The potato experiment

New to my garden this year is potatoes.  Only, I don't have a lot of space or a lot of sunshine to offer them.  So, I purchased three black grow bags from my favorite garden supply company and set them up.  Not quite a pot and not quite a bag, these are made of durable fabric and were super easy to set up and fill.  Just add about 4 inches of compost and potting soil, set the seed potatoes on top and add about 3 more inches on top.  And then, wait.  Most of my seed potatoes had already sprouted before I planted them today, so I am hopeful that sometime late summer or early fall, I will have loads of yummy fingerling and gourmet potatoes to dig up and eat.  I know potatoes are cheap to buy, and this probably isn't saving me money this year, but if you've ever had a freshly dug potato fried in a little olive oil...heaven!  

In other parts of the garden, salad greens are growing faster now.  I have several wonderful looking heads of lettuce that will be turning into a salad early next week!  The newly planted greens have a bit of time left, but I just can't wait to sample some fresh picked greens.  Most of my root crops are sending up delicate shoots, and I will be thinning radishes this weekend.  Spinach, both baby leaf and large savoy are planted in pots.  They sprouted in only 3 days!  

Sadly, I've lost a few more tomato seedlings to damping off.  I have used an organic treatment to try and save the rest, and one tray is healthy and strong.  But, the extra tomatoes are dropping off one by one.  This weekend's challenge is to take the affected tray and pot up the remaining seedlings and separate them.  Hopefully we will have a few extras to share after all.  

All my peppers and eggplants are going strong for now, and broccoli and cauliflower are ready to thin.  I have a few paper egg cartons saved to start up my warm weather crops of squash and melon so I can plant them, egg cup and all right in the garden at the end of May.  

This year has had more difficulty getting off the ground than last year, but I am still looking forward to a great garden summer!

My beautiful garbage

I garden by the moon.  Not that I know that it really helps, but it helps me stay organized.  I know which days I am planting green leafy veggies, which days are designated for root veggies, and which days are not set for planting.  Notice I didn't designate any day for "rest."  There are plenty of other garden chores that need to be done.  On the days that aren't on my calendar for planting, I dig new beds, plan for upcoming garden chores, and ready the ingredients for nourishing my new plants.
This weekend was on the calendar for enlarging my backyard garden (110 more square feet to be exact).  I spent most of my time digging out the sod, hauling the compost up the hill, and digging it into the earth.  Luckily, I had at least one nice sunny, but relatively cool day to work with.  Just as I dug in the last square of rich compost, and wiped my brow, my neighbor leaned over the fence to offer up his tiller...if I ever needed it.  Uh, geez...I just spent about 10 hours digging by hand, but thanks!
So, today, one of my least favorite, but  also quite fascinating chores.  I turned my compost.  I have a big black plastic compost bin in the backyard that we toss in all sorts of goodies that would have otherwise ended up in a trash heap.  My compost style is toss it and forget it.  At least until one of the 3 times a year come up that I turn it.  Most of the time, I literally toss in our food scraps, eggshells, and plant clippings.  I add in a scoop of shredded leaves to cover the food and make sure it gets water and air.  Otherwise, I wait until the bin is near full and then I get to work.  It only takes about an hour.  I lift the bottomless bin off the whole mess and move it to a new spot.  Then, I move all the non-rotted materials back into the moved bin.  About halfway down, things change from well recognized pieces of vegetables and bread to a mushy mass of half-broken down sludge (not my favorite part!).  Then, miraculously, I get to a rich, dark brown layer that is crumbly and earthy.  Black gold.  All those mashed up scraps that would have otherwise just added to our family's trash have been turned into something wonderful for my garden.  I am always amazed at just how much black gold I find at the bottom.  As I stir it and crumble it between my fingers, I add it into a trash bin set aside for carrying finished compost.  Today, I filled the bin almost all the way full again and still had a whole trash bin full of the good finished stuff.  Enough to cover the old half of my veggie garden!  I let it sit for another week or two until the last of the bits are consumed by the worms that I leave in the bin and then it goes right into the earth again.

And if my beautiful trash isn't enough to interest you, here is what else is happening in my garden.  Almost all my salad blends are now out and growing, along with several frost hardy romaines.  By next week, tough love will have me out there thinning and leaving my lots of yummy micro greens to add to my salad.  I had radishes, carrots, beets, and salad turnips sprouting this morning that weren't there last night.  My onion plants appear to have transplanted well...although I may be moving them to a more side location of the garden next week.  No more sprouts in the basement have dampened off...a light layer of cornmeal sprinkled over the seed mix to protect it.  All my broccoli and cauliflower have sprouted, along with a few more eggplants I had almost given up on.

Next up...getting potato grow bags ready and planting a few more root veggies.  I have a couple of tomatoes to "restart" after the damping off disappointment of last week, and a bit of the rows of salad blends that a pesky digger disturbed.  Then, it's planning where all the vines and bush veggies of summer will go to allow for sunlight to reach all of them equally.  Never a dull moment when the season starts!

Every Day is Earth Day

For the past several years, I've celebrated Earth Day by adding a new environmentally sound venture to my life.  It all started with clearing out the chemicals and cleaning with only non-toxic products.  I slowly added growing my own food, reducing energy use in the home, adding local foods to our diet, and reducing our carbon footprint as we travel.  I really felt like I was making a huge difference in the treatment of our planet and in the way our family views our responsibilities.  I've done my research and I've shared what I can with others.  What next?
Yesterday was Earth Day 2010.  My goal for last year was to take on buying local any foods and products that I can...and we are still in the progress of this goal.  So, what to do for 2010?  In spite of my "smart consumer" efforts, I felt something was still not right.  Over the past winter, I began to really look around me.  Literally.  My house is FULL of stuff.  More stuff that we need.  More stuff than I WANT!  I made a plan to start simplifying our stuff.  We've been going through it, weeding out the fluff and getting it ready to give away or sell.  And somehow, I still didn't quite get it.
I'm don't remember when the real epiphany came.  But, when it did, it was one of the biggest revelations I've had.  And it truly was DUH moment.  How in the world could I not have seen how much I was still feeding into the destruction of all that I'm trying to heal.  I was a consumer of non-essential goods.  So, I set about to make a change.  I started to really think about every purchase before it was made.  Do I need this?  Where will it go when I am done with it?  Is it just going to live a short life and then become part of a landfill in a once beautiful land?  And also, how much is it really worth to me to have it?
My husband asked me this week if I had spent a lot of money on my garden expansion.  I defended my purchase, just as I always do, by reminding him how much less I was really buying these days.  And then I wondered...am I really buying less than I used to?  How am I really doing?  Luckily, I have a very simple budgeting account (mint.com for anyone who is curious) that lays all my purchases and income out in one place.  I pulled up the account, and was pleasantly surprised to find that I've actually worked a small miracle in my spending habits.  There were a couple of books that I purchased: one on sewing and one on homemaking, two charges for gardening supplies and seeds that I ordered back in late winter, and the mulch/compost haul from my questioned purchase.  Most of my grocery spending was in local markets and my weekly spending at the foodshed.  Of course, I'm not perfect. I also found a $15 charge at Target that I can't trace back in my memory.  There were also the $20 training wheels for the $10 bicycle that we bought for Kira off of Craig's List.  But, for the most part, I am simply trying not to buy.  And, if it is something I really feel would benefit our life, I try to buy used.  It has only been a few weeks since I declared a war on all things consumed.  I challenged myself to only buy things I could not make or produce on my own.  What I found wasn't just that I could make or produce many things, but that we really never needed many of those things to begin with.
Just as an organic treat is still a treat, an organic purchase is still a purchase.  If I don't need a new shirt, why do I need to buy a 100% organic cotton shirt?  If I have a stack of unread magazines, do I really need to add to that stack?  Just because a product can be recycled when I'm done with it doesn't justify its purchase if I never needed it to begin with.
What to see more ideas on where my thoughts are coming from?  Check out the video I watched online about the problems with consumerism as it is now...
http://www.storyofstuff.com/
Happy Earth Day!

You can never have too much garden

One of the first nice sunny days that I had off work and I headed out to the back garden to see what I could do.  Last year, I discovered that, while it was large enough to hold all my plants, things were too crowded to be spectacular.  So, when my neighbor took down a tree last fall that had formerly shaded the left side of the yard, I decided that I would expand.  Maybe it's hard to tell, but the right side you see in the photo is the old garden covered with a layer of shredded leaves.  There are still a dew plants growing in there, but mostly it's ready for new plantings.  The left side, full of rich, brown, crumbly dirt, is new.  I spent all afternoon outside in the warm sunshine digging out the sod by hand.  A back breaking job, but I love it even still.
All in a day's work, and then I headed out to get some compost.  After loading it up (along with 2 bags of sand for the girls' sandbox, I realized I was going to have to push all 710 pounds of it to the register and load it in the car.  Oh, well...one of those "superwoman" moments.  Yes, I did it...by myself.  Never say I can't get the job done!
So, the next task is to spread out the compost and dig it in.  I typically choose to do it by hand, feeling that this keeps the natural components of the soil more intact.  And then, the waiting until time to plant, which, in my area is still 6 weeks away.
On a disappointing note...a few of my precious tomato seedlings appear to have succumbed to the dreaded damping off fungal disease.  I had no problems with this last year, but I checked on my seedlings just now to find three of them bent over at soil level and one dead.  I have two flats of tomato seedlings growing and lots of other goodies, too.  I don't even know how to prevent the spread at this point.  I keep my seedlings in good air circulation and never overwater, but I still see the signs of trouble.  Ugh.  I'm just praying now that the whole tray won't go down...and especially that it won't spread to other trays nearby.  I have a lot invested in those babies!
Even with this sad moment in my day, my spirits are soaring as I have had a full day of sunshine and lots of dirt under my nails...a sure sign of success in my book!

Spring Rains Bring...

What's growing in my upstate NY garden right now?  My pea shoots have really taken off and I had to install the trellis earlier this week!  I have lots of lettuce and salad greens showing up...I'd say another 10 days and I'll have fresh baby spring greens!  Yum!  None of my new carrot or onion seeds are sprouting, but I have overwintered carrots galore...and I just planted a 20 foot row of onion plants given to me by a gardener at our church!  Yay!  My cherry belle radishes sprouted a nice green row overnight last night.  I love these picked when the size of a marble and tossed in my salad...sweet and crunchy and not bitter at all!  I planted some hanging baskets with Tom Thumb peas, but not sure if they get enough sun...this is new for me this year.

What's new in the seedlings?  All my peppers and tomatoes are growing well.  I did half my peppers in a standard organic seedling mix and half in peat moss free mix.  The ones in the peat moss free mix are twice as big and I planted them a week later!  I'll be transfering half of them tonight to make room in my seed starters for broccoli and cauliflower seeds.  Tough love time for most tomatoes and peppers, too.  I plant 4 seeds to a cell and only the one strongest gets to remain.  The others are snipped to keep the main one healthier.  My eggplants seem to be 50-50.  Although last year my survival rate was worse.  They just seem to be a challenge to grow.  I can give them plenty of heat or plenty of light, but not enough of both at the same time.  More research may be needed.

Otherwise, I am busy splitting seed packets for other gardening friends.  In order to keep supplying my indecisive nature, I split seed packets with others to keep my cost down while trying all sorts of new things.  If you are interested in buying any starter seeds from me, let me know!!

Paying it down...

I just finished a wonderful book Your Money or Your Life by Vicky Robin and Joe Dominguez and was amazed by the interesting viewpoints on money and spending habits presented there.  It isn't your basic "work really hard and sell all your belongings to get out of debt" book.  Nor was is a book about "the latte factor."  More a restructuring of your views on how much your habits are actually costing you in terms of both money and time.  It actually stresses the importance of thinking through how your habits might actually be forcing you to work more.  It encourages people to spend less on material goods and have more free time.
One of the steps in this book is making a list of every penny that leaves your hands.  Since I signed up for mint.com (an excellent money tracker, by the way!), I had access to most of my payments over the past several months.  Of course, this doesn't exclude me from making a cash flow list, but it did open my eyes to a few things.  First of all, I had several "subscriptions" that I not only do not need, but do not want.  I spent the first hour and a half of my day calling and cancelling several things.  My eye shadow club from BE?  I have a stockpile of great looking colors from them already!  My dropshots profile?  Haven't used it in 2 years.  Monthly credit check?  A year ago I signed all my bills up on auto pay and I keep very close tabs on my accounts with mint.com.  My subscription to the local paper?  I only read it on Sunday, and all it does is make me want to buy more products from the sale ads.  All together?  I just dropped almost $40 a month.  I just gained almost $480 a year.  Wow.  A few low cost items can really add up.  But, not just in money.  I would have to work about a week just to earn enough to pay off the yearly total.  So, I just freed up a week of my life's work.
I figured while I was at it, I might as well check on my credit cards and why most of my balances don't appear to be dropping.  My balance has been more or less the same since I graduated from college over 10 years ago!  And it's a pretty darn big balance at that.  Frugal has not always been my goal.  I learned that the card I am most loyal to has now given me a 28.9% interest rate!  I'd pay it off in about 36 years according to my statement.  Incredible!  Appalling!  I also researched other card websites and learned that one of my cards (that had a very low balance) was offering me a great promo rate less than 5.9% interest for 18 months.  Transfer done.  This could save me several thousand dollars and releases a lot of stress!  Sheesh!
Don't get me wrong, I don't think that this alone is going to rescue me from debt.  The next step is to find a plan to pay this down and get it set up on auto pay so I don't even have to think about it.  And, of course, not to add anything else to my debt.  Almost every year we have a crisis.  This year was a few thousand dollars in vet bills for our elderly dog.  Last year, it was the death of my beloved Saturn and the gain of a new CRV.  Sometimes it's a burst water line, and sometimes it is the loss of income.  But, every year, we are unprepared.  And that had to change.
Living simply doesn't mean living unprepared.  To me, it means having the means to pay for what comes our way.  Not being stressed about the unknown.  But, at the same time, not living with more that we need.
Current financial difficulties taken care of today.  Next on my list?  Preparing for our sell-it-all garage sale.

Falling into old patterns...

Trying to simplify our life and especially the food we eat is not without its challenges.  My husband's band had a show last night and it should go without saying that while I watched and danced, I also drank a little.  Back in the early days of being a "band girlfriend" (which, by the way, is NOT a groupie!), I could tolerate a few drinks with friends.  Apparently, two kids and a decade later, my body doesn't really handle a few drinks and 3 hours of non-stop dancing so well.  Last night was really fun, but today has been a struggle.  Unfortunately, creating a healthy meal out of local ingredients was not on the agenda for lunch...takeout was.  However, on announcing that I had no desire to stand on my wobbly (but newly toned) legs and cook dinner, Jeremy made plans to head to the grocery store.  This was much better than eating another takeout meal, but Jeremy usually picks up quick-fix foods and even though I didn't want to make a meal all from scratch, I had hopes of thinking of something that would meet in the middle.
What did we have?  Burritos and nachos!  YUM!  Was it 100% local and organic?  No.  But, I had local grass-fed ground beef in the freezer and local sharp cheddar in the fridge.  We supplemented that with beans, local salsa and a dollop of regionally produced sour cream.  Jeremy picked up some chips and tortillas, and everyone built their own dinner.
Tonight was a good example of what it means to be on the journey to living simple.  We didn't stress over the fact that neither adult wanted to put a lot of effort into the meal.  No one wanted to look up recipes or spend an hour in the store.  We were able to look at what we had on hand and mix in some easy to grab ingredients for a delicious dinner that we all loved.  I would normally have spent more time and energy trying to fix something healthier and more wholesome.  But, then I wouldn't have had that extra hour with the kids.  And I would have been more tired than I am now.
More than that, it was a good example of how a couple of local, ethically raised and produced foods can change the taste of a meal.  I've always loved burritos...spicy meat wrapped up with complimentary fillings and melted cheese!  But, tonight, I noticed how much the flavor of the local cheese allowed me to use less and have more flavor than before.  And the meat was tender and flavorful...not bland and greasy.  We took an already simple meal and simply turned it into a meal that had complex flavors.  It was less of a quick fix meal and more of a homemade treat!
This week will most likely bring me right back around to trying to keep to the local and homemade foods.  But, tonight reminded me that sometimes we need a little treat.  The key for me, I have decided, is that if I want a treat (tonight burritos...tomorrow ice cream!) then I have to make it myself as simply as possible without covering up the true flavors of a food with prepackaged (and often salt and preservative laden" foods.  Highlight the local, fresh ingredients and downplay the pantry staples.  But, most of all, enjoy the treat and see it as part of the journey to a more simple life!

Reclaiming life

My recent research and self-education of domestic skills lost to the world of consumerism has really had me wondering lately: what led me to the place I am now.  And, more importantly, where is my newly learned knowledge going to take me.  I spent most of my younger years just being a kid.  I don't remember having too much structure and never felt that I was bound into a rigid routine.  I had parents who raised me to be in independent thinker.  They encouraged me to be a good student, while supporting my artistic endeavors at the same time.  I grew up thinking that things should be fixed, not replaced.  I also remember more of the activities we did as a family than the "things" we accrued over time.
I don't know how, then, I entered such a materialistic time in my life.  It lasted for most of my college life and then onward through adulthood.  It wasn't so much that I coveted everything.  I did have self-imposed limits.  I splurged on things that really mattered to me (or I thought they did at the time) and learned how to work the sales and become a coupon queen.  But, buying things on sale still means buying things.
I think I figured I'd just plod along like this until my husband was done with school.  We'd pay off our mountain of debt somehow and then I'd figure out how to cut back my hours at work and finally have my sleep schedule back on track.  Only, the debt didn't just stay put.  It grew.  We live frugally...really, we do.  I don't buy a lot of extra things that we don't need, but I was still purchasing things.
Then, one day, my husband said to me: "you know, if you don't stop buying things you are never going to be able to stay home with the girls like you want to."  I don't mean to say that I didn't already know this...but the redirection of the words really struck home.  Instead of focusing on what I would lose if I stopped shopping, he focused on what I would gain.  And my mind had never looked at it that way.  It was like a bright ray of sunshine streaming through my thoughts.  And then, came the rain.  I wished I would have thought of this years ago.  Before the mountain of debt.  Before I knew where I would be now if I had learned another way of living.  Before my credit card was filled with finance charges, late fees, and compounding interest.
But, here I am.  I've been reading Radical Homemaker by Shannon Hayes this week and I can hardly put it down.  She really speaks to me and my new thought process.  She describes the phase I have been in for the past few years as "renouncing" and "becoming increasingly aware of the illusory happiness of a consumer society."  I'm not sure what started the ball rolling, but I went from just taking the world as it came to me to being able to determine what the ultimate worth of things are and using that to better my surroundings and my life.  I started cleaning with "green" cleaners, I learned how to grow things in the great outdoors, and I started to evaluate what I was putting in the mouths of my family.  And, now, I am evaluating how much worth  my career really has and how much it helps or hinders my life.  And the lives of my family.
So, now I've suddenly entered into the "reclaiming" phase that Hayes describes.  I am trying to rediscover skills that will allow me to better my life.  Unknowingly at first, most of these skills could enable me to live a life of more relaxation and less time spent working.  It is an "exciting and tremendously fulfilling period" but I also find it conflicting with my former life.  I am still trapped in my need to work.  I work for the money to pay off my past, as well as to pay for my present.  I know that I could live on less, but in order to live on less, I have to work less.  Working less means the loss of conventional health insurance, the need to find a responsible way to pay off debt, and the need for lots of planning.  And this planning can't be done until I can already work less.  A spinning merry-go-round of choices that I can't seem to jump off quite yet.
So, I hover in the midst of reclaiming my life.  Ready to take a jump into a new type of life and ready to do something much more radical to better my life.  But, at the same time, I have fears of losing what I always thought was safeguarding my health and security.
But, as psychologists Ed Diener and Shigehiro Oishi say (via Shannon Hayes) "we often misrepresent what will make us happy and unhappy."  I am on the way, not to decide what I will have to live without, but to feel "satisfied and fulfilled with what [I] have and jettisoning the burden of excess."
I am on a path that I hope with ultimately help me reclaim my life.

My New Tools!

Sometimes simplifying life can actually complicate things...especially when you are a working mom trying to get it all done...perfectly.  I don't have the personality that allows me to do anything halfway.  If I take on a challenge it's all the way or not at all.  So, simplifying my life has taken on momentum of its own, leading me to places I never thought I would go.
However, in the case of some things, I've had to learn that a little purchase here and there might just simplify things even more...or at least make the job easier to tolerate.  Most of you know about my bread baking journey.  I haven't purchased a loaf of plastic wrapped store shelved bread in months...and the bread is tasty, but I needed a good way to store it and keep it fresh.  Also, I needed a way to soften my butter.  Real butter is far superior to the processed "spreads" you can find, but if it warps my bread while spreading it, I'm not too happy.  So, I did some quick research and found a couple of rather inexpensive items to help me support my own project.  And keep it tasty, too.  The clear bread box above might be made of plastic, but it is expandable, leaving me more or less room as I need it.  It also has a vent on one side to control the moisture level.  Can you see the enclosed cutting board in the box?  Wonderful!  And for the butter, I found a room-temperature butter crock.  The butter hides in the top while a water filled chamber below keeps out the air to preserve freshness...wonderful, tasty, spreadable butter!
I'll have to admit that my biggest "non-simple" aspect of life is the internet, but without it I would have never even had the knowledge to start on this journey to begin with.  I would never be able to share it with my friends as easily, and my ever expanding research would not be able to be so...simple.  Although, sometimes the internet can be a real time drain, I am working to use my computer to accomplish more real goals and less non-productive fun (although leaving farmville appears to be a bit of a challenge!).  I love to read about how other people have achieved what I am striving for.
In the midst of a really awful week, I found myself wondering how I could possibly keep going at the rate I am going.  Even simplifying my life is not reducing the demands on my time and emotional status as I try to juggle the demands of a full time career and full time homemaker.  I would love to give away the former,  but until healthcare is affordable to those who are not full time workers, I will remain a part of the workforce...but I did reflect on one interesting aspect of the way my life has become:
My mom suggested (as all mom's would) that I try to find something to give up that might free up my time.  However, she suggested my garden might be taking up a good portion of my time.  Yes, aside from my family and my job, it takes up more of my time than anything else.  No, I will never give it up (and in the same suggestion, my mom admitted she knew I never could!).  To me, all the physical demands, all the planning, all the organizing of seeds and hauling of compost and hoses...is not work.  It is simply simple.  Relaxing.  It is my time out in the sun, with my children at my side, growing something that can sustain my family and friends.  It gives me peace in the middle of my crazy week.  It makes me proud and has reflected the most success I have had as a person outside of my family in a long time.  Interesting, though, the discussions it brought this week.  I didn't find many people who shared my views.  In fact, most decided that I was simply crazy to put so much work into something I consider to be simple.  Which makes me wonder...what makes it simple for me and work for others.  And how can the direction of lifestyle be changed for those who DO still see it as work...