Roasting Like It's Hot

The last few weeks have had one very particular theme at our house:  tomatoes.  As our scales climb ever closer to the 300 pounds of produce mark I am finding more and more ways to preserve our harvest to use later next year.  The easiest most efficient way I have found so far is to roast them in the oven, four pans at a time.  Then I pour the whole pan into freezer bags and away we go.  Who's ready for a photo tour?

First, I washed our tomatoes, cut them in half and seeded them.  I used our melon baller for this.  In fact, I have never actually used it to ball melon, only to seed tomatoes and core strawberries.

After what seemed like forever, or at least 20 pounds of tomatoes I had four roasting pans that looked like this.  Sorry the light is off.  The kitchen lighting is weird.  That's just how it is.

I drizzled a little olive oil on top, threw in some chopped garlic and after about 3.5 hours in the oven at 275* I had four pans that looked like this:

By this time it was totally dark outside and there is no way to not stand in the light and cast a weird shadow.  But you can see how the tomatoes are shrunken, roasted, and starting to caramelize.  Next I labeled 4 freezer bags and poured each pan into one bag.

I push out the air and lay it flat to freeze.  Then when they are all nice and frozen I sit them up for easier storage.  

And that is how I have spent the last two Saturdays.  Anyone else sweating it out in the kitchen in preparation for summer harvest being over soon?

How You Doin'? In the Garden

Three months ago, before I up and abandoned our blog, I announced that one of our goals for this year was to grow 750 pounds of produce in our own backyard.  Well I'll be honest, I'm getting really nervous about making that goal.  Not because we aren't growing- I've got pictures to prove we're producing- but just because I'm not sure that all of our experiments are going to work exactly like we had hoped.  Namely, our watermelons are not giant behemoths like they were last year.  They're weighing in at around 3 pounds each.  And our pumpkin plants?  Totally forgot about'em and they're still seeds.  But we are chugging right along anyway.  

So what started out as harvests like this:

Yay first harvest of the year!

 And has now come to include a few of these every week:

What up chickens?!

 Has finally led in the last few weeks to harvests like these:

This was 14 lbs of produce.

Our real live total weight so far is just over 200 pounds and that is nothing to sneeze at, I know, but it's not 750.  Thankfully there are still plenty of weeks of warm weather to be had and last year we were producing tomatoes and egg plants right up into November.  We are also waiting to harvest our first potato towers, cantaloupes, and our first cabbages.

I planted our fall crops last weekend- more cabbages, broccoli, and kale.  We'll be adding another couple of potato towers and clearing out the last of the beans this weekend as well.

Anyone else having long nights of cooking tomato sauce or running out for more jars for pickles?  We've been eating all of the 2011 jars from back in the pantry in order to make more room.  I should probably be taking stock of what's in the freezer as well.

Well those chickens don't feed themselves you know, and I've got eggs to collect.  Happy Wednesday everyone!

Fists Full of Lettuce

I picked our first round of lettuce and arugula this morning. Weighing in at a little over a pound, it doesn't seem like much, but it sure tastes good. 

Earth Day Introductions

After spending several evenings and spare moments glued to the Oxford City Codes and Ordinances, my own neighborhood covenants and considering the various and sundry ways to bribe my neighbors, I am finally ready to introduce our newest family members to the internets.


What started out as this:

Waiting to come home with me!

Are now these:

Strutting hard at 8 weeks.

I love that picture of #4.  What a pretty (although stubborn and sometimes easily excitable) girl!

They are currently living in the rabbit hutch because several things have to happen before their big girl coop is complete.  Mostly the building of the coop, but also the removal of the tree Marco started to cut down last year, and the completion of the fence (I know, I haven't mentioned that yet, but it's coming, I promise!).  The seem content enough right now though and are really enjoying the sunshine. I am really enjoying them not being in the guest room so everyone wins.

Now to answer some common questions while I jump into more pictures of my girls.

Do you have a rooster?  Nope- nothing but ladies.

What kind of chickens are they?  Plymouth Rocks or Barred Rocks.  They'll be big and fat with black and white spots and red combs (the things on top of their heads).

Going through their "ugly duckling" phase when they lost their down feathers and started growing real ones.

So, about their eggs...? Their breed lays an average of 250 brown/pink eggs per year, times 4 chickens that's looking at about 1,000 eggs a year once they start laying.

Are they laying eggs yet?  Nope- most hens need to be about 6 months old before they lay eggs, so we've still got about 4 more months.

What are you going to do with all of those eggs??  Use them to bribe the neighbors not to complain (there is nothing in the codes or covenants that prevents chickens, but bribery never hurt anyone either) and sell what we can't use.  

Do they smell??  Yes, right now they smell like grass clippings.  When they move into their big girl coop they will smell like cedar and by the time the leaves start to fall off the trees, they will smell like leaves.  Oh, you meant do they smell bad!  No- we are committed to keeping our coop and our girls clean so that they are healthy and don't smell.  Plus, we have a few neighbors who already want some of their compost, so I don't think we'll have a problem getting rid of any excess.

There are few things at cute as a sleepy chicken pile.

Alright, other than eggs, why chickens??  So.Many.Reasons.  They are great, low maintenance pets.  Although ours still face a chance to end up as soup (that is yet to be determined),  they really are fun to handle and watch.  They eat ticks, mice, snakes, snails and grubs.  I have no love for any of those things, so the chickens can have at them.  They compost like crazy.  Whatever bedding we put down for them (grass clippings, leaves, wood shavings, a mixture of all three) they will dig and break down while adding their own fertilizer.  Add in their food scraps (plenty of veg and their own chicken feed) that get composted along the way and BAM garden gold that can be mixed into the garden up to 30 days before we plant.  Or composted and mixed in all season long.  Plus they are natural tillers, weed killers and soil amenders.  AND they are way cheaper than the alternatives- tick control or snake poison, bagged fertilizer, renting a tiller for the garden, weed killer, mouse traps, buying a second compost bin, and lawn service to de-leaf our yard... all for about $75 a year in chicken feed.  We were sold.

Can we come visit them??  Of course!  They love visitors!  They get a little excited when I pull them out of the hutch, but they love to be petted and picked up.  The neighborhood kids have fully tested the "Will it peck me?" question and the answer is "maybe, but it doesn't hurt."  Plus, I am taking them to campus on Wednesday as part of Go Green week, so if you are around the Union between 12 and 2, you should come find us.  I'll be the one with the wagon full of chickens...

What I Got for Free Today: Bulbs

I am officially addicted to two things: cleaning out my junk, and bartering with it. This is what I got today:

A shopping bag full of daffodil bulbs!

Usually I buy our bulbs (3 years in a row now) from the Garden Club President, but I could not pass up a chance to add to my collection- especially since I know this bag is full of white and cream daffodils. So anywho- when I saw a post on my favorite barter page on the Facebook, I started looking around for things to swap. The lady with the bulbs wanted to trade for other plants, and I happen to have quite a few of those.

So I snipped off some nice sized pieces from both of our rosemary plants and stuck them in water. A couple of days later new root knots had started to form and I jumped at the chance for free flowers.

Now I just need to get these babies in the ground and let'em go. They will be the perfect addition to a new flower bed we're installing in the front.

I love free stuff and bartering. What would you trade for daffodils?

New Garden Bed

On Monday, I disclosed the looong laundry list of things we plan to plant this year.  Of course I have known for months just how lofty our 2013 goal would be, so about the same time the seeds catalogs arrived in the mail, I started planning new places to put those seeds as well.

Some things, like our potatoes, were easy to place because they get their own planters (if you can call a circle of covered wire a container), and some were fit into our raised garden bed from last year.  But even with those two huge areas I knew we'd need more space.  So I waited until Marco was out of town for work and I struck out to find us some more vegetable room.

I was/am mostly worried about our vegetables that grow "up."  Beans, peas, cucumbers, corn, these all need to grow up on a trellis (or each other in the case of corn/beans), and that could potentially cause a problem for our garden because it is on the southern most part of our property.  If tall plants such as corn or beans were planted at the "top" of the garden, they could shadow other plants and the other plants wouldn't get as much sun as they needed.  So I looked and looked for a wasted space with plenty of bright sunshine.

Bingo.

Actually, this is a during picture.  *Note to self, get better at taking true before pictures.*

Imagine this, the back of the house, full of junk and weeds and piles of clay.  Frankly, it didn't have too much going for it, except that it was a wasted space and it gets full sun all day- perfect for growing veggies that can be potted and trellised.

The area is actually about 4 feet deep at it's widest, and this section is roughly 18 feet long.  I had to create a "break" at that point to allow an opening for the crawl space door, but don't worry, I already have plenty of ideas for the other side too.

The process was fairly easy, I gathered up a few cardboard boxes that I cut into pieces and layed them along the area I wanted to make my new potted garden.  I quickly realized that the ground in this area was really unlevel and the cardboard was too thick.  So I removed parts of it, and laid out several (maybe 4 or 5) layers of newspaper instead. Then I started to arrange my pots to fill the space.

This was a great chance to figure out exactly what would go into each pot.  I tried to keep things that climb separated so that nothing would get too tangled.  Plus I wanted to make sure that nothing in the front would grow too high so I would be able to reach things in the back.  Add on top of that I wanted the planters to look nice and even, not too many "extra large" on one side and filling in the spaces with smaller planters too.  It took a little over three hours but eventually I got everything nice and settled in.

I have plants to go back and add mulch around all of the planters.  This will help break down the weeds under the newspaper and cardboard and be much more attractive than the newspaper as well...

Other perks of adding this new garden bed to the back yard?

It will cut down on the amount of lawn we have to mow- saving time and money.

It motivated me to clean up a part of the yard that was full of junk (wooden pallets, scrap wood, unused yard tools) and three foot weeds.

It will make sure that all of our potted plants get watered.  Potted plants need to be watered daily in our Mississippi heat and before, when they were scattered all over the yard, a few of them would get missed.  Now we know where all of the pots are and we can make sure they are watered each day while also saving time.

Gathering the potted plants in one place also clears up space in the yard/flower beds for a cleaner, more streamlined look and more flowers.

And finally, I get the satisfaction of knowing I helped find a place for all of my new seeds.

Don't forget, I set our family a goal of growing 750 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables this year, so finding room is a top priority.  I know this will help us get there, but if anyone else has any other ideas, I'd love to hear about them too.

Do you have a garden goal?  What's the heaviest produce you produce??

How Much is This Gonna Cost Us?

People want to know.  How much are we planting, what is it, and how much is that gonna set us back?  So I'm here to spill it.  You may want to put the kettle on and settle in though, because this is going to be one heck of a list of lists.

First a key to use and help peruse:
SS means that we ordered this item from SeedSavers.com
B means that we ordered this item from Burpee.com
ZG means that I ordered these seeds from ZZiggysGal on Etsy.
BB means that we plan to purchase this item from my Dad's friend Mrs. Barbara who I have known 98% of my life.  She is a wonderful woman who first showed me what wonder plants/creeks/outdoors can bring into one's life.
Other places where we purchased/found things are listed.

What We Plant to Plant:
In our 2 backyard and partial front yard veggie gardens:

1. Cucumbers
-Japanese Climbing.  Seeds purchased new this year.  A new variety for us, but apparently great for pickles. SS
-A&C Pickling.  Left over seeds from last year.  They were huge and made great bread and butter pickles.  SS
- True Lemon.  Left over seeds from last year too.  We planted these in pots last year and I don't think they got enough consistent water.  We're relocating them in the garden so hopefully they will do better this time.SS

2.  Soybeans
- Envy.  These are new seeds we ordered this year.  I have never grown soybeans but they freeze easily and are loaded with protein so we're going to give them a try.  This variety does well in pots and small spaces so they may be potted if we can't find room. SS

3.  Beans
- Provider.  Both beans are new seeds this year.  I am looking to use more vertical gardening plants along a new bed that I am building. These are a bush, snap variety.SS
- Valentine.  A black bush bean that has rave reviews for drying.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained. SS

4.  Tomatoes
- Yellow Tomatoes   An obscure heirloom variety that I have lost the paperwork to... these are seeds left over from last year that we started a few weeks ago in our tiny greenhouse. ZG
- Cherry Tomatoes.  Again, lost paperwork left overs from last year.  They are doing great so far. ZG
- Other Heirlooms.  We will be picking up several plants from my Dad's friend Mrs. Barbara.  Her plants did so well here last year that we are saving our greenhouse room for other things and just spending the money on plants. BB

5.  Peppers
-Aji.  A left over from last year.  Really hot and dried really well.  We used plenty in our salsa and sauces, they have been slow to germinate in our greenhouse, but are starting to come around. SS
-Red Bell.  Left overs again.  Also slow to germinate, but moving along now. ZG
-Variety from Mrs. Barbara.  She always has interesting plants that are full of surprises.  One of her best are her peppers.

6.  Eggplant
- Long Purple.  An heirloom that takes forever to germinate.  We tried these last year, but only had a few tiny eggplants to show for the effort.  We started them earlier this year in hopes that will speed up production.  ZG

7. Squash/Zuchinni
- Yellow Longnecks.  We have some seeds left over from last year but I do not have much hope for the plants this year.  Squash bugs ate everything in sight over night last year.  We may just skip the squash and buy them from the farmers market.  I can think of other ways to use the space.  ZG
-Black Beauty.  Again with the squash bugs.  We will see. ZG

8.  Okra
- Hill Country Red.  I bought these last year, forgot about them and when I found them again it was like Christmas.  I cannot wait to see these babies grow.  SS  **We will be planting these in our flower beds and faking like they're flowers until they grow veggies on them.**

9.  Lettace/Arugula/Spinach/Kale
-Mixed Beds.  I have a few small mixed lettuce beds from Seed Savers and ZZiggysGal.  They are cut and come again, heirloom varieties.
-Buttercrunch.  Last year's lettuce that we didn't finish but did well.  ZG
-Spinach- Did well, but the rabbits got it.  I'm moving them in the bed, and hopefully the new fence will help as well.  SS
-Blue Kale.  Left over, easy to grow, super easy to freeze and use later.  SS

10.  Watermelon.
- Blacktail Mountain.  A great variety that produces small but tasty fruit.  We picked this because the fruit actually fit into our fridge whole.  They all ripened in one week though and we gave most of them away.  Left overs from last year.  SS

11.  Broccoli
-Waltham 29.  Heirloom left over from last year.  We ran out of room and only tried to seed 3 seeds, then forgot about them.  Better planning this year.  ZG
-Calabrese.  Unopened from last year.  SS

12.  Blue Berries.  New this year, I planted them in the front like shrubs.  They are fairly old (3+ years) but need time to settle before they really produce.  I hope for a few this year, but expect more next year.  From The Barn Trading Company here in Oxford.

13.  Strawberries.  New.  I am retro fitting a rain barrel to hold them.  I cannot wait!  B

14.  Corn.
-On Deck Hybrid.  These are the reason for my new garden bed in the back.  This is supposed to be corn you can grow in a 2 foot planter.  We will see because I am ready.  B

15.  Birdhouse Gourds.  Not a vegetable, but this vine did really well in our shady front bed.  It looked nice growing up the porch and we got a few gourds from it.  SS

16.  Luffa.  New as well.  Just couldn't pass up the opportunity to grow a luffa.  B

17.  Potatoes.
-Red.  Red seed potatoes.  I have already shared how I built their cages, but I may have to move them... From The Barn Trading Company
-Yellow From The Barn Trading Company

And I think that is it for seeds and plants.  We did order a few herbs (basil, thyme, dill) but we still have plenty of those seeds left from last year too.  It's just that they tend to be more delicate and can rot so easily, I thought better safe than sorry.  Oh, and there are herbs that came back from last year too!  Chives, mint, spearmint, rosemary, and thyme.  Plus I planted a few garlic cloves that had started to sprout and a couple of onions that went green in the pantry.  But I don't count those because they are "grocery store" variety and I do not expect them to actually reproduce.

So how much did we spend??  Luckily, we were able to pull most of our wants from last years supplies, and that makes sense because last year we spent over $120 just on seeds. That doesn't count soil, compost, building materials or the watering systems.  This year our new seeds cost us just $25.00 (ish) with plants (strawberries, blueberries, potatoes) setting us back $55.00.  Plus I bought fencing to build our potato cages which was about $20.00 from Home Depot.  And our new seedling containers- which were 4 @ roughly $3.00.  So $12.00 on them.  Another $12.00 on coconut conifer seed starter (ordered from Amazon) and we are just about there.  We are building the new beds out of scrap lumber salvaged from friends and kudzu vines.  There are still plenty of  big planters left over from last year as well.  I am planning on building a few trellises from scrap trimmings and kudzu vines, but I would love to find a nice willow patch as well.

The rain barrels were given to us by a company that no longer needed them, but we are going to convert them into rain barrels for around $20.00 a piece ($40 total), but an extra one will hold our strawberries.  We have been wonderfully lucky to find a great place with free topsoil and mulch to help fill our garden beds and our 18 months of composting are finally paying off as well.  Add to that the worm compost (I guess you can add in that $25.00 to our garden fund) and we're looking at a nice grand total.

In fact, let's add it up shall we?

Last year we spent over $600 in materials, dirt and watering system stuff and another $120 in seeds.  That was a grand total of about $720 for roughly 300 lbs of vegetables.

This year, with all of those numbers up there added up, we're looking at about $169 total.  Whew that is much better but hopefully next year it will be even smaller.  We're adding another element to our compost/pest control and our soil should be top notch.  Plus the worms will have paid for themselves and the rain barrels will be complete.  The same goes with the blue berry bushes and the potatoes.  Plus we will finally start working out which veggies give us the most bang for our buck.  We have a lofty goal of producing 750 lbs of produce out of our garden this year, but we are also trying to make sure we are growing things we will actually eat and use.

There is a lot of growing with gardens, emotionally, physically  spiritually- all of which we find to be ultimately priceless.

Pea Prep

Yesterday I spent the whole day with the windows open saying to myself "What a wonderful day it is today!" and then today I have spent back in my sweaters with socks and house shoes cursing the wind and rain and cold.  There has been a lot of hot tea today, and much more dreaming about spring planting.

We are really moving along with all of our seedlings that we have already started.  This weekend I will be seeding a few summer cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower.  But tomorrow I am going to put out a few of our pea seeds.  Peas are really easy to grow.  They are super fast, plant early and die back rather quickly.  Because of this though, it is best to plant peas every few weeks so you always have a batch preparing for harvest.  We only planted one round last year and I was really sorry because the ones we were able to harvest were great.  This year though, we've moved them to the front yard to act like a trellis in the back of the new beds I have been imagining.

But before I put them in our vegetable planters, I thought I'd share a quick tip I picked up last year.

First, these are the peas I am planting.  There are more of the same coming next week(ish), so I thought I would go ahead and get these started.

These are "Green Arrow" peas.  They are an heirloom variety and I bought them along with several other heirloom seeds from ZZiggysGal Etsy shop last year.  I bought the variety pack so I could try out a few different things other than what I had purchased from Seed Savers.  This year I bought a larger batch from Seed Savers only.  Anyway, notice how shriveled and dry they are?  Technically, if you water them enough, they will sprout anyway, but I do not like to chance things when my 750 lb goal could be in jeopardy.  So I did this:

I took a ziplock bag (one that I had used, washed, and reused), filled it with about a half an inch of water, and tossed a few seeds inside.

And by the next morning they were plump as, well, peas.  I put a few in our indoor seed boxes (where other seeds hadn't sprouted) and tomorrow I will put a few outside to begin our garden perimeter.

Just a quick step to jump start seeds and an easy way to weed out any dead ones before you put them in the ground.  And instant gratification for those of you, who like me, can't wait to see stuff growing already.

Prepping Potatoes

Last week I mentioned how I started our potato beds.  Well, honestly, I am experimenting with our potato beds.  What I've read about potatoes is that once they get going, they are pretty easy, especially with the raised round beds I built, but it's the getting them there that seems the hard part.  So I took an experimental approach.  

The beds that are in now have pieces of potato (with 2-3 eyes each) that I just buried like seeds and have kept watered.  I don't see any signs of life yet, but that is to be expected.  However, I also took a few pieces and started them indoors as well.  One of the problems with just planting the pieces directly into the ground is that they can sometimes rot.  So some people suggest starting them inside first.  Basically you cut pieces with 2-3 eyes like the ones I planted outside, but you keep them watered and let the plants develop a little before transplanting them.  

Honestly, this was an experiment on so many levels because I was pretty sure there were no eyes at all on these pieces, so I thought "Hey, I'll try that grow in water thing first, see if eyes develop, and then we'll move'em outside."  Potatoes are one of those plants you want to stagger anyway to increase your yield and keep'em coming over a long period of time.

And what'ya know?  There are eyes on all the pieces.  You can just make out the tiny green buds on that middle piece there, but trust me there are plenty on all of my "wasted" pieces.  

So far, so good if you ask me.  Now if I can just get'em to grow once they get outside.  

Water Water Everywhere

I may have gone a little bit eco crazy lately, but it's for good reason.  Trust me.

With spring time just around the corner and our baby plants getting bigger every day, it's time to start working on making last year's plans even better.  We've decided to change some plant locations in our garden, moved some more plants to the front of the house and mended our soil.  But we also looked at how much money our garden cost us last year too.  In a nutshell, it was a lot.

Sure most of it was soil, since we had exactly zero to start with, but a lot of it was also water.  Marco did rig up a self watering system with a couple of drip hoses and a timer so that we never over watered and we never forgot to water (both of which would mean disaster and wasted money).  But the drip was for only our garden.  All the potted plants still had to be watered, and the house plants, the seeds, the garden in the front... it ended up being a lot of water and our bill was plain evidence.

So there are two ways we are planning on turning that around this year.  The first one is to convert our only moderately useful barrel into a real live rain barrel.

 We're going to use the water that is in there (it spills from the roof) and actually tap it so we can use the water consistently.  Not once have we actually used the water that sits in this barrel and it isn't fitted to deter mosquitoes, so that will also be fixed.

Plus, we are going to up the ante on an idea we started last year, but didn't really hold ourselves to.  We're going to stop wasting water from the tap.

Every time we turn on the water, it we aren't using it "as is", say we need warm water or something, then it goes into one of those wine bottles (or one of the other 6 dozen out of the frame).  Let's say I need to thaw something for dinner and I fill a pot with warm water.  Well, the water from the tap that is still cold goes into those bottles and then after the warm water has thawed the meat/cheese/whatever that goes into one of the bottles too.  These full bottles are then used to water the indoor plants, the worms, my personal water bottle, the dogs or poured into the rain barrel outside the back door.

We also put a bucket in the bathroom for the same deal when we take showers.  That water goes to water some of the bigger house plants, the dogs, or into the rain barrel too.

So far we are filling at least 2-3 liters of "wasted" water every day just from the kitchen sink and none of it sits around for very long.

Waste not want not huh?

Earliest Gardening Possible

I have to admit, I've been a little bit addicted to my seed catalogs lately.  They were delivered months ago, but I just can't quit them.  Each page is dog earred and a good number of seeds are circled, starred, and marked.  One of the best things about owning a home, for me at least, is the chance to really build our garden.  We've only had it for one year, but I really think that this year is going to be the best one yet.

Unfortunately, it is still a little early to put most of the seeds out into the ground.  We have been tending the soil in the main bed though, and cleaning up our garden area.  But there are a few plants that we have been able to start work on.

I planted potatoes for instance.  These are just circles of covered chicken wire.  The newspaper you see is to help hold the dirt inside the circle.  Then I filled them a little ways, maybe 18 inches with soil and planted my seed potato pieces.  The left is white potatoes, and the right is red.  I've ordered some blue so soon I will add that circle too.

We also started a few seeds inside.  This is probably my favorite way to start seeds because I can obsessively scan the soil every few hours for little baby seedlings.  Yesterday I was able to spot four baby butter lettuces and two kales. I immediately texted Marco to tell him the good news and he was just as excited as I was.

The onions that started to sprout in the pantry went into their own planter.  And I replanted the chives that reseeded themselves.  And I spread a few leaf lettuce seeds while I was at it too.

And tonight, finally, I will sit down and make my order for the majority of our seeds and plants.  We are trying a few new things this year, like beans and corn that you can grow in planters, blueberries and strawberries, a new kind of cucumber and even soybeans.  Add that to last years tomatoes, peppers, egg plants, zuchinni, gourds, watermelon, okra, and all the herbs we can fit- it's going to be a good year.


We have hopes and dreams (well, I do) of growing at least 750 pounds of produce this year. We were able to top over 300 last year so I thing it's possible.  We're also expanding our food plants into the front yard to help us reach our goal and to help develop some of the more ignored areas of our yard.  Peppers, kale, blue berries and beans are going in the flower beds as edible landscaping.  Add them to the two dozen irises, tulips and daffodils that are already coming up and we've got ourselves a pretty nice piece of property.  We have a half dozen new rosemary bushes and the mint planters are already showing tiny leaves.  I wish we had room for a few more fruit trees, but I think we may have a deal worked out with a neighbor.

Anyone else getting garden ready?  If you are looking for inspiration or just a little guidance, these are the places I've been stalking for a few months.  100 Dollars has great growing guides and I've been a subscriber to Mother Earth for years (happy birthday to me!).  Good growing to you!

www.100dollarsamonth.com- a family that lives on 100 dollars a month in groceries.  I love this site!  She is so smart and funny and real.  Plus she has chickens which means she's great.
www.MotherEarthNews.com- a gold mine of information about green living, growing, planting, home steading, whatever you can think of when it comes to planting and preserving.  Great search tools and constant updates.
www.urbanhomestead.org- my first homesteading experience.  I started reading this blog several years ago and that was when I decided I needed to buy a house.  I love the two sisters who run the blog, they are wonderfuly inspirational and so fancy.
www.rootsimple.com- I started by reading this couple's books a few years ago and then started following their blog.  The blog tends to be a little hit or miss for me, I can't relate to as much of it as I did the books, but they have a great search tool and wonderful resources.

Let's get growing y'all!

Planning to go Veg

Now that I'm home more (like, a lot more) and I have more energy (again- a lot more) and more time to think about things that matter to me (broken record much?) Marco and I have finally been able to make a few changes that we've be wanting to, but haven't had the time or energy to make.

One of those changes is committing to eating more vegetarian meals.  We wanted to start doing this for a couple of reasons.

First, it is was cheaper to leave out the meat a few times during the week.  We still love the occasional steak or chicken breast, but by cutting out meat 3 times a week, we are really saving on our grocery budget.

And second it encourages new foods and recipes.  Turns out, I really like cooking, but I have been hesitant because I don't know what the heck I'm doing half the time.  So by taking a few minutes in the evenings or on the weekends, I google around for new or exciting recipes with ingredients we have in the fridge.  I can also search on Pinterest from my phone, so when I see that cauliflower is on sale, I can make a decision whether or not I think I can make something new.

This is how I organize our recipes.

It's just a binder with page protectors to protect the pages from whatever I'm making.  I have tabs in there for main dishes, sides, desserts, drinks, and etc.  The etc section is mostly pickle recipes, dog treats, relishes, and gift type foods.  Each section has lots of empty page protectors in the back so whenever I find a fun recipe in a magazine or online, I just rip/tear/copy it out and slide it in place to keep for later.  I printed all of my "Food Stuffs" board from pinterest also- so if I ever search for "cauliflower" and I have something already pinned, I know that I already have the recipe close as hand too.  I think Future Stacey will appreciate that.

PLUS, deciding to go veg 3 or 4 nights a week has helped us start planning our summer garden.  I know I want to grow beans to dry and freeze.  Marco wants more peppers and eggplants.  There will be corn this year because we found a special hybrid that can be grown in planters.Of course we'll have our regular things like tomatoes,  cucumbers, zucchini,  lettuces and herbs but we're adding soybeans, peas and a few fruit plants.

Now excuse me, I have some dried beans to go soak for tonight's cabbage and bean recipe that Marco's mom emailed me earlier.

Family bonding and cheap eats?  Sign me up!

Bottles: Phase Two

Slowly but surely we are inching towards finally finishing our first bottle boarder flower bed around the house- and you know what that means!  Almost time to start the second one...

But first things first.  When I last shared our bottle boarder update it looked like this:

Bottles a plenty, yes, but top soil, prettiness, weed control??  Not so much.  Well it was about time I did something about that.  So on top of adding another 18 bottles to the end of the line (still about 4 dozen short, just need to get out there and do that already!) I also installed some free weed control.

I had a bunch of newspaper left over from a recon I did for the neighborhood (you can read about that here at OxfordHandmade), so I unfolded it and laid it out over my flower bed.  I tore holes/left space so that my plants could peak through, but I covered the weeds with two solid layers.  I went back every few minutes and sprayed everything with water to help hold it down.  Soon, my flowerbeds looked like this:

Classy right?  Well I didn't intend for it to stay that way.  I've actually read about this process several times online and several people swear by it.  The newspaper is supposed to suppress the weeds, then break down and just become one with the earth.  I'm so tired of weeds choking up my flowers I'd try just about anything, and this idea was free and easy- I figured it was worth a shot.

Well I added my newspapers, sprayed them with water, and then waited around for Marco.  He had spent all morning going back and forth from our house to the "free mulch place."  This place is for real here in Oxford- and most towns and cities have similar set ups.  Basically, when the city cuts down branches or trees, either from storm damage or power line maintenance, they mulch them up and pile it high.  The mulch is free to get, it just takes a little muscle power and you have to bring your own containers.  Well we had plenty of containers, so six trips later, we had plenty of mulch.  One of those trips went straight onto my newspapers until the entire bed looked like this:

Huzza.  We buried just about everything in mulch. Most things had died for winter anyway, but if it was still kicking, we went back and unearthed it a little.  There was plenty of great topsoil already composted in there, and it will settle with rain and time.  Now we just have to wait for spring when we can pour on a few bags of garden soil, toss in some of our own worm compost and watch it grow!  

Who else is excited for spring planting already??

Winter Yard Work

I spent the first weekend of December in the traditional fashion- outside in a t shirt doing yard work.

In fact, we had one of the most productive yard work weekends of the year except for that time we dug up a 100 square foot raised garden bed, poured in a ton of soil, tilled it and planted our 75 baby plants... so we are felling really good about this one.

Our to do list looked like such:

1. Clean garden beds (which means remove all of the old plants that were still hanging around, clean out the netting that was holding them up, hoe the rows and level)
2. Stir compost (especially important after adding a ton of new material, like all of the stuff we got out of the garden)
3. Clean out potted plants (mostly on the front porch and in the front flower beds)
4. Clean up trash near the deck/air conditioner/pallet storage
5. Clean up the second dresser we found on the street (more about the dressers on OxfordHandmade)
6. Fix the second dresser we found on the street
7. Paint the second dresser we found on the street
8. Fix the stairs that lead to the deck (there was a weird mini step at the top and the bottom, we needed to fix that ASAP)
9. Mulch the flower beds in the front
10. Split and divide all of the mint/spearmint/peppermint that had outgrown their containers
11. Transplant thyme plants from their beginner planters to new big plant planters
12. Paint the newspaper stand that has been hanging around out backyard for months
13. Relocate newspaper stand to be better used by the community 
14. Work on bottle boarder in the front of the house (hopefully this project will be D-O-N-E soon!)
15. Take a nap

Well I can assure you all has been done except paint the dresser- which needs to be done soon because it's supposed to rain this afternoon.  So I'll be back all this week showing off sharing pictures  and taking about dirt.

And p.s. we also did this on Saturday:

Congratulations Marco and Audi on a wonderful race at the Santa Run in Tupelo!!

First Day Jitters

Today is the first day of my new job- that is to say, the job that I am creating minute by minute.  I have already spent a good part of the morning "setting up shop" and talking to friendly and helpful people at the Secretary of State.  My paper work is being filed as we speak and very, very soon we will be cooking with grease- as they say.

It still hasn't sunk in that my last day of "work" was yesterday.  Today doesn't feel any different.  Honestly?  It feels like a Saturday.  I ran errands this morning, worked on a few quick projects and cleaned a little house.  But now I'm settling into my to-do list and making plans for next week.  

It also hasn't sunk in that it's actually November 1st.  Halloween was fairly cool, but incredibly comfortable.  I was plenty comfortable walking down the street to the neighbors house with a bottle of wine- I didn't even wear a jacket.  Marco said he didn't think that was the way trick or treating worked, but what does he know?  They don't trick or treat in Italy.

Plus this morning I was responsible for cleaning up the remains of our summer garden.  I picked basil and rosemary and a few egg plants that were still hanging on- and about 4 more pounds of tomatoes.  We still have two plants loaded with green fruits, so we're paying extra close attention to them.  Today these are the last of our "old" plants.  November 1st and we're still making salsa- I could get used to this kind of lifestyle.

Boarder Project

Part of the fun of working from home is the ability to focus more on our home and homelife.  I started this project in my mind a few months ago and I am so excited to finally see it starting to take shape.  It has taken a while to collect the necessary materials, but I think the overall effect is going to be really charming. 

This is what we started with:

See how square and sharp and angular everything looks?  The windows, the house, the driveway, the boarders, the stairs, the porch... so many squares and sharp angles.  I wanted something to soften up the look and I really wanted bigger flower beds.  We thought three feet deep would do it, but I have really taken to collecting plants from friends and family so I quickly found that we would need MUCH more room.  Plus, the flowers help soften those angles as well and break up the "white space" of the house.

So I started with preparing my materials for my makeover.  Which basically meant I looked like an addict for a few days while everything soaked and then got scraped and then dried.

Just FYI:  New cat litter plus drying bottles makes for a really messy bathroom.

Then I had to plan my new curvy outline.  I just used water hose and guestimated where I thought I'd want my new flowerbeds to go.

Soon it was time to start digging.  I had planned on trying out several methods to find the "perfect" method. I thought I'd scrape off the topsoil (what little there was) and move it to where we needed it.  Look!  Recycling! Saving! Gardening and stuff!  But what I actually did was call my Daddy.  He brought over his mini tiller and we tilled the line twice, then used a shovel to brake the soil up a little bit more.  We actually only did this "break up the soil more" step on only have of the new line and I wish we had done it the whole line.   There are a few bottles I need to adjust and that extra step really was worth it.

I wish I had photos of the ditch, but I don't.  I was too busy laying out bottles.  Sorry.  And I don't have big reveal pictures either because it turns out- we were short about 40 bottles.  But I can show you an in-progress sneak peak!

Oooohhhh.  Curvy.  Bottle-y.  A little bit messy.  But getting so much closer!  I just hope we get a few more warmer evenings so I can finish it and share.  So if you're into wine, and you happen to have a few green/brown/blue bottles hanging around... I'd be glad to take them off your hands.

Anyone else making the neighbors worry?  Or calling in reinforcements to help dig up trenches?  Anyone else get into all kinds of trouble when their husbands are away for work??

Making Babies

No Mom. Not those babies.

The garden is really taking off and we could not be more excited. The tomatoes are loaded down and the cucumbers are creeping along nicely. It will be pesto time soon and our peppers are looking fantastic too. It's hard to remember our yard a year ago when we moved in, but I hope to post a before/after update soon. Until then we're going to just keep on growing and enjoying the green.

Oh. By the way, I planted this gourd in the front of the house a few months ago. There were times when it had no leaves and I had moved on with my life, convinced it was dead.

Not dead. And yes, it is trying to grow into the gutters on top of the doorway.