2 cloudy years later...

"I will stay with it and endure through suffering hardship, and once the heaving sea has shaken my raft to pieces, then I will swim." -- Ulysses, the Odyssey

So, we've been swimming the past year. Life threw us some curve balls, some hard decisions were made and things were rough for awhile. I had faith that the shore was close though and faith that swimming would get us there.
For the first time in almost 2 years my small family is caught up on bills, with money leftover to go into savings. For the first time in almost 2 years, next month will likely see that savings increase. I finally feel like there's solid ground under us again. Things are of course still tight, with Dave staying home with Rowen and our personal credit basically non-existent. But, austerity measures, steadfast resolve, loving support for each other and strategic aid from parents saw us through the worst of it I think. We're looking forward to rebuilding our finances and security nets. Having had to use them once, we are even more adamant about them being in place before austerity measures are loosened.
I know some of my friends thought I was crazy when I left my job shortly after the conception of Rowen. I'm sure some of my family thought it was irresponsible. Looking back now though, I'm sure I did the right thing. If anything, I should have left that job sooner. I am working in the same field as I was back then, with a new company. I was worried about the job because of how the last one turned out. Thankfully this company has shown me that I was absolutely correct in my criticisms. Thankfully I'm now with a team that's excited about my contributions, interested in my development and willing to answer my questions. I'm now with a company that cares about family, cares about wellness and is properly managed.
It was a rough way to start a marriage, and not the quickest path to career advancement. But I was home with Rowen for the 1st year of his life and I got to breastfeed for most of that time, those two things alone almost make it all worthwhile. It's also nice to know that even weeks when we had no grocery money, food that I had grown and preserved helped to keep us fed. Maybe that's a skill I'll never need to know again, but chances are it will come in handy some day and I'm happy to know I've got it.

Other silver linings to these cloudy years, my sewing improved exponentially, my cooking skills improved and in general I'm more comfortable with my own abilities. It's nice to have a steady paycheck and the comfort that brings, but it's nicer to know I don't need it. I can make it without it, *we* can make it without it. We are stronger than we were 2 years ago, and more sure of our worth. I wouldn't have made it without Dave, and our partnership is my rock.

Maybe next year we can finally take that honeymoon. :-)

Tomatoes are in!

Well, yesterday was only a little exhausting. :-)
I planted all of my tomatoes and peppers and eggplants (aubergine).

13 tomato seedlings, 4 bell peppers and 3 Listadia Eggplants. All but the peppers were grown by me from seed saved last fall or the fall before. Some, like the Moonglow are the 3rd generation of these that I've grown and saved seed from.
2 Moonglow
1 Black from Tula
1 Mortgage lifter (maybe 2?)
3 Amish Paste
1 My Neighbor's Yellow/Red (still working on the name)
2 Soldaki (a nice early Russian variety)
3 seedlings that were volunteers in my containers. Who knows what they are and if they'll set fruit or not. Should be a nice experiment.
Observant readers will notice the lack of experimental plantings this spring. It's true, I'm aiming for boring and well-known (to me) veggies, with not much new this spring. I thought moving, combined with starting a new garden from scratch in a new town 1 zone colder might be enough challenge for my spring. I do think I'll try and do some experimenting this fall with extending my veggie production into winter. I want to look into both root veggies and greens, as before I've only done greens. I also want to start experimenting with seed production from biennial veggies. Crops like Cabbage, Carrots, Kohlrabi, Beets, Onions, Kale, Parnips, Leeks, Chard, Parsley and Turnip all need 2 years to produce seed. I have to dig up a healthy veggie in the fall, keep it in damp sand in a protected place (i'm thinking the large mudroom) for the winter, replant them in the spring and hopefully they'll send up seed stalks. So, expect more exciting experiments this fall. :-)

Here's the rest of the garden lineup so far:
Peas
Onions (yellow spanish)
Garlic (hardnecks are still in Des Moines, softnecks are planted here in Le Mars.)
Turnips
Radishes
Potatoes (Red and Yellow)
Carrots (assuming they ever sprout...)
Parsnips (assuming they ever sprout...)
Green beans (Purple bush variety)
Kale
Cilantro
Basil (green and purple)
oregano

Containers:
Kohlrabi
More peas
Morning Glory
Lettuce
Spinach
Borage
Parsley (assuming they ever sprout...)
Chard
Amaranth
Lavender
Night Scented Tobacco (if it survives the transplanting)


Still to be planted: (hopefully this weekend)
Squash (winter and summer)
cucumber
More basil and oregano
Cabbages

It's nice to see that list so much smaller. :-)

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend. To remember those who have fought and died for this country, I plan to do something to lessen the need for wars. I plan to finish the garden, finish some sewing projects and balance our budget. Hopefully making my little family more stable and less dependent on foreign oil, which is the driving force behind most of our current conflicts.

Goddess Bless.

Independence Days 5-27-2010

In the past I've kept track of my harvest by weight. That was really interesting, but again this year, more trouble than I have time for. So, as veggie production starts to ramp up, I will try to keep posting what I harvest and when, but more in general terms like "4 radishes." It will allow me to continue to track what peaks and when it peaks and compare gardens from year to year.

Plant the food: Green Beans! Some of my purple bush beans.

Harvest the food: 2 salads harvested this week, spinach and lettuce and field greens. 10 radishes harvested. A dozen stalks of rhubarb gathered from my neighbor who was just going to throw them away! Half of the rhubarb is chopped and in the freezer, waiting to be made into pies or tossed into apple sauce. The other half is chopped and in the fridge ready to be tasty filling or compote or something. :-) Dave is voting pie, but we'll see.
Preserve the food: Rhubarb is frozen, 3-4 cups worth. Dried some lambsquarters (picture above for those wondering about this weed I eat so much of) and radish greens to powder into potherbs. I'll do the same this fall with kale, and add the powdered greens into soups all winter as thickener and nutrient booster.

Waste Not: nada

Want Not: My stack of small sticks blown off the trees is getting quite big. They are a little too big to break down easily in my compost pile, so I've been stacking them up, hoping I can use them to burn. I've been researching designs on rocket stoves, because I think I can use them to cook food. More on this project later.

Build community food: Donating corn/squash/bean seeds to the local 3rd graders to use in their new garden.
I heard back from the food pantry in my town, regarding accepting excess produce from the community garden I want to set up, it seems like they'd like to see such a project, but they are worried about liability, so more work to be done on that front. Next step is probably approaching a church or the city council for some land.

Eat the food: Several pantry meals lately, including a rare meal of fish for baby and I while Dave was out doing his thing yesterday. (I have a bunch of canned fish, but Dave hates fish so we rarely eat it) We've cycled through a LOT of the flour lately, with Dave baking so much bread. That's awesome because some of it was approaching the limit for stored flour tastiness. I makes me a little antsy to see so many empty jars on the shelves, I can't wait to start filling them again.

Water Filtration

This is one of those issues where DIY will only get you so far.
You can filter your rain water collection with a scrap of window screen to keep the worst of the bugs and leaves out of the barrel. You can set up sand-trickle-filtration in a 5 gallon bucket and get close to potable water. Add on 10 minutes of roiling boil and you're approaching what you get currently out of the tap here in the US. But, all of that can be done faster and easier and with more portability with a water filter.
These, unfortunately, are not cheap, we are saving up for one, it's on The List, but we don't have it yet. (It's battling with the grain grinder for top spot on The List) Berkey is the brand I want to invest in, as they have a sterling reputation among people in the know. They use gravity to filter water down through their crazy-good filters, which are good for 3000 gallons.

To that end, I'm trying to win a filter from a survivalist blogger I occasionally read. The following paragraph makes me eligible to win a Berkey filter. Wish me luck!

M.D. Creekmore over at the The Survivalist Blog – a survival blog dedicated to helping others prepare for and survive disaster – with articles on bug out bag contents, survival knife choices and a wealth of other survival information is giving away a Go Berkey Water Filter System (a $139.00 value)! To enter, you just have to post about it on your blog. This is my entry. Visit The Survivalist Blog for the details.


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Edited to add:
Further research has yielded another DIY method of killing bacteria in water.
Solarizing the water in clear bottles for 6+ hours. The UV-A rays in sunlight kill germs such as viruses, bacteria and parasites (giardia and cryptosporidia). The method also works when air and water temperatures are low.

Garden Buddies, Tomato Thoughts

We had crazy winds here yesterday and a thunderstorm last night, so my plans to plant out tomatoes were thwarted. I am volunteering with a Conservation group tonight to clear some recently donated land and make it suitable for game birds. Hopefully Weds I can get out and plant my poor tomato seedlings.

You can see the tomatoes in this picture, they are the seedlings on the far right. Anxious to be out of their seed tray. Nights are officially warm enough for the tomato babies, although I might have to protect them for a few weeks from the heavy winds we have here. Luckily I have more than enough row cover to protect them. If you are planting out transplants and you don't have any row cover, you can help them out by hardening them first. Put the transplants on a porch or sheltered area for a week or so to acclimate them to full sun and wind. Pick a cloudy calm day to transplant. Make sure they have lots of food and water in their new home.

Tomatoes are heavy feeders, some of their common diseases are caused by inadequate nutrients. When I'm planting tomato seedlings I dig a DEEP hole, at least 2-3 inches deeper than the current root structure, and I add a tablespoon of worm castings and 2 eggshells to each hole. The worm castings are good balanced food, (compost could be substituted) and the eggshells help ward off blossom end rot with their calcium content.

Expect a bit of transplant shock the first day or two. Droopy leaves and a sad demeanor. This will pass as they stretch their roots and settle in. Keeping them hydrated and protected will help.

Most of the time I'll uncover the transplants after I'm sure they've adapted. New leaves, strong stems, etc. This does leave them open to pests, but they also get 100% of the sun and rain which they need. And it makes it easier to put in their support structures, which they also need. I grow heirloom variety tomatoes, (Mom and Becky, this is what I gave you as well) they are indeterminate and open pollinated. This means that 1. they grow pretty big, 2. set fruit continually and 3. will usually breed true. I have to use really big tomato cages to properly contain these glorious vines, not the little tripod kind that come up to your knees, I'm talking thick gauge 5 foot tall cages. These cages can hold their own against my big vines, but it does make covering the vines kinda tricky. So, once they get settled and get to the point of needing support, I uncover them, put in the cages and then I just hand pick any pests off. Horn worms and such are easy to find and easier to pick off and throw to the birds. Doing things this way, I save wear and tear on my row cover, and I don't have to resort to petroleum based insecticides. The close contact required to keep pests to a dull roar keeps me in touch with the plants, so I can better predict their needs.

The other really easy thing you can do to keep tomatoes happy is to mulch around them with straw. It'll keep dirt off the leaves, keep moisture levels steady and keep their roots cool.

Once they get to flowering and setting fruit, it's not a bad idea to side dress the plants with some compost. I sometimes forget, and they always forgive me for it, but it can help boost production.

First things first though, get those transplants in the ground soon! The moon is waxing, this is a great time to plant green beans too!
Happy gardening!

Tulip Festival

We had some family fun at the local Tulip Festival this past weekend. Lots of Dutch food, wooden shoes and tulips. A good time was had by all. Enjoy the cute pictures!
These types of events are great. They are local, so money stays in the community, and we don't have to use as much gas as we would if we drove to a bigger city and a bigger festival. Lots of local craft people, making stuff by hand and selling it to other locals, I love supporting that kind of thing. We bought a frog shaped iron door knocker from a local guy who had his forge set up right there at his booth, Rowen was very intrigued by the whooshing of the bellows and the bright fire and banging of the hammer on the anvil. We ate delicious brats made by a local meat shop there in Orange City. And pigged out on Dutch pastries. Rowen of course has inherited a sweet tooth from every side of the family, and since he's only got 6 teeth... :-D
There was music of course, Rowen and I danced a little bit, he loves dancing as much as I do. The parade was cute, Rowen liked waving at the people as they walked past. What a little charmer. He fell asleep before the fireworks started though, which was nice too, as Dave and I got to snuggle a bit while we watched them.

Gardening with the Podling continues

Wow, I can't believe it's been a few weeks since my last Kindergarden post. Rowen and I have been busy little bees lately, here's the update.Containers are coming along slowly. Great lettuce crop in the cold frame. This lettuce was sown in DSM in the seed starting tray, moved to LeMars, then it sat in my dining room until just a couple of weeks ago when I finally got it transplanted out to it's proper place. I have arugula sewn in between the bunches of Tango lettuce, hopefully they sprout and I get some arugula before it gets too hot. There are onions next to the cold frame, but the pretty irises block the view from this angle. Everything else in containers is still pretty small.


Baby Rowen helped me pick our first bowl of salad out of the garden. Spring lettuce, kohlrabi thinnings, herbs and field greens (weeds). It was pretty tasty! ( I didn't wash the greens well enough and the salad was gritty, but.. other than that! Pretty tasty!) He was so cute, I would bend over and pick something for the salad, and he would find something near him and carefully pick a few leaves off and hand them to me to add to the salad.





He was very excited by the garter snake we found on Wednesday. He chased that poor snake halfway across the yard before it hid behind the steps. Hopefully that particular garden buddy will stick around, I'd love the help with the small rodents.

Rowen also helped me expand the plot a little bit this week. I didn't want to rent a tiller, so I just took a shovel and turned over another 2 feet along the side of the plot. Rowen got a little trowel and proceeded to do his own bit of digging, somehow ending up with dirt all over himself and some in his mouth. Good times. Sadly didn't get a picture of that.