Escargot in Beer Brine

The time has come to plant. A few weeks ago, I was "itchin'" to get started, the first seedlings were in the stores (way too early, just there too tease me), and I WANTED TO PLANT. Alas, I knew it would keep getting cold, so I waited.

Now I have seedlings, will plant. For some reason, I am stuck in a plant rut. Today will be the day...until then, let me share some preps:

The Poopers...or shall I say, soil preppers? These two are great, but really do nothing but forage & poop, and lay an egg a day :). It is fun to watch them scratch, but I am going to have to find a way to keep them out of my beds. Unfortunately, they get so into digging and taking dirt baths, my seedlings get sacrificed.....training?

And this is where the little poopers live :). We built this out of repurposed or left over wood, and made our own plan. The roof is corrugated UV plastic, that was new, and probably the most expensive thing on this coop! Everything is secured, both for the dog's sake, and to keep the night critters that roam our Suburbia at night, out.

I took this pic during a rain shower from my porch :)...I love the soft spring rain. I posted this here to show you my tomato boxes, in which I planted cover crop (burdock & sweet peas) to condition the soil over the winter.

..and then it all came down! Cut down and laid to rest in the box. I covered this with soil, and just planted tomatoes (pics soon). Last year, the lasagne garden was AWESOME for my tomatoes, we will see what this year brings, when I actually get around to putting in the water system :).....

Thornless boysenberries :)...all along my fence. I cut these down, and was afraid I trimmed too much. Now the bushes are lush with leaves and new growth, and LOTs of blooms. The bees are lovin it, and I can't wait to harvest those berries.

Attempt at growing potatoes. Never worked for me before, but I am trying again. Will report back. German butter & purple potato.

I also planted strawberries on top of a hay bale, and that was a fail. The hay had some weird mushroom in it, and after the rains stopped, it grew the most alien looking mushroom :)....and inky something...lacy, black, and ugly. Stained everything. Seems they are not poisonous, so I am hoping that true Sacramento heat will dry it out. Strawberries are looking pretty good. I took pictures of the bale, and the alien mushrooms, but they mysteriously vanished from the camera....??.....

Last, but not least, the chaos herbs. I just pulled all the borage, let the bees have their hay day, then it went. It was almost 5ft tall! Have a batch of mystery plants where I dumped a downed seed pallet...looks like chamomille, a tomato :), borage, dill, and what I though may be lovage. But it stung me, and so now I am thinking a NETTLE! Will watch it further.

The best snail trap ever: BEER. Put some cheap beer in a low dish, bury it some, and enjoy the snail trapping. (BTW, cheap beer works good as a hair setting lotion too :)....). Sorry, can't love snails. Thought the chickens would get them, but they can't keep up. Watch the dog though, mine seems to enjoy escargot in beer brine. Ew....

More updates to come...the pressure is on!
Happy planting!!

Settling down....

Wow...I can't believe it has been since OCTOBER that I have posted here!

I am not under a rock.

And it is not quiet here at all. I have been brewing & mixing for weeks, as the first wave of the flu hit our circle. Both of my kids caught it, and I was brewing elderberry syrup like a mad woman! Thankfully, it kept me healthy, made it through with just a little fatigue. Making your own syrup is simple, economic, and you can adjust it to taste. I add lots of cloves, cinnamon, ginger...:)..and nutmeg. Raw honey. I mix it with bubbly water and make "soda" for the kids, pour it on pancakes, ice-cream, etc.

Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOYzWyFGkqM for a video tutorial.

With that thwarted, I am clearing, once again :). In time to welcome the Winter Solstice and 2012.

After a tremendous chicken trauma, we now have an Orpington (not a Leghorn), and a Silver Laced Wyandotte chicken. I say CHICKEN, because we are sure if both of our chickens are hens....Your guesses are most welcome! :) Go ahead, wager...



They are quite funny little creatures, and I keep manifesting "GIRL!!", as I would have to part with either or both. They kinda grow on you......They still live with us in the house in a kennel at night. My country life....

The garden is fairly dead. I planted a few winter veggies, that promptly got devoured by snails, and the chickens. Then the dog proceeded to "warm" them...and most of it is dead. Just spread some cover crop, and am browsing seed catalogs :).

Hope everyone is staying safe & warm.
Much love,
Heike

Sweet Good Bye.....Happy Hello.

Last year, I planted a thornless boysenberry in my back yard. My past attempts at any kind of berry failed, either they died of water deprivation, or because our soil is just to clay heavy. This little boysenberry that could actually almost got axed, as the thornless branches had thorns :(. I decided to let it live, and am I happy I did!

This little bush has given us bowls and bowls of succulent berries! Not to mention the pleasure of picking berries and popping them in our mouth while we worked outside. This bush has graced us without the use of pesticides, fertilizers, and honestly, not alot of water that was not supplied by rain fall. Yes, we had to blow off a spider web or two....

Last night I picked what looked like the last batch of berries, saying "goodbye" to this wonderful gift. This morning, like magic, there were more :). Thankfully, I left the majority of the "shoots" to grow along the fence, next year we will be swimming in delicious boysenberries!

I love the satisfaction of growing my food, especially since I am not a great gardener. My herbs grow wild for me with not much care (but lots of love) from me, and now I have food growing in the same manner. I love going to the market and being able to pass up the little $7(!!!!) baskets of berries, knowing mine are ready at home (and organic!).

I did not have much luck with tomatoes last year, so we built a "lasagne garden" box for the tomatoes. Look at the before & now pics! If the heat does not get the blooms, we will soon be graced with all kinds of tomatoes and cucs. The first tomatoes are setting, and I can't wait for sun ripened, weirdly shaped, warm, delicious tomatoes! My favorite memory is from Greece, where the kids ran in the garden, fetched me a giant, ugly heirloom tomato and some cucumbers. We sliced them, sprinkled salt, pepper & olive oil, and ate them by the tons. Mmmmmmmm. Coming from Germany (where much of our tomatoes & cucs came from Holland and were uniform), this was a treat I now reintroduce every summer.




Send me your favorite summer tomato & cucumber recipes, as that is what we will be eating most of the summer :). Preserving recipes too :).

Hope you are enjoying the summer.
Much love,
Heike

Spring Fever - It's just a tease......

A few weeks ago I was in my back yard, pruning my tree, in a tank top and shorts. I was sweating in the sun. Two days later I was freezing my butt off.

Every time the first warm sun hits me, I get that itch. I want to dig, I want to plant. Then the freeze gets me down.

This time, instead of throwing myself into planting beautiful baby plants that freeze to death, I built new planter boxes to hold my new "Lasagne Garden". I live in an area with stubborn clay soil (perfect for cobb ovens.....if you need some), and hard pan that is only about 2 ft down. Stinks for planting & growing. I read an article about farmers in the dessert using this planting method, so here I go.

If you Google "Lasagne Gardening", you will get several variations. Basically, you building a compost pile and planting in it. You alternate layers of green & brown material: grass, compost, leaves, straw, etc....

I laid down newspaper to kill the weeds, covered it with compost, bone meal, blood meal, alfalfa straw, straw...repeat. I am letting this settle a bit, then repeating again...and planting directly into it in a few weeks when my sprouts are ready.