I'm Dreaming of a Green Garden

I've mentioned my garden a couple of times. This is my third year attempting gardening as an adult.

Year One:

• Jalapeno pepper plant in a pot on the front doorstep flourished and we ended up using the dehydrator we got as a wedding gift to dry many of them, which we used powdered in recipes.
• Tomatoes in the backyard were underwatered and understaked. We got a few, but most rotted on the vine due to neglect, as we never went in the backyard.
• Herbs in pots in the house did alright for awhile, but died due to over and underwatering.
• I was unsuccessful in starting anything from seed since I had no idea what I was doing.

Year Two:

• Jalapeno pepper plant moved in its pot to the backyard. Since I forgot to replace the soil, there weren't enough nutrients and the peppers were stunted. Still fairly successful.
• Bell pepper plan produced a few fruits, but not many.
• Leeks went ok, except for not enough soil and too close together in pots.
• Basil did great in its larger pot.
• I did better at watering, but the massive amounts of rain in the spring drowned a couple of things.
• We planted scallions and cut them all summer.
• Charles built a patio from used bricks and we spent much of the late summer on the patio, and all the plants got more attention than before.

Year Three:

• I'm getting a little ambitious. I've already started some seeds for houseplants as practice. Chamomile, basil, forget-me-nots (probably will go outside) and marjoram are all doing well. Parsley is poking its head out. These were all leftover seeds with varying viability. Some of them did not start, but I blame their age instead of my neglect. I'm using grow lights, watering them regularly but not overwatering, and generally being a good plant mommy.
• The garden is planned, but we might have a hitch in the replacement of the fence depending on the budget. We'll see what happens.
• Assuming all goes well, we'll have the following:
• Peppers
• Tomatoes
• Kale
• Leeks
• Potatoes
• Green Beans
• Dried Beans
• Rainbow Chard
• Onions
• Carrots?
• Strawberries
• Jalapenos
• Cabbage
• Cucumbers
• Lettuce

Now, we're not starting all of that from seed. Some are plants or cuttings. I'm looking forward to trying my hand at preserving, by pickling some of the cucumbers and making sauerkraut. And of course, dried beans. We'll also have a wide variety of herbs and edible flowers, if all goes well. I'll also dry/freeze some of the produce for the winter.

Our apples come from a local orchard where we go apple picking every fall. Apples store well in the fridge, although they get a bit wrinkly. We eat fresh apples for awhile, and when they get wrinkly, we switch to using them for cooking, applesauce, and apple butter. We also use honey from the same orchard's apiary.

I can't wait until we have enough space to have our own orchard and a few chickens. That's about all I want out of life, although Charles would also like a goat.

Garden

With two feet of snow outside, sometimes I despair of the day ever coming when I will actually have a garden. All the same, tomorrow marks eight weeks until the last frost date, so I am trying to keep up hope. Then again, this has been such a wacky winter that I am a bit worried that frosts will persist past that date.

The eight weeks mark means another thing though: it means that it's time to start seeds. I had already practiced a bit by starting seeds for herbs meant to be house plants to keep us going all year, and maybe give us some fresh herbs before spring is fully settled in. Back in January, I sowed German chamomile, sweet marjoram, oregano, chives, parsley, basil, rosemary, and forget-me-nots, which I just happened to have lying around. All of the seeds were from past years, so besides being practice, I wanted to know what was viable before I actually started seeds for the garden. The German chamomile sprouted very quickly, just as it was supposed to, and is growing quite well. The parsley had the longest germination period, but is finally poking its head out of the soil. Unfortunately, it seems that the oregano, chives, and rosemary were not viable. On the other hand, they are part of a plant package that I ordered, so I'm not too bummed about it.

Today, I started the first seeds that will be transplanted outside when the weather improves. We use a lot of tomatoes around here, so I started nine plants, all heirlooms. Four are Old Virginia, four are Arkansas Traveller, and one is Rutgers, which was a freebie from the seed company. I also planted Bullnose peppers, an intriguing variety that has sweet flesh but hot ribs. I started pot cilantro, vital for all the salsa that I plan on making this summer.

Using a heat propagation tray, I started Danish Ballhead cabbage and Red Danish cabbage. The Red will probably be pickled and served at the table, but I plan on using the Ballhead for sauerkraut, a superfood. Also in the tray, I started a different variety of basil, which hopefully will end up decorating our front yard. I also had ordered a seed set of edible flowers, consisting of: calendula, heartsease (AKA Johnny-Jump-Up), nasturtiums, borage, and citrus marigolds. In the non-edible category, I started French marigolds, which supposedly help repel nasty insects like mosquitos. Here's hoping, since we had a bit of a mosquito problem last year.

I'm impatiently awaiting the delivery of a few more seeds: a purple basil named Rosie, some wild bergamot destined for my teacup, and bell pepper seeds. Later on, after our last frost date, some plants will arrive: kale, leeks, and a big selection of herbs. We'll round out our garden with plants from our farmers' market when it opens in May.

That is, if this snow ever decides to melt.

Lent

My husband and I are not particularly religious people, although we both grew up going to church. I always participated in Lent, however, feeling that it was a good exercise in self-control while being easy to explain to people. No one questions your reasons if you tell them you gave something up for Lent.

This year we had talked about boycotting chain stores, but after much research and planning, found that it would be far too expensive for our humble budget, mostly in the food category. I can give up a lot of things, but not food. This morning, with Lent just around the corner, we made a new plan. We will give up the middle of the grocery store. Specifically, we will give up buying foods with unintelligible labels and stick to the sorts of things Michael Pollan would define as food. With no Sunday cheating. We had already given up high fructose corn syrup for our New Year's resolution, so this is really just taking that to a new level.

It would be a lot easier if our garden would be ready, but of course, with three feet of snow on the ground, we're stuck buying food. We'll just buy food that's good for us.

Yogurt

I've been wanting to make yogurt for awhile, but was a bit intimidated by the idea of having to maintain an exact temperature, or even go out and buy tools. A friend uses a heating pad to make hers, but I didn't really even want to buy that.

Then I read on No Impact Man's blog about making yogurt without worrying about an exact temperature. And yesterday, I tried it.

1. Heat a quart of milk until it starts to boil. Shut it off before it boils over.
2. Let it cool until you can leave your pinky in it for ten seconds without it burning. At least, those were the original instructions. I actually did use a thermometer for this part, and waited until it cooled to 116 degrees, the recommended temperature accorded to my dairy book.
3. In a small bowl, large enough to hold two cups and stir, add 2 tablespoons of yogurt with live cultures (you can also add a yogurt starter. Yogurt with live cultures is labeled). Whisk until smooth.
4. To the yogurt, add two cups of the milk and whisk until combined. This is now your starter.
5. Slowly pour the starter into the milk, whisking slowly.*
6. Pour into containers, seal, and put in a warm place covered by a towel overnight.

So, the warm place was the issue for me. We keep our house at 65 degrees, and it definitely has cooler spots. I'd been baking bread earlier, and I had monitored the cooling of the oven, opening it to let some of the hot air out and closing it to hold the rest in. I liked the idea of using heat that had already been generated and served a purpose. I put the yogurt in with the oven right about 116 degrees, turned off but with the light on, and covered it with a towel. I happened to leave the thermometer in until this morning, and it was still 70 degrees.

I didn't leave the yogurt overnight, but took it out after about 8 hours. My book had recommended at least 6. It looked like a good consistency when I took it out. Perhaps my experiment had worked!

This morning, I took it out of the fridge, and scooped some into a bowl to mix with some granola made from scratch at the bakery that I used to work at. The consistency was definitely perfectly creamy and thick. And it tastes great, although I definitely could have added a bit more vanilla. Goodbye, store-bought yogurt. I love mixing vanilla yogurt with frozen fruit or granola, so this is just about all I need. I can't wait to mix fresh fruit in this summer!

*I also added a teaspoon of vanilla at this step.

DIY Dry Erase Board and Shopping Bags

We've been working on planning the garden, and I've been trying to keep track of when things need to be planted, when they should germinate, etc. So, I really wanted a whiteboard to write all this one, so it was more visual than being written in a notebook, and all in one place. But, I didn't want to buy a whiteboard new. I looked on CL, and they all cost a bunch of money. So, I did a search for DIY dry erase board, and found out that you can use dry-erase markers on Plexiglass. Which we happen to have sitting in our basement. So, that's going to get screwed to some sort of frame and hung. Excellent.

In our hall closet, we have a ton of old plastic bags. We use some of them to pick up after Genny, but a large number of them have holes in them. I've heard of people knitting them into reusable totes, so that's what I'm going to try to do. I found a couple patterns to try out. My knitting is only so-so, so I'll see how that goes.

Keeping Up With The Joneses

Most of the time, I would not consider myself a materialistic person. It took a long time for me to start caring about clothes and makeup, and even now, I'm a pretty minimalist person. In the winter, you're most likely to find me wearing either a button-down, sweater, or sweatshirt. But, I feel a lot of social pressure to care more, and I feel self-conscious enough that sometimes I give in to fashion. I'd rather just braid my hair and have it out of the way and mess with a straightener, but I compromise by blow drying my hair from time to time. Aside from the fact that I really do love shoes, most of the time my wardrobe stresses come from what other people will think. I know it's silly, but I can't help it. I love the people that I work with, but there are quite a few who spend a lot of money and time on appearance, and I feel pressure to fit in with those ideals some times, and feel guilty sometimes that I don't spend enough time at the gym.

In my moments of sanity, I realize that's ridiculous. My favorite people at that job don't care what I look like, as long as its professional, and I hate the gym. Granted, I want to go on the elliptical to get in shape for a 5k I'm running with some students, without being too hard on my knees, but I'd rather be gardening, or going for a walk, or a hike, or a bike ride. After all, going to the gym isn't very green or efficient. You aren't actually accomplishing anything other than burning calories by running on a treadmill that's using up lots of electricity. Like I said, you'll probably see me on the elliptical before May, but that might just be to get exercise despite the snow that will probably be on the ground until then.

My plan to feel fashionable without breaking the bank is to head to a nice consignment shop and pick up a few more classic pieces. I also plan to shop there for upcoming weddings and high school reunions. Reuse and don't break the bank. Seems like a good plan to me!

No Impact Project

The No Impact Project is a weekly challenge, with each day being a step towards reducing your carbon footprint. It intrigued me when I read about it, because of course, it is impossible to live on this planet without having a carbon footprint, even if all you do is sit and breathe. But, reading about it, I thought that we could definitely do a week of this, and take elements from it all the time. The blogger who created the challenge actually did it for a whole year, and went a bit extreme, living without electricity for a year. I don't think I'm prepared to take my environmentalism quite that far.

Each day, a new step is introduced, to build on the previous day's step.

Here is my adapted schedule for the week of what I think we would do:
Sunday: Consumption
The basic idea: With the exception of food, buy nothing new. Make it yourself, borrow, or buy second-hand.
Here are the steps:

• Make your own beauty products. There are tons of resources online.
• Fix things that are broken instead of replacing them. This goes for clothing to: mend instead of replace.
• Make your own cleaning products. There are also tons of resources online for these.
• Shop in second-hand stores.
• If you have to buy new, look for green products and companies and things made from recycled materials.

Monday: Trash

The Basic Idea: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Here are the steps:

• Put together a no-trash travel kit. Food storage, beverage container for hot/cold, handkerchief or cloth napkin, utensils. All those things you usually would use and throw away while you're out.
• Use the bulk bins at the grocery store and bring your own containers and bags.
• Don't take a receipt or use it for scrap paper/lists.
• Don't buy things with a lot of packaging.
• Use rags instead of paper towels.
• Avoid printing or print double-sided.
• Recycle!
• Use scrap paper or dry erase boards to take notes instead of post-it notes.

Tuesday: Transportation

The Basic Idea: Give up your car.

Now this one is a big challenge for me. Charles already takes the train to work, and walks to and from the train station, so his impact is pretty small as far as commuting goes. But when I work and have class, the only way to get from one to the other in enough time is to drive. And in this snowstorm, we're having trouble walking anywhere. So here are our own steps. You should do your best to take it to the next level, or just do as much as you can. Anything is better than nothing. Plus, in addition to helping the environment, you get in better shape.

• Walk or ride your bike unless there is a legitimate time constraint. We have a Target across the street, and it is ridiculous that we ever drive there. Same for the shopping center a mile down the road.
• Take mass transit whenever possible, not just convenient.
• Carpool
• If you have to drive, take shortcuts and double up on errands. And keep your fuel efficiency up.

Wednesday: Food

The Basic Idea: Eat local, seasonal, and organic.

Clearly, this issue is the one closest to our hearts. We spend a lot of time talking about food and how to make it sustainable. It's why we're planting our whole yard in herbs and vegetables. It's a large part of why we want to eventually leave suburbia.

The steps:

• Decide what local means for you. Produced in this country, or within 100 miles?
• If you can't buy something local, like coffee, go for organic and fair trade options.
• Grow it yourself.
• Find farmers' markets, local butchers, and local farms to buy from.
• Limit your meat consumption. We aren't going to cut out our meat consumption entirely, but I do believe we should do our best to buy responsibly and cut out CAFO meat.
• Try substituting locally produced honey for sugar in recipes. Besides, there is some evidence that consuming local honey helps with seasonal allergies.
• Use locally produced butter instead of olive oil. You can even buy local wine in many places in the country.

Thursday: Energy

The Basic Idea: Eliminate or Mitigate

The Steps:

• Make a list of everything you have that uses energy. Figure out whether you are going to eliminate that item or mitigate its use.
• Turn things off and unplug them when you aren't using them.
• Turn your thermostat down in the winter and up in the summer. Wear layers in the winter and take 30 second showers in the summer. Or go somewhere else with climate control, like a museum. Open your windows and let in some fresh air. (Not in the winter of course).
• Use natural light whenever possible.
• Try to time your day with the light. This is harder in the winter, but be sure to only use task lighting at night. Don't leave on lights in rooms that are empty. And of course, switch to CFLs.
• Spend less time online. Seriously. Write letters, get together, and spend less time messaging on Facebook. I'm guilty here.

Friday: Water

The Basic Idea: Use Less

The Steps:

• Run water gently. Turn it off when you aren't using it. Sponge bathe, especially on sticky summer evenings.
• Only use the dishwasher for full loads. Turn the faucet off while you're soaping.
• Use leftover cooking water for watering plants. If all you did was boil water, use it to wash things. You can also use grey water for flushing toilets.
• Reuse the same glass throughout the day.
• Take shorter, colder showers
• Only order water if you are going to drink it at restaurants. That said, it's the best choice.

Saturday: Give Back

The Basic Idea: Volunteer

Sunday: Eco-Sabbath

The Basic Idea: Turn it all off.

Go off the grid for the day and spend time with your family. And by off the grid, completely off the grid. At least, that's the suggestion. We'll probably still use our kitchen, because cooking is our family activity.

Philosophy

You know, this whole townhouse homesteading thing is becoming much more than just a hobby for me. It's really becoming a philosophy of the way that I live my life. Over the past few months, I've watched one movie and read several books that I've considered life-changing.

The movie was Food, Inc. This documentary about the food industry wasn't exactly anything new after the reading that I had done, but the images were especially powerful. I had seen a documentary about slaughterhouses before that made me temporarily vegetarian, but this went so much deeper. This was about the people, not about the animals, and that had a much greater impact on me. Because let's face it, to me, people are more important than animals. So, a system that exploits animals AND people has to be changed.

I read Michael Pollan's books The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. I also read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. All of these are incredible books for different reasons. Barbara Kingsolver helped me realize that I should do what I can, and not feel too guilty about what I can't do.

So, here is what I am doing:
-Planting as extensive an herb and vegetable garden as I can on our little plot of land
-Eating lots of vegetarian meals and fish.* We haven't given up meat entirely, or even meat "from the man." We're working on it.
-Planning on doing lots of shopping at the local farmers' markets.
-We've given up buying anything with high fructose corn syrup in it. We'll extend this list over time to get rid of things that came out of a lab as much as possible.
-I've stopped buying produce that comes from other countries, and fruits that are entirely tropical, such as bananas.

That's what we're doing. It's not perfect, and I still don't always recycle. But we're trying.

*Fish is another issue that I am not quite prepared to deal with. I'm rating my meat consumption a little bit on level of intelligence.