Urban Homesteading

Something to shoot for!

Cultivating the Plot

As my wife and I plan this season's garden, we each have different tasks and dreams. My wife primarily thinks of harvest: What do we want from the garden? How much from the garden? I think in terms of gettin'er done: Where do I plant? When do I plant? How can I use my space and time to achieve our desired end? So we have an end in mind- a plan, and we have drawn them up and ordered the seeds. In another month, I will work the soil on three of our raised beds and cover them in plastic to plant spinach, kale, lettuces and other greens and a few other cold weather crops.

Working the plot involves turning over the soil, adding a little compost if needed (we cover each plot with leaf mulch and other organic material in the fall), and removing any weeds. After the soil warms from the plastic, I will turn the soil again and remove any more weeds and then plant. All this planning and preparation is necessary to enjoy a good harvest at the end.

Isn't this process how any desired end is achieved? Plan, work (making, naming, separating) evaluate and enjoy? Do you see your task as a mother or father as cultivating your plot? What is the desired end for your children? How are your plans carried out?

Random Stuff on Friday

Here are some random things going on in my life and/or in my head:

1. Although our main goals for the garden are to produce a lot of food, with an eye toward beauty, we are going to be planting more heirloom plants than ever. We are doing this for two reasons: First, for the taste! Second, to be able to save seeds, making it cheaper to plant next year.

2. I'm happy for the Canadian women's hockey team- they did great and should celebrate.

3. I miss football and talking draft doesn't satisfy my longing.

4. I just started reading a book called Coop (thanks Mary Jo!)- I have enjoyed it so far and promise a few posts on it in the near future.

5. Has anyone seen Where the Wild Things Are? What is an appropriate age to see this? It was my favorite kid book as a kid, and next to Good Night Moon, it is my favorite kids book to read to my kids.

Garden Planning at Seed Saver Exchange

Just wanted to share this with you.

Tending to Our Plot

Everything we are and have has been given to us by God- our life, time, possessions, relationships... everything. God gives us these things as gift and task. In this post, I will speak of these things briefly as task, but on Friday I will post on these things as gift. Since we are in the middle of a conversation, you may want to read this, this, and this, first.

God put Adam in the garden to work- he is to make things, order things, name things, relate to things, people, and God. This is our basic task as well- we tend to all that God has given us. All these things, I call my little plot. If I tend to my plot well, it flourishes, but if I neglect it, all these gifts wither.

This spring, I will plant my garden. Even now we are planning and ordering seeds. I have a great array of choices to make, but until I plan and execute the plan, I will only have a plot of weeds. I can plan for utility, or I can plan for extravagance. I can plan to make things easy or hard, sparse or abundant, plain or beautiful. I have the freedom to do anything the bounds of my plot allows. It is a task I enjoy immensely, yet it is hard. I want to grow an abundance of food, with a great amount of beauty. The pleasure for the tongue and eye is well worth the work.

Of course, you know what I am getting at. All our tasks are like this. Take the task of tending to your family. What are you planning and executing? Aiming for easy? How about beauty? Do you take time to evaluate and pull the weeds? Is your family flourishing? Are the relationships bearing fruit?

Over the next several weeks, I will share my thoughts and experiences with tending to the various facets of this little plot of mine. Until then... get to work!

A Taste of Summer

One of the great things about summer is eating your work. One of our favorite dishes in the summer is ratatouille served on a mound of polenta! We grow the egg plant, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers and most of the herbs. This past summer, we froze some to try in the winter. Today we had our summer treat and I am glad to say it was great. I want spring to come sooooonnn!

On Our Wall (2)

Dave of Neco Dracones guessed it! Our other Van Gogh print is The Sunflowers (1888). We always have sunflowers in our garden and bring cuttings in our house throughout the late summer and into the fall. Sunflowers, as my wife puts it, "are just so happy!"

Coincidentally, this is why Van Gogh painted them. After a long depression, he and his friend, Gauguin moved into his Yellow House in Arles. His depression lifted and Van Gogh painted a series of four sunflower paintings, the one shown here (and on our wall) is his most famous.

It is nice to have sunflowers in the house all year long.

Did I Mention We Had a Garden?

This is a picture of our garden from July of last year. I will post other pictures of past gardens soon. When the spring comes, I will show our progress.

Thinking of the Spring and Ordering Seeds

I am looking through our seed catalogs, figuring out what we want to grow this year. For those who don't know us, we have a large garden out back. Last year we ate a ton from the garden fresh and in the end did a lot of freezing and canning. We also harvested a bit of winter squash and cabbages to eat through the winter. We are expanding the garden this year so we can grow more corn, and potatoes (which we have not done). We also expect great things from our raspberries and apple trees this year.

For any of you interested, this is what we ended up with for winter consumption. The strawberries, apples and much of the corn were not from our garden (thanks Rose, Mary Jo and Don).

Froze or Canned:

12 pints of strawberry jam

1.5 gal strawberries

7 cups of rhubarb

10 cups of cherries

180 cups of zucchini

36 cups of green beans

5 pints of dilly beans

14 quarts of dilly beans

140 cups of corn

12 cups of Swiss chard

8 cups of kale

8 pints of pizza sauce

7 quarts "Italian" tomatoes

8 quarts spaghetti sauce

12 quarts diced tomatoes

5 quarts tomato sauce

3 quart bags of dried Roma tomatoes

14 quarts apple sauce

21 quarts apple pie filling

7 pints jalapeno jelly