How do these items fit into your gardening plan?

These items Include some interesting things in their category; so just how do they fit into my gardening days? My son looked at them and said, "Well you have a prety good start on a boiler maker." These items however are my garden medicine cabinet. They are all natural and they are pretty easy to come by and not very expensive. They all come out of Jerry Baker's, Giant Book of Garden Solutions. I highly recommend this book, as we have found through the years some wonderfully innovative solutions to our garden needs. I will give you the one I use in garden prep, for the rest please go get the book, it will become one of your most basic necessities for success. We start with what Jerry calls the Super Soil Sandwich Dressing and it makes a huge difference in the outcome of our harvest.

     Simply take 1 can of beer, 1 can of regular cola, 1/2 cup of ammonia, and a 1/2 c. instant tea granules. Mix in a large bucket and then put in a 20 gallon hose end sprayer, then spray your garden until it is saturated. It is simple easy and most of all safe. I love the ingenuity to use such things as Cayenne and Hot Sauce to rid my garden of pests, but not injure them. This is a must have for those who wish to keep pesticides out of their food supply, yet protect all of your hard work. I am heading out to spray a rose tonic on my newly planted roses. They should feel great with such items as whiskey, vitamin B1, warm tea, liquid dish soap and peroxide. Wonderful, safe and very smart for the garden.

Shopping the Farmer's Market

It amazes me what I learn or see everytime I go to the Farmer's Market. It takes a certain time investment to make your time profitable there and to be willing to look for the proverbial needle in a haystack. I like to buy fresh local produce for the most part, sometimes I have to go international if I need something not grown in the USA, but by and large I can find it grown local or in the USA. I also have to ask questions about the handling of the produce. Such as gassing processes of most vegetables, not sold by organic distributors. It has been a practice to gas fruits and veggies to preserve them longer, but what then are we ingesting? Asking questions and demanding non GMO foods is important to your health and well being. I am not covering the grocery stores because they buy their produce from the same places and treat their foods the same. In a supposedly health concious country, it is amazing that major distributors of food also deal in the pesticides and pharmaceutical drugs we have used on our food or need when our bodies start to deteriorate from ingesting poisons. It may seem radical or come to some people as what can I do about it? You can speak up with the other little voices and then vote smartly. Make sure you are not voting for people supported by these mega corporations, such as Monsanto and Con Agra. It is so important that we not allow greedy corporations to sacrifice our health for their wallets. Ask before you buy, Grow your own, or buy from local organic small farmers. After all it is your health and your families! 

Coming out of Hibernation :) into the garden...

Well, it is time to arise and begin. We began the process of tilling the leaf cover into the soil and prepping it for the garden we will begin to plant. We sat down with our seeds, list of produce we plan to raise this year, and graphing paper. We laid out the garden for the upcoming year. We covered what goes in the square food garden frames and what will go in wide raised bed rows. Our soil is being tested to see if we need to add anything to it for the upcoming growing season. The remains of the fall garden are being harvested. We picked and shelled the peas and threw the pea vines to the chickens. I have started to dehydrate the cabbage that we don't use fresh. We have one plant of broccoli we are waiting to finish going to seed so we can collect the seeds. We have been cleaning the isles of chickweed and are getting ready to clean out the chicken house to mulch the paths with and cover over with leaves to begin to compost the refuse for when we till next fall. We have also checked the sprinkler system and cleaned it up for set up in April. We have begun to clean up the grapes and see if we need to replace any. I am excited to get out of doors and into the garden again. We have begun to stir the compost heap and overlayer it with the chickweed and leaves so it will begin to heat up again and break down the garden refuse into good compost for later usage.
     The tomato bed is getting ready to get a good fence around it after last years revelation, when the rabbit ate my first tomato planting. The trellis' are cleaned off and ready to be put back up and we have some work to do on the blackberries, they need to be cleaned, mulched and cuttings taken for new bushes. Within the next two weeks we will put out sugar peas and get the cold frame ready to cover them if we have frost. We will feed the carrots fertilizer and clip back the asparagus. We will also plant potatoes on the dark nights of February. I also will begin my greenhouse seeding for later transplant, Kale and some broccoli, maybe a few cabbage too. All of this will be journaled and recorded, especially the new types of veggies I bought to try. Everything planted will be heirlooms.
     The key for a good start to the season is the soil testing and the leaf mulch that we put in the garden in the fall, being turned in. You can plant all the seeds you want, but if the soil has no nutrients to support them it is pointless. Gardens are a lot of backbreaking work and at times a good deal of heartbreak. It is better to be prepared. Last year we never mulched our plants after we planted them and they were choked out, or deprived of water in the drought months, because the sun dried out the ground and the weeds stole the moisture. Your preparations are the most impostant thing you do. So now is the most important time of your garden. Get your soil tested; turn in mulch and whatever recommendations the  Agriculture extension recommends on your soil test and make sure you have a good watering system.
     If this is your first year to garden 'START SMALL' I cannot emphasize this enough. Our first garden was hit by a huge drought and we lost almost everything we planted, the soil was poor and the plants fought with the weeds. I worked my behind off to fight the weeds and lost. The next year I did similar with the prep in place and ended up with too much produce for me to put up properly. We had over 20 bushels of zucchini that year and we would give some to people everytime they came over, soon they stopped visiting. So pick 8-10 things you are sure your family will eat and look and read about recommendations for your family size. Our garden is now 1/4 acre for the four of us.
    We do plant 150 plus tomato plants because I make 100 jars of spaghetti/pizza sauce, 52 quarts of stewed tomatoes, 50 quarts of soup mix and 25 quarts of tomatoe juice, I also dehydrated 2-6gallons of 'sun-dried' tomatoes for sandwiches and pizza topping. I plant a 75 foot row of a variety of squash, 3-4 rows of corn, 1 row of pole string and lima beans, 3 rows of bush string and lima beans, 1 row of sweet peppers, etc. We have figured out what we need and we try to not waste any of it. This is the key of start small and work on your plans. It cost us a lot of money in the early years because of failure to plan and prep. A garden is hard work, probably the hardest work you will do outside and being smart by preparing will help make the harvest that much tastier. Happy prepping!

Tis The Season...

I cannot believe it has been a month since I posted and yet again, I can. It has been a very busy month.  November was turkey month, since some in my home still eat meat. I cooked 4 turkeys that I bought on sale and cut the meat off and packaged it in the freezer for later consumption. We also went to the coast and bought 40 lbs. of fresh shrimp right off the boat for freezing in 1 lb. packages. I estimate we save close to $200 buying in bulk this way. We used 1/2 lb. lb of shrimp and caught about 10 lbs of fish, surf fishing, one day. I also took this time to restock my pantry, bulk ordering, whole wheat, hard red wheat, soft white wheat, soy beans, couscous, navy beans, cinnamon, and spelt pasta. I also bought a case of sweet potatoes. My husband and son took the muscadines I had harvested and froze in August and thawed and juiced them. This process netted about 25 pints of muscadine jelly, the fruit was free so it was the cost of the sugar, bulk purchased in 50 lb. bag, the pectin and seals. In January I will reorder almonds, coconut, and other baking supplies that I will deplete over the holidays

Coffee Scoops - Walnut
And large Cherry Bowl
Made by Appalachian Treeworks

       This year I have made a concerted effort to be frugal and shop small business for Christmas. I bought from Appalachian Tree Works ( http://www.appalachiantreeworks.com/pages/treen.php ) and Red Wolfe Gallery, some beautiful wooden ornaments, a dough bowl, coffee spoon,  and baguette bowl. From Creative Memories a family recipe book I created, and then I am working on some of my own crafts. I will also have a family calendar put together soon. It has been fun looking for alternatives to the main stream shopping mode we normally use. Every one of these things is American made too. I have had to be careful, in some of my small business ventures, because while they in themselves are a small business many of their items are not American made and I had a goal to buy only Ameircan to help keep more Americans at work.
       There are a few things that have krept under the tree not made in America, but they were items specifically asked for by an individual, next year I will try again, until we are 100% made in America. The thing is this has been one of my most enjoyable Christmas seasons I can remember. I have loved the beautiful handcrafted quality of the things I have purchased or made. I have enjoyed looking at the artistry of our culture and people. I have enjoyed learning new things and making things from the heart, instead of just buying to get it over with. I look forward to doing the shopping for next year and what I can find artistically, handcrafted for friends and family. If you have not tried this approach before give it a shot, it is so relaxed and enjoyable. It grabbed at my artistic side and allowed me to have more than the grab and pay experience. I honestly appreciated the craftsmanship of the pieces and things I bought or made for those I love. :) Happy shopping!

Good Medicine for Cold Weather...

As the cold weather begins to appear and the frost is on the pumpkin, or in some places snow, I am slowly setting in for the winter months, firewood stacked, some still needs splitting, and we will need to gather some more as that is how we heat our home in the winter. Also this will be the year we heat our winter water with the fireplace. My hubby has designed and built a water pipe system that fits behind our woodstove and as we heat the house it will heat our water. I will wander up to the garden to cover my last surviving squash with straw to hopefully ward off the frost and give me maybe another week of squash. The lettuce will get the same treatment. I need to trellis my sugar peas as they are almost bearing size. One great thought will be my dinner is already in the crock. A wonderful soup for a cold and rainy evening.

White Bean and Vegetable Soup - Caryn's Recipe with a twist

2 cups white beans soaked over night
2 large carrots diced
2 small potatoes diced
1 large onion chopped
2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp tumeric
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 c. fresh dill or I used 2 tsp Italian seasoning
juice of half a lemon
8 c water

Rinse and sort beans; cover and soak over night, I do this right in my crock pot
Drain and rinse beans, cover with 8 cups water
add diced carrots, potato, and onion
add the spices and cook in crock, if starting in morning cook on low, if in the early afternoon cook on high for two hours and shift to low until mealtime
turn off crock and add the lemon juice
serve hot :)

The truth about going green...

I remember a good bit of this following story...

"In the line at the store, the cashier told the older woman that plastic bags werent good for the environment. The woman apologized to her and explained, We didn't have the green thing back in my day.

Thats right, they didn't have the green thing in her day. Back then, they returned their milk bottles, Coke bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, using the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

But they didn't have the green thing back her day.

In her day, they walked up stairs, because they didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. They walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time they had to go two blocks.

But shes right. They didn't have the green thing in her day.

Back then, they washed the babys diapers because they didn't have the throw-away kind. They dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that old lady is right, they didn't have the green thing back in her day.

Back then, they had one TV, or radio, in the house not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a pizza dish, not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, they blended and stirred by hand because they didn't have electric machines to do everything for you. When they packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, they used wadded up newspaper to cushion it, not styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.

Back then, they didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. They used a push mower that ran on human power. They exercised by working so they didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But shes right, they didn't have the green thing back then.

They drank from a fountain when they were thirsty, instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time they had a drink of water. They refilled pens with ink, instead of buying a new pen, and they replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But they didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar and kids rode their bikes to school or rode the school bus, instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. They had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And they didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

They didn't have the green thing back then..."

I also remember reusing paper grocery sacks for book covers, to set out cookies on, to cut open and reverse to wrap packages in, walking to the grocery store which was about a mile away, we did not put things in ziploc bags, they went into wax paper bags, that we used to start fires with on camping trips, dryer lint was not loaded with chemicals they were natural fibers so you could use them for fire starters too, used wooden matches rather than flickers that leave solid waste... we need to take a lesson from our seniors and how they grew up.

Preparing the garden for the winter

       It is almost that time again. The time when I put most of my garden to bed. It is sort of like making up the guest room bed for their next visit. First I clean off all old debris left from the summer garden and then my hubby tills the ground, twice. In my garden sprayer, I mix 1 cup dish soap, 1 cup antiseptic mouthwash, 1 can of beer and two cups of chewing tobacco tea that I made in a 1 gallon glass jar with 1 handful of chewing tobacco, and 1 cup of cola; fill the rest of the sprayer with water and spray on my soil. It kills bacteria and pests laying in the dirt from the past season. Then we cover it over with leaves until early spring. It is important to do your prep work for the spring in the fall. This mix also is all organic and has no chemical pesticides to leave traces in your garden.
      Remember to keep a journal of your garden work and what grew well and what did not, as well as where they were planted, so you can rotate crops in the spring, also how you prepped it for the fall. If you have a fall garden, as I do, I spray it down with the sprayer in which I added 1 bottle of beer, 1 bottle of soda and 1 cup of ammonia, and water to fill. I then saturate the ground. Then I much around my plants with leaves. The leaves will be turned under come spring and will really improve the soil.