Right Place, Right Time

One challenge that anyone who gardens faces is how to get organic material for your growing space. One of the many gifts my husband Tom has is being in the right place at the right time. So two days ago this ASPLUNDH truck was doing work on our street. (Yes, the answer to your question can be found here.) Tom disappears and before I know it this load of goodness is being dumped on the curb in front of our house. The resulting pile was enough to cover a Mac truck. Needless to say we've got our work cut out for us. This will be spread over any area that is currently unplanted in our Fall garden and between rows of crops and cover crops. The next morning when I left to take our children to school the pile was steaming from the top, evidence that the organic material has already began decomposing. That's really exciting stuff around these parts.

In other news around the digs, I started a kombucha mother from scratch and she's growing beautifully. I'll post soon about that. Our children are salivating just waiting for the first batch to be ready. I hope to be doing a class for some friends from our Holistic Moms organization on fermented foods soon so this new batch will be perfect to show them.

Things have been busy and I have a new website up and running called Feeding Families Well. Please stop by and check it out, like it on Facebook, and follow on Twitter if you please.

Thanks for visiting our digs,

C

Early Saturday Morning

There is nothing like getting to the farmer's market when it opens. I never get tired of seeing tomatoes in September. They are always a reminder that the Summer may have left us, but the Sun still has gifts to give. 

Saturday morning passenger seat in my car.

Beginnings of chicken stock. I just love this time of year.

Thanks for visiting our digs,

C

Red and Green

I love it when we are all wrapping up with Summer and the tomatoes and peppers are like, 

"Wait, wait! We're not done yet! The best is yet to come."

Art For the Digs

I don't know the first thing about art, let me say that. So when it comes to choosing decor for the digs I go with my gut (perhaps at the peril of our friends, family, and other visitors.) In any case, I choose what feels good and has a story behind it (always.) We have a very dear friend that painted a piece of artwork for our living room when we moved into the digs. She, like most of our close friends, know what a journey we have been on to get to this place and so the painting has a great deal of significance to us. Let me tell you, we are blessed with the best of friends. 

I adore Etsy for handmade items and cool prints and one day I'll be organized enough to start browsing Etsy in September for Christmas items. Until then I just peruse in my free time. Recently a friend on Facebook shared a post about an artist that collaborated with her four year old. I absolutely loved her her drawings and the way they came together with the help of her daughter. Some of her prints are available on the website Society 6 and I hopped right on over there to get these two prints: The Pink Mermaid and Mr. Beaver. Here they are:

I can't get enough of Mr. Beaver's expression.

I'd love to know what cool things make up the story of your life and your home. Please share below!

Thanks for visiting our digs, 

C

September: Planting and Preserving

Sorry for being absent for so long. As I alluded to in previous posts, we have some personal family stuff going on right now. But with all four of our children in school we have a bit more time to devote to things like blogging, so thanks for tuning back in to our humble home. As the title of this post suggests, this time at the end of the Summer is all about the crops that are giving one final push, the clearing of dead plants, amending of the soil, and planting for the Fall. We are still harvesting plenty of eggplant, okra, tomatoes, basil, and a few cantaloupe. Even though it's really very warm (hot) here the Fall plants needs this initial burst of heat to get started. Then the cool air will give them time to grow slowly as the seasons change. It is also a time to harvest plentiful herbs for drying, save seeds, and dry flowers, so there is a lot of that going on as well. I mentioned in the previous post what I'd been drying but here are some pictures:

Here is some anise hyssop and lemon verbena. Both are dried for tea.

Figs and blackberries. The blackberries are cleaned and frozen, the figs are dehydrated.

 Dried seeds and herbs from top to bottom: lettuce seeds, cilantro seeds (coriander), dried chives, dill seeds.

Since the last massive chive harvest they have all grown back so I harvested, cleaned, chopped, and dried chives again today. I love this time of year. As much as I resist mainstream anything, I look forward to the busyness and routine of September. I love that first morning when the air smells differently than it has in months. It will be a pleasure to work in the garden when the air is cool and crisp. We will not truly have a grasp of our garden, our property, until we have lived here through all four seasons and taken note of what happens in each. Right now it's hard to walk barefoot on the back path and driveway because the squirrels are eating the seeds of the berries in the dogwood tree and tossing the rest on the ground. The okra has reached a particularly itchy stage and you HAVE to wear long sleeves and gloves to harvest it (or go insane like I did last week.) The gorgeous purple flowers on the Italian dandelion plant lose their color about thirty minutes after being cut and the color only returns half as bright once they are put in water. Volunteer cilantro, dill, and lettuce plants are popping up in several places, a pleasant surprise. Roses are blooming again. You can't help but be overwhelmed y all the beauty.

Thanks for visiting our digs, 

C

A Mid-Summer's Harvest

A bountiful one-day harvest from the garden, starting at the bottom left and going around to the center:

cucumbers

garlic chives

chives

radish seed pods dried out and ready for saving

sunflowers

zinnias

a huge bowl of okra and a tomato

three ripe figs-yay!

peppers

purslane

I have been harvesting and drying lots of herbs from the garden. Last week I picked, washed and dried lemon verbena and anise hyssop for teas. After today's harvest I will wash, chop, and dry the chives and garlic chives and use them for spreads or dips in the Winter. As the figs begin to ripen more and more we will harvest and dry them as well. I adore the sight of all these things being preserved at their freshest point and I know that when the dark and gloomy days of Winter come we will relish in the bright flavors of our Summer garden.


uses for lemon verbena

info on anise hyssop

Thanks for visiting our digs, 

C

Checking In

I sought my soul, but my soul I could not see. I sought my God, but my God eluded me. I sought my brother and I found all three. - Unknown

I apologize for being absent. As with any family we are going through a bit of a difficult time right now. I am reminded that I should never take for granted the gifts that I have, especially my family, especially our children. I had a dream the other night that all was forgiven, that life was to begin again, and that the strife was put aside so that they could be happy.

And then I woke up to see that none of it was true.

For now I am truly thankful that we have these moments when are children are together, truly together. And I pray for more and more and more of them.

Thanks for visiting the family digs,

C