7 Homesteading Mistakes I Made So You Don't Have To

You know you've thought about it - you see pictures of these gorgeous, sun-dappled country properties, with barefoot, white-organic-cotton-clad children dancing through fields of flowers, holding baskets of fresh eggs, and you're like,

"Yes.  I can do that.  It will be all sunsets and harvests, I know it!  Very little manure or sweat.  NO spiders."

Well, you're not alone.  It seems that homesteading is the Millenial generation's version of the American Dream.  Everywhere I look, people under 30 are getting dirt under their fingernails, making compost bins, and hightailing it to their own little patch of heaven outside of town.

Maybe we're interested in providing fresh, organic food for our children.  Maybe we're fed up with a long commute and sitting in traffic.  Or maybe we are just super enticed by the gorgeous pictures on Pinterest of all things made with reclaimed barn wood (guilty!).

I mean, look at it: is this not the place to raise a family?

 Well, I have a confession to make: I'm a suburb kid.  I grew up in a neighborhood with paved sidewalks, dogs on leashes, and a 7-Eleven within walking distance.  When we moved to the country and started our little homestead, I had NOT a FREAKING CLUE about what it took to make it out here.

I have a feeling I'm not the only one from my generation who thought that homestead would be a little easier, a little cushier, and a little rosier than it really turned out to be.

So I started making mistakes quickly, and trust me, the axiom that Failure is the Best Teacher is 100% true.

So here are a few of the things I learned those first few years, when the learning curve was steepest.  I'd love for you to learn from my mistakes!

1. If you don't know how old your eggs are, crack them into a separate bowl first.

 Homegrown food is an adventure all by itself, isn't it?  Most of us grew up having the luxury of a produce manager inspecting our apples and an assembly-line worker candling our eggs, but this is not the case when you grow your own!

I finally understood where the idea for Easter egg hunts came from the first year we let our chickens free-range...they laid in the strangest, most hidden places, and sometimes we'd find a huge cache of eggs that had been out in the weather for several weeks!  There's nothing worse than making an omelette and realizing that the egg you've just added to the pan has been sitting out in the rain for days and is totally bad.

This tip could also include: Check your peach pits for earwigs.  Check your apples for worms.  Check your babies for ticks.  And always, always check your feet before you walk in the front door (right??  I know, gross!).

2. If you leave the hose trickling all night, on well water, in the dry season, there won't be water for showers in the morning.

On city water, the worst this would do is spike your water bill for the month.  Sure, that's a pain.  But when it's only 6 a.m., the dishes are in the sink, there are no clean diapers left, and the well's already run dry?  This is not a recipe for a happy day.

3. The outside will come indoors if you don't have a place to leave it.

This was a huge, HUGE struggle for me!  I grew up in a fairly pristine home that we cleaned, top to bottom, once a week.  As soon as I moved to the country, I realized that once a week cleaning would NEVER cut it if people (ahem, husband!) tracked their muddy work boots around the house!

Having a mud room or a big, washable rug with a bench nearby or a covered front porch is your First Line of Defense to keep all things dirty, stinky, and oozy from making it into your home.  There are no sidewalks here.  Dog paws can be toweled, shoes can be kicked off, and jackets can be corralled immediately upon entering, and if they aren't, you will pay later!

4. The fox will come on the night you forget to close up the chicken coop.

It's true.  It happens, and it sucks.  But living with many little beings (plant or animal) under your care provides so, so many opportunities for small heartbreaks.  There is no "I'll get to it tomorrow" when a helpless creature is depending on you.

That may mean you're going to be bringing baby chicks into the bathroom at 11:30 at night to clean up their pasty-butt (by the way, warm running water is the way to go, followed by a quick dry-off with a hair dryer).  Or it might mean you're slogging out in the pouring rain to fix a fence, close a gate, or drag a water tank when you'd SO much rather cozy up by the fire.

But the standard we live by is this: We must provide our animals with a BETTER life than they would have in the wild.

5. Growing food doesn't do you any good if you don't eat what you grow.

Is there anything sadder than a beautiful, home-grown tomato getting chucked in the compost because you didn't have time to eat it before it went bad?

My first year of gardening, the only thing that grew well for me was radishes.  Seriously, that's it.  And I hate radishes.  So I figured out a way to make them palatable, and we chowed down, sometimes for breakfast, sometimes for lunch, and sometimes for dinner!

It's so much easier to just run to Costco and buy all the familiar things to make all the comfortable meals that everybody definitely likes.

But that's not what we signed up for; we signed up to change our own little corners of the world.

That means being creative, finding ways to help your kids  (or husband) actually like veggies.

It means eating weird assortments and combinations of things at times, things that you would NOT find in a fancy restaurant or on the pages of your favorite food magazine.

It means getting used to cutting up itty bitty potatoes or weird-shaped carrots or super bitter lettuce, and just making do and making it work!

It means not caring if the other kids get a fruit-roll-up and a Go-gurt while your kids are eating dehydrated apple slices and homemade muffins, because you are committing to helping your kids appreciate the way they eat instead of coveting their neighbors' snacks!

Yeah, I'm still looking, but I have yet to find the Goldfish Cracker seeds at the feed store...


6. Running into town for take-out is no longer an option.

I was so used to a life of convenient food that it took me a while to realize that, well, that's not the way it works in the country.

Wasting all your gas money to dash in to Taco Bell or the quick mart makes zero sense...wouldn't you rather spend that money on a new perennial?

You've got to have a plan.  It might not mean every single meal is scheduled on a color-coded calendar, but it means you have to know what is in your pantry, what you can make with it, and what you need to get when you're in town anyway.

And really, isn't it kind of fun finding creative ways to use up, make do, and improvise in the kitchen?


7. There will always be a "next year."

I think this was my hardest lesson.  I learned it when the fox came, when I didn't water and all my seedlings died, when my dog dug up the garden (again!), and most recently (and most tragically), when I forgot to take the cap off the chicken waterer, and I lost 3 new hens on one horrible hot day.

We are taught in our culture to avoid failure, to aim for perfection, and to limit our room for error, and all of those sentiments can come in useful on a homestead.

But there has to be a huge, huge reserve of grace and self-forgiveness if you're going to stick with this kind of lifestyle.  That day when I took a bowl of table scraps down to the chicken coop and spotted 3 of my 4 new chicks laying dead in the grass, then realized that my own dumb mistake had caused their deaths was a giving up kind of day.

I cried.  I blamed myself and my flighty, distracted brain.  I was pretty sure I should throw in the towel and hang up my boots, because I clearly wasn't responsible enough, compassionate enough, or clear-minded enough to care for small, helpless creatures.

But that's not what we do on a homestead.

We are tough.  We are brave.  We dry our tears, get down in the mud and mess, set things straight, and try again.

We know why we're out here, and we know why it's worth it.  There is no promise of success, but there is always the promise that tomorrow, the sun will rise, and we will work hard at work worth doing.

We're old school and love blog link-ups.  This post has appeared at Giving Up On Perfect, The Charm of Home, and Mitten State Sheep and Wool.  

Easy Garden Changes Tip #7: Use More Layers

This post is part of a series of Easy Changes to Make Your Garden Act More Like Nature.  For the full story, start at the beginning with Tip #1, Get Rid of Bare Earth.

Tip #7: Use More Layers

This gorgeous cherry tree "guild," which here means

"a bunch of things planted together to their mutual benefit"

is in the garden of Brenda Groth, a Michigan permaculturist.

This one is pretty self-explanatory.  I think the average veggie garden uses three layers: the "herb" layer, or typical veggie-sized plants, the vine layer (climbing beans or squash), and the root layer, like potatoes, carrots, and turnips.  But thinking outside the "veggie garden" box allows you to grow in all plant sizes, and use trees, shrubs, "herb" sized-plants, ground covers, roots, and vines together.  I am just getting started with this in my own garden, but I dream happily of the day when my strawberries grow in the part-shade of a zucchini plant, which has a bean vine growing up it, while blackberries happily clamber up the trunk of an apple tree.  You get the idea.  If you don't get the idea, here is a great visual at the Permaculture Research Institute website.

This type of gardening is idyllically called a "forest garden" by many permaculture-type people.  It also extends into silviculture where forests are managed for their produce, or in conjunction with raising animals.

My favorite example of using multiple layers is Mark Sheppard's book "Restoration Agriculture," which describes his savannah-type farm, where productive nut trees grow between fertile grassy areas, and cows, chickens, and hogs range, living entirely off the produce of the forests.  It is like a Joel Salatin style grass-based farm, plus huge, awesome trees to create shade for animals and food for both animals and people.

So, those are all the incredible, life-changing tips I have to offer you at this time.  I hope at least one of them has been as helpful to you as it has to me!

I saw the tagline "recreating agriculture in nature's image" somewhere, and I like it so much, especially as opposed to the opposite, which would be, I guess, "recreating nature into our plan for agriculture."  Even better, I find that the more I follow nature's example, instead of fighting it, the less work I have to do!

Easy Garden Changes Tip #6: Rethink Tilling

This post is part of a series of Easy Changes to Make Your Garden Act More Like Nature.  For the full story, start at the beginning with Tip #1, Get Rid of Bare Earth.

Tip #6: Rethink Tilling

photo:http://www.expressvegetablegardens.com/products/garden-tilling-service

Why do we till the ground?  To break up hard soil clumps, to displace weeds or grass, to give the soil a flush of nitrogen from the air to encourage rapid plant growth, or to establish nice, straight lines to plant?  Or maybe just because that's what most of the garden books say to do, and that's what "everybody" does in the spring.  After all, if you can rent a rototiller, you should, right?

Interestingly, nature doesn't generally till.  Sure, some pigs root around in the forest, some birds scratch at the surface, but in general, the surface of the earth doesn't get overturned once or twice a year, and yet it does a mighty fine job of growing plants.  It also does a mighty fine job of building soil, while modern agriculture is destroying soil at a remarkable pace.

There are many smarter and more experienced people than me who think that tilling should be a thing of the past, so I won't reinvent the wheel.  Instead, check out this summary statement of why tilling is harmful to the soil, or this how-to for reducing weeds by eliminating tilling.

Besides saving me plenty of time, not tilling has helped me to reduce weeds, keep my soil biome healthy, and keep my mulch on the surface, where it belongs!

One more tip left: #7: Use More Layers

Easy Garden Changes Tip #5: Create Some Edge

This post is part of a series of Easy Changes to Make Your Garden Act More Like Nature.  For the full story, start at the beginning with Tip #1, Get Rid of Bare Earth.

Tip #5: Create some edge 

This is something I never would have thought of on my own.  We are so used to planting things in nice, straight lines, just because that's how it's always been.  But you can fit more in a smaller space with more creative planting arrangements, and the plants also have more "edge" space that way.  For example, check out these two different ways you can plant 10 plants:

                             

When plantings are staggered, plants still have the room they need, but space is conserved, there is less bare dirt to cover in between rows, and those little plants in back get to peek at the sun between the heads of the plants in front of them.

Also, "ecological gardening" type smarties tell us that the edge, between two different types of environments, is where the most biological activity is concentrated.  For example, more tigers live in the "edge" area between the jungle and the river banks, because there is food and water in one area, shelter and protection in another.  In the same way, little things like birds, spiders, pollinators, even earthworms or good bacteria, tend to gather at the edges between different areas in a garden.

So instead of a basically straight line between dirt and garden plants, or grass and garden plants, or pond and garden plants, like in the first set, if you stagger your plantings, you can create a much longer, wavy line of "edge space."  The more edge space, the more nature's little beneficial creatures will be able to help your garden along.

Next up is Tip #6: Rethink Tilling

Posted at Small Footprint Friday and Homestead Barn Hop

Easy Garden Changes Tip #4: Don't Make It Easy for Pests

This post is part of a series of Easy Changes to Make Your Garden Act More Like Nature.  For the full story, start at the beginning with Tip #1, Get Rid of Bare Earth.

Tip #4: Don't make it easy for pests

This one is pretty basic: if you plant all your tomatoes in one row, how easy will it be for pests to wipe them all out?  Straight, identical rows are for tractors and large-scale production.  They don't necessarily make sense in a backyard.  Mix up your plants a little and see what happens.  Maybe put a basil between your tomatoes, and a few of those pests might get confused or sidetracked on their way to cause garden mayhem.

Brace yourself for Tip #5: Create Some Edge

Easy Garden Changes Tip #2: Embrace (some) weeds

This post is part of a series of Easy Changes to Make Your Garden Act More Like Nature.  For the full story, start at the beginning with Tip #1, Get Rid of Bare Earth.

Tip #2. Embrace (some) weeds

photo: http://www.water.ca.gov/suisun/photos/plants.cfm

Okay, you might not want to have huge thistles shading out your carrots.  But a few "weeds" can be great helpers in the garden.  Many weed species are "pioneer plants" that are perfect at thriving in, and improving, bare earth.  Others may attract beneficial insects.  As you learn to recognize the various "weeds" in your yard, you may find that some are actually helping.  For example, if I find clover in my garden, I leave it alone or just chop it off and toss it on the soil, instead of pulling it from the roots.  It's a nitrogen-fixing plant which is helping improve the garden soil, and it's helping shade the garden to retain moisture.  Other "weeds" have medicinal or culinary uses, and can be harvested instead of disposed of.

Here are some more great uses for common "weeds."

Next up will be Tip #3, Compost In Place (one of my favorites).

Do you "embrace" any weeds?  Have you ever eaten something considered a weed, or left it alone in the garden instead of pulling it? 

Posted at Homestead Bog Hop and Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways

Easy Changes to Make Your Garden Act More Like Nature

Gardening is a ton of work, back-breaking, tedious, sweaty work.  Right?  Actually, I am learning that the more I cooperate with nature, the less work I have to do!

I've been working on our little patch of land lately, and doing a ton of reading and dreaming about ways I can produce some food, improve the soil, and create some beauty here.  During this process, I have stumbled across permaculture, which is "permanent agriculture," designing self-sufficient, sustainable landscapes that can feed people, too!

There is so much wisdom in permaculture that goes against what conventional farming/gardening says.  And there is SO much that WORKS for me in my garden, that I have never read in a "gardening book".  So, although I am still a beginner, and I don't have an incredible, self-sufficient garden yet, I thought I'd share some of these new-to-me ideas that have been helpful already.  Maybe they will be helpful to you, too!

Tip #1: Get rid of bare earth

There is a very good reason people spend half their summers out in the hot sun, pulling weeds!  Nature abhors a vacuum.  If you have bare dirt hanging out in your garden, nature will try to fill it with whatever is handy.  Usually weeds.

So cover that bare dirt.  Traditional mulches like bark chips are effective.  If you really want to act natural, try growing some "living mulches" around your plants, like low-growing clovers (which supply nitrogen to the soil while they grow) or vetches.  Or try "composting in place" to mulch easily with spent plants (see #3).  Whatever you choose, most weed seeds won't be able to germinate and sprout as well if they are covered with an nice layer of organic matter.

Your soil will benefit from a nice mulch covering as well, if you choose an organic mulch (like bark chips, leaves, or straw) instead of an inorganic one (like rubber mulch, rocks, or landscape fabric).  All that organic matter on the surface will gradually decompose, adding nutrients to the soil below.  And all the little decomposition critters, like bacteria, fungi, and earthworms, will be attracted to your garden soil to help in the process.

Check out what "Mother Goose" at the Permaculture Visions Online Institute is doing with living mulch:

I originally created an uber-long post full of great tips, but it was a pain to read.  So I broke it up into more bite-size chunks.  The next tip will be Tip #2: Embrace (Some) Weeds.

Do you mulch your garden?  If so, have you noticed fewer weeds, or better moisture retention in the soil?  If you don't mulch, why not?

Waiting on Nature

My family is in the kind of weird situation of living, long-term, on land that we do not own, but that we can do whatever we want with (within reason).  Because of this, I am trying to do some gardening and some home-making without spending much money.

My pet project this summer has been growing some grape vines out by our back porch.  The porch faces south, and it has no shade at all in the summer.  In the middle of July, it is scorching hot, so hot the kids don't even want to play out there.  But it's our only area with decent, play-worthy grass for the kids, so I've been brainstorming low-cost ways to get some shade out there.

Please don't judge me by the nasty mess that is my back porch - it is a work in progress.

As you can see from the picture, there is a huge trellis-y thing over the porch, that goes all the way down the hill and connects with a door to the garage.  Clearly, somebody had big plans for this structure, or maybe they were even going to roof it (the slats that go across are about 18" apart, which maybe indicates plans for further construction).  Either way, it is currently rather useless.

So my master plan is to grow huge, glorious grape vines on this thing to provide summer shade.

See how huge and glorious they were when I started them this summer?

Yes, one sad leaf.  That is where the "free" part of this project comes in.  I cut dormant vines from some grapes in the garden and rooted them this winter.  I planted them in June (with lots of protection from deer and chickens), and now they have grown to this size:

Okay, it may not look like much, but it has outgrown the chicken wire!  Just imagine how glorious it will look in 2? 3? 5 years?  It's gonna be spectacular.  If only Mother Nature knew how much I want this thing to grow...but the joy is in the process, not the product, right?  I will keep telling myself that.

Posted at Homestead Barn Hop

Does Location Determine Eating Habits?

I am absolutely blown away by how productive my little raised bed garden is so far.  Since the kids helped (over)plant tons of greens, yesterday it was my mission to clear out a little of the bounty.  You know, so the other plants could actually get a little sunlight!  I headed to the garden, pulled a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and left with the garden looking barely touched.  

And I harvested a huge basket of green abundance:

You may have heard me mention before (like 10 or 15 times...) how easy it is to grow things here in Oregon.  If you will, compare the above basket of overflowing greens with the puny radishes below:  

Those radishes, plus about 4 little lettuce leaves, were my harvest in Colorado.  All of it.  For a whole year.  They represented hours of building, hauling soil, and watering.  And I was so, so proud of them!  My harvest the year before consisted of three carrots about as large as my pinky.

So what made the difference?  Yes, I learned a lot in the intervening years about soil, deer, water, etc.  But for me, the biggest difference was just location.  Even knowing all that I know today, the thought of trying to garden at 9000 ft. in the Rockies if we ever move back fills me with absolute dread.  To use my best Old English, I have seen the goodness of this land, and I am loth to depart from it.

The amazing fertility of this area makes it so much easier to find local food to make up a high quality diet.  Grass-fed cows roam every hillside, wild salmon teem in the river (and peoples' freezers), half my friends keep chickens for eggs, and I can get pastured poultry from the little town where we go to the library.  It is just SO easy to eat well here, and it was SO much harder in the area where we used to live.  

When we were first getting started in our real food journey and discovering things like grass-fed meats, raw milk, and locally grown produce, I was often so overwhelmed and discouraged by how hard it was for me to find the things I wanted to be able to eat!  Raw milk meant a 2-hour drive every week, the only grass-fed poultry I could find was 150 miles away, and even our local farmer's market had to import produce and pastured meat from over a hundred miles away.  There was no local cheese, no local butter, no delicious local bacon to be had in grocery stores.  I don't think I ever saw a cow laying down contentedly on a hillside in my area...the few I saw were always roaming voraciously, trying to find enough growing stuff to stay alive! 

I remember reading other peoples' experiences of buying all their quality animal products in one place at a cute little local farm, or finding amazing produce at roadside stands in the summer, and I felt like the odds were stacked against me because of my location!  I even once, in frustration, asked a blogger how I could be "expected" to eat anything but grocery store meat without spending a fortune, and was basically told, "thousands of families are making it work, surely you can too, if you just try a little harder."  

Okay, I may be writing this to let off long-suppressed frustration (hey, you are the one still reading this, don't blame me...), but also to remind others in the real food community that just because they live in a place where real food is easy to come by, does not mean it is just as easy for everyone!  

When you get all wrapped up in and sold on this real food thing, it's sometimes easy to think, "Once you know that it'll make you feel so much better, why in the world wouldn't you eat well?  What could be holding you back?"  My frustrated voice is calling from 2 years ago, saying, "Keep encouraging me!  Don't judge me!  It's frickin' hard to find good food where I live!"

If you are frustrated by the local food situation where you are, I so understand, and I encourage you to keep seeking, keep asking store owners to stock good things, and keep instigating positive change in your community!  Or just move to Oregon.  

What is the food environment like where you live?  Are you ever frustrated because you can't access the things you'd like to be able to eat?  Or are there a lot of like-minded real food eaters in your community?  What can people stuck in relative "food deserts" do to find what they need?

Posted at Fight Back Friday, Real Food Wednesday,  Fat Tuesday

Hugelkultur and Huhns

I am so excited about two new developments at our little "homestead." 

The first is the Huhns - I mean, hens (I just wanted to say it in German to sound cool with "hugelkulture" in the title).  Ours have taken to nesting in the daffodils (cute!), pooping on the patio (nasty!), and producing amazingly delicious eggs (amazing!).  Every time I go to the grocery store, I rejoice a little bit because I don't have to buy eggs!

In other news (since I know you've all been waiting eagerly to hear), the "dead sticks in a bucket" that my husband has been patiently enduring are starting to turn into baby grapevines in a bucket (only 2 of the 5...the rest may have been planted upside down!).  These will soon be planted at the base of our huge trellis.  I don't know how many years it will take for them to become a huge, shady vine over the porch and walkway, but we have to start sometime!

Here is where my other German word comes into play: hugelkultur.  In this case, I had a really good reason to use the German word, since the English translation is roughly "A bunch of rotting wood buried in the ground, with lots of organic matter mixed in and a garden growing on top."  I've tried to also incorporate a swale-and-berm combination, so this hugelbeet (the name for one such buried-wood-mound-garden) will hopefully take advantage of rain water coming down the hill in the garden, too.

Here are some stolen pictures of hugelkultur and swales-and-berms so you can see what the heck I'm talking about:

First, a hugelkultur hugelbeet:

picture credit: FuoriBorgo

And second, a series of swales and berms built on a slope: 

picture credit: GardeningInHell

In the photo below, you are looking roughly downhill (the berm is built as close to on-contour or level as I could eyeball it), so see how the water will go right in the little depression?  It will work perfectly...I hope.

I've been saving my pennies by doing crappy-looking things like growing my grapevines in ugly buckets, and have saved up for my first ever blueberry bush (on the right) and comfrey (the weedy-looking thing in front of the bush).  Apparently, comfrey is like the holy grail of nutrient-collecting plants, and lots of permaculture-type gardeners love it.  There are also two rhubarbs in that mess of potatoes and radishes, which I hope will be a good start toward more perennial edibles to round out all the annual veggies.

Posted at Simple Lives Thursday, Common Sense, Small Footprint Fridays, Homestead Barn Hop, From the Farm

$15 DIY Garden Makeover and Permaculture Baby-Steps

Once upon a time, there was an ugly corner of yard that held a giant pile of dead nursery plants in their original, now broken, plastic pots.  It was weird and useless.

So I dumped approximately a million baby plants out of their planters (hey, I didn't want to waste good dirt! and it's not recyclable with the plastic pots anyway...) and started to envision something new.

Some digging, hauling, and compost adding ensued, and the ugly corner has been transformed!  Into basically salad.  To be fair, there's also a cabbage and a broccoli, and a few big herbs, but most of that green mess is lettuces, radishes, carrots, and spinach.  Enough for many, many salads or green smoothies.

The best part about this garden is the price: about $15.00.  The cinder blocks were just lying around the property, so all we spent money on were seeds and a few bags of purchased compost (I know...purchased! But my homemade compost is not ready yet).  And we are indeed hauling buckets of water down to the garden until we see if an existing water conduit works.  It is a fantastic workout.

My mom and I are teaming up on this garden, and I think she was a little horrified when I announced my planting strategy: "Let's plant everything all together, so the fast-growing greens make a 'living mulch' for the slower plants.  Then when we eat the greens, they will let in sun for what remains."  She has been gardening for quite a while, and her veggie gardens are usually very organized, with little charts drawn up of what's planted where, neat little squares of various things (square-foot-garden style), and not much chaos.  So thanks, mom, for playing along and embracing the chaos with me!  I am quite sure in one corner she gave my 3- and 4-year-old a handful of seeds and let them toss them wherever they wanted.

Now our big job is to figure out what everything is in that huge delicious mess - and to keep the toddler from yanking it all out.

In spite of the appearance of chaos, I am happy with the way the garden is progressing.  The greens really are "mulching" well for the larger plants, keeping the weeds down beautifully.  We are starting to harvest them now as the garden begins to mature, making room for sun to get to the things that will be there throughout the summer.

Although this garden looks pretty traditional, the planting scheme is my first attempt at a permaculture way of veggie-gardening.  I'm pretty dead-set against traditional tilled rows of identical veggies being an ideal way to grow, so the no-till nature of this garden is a start.  Also, I am sold on plants being mingled together with other species, both for pest confusion (like, if a bug wants to eat all the beans, it will have to search through a bunch of other stuff, rather than finding all the beans in a convenient row) and for nutrient reasons, like heavy nitrogen feeders being interspersed with less heavy ones so that they all get what they need.

I am also, for the first time, using the "chop and drop" method of composting in this garden, so that plant debris (like the bits of radish I know I'm not going to eat) gets torn/chopped into smaller bits and tossed right there on the soil to decompose, rather than being hauled to the compost bin.  Aside from being "how nature composts" and, well, nice and lazy, this has the advantage of keeping all nutrients and microbial activity there in the garden, where I want them, instead of under my compost pile, where it's not doing anybody any good.

So, in spite of just looking like a badly organized raised garden bed, there has been some permaculture-y thought behind this garden.  I am learning as I go, and starting small.

I have a few more pictures and permaculture projects to come, but I think they better turn into a new post, to come soon!

What have you been working on this spring?

Posted at Homestead Barn Hop, WFMW, Common Sense, Simple Lives Thursday, Small Footprint Fridays, From the Farm

Getting to Work in the Oregon Springtime!

Spring is a glorious time when you are not pregnant (like I was this time last year...hugely, beluga-whale pregnant).  Instead of "It is beautiful and sunny out, but I feel like laying down and sleeping... who wants to watch Curious George?," this year I can say, "It is beautiful and sunny out - let's go dig in the dirt!"

This is an important difference, since I am coming to realize that Oregonians get very little sunshine from November 'til about...now.

Here is what the precipitation looks like at the town nearest us (sorry if you don't think graphs are as fascinating as I do):

You can see that October is when we lose all hope and become depressed after a glorious summer.

So instead of staying inside and, you know, doing dishes and putting away laundry like I should be doing, I keep dragging the kids outside with me to work on stuff.  Just kidding.  They love it.

I am quickly learning that gardening in the Pacific Northwest (especially west of the Cascades) is about as idiot-proof as it gets, and extremely rewarding with very little effort.  Case in point: I accidentally killed a potted primrose when we moved here.  I put it on the back porch, it fell off and out of its pot, I didn't pick it up, and the plant magically came back to life as soon as it started raining.  Here, you have to fight off nature to keep it from growing out of control, as opposed to where we used to be (9000 feet, semi-arid), where you had to nurture growing things, pray, and beg them to survive.

Anyway, here are a few of my projects for this year.  If you think that all my projects look pretty redneck, please keep in mind that my monthly garden budget it $15... so I am doing everything as cheaply as possible.  

Project #1: Grapevines!  I am attempting to propagate some grapevine cuttings to grow along the huge trellis off my back porch.  Somewhere between cutting and planting, I lost track of which ends are the...uh...root ends and which ends are the growing ends, so we will see how this goes.  Note the classy 5 gallon bucket pot (with drainage holes on the bottom...my husband was thrilled that I ruined his bucket).

 The poor chickens who stand in mud during the rainy season have been getting lots of downed branches in their run.  It helps.  It is still muddy.  They now are allowed out of the run during the day to eat bugs and grass and poop all over our patio.  They are happy, fat, and gloriously healthy.  We are tired of stepping in poop and shooing them out of the house.  We are working on that.

 This is a mini, pathetic version of a sweet idea I saw somewhere, where the bottom of a chicken coop was all mesh, and things were growing underneath for the chickens to eat.  Also, this way the chicken poo just falls down to fertilize the plants beneath.  My version is just some rye seeds under a slightly protective mesh platform out in the chicken run.  We'll see how it goes.  At the very worst, the chickens will eat all the rye seeds and call it a tasty one-time snack, at the best, the seeds will sprout and grow, and the chickens will have something fun to eat in the run if we can't let them out for some reason.

Given the whole low-budget thing, I was super excited the other day when I found out that our Fish and Wildlife Department was giving away free native plants!  There was originally a limit of 3 per person, but we showed up late, and they gave us as many as I could carry without jabbing plants into the face of the squirming baby.  These fortress-fortified plants (chicken and husband-on-lawnmower proof) are mock orange trees and some wild roses.  The mock orange supposedly smells amazing when it blooms.  Right now it looks like a tiny dead stick.  Come on, Oregon climate, work your magic.  My husband thinks I am slightly crazy to be putting fortresses around dead sticks.

More free natives.  The purplish thing in front is a wild Oregon creeping grape, then the twig behind it is a red twig dogwood.  These guys are by the chicken run, and I am hoping when they mature, they will provide some bug habitat and fruit for the chickens (all the stuff I got has fruit or foliage or both that is edible for animals).

This is the last native.  It is a narrow-leaf buckbrush, which apparently thrives even in drought.  So it is way out in the garden where I don't water regularly during no-rain season.  It is a nitrogen-fixer (my permaculture-newbie self got excited about that), and I am excited to plant things around it someday that are cooler than the current dead grass.

 This is the southwest corner of our large, deer-fenced garden area.  It had previously been a bizarre plant cemetery where the people who lived here before us dumped a bunch of perfectly good stuff straight from the nursery and left it to die (I guess they got busy?).  Like hundreds and hundreds of baby plants.  The cheapskate in me was absolutely appalled.  So I dumped all the good dirt out of the pots, am reusing lots of the pots for growing seedlings, and cleared the rest out to make room for a little raised garden bed.  There are a bunch of left over cinder blocks hanging around the property that will become lovely little walls around this mound of dirt. Stylish, I know.  But hey, veggies don't care what their garden bed looks like!  The only thing I don't like about this raised garden plan is that because of its weird placement far from the house (it's the best sunny place that is fenced), I will be lugging bucket loads of water down to it in the summer.  Hopefully the little one will be walking by then?

Here is what is going on with a bunch of those salvaged plant containers.  They are housing seedlings!  Hooray!  And yes, the seedings live on top of the trash can.  That is the only place on the sunny back porch where the chickens can't eat them and the dog can't knock them down with his tail.  We currently have baby tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, broccoli, and impatiens.  There were nasturtiums, but they were taking over and blocking the sun from the other seedlings.  I killed them.  My 3-year-old cried.

This is the beginning of project number... 3 dozen?  I've lost count.  Leaning against the trunk of the badly-pruned tree are a bunch of branches that I pruned off the apple trees.  They are going to hopefully become a little bean tipi for the kids to play in.  I always knew my tipi building experience at my last job would pay off! And... is tipi building knowledge the kind of thing I can put on a resume someday if I go back to work?

Make a Compost Bin in 5 Minutes

This is my kind of project, folks - it seriously took me 5 minutes, start to finish, even though I was accompanied by three pint-sized "helping" children.

So, if you've never composted before, and it sounds kind of gross and messy, or like something only serious gardeners do, why would you want to try it?  Well...

• If you are composting, a lot of what used to go in the kitchen trash now goes in the compost, so you can take out the trash less often.  And the trash won't smell like stinky veggie scraps.  
• If you pay for your trash service by how much you throw out, you can save money by not having as much hauled away.
• Compost isn't just for fancy gardens - it is like black gold for houseplants or a tomato in a pot on your patio, too.  And if it comes from your kitchen scraps, it is FREE.  We like free, right?

Materials Required: 

• Chicken Wire (about 10 feet of it if you want a bin 3 feet across)
• Wire cutters
• Pliers

Instructions:

1. Cut chicken wire.  I wanted my bin to be about 2 feet across, so I cut a section of chicken wire about 6 feet long.  (The experts recommend piles to be at least 3 feet across so the center can properly heat up for fast, "hot" composting.  But I am in no hurry, my compost contains no weed seeds, and I don't care that much how hot my compost gets.)
2. Form wire into a tube.
3. Use pliers to bend loose ends of wire into place to hold tube together.
4. Set tube on end and start filling with compost materials!

Posted at Waste Not, Want Not Wednesday , WFMW, Simple Lives Thursday, Small Footprint Fridays, Eco Kids Tuesday, Your Green Resource, and Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways

What do you do with your kitchen scraps?  Have you ever thought about composting, or ever done it?  Leave a comment and tell me about it!

"Homesteading" Goals for 2013

I love to use the word "homestead," although it's a bit of a stretch in my situation.  It just sounds pleasantly old-fashioned.  Do a garden and chicken coop (and dog the size of a cow) count as a homestead?

I know people generally do this kind of goal-setting around New Year's, but hey, we are non-conformists.

Here's what's been accomplished so far this "rainy season":

• Compost "bin" made from chicken wire

• Chicken coop thoroughly mucked
• Fallen evergreen branches placed as floor of chicken run (you can see that the kids ran out of patience about halfway through, and I have a bit more to do, but 50% mud is better than 100% mud)

• Apple trees pruned, plum trees sort of pruned, grapevines sort of under control
• 30% of Himalayan blackberries hacked out (pure evil, those things).

• Leaves raked and placed over veggie beds for mulch

And here's what I'd like to accomplish in the next few months.  This may be a bit ambitious since, ya know, the kids spend most of their time in the garden saying things like,  "I'm bored," I want to go inside," "Can I play with the hedge trimmers?" and "Mommy, the baby's eating grass!"  But if I don't make a list, then nothing will get done.  This way, if I accomplish 1/3 of what's on the list, at least something happened.  

Chicken-y things to do:

1. Fix garden fence so deer can't get in, chickens can't get out.
2. Tinker with chicken coop to make cleaning and egg collecting easier (add one wall, add hinges)
3. Create some type of very simple paddock-shift system for chickens, where they get out of their sad, muddy run to eat grass, then a week later, I rotate them to fresh grass to give the old grass time to recover, etc.  Also, I'd like to reseed their run once I have a way to keep them out of it long enough for the grass to sprout.
4. Get the chickens into the fenced-in garden so they can eat some bugs before it's time to plant.

Plant-y things to do:

1. Prune the peach trees in February
2. Finish pruning the other trees
3. Hack out the remaining 70% of the blackberries
4. Get the grapes a little more under control so they don't attack the fruit trees anymore.
5. Plant some comfrey under the apple trees to replace some of the grass (did you know that grass under trees competes with the trees for nutrients, since both are surface-feeders?)
6. Plant early cool-season veggies in my established veggie bed
7. Start tomatoes and peppers from seed indoors (unfortunately, this should be prefaced with "clean out place by windows to sprout seeds).
8. Find some sort of seed to plant as a living mulch in my veggie beds once veggie seeds get established.
9. Make a "bean tipi" for the kids to play in in the garden.

Rethinking Composting

Apparently, having a baby changes things...shocking, I know.  I am finally giving in and searching Craigslist for one of those big, black plastic compost tumblers.  Turns out, I am not likely to actually take my compost scraps to the heap in the garden when I have to balance a baby on the other hip and hike all the way out there.

So I am streamlining and putting the compost bin right by the chicken coop (just outside the back door...and already part of my daily routine).  This way, when I take scraps out to the chickens, I can toss things that they won't eat (like that lettuce that had been decaying in the back of the fridge for who knows how long?) right in the compost.  Hooray!  However, having an open heap of decaying stuff right by the back door sounds like a fantastic way to invite disaster in the form of rodents and the dog, hence the quest for one of those compost tumber dealies.  Anyway, I've been brushing up on my composting how-to the last few days.

Composting might be one of my all-time favorite ideas.  Is there anything better than taking discarded yard waste and kitchen scraps, and turning them into rich, black garden gold?  Talk about trash to treasure!  You are taking things that would otherwise end up in the garbage, and transforming them into something you would otherwise have to buy!


The modern composting phenomenon began in the early 1900's, but it gained wide popularity in the 60's when modern organic farming methods were all the rage.  The organic gardening movement was a reaction to the increasing industrialization and commercialization of farming, especially the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.  But it would be crazy to say that composting was "invented" during this time.  It has been occurring naturally since the earth began!  However, the early "organic" gardeners gave us some very convenient guidelines to stick to to ensure composting success.

So, just how do you turn your trash into treasure?  Here are some keys to successful compost:

Brown vs. Green:  No, this is not a team competition.  We're talking "brown matter" and "green matter," the two groups of ingredients for compost.  Ideally, you want to shoot for a 50-50 mix of brown and green to make sure your compost has the right elements to heat up, decompose, and benefit your garden.  Here's a breakdown of each category:

   Brown Matter (which absorbs water and adds Carbon) includes:

• yellow or dried leaves and other fibrous, dry yard waste (you probably want to avoid weeds with seeds, which can hang around in your compost if it doesn't heat up enough, and then be spread throughout your garden)
• paper (shredded)
• sawdust
• straw

   Green Matter (which provides moisture and adds Nitrogen) includes:

• fruit and vegetable scraps from the kitchen (you can also throw in coffee grounds and tea bags!)
• green grass, leaves, or yard clippings (again, avoid any weeds that have seeded)
• composted manure

If your Brown vs. Green ratio is not exactly 50-50, don't panic.  An overly-brown compost pile will take longer to decompose, and will do so at a lower temperature, and an overly-green compost pile will finish the job quickly at a higher temp.  We're just shooting for approximately half-and-half.

Moisture: The rule of thumb for compost is that it should be about as damp as a wrung-out sponge.  You probably don't want to actually grab and squeeze it to test it, so just estimate.   :)  In dry weather, you may have to water your compost, and if it's very wet,  you'll probably want to turn it extra-frequently to help it dry out a little.  Which leads us to...

Air:  Oxygen is the catalyst for the composting chemical reactions we want.  Yes, your compost can also decompose anaerobically, or "without air", but it will be stinky, slimy, and gooey in the process.  Think leftovers in the fridge too long.  To keep your compost aerobic ("with air"), you want to turn it (stir it up) regularly.  To be honest, some people recommend turning your compost every few days, and some say they turn it once...ever, and it still works out.  If you want the fastest composting possible, though, you will want to turn it often.  

Time: This really depends on the factors above.  Compost can be ready to use in the garden anywhere from 2-3 weeks (in a specially made compost-maker that you turn every other day) to 8-10 weeks in a normal heap on the ground that is turned every week.  If your compost is too brown or too dry, it can take much, much longer (picture a pile of straw...way too brown, way too dry, sticks around for a long, long time)

If you combine these elements, you will be well on your way to successful compost.  There are, however, a few things that can set you back:

Don'ts:  

• Don't compost dog, cat, or human manure, as it may spread disease (chicken manure is great, though!)
• Don't compost animal products (like meat, fat, and bones), which will most likely attract all kinds of pests to your heap!

Whether you choose to make a heap of compost out in the yard, build a bin for your compost, or even purchase a commercial compost bin, you will be on your way to reducing your trash and increasing your garden's health!  Happy composting!

If you'd like some more information, here are a few of the most helpful resources I've found:

• In-depth compost guide for beginners (actually an Australian government publication)
• Composting Connection website
• Chemistry lesson on composting from Washington State University

Do you recycle or compost?  Leave a comment below and tell us your thoughts about it.

Posted at Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, WFMW, Barn Hop, and Waste Not, Want Not Wednesday