Independence Days

Happy Friday, everyone!

Plant something: As April charges on, I’ve gone from feeling like I was doing too much planting too soon to feeling like I can’t get seeds into soil fast enough.  Does that ever happen to you?  Is there ever a plateau?

• Under the grow lights
• Marigolds
• Habanero peppers
• Jalapenos
• Shishito peppers
• Chocolate Beauty bell pepper
• California Wonder bell pepper
• Happy Hot peppers
• Happy Sweet peppers
• Sweet Red bell peppers
• Purple eggplant
• Black Beauty eggplant
• Tomatillo
• Cherokee Purple tomatoes
• Dill
• Outside
• Transplanted 3 broccoli starts
• Direct sowed Dwarf Snap Peas
• Direct sowed Bloomsdale Spinach
• Direct sowed Early Wonder Beets
• Planted some flowering bulbs.  I know, I know, it’s the wrong season.  I forgot about them in the garage over winter and they began sprouting in their bags, so I put them in the ground.  I shouldn’t get any flowers this year, but maybe next year 🙂

Harvest something (from this Harvest Monday post):

• Beet greens = 1 ounce
• Chard = 7 ounces
• Spinach = 3 ounces
• Kale = 6 ounces
• Turnips = 2 ounces
• Eggs = 31

Preserve something: Not a thing.  Last weekend was so busy with raised beds and soil moving (not to mention the two research papers I had to work on) that we didn’t spend much time in the kitchen at all.

Waste not (beyond the weekly composting and kitchen scraps to the chickens): Well, I’m still collecting and using toilet paper and paper towel rolls to make seed starting pods.  I’ve exhausted all of the ones we collected and the stash given to me by a co-worker a couple of weeks ago and am now asking around for friends to give me theirs.  Yeah…it’s kind of a problem.  But they work so well!!!

Want Not: All the lumber we acquired last weekend was made into several raised beds and will soon be made into new shelves for the garage as well as into a new work bench for Tool Lady.  We’re thinking that any leftover lumber will either be given away or sold.  There will probably also be some random scraps that will make for a nice little fire in our fire pit 🙂  I am really, really ready to have our backyard back into some semblance of an organized state so we can sit around the fire and just relax.

Eat the Food: I realized this week that I never mention that each week we always eat what we’ve harvested from the garden.  Duh, right…but how could I forget???  Silly me!  In addition to lots of greens and eggs, we also ate some beef from the freezer and several quarts of pinto beans.  Same ol’, same ol’.

Build community food systems: Ummm…nada?  We did meet the awesome couple who sold us the lumber who own an absolutely phenomenal Earthship about 20 miles outside of town that sits on 20 acres.  They are trying to sell it and if we could afford it, it wouldn’t even be a question.  It’s literally like a dream…acreage…a pond…grey water…solar gain…magic.  If only we were in the financial place to jump on it…Oy…

We also met the guy who owns the soil yard from which we purchased all of the soil for our raised beds.  He is also growing lots of veggies and sold us some seeds he purchased from Seeds of Change when they closed up shop locally.  It’s always fun to find like-minded people and chat them up about their experiences and plans 🙂

Skill up:  We designed and  built our new raised beds.