Call it a protest against foreign oil, but its more like my Type A personality combined with protesting my extra 20 pounds of baby weight. Its me, an awesome bike, a trailer and my wonderful, adventure-seeking children all en route to whatever errands need to be run. It all started with a desire for a bike. My bike was a fantastic road bike- thin tires, low handlebars, NOT good for towing kids. But not wanting to redirect funds to a new bike, God did it for me and gave me a brand new mountain bike, 21 gears, shimano parts, shocks, PERFECT. The next day we had the trailer hitched up and went for a ride. With a spacious "trunk", I'm able to do all my grocery shopping or anything else. And since the kids don't nearly meet the 88 pound weight limit, I have 50 pounds to spare for all my treasures. And the teddy bear is an important component- he keeps Aaron sitting up better and not leaning his hot little body all over Gloria. Or maybe its just for the cute factor. All in all we love it!
Its also about time for a garden update. Last night I made pizza with okra, eggplant, some leftover chicken, and amaranth leaves (amaranth is typically a grain, but the leaves can be eaten like spinach while the plants are young). One sunflower is starting to open. We picked a watermelon, but unfortunately it wasn't quite ready. About ten more will be ripening in the next couple weeks. We're swimming in pumpkin flowers. A volunteer butternut squash has some nice looking fruit. Our grape vines have a TON of grapes, but they won't be ready for quite a while yet. Our tomatoes took a nasty hit by a hornworm, but I think he's been dealt with (fed to the chickens). 
We started a second garden in the midst of an orchard. There we have amaranth, cowpeas (also known as southern peas), long beans, pole beans, a gourd that's similar to zucchini, more tomatoes, more okra and a smattering of herbs I previously had in pots.
We started a second garden in the midst of an orchard. There we have amaranth, cowpeas (also known as southern peas), long beans, pole beans, a gourd that's similar to zucchini, more tomatoes, more okra and a smattering of herbs I previously had in pots.A few months ago a neighbor gave us a couple coconut palms and a tangerine tree. Then another lady gave us some papaya trees. I added them to the citrus orchard a few days ago. I know the papaya and the tangerine will do fine, but we'll have to see if I can cold-protect the coconut palms sufficiently. The farthest north that's known to grow them is a couple hundred miles south of us.
In other news, we have 3 of 7 lines up on the fence. We hope to be able to finish in a couple more weekends. The goats will be thrilled, I'm sure. I have a few cowpea plants that I've put in the pasture as well that need to grow more before they can handle being devoured by hungry goats. As for Gloria, she's doing very well about going peepee on the potty. And Aaron is rolling over now. When they say growing like weeds, its true!
4 comments:
Wow, your little one is already getting big! Tim and I have thought about doing a trailer on bikes for getting around, but the thought of it makes me nervous...though it does seem like it would be great exercise. Our garden is currently suffering from us having left for a week just a few days after we put everything in the ground...even though there was record rainfall while we were gone, it seems several of the plants still got scorched (the person we had asked to water for us apparently did not do so). Hopefully, we will still have some tomatoes, squash and carrots by the end of the summer, though.
nice garden! what watermelons are you growing? never tried them myself, mostly for lack of space.
do you have sweet potatoes in?
oh, and about the newspapers -- you'll need at least four, preferably more, layers. and overlap them.
no matter what, grass will find gaps and rips. it takes a while, as much as a year in my experience, but you'll eventually get the seed and runners out of the bed. then, little to no weeding. for now, look on it as a little green manure. i throw all the weeds and prunings into my grass paths, mow over them, and then rake them back into the beds.
The watermelons we're growing are Orangeglo from www.rareseeds.com. It recently took a major hit from anthracnose, but does't seem to be bothering the fruit much. We do have sweet potatoes in also. Unruly chickens destroyed most of them, but we should at least get a few out of what we have remaining.
Thanks for the encouragement on the newspaper. The second garden I layered about 10 pages thick with overlapping... still have grass coming through. But we'll keep at it and hope a year or 2 from now it can look nice. :->
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