Ya know, if I was going to tell someone to start with planting one crop, it wouldn’t be the typical tomatoes or green beans that you frequently hear people suggest for beginner gardeners.
Do you want to grow something that essentially needs no care except for watering?
Do you not want to worry about staking, pruning, or spacing?
Do you want to grow something that is virtually untouched by pests?
Do you want a crop that you can store and use year round?
If this were a gardening commercial on QVC, my hand would shoot up in the air and I’d blurt out “I want that! That’s the crop for me!!” Then I’d run down the aisle Price is Right style and jump up and down.
Well my friends, then garlic is your girl. Who doesn’t use garlic? I have not met that person (aka vampire) yet.
Garlic is so gloriously simple. You essentially have to make two decisions –
How much garlic do I need? We use probably 3-4 cloves in at least two meals per week. I estimate that to be a single bulb. Hence, I need to plant 52 cloves. When you want to get real savvy and sustainable, make sure you account for planting extra which will serve as your starter cloves for the next season.
And what kind? There are two types to choose from: soft neck and hard neck. See my not at all comprehensive descriptions of the two types below to help you decide.
Beyond knowing how much and what kind, you’ll want to get your garlic planted in late fall – Halloween is usually my reminder. The soil is pretty easy going, just add a layer of compost, mix in some fertilizer, and cover with a 4” layer of leaves until spring. Last year I covered my bed with cardboard boxes as well so that I wouldn’t lose any soil with winter snow and early spring rains. I removed the cardboard in April and bada bing – garlic galore by July!
Hard neck – a long, flowering stem grows through the center of the bulb and becomes rigid after drying (which is where the name comes from). Hardneck garlic produces bulbs with fewer cloves, in the range of 4-12. They tend to do better in areas with colder winters.
Soft neck – does not have the flowering stalk and therefore a softer neck that can be braided. Softnecks typically produce a larger bulb with more cloves, usually between 8-20, in concentric layers. They tend to grow well in places with milder winters.
Fall is just so gorgeous that I hate to think of it as the end of something. Every season shines in its own way, and fall feels like the slow, gentle closing of the final chapter of a book that I really enjoyed. With the cool crops planted and some of the fast ones like lettuce, greens and radish nearly ready for harvest, my mind naturally meanders toward ideas and plans for what next year will look like. (Spoiler: my 2022 reflections will be the next post.)
Each year I try to figure out ways to simply, streamline, and build more sustainability into my gardening. Getting the timing down for seed starting, perfecting the numbers of plants of each crop I need to have enough to harvest and preserve, and minimizing weed and pest management are all important aspects. And seed saving is one of the biggest pieces.
Plants are natural reproducers. They want to go forth and multiply. And as fun as paging through seed catalogs is every December, I want to have my staple crops pretty well nailed down. There is always room to experiment and find new favorites (one of my favorite things about talking to other gardeners and volunteering on a farm), but it makes the most sense to have your seed bank naturally replenishing itself each season.
If you’re new to saving seeds, definitely start with the easy crops like green beans, peppers, and squash. Lettuces and greens are easy when they bolt in the spring. I’ll be honest in saying I haven’t yet tried to save tomato seeds but I plan to do this next year.
The main factor in saving seeds is letting one or two of the plants go to seed. This is the part I find challenging because when I’m ready to transition a bed from cool to warm or warm to cool, I just want to rip stuff out. However, that’s where a little planning pays off. This year, I did three long rows in each bed. The two outer rows were for the cool crops and the middle row was for the warm crops. This allowed me to let things bolt and stay longer than necessary because I wasn’t vying for the space. You can easily do this in smaller beds and containers as well.
Here are some tips for your seed saving endeavors:
Let your strongest plants go to seed. While growing, identify your best producers and take note that they are the chosen ones.
Pay attention for when they have created seed pods or seed heads (this applies to veggies and flowers).
Let the seed head/pod dry out completely. You can do this by leaving them on the plant for a week or two, but you run the risk of birds and other garden friends enjoying them and/or rain interfering. Or you can pick the seed pod/head and leave it in a cool place with decent air flow so that it dries out.
Then you go to work emptying the dried seeds from the pod or carefully breaking apart the seed head. I do this over a big piece of newspaper (the free one that shows up in my mailbox) and write on it with the name of the seed. Trust me, you think you’ll remember and you won’t.
Leave the seeds to dry on the piece of paper another 1-3 days.
Store the seeds in a paper envelope or other package where they will stay cool and dry and out of direct light until the next season.
What is your favorite seed to save? What tricks have made seed saving easier for you?
My chicks are here! It seems like a really long time since I heard their sweet chirping and it is so adorable.
This time around felt as stressful as if I was giving birth to them myself. (Yes, I’m exaggerating.) The last time I ordered chicks from Murray McMurray Hatchery, they were delivered in April and I got more updates from USPS on their transit progress. This time, after being notified they shipped Monday evening, I heard nothing else until Thursday morning. And, as mama’s tend to do, all sorts of worries flooded into my head each day with them being so little and it being so hot.
Thankfully, they all made it safe and sound and are doing well. Two seemed quite weak and disoriented but I kept dipping their heads in the water with Sav-A-Chick electrolytes and they have caught up to the others. I hope I never stop getting a thrill from this experience of new life.
If you recall, I had originally ordered 15 chicks made up of the following breeds.
Bielefelder – 3
Golden Wyandotte – 2
Blue Laced Red Wyandotte – 2
Silver laced Wyandotte – 2
Silver Polish – 1
Golden Polish -1
Whiting True Green – 4
Unfortunately, in early April due to HPAI, a couple of the breeds were impacted and here is what I was still able to receive.
Bielefelder – 3
Silver laced Wyandotte – 4
Whiting True Green – 4
Single comb brown leg – 4
I can’t wait to see how they look when they are bigger. For now, I’ll enjoy them as little fluffballs.
Alexa, skip to 2021… That’s a joke. Why would I say that now? Saying it back in June or July would have meant something but who cares now. It’s been a tough year, not gonna gloss over that. It seems the trendy thing to say now is always how #grateful and #blessed we all are. That’s great because wallowing can be a dangerous place, but we shouldn’t bypass the difficult and hard-to-even-identify emotions we’ve all wrangled with at some point these last nine months.
I am not a Susie Sunshine kind of person who can always find the positive. BUT I do firmly believe that what we focus on gets bigger (thanks Oprah for that life lesson). When I focus on the work meeting that went totally awry and never found common ground for how to move forward on the project, everything about my day looks frustrating. Instead, when I say, “Yeah, that didn’t go as planned. I’m going to reach out to each person individually and get their input” somehow I feel more empowered to get things on track.
Similarly, there were a lot of things that went down in 2020 that could make it seem like we are on a less than sunny trajectory. OR I can choose to see how 2020 brought into focus the things I want to spend my energy on. I love a podcast called The One You Feed based off this parable, and one of the recent guests who was so intense I was cracking up throughout, Wim Hof, said a lot of times the bad wolf shows us the good wolf in our lives. So like I was saying before, 2020 showed us the bad wolf. That’s good! Otherwise we would have continued thinking we were so great and had all our sh*t together.
2020 Tails
Racial unrest
COVID-19 pandemic
Mom diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer
Staying at home for 9 months, no vacation or fun travel
Lots of political controversy
2021 Heads
Efforts to achieve racial justice and greater diversity represented in at all levels of society
A stronger focus on working toward health equity
Prioritizing family time and feeling the love of all my friends who supported me
Extra time in the garden and with my chickens; allowed the pace of my life to slow down and make sure the way I spend my time reflects what I value as important
New administration and congress that will *hopefully* be forced to compromise
Farewell 2020. No one knew what you had in store for us and thank God for that!
I love Pinterest. Who doesn’t? Something that caught my eye a while back and has stuck with me is the utility of pallets. Oh my word, there is nothing you can’t do, build or use a pallet for. Was that a double negative? From the simple vertical herb planter, to lawn furniture, to a wine rack, to yard art. The possibilities are endless. Wow, I feel like I’m on the home shopping channel doing an infomercial. And if you call in the next 15 minutes, we’ll throw in an extra pallet…
Over the last month with driving my Mumsy to her treatments on a near daily basis, I had noticed that a house near us had a pretty sizable pile of pallets in the front yard. And, like a good neighbor, I thought let me help them help me. On a drive home one afternoon I pulled into their driveway and was jotting a note to leave in their mailbox. I highly recommend this method (Disclaimer: I do not recommend this method. It’s a total crap shoot for more reasons than I can list. Use your judgement and don’t ever assume people aren’t crazy. For example, there is another ‘neighbor’ with signs in their front yard that say “No Trespassing” and each sign includes the image of a semi-automatic weapon. They had a bunch of cardboard put out on recycling day that I could have used for my garden. I did NOT leave a note in their mailbox.) Anyhoo, major tangent, but I looked like a weirdo the entire time and took long enough writing the note that the female head of household came out to the driveway to ask if I needed help. Why yes, yes I do need help. I explained I had seen her pallets and if they were just planning on hauling them to the dump, I would happily take them off her hands. She said sure, we exchanged phone numbers, and agreed I would reach out later that day when I had access to a truck.
I have about seven projects that immediately come to mind for these pallets and I’ve pretty much decided pallets are the answer to everything. I’ve advised Cactus that if he ever sees pallets, he must get them.
First, I wanted compost piles closer to my garden. Five pallets, boom. Done.
Second, I wanted my garden tools organized. One pallet, kapow. Done.
Third, Cactus had started a treehouse for the girls last summer. He pretty much only built the ladder and floor. My geniusness said “What if you use pallets for the walls?” Sha-zam. Done.
Life has been pushing me. I’m literally looking up at the sky saying, What next?!? Aside from getting punched in the stomach and throat with life-altering news last month, the chicken drama has continued (let me repeat: NEVER buy chickens on craigslist), and the stand-alone freezer in our mud room stopped working, in addition to the freezer of our fridge not cooling properly. Is it wrong that I’m having fantasies of walking away from an explosion in slow motion (a la every action movie ever) with some dirt on my face, my biceps bulging, wearing ripped jeans? I seriously want to light a match to my life right now (not literally of course).
To cope I’ve been doing the time-tested approach of denial distraction. Staying as busy as I can in this sweltering heat. Out in the garden most mornings – weeding, pruning, watering and picking. I’ve said this before but the major positive of staying at home is more time in the garden (and, errr, with my family of course ;).
Here’s what my summer harvest is showing: carrots are cranking, green and wax beans are all over the place (must trellis these differently), two ginormous zucchinis and nothing more from that plant which feels like I did something wrong, the garlic I never knew I planted all fell over so I knew it was time to pull them and I got about 8 decent bulbs. And the blackberries just won’t stop. Japanese beetles ravaged my green beans last year and this year they are all over the berries.
Lettuce is pretty much down for now (I’ll wait until it cools off to plant more) and all my tomatoes are on the way, just starting to eat a few cherry ones (seems late). My corn is looking good, my butternut squash plant has at least 10 growing, but my cucumbers are not really producing. I also have three surprise pumpkins that are clearly an accident (must have come from the compost).
I’ve made some attempts at preserving as well. Let me tell you, the first run of the pressure cooker was such an ordeal. It’s not complicated or even difficult, I think I just psyched myself about all the ways I could mess up. Eventually, two and a half hours later, I had 6 pints of green beans. Wahoo – small wins! I’ll do a post soon on “the more you know.” My main question is will any of this stuff taste good? I could do like 40 pints that aren’t tasty and then what? Trial and error I guess
Well, I’ll be keeping going and I’m sure you will too. Things will get better and it reminds me of the scene from one of my favorite films from teenage-hood Good Will Hunting. Robin Williams and Matt Damon (call me!) are talking during one of their sessions and Robin says “You’ll have bad times, which wake you up to the good stuff you weren’t paying attention to.” I guess it was my time to get woke.
I don’t think I could have predicted what 2020 was going to consist of when it started, but the “year of enough” has certainly become more and more appropriate with each development. In the past 2 weeks I’ve been given information that has changed the rest of my life. I want to go back. I don’t want it to be true. I feel an emptiness in my whole body. A heaviness in my soul. I feel like I can’t take a deep breath.
It makes me wonder why there is so much heartache throughout life. What are we supposed to learn? I guess empathy. Probably to always handle one another gently because we don’t truly know what the other person is dealing with.
I know there is beauty and happiness but now I see it can all change in an instant. It’s all those clichés to live like you were dying and stop and smell the roses and not take anything for granted. I believe this will help me put a lot of things into perspective.
I’d rather set something aside and not get it done if it means I get to spend more quality time with the people I love. Very few things are as urgent as I make them out to be in my mind.
I’m learning that I can take care of someone in a warm, loving and tender way. I struggle with being so efficiency focused that I am guilty of brushing off human connection for productivity.
I’ve realized I don’t have to do it all and can lean on those around me. People want to help and lighten my load. I will let them because I know I would do the same.
I believe these experiences happen so that when I encounter someone else going through a rough patch, which will inevitably happen, I will know how to offer the help that I so badly need.
And I’m seeing that I need to take care of myself throughout this process. To be strong for anyone, I need to stay strong myself.
I don’t know how much time I have on this planet and I don’t want to spend it worrying about how much I need to get done tomorrow. This is the moment I have and I don’t want to waste it.
P.S. I have not forgotten about plant-based eating but I will say the last 3-4 weeks have been less focused. Maybe I’ve been distracted and busy but I plan to get back on track. Eating healthy is one way I take care of myself and my family.
Last weekend we went to see some baby goats at Buckhorn Run Farm. The owners, Barb and Jack, were so delightfully generous with their time and explanations. Talk about a whole new vocabulary to learn. Gee whiz, I could barely keep up. But that’s the case with nearly all new hobbies, right?
When we bought this property 18 months ago, nearly every person we knew said “get goats!” and Cactus and I had no idea why that was a recurring theme. I know goat yoga has gotten lots of hype and there are hilarious videos of goats screaming on youtube, but it was funny to me that goats were this quintessential symbol of farm life. Umm, chickens anyone?
However, over the last year and half, mowing the back yard was something Cactus decided he would love some assistance with, which resurrected the goat conversation. To help us think this through, here are some questions you may want to answer to help guide this decision of whether or not to get goats.
1. What’s your main reason for wanting goats? Will they be a family pet, do you want to breed them for income? Will they be a source of milk and cheese? Will they be a source of meat? Are you gonna rent them out for goat yoga parties or to clear areas with invasive species? Think this through. They live 12-14 years and they are only cute and little in the beginning. The answer to these questions would very much impact the breed you choose. We did very preliminary research on Nigerian Dwarfs, Nubians, and Boers. Turns out, goats are ‘browsers’ not ‘grazers’ meaning they are not going to mow the lawn. They’ll climb on things to eat branches or tall grass but sheep would be the better bet for our mowing needs.
2. Can you afford their feed and routine care needs? The cost of their food and care doesn’t seem to be too substantial, certainly less than a horse, but only you know your financial arrangements. Of course, depending on how many you have, this could be quite a range. Considerations on feed costs include hay, alfalfa (for females you are milking), a mineral supplement, and grain as a treat. This article from Thrifty Homesteader was very helpful. Don’t forget bedding as well.
Mineral station at Buckhorn Run Farm
3. How much time are you able to dedicate to caring for them? Again, your answer to this question would be different than mine. If you are milking twice a day, that’s definitely something to think about in relation to all the other things on your schedule.
Milking station at Buckhorn Run Farm
4. Do you have the space for them – both to sleep and exercise? In addition to where ever they sleep, I learned goats hate the rain so you need a sheltered place for them during the day. And they need space to romp about, browse, and ‘kid around.’ A conservative estimate is at least 20-30 square feet for daily living and less for sleeping.
5. Can you keep them entertained, contained and safe? As cute as the babies are, these guys can get into mischief and need to be well contained. Cactus has a huge fence project on the horizon but not in the immediate future. They need stuff to climb on for fun. I’ve seen some elaborate play areas and some simple tree stumps or goat rocks. And when considering the space requirements above, definitely consider how you will keep them safe from predators (mainly coyotes and dogs).
Hope this was helpful. It was valuable for us because it’s easy to be swept away by the cuteness of any baby animal initially and it’s always best to make the responsible decision that works long-term.
Well, time marches on as they say. Depending on where you live, you are likely still sheltering in place to the fullest extent or starting to see some of the restrictions loosened. Very strange times and I feel like I’ve experienced such a roller coaster of emotions. I’ll be energized and positive for a few days, and then feeling demoralized and tired the next. I hear lots of people trying to focus on the positive, which I fully support. I’m a firm believer that what we focus on and give energy to is what our days and life become. However, I also think there is some value to admitting “This is hard” or “I’m worn down.”
So in that vein, to give myself some small “wins” and energy boosts, it’s been helpful to me to identify some small projects that make me feel like I accomplished something in a few hours. To be clear, this list is in no way meant to make you feel guilty. If getting dressed and brushing your teeth is all you can handle each day, then do that. If however, you find you get more done when you stay busy, then here are a few suggestions that have surfaced in my life. [You’ll notice a theme around organizing and cleaning. I think that somehow fools me into thinking I have control over what is happening, when I truly don’t :)]
Clean out and organize your closets; donate to good will the stuff you haven’t worn in two years
Practice that instrument you haven’t picked up in <insert number> months/years
Start learning/brush up on a foreign language through podcasts or an app.
Organize your pantry. Use this list of pantry staples to do an inventory of what you should always have on hand.
Sort and organize all your recipes. If you have plastic sheet protectors and a few binders, great. But you can also just punch holes in the papers and tie together with some string or nice ribbon.
Got a pile of old magazines you are holding on to? Go through them, pull out the one or two articles you like and recycle the rest.
Sign up for an online class through your local community college or Parks and Recreation division. If you are feeling really ambitious, start one of the great courses.
Listen to some audio books. No need to pay for a subscription service (IMHO). Your local library likely has some sort of online option and I recently learned about RBdigital.
Paint an accent wall. Amazing how fresh a room feels with just a new coat of paint. I’m a huge fan of the ‘oops’ section at Home Depot where you can get discount paint because they didn’t mix it exactly to the customer’s liking.
Clean and vacuum your car and add a new air freshener. That way, when we do go back to daily life, you’ll feel like you just bought a new car.
Make some face masks! I have been dragging my feet on this. Maybe I’m in denial. If there’s a tried and true pattern you recommend, give me a shout.
No matter what, just hang in there. This will pass. It’s not fun and some days probably feel like we’ve reached our limit. But you will undoubtedly find a new source of strength, mentally and emotionally, that will prepare you for something to come.
How we all holding up out there? Another day at home, another house project to start and lose interest in and motivation for halfway through, right? 😊 Kidding but not really. It’s funny because under normal circumstances, don’t we all pine for days at home in our pajamas with nothing to do? But clearly too much of anything gets old.
I’m trying to stay healthy by doing the things that I enjoy, mainly exercising and being outside. I’m so thankful this is happening during the Spring and not the Winter. Lord help us if we were 100% confined to the indoors. I’ve been going for walks, doing my kettle bells, hitting the punching bag, and gardening. Don’t want to jinx anything, but by being home this much, there is absolutely no reason why my garden shouldn’t be amazing this year.
Speaking of my garden, take a look at these little pieces of eye candy. Last Fall, I planted a little bit of mint, a very sad sage plant, and a nearly dead parsley plant. Lo and behold, look who is perky and vibrant. I had read about kitchen gardens (or some call them ‘cottage gardens’) last year and it made a lot of sense to have some herbs right outside the kitchen for easy access.
Here’s my bimonthly update on my 2020 plant-based eating (aka eat less meat) goal. For whatever reason, my appetite has disappeared during this shelter in place extravaganza. Breakfast is pretty basic (cereal, yogurt, scrambled eggs, or waffles), lunch is usually a salad and/or sandwich, and by dinner I would love nothing more than an adult drink and some cheese and crackers but we are doing relatively well on making balanced, colorful dinners.
In March, here’s what I did –
Week 1: I love these lasagna roll-ups and usually make a double batch so that I can put the extra in the freezer and pull it out a few weeks later.
Week 2: I made Indian food and only did vegetarian dishes – chana masala, palak paneer, and curry.
Week 3: Similar to a previous meal, we had pasta with red sauce and I just swapped out regular meatballs with Pure Farmland’s plant-based meatballs instead. These are really good!
Week 4: Whenever it’s rainy and cold, tomato soup and grilled cheese (with a few pickles and slices of avocado stuffed inside) hits the spot.
April went like this –
Week 1: Ziti with red sauce and sauteed spinach added to the sauce.
Week 2: Cheese paninis with roasted veggies. A friend of mine told me about roasting veggies like zucchini, peppers and eggplant in the panini maker, just brushing with some olive oil and sprinkling with salt and pepper, and we love it.
Week 3: Black bean burgers are a family favorite in my house. Add some avocado, tomato and lettuce, and some corn on the cob, and yum yum yum!
Week 4: Quiche with spinach and peas and a nice salad. You could do broccoli also or peppers. Pretty much whatever strikes your fancy. It’s essentially a breakfast for dinner situation.
Other progress has been eating more salads for lunch. As the weather warms up (and that’s been pretty fickle) I’m much more inclined to eat a salad as a meal. In the winter, heck no. I’ve also been having sliced peppers and cucumbers with lunch every day.
Learnings: – Still going kind of heavy on cheese but I think I’m improving. – Pasta variations are limitless. I think we eat pasta every week and it is super easy to throw beans or spinach into a sauce, or sauté some zucchini and add on top.
YOE – year of enough update
Well, nothing like not being able to leave the house to help me stop buying unnecessary stuff. I guess I could be going crazy with online shopping but if I had any downtime to be scrolling through my phone, shopping is not what I’d be doing. I’d probably be researching future vacation destinations but that seems highly premature.
As I mentioned, been spending time almost every day out in the garden and that is super satisfying. All this family time too, though I might very well be losing my mind, has really reinforced what’s important. I think if there is one thing that I’m trying to learn during YOE is to enjoy today. Of course it’s important to plan for the future, but happiness and fun shouldn’t be put off for another day. Making contentment contingent upon ‘when my bank account has this much money’ or ‘when I finally get promoted to X’ or ‘when I eventually lose 5/10/XX pounds’ means I’m always looking down the road, not at what’s right in front of me. On a daily basis, it also shows up as ‘I’ll let myself relax or play once I get my to do list done’ which means it’s usually 10pm when I finally allow myself some ‘me time’ and by then I’m so exhausted I just want to pass out, so what’s the point.
I guess what I’m trying to learn could be summed up in all those cliché expressions about dancing in the rain instead of waiting for the storm to pass. But it my life, it would more accurately be laughing and rolling around in the chaos instead of constantly trying to contain it.
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