Getting There

Looking forward.

I wrote in my last post that I was feeling good...well that was then, and now, the sleep deprivation that inevitably befalls new mothers has set in...my mind is in a fog much of the time, and my baby girl is keeping me quite busy, which is why I have been absent from this space for so long.

It's more than worth it, of course...just look at that adorable face!

Although I'm mostly happily occupied with the wee one, I do find time now and then to think about my plans for spring and summer. I tried to be realistic and not bite off more than I can chew this year, but I am always trying to learn new skills and find new ways to be self-sufficient. It's just the way we live, now.

I believe I have mentioned that my main gardening project for this year is to grow an herb garden, with a mixture of culinary and medicinal herbs. I'm going to just buy the culinary herbs, since I have limited space and really only room for one plant of each variety. But I wanted to try growing the medicinal plants from seed. So far all I have done is plant some lavendar and yarrow in the window next to our back door. The yarrow came up about two days, and much to my surprise, the lavendar followed about a day later (those are the little green specks in the background).

I was surprised because I had read online that lavender germinates slowly, taking up to 30 days. But these sprouts appeared in about 3-4 days. My seed packet from Horizon Herbs also stated that lavender has a low germination rate--only 5 seeds might sprout out of a pack of 100. So of course I planted the full pack, and now it looks like every single seed sprouted. I guess I'll have a lot of extra plants to give away this year, if even a third of those little sprouts survive.

I meant to plant some chamomile and calendula today, but as it's already getting late it looks like I won't get around to it until tomorrow.

One thing we have firmly planned for this summer is to pick a lot more berries than we did last year. It seemed last summer that we were picking a ridiculous amount, and yet our jam has reached pathetically low levels, and it's only April! We have only 1 jar each of blueberry, grape jelly, strawberry, and apple butter, looking all lonely on the pantry shelf.

And the raspberry and cherry jams have been gone for a while. I finally broke down this past week and bought a jar of raspberry jam at the store. It just didn't feel right! This year I'll be sure to make a lot more jam, and freeze a lot more berries as well, since Jasper adores frozen blueberries for a snack every morning.

I can't wait for the local strawberries to be in season!

Another thing I'm looking forward to is starting to sew my own clothes--when I have the time! I recently purchased the book Sew What! Skirts, and the Homestead Blessings DVD on The Art of Sewing, both of which contain easy to understand instructions on making a long tiered skirt. I love wearing long skirts, and my husband loves it when I wear them too. Besides, I really need new clothes...not only has my regular wardrobe gotten very shabby over the years, as I never wanted to spend money on clothes, but my post-baby body fits into almost nothing in my closet anyway. So a few long skirts with an elastic waist are just what I need. I just have to get the fabric, which means finding time to make it to the fabric store or the thrift store...it's definitely on my to do list.

We're also just about to redecorate our dingy looking livingroom, which is pretty exciting since I have loathed the colour of paint in there since we moved in to this house 5 years ago--but perhaps that merits a post of its own. :)

Well, those are the things on my mind lately...with spring in the air I am itching to do so many things, but of course I have to spend most of my time with the baby...which is not so bad at all!

Signs of spring.

The weather has gone above freezing quite a bit here lately, although we did get more snow last night. I was looking out the window in our back room and I was so glad to notice signs of life appearing in the yard.

I guess this past winter must have been milder than some we have gotten in the past, because I found last year's parsley sprouting again, which hasn't happened before. (Parsley is a biennial, but only in fairly mild climates.)

My research tells me though, that the second year parlsey plants spend most of their energy making flowers and seeds rather than leaves. So I guess I'll be planting some more seeds this year if I want to get enough parsley to dry for next winter.

I also saw lemon balm growing:

I am always childishly excited in the spring when plants like this come up again, when in the fall nothing was here but a few dead looking brown sticks.

On the other side of the yard was a dandelion! Perhaps I'll add these healthy greens to my next salad. And next to it what looks like my old Siberian irises, although I thought I pulled them all out last year to make way for vegetables.

All these green sprouting things reminds me that I need to get some herb seeds sprouted soon. This past week my medicinal herbs seeds arrived from Mountain Rose Herbs.

All of these herbs are going to be going into the healing salve I'm planning to make this summer, along with some plantain, which I can find easily anywhere in our neighbourhood. The lavender will also be used for making potpourri, the chamomile for tea for upset tummies and for baths to soothe sunburn, and the yarrow I am going to try using along with rosemary to make insect repellent. (One catalogue I have claims that yarrow is a "proven" mosquito repellent, so I figured I'd give it a try!) Some day I'd love to have a huge herb garden and make all kinds of herbal products, but for this year, I think these projects will get me off to a good start.

How wonderful it is for those of us in temperate climates, to feel the thrill of seeing life sprouting from the ground again each year in spring. Every year, it is just as exciting for me. I can't wait to start those seeds now!

Is anyone else getting any seeds started at the moment?

Edited to add: Early this morning, I heard Canada Geese honking overhead...which means  spring really can't be far away, if they have decided to return to the North. I assume those birds know what they're doing! :)

Thinking about this year's herb garden.

Amazingly, that time of year has come around again when it's time to start thinking about this year's garden. As I mentioned in this post, laying out my goals for the year, I would like to try growing herbs in our tiny urban backyard this year instead of vegetables. My vegetable gardening didn't go so well in 2010, so I'd like to try something different. I know that most herbs are fairly easy to grow, which is an advantage for me this year when I will be busy all summer with a new baby. As well, growing and using herbs is simply something I've always been interested in but have never pursued.

Although life has been so busy and crazy lately for a variety of reasons, I have made an effort to sit down and read through the Richter's catalogue of herb seeds and plants--they have every herb I've ever heard of in there, as well as many I haven't--as well as an old book I picked up at a library sale a few years back, The Harrowsmith Illustrated Book of Herbs.

I think the general conclusion I have come to after researching is that I'm going to focus mostly on culinary herbs for now. I love using herbs to dress up a dish in a simple way. Fresh herbs like rosemary, basil and even humble parsley are delicious, and this year what I want to do is grow enough of the ones I use often, to dry some for winter. Dried herbs in the grocery store are so expensive, and I find the ones at the bulk store are lacking in quality and freshness.

Probably I will get most of my herbs from the local garden centre rather than start them from seed, since I have limited space and don't need multiples of each plant. Right now I'm planning on parsley, rosemary, thyme, dill, and basil. I expect the chives I grew last year will come up again as they usually do.

Spearmint and lemon balm are already in the garden for adding to cold drinks or for tea.

And, I also plan on planting lavender and chamomile, for making potpurri and baby powder. I hope I get enough chamomile to dry for tea as well, since I find it very helpful for heartburn and indigestion.

I might not have room after planting all the above, but I'd like to grow two or three medicinal herbs as well. Something I have always wanted to do is make my own healing salve for the skinned knees and scraped elbows that inevitably happen to children who spend the summer playing outside. So I'm going to get a few packets of seeds from Richter's for this purpose. Calendula for certain, perhaps chickweed. I know comfrey is highly valued for healing wounds, but I'm not sure about adding it to the garden as my Harrowsmith book indicates it can take over.

Perhaps when it comes time to make my salve, I'll remember to harvest some plantain from around my neighbourhood, where it is the most common weed. Did you know that fresh plantain leaves are supposed to remove the pain and stinging of insect bites?

Well, those are my tentative gardening plans for this year. When I get the chance I'll try to do up some sketches of plant placement in my gardening journal. It's so pleasant to think about all this greenery in early February, when the view from my window is decidedly lacking in green. :)

P.S. For those of you who expressed an interest in the perogy cutter Chris made for me a few weeks ago, they are now in our Etsy shop. :)

Goals for the coming year.

Out with the old, in with the new! With 2010 behind us, we're filled with ideas and plans for the new year. First and foremost, before we start up homeschooling again on Monday (we took three weeks off for the holidays) I want to clean this house from top to bottom, and get it organized! A lofty goal, yes, but I'm going to get started just as soon I finish writing this post. Wish me luck! The idea of beginning the new year with a clean, tidy house is very appealing to me.

On a more general note, here are some of our goals for 2011:

• I'm going to continue to improve my sewing skills, quilting specifically. My next project will be a quilt for the baby girl who will be gracing our home some time in late March. And although I'll be busy with a newborn throughout the spring, perhaps in the summer I'd like to try making a wall hanging to decorate our livingroom.
• Chris is planning to learn more about electricity, and wants to build his first experimental generator, since when we do move to the country he would like to get us off-grid if possible.
• Since our tiny backyard vegetable garden was a failure this year, I'm going to change tactics where gardening is concerned, and try growing herbs instead. I plan to grow a variety of culinary herbs, some of which I will preserve for the winter, and medicinal herbs, so that I can try making some herbal teas and salves. I like this plan, not only because I have always wanted to have an herb garden, but because I know that generally speaking, herbs are less fussy to grow than vegetables, and I will after all have a newborn to care for this spring and summer. 
• I want to improve my skills as a homemaker. By this I mean specifically, I want to get better at making our home a cheerful, inviting place. This is something I have never been very good at. The first thing to do in this respect is paint a brighter colour over the drab and depressing grey of our livingroom. We've been talking about doing this since we moved in here 5 years ago, but this time we're really going to do it! I believe that if we are going to live the life of homebodies, we should have a pleasant home in which to do that.
• Chris is going to do our small business taxes for the first time this year. This will be quite a learning experience, I'm sure, especially since most of our sales are in US dollars (through Etsy) but we live in Canada...but I know he can handle it. :)
• This summer I want to expand the food I preserve from just jam, to pickles and canned pears and peaches. If finances allow, I would love also to acquire a pressure canner so that then I can can virtually anything.
• We are both going to try even harder to save money towards our downpayment on a piece of land, regardless of our employment situation. We are already living very frugally, but we will try to tighten our belts even more. Some of the things we plan to do: Buy only secondhand clothes, buy larger quantities of food when there is a good sale, preserve more food for next winter, buy meat in bulk from local sources instead of from the grocery store, and simply follow the old adage: Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. 

I suppose this list isn't very ambitious, but I don't want to overdo things since we'll have a new baby this year. Our main "work" is going to be saving money. I am excited to do some quilting though, and to create my herb garden. (Does anyone have a suggestion for a good Canadian seed catalogue that sells heirloom varieties?)

I feel upbeat about the coming year and all we will accomplish, and I hope my readers feel that way too. Does anyone have any goals for 2011 that they care to share in the comments? Please do...and Happy New Year! :)

(Sorry I have no photo for this post or the last...my camera batteries are dead and I keep forgetting to charge them!)

2010 in review.

When I started this blog back in March, my goal was to use this space to chronicle my family's journey towards a simpler life--in one way, by learning the skills to be more self-sufficient, like people were in the "old days"--and in another more literal way, by saving up to buy a piece of land in the country where we could have our own homestead.

So here on December 31st, it's natural that I ask myself, "What progess have we made towards these goals?"

I think we've done very well where it comes to learning new skills to allow us to do more for ourselves. In fact, saying we've learned a lot this year is really an understatement. A few highlights:

• I learned how to can homemade jam, and it's so delicious we'll never go back to store bought! I also put by a great deal of homemade applesauce and apple butter for the first time. 
• We also learned that when pick raspberries, strawberries and blueberries in the summer, we need A LOT more to last us the year. It's quite amazing how much one family can consume--I greatly underestimated. For example, Jasper loves to eat frozen blueberries as a snack pretty much every day--and here we are in December, and we have been out of blueberries for several weeks. Now I am buying store bought berries for him, which is not at all what I had planned.
• I continued to learn how to make more meals from scratch, and I learned how to make my own sprouts and granola.
• Chris has greatly expanded his self-taught woodworking abilities to include turning bowls, plates and cups. Just now he is experimenting with making spoons, and we hope this will give a boost to our family business.
• We learned a lot about growing vegetables this year. Or rather, how not to grow them! For example, do NOT grow potatoes in pure compost, because it will be too nitrogen rich and you'll get all leaves and no potatoes. Do NOT try to grow pumpkins in a tiny back yard, and do NOT plant four cherry tomato plants when only one person in the family eats them!
• I finally figured out my sewing machine, and have sewed many projects already, including a doll quilt. I have been reading a lot about quilting lately so that I can begin soon on a "real" quilt. 
• Chris and I discovered how much fun it is to create handmade gifts for holidays and birthdays.
• Chris has greatly expanded the number of songs he can play on the guitar. (I consider playing a musical instrument to be a form of self-sufficiency, since you can then create your own entertainment).
• We're learning ways to be more frugal all the time, and make some of our own cleaning and personal care products.
• We've learned how important it is to our sanity to have a daily routine to our family life, and that it's very important to take a break from technology sometimes (i.e. the computer and tv) and just enjoy the peace and quiet together.

Some of these activities have saved us money, but more than that they have all been very satisying. I love the feeling of creating something with my hands--it's something that was missing from my life before.

Our other goal was saving up for our homestead. This has been very difficult for us since not only are we paying fairly high rent to live in the city, but Chris was in college for the first half of the year, and after working throughout the summer was laid off in September. However, these past few months, even though we were living only off of our Etsy shop, we managed not only to get by but to save a tiny bit. And I find that in itself encouraging. I know that we are working towards our goal, even if our progess seems painfully slow at times, and I'm proud of us for making our family business work.

Next year we are going to try even harder to live frugally and save every penny. But I'll talk about 2011 in a post tomorrow. For now, I'll just say a big "Thank You" to all of my readers for joining me as I wrote about our struggles and successes in 2010. I'm so grateful and humbled that you lovely people take the time to stop by, and I sincerely hope to enjoy your company more in 2011.

On that note, I hope everyone has a joy-filled evening tonight, and I'll see you next year! :)

 

My garden was a failure.

This past spring, I was so gung-ho about my backyard vegetable garden. I had visions of grandeur to say the least. I should have tempered my enthusiasm with the knowledge that our tiny, high-fenced backyard gets little direct sun and really isn't the greatest place to grow vegetables. Because the actual results, were very disappointing.

The cherry tomatoes almost all split, although I was careful not to water them too much. Then the plants shriveled up and looked horrid.

The potatoes, as I have posted about before, were an utterly dismal failure. We didn't get a crop at all.

The melons all rotted but one, which then split open before it was ripe. We tried to eat it, but it tasted bitter.

All THREE crops of green onions I tried growing shriveled up and died while the plants were still tiny.

The chives I tried growing from seed also shriveled up and died.

The parsley I grew from seed seemed all right at first but now it looks diseased.

The diseased raspberry canes produced only a small handful of raspberries which frankly weren't very good. 

The heirloom tomato plant I was growing in a pot produced two small tomatoes that were bitter and inedible.

About a week ago, I was so disgusted with the whole yard that I ripped everything out. The only plants remaining are my diseased parsley, and the mint and lemon balm in the corner that won't go away no matter what I do.

Now where the raspberries were, is just dirt:

Where the potato box, melons and cherry tomatoes were is just dirt:

Okay, and a potato that Jasper threw from the upstairs window. Don't ask.

I like the garden better this way. Rather than seeing my failures, I can look at the bare dirt and imagine that next year things will be better. Well, if we are still living here. With another child on the way, we are hoping maybe to be able to move this winter to a home with a bigger yard and maybe a bit more room inside, too. We don't know what's going to happen though, because it's pretty near impossible to find a decent place to rent for a decent price, and we're unfortunately in no position to buy our own place, not yet. But we'll keep looking and hoping.

In the meantime, I'm done with gardening for this year.

We also grew some heirloom tomatoes using a small chunk of my grandmother's sunny backyard. They were Bonny Best, and although the plants produced pretty well, we honestly didn't like the flavour of these tomatoes very much, and sadly a lot of them actually went to waste. Also at my grandmother's we grew zucchinis and green beans, which I guess were the only things that could be called a success this year.

Next year. Next year will be better. Now I'm going to turn my mind to other things...homeschooling, Autumn, sewing, decluttering, organizing, our Etsy shop...there's always something to be working on.

The best laid plans of mice and men...

Today was rather disappointing.

First, this morning we drove out to the county with the children and went blueberry picking. After reading so many posts on other blogs the past few weeks about the wonderful fun of blueberry picking, I admit I was looking forward to a lovely morning picking these tasty blue jewels with my cheerful children.

But alas, we arrived too late in the morning, and it was already very hot. All three of the children were complaining pretty much constantly that they were too hot and they wanted to go home. Jasper escaped us more than once. The worst time, we couldn't find him for about five minutes. The only reason we were reunited was because someone who was picking near us recognized him and brought him over. I think Jasper had gone looking for the car, where he knew there was water to drink.

After that he took off his shoes and socks and tried to stay in the shade. I knew the kids were hot, so I was trying to pick as fast as possible. Right when my bucket was just about full, Jasper dumped it out--on purpose! Already being hot and sweaty and slightly grumpy, I almost lost my cool right there...good thing my level-headed husband was there to keep me calm. ;)

We made it home eventually with about 20 lbs of blueberries, and they are delicious. Tonight I'll be making jam, and freezing most of the rest. So it's not like the day was a loss--but it just wasn't as much fun as I had hoped it would be!

Then this afternoon, we decided to try harvesting the potatoes that we have been growing in the backyard using the box method . Many of the plants' leaves turned brown a while ago, and we have reached the length of time specified on the box of seed potatoes, so we thought why not? Hashbrowns would be nice for supper tonight.

So Chris pulled off the screen and wooden slats off the box, and started digging through the dirt...and digging...and digging...

This is what he found.

Yep. That's it. Our entire 2010 potato harvest. To put this picture in perspective, those really little ones are about as big as my baby fingernail. So there isn't even close to enough here to make one single meal for us. One serving, maybe.

This is really a big disappointment. The box of seed potatoes alone cost $5, and we probably spent another $10 in soil and compost to fill the potato box. Just to get a small handful of potatoes! I'm not sure what we did wrong. The green part of the plants grew very fast and got really lanky--maybe the plants were putting all their energy into the above ground part instead of below ground, for some reason? I can't figure it.

Well, that's life. I guess its good that I'm making these mistakes now, rather than a few years down the road when we have a huge garden and I will have the opportunity to make mistakes on a huge scale. 

In the meantime, we now have a large quanity of rich soil in that corner of the garden, so I think I will sow some green onion seeds since I still have some left, and the green onions we've been growing in the shade of the enormous potato plants are pathetic to say the least.

Melon Troubles.

One of our humble backyard "crops" this year is a variety of miniature cantaloupe melon called Minnesota Midget. For some reason, although many small baby melons have started, only one has continued to grow:

You probably can't tell from the picture, but it's about the size of a baseball. This is almost full-grown for this variety.

The rest of the melons that have started have turned yellow and rotted, like this one is in the process of doing:

Most of them rotted while still tiny. I wonder what the problem is. Are there any experienced melon growers out there who may be able to offer me a possible explanation? If I had to guess I'd say maybe we've had too much rain--we have had some really big downpours in the past few weeks. In John Seymour's gardening book, he suggests placing growing melons on a large tin can placed into the soil to keep them dry. But, when they are in the direct sun, wouldn't the metal become hot and "cook" the melon?

(Side note: in the second picture, if you look carefully you can see a neon-green dinky car hiding under the big leaf. I didn't notice that until just now!)

Staking the tomatoes.

After supper tonight, Chris put some stakes into the ground for our two cherry tomato plants. These plants are a variety called "Sweetie," and I can't believe how tall and gangly they've gotten. They were flopping right over the top of the small tomato cages we put in. When we pulled the stems up, the tallest ones were over Chris's head, and he's 6 foot 2! I didn't know that tomato plants could grow so large.

One funny thing about having a husband who is a woodworker, is that he always has something interesting available when I need a wooden stake for something. Those two stakes he's hammering in in the picture are made of solid mahogany! Not your typical tomato stake material. But they were scraps that were too narrow to do anything with.

Now the plants look a little bit neater, and aren't shading the poor little melon vine that was beneath them.

Speaking of the melon vine. It's a miniature variety of cantaloupe called Minnesota Midget. Just today, when we pulled up the tomato plants, I noticed one small melon growing.

It's cute isn't it? Too bad that Jasper picked it about 2 minutes after I took the picture. Ah, the joys of toddlers. :)

The backyard jungle.

We've had a hot July so far, and the plants in the backyard have pretty much gone nuts.

Have a look at this monster of a pumpkin vine:

It has successfully crossed the patio, turned the corner and is now heading confidently towards the back fence. Note the offshoot also heading for the back fence from halfway across the patio, and the offshot to the far right that is choking my cherry tomato plants as it crawls stealthily along the fence. 

Basically, I have to do something about this pumpkin vine if our tiny yard is not going to be completely taken over. I'm going to cut it back. This would be harder to do if it had baby pumpkins on it, but so far, not one swelling has appeared. I have seen plenty of bees buzzing around the vine, so I suppose that means the problem is not a lack of bees but a lack of female flowers?

As the photo makes painfully obvious, some serious yard work is needed here! Not only do I need to cut off that ever-growing vine, but stake up the tomatoes, which are at least twice as tall as the cages I bought (probably taller than me), and do some weeding too. This yard is a mess. My excuse is that I don't like going outside in the heat; but this evening after supper I'm going to go out there and do some serious pruning.

The potato plants we were growing in the box seem to be about done, if the withering leaves are any indication:

Isn't it ugly? I can't believe how lanky the potatoes got. The ones I planted in the ground on the other side of the yard look lanky too, and are laying right on the ground. I don't understand what I did wrong there.

But anyhow, I am hoping that there are enough russets in that box for some yummy baked potatoes and hash browns.

Now I have a little while before Jasper wakes up from his afternoon nap, so I think I'm going to make a quick cup of tea, and go back down to my sewing machine and do up a few flannel hankies. We are almost out of Kleenex--and I don't want to buy any more. (I do have quite a few hankies, but not quite enough to not have to still buy Kleenex.)

Last night, the jeans I was trying to hem, I finally finished to my satisfaction. And this morning I sewed in a panel to cover the slit in my long Gap jean skirt. The hem is a bit wonky looking in a few places, but overall I'm pleased that it's at least wearable. I think I'm starting to actually get this sewing thing, a little bit.

Tomorrow, I start on the cape! :)