Freedom Gardener of the Month

Well, to my regular readers, this was the "big news" I alluded to a week or so ago and may I take this opportunity to say "WOW, I am honored!". And to anyone dropping in from the Freedom Gardeners website let me also take a minute to welcome you to my "other" home. I thought I'd take a minute to introduce myself and show you around the ole blog.

You may be wondering what's going on with that crazy title? "A Posse Ad Esse", what's up with that? Well, to me it signifies a sea change in the way I had decided to look at the world and it has changed my life in many ways. It's Latin for "From possibility to reality" and no, I don't regularly speak Latin here (or elsewhere for that matter so don't feel like you have to run out and grab your handy Latin-English dictionary) but I loved what it meant; to make the conscious decision to focus not on what you do not have and grapple with the inevitable frustration that comes with it, but instead to focus on what is "possible" and strive to make it "reality". Since adopting that mindset I have found much greater peace with myself and consequently have been able to realize many of the things I thought were otherwise unattainable.
So, what do I blog about? Well pretty much whatever crazy idea I'm up to at the time. Maybe it's sharing my progress toward having a completely organic garden, or updates on what I like to call the Big Weigh-In where I've been keeping count of everything that I bring in from the garden; you can see updates for that over there in the right column under the picture of the scale; 125 lbs so far! I'm also a huge advocate of Composting, although this years not been as good as I had hoped.
I also write a lot about Repurposeing on the blog. It's a great way to stretch a dollar, keeps things out of the landfill and keeps the old noggin sharp trying to figure out how to make things do. Of course you can also expect to see an occasional update to my Freedom Gardeners Challenges like the 100 ft Diet, Harvest Keepers, and Liberate Your Lawn.

Well, there you go, a pretty good intro to what I'm all about. Of course I'd be remiss if I didn't give credit to the Dervaes family From Path to freedom. I found their blog early last year and it opened my eyes to what was "Possible". I'm glad to be able to call myself a Freedom Gardener and to be associated with the caliber of gardeners that are there.

Namaste

P~

This lawn is your lawn...

This is a great video I borrowed from a site that I check into from time to time, KitchenGardeners.org



I love the idea of trying to get the next president to grow food on the white house lawn. Don't you?

2008 Garden update - Aug 4th

The update for today is...drum roll please... onions.
This was the first year I have ever planted onions and overall I am happy with the results and will definitely grow them again. I learned a few things along the way too. For instance, onions like to have very soft soil. I grew two different varieties a red and a yellow (sorry I can't remember the exact varieties.) and spread them out throughout different parts of the garden as a natural deterrent to some pest insects. This allowed me to see how they performed in different areas and I can say for sure that the onions in my raised beds overall performed much better.
I also think that the raised beds, because they are a higher quality soil, hold more water and release it more consistently allowing the onions to grow better.
The other thing that I learned is that you need to be patient when the onions start to look like they are done. I ruined about 6 or so of them by pulling them too early. Since I haven't ever grown them, I didn't know exactly what to look for as a sign of being mature so of course like everything else I experimented. Again, be patient. When the majority of the tops have fallen over, looking like some animal crept through your prized onion bed and knocked them all over, then wait a couple more days just to be sure. Then, what I did, was to gently pull the onion loose from the ground, but not all the way out. I left them to sit on the soil in the same way that I see the onions at the local farms sit. I left them to lay there during what were 95-103 deg days for about a week. After that I pulled them and laid them in my over size (3' x 2') garden sieve.
And here we were today after another few days. The onions had dried well and the papers on the outside were crackly and dry but the stalks were still semi pliable. I figured this to be the best time for me to try my hand at an onion braid. It's not as easy as you'd think it is.
So, whatya think? Not too bad for a first timer huh? There's actually two braids of the red onion but the second one was too short to put a good loop on the end so I laid in it front with the extras that I couldn't braid. So I bet your thinking how much? What's the poundage man...don't leave us hanging!! I'm proud to say we hit exactly 25 pounds between the two varieties. Oh yeah, and guess what that means? We're over 100 lbs for this year!!! Better yet, with the other things that we've taken in the last few days we're now over 125 lbs. This weekend should knock me up a few more pounds too with harvesting...oops, look at the time, my it's getting late, I'll have to get back with you on that one *grin*.
Hope all your gardens are growing well.
Grow on!!
P~

Too good not to post

I just had to post a link to this article about a local resident a town over that created what he’s dubbed his “Redneck Stonehenge” to remind some of his new neighbors that while he understands that they paid a lot of money for their new homes in “the country”. He’s been there since he was seven and farming is just part of his way of life.

I can totally see this happening here. Too bad.  I may just have to look this guy up so I can shake his hand!

P~

 

P.S. make sure you enlarge the picture on the right. Too classic. You go Rhett!

http://www.standard.net/live/news/139701/#

Liberate Your Lawn - Preparation & Planning

Being inspired again by the good folks at Freedom Gardens (PTF) We've been planning to tear out, or "Liberate" some more of our lawn. This is something that we came up with earlier in the year, not long after we put in the fence, and was actually A~'s idea for the most part.

It's something that I can totally get behind, and would no doubt have suggested, but I sometimes feel like "my garden" is slowly taking over the whole back yard, (I know, that's a bad thing because?) and I didn't want to make a play for any more space just yet. But hey, she wants more space for planting a traditional potato bed and other storage veggies and who am I to argue.

Below is one picture of what I'm talking about. This is the side yard of our house on the south side. It's in a place that gets pretty much full sun all day long, is out of the way for the most part and has access to both timed irrigation as well as a hose bib to keep things growing. You can also see that it is sloped. Not a problem. A challenge, but not a problem. Hey, this blog is about going from possibility to reality right? You can see that the lawn has been dying off in this area already. This is because when we installed the fence posts, we broke one of the sprinkler lines in a couple of places. Of course it's not a problem at this point because we WANT the grass to die. You'll also notice all the urbanite in the background if you're paying attention. This is the same stuff that we used to landscape around our house and have really grown fond of.

Below is another area that we have that runs along our fence on the south side of the yard. This will also be liberated during the process. We'll be lining the edge of the fence with another 3 foot wide bed, but unfortunately will have to remove the fruit trees that we have there. I know, please don't heckle me for that. I don't necessarily want to pull the trees, but they are full dwarf varieties and give so little fruit every year, that they're not really worth the effort. This year, I think between the two cherry trees we netted about 12 cherries. And that was up from last year! We just think that the space will be better served as an extension to our garden beds.
Take a look at that shadow along the edge of the fence line. It's there all summer. Hmm, could be a good micro-climate for head lettuce through the summer huh?

It'll be great to have this extra bedding area for next year. I haven't measured it out yet, but it should nearly double our current garden size, maybe closer to another 3/4, I'll get back to you on that one later.

I'll make sure to post again later this week with an update to the work that we're doing and also with the plans as they develop. Anyone else Liberating they're yards? Any suggestions to more easily remove the sod?

Hope you all had a great weekend!

P~

Local Salt??

Yes...LOCAL SALT!!
One of the truly great benefits of being in a place famous for it's Salt Lake is that there is easy access to an abundance of salt! A little over a week ago, A~ and I took our bi-annual trip out to Wendover NV. It's relatively close, and it gives us a chance to just be together and be grown ups. We weren't sure if we would be able to make it this year due to expenses, but since the hotel sent us a coupon for a comped room we figured it was a sign.

On our way home we decided to stop and gather ammunition for a little experiment, naturally evaporated "Salt Lake" salt. Here's what I had to work with. It's beautiful in its way isn't it? Just to be clear... that's not white sand on that shoreline, and it sure the heck isn't snow. That's all salt! Take a look below at the slabs that were forming and jutting up into the air right there on the shore.
Oh yeah, and by the way, any Salt Lake readers that get inspired to go out and collect themselves some salt slabs bring some mud boots. That salt ain't solid. You may be able to tell below that I am above ankle deep in the salt. What it does is to form a heavy salt crust that is darn near impermeable, unless your a crazy road traveler that like to try to make their own stuff. I saw those heavy slabs though and of course I had to get a couple of pieces of it. (didn't want to let you down after all.)
And there I am...digging away for a little saline goodness. Funny thing was that it was near to or maybe even over 100 deg. this day and yet the white salt was fairly cool to walk on. The pavement leading up to it was another story!
After grabbing a couple of the slabs of salt from right near the shore, I decided to scoop up some of the Fleur de Sel, (Flower of salt) At least that's what I believe it is called in this form. It was in the coolest flaky form. Almost like snowflakes but hard and crystalline. I scooped up a couple of cups worth.
Another picture of the flaky salt that was nearer to the road and was dryer than the other salt which was still slightly damp on the underside.

Finally, this is a good closeup of the salt that was carved off of one of the larger chunks that I grabbed. I crushed it up by hand into a pile of broken salt chunks. These I weighed and then processed into finished table salt. But that is a post on it's own. Soon to come, so stay tuned.

P~

Harvest Savers - Apricots

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned getting 9 lbs of apricots from a "good neighbors" yard that I had met just before she moved. Last weekend past we put up most of those for use later on through the year and processed some for our use now. It's something that we're trying to do more of, canning and preserving that is. Last year we did can some pickles and a little of this and that but this year we are making a concerted effort to do all that we can to eat what we can and can what we can't. This applies not only to food that we grow on our own, but as well to foods that we get at good prices from local farmers and you-pick-it farms and even to foods that are basically foraged such as the apricots we had this weekend. Foraging is not something that I'm too proud to do. In years past it was often looked at disdainfully to waste food. That includes food that grew wild, or was left unattended. I see it as a waste of Gods bounty and when I am able to take advantage of it (within the law and the bounds of good ethics of course) I will.

The apricots that we were able to get were very near there peak of ripeness and only a few of them were of sufficient firmness to be able to handle traditional canning without turning to mush. Because of this A~ decided to process nearly half of them into Apricot syrup to enjoy with our Saturday sourdough-pancake feasts. It came out incredible!

That's them in front, we got two pints and one half pint. In back you can see the three quarts and one pint of canned apricots. Of course we ate quite a few of them fresh as well. When we were processing for the canned apricots, we ended up with a few pieces of softer sections that wouldn't have canned well, but the rest of the fruit was firm. We cut those pieces off and A~ found a recipe for an apricot basil dressing that sounded tasty so we made up a big batch.

We've used it so far as a marinade for some chicken and it gave it a great flavor (although in the future we would salt the chicken before grilling it.) Have some extra apricots or find a great deal on some at the farmers market? Here's the recipe.

Apricot Basil Dressing
2 apricots
2 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
1 Tbsp. sugar
1tbsp fresh basil (or 1 tsp. dry basil)
1 /4 cup vegetable oil

Combine 2 fresh ripe apricots (pitted), 2 Tbsp. white wine vinegar and 1 Tbsp. sugar in blender, whirl until blended. With blender running, slowly add 1/4 cup vegetable oil until thick and smooth. Stir in 1 Tbsp. chopped fresh basil or 1 tsp dried basil. Makes 1 cup.

More canned stuff to come later. How're things canning up around your 'stead? Any great success? Failures? (They happen to us all... we lost a couple of cans of carrots earlier in the season, but I'll cover those to come.)

Have a great weekend all.

P~

The logo used at the top of this post is for the Harvest Keepers challenge sponsored by Path to Freedom.