Write Now with Mommie Rose

Garden Update

2010-02-17T19:15:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted on the garden's progress since July, as, after that, I had a lot of produce from the garden to preserve. Just to give you an idea, I froze 4 cups of peas, 2 cups of raspberries, 6 cups of rhubarb, 4 cups of zucchini, 20 cups of green beans, 7 cups of pureed pumpkin, 10 cups of tomatoes, 12 cups of broccoli, and 16 cups of carrots. I canned 2 pints of peas, 24 pints of green beans, 10 quarts of pumpkin, 7 pints of salsa, 16 half-pints of pizza sauce, 3 pints of pasta sauce, 8 half-pints of pumpkin butter, 5 half-pints of grape jelly, and 37 quarts of grape juice. This was all from my yard. As you'll recall, I live on less than a tenth of an acre. I have a tiny, tiny yard. And this list doesn't even get into all the drying I did. I dried mostly herbs, and onions, rhubarb, sunflower seeds, and dandelion root.

A lot of the stuff I put up is gone. We're down to the last bag of carrots and our beans are nearly half-gone, as is our broccoli. Going to have to start shopping for produce in the grocery store pretty soon.

The garden plans for next year are coming along very well. I have nearly all the seeds I'll need in May. I have more specific plans drawn up to best utilize the space in the garden. My patches of grass are going to be a bit smaller this year than they were last year.

My blueberry bushes should be bearing some fruit, and we've made big improvements in the strawberry patch, so hopefully we'll have a lot of fruit this year. I'm hoping for a modest five pounds from the blueberry bushes, but we shall see. I'm hoping the strawberries will hit their stride this year. I'm considering using some of the grapes to make wine. I'm also hoping to barter the chestnuts, as we don't much care for them.

I'll be making a list of the annual plants I plan to grow in a later post.

Garlic Woes

2009-07-28T18:07:00.000-07:00

I pulled up my garlic today. It was time. But boy, was it disappointing! I planted twice the amount of garlic than what actually grew, and from what grew, I ended up with half of those bulbs reaching maturity. I say maturity a little tongue-in-cheek, because these bulbs are tiny! I suspect my problem was I planted the bulbs themselves too deep to begin with last autumn.

I had planned on using my garlic in a variety of ways, including adding it to cans of pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, and salsa, drying it into powder, and of coarse using the bulbs themselves in fresh cooking. Doesn't look like all that is going to happen. I've decided to try my hand at "dilly beans" for the girls, so I think I'll use my home-grown garlic for that. Beyond what I've got, I'll have to buy my garlic at the farmer's market.

This autumn I'm going to read up on garlic again and plant double what I had planted last year and be sure to take better care of it. I WILL grow garlic in my yard!

Watering

2009-07-15T05:06:00.000-07:00

This summer so far we haven't gotten a lot of rain, at all. Last year we had severe flooding all over, and this year, nothing. I hate to do it, and I hate admitting it even more, but I have been using the hose about once a week, sometimes twice, if it's really hot.

I hate using the hose because there are plenty of other ways to water the garden without resorting to the hose. I use grey dishwater a lot. I also use water collected from the bathtub during showers. At my old house I had a system hooked up such that I could use the water used in the washing machine to water the garden. I really want to do that again, if I can get my husband back there to hook it up for me. It's quite a simple process, I just don't have the time for it. Lord knows what my girls would get into while I'm down there fiddling with the water hose. As a side note, I make my own natural laundry soap, so there's no need to worry, in my case, about any gross residue in the water (or on the clothes, for that matter).

I try to collect rain when I can, but I don't like to leave rain buckets standing around too much, again, because of the girls. Perhaps next year they will be ready for fish outside. Not this year.

Despite the fact that my plants have not been watered every day, they are in amazing shape. They all look wonderful and are setting fruit as usual.

Raspberries in Full Effect

2009-07-09T10:50:00.001-07:00

The raspberries have begun to ripen. We have a lot more this year than we did last year because I took care of the canes. I had no idea last year that we even had raspberries until after they had begun producing fruit because the raspberry canes had been buried by weeds and stray grape vines. So far I've been able to get to the raspberries before the birds. Knock on wood I'll continue to get there first! I quite selfishly ate the very first one by myself and didn't tell the girls. I told my husband later and offered him one. As they are just barely beginning to ripen, I've been picking just one berry at a time. My first berry was a little taste of heaven! It was so good...warm from the sun and sweet.

I pulled one kohlrabi so far and shared it with the girls. The kohlrabi also was, of coarse, delicious. Sweet at first, with a slight bite as an aftertaste. If you never have, I would encourage you to try fresh kohlrabi. It is very good! It is widely available across the Midwest right now at farmer's markets. I like to eat them plain, but you can dip them in Ranch or other dips if you prefer. That's also very good.

Speaking of farmer's markets, the only vegetable I've bought so far at my local farmer's market is a bag of spinach for freezing. I had enough spinach this year for fresh eating, but wasn't able to grow enough for preservation- my box on the balcony did not do nearly as well as I had hoped it would. I do plan on buying lots of peaches and apples later for preservation, but meantime I like to go to look at what is available. This year I have considerably cut down on my food budget already, and most of my crops aren't ready for harvesting yet! I say that taking into consideration the amount of money I've spent on garden implements this year, and I can say with full confidence that I've already come out ahead.

Pulling Weeds

2009-07-05T18:17:00.001-07:00

I spent the entire weekend pulling weeds. I actually did a lot this weekend with family and friends, but it seems I spent the entire weekend pulling weeds. Since we do everything as natural as possible around here, we pull the weeds by hand. I don't use any tools except my hands. No gloves, no nothing. My hands are beginning to become quite calloused. It's funny because in the winter time I spend a lot of time doing craft stuff, but that type of stuff is gentle on my hands, whereas pulling weeds will put a callous on my hands quicker than I could believe!

Everything in the garden is doing well, aside from a patch of radishes I planted a few weeks ago. Looks like they are being eaten by something. The strawberry cage is completely reinforced now, thanks to my husband, who did most of the work by hand, no tools of any kind involved. Looks like the strawberries may be coming back this year.

The asparagus is looking really nice now, too. It took forever to come up and was plagued with weeds (most of the pulling we did was in the area of the asparagus) but it looks like they'll bounce back.

I recently canned some peas that I grew in the front yard. I'll be freezing some this week. I'm hoping to have an even balance of canned and frozen peas, but we'll see. The vines themselves are going strong and only in the last few days have begun turning brown in spots. I'm hoping to plant another round of peas later and hope they take off before it gets too cold.

My pumpkins are overtaking the front yard. They've grown over the onions, when they were supposed to grow in the direction of the sunflowers. The onions don't seem to mind, though.

Also ahead this week I've got to freeze some lovage and dry some sage and lemon balm.

I'll be writing more in this blog during the month ahead, too, so stay tuned!

So, Apparently Birds Love Strawberries...

2009-06-22T18:05:00.000-07:00

I had my husband make a cage for our strawberry patch about a month ago. Things were going very well for a while. The berries were getting ripe. They were looking really delicious. I told my four-year-old which strawberry was her's. We checked on her strawberry every day. Then, one day, about ten, or half of my strawberries, were gone. The next day, the other ten were gone. Now I have no strawberries. I was sure the cage was good for keeping the birds out. I thought they would not be able to get in. I was wrong. I actually was out on my porch reading a book and saw a cardinal go straight through the wires. I scared him away, but I didn't have any strawberries by that point anyway.

As much as I was frustrated and angry about having lost all the season's best and biggest strawberries, I was quite a bit more upset about my four-year-old not getting her strawberry. She didn't seem to mind too much, which was good. But still. Being a mommy makes me very protective of my babies, and I can't believe those stupid birds would eat my babies' food! Usually I tend to think of myself as a very level-headed person, until you mess with my babies!~

Grandma's Garden

2009-06-15T06:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to visit my husband's grandmother and grandfather. They are both in their 80s, retired farmers. Bea, my grandmother-in-law, I guess, still has a huge farm garden. She grows fruits, vegetables, and herbs, still. I find it amazing that someone in their 80s is still able to till the soil, plant the seeds, weed the beds, harvest, and preserve the harvest. Right now her strawberries are coming to fruit. She has a huge strawberry patch next to a huge raspberry patch. She freezes both so they can have fruit on their cereal in the winter time. My girls were quite excited to try some strawberries right from the garden. I was just excited to talk with her about the garden and see the garden: the asparagus patch, the pole beans, tomato plants, potatoes...oh, my!

Pea Blossoms!

2009-06-10T07:21:00.000-07:00

Pea blossoms are one of my favorite flowers. I'm not talking the inedible sweet pea vines. I'm talking about the delicate white blossoms that pea vines set before they set their pea pods. I think I like pea flowers so much because they are one of the first blooms in the vegetable garden, and give promise to a lot more to come! I wait so impatiently every Spring for these blossoms. Finally they are blooming in my own garden! Seeing the pea blossoms is the first small garden victory in what promises to be quite a productive season.

The spinach I planted with my strawberries is really taking off. I'm planning on harvesting some tonight to use in dinner. I tried some of the spinach already- it's delicious. So far this year I have harvested some lovage, lemon balm, rosemary (I overwinter it inside), chives, sage, spinach, rhubarb, and radshes. All grown by me, and harvested by hand. No pesticides, no transport costs, all organic, all delicious.

Radishes!

2009-06-01T10:27:00.000-07:00

I harvested my first bunch of radishes this weekend! I have never grown radishes before this year because nobody in the family likes the taste of raw radishes. I decided to grow them this year to use for cooking. I used them in a stroganough- type dish I made up. The radishes gave the meat sauce a distinct, but not overpowering, flavor. Later this week I'm going to plant more radishes in a different place in my garden.

I finally finished harvesting all the dandelions I'm going to harvest this year. I roasted the dandelion roots and froze some of the leaves for using later. Next year I'll probably use more of the plant altogether, but this year I just used all the roots and saved a few leaves. I had a LOT of dandelions since the summer before we moved here (07) the garden and yard were severely neglected. We don't spray weeds, so we end up pulling a lot of them.

My strawberries are making what seems like millions of berry babies! I think they'll be ready to be picked starting the end of next week, which is exciting. Still waiting on the raspberry blossoms...looks like they might be coming later this week. The grapes are looking way better now than they did this time last year.

My seeds are starting to sprout all over the garden and my perennial herbs are looking great. My sage is flowering and my lemon balm is looking ready for a harvest. I used some lemon balm in lemonade the other day. It was about the best lemonade I ever made!

Garden Update

2009-05-26T05:59:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a while. Must mean I've been busy outside again...let's see. I've got my 9 tomato plants in, my 9 pepper plants in, 6 kohlrabi, 3 eggplant, and 3 broccoli, all my pea vines are growing nicely. I've planted all my seeds for sunflowers, pumpkins, watermelon, carrots, and beans. I actually am hoping to plant a few more carrot and bean seeds this week some time if I get a chance. I also want to plant some melon seeds, and maybe some cucumbers. And definitely some zucchini plants as well.

I finally got to plant my blueberry bushes. They look fabulous. Well, they look like somebody poked some sticks in the ground, but I love them already. The blueberry bushes are in the front yard, along with all the tomatoes, peas, sunflowers, pumpkins, and, of coarse, a few herbs and flowers for my soaps. I also have some carrots and beans planted out front, too. And maybe 6 square feet of grass...

My strawberries are starting to set fruit. I've been trying to help them along, due to lack of bees. I've been considering getting my own hive, truthfully, to help with pollination, and also of coarse for the honey. My girls and I have seasonal allergies, and honey helps little people to develop a resistance to the things they are allergic to.

I harvested some rhubarb for the first time yesterday! It was quite exciting. I had been letting this plant reach its full maturity before harvesting anything from it, and finally, yesterday, it was ready! One of my husband's favorite foods is rhubarb torte, so I made one for him. It was quite exciting.

I can see in a few weeks we'll have raspberries, which I'm quite excited about. The raspberry canes had been neglected for at least a year before we moved in, but I was able to revive them. I'm hoping for a big harvest this year. We have June-bearing raspberries, so I'm hoping for more than just a few handfuls this year.

Examiner.com

2009-05-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

I just started writing for a new site called Examiner.com. I'm the gardening examiner in my area. That's pretty exciting! I've written one piece so far, about growing potatoes in a bucket. As the gardening examiner, I'll be focusing on gardening in an environmentally responsible way.

Peas!

2009-05-05T06:27:00.000-07:00

A lot has been going on around the garden recently. We've been so busy I haven't blogged in over a week! My husband and my dad finally finished pulling out the ugly bushes we're replacing with a fence. They haven't started the fence yet, but we're getting closer. We may buy the materials this weekend.

I've planted quite a few things: about 65 onion sets, pea seeds, carrot seeds, spinach seeds, and the rest of my potatoes.

I planted the onion sets around the garden, here and there, where I could find space.

I planted two kinds of peas- one for canning, one for freezing- in the front yard, 36 of each variety. My husband made some trellises this weekend for the peas. The seedlings are coming up already. Peas are one of my favorite plants. I think the way a pea plant grows, from infancy all the way to old age, is beautiful. I love the flowers they set. Oddly, pea flowers are one of my favorite flowers. Of coarse, you can't beat the taste of freshly picked peas, either. Sugar snap are my favorite for fresh eating.

I planted half my carrot seeds so far. I've got to finish this week some time. I want to get them in early because last year I got them in late and they were very small.

The spinach and the rest of the potatoes are on the balcony. I put the spinach seeds in a window box that I set on the ground. The spinach seems to prefer a bit more shade, so I placed two potato buckets on either side of the spinach. I've got 4 potato buckets altogether. The potato buckets are standard-size plastic outdoor garbage bins with holes near the bottom.

I also planted a bunch of seeds inside for transplanting outside in a few weeks when the weather gets warmer.

Busy Weekend

2009-04-19T18:38:00.000-07:00

My husband and I re-did our front yard this weekend. The front yard was unevenly graded and full of grass...we dug up about half of the yard, as the other half was already dug up. We dug it up not only to grade it, but also to expose the weed seeds for the birds to eat and to amend and aerate the soil. We dumped some compost and peat moss over the area where the blueberry bushes are going to go. We put the sod we dug up back in two areas after aerating the soil. I got 2 of my 3 raised beds ready for planting. I planted about half of my peas because I ran out of seeds. I also got my cement blocks set up behind my raised beds. I'll be putting herbs in the cement blocks. My father-in-law should be coming this week to give us a bunch of manure. After that's incorporated in, I'm going to be able to plant my onions and create a path in the front yard.

Now all that's left for the front yard, for now, are about 4 trellises, and, of coarse, planting the rest of my seeds.

Vinegar

2009-04-07T05:08:00.000-07:00

My friend and I went back home over the weekend. My friend lives in another city and my home town is kind of right in the middle for us. The grocery store my dad usually shops at had a crazy sale on vinegar. Now, my friend and I are in our twenties, and we were planning on hitting the town that night. We stopped off at the grocery store first so I could get some vinegar. It was about half-price of what I usually pay, and I probably go through a gallon of vinegar a month, so I stocked up. I only got 3 gallons, but considering I had just bought two gallons of vinegar earlier in the week, I figured I'd better stop at 3. So then the joke the rest of the night was that my friend and I were going to wake up the next morning, look in the trunk of my car, and say, "Dude, what did we do last night? Did we actually buy 3 gallons of vinegar?"

Snow Storm

2009-03-30T06:38:00.000-07:00

We had another snow storm over the weekend. At first, over 12 inches were forecast. In the end we got about 4 inches. Not bad, but just enough for us to not have anything to do outside over the weekend. It turned out alright, though, because my sister-in-law had a baby last week, so we got to go see the newest addition to the family on my husband's side. Now we're up to 2 nieces and one nephew, along with our two girls. Between us, my husband and I like to "call" who's having the next baby amongst our sisters-in-law. I'm not having any more babies, so I'm out of the running. Right now it's between two sisters-in-law, since the other sister-in-law is in no hurry to have more babies any time soon.

But I digress. Because of a bad allergic reaction to something in the air, I hadn't accomplished much in the way of the garden last week. My pepper seeds are starting to sprout, which is very exciting! Next is tomatoes. Due to limited space, I cannot start both at once. I am hoping to start tomatoes this week.

Oh, and we have a new addition to our family! A friend at Master Gardening class gave me a peace lily last week. Right now I've got it kind of quarantined away from the other house plants, but so far things are going pretty well.

Digging In

2009-03-23T05:59:00.000-07:00

Since last week a lot has gone on in the garden, though hardly anything has been planted. I did plant about half of my potatoes and start my pepper seeds. I planted potatoes in the garden bed next to the house. I think the front and side of the house will look interesting with some potato bushes growing there. I'm not concerned about hurting any of the foundation or the sidewalk because I allowed for enough space for the potatoes.

I also started green pepper, hot pepper, cayenne, and banana peppers. I am still considering starting jalapeños. I think it will depend on how far we get with the garden beds. We've gotten farther than I thought we would have by now.

It took me six hours to dig in my front horizontal bed this weekend. The bed measures approximately 18 feet by 6 feet. There are so many weed seeds in the bed, since the entire front yard was weeds when we moved in, that I decided to dig the whole thing to expose the seeds for the birds. Plus the bed looked like a giant mud puddle, with uneven divets everywhere, so I wanted to get that a little more even-looking so the neighbors don't start to complain.

My husband and my dad took out the giant caterpillar in the back, as I had been so lovingly calling an overgrown and neglected hedge that separated our yard and the neighbor's yard. Our next-door neighbors, on either side, are really awesome. On the side with the hedge, my husband and the guy who lives there are going to build a fence together. Ripping out the hedge gave us hundreds of extra square feet to work with- space for asparagus, some apple trees, and more room in the garden bed in the back.

My husband also dug in the back bed in the same manner as described for the front bed. The back bed in question is about 12 feet by 7 feet.

Earlier this week I dug in a smaller bed on the side of the house and also raked up most of the space under the grape vines, getting ready to plant oregano there when the weather warms up. As far as the smaller side bed, I'm still debating between herbs and peppers.

Garden Season!

2009-03-16T06:59:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I think I'll have to cut back on my blog writing to about once per week because of the garden season starting. I am, as always, way under prepared this year. Every year around this time I start to panic because not everything is just so. This year I have a lot more in place than last year as far as the bones of the garden, but I also have bigger plans. I was able last fall to dig some beds that were not previously there, so at least I've got that going for me.

When we first moved in, the yard was a few hostas and a bunch of 4-foot tall weeds. I kick myself all the time that I didn't take pictures right away. Instead I just dug right in! Considering all the weeds, all we started with were some overgrown grape vines, some straggly raspberry canes, and a chestnut tree. Oh, and a climbing rose bush, too. That's about it.

Right now the yard is about 35% usable garden space. By the end of the growing season, I plan to have dug about 50% or so, and by the time I'm done altogether, I'm planning on having about 70% of the yard to be usable growing space. Oh, and I should probably mention that last year we went from 15% usable space, covered in weeds, to the 35% we have now. I'll continue to keep you all posted throughout the season. For now, time to plant more seeds!

Ice Storm

2009-03-09T04:54:00.000-07:00

Here it is, the end of the first week of March, and we got hit with an ice storm. It was nasty all day yesterday, starting with rain, ending with freezing rain and snow. We're not without power, and I think the kids will be going to school, but it just sucks. I was working outside in the garden Saturday, preparing to do more yesterday. I don't think it would have mattered much whether I actually put down newspaper before the storm or not. I just wish I had gotten to it. Now it's too cold for me to go out and do it.

On a brighter note, we're making soap today! I'm going to put calendula leaves in it to help my daughter's eczema. I think I'll scent it lavender mint. My daughters like to help me make soap, so it should be fun. I'll write late in the week to let y'all know how it goes!

Master Gardener

2009-03-05T18:19:00.000-08:00

I am currently in training to become a master gardener. A master gardener is a volunteer who exchanges their training for volunteerism. I'm basically learning horticulture in practical terms in order to optimize my garden and help those around me with garden-related issues. I've been studying gardening voraciously for about three years now independently, so sometimes I feel like I'm not learning much. On the other hand, there are a few things here and there that I pick up from the class that I know will help me later. Plus I got two giant binders full of info. I really like the binders.

I still have to figure out what my volunteer project will be for the year. I need to submit 24 volunteer hours over the next year. I think I'll make a monthly display at the library, if I am allowed- I haven't asked yet. I'd rather just do one project, even if it's ongoing, than do a bunch of small stuff.

Peppers!

2009-03-02T08:17:00.001-08:00

I'm excited to announce we are planting the pepper seeds today! Of coarse we'll be starting the seeds indoors. Where I live, we don't have a long enough growing season to plant the seeds outdoors when the weather warms up. It is possible to grow pepper plants to maturity here, just not probable. So we start them indoors 8 to 12 weeks before we set the plants out.

I like to make my own seed starting mix as opposed to buying one. Pretty much all seed starting mixes are just peat moss and perlite, so that's what I use. The trick, though, is that I like to change the proportions depending on the type of seed I am germinating. For a pepper plant, for example, I'll put a bit more perlite in the mix so the soil drains faster.

Well, off to start seeds!

A List of Plans

2009-02-26T05:18:00.000-08:00

Well, everyone, you asked for it, you got it! The following is a list of plants I grow/am planning to grow this season. I am not completely set on my herbs yet, so I will not be listing those right now. I don't grow too many ornamental flower-type plants, except if they will be beneficial to my soap-making. In that case, I consider them herbs, even if they are not technically in that category. This list will comprise of fruit and vegetable plants I am planning on growing this season. Keep in mind, when you read the list, I am growing all this in a space of less than a quarter acre, and that I am, in most cases, not growing one or two plants of a particular kind.

Plants to Grow (fruit and veg)
Peas, sweet-36
Peas, shelled-36
Beans, Bush~40
Beans, Pole~40
Carrots-80+
Broccoli-2-4
Tomatoes-9
Potatoes-10
Sunflowers-12-16
Pumpkins-4
Lettuce
Spinach
Peppers, green-2+
Peppers, Cayenne-2+
Peppers, chili-2+
Blueberries-2 (one high, one half-high)
Onions~20
Asparagus-20
Garlic~15
Rhubarb-1
Grapes-15+
Raspberries-12
Strawberries
Zucchini-2

I will explain my choices of edibles in an upcoming post.

On Growing Vegetables

2009-02-23T05:32:00.000-08:00

Growing vegetables is easier than one may think. I plan to expand my garden this year to grow more vegetables than I did last year. In a few months, my entire front yard will be green with vegetables and flowers and herbs- no grass!

Most vegetables are annuals, meaning they die after one season.

Some are biennials, meaning they can live for two seasons. Usually we grow biennials as annuals and pull them out after one season. Biennials spend their first season making what we can eat, and their second season making seeds, which we don't eat. Carrots, for example, lay down their roots (the orange part we eat) their first season, and make a flower stalk, then seeds, the second season. During the second season the root part becomes woody and not so tasty. It's still edible, just not as delicious as if you had picked it the first season.

Then there are the vegetables which are perennials. Rhubarb is a vegetable that comes back every year. We eat the stalks, not the leaves. Same with asparagus. I'm growing both this year.

Later in the week I'll be back with a list of the vegetables I'll be growing this season.

On Being Self-Sufficient

2009-02-12T05:35:00.000-08:00

I thought I would write a post on being self-sufficient. Now, as I've stated before, I think it's impossible for someone in my position to become completely self-sufficient. However, I think a lot of people could stand to be more self-sufficient- they just don't know how.

Why would someone choose to be more self-sufficient? Why would someone choose to do things the hard way, as opposed to the easy way?

Because it saves money. Sure, you could drive to the grocery store and buy a lasagna from the freezer, bring it home and pop it in. Or you could buy (or even better, grow) the ingredients for a fraction of the cost.

Because it cuts down on waste. For all the packaging involved with the lasagna scenario above, you could use less than half the packaging to make your own. I buy noodles (in bulk) and cheese for lasagna, so the packaging for those gets reused or recycled. Also, since I buy the ingredients in bulk, it saves trips to the store, thereby cutting down on gas I am consuming.

Because it contributes to a healthy lifestyle. If you turn over your store-bought lasagna and look at the ingredients, what do you find? Can you even pronounce some of the ingredients? Now consider what your ingredients list would look like if you made the lasagna from scratch. If you grew some of the ingredients, even better. Not only do you know exactly what contributed to their growth, but also you got some exercise while growing them! When you prepare food from scratch you burn less calories than if you had bought it at the grocery store and "prepared" it by picking it out from the freezer section, bringing it home, and popping it in the oven.

Because of pride of ownership. Would you be more proud of a lasagna you bought from the store or one you spent all day carefully preparing? Would you be more willing to throw out the left-overs from the store-bought lasagna or the one you made from scratch?

Obviously this isn't all about lasagna. Being self-sufficient is a lifestyle based on concious choices. Whatever your main motivation, I urge you to give self-sufficiency a try, one small change at a time. You cannot change your entire lifestyle overnight. This is a series of baby steps in the right direction.

This is my first in what I hope to be a series of discussing being self-sufficient.

Seeds!

2009-02-09T17:46:00.001-08:00

I finally got to count my seeds over the weekend. I estimate I have at least 50 different kinds of seeds. The only two kinds of seeds I was missing, so far as I could tell after preliminary checks, were large pumpkins (for making pies) and zucchini. I'll probably have to buy more peas, too.

As far as the garden planning goes, I'm just about set...I think. Every time I come up with a new plan, I end up changing it in a month or so. This cycle repeats itself all winter till Springtime when I have to make the final decision of what to plant where. A great panic ensues until my friend B convinces me this stuff is only going to be planted here one year (the perrenials I always know one year in advance where I'll plant them- I won't even consider them until I already have a specific spot lined up). So if I plant bean seeds in soil with less-than-ideal pH, they won't suffer too badly. Then I just have to try to get them in a better position next year.

My plan this year is just about complete (at least, this revision is) aside from a few herbs. I have everything planned down to the square foot or less of where it will go. I just have to match a few square feet to a few herbs.

Under Construction

2009-02-05T05:06:00.000-08:00

I've had this blog for about a month now, and I've decided to overhaul it to get the content more focused on one subject matter. As I get more time to work on it, you'll see posts focused on one subject: soap making. While it seems like a limited subject to write about, the possibilities are endless.

As the look of the blog changes, I hope you'll let me know what you think of the new layout and subject matter!

I'm also planning to improve my other blog, The Quintessential Cheapskate, by using SEO and improving upon the SEO I've got.

January Online Earnings

2009-02-02T13:49:00.000-08:00

Ok, I decided to post my earnings for all my online ventures every month for the month previous. January was my first month to go at online writing full-bore. I was mystery shopping before January, and I thought I could quickly make up for the lost mystery shopping earnings by writing. So far that hasn't happened.

MyPoints: a $10 gift card, as usual (post a comment to learn more about MyPoints)

eHow: $16.86, at least, before all the glitches began (more on that here.)

Bukisa: a whole $0.26, all from ad clicks, no revenue from my network

Inbox Dollars: about $2 (post a comment to learn about Inbox Dollars)

CashCrate: nothing- I took the month off to build up my writing

Finally, my blogs (this one and the Quintessential Cheapskate): a measly one
penny. Thanks, adsense. Thanks a lot.

I plan to add to my list of money-makers as time allows, so I may have a longer, if not more productive, list next month.

My Home Town

2009-01-28T05:09:00.000-08:00

My home town is falling apart. I moved to this particular town (let's call it Anytown, USA) when I was 10 and spent my youth and formative years there. I hated it when we first moved there. I eventually got used to it, but now every time I go back I get depressed.

The housing market there has completely eroded. I drive down this particular street to get to my parents' house and it's all just one for sale sign after another. They've all been there at least a year or more. The houses look abandoned. At least they're not all boarded up (but in some parts of the town they are).

I've cut off nearly all contact with the old friends I had from there, little by little, because they were just at different points in their lives than me. There still is a huge difference between us, which I find depressing. On the one hand, it's their own fault hardly any of them graduated high school nor had any inclination to better themselves before having their own children. They're stuck in jobs they hate, marriages they wish they could get out of, little "brats" constantly running underfoot. No money, no way out.

Here's the kicker, though. Most of them worked in a factory for a company called Quad Graphics. You may have heard of them. Usually I hate to name names in this blog, but I'm calling them out. Quad Graphics. First, the company wanted to build a factory in our town, bringing us all jobs and hope. What a great idea! But then it so happened that our county would no tallow Quad Graphics to set up shop in our town because of pollution regulations. So then out of the goodness of their hearts, Quad Graphics built their brand new plant right on the county line. Literally less than 10 feet away from the county line is where one wall of the complex sits. How considerate of them to build their pollution-spewer so close to our town so that many of the townsfolk could become their employees. And Quad Graphics was a great place to work. The hourly wage was decent, overtime pay was good, the benefits were awesome, and I hear the parties were really good. So a bunch of my friends from my home town got jobs there. Then a couple weeks ago a large number of employees at Quad Graphics were laid off. Right in the middle of their shifts, no warnings. They were given a few weeks' severance pay and cobra insurance for a month or so, and that was that. All these guys living paycheck to paycheck as is, suddenly no longer even have a paycheck. Of coarse, no other places around there are hiring- everyone else is purging employees, too. Here's the real kicker- two days after laying off hundreds of workers, Quad Graphics began accepting bids for independent contractors and temp workers.

So Long Bush

2009-01-26T06:08:00.000-08:00

Back to all things political, as if you're not completely sick of them right now, I just have to rant about Bush one more time before I put the whole issue to bed.

First of all, I'm not some self-entitled brat. I'm a typical American, and I share a lot of the same sentiments as the typical American. I fully understand how fortunate we are to live in a land of plenty with many freedoms, including the freedom to protest the government.

I was talking to my friend the other day, and she said she thinks protesting Bush was the most patriotic thing I ever did. I think so too. Protesting was one of my proudest moments.

When Bush came to my home town in 2004 campaigning for re-election, I protested. The 2004 Presidential race was the first time I was able to vote for President. I was 17 when he was elected for his first term, so I was 21 when he was running for re-election. I made a sign, though now I forget what it said. I wore a shirt that read, "Send your daughters to Iraq!". I made the shirt myself, and I was quite proud of it. (This was during the time of the scandal when it came out that no one in the government actually had sons or daughters serving in Iraq.) I was all lined up in the protester's section. The other protesters let me stand in front because they liked my shirt. A reporter noticed my shirt and interviewed me for the local paper. Then, finally, there he came, hanging out of his bus smiling and waving at everybody. When I saw him coming I gave my sign to a friend and held up my two middle fingers at him. He looked right at me and stopped smiling. It took him a minute to regain his composure, and he was gone.

My story got published in the local paper and caused a lot of discussion back and forth in the opinion section. The story originally published in the local paper made it all the way to the Washington Post. He even mentioned me in his speech. I fully made my point, without uttering a word.

CashCrate

2009-01-23T09:11:00.000-08:00

I have been promoting my CashCrate link everywhere I can think of, but no one is signing up! What gives? Seems like it's just hit-or-miss. Some people I read about on forums and stuff just put the link out there and BAM! They have 20 referrals! I've been promoting for months and nothing! So c'mon people, show some love! This is easy money!

Barack Obama

2009-01-22T05:30:00.000-08:00

So what does a white housewife from the Midwest think about Barack Obama's inauguration? I bet you're all dying to know.

I am an avid supporter of equality for everyone. I try to stress that virtue to my children as much as possible. So the idea of the first Black president really got me going. I think having any person other than an old white man being our leader is a huge step in the right direction.

However, I don't think of Obama as being Black. His mom was white. I hate the idea that someone who is part-black is then identified as black. He's still half-white. So why isn't he considered white? This whole concept goes back to the days of segregation where even if someone was a quarter, or even an eighth, African American, they were still considered black because they weren't pure white. Eff that.

I don't consider Obama to be white any more than I consider him to be black. I consider him to be a person, and a person who will do well leading our country, at that. We are a diverse country, and it's time for that diversity to be reflected in our management. I am sick of the hierarchy of the white male. Let's face it- they've been in charge of all of us for too long. If someone is qualified to run things, no matter what they look like, what they smell like, what their gender, sexual preference, disability or ability, religion or height or weight or anything else, as long as someone is qualified for the job, let them have the job, I say.

It's about time for our government to step up and let in a "minority"-someone other than an over-middle-aged white male. So the people have spoken. The vast "minority" have made their choice.

The D-Word

2009-01-20T04:58:00.000-08:00

I'm a Lutheran. So is my husband. We're devout. We go to church every week, take Communion, say the Creed, all that. Lutherans are more concerned with keeping a marriage together than Catholics, in some cases. Lutherans can't have a marriage annulled, for any reason. You can be a Lutheran and still get divorced, but you'd better have a damn good reason. No "unresolvable differences" here. Since we take marriage so seriously, we never say the d-word to each other, even in jest. And even talking about divorce with other people, for any reason, is kind of taboo.

So why do I say all that? Because one of my best friends finally filed for divorce yesterday, and I couldn't be more thrilled! As I wrote previously, you have to have a very good reason for a Lutheran to justify divorce. She's not Lutheran, but as her Lutheran friend, I could count at least 3 good reasons to get divorced. Since, as stated previously, talking about the issue is a taboo, I won't share any details or anything like that. I will say, yesterday turned into a GREAT day after I found out!

Money-Saving Blog

2009-01-19T11:38:00.000-08:00

I don't know if you're aware, but I have another blog: The Quintessential Cheapskate, "the premier money-saving blog of our time". Ok, I made that last part up, but I think it's pretty good. You should check it out. I think we could all use some decent money-saving advice about now.

You probably don't take note of the time of my posts, but I usually post early in the morning, before my girls wake up. Not so today. Unfortunately, that means I've gotta cut this short, because someone's got a case of the Mondays!

Cold Week

2009-01-16T05:25:00.000-08:00

It has been so cold outside. The last few days the high temperature has been -8F. Tomorrow, I hear, it's supposed to warm up to 20F Above! Yeah, us Northerners, when a cold spell breaks and temperatures rise above zero, we call it "Above". Yesterday my preschooler's school was canceled because of the cold. I felt so bad for her because she really wanted to go. We had a difficult morning because of it. Last night, when the wind chill was -25F (aka cold beyond comprehension), places were already announcing closures for today.

As I was falling asleep last night, I kept thinking about the homeless in Milwaukee. We live close to Milwaukee and regularly give to the shelters and food pantries in the city. I kept thinking about how on the news today and for the next few days, reports are going to be trickling in about how many of the homeless have died due to exposure overnight. And then there are the reports about how the shelters are filled to capacity and had to turn people away. How the fire stations and other public buildings had to open their basements to house the homeless for the night on makeshift cots in giant rooms all lined up. It makes me feel sick. As a mother, homelessness is an issue very close to me. I've never been homeless, and I've never known someone who was homeless in a traditional sense. Still, though, my heart aches. For as judgmental a person I can be, I can't help but feel compassion for people who just need a little help. To me, it doesn't matter what caused a person to become homeless in the first place. What matters is to help them in their current situation.

You've heard the cliche before: "it's not a hand-out, but a hand-up". To me, we were all created equal. Every single person in the world is capable of the same feelings. Everyone breathes the same air. We're all the same in God's eyes, whether we have a million dollars or absolutely nothing.

So take a moment and consider how truly blessed you are. You are warm and comfortable, well-fed, and you even have time to read this little blog. You are fortunate.

Fridge Disaster

2009-01-15T07:49:00.000-08:00

This morning as my husband was about to leave for work, I went to get a glass of water from our water dispenser on the door of our freezer. It didn't work. After opening up the freezer section and the refrigerator section, we discovered the temperature inside was the same as the temperature outside. Agh...

So instead of working on my blog right away like I used to, I set to work emptying the freezer. I know the usual advice is to leave everything in there and don't open the door till the coldness comes back, but everything was starting to melt. The ice was dripping on the bread...it was chaos. Well, thank goodness it's January. I like to stock up on produce from the garden and the farmer's market, but by January that supply is less than half of what I started with this year. When I run out of stuff, or get severely low, I like to stock up when I can get a good price. I was in the process of starting to stock up because, oddly enough, I just about ran out of everything all at once recently. Another good reason to be happy it's January is that the high outside today is -8F. You read that right- negative eight degrees Ferenhieght is the high for today. So I was able to put half of the stuff in the freezer in the chest freezer in the basement, and the other half I put on the porch.

I decided to wait a bit to empty the fridge since it seemed a little cooler in there. I put everything that had to be refrigerated and could not be frozen into our camping cooler. It's a big cooler, but it doesn't have enough room for everything from the fridge. I used the rapidly melting ice from the freezer in the cooler. I figured I was saving myself the trouble of cleaning up the mess later and cooling the refrigerator food at once.

Pressing on, I did a little research online to figure out the problem. Seems like a simple enough fix, so I'll have my husband work on it Saturday. The part we need costs $60, whereas having a repair person come over would cost $300, so we're saving ourselves $240.

Seeds of Doubt

2009-01-13T05:15:00.001-08:00

I still haven't counted my seeds collected and saved over from last year. I still have no idea how many seeds I need to get. I like to trade seeds rather than buy them. It may seem counter-intuitive, but I'd rather get my seeds through exchange with another gardener than from a packet at Walmart. And seeds from catalogs are so expensive....

I would like to get on my seeds right away, but I have other projects to do first. For one thing, I've got to sort and put away all the herbs I grew and harvested like four months ago. Before that, even, I've got to make birthday party invitations for my "baby", who is turning two in a few weeks.

Another garden challenge I'm currently facing is a dilemma between how much I can grow, given the amount of room and time I have, versus how much I would like to grow. I want to be as self-sufficient as possible, at least when it comes to fruits and veg and herbs, but at the same time, I want to be able to give some of my produce away. It's not so much a sense of pride as much as it's a sense of being able to help others. I have other family members who could really benefit from fresh and canned food. I definitely understand there are plenty of people worse-off financially than we are, and I just want to help them! I'll probably end up striking a compromise between how much I save and how much I give away. In the process, I may just be able to convince a few people to grow their own, seeing as I have a limited amount of space to begin with.

Self-Sufficiency

2009-01-12T05:15:00.000-08:00

My definition of self-sufficiency is to be able to live your day-to-day life without being dependant on anyone else. By that definition, no one will ever truly be self-sufficient, but I still think it's a goal worth reaching for. There are people in our own country that are close. I keep getting closer every day. I already know me and my family will never be completely self-sufficient. Then why bother trying?

To cut down on dependancy of oil. Let's face it, oil is running low. Think about how much oil is involved for you to go to the grocery store and pick up a bunch of carrots. The carrots are grown in a field which is plowed with a tractor that uses gas. Then the carrots are harvested with another gas-using tractor. And the person who is driving the tractor probably doesn't live on the farm where he works. (S)he probably had to drive to work in a car or truck. Then, once the carrots are harvested, they are loaded onto a truck which, of coarse, runs on diesil, and the truck transports the carrots to the grocery store. So then you get in your car and drive to the grocery store and back to get your carrots. Now let's say you grow carrots in your own yard. You walk ten or twenty feet from your door, prepare the soil by hand, plant the carrots by hand, pull them by hand, and eventually walk back into your house to eat the carrots. No oil involved.

To know where my food is coming from. I've always been on the picky side when it comes to food. It plain grosses me out to not know where my food is coming from. Every few months there is a brand new news report out telling us not to eat this or that because it's tainted with one poison or another. I don't use anything on my food that is not organic- and especially no pesticides. So I know exactly where my food is coming from, down to the square inch of soil where I planted the seed, all the way through the growth cycle and onto my family's table.

Because it saves money. For less than half the cost of the bag of carrots I could buy at the store, I could buy a packet of seeds of carrots and have carrots for the entire year. Depending on the variety of vegitable, I collect the seeds and carry them through from one year to the next. So let's say instead of buying a bag of peas at the grocery store for $2, I can buy a packet of pea seeds for $1. Then when the growing season is over, I can collect my pea seeds every year and have peas indefinately.

Because it's fun. I enjoy the challenge of thinking up new items around the house I can make myself and depend even less on other people to provide for me. Self-sufficiency does not just have to do with food, but every facet of life. I make my own laundry soap and body soap, for example. These are really fun to make, so it's a hobby as well as a lifestyle choice.

Those are the main reasons, not in any order, that I choose to be self-sufficient.

Garden Politics

2009-01-09T17:58:00.000-08:00

The meeting last night was not exactly a smashing success...not that I assumed it would be precisely successful, but still. First of all, I was the youngest person there, which I already knew would be the case. So no big surprise there. I don't know why, but I was a bit surprised to find I was the youngest person by about 20 years. I expected at least perhaps a 30-year-old or two. We didn't go around the room telling everyone our age or anything like that; I'm just guessing.

Second of all, because I was the youngest person there, nobody took me seriously. I guess I hadn't considered that aspect. It's going to take some time to gain all the retirees respect. But once they realize I know more about gardening than they do, then perhaps they'll at least take notice. Maybe they'll all hate me. Maybe they were just prejudging me the same way I'm prejudging them.

Lastly, I left the meeting with the feeling nothing really was accomplished. The only thing I really took away from the meeting is a clear understanding of where the classes are going to be held. So I guess, if anything, the meeting was a mediocre failure. At least I know the classes will be better because the facilitator won't be taching them.

Show and Tell

2009-01-08T04:56:00.000-08:00

My husband works in a factory. From what I understand, most engineers do. Yesterday he had this big, important presentation for all the managers, from his direct manager to the guy in charge of the whole factory. He got home from work late because of his presentation.

I was explaining to my three-year-old that Daddy was going to be home after bedtime tonight because he had to work late and give his presentation. She asked, "What's a presentation?"

I said it's kind of like a grown-up version of show-and-tell. She got all fired up about it. She thought it was so cool that Daddy would have show-and-tell the same week that she had show-and-tell!

Linux

2009-01-07T05:03:00.000-08:00

So my husband just installed Linux on our computer last night. I like it so far. I had been wanting him to install Linux for a very long time. I don't know much about computers, so I was waiting for him to do it. The best I can so, so far, is setting up Adsense...and I even needed his help for that!

The main reasons we're doing Linux is for open sourcing and ease of customization. One of my husband's hobbies is to get the computer customized just the way he likes it. He could spend hours doing it. For the most part I don't mind because he usually comes up with some pretty cool features when he's done. So we're both dorks- I love gardening and he loves computers.

By the way, on the gardening front, the Master Gardener's info meeting is tomorrow night! I'm so fired up about it! I haven't told my girls yet, though. Mommy being gone during bedtime is a huge deal. A lot of times one or both of them simply will not go to sleep without Mommy here. I'm going to tell them today.

Master Gardener!

2009-01-06T06:05:00.000-08:00

Agh! My county just started a master gardener program! I swear, we were probably the only county in the country that didn't have a branch of master gardeners! I am totally there! The info meeting is Thursday. I already know I'll be the youngest person there, but I don't care. I've been wanting to become certified for 3 years now, and now that it's finally going to be taking place, a few blocks from my own yard, this is an opportunity I cannot turn down.

I also am going to assume I'll most likely be the only "urban farmer" there. I don't really like the term "urban farmer". I liked it at first, but it seems to have evolved into an oximoron. The term conjures up images of some displaced farmer attempting to grow a field of soybeans in his front yard. I don't attempt to grow fields of anything. My front yard is a series of raised beds. I have plans to eventually have no grass at all in my front yard. My goal for this is the summer after next. I plan on having a large garden bed, a series of raised beds, and pea gravel in between. While I'll be growing vegitables in boxes, I am striving to make it the least utilitarian as possible.

I also don't think a nuclear holocaust is on the horizon or anything like that. I do think people, especially Americans, have become too dependant on oil. I don't think oil is the devil, but I do know it's a non-renewable resource that eventually will dry up. I also think there's something with buying apples imported from Peru or some other place thousands of miles away when we are more than capable of growing apples in our own backyards. I'm not a kook- I just like to grow stuff!

Recessionista!

2009-01-05T05:05:00.000-08:00

No, I didn't come up with the term in the title. I'm not even sure I spelled it right. My husband heard it on NPR, actually, on his way home from work a couple weeks ago. It means "someone who is fairing well or benefiting during the current recession". He told me about it and said, "Hun, that's us!" He was right.

For one thing, even before the recession hit, we lived below our means. We bought a house for $50,000 less than we could afford. Why? Because we didn't want to contribute more than a set percentage of our budget toward our mortgage payment. Also, we've been paying more than the minimum amount on the mortgage every single month. It's just part of the budget. Apparently we're part of a limited group here- according to some reading I've done, only 3% of Americans routinely pay more than the minimum on their mortgage. When I started out, I was basing my plan on some advice I received in a personal finance class in college. It seemed like such good advice, I was shocked later to find out so few people actually do this.

Of course our mortgage isn't the only way we choose to live below our means. It's just a good example. I could think of millions more, but I don't want to bore you. Living below our means is due, in most part, to keeping a budget. If you don't have one, make one. Take charge of your money. Don't let your money take charge of you. Not keeping a budget is the biggest waste of money there is, in my opinion. And when I say "keep a budget", I don't just mean you should know how much your bills are. That's a good start, but when you don't allocate all your money toward one thing or another, you wind up, at the end of your pay period, with no money, nothing in savings, wondering where your money went. You would know had you told it where to go in the first place. We have a very strict budget which includes, within $5, how much we will spend on gas, groceries, eating out, oil changes, hair cuts, everything. Things fluctuate from time to time, but the point is that we can anticipate how much something will cost within the next month or so, what we will need to buy (not "want", but need), and how much we can contribute to savings.

We also look for opportunities to save money where we can. If we can help someone else in the process, even better. Instead of hiring some professional painters to repaint our house this past summer, we hired my brother, who has 5 years' experience painting, to help my husband paint our house. It took about 3 weeks altogether. It cost us more time, but we saved about 2/3 the cost of what it would have cost to hire someone we didn't know to paint our house. I know my husband and brother did a damn good job because they actually care about the house, not just getting the job done. My brother was between jobs at the time, so we worked out an hourly wage for him, and he worked hard for his pay. I didn't have to borrow him any money or gift him any money, but I helped him out nonetheless. Our neighbor is a contractor, and he really wants this air compressor that mysteriously came with our house. We have no use for this air compressor, but we know it's worth a lot of money. So much money that our neighbor wouldn't be able to buy it from us. When we get new windows (hopefully this summer), we'll buy them from a store instead of a salesman, have our neighbor install them for us, and give him the air compressor in exchange for his work. In the process, we will have saved 2/3 of the cost, again, and gotten rid of this air compressor by giving it to someone who really wants it and needs it.

Finally, we've taken the time to learn new skills. My husband didn't know much about painting houses before we made the decision to paint our house ourselves. He researched it. Instead of calling a repairman to fix our dishwasher when it broke, he learned how to fix it himself. We've had no problems with it since. I've learned a lot recently about gardening. That's a separate post or two by itself, but suffice it to say, it's saved us a lot of money. I've learned how to most effectively use coupons and rebates to save us the most money on a regular basis. We have a joke that he saves us money in big chunks, and I save us money in little chips.

I'll write in more depth about all this stuff in future blogs. I plan to write a new blog every day, so check back often!

Write Now

2009-01-04T13:26:00.000-08:00

I like to write. When I was little, I always thought I would grow up to be a famous author. So far that hasn't happened. When I got a little older, I thought I would go to New York City or someplace just as glamorous and go to university there. I had this whole plan in my head: go to University, let a much older, very rich professor fall in love with me and have a lurid affair with him while he supports me while I write until I become famous. Then I would dump him and let a younger, richer celebrity fall in love with me and only use him for some of his money while I made my own money writing. All of that fell through.

I wound up marrying a guy I met in high school. We hung around the same group of friends, but we didn't even start dating till I was 19. Then we got married, had our first baby, and he became an engineer. We had another baby, and now he has a "career" while I'm home with my girls, nowhere near New York City.

Don't get me wrong- I love staying home with my girls. I don't have a boss to report to, and I can do all my work in my jammies. While sitting around in jammies and being spit up on isn't quiet as glamorous as the lifestyle I had in mind, it does have it's perks. Jammies are much more comfortable than mini-skirts or power suits. In all fairness, I find jammies to be more flattering than power suits most of the time.

Since my husband is an engineer, we have money coming out of our ears. At least, that's what a lot of people tend to think. While we don't lack the money to provide basic nessecities, and a few niceties, we don't have a money tree growing out back. I like to think that part of the reason we can afford the things we do is smart money-management. I'll be talking a lot more about that in future posts.

The last thing you should know about me is that I love to grow food. I have quite an extensive garden which takes up most of our front lawn and a good part of our back yard, too. It's growing every year. My ultimate goal is to have about 100 square feet of lawn, and the rest of our space will be dedicated to growing useful things. I estimate I will approach that goal within the next four years or so. I want to become as self-sufficient as possible. I'm not some Doomsday Loonie, I just like to grow things and I find grass to be a waste of space. There are plenty of other reasons, but I won't get into that now. I've got dinner to make.