A lovely nature walk

I decided to go on an impromptu nature walk today with my family. I made a promise to myself that I would get out more often in nature.

My sister had been wanting to see me before she starts classes again so I thought this might be a good opportunity to invite her, her boyfriend, and my brother along.

The trees provided some nice shade from the heat of the sun on a 99 degree day.  We found a spot near the river that had a nice breeze. I harvested some mugwort flower heads to save seeds from near the river.
Funny enough my brother said the exact same thing that one of my best female friends did when I last took her on a wildcrafting adventure “Mugwort? That sounds like something out of Harry Potter” The comment always makes me giggle.

One of the wild plum trees were full of ripe fruits that I picked for freezing. I didn’t pick as many as I could have due to my chest freezer being out. I hope to remedy that in the near future.

I also passed a tree with a wasp nest that was the size of a large grapefruit.

On our walk I also gathered plantain seed heads. the flowered tops of the gumweed plant, and some ripe bittersweet nightshade berries (poisonous plant) for seed saving.

I love bittersweet nightshade. It is a beautiful, magickal plant. It sprang up in my last container garden randomly and I was sad to see it go. I am trying my hand at saving seeds from it much like I do my tomato plants. Nightshades are related to tomatoes. I could not find any other information on how to save seeds from them so I took that as being the most logical way to do it. I am always doing some kind of new plant experiment. This is just one on the long list.
**I do not recommend anyone try anything with any plant in the nightshade family, unless they know what they are doing, and wear gloves.

When I got home I decided to harvest some lambs quarters seed heads, some mint flower heads, and 5 strawberries. Four of the five strawberries ended up in the freezer for later smoothie making, the other ended up in my mouth *yum!* Nothing beats garden fresh fruits.

I have another nature adventure planned in the coming week from the sounds of it. This year I am taking note of what is in season each month so I can better prepare for the next year.
I have a good idea of what is in season, though knowing which locations are harvestable is another story. It can change year to year, or location to location depending on climate conditions, along with a long list of other variables I need to take note of.

Believe it or not I actually like this practice as well. It helps me better understand the plants. I can see what growing conditions they prefer if I ever plan to have them in my own garden. I notice new plants. I can see what the plants look at in various stages of growth, which helps for proper identification at any point of the growing stage.

I find so many new plants just by studying the ones I already know and what grows around them.

Now that everything is set out to dry, and the garden is watered, I think it is time for a cup of jasmine green tea and maybe a movie.

Tonic brewing

I was off work early today and decided to make good use of my time. I headed straight to the store to grab some missing ingredients for a tonic I wanted to make.

Being that I currently work at a call center, I thought this would be a splendid idea. Call centers tend to be petri dishes. One person gets sick, or is not self aware when they are sick, and the whole call floor can catch it. For those of you who are younger, it is much like High school in that manner.
Being that I get sick fairly easily, I thought this would help when I start to feel that “tickle” or even before.
I have heard some people in the area say that strep has started going around. I thought it might be a good idea to prep this tonic up now, since it takes a couple or more weeks to brew. Well that, and I just generally love making magickal elixirs.

My chopped fresh ingredients (ginger, onion, garlic, chives, jalapeno) minus the thyme and rosemary I added in.


I mixed the ingredients together in apple cider vinegar. I just used a gallon water jug as that is what I had laying around. Normally I would probably use a glass jar.
The mixture smells amazing. I will strain it after shaking it up every day for a few weeks, use the liquid as the tonic remedy, and then puree the rest for an awesome sandwich spread. The boys are actually excited about the last part.

The great thing about this tonic, is that the ingredients in it are anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, increases blood flow and circulation, helps fight off cough and sore throat, and is very warming. I may add honey to it later to help decrease the “sting” factor. Not to mention honey is a great natural antibiotic and a good source of natural energy when you aren’t feeling well.



Onto the garden!

It is hard to see at the moment, but you might be able to spot the corn that is popping up out of the ground.

I planted the carrots between the rows as marked below above the rows.
                      Corn  Carrots       Corn       Carrots  Corn



I picked up a bundle of chives that I figured I could add to my tonic. I chopped off all but about 4-6 inches near the base. I planted 7 chives in my garden near my tomatoes. I could have planted them right near the onions, but I did not want to get confused on which needed cutting, and which needed pulling later, so I left a gap.


My chives                                                                My onions

I also harvested those gold nugget tomatoes and saved the seeds from those. I basically washed the gardeners delight and put them out to dry, then put the gold nugget in the same container for processing.

My new chest freezer went out today, so I scrambled to get everything in the regular freezer as I could before it went bad. I am hoping it is something easily fixed, though I won’t know until I get someone to look at it.

I repotted my ginger plants into a bit bigger of a planter as well. I am not sure if they will ever end up outside. I sort of like them on my kitchen windowsill. At least until they get too big. Ginger is seriously easy to grow. At least in my experience.  I just leave whatever chunk of root I did not use from store bought ginger in the produce bag. Eventually it starts to grow a plant from the little nodes due to moisture in the bag. I just break it off a little below the node (About an inch or so below the growing node.) and then burry it 2/3 of the way in seed starting soil.
You aren’t really going to find ginger “seeds” in a nursery. That is about the only way you can grow them that I know of. At least in my area. Now I believe they can get up to like 5 feet tall, but I guess that also depends on when you harvest the root. Pretty much all roots are best harvested in Autumn, though I would have to double check that with Ginger as it is a tropical plant.
If they do end up outside, it will most likely be in a container garden as it will be easier to dig up the roots from there. I will also be bringing them inside for winter if I do that, as they cannot be outside if the temperatures drop below 50.

Carrots and squash in the garden

Today was a day of planting carnival carrots. For those of you who do not know what those are, aside from obviously being carrots; Carnival carrots are red, purple, orange, and white. Yes, not all carrots are orange.

I planted four rows total. Two rows between each row of my sweet corn that are growing. I planted them 4.5 in apart and 1 foot row spacing. I basically planted approx 80 carrots. Some spots got more than one seed, but I tried to keep it to one seed each hole. 
Normally people plant them 1-2in apart, a few seeds a hole, and then thin them to 1 plant per 4 in… I don’t like thinning. I think it is wasteful. I would rather risk not all the seeds germinating then throw out half my harvest basically.
I tried doing it once with beets. Every single seed germinated. I advise never over planting beets.

In other news. My tomatoes are bouncing back for the most part. I harvested two gardeners delights from my garden and soon will have saved seeds from them. Super tasty by the way as well as very easy to save seeds from.
I have a few more gold nugget tomatoes I need to pick from the vine soon. 


After this photo I added more soil to the tops of the onions as they were pushing out of the ground.


Don’t remember which this one is.                Gold nugget.

Speckled roma.                    Mint julep                           Green Zebra
The above are the close ups. Speckled roma is finally reddening up. There is only one of them on the plant. While the plants are looking better, I am not sure they will produce anything more than what is already ripening.


Above is my yellow squash plant. It is doing great. I am seeing squash forming on it.

Below is my zucchini plant which is also forming squash.


The ones in the containers are doing better than the ones in the ground due to pill bug, ant, box elder bug, and earwigs… We have a lot of these and I will be tackling them early next year.
I am still not sure if the ones in the ground will make it till harvest time, but we will see.

This was right before I trimmed off some of the dying leaves on these ones.

I also have some lambs quarters in the yard I had not gotten to picking and now have seed heads forming. I will try and save seeds from those as well.
Lambs quarters are a good wild edible.

I was in the garden for about an hour and a half or two hours just tilling, planting, watering. I very much enjoy my time spent in the garden.

My husband says for next year we will most likely end up renting a rototiller for the part of the yard that is overgrown with cheat grass right now. We have rocks in our soil, so it will help to break up the soil so we can rake them out.
I will probably pile the rocks up and use them in other garden projects.

I may have lost my container garden during the construction at the old place we were at, then also lost containers during the move, but my garden is well worth any small loss I have made from my previous one. My old garden was so destroyed nothing came back this year, so I am not sad over losing any plants. My new plants are keeping me quite happy.

Next year I will most likely be getting mostly heirloom seeds to replace the plants that will not return. Pretty much everything in my garden save for the grapes are not a returning crop type. I am ok with having some heirloom and some hybrid tomatoes, though I will be replanting the saved heirloom seeds I do get from the ones I have.
I would like to save seeds from my squash plants but they are not heirloom. I will replant an heirloom variety next year that I can save seeds from.
I have been hand pollinating the squash flowers using a q-tip in hopes of a fruitful harvest.

I have mostly herb seeds, carrot, broccoli, beet, and that is mostly it. I will need to set up a grow station with shelving and grow lights in addition to getting other seeds I need.

On the food preservation side of things I have pitted (using a chop stick. Don’t judge) about 1/3 of a gallon of cherries and have frozen them for later use. I could make pie, cobbler, smoothies, and a million other things with the cherries later.

I am slowly adding bits of frozen fruits and veggies to the freezer here and there. It will certainly make cooking meals that much easier later.

I am focusing on freezing things for now until I get my canning set up complete next year.

Closer to the end of the month I will be direct sowing some beets in the garden. I will have at least a little harvest this year with the start of my garden.

Currants and tomatoes

Today I got 10 cabinets clear glazed. I still have 11 to antique and clear glaze. Still, it is much needed progress. Once those go into the kitchen I can work on the others.

After working on cabinets I decided to pick some of the ripe black and red currants hanging over into my yard. The bush borders three lawns, yet I am sure I am the only one who bothers to pick them.
A lot of people who have currants either do not know they are edible, or if they do, do not bother to pick them as it is time consuming. I however do not mind it at all.

There are some plums on one of the trees in the yard I am hoping will sweeten up soon. The cherries were sadly too high up to pick, however I was still able to get some cherry picking in this year up at my friends parents house.
I also got some orange currants, service berries, sage, yarrow, fresh farm eggs.

So now I have Orange, black, and red currants in the freezer. Small amounts of each but with each harvest I gain more bags. I have a decent amount of service berries. I also have a good sized strawberry box full of cherries. I may pit and freeze some of those as well to use in a pie later. I would can them if there were more than a couple small cans worth.

My garden got a good watering and I got two gardeners delight tomatoes off the vine. I am saving the seeds from them, but ate the rest. They were quite tasty. The plants still look not the best, but the fruits are very good. I got a few gold nugget tomatoes as well soon. Others are soon to ripen as well.
I will save seeds from heirloom varieties and grow them next year. Hopefully by then I will have the bug situation under control.

I know it is the bugs because my zucchini and yellow squash, which are in large containers, are doing great. The three squash I put in the ground are not doing as well.

I am however happy to report the corn is coming up through the ground. Not all have sprouted up yet, but a good 1/3 has so far. I am seeing signs of more to follow soon.

I plan to start lettuce and possibly broccoli inside soon, as well as direct sow carrots and beets in the near future.
The carrots and broccoli will probably end up near the corn, though broccoli will not be next to the carrots directly due to their shallow, easily damaged roots.
I am still deciding on the lettuce placement. The beets will most likely end up near the tomatoes and onions for partial shade.
The last place I was in the beets did a lot better in partial shade than they did in full sun.

I still hope to get out and do more foraging this year. It may not be as often as I would like to get out (Foraging or nature hiking) but it will still be something.

I also hope to get to work on my garden planner/art journal soon. Having information on the computer is nice, though I love books, and feel having it hand written  is much better. I have been given a lovely calligraphy pen that is perfect for this as well.

Two quick chicken freezer meals

It’s not much, but I packed up a few meals today. I got a $7 bag of chicken drumsticks and thighs (Attached to each other) and some marinades.

Figured it would be a good idea to knock out a couple portions quickly since part of the bag will be used tonight.
There are 3 of us living here, and 10 pieces total, so two bags I put 4 in, and one I put 2 in.
One with four pieces in it will be cooked tonight and has teriyaki marinade. The two piece also has the same marinade but will be put in the freezer. The other four piece has sweet baby rays BBQ sauce in it.

When you break down the cost of the meal. Chicken $7 for 10 pieces, marinade $3 each approx…
For the chicken alone it is about $5 per meal not including the side.
For tonight we will have rice (I would do fresh steamed veggies but I am out currently) The rice is about $2 for the microwave pouches. So that is $7 for tonight's meal. Not too bad really and certainly less than eating out.
Just given past meal estimations it is pretty common for my meals to cost around $7 to make when all is said and done. Now if I had just bought enough to make one meal, that price might have gone up.

If I had done anything different it would be to add pineapple to the teriyaki chicken, but I forgot to grab that at the store. I kinda planned this one on the go.

Took me all of 15 minutes to divide raw chicken and pour sauce into the bags.

I bought the stuff to make the cabbage rolls, but that will come at a later date.

Day 15 of renovation

You really realize just how many pieces there are to a kitchen when you have to take it apart and paint each side. I painted 21 pieces today. (shelving, drawers, doors) that had not quite been finished. That is not counting all the pieces that have been reassembled. It is a lot of pieces to say the least.

I was listening to some of the blogtalk radio podcasts I follow while working today. I was listening to Magickal Harvest, though I won’t lie, I could barely hear it over the spray gun. I will have to search up an interesting one for urban homesteading at some point I am sure.

I think when we go to finish the shop we might get some of the cabinets, fixtures, lighting, etc from the Habitat for Humanity store I recently found. They take all the stuff from old jobs, bits from here and there, and sell it in the store. Such a great idea really.

I have no idea when exactly we will be finishing the shop. It just kind of depends on a lot of things and might be a few years unless things fall into place sooner.

Right now we are just focusing on finishing as much of the renovations as we can before we move in and getting packing finished. We are mostly packed up. We just have to pack up the kitchen and the rest of the craft room basically.

Doing lots of laundry now because we will not have a washer and dryer put in immediately, though it will be soon.

Today is just one of those days where everything is seeming a bit like a blur. I will finish up as much packing with my brother and husband today as possible, finish and pack up laundry, and see how many of the cabinets I need to spray the other side of or use the antiquing glaze on.

The idea is to get at least the base finished on all of them so I do not need two rooms to lay them out in. I can do the rest of the antiquing in the craft room if needed. We are moving in almost no time at all and the cabinets will most likely not be finished till much after that.

I keep joking that by the end of this I am going to be hulked out, but really I think it is more a contest of how many bruises will my legs end up with before I become a blueberry lol. I feel as if I am a kid again. So many bruises I don’t know where all but the major ones came from. Thankfully the one from the ladder crashing on me, and the cabinet corner biting my toe are quickly healing.
Sunburn is also now turned into a tan. I have been sure to use sunscreen when possible.

Well my break from work is over. Back to the grindstone with me.

Birthday Adventures

Today has been awesome. I did not have any special plans for today really. With all that has been going on, I did not want to make plans then have to break them if something went wrong at the house.

Woke up to tickets to How to Train Your Dragon 2, a pearl bracelet, and a pretty glass hummingbird feeder. My hubby knows I get upset I kept missing out on seeing the hummingbirds, so he decided this might be perfect to help with that.

We went out to eat with friends and family at Steve’s Café. Great food and awesome company. Many wonderful conversations to be had. Not to mention very thoughtful gifts that I adore.

After breakfast we drove around a bit. Went to an antique store and a garden nursery. At the nursery he bought me 5 squash plants, some onion bulbs, and a packet of sweet corn seeds.  We got a good deal on the squash/pumpkin plants. They were .99 and buy 3 get one free.. so we got the plants for $4 total, then about .50 for the onions, and a 2.50 for the corn. Not bad really when I was seeing the same squash plants at the big box nursery's for like $15 a pot.. We went to the Fivemile Farms Nursery in Meridian Idaho.
Being that it is late in the season they are getting rid of the last of their plants, so that means good deals on plant starts.

I know it is hard work, but I actually enjoy working in my garden, so we got some Hawaiian BBQ, stopped at Vapoligy, and headed to the new house to get to digging. The condition was that I leave the work inside the house alone for my birthday he said.

He worked on some electrical sockets in the house while I tilled up some spots in the yard.

I plants 15 yellow onions and 7 white onions in between my wilting tomato plants. I am not sure if the tomatoes will make it but at least now I have a good spot for them. I planted the onions up to the sticks I put in the middle of the tomatoes.
 

You can see how my tomatoes are doing in this photo

Here is where I planted my squash plants. The space was already mostly cleared out.
The one in the back right of the photo is small sugar pumpkin, then to the left is acorn squash, and the right is butternut squash.

I also got zucchini and crookneck yellow squash that I put in large pots.

The area that previously had tomatoes in it before moving them is where I planted three rows of sweet (gold and yellow mix) corn. I got about 45 kernels planted in the three rows. They needed full sun and I thought they might do better in that site than the tomatoes did given that they are usually a bit more hardy.

Once shoots start popping up I will probably dig little trenches on either sides of the rows for watering. Where the big-ish rocks are is where the row starts. Thankfully I should have them started in time to get a good harvest. Any later and it would have been too late to start them. Since my garden is small this year, I could pretty much put them wherever I wanted to.

I can’t wait to start getting a harvest and get into canning. I will probably have more than enough corn to freeze if not can some. This kind of corn is the only corn I like so much I will eat it raw even.

Corn, squash/pumpkin, and tomato/onion. Slowly cultivating the land. Eventually I will get to the grass, which will be much harder to tear out I am sure :/

The hilariousness of the adventure was not having planned to garden today. This meant I was in wedges while tilling and digging in the garden. I need some proper gardening shoes soon haha. Though being that I am someones hobbit friend, one might say I don’t need shoes to garden lol. Though really I do… Especially with ants, box elder bugs, and earwigs I really need to get under control. Thinking of trying out this all natural bug spray my friend makes soon. Maybe that will do the trick.

It is only the end of Spring and I am already excited for seed starting come this Winter. I plan to actually write out my plan for each plant needed, measure out each section, so I know exactly how much I will need to start. I will then probably start a bit over that depending on the plants. That way if some die, I have backups, and also possibly extras for whatever.
This means I will actually need to set up a grow kit of sorts. I will need the lighting, shelving, etc, for optimal seed starting conditions. I thankfully have space for it now too.

I am overwhelmed with the joy of not only having some really amazing friends to share my dreams with, but actually being able to act on one of the bigger dreams I have. Seeing a dream become a reality takes a while for it to set it. It is very surreal. While I am sure there will be some trial and error in learning the land (i.e tomatoes) I am sure it will be a wonderful journey.

Part of the journey is coming up with a name for my homestead. I have yet to name it and as of late I feel as if the name is on the tip of my tongue, but not quite there yet. I am excited for when that name finally comes to me in a big realization. The name is a big deal to me so I can be patient until the right one comes to me.

The only thing I need to get a jump on as soon as we are moved and unpacked is my garden journal. I sadly packed that, so I am just kind of keeping notes on my garden plants in my tablet, and on my computer for now. My garden journal is going to be filled with garden art. Sort of a garden planner, calendar, and art journal all in one.

Yes I have a lot of plans. Yes I will be making them all happen in due time. I will reach for the stars in my steampunk flying airship, and my journey will be never ending. I encourage everyone to reach farther than they think possible, and see the amazing things you can accomplish if you only try, and not give up.

Now I think it is time for some coffee, good conversation, and possibly some blogtalk radio time.