Category: Homesteading

Homesteading Update: Summer At Last!

6/12/2016

Our beautiful spring salad garden!

I realize it has been a while since I've posted an update on the homestead. Partly that is because we've just been too darned busy, and partly because, well, it has been a slow and frustrating year when it comes to gardening....

Our early warm spell gave way to an unseasonably cold April and May, and between the cold and the rain, and then some dry spells, everything has been quite delayed. For some reason, I also experienced numerous problems with seed germination for both our peppers and melons - both of which I re-planted several times indoors before I got a good crop of seedlings to plant outside.

Luckily, it seems that summer has finally arrived! With a few weeks of hot weather, we seem to be getting back on track, and I finally feel close to finishing "the final frontier" of our garden - the last few beds that we did not get done last year. It has been exhausting work, and I'm ready to take a break from forking and shoveling dirt, but the light at the end of the tunnel is giving me the incentive to push onward and get it done!

Check out the pictures below to see how everything is growing so far...

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Bringing Home the Bacon: The Psychology of Shopping

4/24/2016

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As I was driving home the other day, the passenger's seat piled high with bags of rice noodles, soy and fish sauce, coconut milk, and other goodies from my quarterly trip to the Asian supermarket (stocking up for light summer Thai soups & curries!), I began reflecting on the peculiar pleasure that comes from shopping.

We all know it's fun to shop - heck, some even call it "retail therapy" it feels so good! Sure, there are some people who go overboard with it - even becoming "addicted" to shopping. (And I'm not making light of that at all - it can be a very dangerous problem that can get people into a lot of financial trouble.) And in some cases there are deeper psychological issues at work. But in general, we all just like to shop!

So why is that, exactly? What is it about spending money or buying "stuff" that gives us that little jolt, or "rush" if you will, of satisfaction?

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Homesteading Update: Spring Is Springing...Slowly

4/3/2016

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It already looks like a garden...
though a weedy one.

It's been a while since my last homesteading update, so I thought I'd do a quick one today - not much to share so far, as spring has been dragging its feet.... We started off March in the 70's and everything went nuts, and then for the past few weeks it has been a lot cooler - so cool, in fact, that last night it snowed (hopefully the last snow of the season!) - and we woke up this morning to a dusting of white on the green, green grass.

I had meant to get my potatoes planted this weekend, but as the lows this week are predicted to be in the 20's again, I'm waiting another week just to be safe. Nonetheless, the garden already is looking beautiful (though I may be a bit biased! :-)

I picked up some organic potting soil today, and indoor seed planting will be underway this week, despite the chilly temps outdoors. I'm so excited to get things growing!

Here are some springtime pics from around the homestead. The daffodils have been beautiful, with even more blooming than last year, but unfortunately it seems a wascally wabbit has discovered the tulips, and eaten the buds and stalks all the way to the ground - along with many of the leaves off my strawberry plants!

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Homesteading Update: A Year In The Life Of A Hay Bale

2/21/2016

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The start of our first hay bale garden
(2015).

I've been meaning to do a summary post of our first year of hay bale gardening for a while now, and though it's not really garden season right now, I figured it would be as good a time as any to recap Year 1 of the haybale gardening experiment - especially as we will be kicking off Year 2 in just a few weeks!

I posted a few updates throughout the season last year, so feel free to check those out as well if you've missed any, but this time, I wanted to recap the 6 most important lessons I've learned from our first hay bale garden. If you're thinking of trying it, you will want to read this first, so you can avoid making some of the same mistakes I did!

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Homesteading Update: Storing Up For Winter

10/30/2015

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A Novemberish view.

Even though it is predicted to be in the 70's again next week, there is no doubt that summer is over. The garden is frost-blackened and blasted, waiting to be cleaned out and put to bed for the winter. The last of the brightly colored leaves will soon be gone, and already bare branches greet me through my office window.

We have lots to do outside yet, but in terms of food preparation and preservation, we are pretty much done - and it has been a fruitful year!

It was my first full-scale attempt to put away a good quantity of (mostly) home-grown food for the winter, and while it did involve a fair amount of work, the satisfaction is practically its own reward - although we have already been enjoying a few of the fruits of our labors.... :-)

I have 2 more food preservation tasks left, and then it will be time to rest for a few months - something I'm very much looking forward to after this busy first summer on the homestead!

Here's how things went, for our first season of partially self-sufficient living:

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Homesteading Update: Geothermal Install Complete!

10/11/2015

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The drilling rig.

It was an exciting week on our little homestead, as the geothermal project we have been planning since before we bought the house was finally completed on Friday!

I've been promising an update for a while, so here is the scoop on our installation - though it's probably not as exciting for you. :-) I did want to share our experience anyway, for those who may be considering a geothermal system for your own place. I did a LOT of research over the past year, and found some of the experiences that others had shared to be very helpful.

This is an old house - built in the 50's, and so it is a replacement for the old furnace - not a new build. This means the contractors had some fun challenges to deal with, like the 4' crawlspace the pipes had to be run through to get to the basement. :-) But overall the project was actually pretty straightforward - the planning phase took the longest. The actual installation took about 2 weeks, and that was mostly because the company that drilled the wells couldn't fit us into their schedule right away.

Here's what happened (plus pictures!) - and our experience with the system so far (which has been about 48 hours). :-)

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Homesteading Update: Hay Bale Potato Harvest

8/16/2015

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The harvest!

We're back! Last weekend's late return from our vacation meant I didn't have time to write a post for you, but we're back on schedule now, with some fun stuff this week....

It's hard to believe it's already that time of year: stores are packed with back-to-school shoppers, the garden has that tired, bedraggled look, and you can catch the first glimpses of fall peeking through the worn garments of summer.

This time of year for gardeners is one of the most rewarding, and can also be one of the most challenging: Harvest time!!

As tomatoes and summer squash start to invade every horizontal surface in the kitchen, it can be difficult even to keep up with the daily picking if you have a large garden - let alone the ongoing watering, weeding, etc. Evenings in our kitchen are spent slicing cucumbers, grating zucchini into freezer bags, and peeling tomatoes - and the canning pot is bubbling away on the stove top more often than not.

Luckily, one thing that doesn't really need preserving is potatoes! We finally "dug" the potatoes out of our hay bale garden yesterday, and hopefully these beauties should keep for a while on their own in the cellar. As you probably know by now, this was our first attempt at hay bale gardening, and we've been quite pleased with the results so far; the potatoes are no exception.

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Homesteading Update: Midsummer Madness

7/19/2015

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Our garden - mid-July.

Well, here we are in mid-July, and it's been quite an interesting summer so far.... What a year to start a huge, brand new garden! With almost non-stop rain for the past 6 weeks, this is unlike any summer I have ever seen before, but apparently most of the plants are enjoying all the water. The raspberry patch, and our new fruit trees are the main casualties, but little else seems too bothered by the consistent flooding, and in fact, most of the garden seems extremely happy.

We've yet to start on our geothermal project, but hopefully we will get that going within the next month or so. For now, the garden has been my main focus so far this year, so here's an update, and some pictures from yesterday - although these are already out of date, as everything looks even bigger today!

I've already learned quite a few important lessons during this garden season, as I will share below....

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Homesteading Update: Hay Bale Gardening - So Far, So Good!

6/7/2015

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Our hay bale garden - first week of June.

Well, we're into summer for real now, finally - at least so the thermometer says, if not the calendar! I haven't shared an update on the homestead in a while, and yesterday while marveling at the incredible garden that is taking shape behind the barn, I realized it would be a good time to give you an update on the hay bale gardening experiment we started last September.

Just to catch you up, last fall we found ourselves the proud owners of 20 bales of hay, given to us in "payment" by a neighbor for haying our field. While we do plan to add some grass-eating animals to the homestead eventually, right now we're still in the preparation stages.

So what to do with all this hay? I had seen videos about straw-bale gardening in the past, and had always found it intriguing, so I wondered if one could also garden in hay bales?

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How to Plant Asparagus: A Garden Saga

5/10/2015

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This picture isn't mine, but the ones below
are. I will try to post an updated pic when
ours come up!

Typically we would blog about this on our gardening blog, but as this activity actually encompasses a number of different holistic living topics (gardening, healthy eating, sustainable living, and of course, exercise!), I decided to write about my asparagus planting adventure here for you today.

For those of you who have never planted asparagus before, don't let this deter you - just be prepared for the amount of work it will take! And for those of you who have - well, you know what I'm talking about when I say that after this weekend I now know for sure that I'm a real gardener! :-)

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