May 1, 2013

I’ve been so busy.  Lots of people like being busy and arrange their lives in such a way that they are always busily and happily buzzing back and forth between commitments.  I am not one of those people.  Whenever my life gets too busy, or “big” as I’ve been known to describe it, I start to fail.  I start to feel overwhelemed and stressed and then my performance with it all suffers.  Perhaps there is a way for me to work on this so that I can be both busy and still highly functional, but until I figure out how (and if) I can make that happen, I feel it is best to just recognize when I start to feel this way and then make immediate efforts to scale back on commitments.

Luckily for me, some of my recent commitments are past me and a couple others are soon to be as well, so I can see relief on the horizon.  In fact today, I experienced some in the form of a midday nap.  Of course I could have and probably should have been doing any number of other things, but I was near meltdown mode and knew it was best to just power down for a bit and recharge…wow, what’s with those electronic metaphors there?!….hmmm

Anywho… my nap helped calm and rejuvenate me and so did re-watching the lovely little Back to Eden Film.  If you have not yet seen it, I HIGHLY recommend you set aside the time to as soon as possible, especially if you like to garden and grow your own food.  It is just under 2 hours long of pure inspiration!  I think you’ll find it time well spent.  You may want to have a notebook handy to make notes on ideas and concepts you don’t want to forget.  Honestly, though, the beauty of this film is that all the information shared is so logical and practical, you may not even need a notebook as most if not all of it will just soak into your noggin.

Being reminded as I was about this film today was perfect timing in that this week is my LAST chance at getting cold weather crops in the ground with any hope of seeing them fruit before the heat comes and causes them all to wilt or go to seed.  I dig gardening (pun intended), but I have just been so plumb exhausted as of late, I’ve been worried about how I was going to muster the energy to prepare and plant all 8 (4×8′) raised beds in time.  I must admit, I’ve been a bit intimidated about the idea of managing the largest vegetable and herb gardens I’ve ever had, not to mention a small fruit orchard in need of much TLC….oh, and exactly how do you mow lawn on a slope?! …but I digress.

I recently took “before” pictures of all my yard/garden projects.  I think my camera batteries must have died before I was able to get any really good shots of the raised beds because this is the only one I could find.

Elephant and regular garlic.

The bibb lettuce growing forward in the shot started to go to seed and then got eaten by my chickens who mercilessly broke into this bed.  No real harm done as you see they did not touch the garlic, which is what I would have cried to lose.  The garlic is doing nicely with no attention from me since fall.  The garlic takes up only 1/4 of 1 garden bed.  All other beds are empty.  Well, that’s not entirely true as we noticed some asparagus popping up in one of the other beds so I’m pretty sure we’ve got some asparagus root bundles down deep in that one.

The good, no, great news is that there is really nothing else on my schedule for tomorrow so I will be able to dedicate lots of time in the garden.  Unless it’s a torrential downpour, I plan to be out there rain or shine putting to bed some cold weather crop veg starts I got at Reems Creek Nursery (my new favorite nursery).  If I have an abundance of time and energy and favorable weather, I’ll also plan to direct sow some other veg seeds as well.

One small stumbling block… I don’t yet have a garden plan illustrating what goes where, but I intend to whip one out bright and early tomorrow over some tea.

I have mulch! March 14, 2013

Look at what I managed to find up in my new neck of the woods!

Perhaps this is the most boring looking photo you’ve ever seen posted on a blog but it is beautiful to me!  You see, back in SWFL I literally covered my property in mulch!  Mulch was my key to building wonderful, living soil overtop of the dead, sandy stuff most folks call soil in SWFL.  Down there, the local tree service companies will deliver whole truck loads of mulch to you for FREE because it saves them having to pay to offload it somewhere.  It’s a win-win.  I’ve heard people warn against what all might be in the free mulch (weed seeds, pests, long straggly pieces of wood, possible chemical residues from whatever was used on those plants whilst growing, etc.) but as I saw it, I NEEDED mulch and free is FREE, right?!  So I was willing to take the possible bad with all the obvious good.  Know what?  I never regretted taking advantage of that resource.  In fact, I can’t help but sing it’s praises!  It’s worth mentioning that I felt way better about mulching with recycled tree “waste” especially since  lots of it was chipped up invasive species such as Brazilian pepper and melaleuca.  That seemed to be a whole lot more sustainable than buying plastic bags full of (artificially dyed red) Cypress mulch, made from a native tree species, threatened enough by over-development and lack of habitat.

If you do not currently use mulch on your property, and want to know why I am so ga-ga over it, you may want to spend a little time reading up on the benefits of mulch.  In a nutshell, I was sold on mulching all my plants after seeing the huge difference it made when I spread a 4″ deep layer around the drip zone of a pathetic kapok tree I was trying to save.  This poor tree, a native of rainforests, was so  stressed from lack of water year after year prior to my buying the property it was on, that it had gone dormant and was deep in survival mode.  I mulched it right before rainy season and its spiny grey trunk very quickly swelled, tripled in size and turned green by the end of that season!  That fall was the first time it ever produced it’s huge purple blooms!

Now that daffodils are popping up all over around here, it is clear that springtime is right around the corner!  This property came with 8 raised vegetable beds, a huge herb garden, a number of flower beds and a smattering of various fruit trees, bushes and vines, all of which desperately need to be weeded, pruned and mulched if they are expected to produce well.  Since the soil here is largely clay and does not drain well or provide enough loam and fertility on its own, I was worried about where I would get all the mulch I needed to surround the plants and trees, cover the beds and start building the soil.

I had heard from Madison County Extension office that the local electric company, French Broad, offers free mulch behind its facility in Marshall, but you have to haul it yourself and I do not have a truck or trailer to haul anything.  I wondered if there were tree services that would offer free mulch and deliver it, too.

As luck would have it, I was driving down the street in wonderfully weird Weaverville (just south of home) and what do I see in front of me but a big ol’ tree service truck full of mulch!  I called the number on the side of the truck and asked the fellow who answered if they ever offered free mulch.  He said YES!  I asked if they could deliver it.  He said YES!  Since they are based out of Asheville and would need to cover some ground to get to me to dump the load, he did ask for $25 delivery fee to cover gas which I felt was well worth it!  Not even an hour later, the driver braved my gravel driveway, mucky with rain and set on a grade with his big ol’ truck, turned around at the top like a boss and dumped all that wonderful mulch right where I asked!

I was so happy, I wanted to hug him, but I refrained on the account of not wanting to dissuade him from coming back in the future to deliver me more loads!  He said he’d keep my number for when they are in the area again and I told him I’d keep his in case I found myself ready for more before I heard from them again.

I’m just pleased as punch that I not only have a bunch of mulch to work with already, but that I also have a new contact for future deliveries as well!  Here’s to the start of a hopefully long and happy relationship with Herron’s Tree Service!

 

We’re Official! February 8, 2013

This past week I was on a mission to check some things off my TO DO list including registering our family for homeschooling in NC and registering our family van.  My birthday is right around the corner and I heard something about law enforcement cracking down on improperly registered drivers so I decided to just go ahead and take care of it now before March (my birthday month) even hits.  It feels good to check these tasks off my list!

I’ve procrastinated registering our homeschool for a bit because in NC you need to chose a name for it.  This seems like a simple thing and I am sure most people just go with their last name and then stick “homeschool” on to the end…ie: Smith Homeschool or maybe “academy” if they want the name to pack more clout.  r homeschool we sort of did anyway.  Because we used our upstairs loft as our office/school room and kept all our books and supplies up there, we affectionately referred to our school as The Loft Homeschool.

So funny, but I put off registering here in NC simply because I had to commit to a new name.  A name that apparently you can never change and which will appear on any documentation from the state.  With us being at a new home, in a new place and entering into a new chapter in our lives I wanted to name to be meaningful.

I asked my immediate family for their input but none of them cared too much one way or the other. Brent suggested XYZZY Homeschool, some vague computer-geek reference to an old, old, old school computer game called Colossal Caves Adventure.  Autumn, who is always good at coming up with clever, witty ideas offered that we name it Clowder A-cat-amy, which is a vague language-geek reference to all our cats.  Logan’s input was inappropriate but it is too funny to leave out of the story so prepare yourself if you have a easily-offended constitution.  He said we could be The Ass Crack Slashers and our motto would be “because they have to get there somehow” and he said instead of a school mascot we would all wear school “ass”cots with a proper arse embroidered on each of them.

::sigh::

Once we had our laughs over everyone’s silly ideas, I bumped other more serious ideas around in my head like Nature Nurture Homeschool and Seasons on the Hillside Homeschool but my niece, Jessica and I finally settled on the one we both agreed was best.

May I please present to you… …Earth Heart Homeschool!

We like that earth and heart are anagrams and that one begins with the letter with which the other one ends.  Other than that cool linguistic play, the name of course has meaning.  It means that our hearts here are with the earth.  We aim to live and learn in ways that support and protect our one and only Earth.

Along with all the typical school subjects, our homeschool will also focus on developing homesteading skills that will allow us to live more sustainably with Mother Nature.  We already have our chicken and quail projects on-going.  This spring we plan to restart beehives, revive the orchard of fruiting trees and start gardening with the seasons to produce our own food.  Down the line, as we are able, we’d also like to add in keeping goats for milk!  Stay tuned to hear about our efforts and progress!

13 for 2013 January 27, 2013

Here I find myself already rounding out the end of January of 2013 and like most times following the start of a new year, I feel inspired and motivated to list and accomplish all manner of lofty things.  All the best folks who get geared up at the start of a new year have already posted their resolutions and intentions weeks ago.  I know I am bringing up the rear at this point but I’m okay with that if you are.

I’ve seen 42 new years blossom so far and I’ve appreciated each as another brand new chance to make my dreams come true.  This year seems particularly promised-filled as I get to start it off at this new homestead of ours.  We took some rather large steps last year to  move in the direction of our dreams and here we are in North Carolina!  Interestingly, none of it made a whole lot of sense by any practical means, but for us it was less about practicality and more about following our bliss…but perhaps that is a story for another time.

Although I’ve not officially posted my intentions for this year, I have thought much about them and have taken some of the first steps in realizing them.  Here are my 13 personal focuses for 2013: 

1. Finish crochet-along afghan, hobo afghan, grandparent’s cross-stitch, wedding album and Autumn’s scrapbook and begin at least 1 new project in each crafting area (crochet, cross-stitch & scrapbooking) by year’s end.  Step one will be to take pics of each to show my progress thus far.  I will post those pics here for accountability, so if you do not see me post those pics soon and then updates on my progress on those projects later, feel free to encourage me to do so.
2. Plan and garden by season (month-to-month) using what I already have (books, seeds, tools, etc.) and spending as little as possible.  Yesterday, I spent the majority of the day sorting, organizing and creating an inventory of the seeds I already have.  I’ve been working on creating my own personal seed bank for awhile now.  Between seed-saving efforts and buying open-pollinated heirloom seed packets when I see them at a good price, I’ve managed to amass quite a varied stash so far.  Interested in having one of your own?  Here’s an excellent article full of information on building your own personal seed bank.
   

   My 2013 Personal Spring Seed Bank

3. Read Simple Abundance and complete gratitude journal EVERY day.  If you have not read this modern classic “daybook of comfort and joy” by Sarah Ban Breathnach, you really should.  I’ve owned it for years and started and loved it many times, but this will be the year I keep up with it and finish it!  I am happy to say that although I have not completed a journal entry for every one of these first 27 days of 2013, I am up to date on the daily readings, which I refer to as my daily “meditations” because they always give me something to think on throughout the rest of the day.
4. Walk/Stretch EVERY day, rain or shine with pedometer on.  Heh… of course I got off to a good start on this and really loved the time to myself to walk and think and drink in the wind and all the natural, seasonal beauty around me…then there was some very foul weather that set in, then I found myself under-the-weather, and then more foul weather ….so, no, I have not been doing great with this goal at all so far, but the year is still young!  Feel free to hold me accountable for this goal, too!
5. Arm/Ab exercises at least once a week.  Step one for this one is to find some arm/ab exercises that I can refer to and use daily so I don’t have to put any thought into this part of my new daily routine at all.
6. Track food/exercise EVERY day.  The point behind this idea is to keep myself aware of all I do and don’t eat and how active I am or am not.  If it’s there in front of me in black and white, it’s pretty hard to ignore or rationalize.
7. Lose 75 pounds.  Step one is to post here publicly a starting weight baseline.  I am not prepared to do that today, but I promise to within a week’s time.
8. Use make-up at least once a week.  Silly, huh?  But I figure I either need to use it or lose it and I want to try using it to see if it helps me feel better about my appearance in any way before I just ditch it all.  This March, I will be 42 afterall!
9. At least 1 new recipe every month.  I am really looking forward to this.  If I stumble across any good ones, I’ll be sure to share!
10. Read at least 4 magazines from stash and 1 book from shelf per month.  Oh my word, I have so many magazines backing up!!  I currently subscribe to Hobby Farm Home, Backyard Poultry, Mary Jane’s Farm, and Urban Farming.  While all these are great magazines, it has become obvious, I can not keep up with 4 magazines each month, especially if I am going to try to read a book each month, too!  Goodness knows there are a few other magazines I’d like to subscribe to, too, like Mother Earth News and Countryside, but I’ve promised myself to not get any more magazines until these current subscriptions run out and I catch up on reading those that have stacked up in the meantime.As for books,  right now I am finishing one from the library called Homesteading Adventures: A Guide for Dreamers and Doers by Sue Robishaw.  I am enjoying it overall, but do find the made-up dialogue silly and distracting.  I’d prefer if she just told how she did things straight up without all the excess verbage.  But if you are into all things homesteading, like I am right now, you’ll dig it anyway.  Another promise I made myself was to focus on reading the books stuffed into my bookshelf before getting out any more library books.  My shelves are overflowing with titles that appealed enough to me to buy them at the local used book store, so those will be the ones I dive into once I am done with this month’s selection.
11. Blog at least once per week.  So far, this is my second post this month.  I do suppose I’ll get at least 3 in in time but not sure about #4.  Please subscribe because knowing I have friends reading keeps me motivated to share.
12. Shop with cash only via envelope system.  Leave debit card at home.  Step one will be taking a look at the old budget and reworking it a bit to reflect recent changes.  Once we do that, I am ready to commit to the cash-only envelope system.  The only areas that regularly trip me up are grocery money, and money spent out at Goodwill or food on the run.  Of course, I need to watch the driving too, as we all know, gas costs add up quickly.
13. Homeschool lesson plan/record keep once per week.  I got a new record plan book for Griff as his last one ran out at the end of December.  I’ve already started filling that in and I’ve also started taking an inventory of all our homeschool books and supplies which I think will make all future lesson planning that much easier!  So I need to finish taking that inventory and next, I need to get a new student planner for Logan to help him stay on track with his academic/educational efforts.

Not to worry, I do have intentions to move forward on other homesteading projects this year, including restarting the bees and erecting fencing and housing for goats!   I’m also interested in aiming t0 eat locally and create less trash as a family.  So as always, I have lots of ideas brewing around in my noggin, but for now, these personal goals are my starting point!

Happy New Year!

How sweet it is! January 27, 2012

Sweet Potatoe vine growing in an old trashcan.

dumping out the cans onto some cardboard.

Sweet potatoes are yummy and nutritious and will grow well in SW FL (Zone 10b) even in the summer when not much else can stand up to the weather, which includes daily torrential rains and stifling heat and sun.  Since they are a vine, they require lots of space to spread out and develop their multiple underground tubers.  Dad had told me about the space saving idea of using old trashcans to grow potatoes,which he had used himself with much success.  I wondered if I could use the same concept to grow sweet potatoes. Being a scientist at heart, I figured I ought to just try it to see how it turned out.  I must say, I was pleased with the end result!

In spring 2011, I took an old trash can with holes in the bottom to create sufficient drainage and filled it with a shallow layer of potting soil. (When I do it over again, I will put in a more sandy soil as I have learned, they actually prefer that over a richer, damper soil.)  I set 1 sweet potato covered in eyes in the bottom and just barely covered it with the soil and watered it.  So you know, you do not need a whole potato covered in eyes.  All you need for one plant is one eye, just be sure it comes with a bit of potato with it.  So, if you are lucky enough to have a potato with multiple eyes then you are the happy owner of just as many potential plants, just cut the potato up into sections, careful to leave at least one eye per piece.  Plant in rows in a garden or in multiple containers if you have them!

Some folks have asked me how big the trashcan needs to be.  My answer is use what you have or what you can get for free.  Truth is, the bigger/taller, the better as potatoes like depth to set tubers and you will make the most of vertical space in a smaller garden if you use a taller, thinner container.  I’ve heard of growing them in bags as well.  I am not a fan of plastics in the garden but I’d say, do what works best for you!

Complete contents of the can.

Autumn and Griff show off their treasures.

Once the greens came up, I covered over them 3/4 of the way with more soil and then watered it all.  I repeated this process of covering  3/4 of the greens several times until the can was eventually full to the top with soil.  Then I left the whole thing alone, sitting on the west side of my house, watered only by Mother Nature until November, when we decided to harvest them.

We dumped out the whole can all at once onto some cardboard because I wanted to save all the vines and soil if possible.  I also saved and reused the can, of course.

Next we dug through the pile to find the hidden treasures!  I started out all girlie using a long-handled cultivator until I accidentally speared one too many tubers and my kiddos decided to just dig in and use the best tools of all, their hands!  Honestly, I could not resist the instinctive urge to join them and between the four of us, we were through that pile in no time!  We discovered that it was sometimes best to pull the fattened tubers free by just tugging on the stringy roots they were connected to.  I will cation you to be careful though, because the fresh sweet potatoes do snap easily and injured potatoes don’t store as well.

Logan's caught a sweet potato by the string!

Our 1st sweet potato harvest, 11/2012.

After harvesting, dust off tubers well and set in a dry place to cure.  Do not wash them as you may encourage mold grown and cause them to spoil.  We wrapped ours loosely in newspaper and stored in a cardboard box in our kitchen pantry for a couple weeks with no trouble at all.  Long term storage could include packing in crates in sand if you live in a less humid place but here in SWFL where its always humid, they store best in AC or a fridge.  We harvested about 10lb. of sweet potatoes from one trash can that we barely tended.  We ate our first batch of them at Thanksgiving and they were so yummy.  I can honestly say, they were the best sweet potatoes I’ve ever had!

I didn’t have the heart to toss the vines, so I put them back in a trash can and started the process all over just to experiment and see how they’d do over the winter.  They are out there on the side of the house right now doing their thing so we shall see!  I’ll let you know.

Tilling the soil and other benefits January 11, 2012

Lu and his girls are happy to help till my garden soil.

It has been my experience that contrary to what lots of people think, chickens are great for gardens.  They really are.  Sure, chickens are opportunists and given the chance they will happily devour your seedlings, greens and pretty much anything juicy and red (berries,ripe tomatoes, etc.).  and if you wanna see a feeding frenzy, break out some grapes!  …So, I am not suggesting you allow them unsupervised access to your edible beds (hence the bird netting you can see in the photo), but I do think it is important to give credit where credit is due.  There are lots of reasons to keep backyard chickens. Let me tell you about a few of my favorites when it comes to my garden.

Most folks know that chicken manure is great as organic, all-natural fertilizer.  Just be sure to study up on how to properly compost and cure the manure before application so as to not burn your plants or lose valuable nutrients as gases.  A handy thing to realize is that you can compost their manure with their bedding at the same time!  So just scoop the coop and use it all as compost!

In this pic you can see my Rhode Island Red (RIR) rooster, Lu, and his hens happily pecking and scratching away at the soil in one of my raised beds.  In doing so, they skillfully and quickly rid the soil of pests, weeds and weed seeds.  If you click on the pic for a larger view, you will notice they are in there with a few heirloom tomato plants which they don’t bother at all.  See, chickens tend to taste everything but will not continue to eat things that taste bad to them.  Since tomatoes are in the nightshade family, every part of their leaves and stems are poisonous to chickens and humans alike.  What’s really cool, is that typical tomato-eating insects like the hornworm are absolutely scrumptious to the chickens so if any of those suckers show up let’s just say the gals fight over them.  The chickens have keen eyesight and will spot even the tiniest of insect eggs and with the most exact precision they can peck it off a leaf without any damage to the leaf!  So you can consider them organic pest control!  And of course scratching the soil to get at the yummy buried bugs also helps to aerate the soil which will increase oxygen to the roots and loosens the soil to allow the plant to thrive.

I feel so strongly in the basic and sustainability benefits of keeping backyard chickens (even in suburban or urban environments), I jumped on board the local initiative to get the local ordinances changed.  When the spearhead of the movement needed to pass the torch for personal reasons, I guess I was her main active supporter and so she asked me to take up the gauntlet.  This is one reason I have not blogged more regularly this past year.  I have just been too busy!  It’s kind of ironic really, because my city actually allows me to keep chickens since they are for educational purposes (we homeschool and my boys are doing a 4H chicken project).  Other parts of Lee County will not allow it at all on residential lots!  So, you may say this is not really even my battle, but I guess whole-heartedly believing in the benefits of backyard chickens is what keeps me going.  If you want to learn more about my efforts, please visit the website LeeChickens or our Backyard Chickens of Lee County Facebook page.  (A special thank you goes out to my very capable web designer/manager who shall remain nameless (but is nonetheless appreciated) who keeps all the technical BYC stuff in order.)

Oh, and I have not forgotten that I promised that my next post would be AFTER pics of my backyard.  Today was sort of gloomy and would not have made the best pics, so just trust I will post them sometime soon!

A New Update for a New Year January 5, 2012

I must apologize for disappearing into cyberspace and not posting to my blog as of late.  I could list all manner of excuses, some perfectly legitimate, but instead I will just let you know that I plan on continuing with this blog because I really do like the idea of chronicling my efforts at backyard sustainability here for anyone interested to follow.  I see it as a great self-reflection tool, too, because while there are times we feel like we are not moving forward with our dreams, the truth is we may yet still be, just at small, incremental and almost imperceptible rates and it is therefore good to look back at snapshots of our projects along the way.

I thought it would be fun to show some pics that Brent just discovered on an old camera card.  It’s a blast from my past of our backyard when we first moved in in 1999.  Alot has changed and as you see pics of my place now I think the differences will be just as obvious to you as they are to me.

Here is good shot of the back (north side) of the house in 1999.  As you can see, there was nothing butt-up against the house but sod.  Two of the three plants that can be seen are ones I planted before I learned about natives or edibles.  One is aloe and the other looks to be Dieffenbachia.  The latter is long gone but the former remains in several clumps found all over my front and back yards!  The third viney looking one that is leftmost is a pathos that the previous owner accidentally planted in the yard near the back door by leaving a potted plant to overgrow its container and spread through the back lawn.  We are still fighting that invasive vine to this day!  It’s a great houseplant, clearing the air of toxins inside a home.  It just does not belong spreading wild and out-competing native species.  In the distance you can see the trunk of a mature  slash pine in the adjacent lot, which was later brutally removed by accident when there was a misunderstanding about which lot was getting developed.  I was sad to see that tree go but at least it gave me a volunteer sapling in my yard before it was taken down.

Our big backyard 1999

This photo was taken looking straight back into the yard from the back doors, which were sliding glass doors off the dining room that opened onto the lawn directly.  You can clearly see our only existing neighbor’s house at the time.  Logan is searching for Easter eggs by the mahogany sapling we planted.  Autumn and Logan each got a mahogany sapling from the city as a reward for picking up trash in our neighborhood.  That was our first foray into planting natives.  Unfortunately, this sapling snapped off at the trunk during Hurricane Charley a few years later and was never able to recover.

NW corner of our big backyard 1999

This next photo shows the NW corner of our backyard at the time.  One of the biggest reasons we liked this property was because the house sat as far forward on the lot as allowable leaving a huge back yard.  The backyard was already fenced, too, which was a big plus.  Beyond the fence you can see a huge clump of invasive Brazilian pepper surrounding a native slash pine.  The pepper has been cut back and cleared many times but I am sad to say, all these years later it still remains.   The big bush in our yard was a philodendron which we removed when I started getting into planting natives.  At first I was under the impression that because it was not a native species I needed to remove it.  In this case, although philodendron are not native, they are not considered invasive so as it turns out I could have left it in as it is okay to have non-invasive exotics in your yard.  The kids would go underneath it and use it as a “clubhouse” but removing it made way for some slash pines of our own which I think is a good trade off.  Funny story… it took us forever to get that thing out of the ground but we did not have nearly as hard a time getting it out as we would have had it not been partially root bound by a pot that it had been planted in!  It was as if someone just took a potted philodendron, pot and all and stuck it in the ground!  Silly people…

NE corner of our big backyard 1999

This last photo shows the NE corner of our big backyard in 1999.  Present in the photo is the home of our only existing neighbor at the time.  The palms outside the fence are theirs and the small clump of bananas inside the fence was the only plant on that side of our yard.  That clump slowly grew up over the years and even produced a few times.  The fruit was the freshest, best-tasting banana I’ve ever had (I wish I knew the exact variety).  I am sad to say that my chickens apparently felt the same way about the whole plant and slowly ate away at the clump last year until the last leafless trunk fell over on itself and then they ate that too!  Lesson learned, chickens LOVE banana plants!

Spoiler alert: my next blog entry will compare some recently taken photos of the same angles of my backyard!  It is my hopes that records like this will prove to me that I am making progress towards my dreams and goals, even if just a little at a time!

Meet my milkweed September 1, 2011

Milkweeds are both a nectar source and larval host plant for for Monarch butterflies.

A honeybee visits the milkweed.

A few years back, I planted 1 scarlet milkweed in my backyard.  Now I have several volunteer plants growing where-ever they like along the back and side of my house.  All of my plants are the yellow version but I recently got some seeds from a friend who grows the bi-color yellow/red version which I plan to sprout and add to my garden soon.

I spent some time in my yard not too long ago and realized just how popular my milkweed is with the wildlife.  The monarchs come to lay eggs on the leaves and and sip nectar from the flowers.  The honeybees come to gather nectar and pollen.  Unfortunately, the aphids come to suck the milky sap whose poison helps to make them less palatable to many predators, not including, of course, the equally toxic ladybug who likes a nice fat, juicy, poison-fed aphid and says, “Yay!  More for me!”

Burnt Toast keeps watch and hunts for bugs among the milkweeds while Cinnamon takes advantage of a snooze in the shade they provide.

A ladybug fixes to feast on the aphids feasting on the milkweed.

I especially love that I can enjoy the color of this continuously flowering plant without having to protect it from my chickens, who tend to eat anything green and flowering but prefer to leave this bitter-tasting beauty alone.

Best Pineapples Ever! August 4, 2011

We grow our own pineapples here on our subtropical (zone 10) homestead.  I must say, they are the best pineapples I have ever tasted!  My only regret is that I don’t grow more than we already do and that sometimes the neighborhood critters beat me to them!  Growing your own pineapples is easy to do.  Here is the simple process I use that my dad taught me.

Lower leaves were pulled off from stem and after soaking the stem in water, roots have sprouted.

Set the pineapple top in a cup of water for about a week until it develops roots.

1. Cut the top off any pineapple that you buy from the store.  Sometimes you’ll see them selling pineapples with the greens already cut off.  I think that’s just another conspiracy to keep us from growing our own food, but I digress…

2. Peel off a few rows of the lower leaves revealing the base of the stem.

3. Set the pineapple top in a cup and fill with water just enough to soak the base of the stem you revealed by pulling back lower leaves.

4. Let the pineapple top soak for about a week or until roots form.  Be sure water does not dry up.

5. Rooting hormone lightly dusted on the base of the stem before soaking can help roots form.

6.  Once roots have clearly formed, plant in potting soil and keep soil moist for at least a month until a good root ball develops.

7. Once the root ball develops, plan directly in the soil in the sunniest spot in your yard so long as you are somewhere without hard freezes (USA Hardiness zones of 10-15).   If you are in a hard freeze zone, you will need to keep your pineapple potted so that you can bring it in in the winter to protect it from low temps.

A row of pineapples grows alongside the west side of my pool cage.

8. Tend your plan and wait 2 years.  Seriously.  It will take about 2 years before the plant flowers and 6 more months or so before it bears a mature fruit.  So if you want to have at least 1 fruit per year, you will need at least 2 plants.

This year's budding harvest.

The more plants you have, the more fruit you will have to harvest.  The nice thing about growing pineapples is that they are self-propagating in two ways really.  First, they will spread via suckers in the area where planted so that although you plant only one pineapple top, a few years down the line, you may be lucky enough to have a whole patch!  Secondly, every pineapple you harvest gives you another top to plant and start the process all over again!  If you get to the point where you are overrun with pineapple tops and plants, you can always pot them up in a nice pot and give them to friends.  They are a gift that keeps on giving!

9. You will know your fruit is ready to pick because the color will go from an all over green to an all over gold.  At this point you can usually smell the deliciousness wafting up from the fruit as it is warmed by the hot sun.  BEWARE PINEAPPLE PREDATORS!!!  After growing pineapples for 4 years, I am still trying to determine the best time to harvest them so that they can ripen to sweetness on the plant but not be stolen by 4-pawed thieves!  You know an animal got to them because they leave the green top behind for you to start again and hopefully plant them one for next time!

10. Repeat.

Wild Cotton July 25, 2011

A row of wild cotton.

 

 

Gray Hairstreak butterfly

These wild cotton plants grow in my backyard.  During the rainy season they are quite lush and green with big, broad leaves, the shape of maple leaves.  Their blooms are also big and broad, pale yellow in color with a light, pink blush at the edges of the petals and are attractive to butterflies.   The plant itself is the larval host plant for gray hairstreak butterflies.

I’m having a bit of a conundrum about the current legal statusof these plants.  Apparently you are not able to propagate cotton legally in Florida anymore due to protections against the boll weevil, but at the same time, you are not able to destroy it when it is growing on your property because it is listed as an endangered native.  For the time being, we are tending the plants already growing in our backyard and doing our part not to share seeds or seedlings.

Gray Hairstreak caterpillar

A close up showing some cotton bolls.

Homespun cotton yarn. It doesn't get any more organic or sustainable than this, folks!

Recently, a friend who knits and is teaching herself to spin fiber into yarn was visiting and saw all the cotton bolls on my plants just hanging there, heavy on the branches.  She asked if we ever used the cotton for anything and I told her that the kids have made some pillows and used it as stuffing, but that’s about it.  She asked for a mess of the cotton so that she could try her hand at spinning.  We gave her a pound or so of raw cotton fiber and she was able to create the beautiful yarn pictured here.

She has promised to learn the fine art of dying cotton fiber  (apparently it is different than dying the animal fiber she usually works with) and once she does, she’ll teach the boys and me!

Since we do not use any pesticides or chemical fertilizers in our yard, this cotton is grown in the most all natural way as possible!  I don’t think I’m allowed to claim it’s organic unless I pay lots of money to complete a certification process, lol.  Either way, we think it’s quite cool to see the cotton fiber go to such a good use!  Sustainability at its best!