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lulu1107's Blog
Hybrid Homesteading...Just the Ticket
Category: Getting Back to My Roots | Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 12:36 pm I'd LOVE to just move out into the woods or the mountains, into a little cabin or an old house. My preference is a nineteen teens house, or even a Victorian. It's not that I don't love this house, because I do. Still, the thought of being secluded..no, nestled in nature's arms is very enticing. It's definitely in my future! So...I do hybrid homesteading in the middle of semi-suburban Pasadena, MD. It does have its advantages...Pure homesteading might involve a generator, coming up with my own wind power, or something. I'd also probably have to be even more careful with electrical consumption. Yesterday I thrived in my little not-quite-this, not-quite-that world. I puttered in the garden, harvesting pumpkins, early sunflower seedheads,a huge green pepper, lots of poblanos and jalapenos, a batch of green beans, two baby summer squashes, herbs and a lot of Malibar spinach. I then proceeded to dry, freeze, or eat them! With the dehydrator running non-stop like you'd expect of an air conditioner, I am filling the cupboards fast. Fig crisps will be next. There's no better end to a day like that, than a plate of salad that has nothing in it but my own garden tasties. Tomorrow I will have to step out into the world (to pay for some of these things!), then it's back to getting the fall garden off the ground. That'll be my third or fourth try at a decent fall garden. Here goes! This blog entry has been viewed 265 times
Welcome to the JJJJ-Jungle
Category: Getting Back to My Roots | Posted: Mon Aug 31, 2009 12:30 am ..as the song goes. I've been lucky enough to add several students to my family daycare (I now have 5 3 year olds and 2 8 year olds), all the while being blessed with a busy entertainment season. The result is that my stomach is no longer tied in knots about money (for the first time in years), but I am getting incredibly busy and TIRED! The yard and gardens have been showing it. Once I gave in to the temptation of all-day air-conditioning, that didn't help either! I took a sobering look at the place yesterday and resolved to get down to business! So I weeded everything in sight today! I ruthlessly finished yanking out the Trip L Crops and I went on a wonderful treasure hunt for Rutgers tomatoes nestled happily in the tangled wilderness that was once so carefully maintained. The two huge baskets of round, red, luscious tomatoes helped ease the guilt of having been so laissez faire about weeding and keeping up with staking the veggies. Now a bit sparse, but tidy, the veggie garden is navigable, even with the several pumpkins growing there. There are still green beans, Malabar Spinach, basil, anchos, at least a dozen Rutgers and several new starts that will now have homes. My dog, Wilbur, decided that the new spaciousness of the garden meant the old rule of staying out of the garden must not apply! OH YES IT DOES! He was quite adorable, though. Spiffy and Charlotte remembered the rules and stayed at the edge. Good girls! The herb garden should have been harvested at least twice now. At least it's weeded again. I usually make a HUGE mess in the kitchen when I bring the herbs in and dry them. There just hasn't been time, what with the daycare parents expecting the place to be tidy and all!!!!! I'll make time soon. Luckily I can continue to dry the tomatoes, which has proven to be a very easy and non-messy process. The hard part is having some left after my son and I snack on them! Blackberries are still in need of daily vigilance. Soon I'll actually be able to save some for jam! The persimmon tree has three persimmons on it! Please, squirrels, don't eat them! The figs are going full tilt, so they'll be the next thing to dry. This is the time of the year when I resolve to stay on top of things through the dog days of summer next year. Here's hoping! This blog entry has been viewed 318 times
Dog Days of Summer? Depends on Your Perspective!
Category: Getting Back to My Roots | Posted: Sun Aug 09, 2009 8:10 pm I just can't let go of my summer garden, not that most of it needs it yet. Some of my neighbors are losing interest and abandoning theirs already, especially now that it's getting so hot. My cucumbers, however, have finally gotten sick enough (and I've finally gotten sick enough of fresh cucs) that I was able to ruthlessly yank them out of the garden and replace them with some young runner bean plants that were waiting for their turn. I also transplanted some Malabar Spinach and lined the edge of the garden with my rather tall Poblano transplants and some Jalapenos. Presto changeo, the tangled mess of a jungle is starting to look civilized again! The tomatoes are coming in (big time), the sunflowers are bowing their full heads and the pumpkins and winter squashes are slowly starting to ripen. Very soon the summer squashes will vacate their spots for something else. All that's left is to (once again) tie in the tomato plants. My reward? All that weeding and digging made me VERY hungry, so I held a couple of tomatoes under the sprinkler and ate them like apples. MMMMMMMM! I walked by the blackberries and stopped for a moment to grab a few to pop into my mouth, then decided to peek at the fig trees. THEY HAD SOME FRUIT!!!! It's early, but three or four were ripe, so I ATE THEM TOO!! Before long we'll be making candied figs with a recipe (I googled it last year) that is over a hundred years old. That's when all self control goes out the window! Some of the blackberries were put aside for drying, along with some store bought blueberries and strawberries (catch a sale and its worth it). If you've never dried sliced strawberries, you should! It's easy and DELICIOUS! Last Christmas I gave gifts of dried herb blends. It's time to prep the herbs again, but this time I'd like to keep some for myself!!! You can google Mrs. Dash and Emeril's Essence recipes, as well as African Curry and Greek Seasoning. I'll be stocking the shelves with those, too. The perennial veggies I recently bought from the Canadian company are doing fine, too young to transplant, but adorable and full of promise! The kale, carrots and arugula are still doing okay, probably because they're in a partially shaded garden. I can't figure out why I have to force myself to mow the grass in this heat, but can spend half the day digging and weeding in the garden?! Last edited: Sun Aug 09, 2009 8:14 pm This blog entry has been viewed 242 times
Sustainability... Yeah, We Can Do That!
Category: Getting Back to My Roots | Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 2:03 pm I'm ashamed to admit I've been playing favorites with my new veggie garden and my old one is feeling a bit put off! The old garden is 50+ percent partial shade, which makes it less than ideal for some of the more popular veggies. The new veggie garden is in a primo sunny spot and is thriving, chock full of broccoli raab, 4 kinds of tomatoes, at least four kinds of peppers, several kinds of eggplant, several pumpkins, green beans, summer squash, Proso Millet, Golden Amaranth, garlic and tall vining cucumbers. The neighboring sunflower maze is now almost as tall as me! I've been growing mizuna, kale, peas, lettuce, mesclun mix, several mustards in the old garden.With the summer heat, its time to re-do it. This would be my first 3 season year, if I pull it off! Recently I decided to transition the old garden to a perennial veggie garden. Bountiful Gardens (California company) has really neat stuff like Old King Henry, a leafy perennial veggie that dates back to the middle ages.It's like spinach. I'll also add French Sorrel, Perpetual Spinach, Rhubarb and Sweet Cicely to my existing Jerusalem Artichokes, Lovage, Egyptian Walking Onion, Welsh Onion, asparagus and strawberries. Presto changeo, I'm now in love with the old garden again!!! Each of these perennials can take a little partial shade and they are all hardy to at least my zone, 7. Never give up! There's always a way! The herb garden has taken on an Italian countryside personality of its own. Its at the sunniest, hottest side of the house, surrounded on all but one side by driveway or stucco. Hot and dry, just the way they they like it! To the established herbs I added six artichokes, from seed. They are looking impressive with their erect, jagged, silvery tinged leaves. The 5 kinds of Lavender are bursting with white or purple flowers and teeming with bees. The Greek Oregano is actually looking like a bush. Time for us to put it together with the little bit of Basil that I have and some of the pile of Italian Garlic I just harvested to patiently await the arrival of some tomatoes for a great pizza or sketti sauce. The Tansy and Rosemary are also helping to keep bad bugs off the "floor" of my veggie garden. I've strewn their leaves there and it's working! Each year we are getting closer to being able to cover a major portion of our food needs with our garden. Keep reading, Rhonda...Yep, I could be a modern day pioneer, with some work and a few dozen pointers! This blog entry has been viewed 198 times
Grandpa Gonzales's Yellow Trunk
Category: Getting Back to My Roots | Posted: Sun May 10, 2009 5:21 am My mom and I were talking today.Somehow, the conversation got around to inherited traits and conditions. My mother then made the comment she usually makes, that she doesn't know much about her mother and father. She says it so matter-of-factly. My mother was born in Detroit, Michigan, daughter of two immigrants from Galicia, Spain. They had been farmers who had fled during the civil unrest there in the 30's. By the time she was two, she had lost her mother to complications during a gall bladder surgery. Her father, unable to read or write (in English or Spanish) made the decision to send my mother and her infant brother to be raised by relatives. She apparently cried a lot. Who wouldn't?! In that same matter-of-fact voice, she has told me about her aunt, who put a pillow over her head to quiet her crying once. She and my uncle ended up in Riverside, California, raised by her father's sister and her husband. I still have fond memories of that person, my great aunt. We always called her Grandma Fernandez. I bragged to my friends that I had extra grandparents! I'll never forget Grandma's arroz con pollo, or her chocolate cake (from scratch) and ice cold milk from a glass jug. Grandma Fernandez was a tough cookie. Every morning she tended her garden faithfully...no easy feat in a town that was carved out of the desert! She also walked everywhere. I have always wished I knew more about my mother's parents. Apparently I look like my Grandma Gonzales, Anuncia (Nancy).When my Grandpa Gonzales died in the mid 1960's he had been keeping company with a woman who helped him with his reading, writing and day-to-day things. Slowly, this woman had gotten my Grandpa to put his "X" on the deed to his house, bank accounts, etc. Nothing was left when he died, but his yellow trunk. I like to believe that he died not knowing what she had done. Even though the circumstances behind the arrival of the yellow trunk are sad, I'm so grateful it made its way to us. It is filled with old photos, letters, postcards, etc....all written in Spanish and all reflecting a happier time, decades before Grandpa's death. My mom, after so much loss and hardship, met the love of her life, my dad, married him in Reno and honeymooned in Vegas. Even my Dad's mom (Lucky 13) said it probably wouldn't last. They had known each other a month! It did last and has passed the 50 year mark. In spite of the tough beginning, Mom is one of the most level-headed, generous-hearted people I know. When it's all said and done, the memories others have of us are our real legacies.When we nurture those memories by telling the stories, we keep the family tree alive and strong. This blog entry has been viewed 238 times
If This House Could Talk!!!
Category: Getting Back to My Roots | Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:54 pm If walls could talk, as they say....Apparently there is quite a story behind my simple little stucco Cape Cod house. My neighbor, Nancy, likes to map out the history of the neighborhood often. I'm glad she repeats the tale, because there are so many details to keep track of that I need it repeated! On September 11, 2001, my daughter and I pulled into the driveway to take a look at the house. We were immediately drawn to the huge red roses at the side of the house and the towering oak in the back. As we looked at each other to confirm that THIS WAS IT, a man came running out of the house yelling some unbelievable things. I remember thinking that the "seller" had to be nuts. I'll never forget that day. In 1950 a nice man, a contractor who worked for Dupont, built this place lovingly and THOROUGHLY out of cement block. Years later, the basement waterproofing company I hired to put in drain tiles in the basement nearly had a fit about the thickness of the foundation cement!They tried to add 2,000.00 to the bill, too. Anyway,the builder and his wife bought the land from a sweet lady who had just subdivided her farm property. Pasadena, MD used to be covered with strawberry farms and this had been one of them. It's amazing who still has ties to that sweet lady, even after several properties resulting from that original farm have changed hands a few times over the last almost 60 years. Her child's son now owns the house next door. I was given that piece of the puzzle by his wife a few weeks ago quite by accident. The ruins of two farm wagons sit at the far end of my property, too heavy to move. I'm glad I had to put some thought into what was to happen to them. They are both so old. It would be sad to see them in a dump. I think the answer is to refurbish them into planter tables (with really cool wheels instead of legs) and put them back into good use. I'd love to know who and what the huge White Oak has shaded over the years. It goes back a LOT further than the house and perhaps even the farm. I do know, that the guy who built this place planted a cherry tree (I nursed it back to productive health a couple of years ago), some var. Euonymous hedging, Rhododendrum, Dogwoods and Russian Honeysuckle. I kept what I could and it formed the backbone of my yard. To me, this is a cottage and I've planned the landscape accordingly. I wove edibles and ornamentals around each other, inter-planting to be able to fit what I needed in. I do regret the Rosa Rugosa hedge at the front, simply because I can't seem to make it look robust enough...probably coddling it too much. Like cottage "folk" of years gone by, I'll make rosehip jam, dry herbs, pick veggies for my dinner...Home sweet home. Last edited: Wed Apr 22, 2009 6:54 pm This blog entry has been viewed 220 times
Off to a Great Start
Category: Getting Back to My Roots | Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:19 am My mother's parents came from a farming community in northern Spain. My dad's folks were mid-western farmers. In fact, Grandma traveled westward in one of the last covered wagons in 1900 as a baby and ended up in California, one of 13 children. She always liked to tell us that she almost bounced out of the wagon and that would have put the entire family line out of commission! She ended up being the only sibling to make it to old age, so she called herself "lucky 13". When I was 19 a family cookbook came into our possession. It was the A to Z of sustainable living, circa the late 1800's or so. I LOVED that cookbook. It even contained hand written records of my grandfather and his two brothers' births.Those boys soon lost their parents, my great grandparents, before the youngest was old enough to be on his own. Fast forward to 1977 and somehow I, at the tender age of 19, had a strong sense that I needed to protect that book, begging to be allowed to be its caretaker. My mother assured me that it would be fine. It was lost for many years, then permanently lost in a fire. Last summer I paid the family cookbook a small tribute by googling some fig recipes. I have three fig trees...couldn't decide which kind I wanted, so I ended up with more than I needed. I don't waste it, though! My googling yielded me a 100 year old recipe for candied figs... FABULOUS!!!!It involved a three day process which, by the end shed new light on what "visions of sugarplums danced in their heads" must have meant. Most of the edible landscape and orchard setup is in place and much of it is about to bear or already has.I planted quite a bit of the early veggie seeds already. The herbs need a bit of sprucing up and adding to, so I'll be expanding to some not-so predictable items, like soapwort. By summer I hope to be washing my hair in homemade soapwort and lavender shampoo, then rinsing with rosemary infusion. To me personal progress involves a fair amount of looking back! This blog entry has been viewed 269 times
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