Lessons learned

As I sit an enjoy the air conditioning after mowing the lawn and contemplate that the next planting season is happening upon us quickly, I'd like to make note of the gardening lessons we learned this summer:

1) Don't be too ambitious. The weeds and grass are ambitious enough for everyone. Take the summer "off" so to speak as the work of maintaining the yard and defending the perennials against bugs and disease is enough. Also, Gloria loves the outdoors... until sweat drips into her eyes- about 15 minutes in typical summer heat.

2) Leave the permaculture to the experts. It all sounds great to have stuff growing all over everywhere with "plant guilds". But frankly, I don't know enough to make it work. We're going back to single crop beds (a bit of companion planting, but not with anything vining) until we get it a bit more under our belt.

3) Know what pests to expect, be ready for them with the proper sprays and a GOOD sprayer. Have a back up sprayer just in case.

4) Next summer we'll do only okra, beans, cowpeas, and maybe amaranth for the greens, but only if I feel like tackling the moths that turned every single seed head into their cocoon residence.

5) Put the garden fence in the middle of a weed barrier and mulched row. I put it on the edge and it looks horrible since I can exactly mow right on the fence row..

6) Use cow manure- not horse manure. There seems to be some who think otherwise, but given the amount of weed seed we had in the horse manure, I'd like to try the cow manure instead.

7) Know what to expect when harvesting... ie- don't harvest cowpeas as green snaps because you forgot that you only planted purple specked and yard long beans for snaps and end up eating meal after meal of tough, short, green snaps.

8) Don't plant anything that requires drying in the field. The humidity makes it rot before it dries. (Ie- sunflowers).

9) Don't believe the people who say that pumpkins and watermelon are good ground covers... its true, they cover ground... and all your companion plants as well such as strawberry, dill, and marigolds. I've lost them all despite repeated digging out, moving vines and trying to protect and still have an obscene amount of weeds.

10) Don't feel compelled to make a list of lessons into a nice pretty number like 10.

Weekend Celebrations

I know Randy and I are weird concerning our dates- We love Home Depot dates. We've gone on "sea weed dates" where we stroll along the beach, hand in hand... at least until a pile of sea weed is spotted. Then its an all out sprint to add it to our own bag. In the end, its a competition to see who can add the most sea weed to our garden. Another favorite date is making fun things from Nourishing Traditions, the Weston A. Price Foundation cookbook. We've made kimchi (Korean sauerkraut), gingerale, and various other lacto-fermented yummies. To celebrate our anniversary, we had an all-out blitzkreig of fermentation.

It started Friday night where we made ketchup. Yes, original ketchup was fermented and not loaded with sugar and sodium. Then we made a nursing mother's tonic of quinoa milk. Saturday we made pineapple chutney, Rejuvelac (sprouted wheat juice), cucumber pickles, pickled grape leaves (from our vines) and gingerale. Its all pictured along with 3 pumpkins and a pineapple we harvested recently as well as the cream cheese we made to have all the whey for everything else. We had the ketchup with dinner last night and it was really tastey. We also sampled the pineapple chutney- again, a nice, refreshing snack. The quinoa milk is ready today, but I'm chilling it before I taste it (and I'll probably wait for Randy anyway). The other things will be ready for munching in the next few days. If anyone is interested in the cookbook, click the link below. It is packed with nutritional information as well as good old-fashioned recipes from all over the world. Just be prepared to have your nutritional ideas challenged heartily!

http://www.amazon.com/Nourishing-Traditions-Challenges-Politically-Dictocrats/dp/0967089735/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217347711&sr=8-1

This is dedicated to the one I love

Three years ago today, my beloved husband, Randy, swept me off my feet in wedded bliss. It has proven to be the greatest blessing, second only to Jesus' blood and Spirit, that I have ever experienced. I know the depths to which God loves me and how highly He thinks of me by choosing me to be Randy's helpmate. Many viewed our coming together as rather inauspicious- not previously dating, engaged only 9 weeks, pregnant only 9 weeks after marriage. In the first year we had new careers- Randy went from grouting tile to engineering and I went from teaching to staying at home. We also had a new house and a new baby before our first anniversary (not to mention the chickens and fruit trees!) Yet Randy never flinched at all the changes. Wise beyond his years and rock solid in his faith, he never reacted under the multitude of pressures that had been placed on him. Instead he has continued to rejoice in it all.

I never really knew what a wild ride I was in for until our honeymoon where he made me laugh continuously the whole week. He has the enormous job (and does it WELL) of keeping me from getting too serious. Despite his maturity, he's all boy. He plays with our children like no one I've ever met. He loves being a kid and it eminates from his playful smiles and cheery eyes.

Randy completes me. In an age where feminism abounds, I proclaim the LIBERTY I have BECAUSE I'm submitted to my husband's faithful leadership. He allows me to be, in entirety, who I was created to be. He has given me the world- yet I choose, every minute of every day to stand by his side, wherever God chooses to plant us.

I've had a lot of "lives"- childhood as a happy little girl, high school as a celebrated student and musician, college as a budding Christian working on a farm and flitting around Europe and the Middle East, and China where I had a multitude of adventures with a multitude of amazing people. And now, here I am, a "normal" housewife. Living in my hometown. Doing what many people view as insignificant. Yet this is my best life.

Thank you, Randy, for blessing me beyond measure. Thank you for being obedient to the Holy Spirit. Thank you for loving and protecting me. And thank you for being the greatest father to our children. I love you forever.

Garden Woes

Why are there so many correlations of agriculture to the Christian walk? Because its so stinkin' HARD! Yeah, to like get saved and stuff doesn't take much for most people, but to really walk out the beattitudes- work! To get a tomato or a bean here and there doesn't take much but to really produce a CROP- toil! Anyway, I'm battling severe discouragement every time I so much as glimpse at our garden. The watermelons are essentially gone. I'd dig a hole and plant a vine in a healthy spot if there were bare dirt to dig in. Not so- weeds and grass are hip high and thick. Our pumpkins were doing so well and seemingly overnight (literally it was more like 3 days) my healthy vines have been thuroughly ravaged by hungry insects. This same "track" is all through the amaranth as well. And the real stinker is that I keep buying sprayers and they all quit on me! I made a great garlic solution to fight our tomato bugs. The second spray it plugged up. I got a big sprayer for the copper solution to fight the anthracnose. That quit before I had even finished the garden. I got another sprayer and that didn't even produce any pressure and so still sits with a full jug of solution yet completely useless. My okra has even gotten eaten now. I bought some neem oil already in its own sprayer for $11. That bottle just barely covered all my affected areas. 2 pumpkins lay rotten. Another sits unripe on my counter as I tried to check the bottom for signs of insect damage and it snapped off. Something is breaking our sorghum so that I now have 2 unripe stalks "drying" in our porch. I'm not sure if they will ripen and be edible, but its worth a shot. I can't even see the sweet potatoes for the weeds. In our second garden, I've staved off the aphids enough to get a huge picking of beans, both the yard long and regular snaps. They tasted great. I've got to find a sprayer that can withstand my burden or I'm going to give up. Did you know locusts are kosher? If all else fails, we can always eat the bugs. And when God says He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, what kind of fencing do you suppose He uses? And what about the wheat and the tares??? If you let the tares go to seed, don't you just have MORE tares the following season? I guess that's why I've titled this blog ADVENTURES in FL homesteading. It's really only our first time and if it were easy everyone would be doing it.

While the farmers are away...

While the farmers are away, the goats will play. And so our's did. We had rigged up our fence to where it held the goats inside for a single day and prayed it would do so while we were gone to Tennessee for a family reunion for 4 days. They quickly figured out that the fence was nothing more than a back scratcher and roamed the property and our neighbor's as they pleased. No damage was done. They were sweet, harmless goats, but it tired our neighbor plenty trying repeatedly to get them back in.

Before we left, we harvested a few watermelons. To get really sweet melons its best if the weather is dry the last couple weeks before harvesting. That's exactly when our rains started. The first was ok. Not a lot of flavor, but at least moderately enjoyable. Like a typical store bought melon. The next had even less flavor. The third wasn't ripe at all. When we returned, Randy found 2 more little ones where the vine had died. I'm thinking the anthracnose is showing its ugly side and taking our little melons with it as it slowly kills the vines. Its a lesson in knowing what can hit and preventing it long before you even see a symptom. We at least have gotten a good number of viable seeds from the first watermelon we ate.

On a good note, we harvested a sunflower and it is drying in our porch. The sorghum heads really look good. Our amaranth is starting to head with beautiful red fuzz balls. Our various different beans are flowering. We have about 10 little pumpkins growing bigger. I have our pineapple protected with a heavy dusting of cayenne pepper. We slaughtered most of our meat birds last Saturday and will be doing the remaining 5 hens this saturday. Our okra continues to give a few bits a day, amounting to about a side dish a week (which is about all you want of okra) from only 2 plants. Our new plants are looking good to start producing in a few more weeks.

As for our trip, it was great. I got our fall garden mostly planned on the 12 hour drive up and back. I also cut out diaper pieces for Aaron, finished knitting Randy's winter hat (little late) and started Aaron Christmas stocking (hmmm... will I have it done in 6 months???) Gloria had a wonderful time with various other kids, mostly 3rd and 4th cousins. Aaron loved being held by all the great aunts who are waiting for grandkids and more cousins who are waiting for kids. He was just as mellow as usual, even when I made him sport the festive do rag.

Now its back to normal, continuing the potty-training process, fixing the fence, fighting off the fungi, chasing Sundae, etc. The break was nice, but normal life is really nice too.