Today’s post is all about INSPIRING. I want you to feel empowered that no matter what your circumstances are, you can do this! You can make an impact on your health and the economy and the Earth and your family’s future simply by putting out a few pots, soil and plants/seeds. No Large garden or home ownership necessary!
Here is the garden of a busy actress from Hollywood who is trying to make a difference! She grows solely in containers and has lots of fun coming up with new creative ways to garden in front of her apartment. She even cares for a LIME TREE! Yep, you heard me, you can grow trees in containers! There are very few limits when container growing.
To give you a little more inspiration I asked Maliabeth to send me pictures as well as her own words describing her garden and how she does it all! She even tell us some of her handy tricks for getting plants cheap and for keeping the pests away. Enjoy! (Oh yeah, did I mention that she is my amazing big SISTER?! Yeah I’m pretty lucky. She has been gardening for years and she inspires me to learn more everyday!)
“Hi! My name is Maliabeth Johnson and I’m an actress. You may have seen me recently on the AMC tv show MAD MEN. My little sister and I have been gardening since I can remember. It was just something our family always did. I’m so proud of my little sister and I have loved sharing our love of gardening together. She lives in Mesa, Arizona and has a good size backyard with lots of dirt. While, I live in West Hollywood, California in an apartment with my husband. We have no dirt and only about 35 sqft of private concrete porch area.
My sister asked me if I could share photos of my garden, a few things I have learned along the way, and why I garden. I love my garden. Gardening is part of me. California is going through a long drought right now so I have had to switch some of the things I have in my garden. I get “city fever” sometimes and my garden brings my spirits up. I recently got a Plumeria tree thats only 12 inches tall and everytime I see it it makes my heart smile. I love watching things grow. I just love succulents! The soft blues, greens, and even shades of red. The great thing about them is they will grow almost anywhere, and they can also go for long periods of time without water. Succulents are plentiful in homes around my city. I go for many walks and ask other gardeners if I can have their clippings. My husband and I find a secret joy in “saving” succulents that have fallen off the main plant and are baking in the sun on the road.
I have found that in my tomato pots I needed to embrace Jumping Spiders. If you aren’t squimish look these cuties up. They have huge eyes like a cartoon. But, these spiders mean that my garden is healthy and safe from aphids. Organic Neem oil and water sprayed on plants at night will keep any pests away. My Aloe plants have come in handy many times. You can even add Aloe to juices! Rocks at the bottom of pots help water flow. I learned that wild flowers are amazing. They bloom, turn to seeds, and you can replant them. These help feed bees that pollenate my food. I have learned that I have a resident squirrel family in the area that uses my garden pots as a cache for his peanuts (I know that sounds cliche, and no, I don’t know where he is getting the peanuts). It doesn’t bother me anymore and if a pot is over turned I put it back where it was with a smile. And if there is a hole in one of my pots I just fill the hole in the pot with more dirt. I think this helps keep The roots from rotting. Everything has a purpose.
Thyme and Chives are the plant that keeps on giving. It is so great to save $5.00 every time we need fresh sprigs of Thyme or Chives. Green Onions also keep giving if you wait to pull them until they send out more “shoots” out. FLOWERS become SEEDS and SEEDS become more PLANTS and FOOD. Strawberries do very well in pots!!! Basil doesn’t do well in a pot out here. I don’t know why. I’ve tried from seeds, plants, and alike. My husband and I call local nursery stores and ask if they are throwing out any plants, trees, or herbs. We recently received a free lime tree. I also was given a rosemary bush that was dying. I’ve learned that my neighbors and even landlord has applauded and welcomed our gardening. Mint can grow like a weed. Gardening brings me joy. I could keep going on and on but I wont because I want my sister to ask me back as a guest on her blog THE HEN THAT ROARED! Thank you Maelani!
Notes on my pictures: My name tags are copper wire and wood (found at local home depot). I used Christmas ribbon to make a succulent garden wall. As you can see I use all the space I have. Most of my pots are found pots (it is crazy what these rich people throw out in my area.). I reuse most everything. The LED lights you see in the garden are solar powered! “
I hope you enjoyed this spotlight on Maliabeth’s apartment container garden! If you got some crazy ideas that popped into your head, write them down or draw them out and then get them started THIS WEEK. NO EXCUSES! Go to a yard sale or goodwill and find a cheap pot, go to your local nursery and buy some soil and a plant and start there! It is much easier to start with one thing and expand from there than it is to try and transform your space all at once. Good Luck!
I would love to see you all around on social media! We post a LOT to Instagram and quite often on Facebook so look us up and follow us! I’m always putting out inspiration and information. The Hen That Roared is our name both places. Happy Friday!
The container herb garden on my patio has quickly become my favorite part of the garden! Herbs are so simple and easy to grow and they offer so much! Now, a lot of people are turned off to growing herbs because they think that means they have to cook with it and are intimidated by that. I haven’t even used mine for cooking yet! There are so many other great reasons to grow herbs!
EASY & BEAUTIFUL: Herbs are SO EASY to grow! Give them a drink every day or every other day and they will keep going along happily. They also multiply quickly! I started out with 7 little stems of herbs and I now have at least 5 more from each of those, and the original 7 are big and full and producing plenty for our needs. They are also gorgeous, lush and green and I love seeing them out my back door. It’s amazing how much of an emotional lift you can get by looking outside and seeing lush greenery growing! Especially if you put it there.
FREE (or pretty close!): Herbs are easy to get started for free! You cut the top stem off of an herb and you can sit it in a glass of water, change the water daily and after 7 days you will start to see roots growing out of the end of the cutting. It’s a little bit mind blowing when it happens! The only herb I didn’t have luck getting to root was oregano so I found someone who had a bunch and was willing to dig up a little plant for me. So get to know some gardeners and ask if they would be willing to give you a few cuttings! You can also find some like Rosemary along sidewalk all over the cities. If that isn’t your cup of tea then you can always find plenty of herbs at your local nursery, and once you have an herb, it will keep multiplying and you can make your own cuttings to keep spreading it around your yard where you want it.
SO MANY USES!!!: Yes, you certainly can use herbs for cooking and I hope to make my own sauces in the future and add in my own herbs! However, there are other things that I use my herbs for daily! For my birds nesting boxes. I throw a few fresh herb leaves in their nesting boxes and it keeps them smelling fresh (The birds love it) and keeps them BUG FREE! Bugs hate herbs. For example, the first day the turkey spent in her new coop, her food container was FULL of ants! I ripped up a few herbs and tossed them in with her food and next thing I knew, the ants were ALL gone. Now I put a few fresh leaves in with her food everyday and I have never seen another ant or any other bug anywhere in the coop for that matter! So if you have any sort of bug problem, put fresh herbs around the area and it will be sure to scare them away. In particular, flies detest basil, so if you have issues with flies in the kitchen you could keep some torn up basil in a bowl on your counter.
AROMATHERAPY: Every time I pass by I put my face down by the herbs, shake them and breeeeeathe. It’s a wonderful little pick-me-up! Not to mention that it smells divine. Basil can help increase milk supply in breastfeeding mothers, oregano and thyme have have antibacterial properties, and so much more!
YUM: Mint can be added to ice cream or smoothies or fresh pressed juices to add a delicious minty flavor. Mint wakes up the mind and the senses and helps with focus. It also helps combat sickness and promotes your health and immune system. I loooove mint! If you are making pasta, take a guess and throw in some herbs and see what new flavors you can create! It’s so much easier than you think.
So here’s my word of encouragement for you. Even though you may still be thinking that it’s just too hard to get started, that you could never figure it all out (which I hope my explanations dispelled all that!) then I’m here to tell you that If you never try new things, then nothing in your life will ever change. I challenge you to pick one new small thing to try this week and DO IT. Start enriching your life with beautiful things and most importantly, make time to do the things that you love most! If you want to give herbs a try, I promise you that it is easy and entirely fulfilling. Just be careful, it is a bit addicting!
Right now all my herbs are growing in pots but I am currently begging my husband for 2 in-ground herb gardens, one next to the chickens area of the yard and one next to where the quail and turkey are to keep things smelling fresh and to keep the pests away as much as possible. I’m so excited to grow my collection of herbs. Right now I have Basil, Lemon Basil, Oregano, Thyme and Mint. After I get them growing bigger then I will start giving out cuttings of my own to help others start getting the wonderful benefits of growing herbs.
Comment if you have any questions and good luck growing!
The reason I started this blog is NOT because I think I know a lot and I want to post all my tutorials for you to try. I will post tutorials when I learn one that is too good NOT to share, like with my post on how to make your own almond milk that was received so well by my amazing readers! However, one of the huge reasons I’m here is because I want to inspire you to know that you can do so much with your life! I personally have spent far too much time wondering what I “should” be doing with my life and thinking I don’t have time for anything and I finally decided to just start doing things that sounded fun to me and experimenting with it! That sparked me to go learn about those activities and have lead me from one thing to another. That has turned into our little homestead and now my days are full with things that I love! My world has completely changed. I also want to show people that it is easy to live a full and HEALTHY and happy life. It isn’t as hard as it seems.
So WHY is preserving food a part of that? It makes life easier, it is motivating, and it is easy!
In my role as SUPER MOM (moms have 5 bazillion jobs they juggle EVERY DAY while looking gorgeous and having people think they do nothing) part of my job is to help us save money as a household while buying the healthiest foods possible. In our home we don’t buy any meat unless it is hormone free and antibiotic free. In addition to that, when we can afford it, certain meats have their own additional requirement. Chicken we get free range and/or organic when it’s on sale. Beef we get Grass-Fed and organic if its on sale. SO when sprouts has its amazing meat go on sale that fits these criteria, I stock up on it!! I use some fresh, I stick some in the crock pot and shred it to freeze, and the rest gets PRESERVED in bottles. So it saves me big bucks doing it that way!
The other reason I preserve my food with canning is because if you are a Super Mom or wife then you know that you do NOT wake up every morning thinking “What am I going to make for dinner tonight? Taco Soup? ok then I need to pull some meat out of the freezer!”….. nope….. the clock strikes 5pm and I think: “Oops… dinner…. taco soup? danggit all my meat is frozen or rotting in the back of the fridge because I forgot it was there…. ummm cereal anyone?”. Maybe you are way better than me but if I have cooked meat in a jar and ready to go I can pop open a can and dump it into anything! Soup, casserole, tacos, pasta sauces, anything really!
Another reason I preserve through canning is because I get an amazing deal on peaches every summer. I preserve them and then my family and I get to enjoy peaches all winter long!
There are some things like corn that I cannot even find organic in cans at the stores! So this week I found a local source, bought a bunch and canned it myself so I have access to organic canned corn all year round!
Lets talk acidity and health. Some things like TOMATOES are high in acidity. At the store they only come in aluminum cans and I have heard that the acid from the tomatoes can cause the aluminum to leach into your food. NO THANK YOU! So I want to do those myself as well! I’m taking it one step further and growing our own tomatoes to can. This year we will only have a few but next year I hope to have a huge harvest!
The last reason I preserve through canning is for emergency preparedness. Something we are taught in church is to always be prepared for hard times so we never have to fear. If we lose jobs or there is a lack of supply or a natural disaster, we have food at our fingertips to help our family and others who need us.
I’m here to tell you that canning is EASY!
Find yourself a simple set of instructions, decide what your family needs and find out when those sales are or when those items are in season and at their best/cheapest. Buy in bulk!
Having an adorable toddler to help you is always a plus! I like to keep mine over at the kitchen table shucking corn and away from the hot stuff on the stove. She is an all-star shuck-er!
Isn’t it gorgeous?
I can tell you this much: When I start somewhere and take on something like this and I SUCCEED, I feel empowered! I feel like I can suddenly handle all those other things that I thought I could never try.
Oh and I bet if you ask around (post it on facebook!), you can find someone who owns a pressure canner that will let you borrow it! If you are doing fruit or jam then you are looking for a water bath canner. I hope you have some fun!
Almond Milk has quickly climbed the ladder of popularity and now it seems that Almond milk is just as common in American homes today as cow’s milk is. That was unheard of when I was growing up!
I first had almond milk when my mom went on a raw foods diet 2 years ago in her efforts to slow down the growth of her cancer. She went to a “real food” clinic in Georgia where she learned how to eat raw and eat each food in the way that got the most nutrients out of it. While she was there she learned how to make almond milk and when she got back we made it together every couple of days. It was so delicious! Especially if you sip the store bought kind and then get a mouthful of your own, you will quickly realize that it’s so worth it to take just A FEW MINUTES out of your day to make this home staple.
My daughter expressed a dairy intolerance at the age of 13 months when I first introduced it so we switched to almond milk. Not only does the homemade version TASTE BETTER but it is CHEAPER and HEALTHY for your body! Store brands will add thickeners and sugar to try and make it mimic cow’s milk and then they add preservatives to extend the shelf life… No thank you! Want to know the ingredients of almond milk made at home? Almonds, water, raw honey, and a little salt. Oh yeah! When you are done making the milk, you’ve got almond flour left over to use in all kinds of amazing recipes! Are you convinced yet? Let’s break it down so you can see just how easy it is.
Grab some almonds and chuck them in a glass jar with some water! 2 parts water, 1 part almonds. This is NOT an exact science! Just eye ball it and leave a little room in the jar because the nuts expand as they soak. The minimum soaking time it 3 hours, but you can leave them over night so don’t worry about spoiling them by soaking all day, I’ve done that before!
When you’re done soaking them, drain the water and rinse the almonds a time or two. Put them in the blender and at this point you can add any amount of water depending how thick or diluted you want it. I prefer 3-4 cups of water per 1- 1.5 cups of almonds. I put in a big dash of salt and big blob of raw local honey and BLEND!
I let it sit there and blend on high for 2 or 3 minutes, you cant really let it go too long.
Then get a piece of cloth, a thin kitchen towel, cheese cloth, anything like that and lay it in a bowl. Pour in the mixture and squeeze out as much liquid as you can. Stick your delicious, fresh, creamy almond milk it in a glass jar with a lid and store in the fridge! It is my favorite served cold. I know it keeps well for at least 4 days, possibly up to a week but we drink a quart a day here so we go through it too fast for me to find out!
I turned some of it into chocolate almond milk – yum! – I only got one sip of it before my toddler drained the glass and was asking for more! I blended it with a few chocolate chips as a test but next time I will try some cocoa powder because the chocolate sinks. Side note: The almond milk separates sitting in the fridge, just swirl the jar before opening and taking a swig or pouring over your cereal.
Can you tell I love tea cups? If I have had a stressful mommy day, I pour juice or almond milk into a tea cup and drink it by the light of a candle to help me relax and regroup so I can be a good mom again.
If you want to go so far as to use what was left after squeezing the juice out, you can find yourself an adorable toddler (sorry guys, this one is taken!) and have them use their hands to spread the almond meal on a cookie sheet and bake it on your ovens lowest setting (mine is 170 degrees) and let it dry out for a few hours. Now you’ve got almond flour!
This recipe reminds me of my mom every time I make it. Sharing with all of you feels like I’m sharing a piece of her memory. Try it out and share it. You will be happy that you did! ❤
Need something super cheap to sprout your seedlings in that won’t stunt their growth? Try these two ideas along with me!
The first one I used is a cut up egg carton, I have not had success with that so far so I won’t be doing that one again any time soon! I planted 2 types of wildflower in these that I was planning on transplanting into the quail pen so they could forage, feel at home on the ground, and have things to hide in or behind (they love hiding!). So I will try again in my newspaper seedling pots.
Step 1: Grab a strip of newspaper. Mine is a half section folded in half. Keep in mind that this is NOT an exact science. None of my projects are, which is why I’m able to do them successfully! 🙂
Step 2: Get a round container such as a can. I used one of my bottles of vitamins. Use your can or bottle as a mold to roll your newspaper into a tube like I did in the picture below.
Step 3: Tape it down to itself. Step 4: Take one end and fold it down (like you are wrapping a present, fold each angle of the paper in to form a flat surface you can tape down).
Step 5: Tape it good! Step 6: Fill with soil, dampen and plant your seedlings or put in your little transplants to give away to friends and family! I received my lemon basil starts in a newspaper pot and gave away many watermelon and sunflower starts at my last gardening exchange in these!
So why did I choose these? Why didn’t I use the peat pots you can easily buy at the store? For my first round of seeds that I bought I stuck them into those expandable seedling pods and had most of my tomatoes and watermelons sprout and then watched them promptly die. ALL OF THEM. I transplanted a few things in the peat pots from my dads garden and they are still alive but they are STRUGGLING to get any bigger. The ones still in my dads garden are HUGE and it seems to me that the growth of the transplants is being stunted a bit by the peat pots. I have heard from a few people that they have had a hard time with the peat pots drying out the soil and making it hard to keep seeds and seedlings alive in them. These homemade newspaper pots are a great alternative because they break down easily in the soil, making it easy for roots to grow out as well as allowing all the underground critters and nutrients easy access to the soil beneath to enrich the plant and help it grow stronger. Did I mention it cost me NOTHING to make these? I used grocery store adds and some old tape I found at the back of a drawer. Much cheaper than buying! I am ALL over that.
So get making these nifty up-cycled goods so you can start your garden and then use them to give away and trade plants with others!
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Here are those pictures I promised! Newborn quail being adorable!
Didn’t I tell you they are SO snuggley?! (I frequently make up silly words, we will pretend it’s an endearing quality and move on!) These little ladies/fellas are almost always cuddling, and they love to be held and adored.
SURPRISE!!! We are the proud guardians of 2 baby chicks! (Chicken chicks that is!). We went to the feed store for a few supplies and when they saw that our stuff was poultry related they asked us if we had chickens. Then they asked if we would be willing to take home 2 Rhode Island Red chicken chicks that were a few weeks old. Apparently these two got pecked at by the others and were missing a few feathers and were showing a bit of blood. It took us about 2 seconds to blurt out an emphatic YES! So even though we planned on only raising quail… how could we say no to helping out these gorgeous girls? It means my sweet husband will have to build another coop (he is almost done with the turkey coop), but I’m pretty lucky because he loves working outside with his tools and teaching me how to help build too!
Here are the chicks free ranging outside for a few minutes, getting to know our garden. They picked all the tiny bugs off the leaves of our watermelon plants, and they loved walking on the cool dirt pecking around. They definitely aren’t affectionate or cuddly like the quail, but they have their charms and they trust us now. I must say I adore them too 🙂 The picture up there ^ with my sweet husband holding a chicken and 2 quail chicks shows you just how small the quail really are! The quail are a few days old in the picture, and the chicks are 2-3 weeks old and starting to get feathers. However, the difference is still huge!
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We have quail!!! They are the most adorable little sweeties ever! I want to tell you about the Highs and Lows that we have experienced this week, because there was plenty of both. There were more tears than I expected and even more squeals of delight. We learned a lot of things about our chicks and about ourselves. Hatching may be emotional, but I would do it all over again! In fact, I have 2 dozen eggs going into the incubator. Follow me through this and you will see why.
WARNING: This post can get passionate, so hold on and prepare yourselves! ❤
So Monday we had two eggs pip (peck a tiny hole through the membrane, cracking the outer shell slightly, to take their first breath) and I noticed that had happened around 11am. The next morning at 9am our first chick unzipped his shell by pecking in a circle and then it kicked and popped right out! Soon more eggs had pipped and the next one was hatching. We had 4 hatch easily and quickly, one each hour. They were so fun and cute! Our first newborn we called “The Wiggler” because before he hatched he kept wiggling his shell all over the place. This little squirt would find whichever egg was going to hatch next and go snuggle up to it until it came. They are such fluffy cuddle bugs!
Egg #5 really struggled to hatch. It was heartbreaking as a mother to watch this chick falling behind. He pipped his shell at 9 am on Monday and by 4am on Wednesday he still was only 2/3 of the way unzipping his shell. His progress was so slow and so labored that it was going to take him another day to finish, but it didn’t seem that he would make it that long. When my sweet husband got up for work, he decided it was time to assist. He gently unzipped the rest of the shell and the chick came free on it’s own. It turns out that his toes were completely curled under and he was limping along on his little birdie ankles for a day before I found out that if i put his feet in homemade splints then we could help correct the problem. My dad came to help me and as we looked at his feet we noticed they were very bruised but we had to splint them before his bones hardened. So we wrapped them in tape in the correct positioning and for 24 hours it worked great! He was standing and getting strong and learning to walk normally. The next morning he was struggling and had stopped standing. I made the decision to remove the splints and his toes were nice and straight -hooray!- however the ankles were still bruised and he didn’t look so good. He stopped eating and drinking. By morning our sweet “Little Duck” was gone.
By nightfall our strongest chick, “The Wiggler”, started showing the same symptoms as “Little Duck” and left us while I held him. Both have a special spot in our backyard to be at peace.
People say don’t get attached, don’t get close to your farm animals because nature happens, but I say GET close and LET yourself be a human being. Feel that natural compassion that is inside of you for the creatures of this Earth. They are here to help enrich our lives and provide food and companionship for us, I know that, and it doesn’t mean I have to be numb. Does that mean it will be harder for me? Yes it does. It also means that I will live a life that is more full and be so much happier than those who only see their animals as a means to an end and not something to feel compassion for. When each quail passed, my husband and I both shed a tear. We gave into the compassionate side of human nature and allowed ourselves to feel the pain that comes with experiencing death.
I wish more people showed their animals the respect that they deserve, I have seen many backyard set ups and I have felt a sickening at many of them. Quail are meant to run around on the ground, with places to hide and forage. They bathe by tossing around in the dust and the dirt, they find the perfect rocks to aid their digestion, they forage for bugs and greens and they need sunshine. Many people on the internet try to say that you can keep 3 birds in 2 square feet of space on wire grid flooring or even inside in an empty aquarium. I have seen set ups IN PERSON where the quail are cramped in small cages that are stacked on top of each other and stored in a shed with very little natural light and automatic systems that never require the owner to interact with their birds. They will tell you its easy and great and genius and they make good money. I am not going to be that person. I don’t care that they can survive in those conditions and still produce eggs… Its not ok. The happiness of your animals will effect the nutrition of their eggs and their meat and as a human being you should care. You are better than that. I encourage everyone to get in a situation to raise a backyard flock, even just 2 birds would make a difference for your family and the economy! But if you cannot provide a small environment where they can feel safe and happy, please please wait until you can. In the mean time you can get creative! Go in on it with a friend who has the space and split all the costs of feed and housing and they can provide you with eggs. OK, that is the end of my rant of my personal opinion for now! I have seen too many sad systems lately to hold back from the passion I feel about this subject! thank you for bearing with me!
Last but not least: Egg #6 was a surprise! he struggled with a thick membrane and thick shell that left him trapped in his egg. we gave him much more than the recommended 24 hours to complete his hatch before i gently unzipped his shell little by little, pausing to put him back in the incubator and let him push for a while to build up his strength (This is essential because often birds who are helped out of their shell are too weak to survive). Looking at him now you would never know that he had a rough start! I’m so relieved that he is thriving and fitting in with his siblings. We affectionately call him “The New Guy”!
So what have we learned?
I hate to even say this to you all… but I learned the hard way NOT to experiment with the chick’s food. When they are older they can eat a wide array of things, but they are so fragile as chicks and I didn’t have all the information and what i fed them was not something they could easily digest without rocks and dirt to swallow and grind it up for them (this is how birds “digest” their food). I strongly believe that my choice in their food is what led to the death of Little Duck and The Wiggler. We quickly went back to the conventional route of feeding them what we could find already formulated at the feed store.
My new recipe: 1 gallon of Game Bird crumbles(unmedicated is important for quail), 5mg of chick probiotic/electrolyte (to prevent common ailments), and 10-12 dried meal worms (to boost the protein content). Stick it all in the blender and once its the consistency of fine sand, you are ready to go! When they are bigger and transitioning to living outdoors we will start adding fresh fodder into their diet (sprouted grains) and they will start doing some foraging for their own bugs and things.
I have learned that soft cooked egg yolk does make a good treat for them but make sure it is past the point of being sticky! We have had issues with one of our babies tripping and rolling in it and she now has feathers all stuck together and has a hard time balancing when she walks! No Sticky.
I have learned that if a chicks feet need to be put into a splint then do so as soon as you take them out of the incubator so they don’t end up with bruised legs from trying to walk incorrectly.
I have learned that they love to have something to snuggle and hide in like the folds of a wash cloth. They also love the warm rice sock I stuck in there to snuggle up to.
I have learned so much about myself and my husband and our relationship as we have undertaken all of our new projects. Starting our little homestead was the best decision that we could have ever made!
Please leave a comment! Thanks for stopping by!
My computer wont post the pictures right now so I will have to try putting those up again later… so come back soon!
May 15th, 2015 (TODAY!) I got to attend my very first gardeners exchange! Do you see this gorgeous bounty I came home with?! Gardening is rapidly becoming a giant blessing in my life. Not only does it provide amazing natural produce, stress relief, family bonding time, and beautiful scenery in the backyard, but I have rapidly started gaining some truly spectacular friends!
I became a part of a barter and trade group full of gardeners and they are quickly teaching me that gardeners are some of the most generous people on the PLANET! Gardeners almost always have one thing that grows like a weed in their particular garden and they love to run around and shower everyone with their extras! So to shower people with their excess bounty in a more organized manner they put together this stellar group! About once a month they meet together at various spots around the valley, they lay all of their wonderful garden goods out on tables and everyone shares what they have. Today was my very first swap and although it had a rough start with me getting VERY lost on my way into town, it turned out AWESOME! I brought a bunch of watermelon and sunflower plant starts aaaaaaand I came home with all of these spectacular things that you see in the pictures!
I met so many unique people and they pulled me right in (along with my adorable kiddos who tagged along!). Every time my oldest would walk over to the food table and flash her little smile at someone, they would hand her food and she would hop merrily on her way. She definitely approves of mommy’s veggie play group! I loved it SO MUCH that I’m going to be setting up an exchange for July and I have recruited my sweet husband to take pictures so you can all see the exchange next time. Grocery shopping has never been this fun!
Quick update on the Quail in our homemade incubator: They are on LOCK DOWN! That means we stop turning them and crank up the humidity and don’t open the lid until we are opening it to transfer dried off chicks to the brooder. They COULD start coming as early as tomorrow but their official “hatch date” is Monday. Fingers crossed and prayers for our quail would be appreciated! (Yes I do believe God is invested in the welfare of my quail babies and he DEFINITELY knows how worried I am about them… I’m a softy and God made me, so I’m pretty confident that he can be a big softy too ❤ )
Until we started a garden of our own, I had no idea just how much was missing from my life. I have learned so much about myself and about God’s influence on the Earth. It has given so much life to my world and to my kids. They love helping me dig and plant and water and check for new growth. Not to mention my husband! He wigs out when he finds a new sprout popping up. It’s so fun! Our garden isn’t much yet but it’s our first try and it’s growing quickly. It won’t be long before its full and giving us a sweet bounty!
Let me take you on a walk around my family garden…
My husband and I built this lovely raised bed garden with a brick path down the middle so our little ones can wander through the garden without stepping on any of our precious new plants. The amazing fence (to keep out our turkey when she free-ranges around the yard) is the product of my husband’s amazing engineer brain. He constructed it out of PVC pipe and connectors, netting and zip ties, and some metal strapping that secures it on to the garden bed. Isn’t it marvelous?! I was pretty proud of him.
It didn’t take long for me to need another garden bed so we gathered up some cinder blocks from around the yard and made an additional bed where I planted 3 types of heirloom watermelon. One is a White flesh watermelon that I got from a gardener across town who got it from her dad (make friends with a gardener and you WILL end up going home with a few seeds and a giant homegrown onion!). The others I got online, one is a pink flesh Ali Baba and the other is an orange flesh Orangeglo. Our current experiment is VERTICAL GARDENING. Apparently you can train the vines to grow up on a trellis instead of letting them sprawl out on the yard, so that’s what we are going to do! I will let you know if it works for us!
These aren’t from my garden but I thought they were too beautiful to be left out of this post! My husband got them for me for Mother’s Day, I am one lucky mama.
Heirloom Cherokee Moon and Stars Watermelon
Below is a picture of one of our 11 potato plants that we grew from some organic russet potatoes that sprouted in the cupboard! I cut them up so there was an “eye” or sprout in each chunk, then I let them sit in the sun for a day and cure the raw edges (so the potatoes don’t rot), and then we just stuck them in the dirt! give them 2 weeks or so and you should be getting little plants sprouting up! Over the course of a few weeks we had plants popping up one at a time until we finally had 11! My dad is the one who taught me this. He cut up his potatoes 2 months ago and tossed them out to the garden and literally just LEFT THEM. He didn’t bury them or anything! They cured in the sun and then roots found the soil and the plant sprouted up out the top of the potato chunk and into the sunshine. It’s quite the sight to see!
The next picture is our amazing garlic! I found that garlic sprouting in the back of my fridge so I pulled it all apart and planted it, it grew so fast I was pleasantly surprised!
Up next are our very first tomatoes! My dad got us 3 plants. 2 Cherokee purple and 1 Heinz. All 3 heirlooms! The Heinz is giving us half a dozen tomatoes with the rest of the dozen on it’s way!
These are our gorgeous Heirloom sunflowers! The one with the purple stem is going to have red/orange blooms. I’m so excited to see that!
The last picture is the amazing Wheat fodder! I’m so excited about this project because it is the primary source of nutrition for our lone turkey and soon to be feed for our quail. Our turkey LOVES it! I’m still learning the best way to sprout it. Once I’m done tweaking it I will post my findings with lots of pictures!
Thanks for stopping by my garden. Come back again soon!
Go watch this video! It’s 1 minute long and shows very simply how to cross pollinate your plants by hand. This is just a demonstration because I have since learned that all the flowers on our zucchini plants are males (oops! learning as I go over here!). I’m on the watch for some female flowers… If you want to get the idea of how it’s done though, then go ahead and watch my video and subscribe to my YouTube channel!
There are some plants that pollinate themselves, but there are other plants that require another plant to pollinate. For example, zucchini needs 2 plants. Corn needs 2 rows, and Strawberries are best planted in a small patch or cluster of strawberry plants to pollinate each other. To be clear, if the flowers don’t get pollinated then you won’t get any fruits or veggies. So if you don’t see any bees buzzing around then you might want to do this. And then plant some bee forage food, there are lots of plants and flowers that bees love that you may want to plant around your garden. I’ve got some lemon mint herb I’m trying to get going. Thanks for stopping by!
The Hen That Roared 