Radishes!

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

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.

Busy Weekend

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.

Peppers!

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!

Seeds!

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.

Seeds of Doubt

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

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.