signs. I also want to learn more about soil composition, organic fertilizers and beneficial insects. I feel so far behind.

Anyway, I don’t know the design of the garden yet. I’m going to wait until we have all the lumber for the raised beds before planning where they go. But, here’s what I would like to plant. It’s very ambitious and I will probably cut back some, but here it is:

  • Provider Bush Bean
  • Frodhook Bush Lima Bean
  • Trionfo Pole Bean
  • Cannellini beans
  • Midnight Black Turtle Soup Bean
  • Tomatos -Cherokee Purple -matt’s Wild Cherry -Brandywine -Juliet -Striped German -Golden Sweet
  • Ithica Carrot
  • Double Standard Corn
  • Painted Mountain Corn
  • Diva Cucumber
  • Fairy Tale Eggplant
  • All Greens mix
  • Watercress
  • Toscano Kale
  • Envy Lettuce
  • Magenta Lettuce
  • Brightlights Chard
  • Athena Melon
  • Festival Watermalon
  • Sweetie Melon
  • Zephyr Squash
  • Buttercup Squash
  • Evergreen Winter Hardy Onion
  • Boldog Hungarian Spice Chiles
  • Rockstar Pumpkin
  • Tyee Spinach
  • Reverie Zucchini
  • along with some chives, basil, parsley, cilantro and other edible herbs and flowers

Wow!! What happened to just planting 10 things this year and starting out slowly??

Hot Porn Tree

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We have cut up a hardwood tree from the front yard and it is ready to innoculate with shitake spawn. I did a little research and figured out that it is an Eastern Hophornbeam. So, I yelled this fact across the living room to Toby, who was in the kitchen washing his hands…”What?? A Hot Porn Tree?? Awesome!!” he said. He is very excited to see what pops up out of this tree:-)

Rainbow dinners and vegetable cars

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Lately, many of the blogs that I read have been posting about food, especially fall harvest foods. So, today I was inspired to head to the Farmer’s Market and get some of the local goodies. Then, I went out into the back yard and picked some herbs to add to the mix. For dinner we had eggplant, sweet peppers, tomato, and shitake mushrooms stir-fried up with some garlic, ginger, lady’s thumbs, lemon verbena, rosemary, brown rice vinegar, tamari, sesame oil, and a splash of orange juice. MMmmmmm, tasty!

On another exciting note, I just found out that our car is going to be ‘featured’ at the Shakori Grass Roots Festival this Sunday, to show people how to convert their cars to run off of vegetable oil.

Cooler Weather

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Wow, what a beautiful day! The sky was blue, the air was crisp…

I took K out to run some errands and she fell asleep in the car seat before we got to the store. So, I took her out of the seat (we were in Carrboro, by a nice, green patch of grass) and we laid down under a willow tree while she slept for a while. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to have her sleep on my chest. I love to kiss her head while she sleeps…

With the cooler weather, it is time to move some of my plants indoors. This usually makes the house feel a little more crowded. But, also, more like a little tropical paradise! Here’s the bedroom:
plants
Check out the banana. It’s only one year old! I’m hoping it will fruit this next year.

Weekend accomplishments

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Accomplishments this weekend:
Saturday – diddly-squat!
Sunday – Planted 7 mums, 3 echinacea, 2 horehound, 2 rosemary, 2 catnip, 2 st. john’s wort, 1 bay laurel, 1 mugwart, 1 stevia, 1 ginkgo, repotted some aloe, started setting up my cold-frame for fall plantings, mowed the lawn, took out the recycling, cleaned the house A/C filter, and blogged. I’m tired! I’m going to bed!

kufe

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The title was supposed to me ‘Life’…but I am trying to learn to type on a new keyboard and I keep hitting the wrong keys…so, instead of life, we have ‘kufe’. I like it.

Well, it looks like our plans to build an addition are being put on hold. We finally got an estimate from our contractor and he thinks it will cost twice what we were prepared to pay!! I don’t understand why a big hallway and empty room should cost soooo much!! Plus, our original plan was to use recycled materials and build as much of it as we could ourselves. But, getting building permits for alternative building structures is hard to do and our contractor kept pushing for doing it the ‘normal’ way. And with me starting school next week and both Toby and I already feeling stretched thin, I really doubt we could put in much sweat equity. We don’t plan on staying here for more than 3-5 years, so investing a big chunk of money to make this house passive solar wouldn’t pay off in that amount of time. If we know where we were going once I get out of school we could buy some land to build on. But, we’re not sure…any ideas on where we should invest in the meantime? As for heating the house passively, we will probably put some water barrels in the south facing windows to hold the suns heat and make some heavy duty shades to keep the warmth in during the winter nights. I’m not sure what we will do about growing food indoors. Our original plan was to have the solar hallway full of planting beds to grow food all year long…maybe we will build some planter beds on top of the water barrels??? We’ll see….

Blueberry Fever/Shellby Update

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K and I woke up early and took a drive an hour south to a pick-your-own blueberry farm. Jean and Daniel came with us and we had a blast. The bushes were covered in berries. I put K in her backpack so I could have both hands free to pick berries and while I picked, K reached around me and picked some of her own! The berries were only $1 per pound!! There were also black berries and tomatoes and fresh honey! I am definately going back soon!!

Oh, I also called the rescue center about Shellby and they said she is doing well. Her shell is healing over and will eventually grow back.

And for those of you out there who need a comic relief break. vrrrooooommvrroommmm

Heat Kills!

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Ice Cream! Popsicles! Cold water on my head! Something!! It is So Freaking Hot here!! YES! I said FA-REE-KING HOT! I almost melted walking out of the front door! I took my 1 year old to campus to run some errands (we decided to ride the bus in just to see how long it will take when I start school…bad idea) After waiting in the sun for the bus to arrive, K had already started to wilt. By the time we got to campus, it took every ounce of energy for her just to keep her head up. Poor thing! I ran one errand and decided to call it a day. I’m ready for a little cold snap! (or for Ben and Jerry’s to give me a lifetime supply of ice cream to help me through my summers here…whichever comes first I guess.)

I did run out later to get some groceries. I use to like grocery shopping, but it seems like we have been spending a fortune lately. I am trying to be more health concious and buy organic foods, but the prices are outrageous!! I just don’t get why adding less to your crops justifies charging more for it!! Yes, I understand that there are a lot of things that organic gardeners need to do to get good results with their crops, but $2.97 for a FA-REE-KING avocado?!?!? We use to sell our avocados for $0.20 each when I lived in Miami…and yes, they were organic! I’m going to start growing/making as much of my own food as I can, starting right now! I’m off to make some bread!

Starting To Fit In

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I’m so excited! I found an organic pick-your-own blueberry farm in the area. Actually, I found a bunch of them. I thought I had missed blueberry season here. It’s also only $1 per pound!! MAN! I could go for 20 or 30 pounds in my freezer!!! Anyone up for a smoothie??

I have also met another natural-earth lovin’ mama and her 14 month old son! I have been feeling kind-of lonely since we moved and I lost my support group of other moms. So, it is extremely nice to hang out with J. and be able to share stories, concerns, and care. She also clued me in to this great website, kneebouncers, that lets kids bang on the keyboard and change images on the screen. It’s really cute! Although, somehow K figured out how to put my computer in sleep mode while she was banging on the keys 🙂 She’s such a cutie!

spaghetti Kl

Worms and Turtles

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OK, the worm composter is officially going. We got some worms from a friend but needed to buy even more. We produce so much food waste it was overwhelming the little suckers. It’s pretty amazing how they immediately go to town on the food. We have a lot of ants that are trying to start their own farm in the composter, though. So, I am going to have to figure out how to get rid of them. I may try some vaseline around the legs of the box so they can’t get in.

My dog, Suki, found a turtle (I think it is a box turtle) in our back yard a few days ago. It would be no problem, except she has decided to use the turtle as a chew toy. Luckily she didn’t harm him. So, today, I brought him to a new area on our property and left him with some treats (greens and a strawberry). Hopefully he will be OK.

box turtle