Goings on.

Still much happening around the homestead. I'll narrate, while letting some pictures tell most of the story...

Plants have been in the seed starting unit in the east window for almost a month now and are coming along nicely. Lights under reflective material. I used one of those .99 cent survival blankets that you can pick up in the outdoors section of may stores to concentrate the light back onto the sprouts. This picture was actually taken 10 days ago and the difference is impressive. (I'll try to get some more of them up soon.) I started running my oscillating fan over these a couple of days after this picture was taken. It simulates the weather that the plant would be exposed to outdoors and helps to keep the legginess down and build stronger plants. Iceberg lettuce sprouts under the lights. Starting these indoors let's me get enough of a head start that I can get some from them before they bolt. Last year they did OK. Hopefully even better this year!For those following the progress of my last robust little cutting from last years tomatoes. I've now got it split into the original cutting and two other "daughters". I placed the cuttings into soaked vermiculite and let them sit for about 2 - 3 weeks until I began to see roots along the edges of the cups. They've now been transplanted into soil and are coming along well. She's a tuffy!Here's a little plot of salad greens that I'll be using for cut and come again salad harvests until I can get more from outdoors.
LOOKOUT!! ALIENS!! OK I'm a dork, we all know that, but don't they kind of look like the invasion of the body snatchers or something? These are some "Garden Cloche" that I picked up at a local thrift store for 1.50 each last year. I've seen this same exact type of Garden Cloche for sale for 20.00 a piece so I was pretty happy to find these. So is my Chinese Cabbage I think.Here's a close up. The only noticeable difference with these is that they don't have the neat little glass knobby thing at the top. I think they were for displaying figurines or something originally. See, just goes to show, a little imagination goes a long way.I finally got out and got the greenhouse cleaned up over the last weekend too. It needed a lot of work but is in a much better state now. Soon the nights will be warm enough I won't feel bad putting out the sprouts! Those are recycled buckets of water to help hold some of the days heat through the night.Did you notice that little bit of green in the back of the G-house? Those are one of my biggest greenhouse successes and for some reason I have yet to mention them. Last year I tried to grow Artichokes in two largish pots. They didn't do well. Didn't die, but never thrived. I did, however, manage to overwinter them in the pots in the greenhouse. As soon as the weather started to warm at all, they started to throw up new shoots and really took off. This past weekend I split the second of the two plants into new starts and now have a total of twelve! The four on the left were split from the first plant a couple of weeks ago. I have a place I'll be planting these babies out by the potato garden this year and with any luck, I should have at least enough artichokes to enjoy fresh through the summer and then can get them thriving enough to over winter again!This weekend also had me cleaning out and prepping some of the harvest baskets that we use. Just seeing them there makes me excited about filling them!
As you can see, Things are coming along. There's more queued up, but just not enough time to get to them.

Hope Spring's coming along well for you all as well. Care to share your progress with everyone? Drop a comment and feel free to link to your own blog if you have one too. This is a community isn't it?

Namaste all...
Paul~

humanure, lists and sprouts

Man-soil update/specs

Here's the information paper that the Sewer district provided for us. I think it's very cool that they voluntarily provide such good information to the community. Particularly since people are using this in their gardens. I won't personally, This all went on our back yard lawn,but as you can see from the breakdown there's nothing really to worry about. For me it's a mental block, just being honest. When we picked the soil up and spread it on Friday, it was a kind of spur of the moment thing. It worked out to our advantage though on Saturday when our lawn aeration guy showed up and did our yard. I had him go over the backyard twice to really open it up, and the compost and "humanure" was quickly filling in the holes just like planned! Today it snowed a good 3-4 inches so hopefully it will really work the soil down into the ground where it needs to be. Good timing huh?

One of the reasons that I wanted to at least take advantage of this free resource was due to the interest in it while I was teaching the Gardening class last weekend. So many people were interested in how they could build their soil, and a lot of them needed to do it "on the cheap". There were a lot of people curious about this product and I have little to no experience with it. This is a chance to get familiar and at the same time green up the back yard. The information pamphlet will go into my Master Gardener folder and will be used to answer questions in the future.

To-Do List
Renee from The Garden Desk mentioned that she was interested in seeing my task list that I had talked about last week, so I dug into my far too full desk drawer to pull it out for her. I mean, I wouldn't want anyone doubting my sincerity after all.This unkempt low-tech scribble is the actual master list, if you will, that A~ and I are whittling away at as the year goes on. It's really nothing much to look at, but is the result of some serious thinking and discussing.

We made a list of everything that we really wanted to get done throughout the year, big (like building a greenhouse) and small (like hanging some bookcase lights), and then we sat down and went through it to decide what order of importance we thought they should have. This process was a combination of trying to work out if maybe we had to have one thing done before another for any particular reason and haggling for our own personal preferences to get started first. I had to dig the list up because, while we still reference it to check things off and to see what else we had planned, we generally make up week specific plans on the fly throughout the year. If we have plans for the weekend we work around those, If some opportunity comes up that is time sensitive, things get jockied around. The biggest part of making the lists is so that you've identified what needs to get done at some point. You've put it on the radar. From there it's just a matter of working it in to the week to week routine. Hope this helps/clarifies. Good luck!

Sprouts
I thought I'd leave you with a quick update on my sprouts downstairs. These are the cold season sprouts. Kohlrabi, cabbage, kale, broccoli, lettuce and chard.They're generally coming along good, but the kale, chard and kohlrabi are doing great. My broccoli and lettuce were older seed and are not germinating like I would have liked. I planted a lot of them though so I'll be fine!

Hope you all had a great weekend. Catch you tomorrow. Oh yeah, any questions or suggestions. Anything your wondering about maybe. I just thought I'd ask in case one of the lurkers out there wanted to chime in.
Yes, I can see you out there...it's OK, you can comment ;-)
P~

Sprouting progress

I am so tired, and just got out of a hot bath, so the post will be very short tonight.

A couple of the sprouting beds that we have going on in house this year.

We've never really been able to get a handle on the sprouting indoors thing. We do sprout a lot of things indoors, but have generally only had decent luck with beans, cukes, and Zucchinis. For whatever reason, we just don't seem to nail down the right date to plant them in advance so that we will have them for the season.

I do have a plan however. A~ and I were talking the other day and I said how much I wish I could have a green house; both to grow food through the bulk of the winter, as well as being able to sprout lots of sprouts in the spring. We are NOT the type to run out and buy a greenhouse, regardless of how well we can justify it. But we are the type to multi-purpose and re-use existing items to accomplish the same end. Some of the longer readers here may remember when we completed our re-purposed concrete project . In that post was this picture of our pergola that I built in the back yard a couple of years ago. What we decided to look into, is to add a temporary siding of sorts by wrapping a heavy gauge clear tarp around the outside of the frame of that pergola, and doing the same to the inside of the frame. This would give it a 4" airspace for insulation, and should allow me to grow through winter, as well as to start sprouts and harden them off in the spring.
Never too early to start thinking ahead... now, if I can only remember to rotate my sprouts tomorrow to keep them from getting any more slanted.
P~

2008 Garden update

After church this afternoon, we came home and spent a pretty relaxing most of the afternoon around the house. The kids of course ran right outside to skateboard and I, of course, off to deal with some gardening. I planted a bunch of seed that had germinated into some re-used 6 pack planters that I held over from last year. If you buy perennials, don't just rip the containers apart, you can keep them for the next years plantings. They nest inside each other too so they take up very little space.

The existing garden that is being held over from last year consists of 6 raised beds and part of the back property line planter bed. Together this all totalled 282 sqFt. This year we are increasing this by prepping and using a formerly unused area next to back of the house, as well as by using the remaining piece of the back property line planter bed. The total sqFt being added is 112, bringing the total of dedicated planting beds to 394 sqFt (78.8 sqFt per person.) This is for the dedicated planting beds. In addition to these, we will be planting other edibles around the decorative beds in the front yard as well. This is a pretty big deal here in suburbia, but I think our neighbors have gotten in the habit of stopping by when they see us in the yard to see what new stuff we have going on around the house, so I hate to disappoint.(we do not have a fenced yard and we are on a corner lot so it's pretty regular to see us in the yard.) To the front yard beds we plan to add all of our edible/aromatic herbs such as basil, rosemary, thyme, lavender etc. as well as some new garden items that should work well in the front such as tall flowering okra, edible flowers such as Johnny jump-ups, pansies and nasturtiums and we plan to add some "tufts" of carrots here and there to fill in the gaps with their greenery and who knows, maybe surprise a neighbor kid with a summer carrot from the front yard. (By the way, neighbor kids are a great way to break the ice about talking gardening and home food production. You'd be surprised at how excited moms get seeing their kids excited about eating veggies.)

Tonight I got a few cool season plants into the ground. I planted a 4-pack of cabbage that I picked up at the nursery late last week on a whim, I don't know if they'll make it or not based on the weather swings, but I have some seeds sprouting indoors that certainly will. I also planted a few rows of beets, some head and romaine lettuce, a single row of arugula (rocket) and sowed some mesclun under the A-framed pea trellises I talked about a couple of days ago. The idea with that is that right now while the peas are just sprouting, the weather is cool enough to let the mesclun get full sun. Later when the peas have grown up the trellising, they will leave just enough shaded area under them to keep the tender greens shaded and cool. It's another hunch, I'll keep you posted.

Finally I wanted to state something just for the record. My wife, although a excellent homemaker, chef, baker, etc, etc, is not particularly big on the outside. More particularly she just doesn't like dirt. This is of course the polar opposite to me who on any given day has some form of dirt wedged under my nails or in my shoes, or in my hair (what hair I have that is.) by the end of the day. She does her best and to her credit is always right there with me working her butt off, wearing elbow length gloves, to make our goals a reality outside. She just doesn't love it like I do. Anyway, that said, I have to say that she is one of the main reasons for us having a successful garden at all. I am a dreamer, a planner, an envisioner extraordinaire; but a "get on with it and get it done" type... not so much. This is where we compliment each other. She'll drive me nuts with her lists, and schedules and her "HONEY, you have to get this done if we're going to ____." but you know what? That's what gets the job done. If it wasn't for her ability to see the big picture, I'd never get things planted in time, I'd forget to water for a couple of days or who knows what else. I wanted to get that out there for the record. This year looks to be shaping up to be a great summer, and likely it'll be because she got me moving when I was slacking about.

(Oh man, I'm gonna hear about that admission forever.)

P~

100ft diet update

This post was a little late getting put up as I got sidetracked telling My Story of Food last week. This was one of the meals that we had last week. I loved it, and wanted to share. I think I raved enough about A~'s homemade buns last week to her that she made them again this week. They really are so good. It's no wonder shy our kids look at us funny when they get store bought once and a while. We're spoiled. Onto these she made a vegetarian Sloppy joeesque filling. I bought some TVP a little while back so that we could experiment with it and see how we liked it. She's really gotten to like making homemade meals with it much better than some of the pre-made vegetarian products out there.
Onto this I put some of my homegrown sprouts and voila, tasty meal. Now does it really qualify as a 100 ft diet meal since neither the flour nor the TVP are from my back yard? No, probably not to the purist, but I look at this as an excersise in producing as much of our own food as possible. Do we do that all the time, no. Do we a couple times a week, yes. Is it progress, definitely yes.

I hope as we share our progress and lives with each other, we keep in mind that we're all on a journey, some are further than others, but none of us is perfect. In fact what may be perfect to one would likely not be to another. I haven't heard anyone nit-picking or anything, at least with regard to "the 100ft Diet", but I think we've all seen it before with other such collaborations. To build a community, we all have to be a bit flexible with what others are willing to do, and encouraging of the things that they DO do.
I wanted to let everyone know I've been really enjoying getting to read some of your post as well. With the garden season just kicking in for many of us, and lots of people getting an early start, it looks like we'll all have lots to share in the upcoming months. Plus I'm really looking forward to the 100footdiet.org site launch on the first day of Spring next week.

P~

Eat what you can..

and Can what you can't, that's the old mantra from the Victory Garden era of our parents and grandparents. We dug into the cold storage and brought out some of our homemade homegrown pickles and pickled beans this weekend to enjoy with our sandwiches. (HM bread too, but I didn't click fast enough and it was gone... better luck next time.) I also finished with another jar of sprouts. These have really become a sandwich staple around our house. Especially during the cold winter months when we have literally nothing growing in the yard. So much in fact that I am now keeping my eyes open for a new, larger container to sprout them in.
This jar makes approximately the same amount as you would get from the small plastic containers in the grocery store and it's just not cutting it anymore. We go through one of these in one Saturdays lunch.

A~ and I were driving home from a trip to town this weekend and were talking about our progression from really just an ordinary family, taking our lifestyle for granted and being totally disconnected from it, to really paying more attention and building habits that could sustain us if/when the current climate of plentiful food, cheap energy and easy transportation changes. I'm not a defeatist, but I am a realist. There will come a day when we as a society will have to answer for a very long period of very unsustainable living. I think we'll get through it, I mean if Cuba can we can, right? Well as we were talking about it, my thoughts on the subject gelled into a pretty clear idea; we were lucky to become aware when we did.

In effect by accepting the fact that changes are going to happen, we have seized the opportunity to prepare ourselves and to mentor our children in a way of living that will be much less impacted in the future, purely because we are beginning to provide more and more of our own sustenance. We have the opportunity to make mistakes, and take the time to find out what works for our particular family. Time that many people won't have in the future. We are not, at this point, very different from most American families. In some ways we are, but in many ways we're just not. But I do think that one of the main differences is the fact that we are trying. That's really what the 100 ft diet comes down to for me, trying to make the biggest impact in my diet and my families self reliance that I can.

Namaste~
P~

Sprout Final

Well, here it is. The final yield from my tablespoonful of seeds. I know that I took forever posting this pic, but I took it after 6 days, 7 if you count the day that I put the seeds in water to soak overnight. This is probably about two of the packages that you would buy in the store. I know it doesn't seem like a really huge amount, but when you consider the container of seed that I bought was $3 and some change, it is really quite a major savings, besides the fact that you just can't get better tasting or healthier sprouts.

Sprouts Day 6

Well here we are at Day 6. The sprouts are now about 1 3/4 inch tall. I can eat them anytime not, but I like to wait until they are a bit bigger. I will post my last update in another day or two with the final product. I hope you get inspired to try these on your own. They are a great addition to the wonderful fresh salads and veggies we'll have here shortly in the summer, but can be enjoyed all year. Have fun, and get sprouting!!
P~

Sprout Day 4

Day four and the sprouts are really kicking into gear.

See those long roots! actually they're about 3/4 inch long. Tonight instead of covering the sprouts with water and then pouring it out through the nylon filter, I decided to try a different method of watering the sprouts. I took a regular all pupose spray bottle, filled with clear water and spritzed the top of the sprouts. Not too much, just enough to dampen the sprouts. The reason for this is that one of the issues I have had in the past is that as the sprouts germinate and grow and I tip the jar over to drain the water, they inevitably fall onto the lid. Not really a big deal, but when I push them back down onto the bottom of the jar I break some of them, and they tend to grow all curly and knotted up with each other. Again, not really a big deal, but if you were as obsessive compulsive as me, it'd drive you nuts. trust me.

Here is the top view.

Getting excited about a sprout? trust me these babies are way sweeter and tastier on your turkey sandwich than any you could get from the store.
More tomorrow.

Sprouts Day 3

Well here we are at day three, 48 hours have passed. I guess it's really day two if you consider that day one was just putting the seeds in the jar.
I took the jar down tonight after dinner, and added about an inch of water. Enough to cover it well, it's really not a scientific process. Anyway, same as yesterday I drain and then push all the seeds to the bottom. Rinse, Drain, Repeat, Rinse, Drain, Repeat. I took a new picture and TAADAA sprouts are popping out all over. In retrospect I think that leaving them to soak for a full twenty four hours is a good thing. These sprouted a lot more vigorously than the last batch I grew.

Sprouts Day 2

Alright, it's been about 24 hours. You really only need to leave them to soak for 12 but it won't hurt them to go a little longer. Now the reason for the nylon scrap is more evident. After letting them soak, you turn the jar over and drain all of the water out. Some water will of course linger at the bottom, but let it sit upside down for a minute to get out as much as you can.
After I do this, I have seed spread all over the side of the jar, not a good place for the sprouts to grow, so I scrap them down to the bottom of the jar with a long wooden tool (Truth be told, I use an extra paint stir stick that's a little concaved, it works great.) and spread them evenly on the bottom.
Here is the end result. This is a closer look at the seeds them selves. they are really saturated and swollen, you can see there are a couple that are already showing green and getting ready to sprout.

After draining, I place the jar on top of the refrigerator where it is a little warmer and perfect for sprouting.
More Soon...

P~

I've got tasty greens

I've been playing around with a little indoor garden lately. It's a really small indoor garden and gives me a sweet green to eat with my burgers, sandwiches, salads or just for a little snack any time of the year. I've been growing alfalpha sprouts in my kitchen! All I needed was an inexpensive container of seeds, an old mason jar that was sitting in a box in the garage, and a scrap piece of nylon panyhose. I thought I'd document it for anyone that has thought about trying this for yourself. First of all, you'll need to get your supplies together.

I've got my seeds, jar, nylon, and a tablespoon measure to measure out my seed.
The first step is to take 1 tbsp of seed and add it too our jar. Now pay attention, this is the difficult part, cover it with a good bit of water and let it sit overnight. The Nylon is used to cover the jar and keep dust out. It also has a more important use, but we'll get to that tomorrow.
Here is what it looks like when it starts. Not too exciting, but give it a day or so.