Pandemic productivity

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.

Plant-based Progress and YOE #2

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.

Healthy and vibrant parsley plant in the sun

Robust mint plant growing next to lattice fence

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.

Keeping Busy, Staying Sane

Well this is not how I pictured April panning out. I’m not one to plan out my life weeks in advance, but not leaving my house for four weeks straight was certainly not my ideal scenario, or yours I’m guessing. Regardless, I hope you are healthy and safe wherever you are. I hope you have food to eat and loved ones to check in with. As many negatives as this situation is presenting, there are definitely some significant positives. However, I’m not about to sugar coat it. Lots of ups and downs in our household. Thankfully more ups. I don’t have any answers or solutions but I can say Cactus and I do infinitely better on the days when we each get an hour of ‘me’ time. Preferably outside, with some fresh air, doing something active. It clears my head, helps me slow down the thoughts that were starting to go on over drive, and gives me the mental re-boot to make the rest of the day more enjoyable.

Besides checking the calendar to remind myself what day it is, here’s what I’ve been up.

Nursing my seedlings. I’d say about 50% of my seedlings are going strong. The peppers are on fire. A bunch of my tomatoes and peas fizzled out and I think I’m to blame. I put them out on a really warm day for some fresh air and I think it shocked them. If you are approaching your last frost date, be sure you do the hardening off gradually. Like 2 hours one day, then 3 hours, then 5 hours, then 6 hours, etc. It takes a little more attention but it’s worth it to not kill the plants you were just babying for the last 8 weeks.

Pepper and tomato seedlings that are strong healthy — 8 week old pepper (left) and tomato (right) seedlings doing just fine…

Pea, pepper and tomato seedlings that are struggling — 8 week old pepper (top) and pea (bottom) seedlings doing less than fine (there was not that much space between them – I’ve lost about 10 plants).

Planted my cool crops. I sowed my kale, onions, carrots, beets, cauliflower and broccoli directly in the ground in the beginning of April. Last year, I didn’t attempt a Spring garden so I’m curious to see if they take hold. I had a great kale and beet harvest, but I did them in the Summer just a single time with no succession planting for the Fall. I’m hoping that my rotation and all the manure and compost I’ve added make a difference. Even though I have read about 100 times that soil testing is a must, I have not yet done it. I am promising myself I will do it at the end of the season this year so I can amend as needed for next year.

Homemade teepee trellis. I experimented making a teepee trellis with some old blackberry canes. I’m not sure how sturdy this will be. I really want to use bamboo and I see walls of bamboo in yards when I drive around town, but I haven’t had the courage to knock on someone’s door and ask “Can I cut a few of your bamboo stalks?”

Blackberry canes lying on the ground — Some blackberry canes that I pruned for a potential teepee.

Four blackberry canes standing up to be secured as a teepee trellis — Four blackberry canes standing up for a teepee trellis.

Teepee trellis made out of four blackberry canes — Securing the four blackberry canes with twine.

Chick wrangling. Our four chicks (2 Isa Browns and 2 Gold Leaf Wyandottes) are alive and well in the bathtub. They are getting pretty big and almost all of their fluffy down is gone so we’ll be ready to take them out and introduce them to the rest of the flock in the next two weeks I think. I’m a little disheartened that two appear to be roosters. I could be wrong *fingers crossed*.

One month old 2 Isa Brown and 2 Gold Leaf Wyandottes chicks in white bath tub — Look at the comb coming in so strong on the dark one in the back – grrrrr. You better not be a rooster!

Spring-A-Ding-Ding

There aren’t many years when my birthday falls on the first day of Spring – thanks Leap Year! In light of that, I wanted to share a positive and cheery post to celebrate since I didn’t have a big get together. No matter where you are in the world, you are being impacted by Covid-19. Kind of a crazy statement when I think about it. But aside from the nearly minute-by-minute updates on this virus, I have to believe there are still beautiful and wonderful things happening all around us every day.

Here are a few examples right from my backyard, literally. Have you looked in your backyard, front yard, sidewalk, or parking lot? I’m sure there are at least five things to bring a smile to your face in an instant. I like to live life to the loudest (and fullest) so Corona isn’t gonna stop that – I’ll just be doing it from 6 feet away 😊

Purple and white crocus flowers — Purple crocus that show up each spring.

Our white, brown and tan female cat named Peanut nestled in pine needles ground covering — Peanut – our cute little farm kitty.

A dozen reddish purple peony shoots breaking through the ground — My peonies are breaking through!

Beautiful white plum tree blossoms appearing on bare branches — Farm Charm plum trees blossoming.

A cherry blossom tree nearly in full bloom — Farm Charm cherry blossoms are nearly at their peak!

Four little chicks - two fuzzy yellow Isa Browns and two fuzzy black and tan golden laced Wyandottes — We got four more baby chicks who are very skeptical of my camera.

Sunset on the horizon with bright orange and red in the tree branches — Wowza! Seriously looks like the horizon is on fire.

Seed Start Now for Your Summer Garden

It’s the most wonderful time of the year (you know the tune). We’ve spent the majority of our days indoors for the last few months, with more darkness than light. And it wasn’t even a harsh winter in the Mid-Atlantic. Nevertheless, I think our bodies follow the seasons to some degree (or would if we listened to them!) so I am ready for the re-awakening that Spring represents. Grasses growing, leaves budding, flowers blooming.

Early March is when I need to start seeds for a few of the crops that need 6-10 weeks of lead time before going outdoors into the ground after the danger of frost has passed. You don’t need to do this for everything, and if you live in the warmer zones 8 and 9 of the country you likely don’t need to do this at all lucky ducks.

How do you know if you need to seed start? If you google your last and first average frost dates that will give you the length of your outdoor growing season. For example, if your last frost date is May 1 and your first frost date is October 1, you have about 150 days in your growing season which could limit the crops you can grow that need 90-120 days of warm weather or cool crops that you want to get a harvest from in the spring and fall. For that reason, it’s pretty common to seed start the following:

Broccoli – 6-8 weeks before last frost
Cabbage – 6-8 weeks before last frost
Cauliflower – 6-8 weeks before last frost
Onions – 10-12 weeks before last frost
Peas – 8 weeks before last frost
Peppers – 8 weeks before last frost
Tomatoes – 8 weeks before last frost

Growing medium to use for seed starting: it is recommended to not just go out in your yard and get a bucket of dirt. You don’t know what bugs and bacteria you may be bringing into your home. This is the time to buy a bag of organic potting soil for veggies. You can make your own using 1/3 each of compost, vermiculite and peat moss but I personally have never done that. You should also pasteurize the soil by baking it. Not gonna lie, I skipped the pasteurizing step this year so I will let you know what happens.

Containers to use for seed starting: There are tons of options for containers that you likely have on hand (I always try to re-use something):

Egg cartons – any paper or plastic egg carton will work well. There are pros and cons for each. The paper carton can be cut up and you can plant the seedling right in the ground when the time comes, but it doesn’t have a lid that light can get through. Plastic cartons essentially create their own greenhouse and are reusable. The plastic cartons will also keep moisture better than the cardboard. I used cardboard last year and will again this year.
Toilet paper rolls – since everyone ran to the store to get TP due to COVID-19 you likely have a ton of toilet paper and what better use for the empty rolls than some seed starting. Just line them up vertically in a tray and fill with your growing medium. Check out Preparedness Mama for her demo.
Berry containers – similar to the egg carton situation in that the container will create its own greenhouse effect. The only difference is that you don’t have the separate sections for each seed.
Be creative! My goal is to always reuse something. Some empty tissue boxes, a clamshell tray that figs came in, a baby wipe container, or the little cartons that mushrooms come in.

Sunlight needs: your little babies need at least 12-14 hours of sunlight. If there is a sunny window in your house that gets southern exposure for the majority of the day and isn’t too drafty, then you’re golden. If not, you probably need to get a grow light. This being my second year starting seeds, I have not invested in a big light setup. I have used a standard lamp with an adjustable neck so that I can move it closer to begin with (4-6”) and then a little further away as they get bigger (6-10”).

Now that you’re all set up, enjoy starting your seeds and get excited for the bounty to come!

Plant-based Progress and YOE

I’m very efficiency focused. I like to be able to measure what I’ve done and tangibly see the results. I like to achieve goals and give myself a little pat on the back upon doing so. Man do I love checking something off my list that has been a work in progress for weeks or months (anyone struggling to get all their tax documents together?? Can I get an Amen!)

At the start of 2020 I said I wanted to make an effort to eat more plant-based meals. Well, that is not a SMART goal – specific, measurable, attainable, yadi yada. So I wanted to circle back to that and figure out how, at the end of the year, I can say I achieved it.

I’m a menu planner so each Sunday I make my list of meals for the week. As a first step, I wanted to ensure at least one dinner was plant-based, meaning heavy on vegetables and fruits and if I could swap out an animal-based protein for something plant-based I would. An important note about my menu planning is that I aim to get two dinners out of every meal (again, I like efficiency and don’t want to spend 30-45 minutes cooking every night but also want to eat homemade, healthy meals).

In January, here’s what I did –

Week 1: I just swapped out regular meatballs, I usually buy turkey meatballs from Trader Joes, for this plant-based version. They were truly tasty.

12 Plant-based meatballs by Pure Farmland

Week 2: Made fajitas without the chicken and steak and instead did some yummy cuban black beans with rice, avocado, lettuce, tomato, sour cream and cheese.

Week 3: Tried a new lentil soup recipe that was not amazing, but it was tasty with fresh bread and olive oil and spices for dipping (disclaimer: I can make myself eat anything that I believe to be healthy).

Week 4: I attempted Korean beef wraps and instead of using beef I used these Beyond Beef plant-based crumbles.

Plant-based ground beef crumbles used for Korean beef wraps

In February –

Week 1: I went crazy this week and went for two dinners (aka four!). Ravioli soup and fresh bread, and butternut squash risotto with sauteed veggies.

Week 2: I did a broccoli mac and cheese with collard greens and white beans on the side.

Week 3: I am a huge fan of breakfast for dinner so made a green chile quiche that was deeelicious.

Week 4: This is the only week I’m slacking on. Will likely switch out shrimp for chicken in a fried rice. That’s kind of a cheat I think.

Learnings:

– Soup is a very easy way to increase plants and reduce animal products. I can pretty much make any green leafy item, carrots, celery, beans, onion, and whatever else is in the fridge into a tasty soup.

– I have a tendency to use cheese as a substitute for meat, but that is still not the healthiest. Step in the right direction though.

YOE Update – The Year of Enough

This has been an interesting mindset to examine within myself because I don’t consider myself a material girl (cuz we’re living in a material world…). So far, I have largely been trying to check my knee jerk tendency to see something and then immediately go online and buy it. Kind of a double-edged sword this “get it instantly” world we now live in. There’s no longer the gratification of saving and working toward something, it seems to only be “I want it, I must have it NOW.” Saw a hilarious comedy special on Netflix by XXX where he said the next phase is for Amazon to send us stuff before we even order it – they need to predict what we want before we even know. Funny and sad.

Nothing majorly measurable with my YOE efforts except the pause I’ve been trying to insert before a purchase. I figure if I wait a day or two and forget about it, I really didn’t need it. If it keeps popping into my mind, I’m trying to be more creative with how I could get a used or recycled version.

Anybody else trying to enjoy what they have more? It’s a freeing feeling to have all you need (and I understand the privilege baked into that statement).

Starting a Garden? How to Plan for Success

Oh joy, oh joy, oh joy!! I never thought I would geek out over seed catalogs but I have been giddy with anticipation. I wasn’t sure where to start but I knew I only wanted to order heirloom seeds, so that was my search term “heirloom seed company.” Here are the ones I found –

Annie’s Heirloom Seeds
Baker Creek
High Mowing Seeds
Johnny’s Selected Seeds
Seed Savers Exchange
Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Beyond finding the company, I wanted to be able to receive a hard copy catalog and not have to search through a website. I know, not very earth friendly but since I’m a newbie to gardening I wanted to be able to thumb through pages, write notes in the sidebars, dogear pages, etc. I also wanted to only get one catalog to avoid giving myself so many choices that I would never be able to make a decision. I landed on Baker Creek and it is gorgeous!

However, let me give a warning that if you sit down with a 150-200+ page catalog you are going to get overwhelmed. It is best to start with a list of the vegetables and fruits you know want to grow.

How do you know what you want to grow? Start by asking yourself a few questions.

What do I like to eat? What does my family like to eat? If you are someone who makes a weekly menu or meal plan, look back at what you’ve eaten for the last 6-8 weeks. You’ll likely see some trends. Do you have a meal with tomato sauce/base once a week? Do you eat a big salad with dinner once each week? Do your kids love to snack on carrots or cucumbers with hummus? If you don’t make a meal plan, what are the 5-10 recipes you make most often? What are the ingredients you could grow yourself?
Do I want to grow vegetables, fruit or both? This may be less of a “do I want to?” question and more of a “what do I have space for?” question. I would caution against trying to do too much your first few gardening seasons (talking to myself here too). But doing five or six veggies and getting one to two blueberry bushes in the ground is very doable. Aiming to build slightly off of each previous growing season is good approach to keep things realistic and allows you to learn from your successes and misses.
What do I have space for? Do you plan to grow directly in the ground, raised beds or containers? Or a combination? The spacing instructions on a seed packet are pretty accurate. You can try to tighten things up a bit but then you may limit your harvest.
What do I have time for? This is extremely important and also difficult to answer. I can’t tell you how much time 15 green bean plants, 10 tomato plants, five pepper plants and three different lettuces will take to tend to each week. Again, I would say err on the side of assuming you have less time and then you’ll be pleasantly surprised if you are out in the garden more and everything grows super well.

Now that you’ve answered those questions, you can open up the heavenly pages of whichever seed catalog(s) you chose and let the angels sing in the background.

From my year one garden lessons, I pretty much knew what vegetables were on my list, I just needed to decide on my bean, lettuce, pepper and tomato varieties. Here’s what I decided on.

Two seed packets for Calima and Golden Butterwax beans from Baker Creek

Two seed packets for german pink and Martino's Roma tomatoes from Baker Creek

Two seed packets for echinace and Russian red kale from Baker Creek

Beans – Calima and Golden Butterwax
Beets – golden and red
Carrots – St. Valery
Cucumber – Muncher
Kale – Blue Curled Scotch
Lettuce – Parris Island Cos (Romaine), Buttercrunch and Spinach
Peppers – Bell, Fish and Jalapeno
Tomatoes – German Pink and Martino’s Roma
**Bonus – Baker Creek sends a pack of mystery seeds for every seven packets you buy. I got a packet of Russian Red Kale and Echinacea – SCORE!!!

Next time, we’ll walk through deciding how many of each to plant.

Keep Your Chickens from Freezing their Feathers and Feet – do these 4 things

Maybe it’s a super cold winter, maybe it’s delightfully mild. Here are a few things to keep your chickens (who do so much for you) warm and cozy.

2020: the year of enough

We should always be aiming to do more and better, but it’s also important to be happy with what’s in front of us.

Plant-based eating on a farm – makes sense, right?

After a year on our property, we are getting closer to nature. It feels like one of the things we do every day should be getting closer to nature too. Why we are trying to eat more plant-based in 2020.