Scenes From the Weekend

Sorry for the horrible iPhone picture. I was excited!

We had a CRAZY busy weekend. It all started on Friday with a trip to Lowe's to pick up trellis, yard tools, and bags and bags of manure and mulch. We've tried the green-waste facility's compost and it was "eh", so we decided this year we'll try bagged.

Ben got all of the beds tilled and turned with manure and the compost we had left from last year.  Doesn't it look pretty? We found a TON of worms! Every shovelful had at least 3. That made me so happy! Our dirt is finally starting to have life!

I marked out my beds with an extremely high tech method of using a yardstick to scribe 12" squares. We're all about the crazy technology here...

Another high-tech tool was used for making holes... A wooden screwdriver from a long gone play set. It works fantastically well! I think I'll keep it around. 

All in all I planted onions, shallots, cilantro, beets, chard, spinach, lettuce, and cosmos. This week I will plant radish, green beans, probably more chard and lettuce, and whatever else I can think of that doesn't need the hotter temps of summer.

We are *supposed* to get lots of rain this weekend. Please please pray that it happens. We desperately need it!

About two weeks ago I started seedlings for tomatoes and peppers. My seeds are really old - the youngest being ones I ordered last year, most are three years or more. But I had good germination success on everything but the hot peppers. So I'll buy new seed and restart those. Come to find out I'm crazy late with the seed starting (I'm still trying to get this whole timing thing down). But I figure since we have such a long growing season, it's all good. I know I promised you a post on how I start seeds. It's coming, but since this is the Year of Not Stressing Out, it will come when I'm able to get it done.

I just love the first little peek of a new seedling. It's like welcoming a precious new baby. So tiny and fragile, but full of so much life and possibility. 

And now the seedlings will have a new home! Ben slapped together a PVC greenhouse this afternoon and it's awesome! I found the idea on Pinterest, and he ran with it (he's good like that). 

 We picked up the pipe and fittings on our Lowe's trip, and he cut everything and fit it together (no glue) so that it folds up and down, sort of like a baby stroller hood. For anyone who wants to build something of the same design, hopefully  you can see from the picture how he put it together. He attached the widest frame to the wall with conduit straps, and the rest hangs free to move up and down as needed.

My sexy man. He'll probably kill me if he finds out I put him on the blog. Sorry babe! You're too hot to crop out. (Plus the floating hand would be awkward.)

I put my tomato seedlings under it this afternoon. Not sure if that was a good idea, or a bad one. But the only way to find out if something works is to use it! Plus if they die then that's just an excuse to go to my favorite nursery.

Happy Monday,
Meg

Just Random

Happy almost Valentine's day! My mom-in-love brought me these cheerful beauties the other day after I told her I was desperate for color. They brighten up my kitchen and I love them so much.

Despite my attempts to keep them from blooming and to stay focused on growing their foliage, our silly little strawberries are at it again. I picked all of their little flowers on Sunday, but today I saw at least a dozen little blooms. Ok, I give up. It is warm enough now, I will just let them do what they want. It is nice to have tiny little white flowers.

This is probably going to sound silly to those who don't garden/homestead, but I've achieved a successful compost pile! Isn't it beautiful? I'm so excited!! To be honest, I started out trying to mix equal parts "brown" and "green" at the beginning of last spring, but it really just turned  into me throwing in whatever I had, then I gave up somewhere around September. And I wasn't great about covering it, but I did bury it half way through. I didn't think it would actually become compost.

But, even though I didn't follow the technical directions, I still wound up with beautiful black compost! It's my first successful try! My grandmother just buries her kitchen scraps straight in her garden, has been my entire life, and I think I will follow more in that direction. It's just easier for me, since I don't have a large space for a big compost pile. And since that's pretty much what I did here, I might as well go along with something that worked!

Yesterday was such a beautiful, warm day and I have been feeling the need for something quiet and peaceful I decided it was time to bring out my spinning wheel and sit awhile. The poor thing had been stashed in the corner of our room for so long, but after a good dusting and oiling I was able to spin about 3/4 of a bobbin while the kids were down for a nap. I sat and listened to the doves coo to each other, and at one point there was a line of 5 or 6 finches sitting on the fence just watching me. It was wonderful.

I started some tomato and pepper seeds the other night. I'll have a post on how I start seeds soon. Are you starting seeds yet?

Happy Thursday!
Meg

Garden 2014 - Ideas

** The domain name I had (www.bitoflife.com) is expiring/expired and I don't see the point in renewing it, so you'll be able to find us at our normal blogspot address: our-littlehomestead.blogspot.com. If you need to update your readers to reflect that, please make sure you do! ** 

If you're from around here, or follow California news at all, you'll know our part of the nation is having an extreme drought. Really extreme. And unfortunately, that means that the price of food will be going up soon to account for it. So in an effort to keep that part of our budget in check, and to be more prepared for things in general, I'm trying to plan our garden again.

I would like to try providing a lot of our food from our garden this year. (Ok, I say this every year and it never works, but good intentions...). I'm going to write it all down here so you all can hold me accountable. If you run into me on the street, ask me something like "Have you been weeding and keeping your garden alive?" That way I can be guilted into keeping it going and maybe that will work.

We already have:
a cherry tree
an apple tree
4 blueberry bushes (although I think only two are still alive)
a lime tree that has yet to produce anything
7 Boysenberry bushes that produce more than we ever wanted, and make for crazy good jam
and strawberry plants I planted last year that have continually bloomed all winter despite my trying to dead head them.

So that's what we're starting with. I'm hoping we'll get at least something from any of those this year.

The first attempt at green bean trellis

What I'd like to plant for the year:
Tomatoes
Squash
Beets
Broccoli
Cabbage
Carrots
Tomatillos
Green Beans
Butter Beans
Peas
Melons
Chard
Various herbs including basil, cilantro, chives, rosemary, and anything else I can squeeze in. And good insect attracting flowers.
And probably some other things that I'm forgetting.

What I learned from last year:
 - Due to our rear neighbor's trees getting larger and creating shade and the height of the fence, the two very back beds of the official garden don't grow much at all.  I will have to stick to the very front of the beds, or maybe not at all. The back flower bed won't grow much either, but I might be able to trick some shade tolerant plants into growing back there.

- Tying the middle trunk of tomatoes to a stake as they grow and  cutting out the little "crotch" shoots will really give a large tomato crop. This practice made my tomatoes the best producing crop out of the whole garden. More on this little trick in a later post.

- Cattle/hog panel zip tied to posts driven into the ground works great as a bean trellis. I'll be doing that again for beans and peas this year.

- I need to get on a feeding schedule. Because our dirt quality is so poor, and we've only been doing this for a few years, I really need to work on fertilizing our plants during the season. We've budgeted for manure/compost and will be doing that in the next few weeks. You know, after we get all the weeds out...

- We definitely need a weed barrier of some sort, because I get very discouraged and give up when the weeds take over. And the heat we get during the summer makes the weeds grow very quickly.

- Double digging the beds last year made a big difference in not only quality (because I dug in compost) but made planting and pulling plants so much easier because the soil was much looser. 

- I think getting some shade cloth will come in handy in keeping our poor plants going when the heat rises during the summer.

I am going to try my best to keep it going and have something to show for it this year. And I want to share how we're doing it to help anyone else that might be on a small parcel (or just wants to garden small). I'll be sharing in the future our official layout for the year, what I'm doing with certain plants, things I'm learning and anything else I can think of.

One thing I am really enjoying already is a little app I purchased for my iPhone. It is called "WhenToPlant", it was $2.00 and it is put out by Mother Earth News. I have tried many times in the past to find information about when to plant in our specific area. And while I've found things that go off our USDA zoning, it never seemed quiet right. It's always warmer here and I think we can plant earlier than the little guides say I can. This particular app goes off of the averages from your nearest weather station, and it seems to be a much closer planting guide. So I am excited to try it out and I'll let you know how it goes.

Are you planting anything this year? I'm curious to know what your plans are and any tips and tricks you might have.

Happy Wednesday,
Meg

A List

I am crazy busy. And my brain doesn't work enough these days to form coherent paragraphs, but I wanted to check in. So here's a list of what's going on around here:

1. We are (sort of) getting the garden ready for the year. We have been talking, and making plans. We finally got around to tearing out/down all of last year's garden... Now we just need to add manure and compost and such and plant when it's time. I should be starting seeds, I just haven't gotten that far yet.

2. Bumblewood has moved from Etsy to it's own online shop! You can find it at www.bumblewoodhandmade.com. I'm very, very excited about this little step for the business. There are a lot of new features that I am loving - like all of our products being listed even when out of stock, a "notify me" option for things you want to know about coming back in stock, and the chance to leave reviews on individual products. You can still find a selection of our products on Etsy if you prefer to shop there, but I'm now offering a greater selection (like our new body butters!) on the main shop.

3. I am trying to redo my Household Planner. I want to get all of my important information, blank menu calenders and grocery lists, garden planners, etc. all into one place. I also want to write up a list of chores that need to be done at certain times of year, or reminders to purchase things for the house (like refrigerator filters). Anything to make life smoother and easier and get back in control.

4. Some of you who have been following along for awhile might remember that a few years ago we worked really hard to become debt free. We got rid of all of our commercial debt (cars, credit cards, etc) within 2 years, and since then have been working on paying down our mortgage. Eventually we'd like to buy a piece of land for larger gardens, animals, and for the kids to have lots of running around space. We bought our house in 2009 and as of this month we now owe under 50k. I can't tell you how excited this makes me feel. I dream of space and quiet and feeding ourselves from our property (and chickens. I will get my freaking chickens some day!) and this is just one step closer to that.

5. I told you back in December that my sister is having twin baby girls. There will be knitting. Stay tuned. ;)

6. Ok maybe I can make full paragraphs.

Happy Tuesday,
Meg

Today is Friday - And I'm Talking About Food!

And aren't you excited?!

I am swimming in produce!

Yesterday my grandmother texted me (my over 70 year old grandmother texts. It makes me giggle) and said they were picking the cherries and did I want some?

Umm, YES! I love cherries. They are my absolute favorite fruit. Even more than strawberries. So I was very excited when she asked, and I we rushed right over.

When I got there her and Poppi had gotten the tree about halfway picked, leaving the stuff that couldn't really be reached from the ladder. With a little thinking we were able to bend the limbs over and Poppi held them down standing on one ladder while I climbed a ladder a few feet away and picked the branches clean. It worked great! And the only one we couldn't get was the limb in the middle.

They also have an apricot tree that is so full of fruit it's ridiculous. So many apricots!

So I brought home 14 pounds of apricots and about 8 pounds of cherries. I have two trays of apricot puree drying in the oven to make fruit leather.

I just stuffed my food processor of pitted apricots, added a little lemon juice to keep the color, and pureed. Then I added honey until it tasted right then poured it into a baking sheet that I lined with plastic. The oven is supposed to be at 140* for drying, but mine only goes to 170* so I crack the door to let out the extra heat and any steam that might come off the fruit.

I also made 5 half pints of apricot jam this morning after breakfast. I've had one single pouch of liquid pectin and I have been saving it for something that really needed it. This was the thing! Now I just need to get more pectin for the berries, heh.

I was naughty though, and only used half the sugar. I don't like my jams overly sweet, and wanted to be able to taste the fruit. I figure if it doesn't set all the way, oh well I'll just have apricot syrup. 

Last night I made some stewed cherries to serve over ice cream. I just pitted them, put them in a saucepan with a little bit of water and a sprinkle of brown sugar. Covered them until they came to a boil, then took the lid off and let them simmer until they became soft and saucy. Oh my goodness. They were so good. I love warm fruit over vanilla ice cream, and these were especially good.

The rest of the cherries and apricots will probably be halved and dried to snack on.

Mimi also gave me a few very large zucchinis, so I guess I will be making zucchini bread today!

Last night I picked our first cabbage! They've taken insanely long to grow, but it was finally big enough last night to pick. It wasn't huge - maybe 2 pounds at the most - but it was delicious!

I also picked my first two garlic scapes. I've heard of how good they are, but I have never had them. I sauteed them in a little butter and we just ate them like that. They are really good! They tasted like roasted garlic - that soft, sweet, lightly garlic taste.

I also got my first three tiny cherry tomatoes last weekend and I made them into a delicious bruschetta on toasted french bread. Now I am waiting for my other tomatoes to ripen so that I can have more.

I'm so excited that summer - and all of it's bountiful goodness - is finally here!


~Meg

Garden & Wedding

My sister (in-law, but just as close as my blood sister) is getting married this Saturday.

That's three days.

I'm in the wedding.

I've also been dubbed the official coordinator.

My kitchen table has been covered with my computer, clip board, and lists upon lists for the past week. We have a very busy three days ahead of us, starting with making centerpieces and flower arrangements tonight. That is why you get nothing buy glaring, unedited pictures of my garden.

On top of all that summer is creeping upon us and the gardens are producing and I have so much to do here at home. And not enough time. All of my delicate greens are starting to bolt, and I will have to just sadly let them go as I don't have time to mess with them. The cilantro I will just say was intentional, with the idea that I will get coriander. ;)

I spent two hours on Tuesday picking berries. 10.5 pounds of berries for that day alone. There are more ready today.

Here is my berry trellis. I wanted you to understand the full, behemoth madness that we planted. This trellis is eight feet long and over 6 feet tall. This year after the harvest it is getting hacked back to just a few canes.

Oy.

I need to make jam. I am just putting the berries in the freezer until next week when I can get to them.

I just finished cooking beet greens that were on their way out.

My grandmother gave me a gigantic bag of basil last night, so I need to make pesto today.

I can feel the panic of too many things and not enough time creeping in, but I am working hard to keep it at bay.

 My hair is up.

My apron is on.

Let's go!

~Meg 

The Picking and Eating of Berries

The boysenberries are upon us! This morning I picked two and a half pounds, and that is just the first harvest of the season. There are SO MANY more to come, all in various stages of ripeness. This is when I start picking berries every two to three days. I think they are better this year than they were last year. They are so sweet and tart, I think I ate a half pound just while picking.

I have many plans for berries this year! I will be making jam, both with and without seeds, and I would like to make some syrup as well. I'll be freezing some for cobblers later, and I think I might make a tart or galette for dessert tonight.

The berry plants we have are Thornless Boysenberries. This is what Wikipedia has to say about their origin:

In the late 1920s, George M. Darrow of the USDA began tracking down reports of a large, reddish-purple berry that had been grown on the northern California farm of a man named Rudolph Boysen.^[4] Darrow enlisted the help of Walter Knott, a Southern California farmer who was known as a berry expert. Knott had never heard of the new berry, but he agreed to help Darrow in his search.
Darrow and Knott learned that Boysen had abandoned his growing experiments several years earlier and sold his farm. Undaunted by this news, Darrow and Knott headed out to Boysen's old farm, on which they found several frail vines surviving in a field choked with weeds. They transplanted the vines to Knott's farm in Buena Park, California, where he nurtured them back to fruit-bearing health. Walter Knott was the first to commercially cultivate the berry in southern California.^[4] He began selling the berries at his farm stand in 1932 and soon noticed that people kept returning to buy the large, tasty berries. When asked what they were called, Knott said, "Boysenberries," after their originator.^[5] His family's small restaurant and pie business eventually grew into Knott's Berry Farm. As the berry's popularity grew, Mrs. Knott began making preserves, which ultimately made Knott's Berry Farm famous.

Fun Fact: My dad used to work at Knott's Berry Farm when he was younger! I have still yet to visit that theme park.

Finding the perfect time to pick a berry is hard. I've found that they are perfectly ready when they give a bit of resistance, but still come off easily. If you are smashing the little cells when you pull, they aren't ready yet. Give them another day or two. If they cover your fingers in juice when you barely touch them, they are past their prime.

When you bring them inside fill your sink or a bowl with water and a splash of white or cider vinegar. Let them soak for a bit, swishing them gently as you put them in the water. The vinegar will kill a lot of the little bacteria that accelerate spoilage, making them last a bit longer in your fridge. When you do store them, place them in a shallow dish so that you have only two to three layers of berries. Any more and the ones on the bottom will crush. They should last a few days that way, maybe a week if you are lucky.

One of my favorite ways to eat berries is fresh, and maybe with a bit of sweet whipped cream if I'm feeling naughty. ;)

Are you harvesting anything yet?

Meg

The Big News, And Other Things

Morning Glory

Blueberries

Boysenberries

"Mmm mmm"

Well, I meant to post our big news last week but we got caught up in Life and Stuff! It's probably not as awesome to everyone else but:

Ben got a new job! He started this morning! Hurray!! If y'all have been following for awhile, you know that he's been working 10's and 12's six days a week for nearly three years now, and we finally couldn't take it anymore. There was no end in sight.

And this new job? 40 hours. Period. They even say that if you get called in on a Saturday, you get Monday off.

Even better? We found out Thursday that during the summer they change their hours to compensate for peak energy hours. So instead of getting off in the early afternoon, he's getting off even earlier than we thought! He'll be coming home while the kids are still taking a nap! I'm so, so excited to finally have him back, and awake. It's been a very hard past few years of him falling asleep as soon as he sits down after dinner and being exhausted and at work all the time. I'm very thankful for this new job and I hope it works out as well as it sounds like it will and he will finally have time to rest and relax.

We were at the beach over the weekend, for the "men folk" in my family to take my grandfather on a fishing trip. It was his Christmas gift from my brother-in-law. It was a nice little trip and the weather was beautiful.

We came back to a monster dust and wind storm. On the stretch of road from the freeway back into town the dust was so bad you couldn't see past maybe half a mile. It was crazy. I have never seen dust that bad. Once we got into civilization the dust wasn't as bad, but the wind was still whipping things around. My poor grapes are so wind burned and sad looking. I think I lost most of my bunches that were blooming. I'm really bummed about that. But today is beautifully breezy and cool, with puffy clouds floating through the blue sky.

The blueberries and boysenberries started ripening over the weekend. The boys and I wandered around after school this morning and munched on berries. Munchie loves berries. I would say "Do you like the berries? Are they good?" and he would reply with grunty "mmm mmm"s. The first week or two of boysenberries is wonderful. The weeks after that are a little tiring once we're swimming in berries. And there are a LOT of berries coming this year.

I didn't get a lick of knitting done while I was gone. I spent our sitting time just relaxing, doing crosswords (my brain needs exercise haha) and enjoying the weather and the company. We squeezed 15 people into a tiny little two bedroom house. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, and it was nice to have so many people around to play with the kids, so I could really unwind and not be on alert.

Well, I think that's enough babbling for now. Ben will be home in a few hours! :)

Happy Monday y'all!
Meg

Going on Around Here

This is half ours and half from the farmer's market

First thing from the garden this year: sage and a head of lettuce, plus two tiny little radishes! We also got an artichoke the other night that Ben and I split.

The garden is... well it's coming along. I'm still waiting on sprouts from a lot of stuff, and I'm battling slugs and reseeding on other things. See the headless sprout in back right there? Yeah... This is going to be a year of war!

Draining curds

I made some Farmhouse Cheddar last week, and after it sat over the weekend to develop a rind...

It was waxed on Monday. Now it needs to sit and age for at least two months. I'm pretty excited about this. I've done a hunk of Parmesan that won't be ready until October, but I'm afraid it won't turn out because I didn't have optimal conditions for it's rind developing process. It got a little cracked and dried, so we'll have to see what happens.

I have no idea what Jack is doing

Mr. Munchie has been walking more than crawling now. This is one of my favorite stages, because he looks so adorable in his awkwardness. This little montage is what I call Baby Jaws. ;)

After my woe-is-me post about aching for land, I've been gently reminded of my post about blooming where I'm planted, and to be content where I am at the moment. You know who you are, and thank you. :) It was also reinforced when I got to the very end of my current Countryside magazine with a tiny little article entitled "Being Content Right Where I Am... For Now".

Yep, message received! I will try harder to be content with where we are.

I've been researching places to find lard for rendering. The few places I've called have just said I can get some if they happen to have it that day. So I will have to get lucky. I need to make good friends with a butcher and have him hold it for me.

I've started the edging of the shawl, which is good since it's due next week. The last part of the pattern is a little shorter than I had planned, but I ran out of yarn. I think I might release this as a mystery shawl pattern at first... We'll have to see.

And, I may or may not have ordered a plethora of yarn... I'd like to make a sweater (you know, cuz summer is coming...) and I thought it would be good to build my worsted weight stash... and Webs is having their Anniversary Sale... Which might have been the thing that swayed me.

And today, it's Friday!

Huzzah!

~Meg