(Annual) Update: My Great Garden Adventure

Well, it's the dirt that did it.

The wonderful compost that my fabulous mother brought down from her magic chickens up in Julian.

Bugs' eye view of my squash plant

Random flower

And now, you see, my garden is doing GREAT now. I can't believe it. Has someone been praying for my plants? Did the earth shift on its axis? Is there a secret gardening fairy who has taken pity on my black thumb?

Nope, I think it's the chickens.

And my mom.

And the water. That helps, too.

First tomato

Squash blossom

These grew by accident in my compost bin.

 

How does my garden grow?

Well, it appears I took a good month off of blogging.

It has been a good month. But I did need the break. Life sorta came at me all of a sudden there. Lots of big changes, lots of momentum, and some pretty hairy challenges thrown in for good measure. I'm sure I'll share more over time.

But enough of that. I want to share about my lovely garden!

Here is the before shot:

Those who know me may laugh, but all the encouraging comments I got as a result of my carnival post about my mom's gardening really inspired me. One day soon after I published that post, Eden and I were out back just putzing around (blowing bubbles, probably) and I stood there and took a good look at my plants. This sounds really funny to me, but I think I was trying to listen to them or pay attention or something (See, I really did internalize those comments!)

Before I knew it I was bending over to pull out the weeds that had sprung up after recent rains. Then I grabbed a pair of shears and started cutting off dead leaves. Suddenly, I was in full-swing gardening mode, with Eden following along behind me mimicking my every move.

I can't believe I'm saying this, either, but I really had a blast cleaning the place up! I didn't mind the scratchy arms or bugs because I felt like I was doing the garden a favor by cleaning it up. I felt it would, in turn, do me a favor by looking nice and helping me grow some food. It was incredibly relaxing, rewarding, and good exercise, too. I didn't wear any special clothes or use any special tools. It was just Eden and I with our hands in the dirt on a beautiful Southern California day in the middle of March.

Eden loves being outside so much; I think gardening is going to be a wonderful way for her and I to spend some time outdoors together after work and on weekends. I'm so happy daylight savings time is here.

So, you saw the before picture above. Here is the after picture:

(Sorry for the poor quality. I took this picture on my cell phone.)

And, a small spoiler alert: Mom did come down to help me plant and I've got some seedlings up. More on that -- later!

Watch out, patio, here I come!

Okay, so I'm sure a lot of you have noticed my recent threats to give my patio garden another go this year.

Sigh.

Why on earth did I share this? Because now I have an entire online community waiting with bated breath to measure my success (or failure).

tee hee, ha ha ha HA HA HA. snicker, snicker. tee. hee. [tear]

Well, maybe not an entire community, but since I HAVE put the threat out there and since I did say that I would do it, I suppose my honor is at stake and I've got to give it another go.

Okay, enough mandy-pandering. Here is my to-do list:

1. Pick seeds plants. Okay, let's not get to heady about this. Seeds are great and all, but I think it would be wise to give myself a head start this year and not expect any miracles.

2. Get some dirt. I just signed up for my local freecycle.com group so I think I'll post a "wanted" item on there for some good garden soil. Then I can just add in some fertilizer or whatever else I need to beef it up a bit.

3. Oh, wait, I need to clean this up first. Before I put in new dirt. Yeah. Last time we dug this up we ran into the Ant Hill Of The Century. I hope they've moved on by now.

4. Plant. Callin' mom right now. Ring, ring....

5. Figure out how to water the darn thing. Now, before you go placing judgement on my gardening acumen, you must know that I don't have a water source anywhere near my backyard, so this means transporting water in from somewhere else. This is a hassle.

Before Eden came along I'd rope a hose from our kitchen sink through the house into the back yard, which gave us water, albeit low-pressure and messy-floor water. (Since the hose is dirty, is makes the floor dirty.) One of my issues with this practice is that it requires I leave the back patio window open during the watering process, which in the summer screws up the temperature in our un-air-conditioned home. Now that Eden is here, it adds an extra level of hassle because she makes everything that much slower, and wants to be a part of everything---which I usually love, but, you know, it just makes the whole dang process That. Much. Longer.

Maybe I could get a few 5-gallon buckets of water to fill in the bathroom and just carry them out. Build strong muscles that way.

6. Water.

7. Water. (I hear this is an important step to not killing plants.)

8. Weed & otherwise tend until harvest time. Calling mom again. Ring, ring...

I am SO looking forward to Daylight Savings Time, as it will buy me an extra hour of daylight after work to work in the garden and play with Eden.

Here goes nothin! :oD

p.s. I found some old photos for my last post about my childhood memories of the garden! Click here for a peek into my past.

Getting Dirty - updated with photos, now!

I've updated this post with some old photos I found. Couldn't find a working scanner ('hole nuther story) so I decided to just take pictures of the pictures. Not ideal, but wanted to share them anyway.

Welcome to the March Carnival of Natural Parenting: Vintage green!

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month we're writing about being green — both how green we were when we were young and how green our kids are today. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.

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One of my all-time favorite photos from childhood is a picture of my little sister, Abby, sitting on bright green grass. She's in our backyard, wearing a navy blue wrap-around top and no pants, her tiny little baby butt peeking out from behind. (This isn't that exact picture, but it's taken on the same day.)

It brings back memories of Southern California Santa Ana weather, prickly green grass, crumbly and warm brown dirt, and tomatoes.
 

Lots and lots of tomatoes.

I've never really liked tomatoes. Still don't, actually (unless they are fresh and firm and sweet). My mom loved them so much she would pick one right off the vine and eat it like an apple.

But, I digress. My mom homeschooled us in my younger years, and we'd often spend our mornings out in the backyard working the garden. She'd let Abby run around without a diaper to help clear up any diaper rash. Meanwhile, my sister Hilary and I would be sweating in the dry summer sun, hoeing beans, coaxing the squash, picking tomatoes and washing chard. My mom did a lot of things "from scratch." She baked bread, made her own spaghetti sauce, did all her baking from scratch. She hung our clothes out on the line. We carted bath water from the house out to the garden (this was during the water-rationing drought days). We made compost. We canned the summer bounty.

I was up at my mother's house this weekend and while we were doing dishes together, I asked her why she did all these things. Was it because she was trying to be earth-friendly? Economical? "No," she replied, "I just love doing things that way. You know how you like hot showers? Hanging clothes out on the line is like that for me."

Our backyard clothesline.
My sister Hilary would hang upside down by her knees and do all sorts of fancy tricks on it.

Gardening is like that for my mom, too. Today, she lives up in the Southern California mountains and nurses along her wild plants and gardens in the post-fire landscape, spending many long and hot hours under the sun. It is her escape, her calm, and one of her dearest life's pursuits.

I did not inherit her green thumb. I've always joked that nurseries were invented for people like me who bring home a plant and have to replace it four weeks later, after it's died. I have to admit, though, that I've been deeply inspired lately about the food I eat, how it's grown, and where it comes from. I've read a few books where the author's love of food and its relationship to the earth has made me realize that I want my food to be more than plastic-tasting, shrink-wrapped "nutrition," grown and sold under fluorescent lighting. I have realized that I don't want to lose my connection to good, brown earth and the life cycle that brings plants up from seeds, to plants, to our table, back to earth.

I realize the things which seemed "hokey" and "backwards" to me as a teenager have actually given me a foundation for good health and respectful living as an adult. I want to raise my daughter this way, too--to respect where our food comes from, to know what it takes, and to love food for the miracle gift it is.

So, thank you, Mom, for teaching me how to work a garden. I might be biting off more than I can chew, but perhaps I shall give my patio garden another swing this year. Instead of just drought-resistant [read, Molly-resistant] plants, though, maybe I'll throw in a few vegetables for our table.

Maybe a tomato, or two.

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Visit Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants.
(This list will be updated March 9 with all the carnival links.)

• My Momma Was a Hippie — Jessica at This is Worthwhile is continuing her Earth Momma mother's way of honoring nature by taking her child outside every day. (@tisworthwhile)
• Mom Did Know Best, About Diapers at Least — Guavalicious at They Are So Cute When They Are Sleeping has a dirty secret about cloth diapers: They're easy. (@guavalicious)
• The Force that Drives the Water Through the Rocks — Shana at Tales of Minor Interest remembers her first spiritual connection with nature, granted to her through her father's care for the spirits of the earth.
• Confessions of a Cabbage Patch Kid — Joni Rae at Tales of a Kitchen Witch Momma learned about landfills and recycling through gardening. (@kitchenwitch)
• Seeing My Grandmother Through Green Colored Lenses — Michelle at Seeking Mother was raised by a grandmother who wouldn't let anyone throw out used clothing — ever — and who believed baths were water enough for two or more people at least. (@seekingmother)
• Through Green Tinted Glasses — Thomasin at Propson Palingenesis realized her family didn't so much choose green as it chose them, since not being green would have cost a lot more.
• Green or Die! — NavelgazingBajan at Navelgazing remembers berating her family for not turning off the faucets — and notes that her efforts to save the planet for another 20 years must have worked.
• Natural Parenting Carnival: Green Living — Sarah at Natural Parenting is doing more to make her children's generation green than what she had as a child.
• Natural Parenting Carnival: Vintage Green — pchanner at A Mom's Fresh Start used to fill her own water bottles from a spring — before doing so was cool. (@pchanner)
• Getting Dirty — Molly at Molly's Place is inspired by her mother's camaraderie with nature. She's going to get back in touch with the real food cycle, as opposed to the "shrink-wrapped nutrition" you can buy. (@KPMolly)
• My Vintage Green Raincoat — Mama at Maman A Droit is wearing her brother's bright green raincoat — 16 years later! (@MamanADroit)
• Vintage Green — Darcel at Mahogany Way hasn't realized it yet, but she is slowly turning into her parents. ;) (@MahoganyWayMama)
• Vintage Green — mrs green at littlegreenblog reminds us that children can be green simply by being kids. (@myzerowaste)
• March Carnival of Natural Parenting: Vintage Green — Lauren at Hobo Mama was eco-chic before it was en vogue. (@Hobo_Mama)
• Growing Up Green — Chrystal at Happy Mothering honed her green instinct from an early age. (@HappyMothering)
• greener pastures — The Grumbles at Grumbles and Grunts has a list of ways she's transitioning from green living as a novelty to green living as a lifestyle. (@thegrumbles)
• Vintage Green: The Hot Water Tank Is Not Sexy — Zoey at Good Goog had to go green when moss started growing around her feet. (@zoeyspeak)
• We Walked Softly — Starr at Earth Mama wrote a beautiful post about how her parents instilled a love of and respect for Earth and nature in her, and how she is passing that gift on to her own children.
• Save the Mermaids! — CurlyMonkey is learning from her daughter how to keep the mermaids happy. (@curlymonkey_)
• March Carnival of Natural Parenting: Vintage Green — Dionna at Code Name: Mama sees glimpses of her mother's greenness frugality in her own life - but she draws the line at pantyhose soap. (@CodeNameMama)
• I Thought I Made Them Green, But Really They Made Me — Melodie at Breastfeeding Moms Unite! thought she made her parents green — until she took a closer look. (@bfmom)
• A Culture of Less — Alison at BluebirdMama explained why homebirth is the green childbirth choice. I love this thought! (@childbearing)
• 5 Ways to Embarrass Your Children While Going Green — Acacia at Be Present Mama shares some of the embarrassing things her parents did to her in the name of being eco-conscious.
• Ending Is Better than Mending? — Paige at Baby Dust Diaries is teaching us how to darn socks armed only with a light bulb. (@babydust)
• There and Back Again: A Green Girl's Tale — Lactating Girl offers a gentle reminder that certain eco-conscious practices shouldn't be "ideals," but realities. (@LactatingGirl)

Going Natural

It began the day our savings was officially zero and we came within a hundred dollars of maxing out our small little credit card.

I guess it has been slowly coming for awhile. We've been saying we need to cut back for months, just never really HAD to, or at least not all the way.

Then there was cancelling the cable because we realized we were watching too much mindless dribble on TV. And then there was more time. Time for reading and researching after the Peanut falls asleep at night. Time for planning menus, making lists, and washing vegetables.

And then there was the soup. Actually, first it was Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and THEN there was the soup. The best dog-gone potato leek soup I have had in my life. And then the best chicken soup. No cheese in either one. They didn't need anything to mask their wonderful, brothy goodness.

And then I checked out Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle from the library and it was like something came over me. I could really do this. We can really eat natural, healthy foods. Food that are local and healthy and actually come from a farm. And not only CAN I do this, I really WANT to do this. I want to understand my food. I want to know where it comes from. I want it to be rich and healthy and fresh and good and I want to prepare and share it with my family.

I want to raise Eden this way.

I followed Sarah @ Emerging Mummy's suit and cleaned all the processed gunk out of my kitchen. Looked up a CSA (produce co-op straight from the farm) online and sent in my registration form. Made whole wheat bread tonight and am actually considering making my own cheese in the near future.

I have gone completely, absolutely, stark raving mad.

I am so excited!