I Have A Dream...

To be honest, I have ALOT of dreams on what I would like in the future.  I am amazed at how quickly they change!  Just 5 years ago, I couldnt see myself wanting or having children, and here we are, 2011, and Todd and I are trying to start a family.  5 years ago, I had a house in the city on a 0.13 acre lot that I couldnt imagine ever moving from.  Now, I absolutely LOVE the peace and quiet, the animals and the garden on our acre of land. 

Yesterday, I went strawberry picking at a local pick-your-own patch.  This is the first time since I was a kid that I've been strawberry picking.  I had a great time, even though I was only there for a half an hour.  Todd was at work, so it was just me.  I ended up picking 9 1/2 lbs of strawberries!  Yum!  Hopefully, they will still be available next weekend so Todd and I can go pick some more.  I plan on crushing and freezing the strawberries to make jam a little later-on in the season (October maybe?).  I would like to make a 3 berry jam with strawberries, blueberries and red raspberries.  To do that, I'd have to freeze them all and then make the batch when it's time to do so.  Not to mention, I still dont have any canning equipment.  I am waiting for my Swagbucks to accumulate so I can get it for FREE from Amazon.com. :-)

At any rate, while I was picking the strawberries, I was dreaming of having a pick-your-own place.  Not just with strawberries, blueberries, peaches and apples, like most places.  I would love to have a pick-your-own that has ALL the fruits and vegetables for the entire season.  I'm talking snowpeas, strawberries, onions, asparagus, green beans, tomatoes, zukes, cukes, eggplant, mellon, cantaloup, peppers, corn, blackberries, red raspberries, grapes, nuts, apples, pears, peaches, plums, cherries...the whole sha-bang!  How awesome would it be to grocery shop with the seasons in your area just down the street?  Oh,and dont even get me started on the herbs and fresh-cut flowers.

Of course, being the OCD persoanlity-type I am, I have already started looking online to see if I can find some land.  NO, we will not be purchasing anything just yet.  We are $500 away from being debt-free but the mortgage, and I have no plans of going into debt again.  So, this would be a long...time consuming process that hopefully one day we will be able to achieve.  It would not be easy, but it's a dream that I have at the moment.  Oh...and how about some honey bees?  I want some so bad...Todd would never allow me to have them here at the house. :-)  So, why not at the farm? :-)

Day-dreaming. That's what I'm doing.

Strawberries

The strawberries came earlier this week; however, the forecast called for snow.  Instead of planting them outside, we decided to plant them in pots and put them under a grow light here in the house.  I was really trying to avoid that, but I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.  Within a few days, they started popping up out of the soil with their green leaves.  I love watching plants grow. 

Hopefully within the next 3-4 weeks, it will stay warm enough outside to plant them.  But for now, their roots are getting stronger and getting all the nutrients it needs to grow and be healthy.  I refuse to let these ones die. 

Spring is Here!

Spring is here, and the weather is proving it a few days a week, with temps above 45 or 50 at least one day a week!  That may sound cold to some, but it is GREAT considering what we've been dealing with here in Ohio. 

I saw this adorable picture and I had to share it.

  How cute is this?!? This is exactly how I feel lately.  I am always in Todd's mud-boots taking Lana out to go potty or working in the garden.  I am still waiting for my strawberries to arrive so they can be planted, but I have the row in the garden anxiuosly awaiting them.  The soil has been turned, ashes added along with some eggshells and coffee grounds.  Hopefully they will come when it is supposed to be 60 this week, so I can plant them and then cover them with leaves to keep the soil warm.

OH! And guess what?!? I DIDNT kill all of my potted strawberries.  They were covered with leaves over the winter, and I see green!  So they will be replanted with the others when they come in.

Spring Fever

We are dealing with squishy muddy soil right now in NorthEast Ohio.  However, I can finally SEE soil!  When I go back through the gated area where Squiggy once frolicked around with Lana, I take a peek into the garden area.  I can finally see the mounds of dirt (and the plants I hadn’t pulled from last season! Shame on me!)  I am definitely getting ready to start planting in the garden!  The garden looks awful because there is no green and lots of mud, but I am thinking that I am going to start flipping the dirt, adding more soil to make the mounds a little higher, add some of the coffee grounds, eggshells and ashes I’ve been saving up, and get everything ready to start planting!  The first row I am going to start working on is the row for strawberries.

I am going to try my hand at strawberries again this year, and I know that I should be planting them right about now.  I still have to order them at this point.  I told Todd about my plans for strawberries, but he thinks I’m not good at cultivating them. When we had them in our Akron garden, we only had them for a year before we moved away (and we only got a half dozen strawberries the first year.)  Then, I planted them in the pots and didn’t water them.  It wasn’t the strawberries fault!  It was mine!  So…I am going to try it again.  We love strawberries, so I am going to do better this year with them, I promise.  Another thing I’ve always done wrong is not pinching the flowers off of them the first year.  I get too excited that strawberries will form from the flowers and eat the berries, but I hear that if you pinch the flowers off the first year, your crop DOUBLES the next.  So that is what I am going to try to do this year. 

I found a place on ebay that sells strawberries, but their season is over in the next couple of weeks. I am going to place my order and hopefully I will have my row ready for them by the time they arrive.  If I work on the garden just a half hour in the evenings after work for the rest of the week, it should be ready.  The only problem is that it is dark by the time I get home, and we have just one light outside.  Luckily, it’s close to the garden.  Hopefully I will be able to see what I’m doing!  I am planning on getting 50 strawberry plants for $0.35/each.  This includes shipping.

We have a pick-your-own place down the street from where we live.  I would like to get down there and pick some berries when they are ready and can some strawberry jam for Christmas.  That is the plan, at least.  We will see if it actually happens.

 

Garden

I keep seeing posts about gardens, and it makes me long for Spring, when I can start planting this year's abundance.  I realized that I had absolutely NO pictures of our garden on the blog.  So, this is last year's garden.  Todd made the fence in Squiggy's fenced in area.  The fence was FREE to make.  It was oak pieces of wood that was used with skids from work.  It is hard wood, and piggy-proof. We got a truckload of dirt to make the mounds, so that wasnt cheap, but over the years, it will definitely pay itself off.  This year, we need to get more gravel for the paths in between the mounds.  I will also be adding more dirt around the outside part of the garden to plant more items.  There was just too much unused room last year on the edges.

So, here goes.
These pictures were taken the last week of May 2010 and June 1st 2010.

Garden

Inside Garden

Seeds have been planted (greenbeans are what have sprouted!)

June 1st : everything is growing!

Greenbeans (bush beans)

Zukes - flowered alot, but I had to polinate them to get them to grow mid-season

My first cuke plant ever.  We will have many more this year. 

  

Red Raspberries - started out as just a few canes.  Now, they are taking over the world! :-)  Yeah right. I wish.

Potted blueberry.  1st season of having the plant.

The potted strawberries.  I killed them by not fertilizing (this is their second year in these pots) or watering.  Will do better this year, I promise.

Some of the produce

There you have it.

No, onto this season's garden! :-)

Gardening

I read a great book this past weekend entitled Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on ¼ Acre by Brett Markman.  I am dreaming of Spring already, but mainly, starting to work in the garden. 

Todd says that I’m an outdoor person, which I find funny, because the only reason I am ever outside is to soak up the sun while reading a good book (lazily on a rocking chair,) playing with piggy and/or puppy, and tending to the garden.  I don’t quite consider that being an “outdoor person.”  I’m outside because I have to be.

I’m not sure where my love of the garden came from.  We never had gardens growing up.  I love the fact that I can plant a seed, and within a few months, reap the rewards of watching over the plants.  A lot of people say that they don’t garden because it is too much work.  I don’t see it that way at all.

Yes, it may take an hour to till the garden, and then another hour to plant the seeds, but after that, I don’t see it as work at all.  Maybe this is because I have “farm” animals that I tend to twice a day.  I do the same with the garden.  I go out in the mornings before work to check on the garden.  Sometimes, I turn the sprinklers on to water the garden before the sun shines too bright.  Then, I check again in the evening when I get home from work.  I love going out in the morning and seeing a zuke flower, and then coming back in the evening and seeing it shriveled up and starting to turn into a zucchini. 

I am sure Todd gets sick of me calling him outside from the house to “look!” at what was growing.  And when it starts to grow, I get so excited that I have to show him the progress every few days.  He stops grumbling about it by the time harvest comes and he gets to eat the produce. 

I received my Gurney’s seed catalog a couple of weeks ago.  It came with a coupon to buy $25, get $25 free.  I was convinced I’d buy some of the items, but talked myself out of it.  Why spend that amount of money when I can get seeds from the store?  I still have to go through my stash to see what I have, but I know I will be planting: zukes, cukes, green beans, maters, strawberries and brussels.  I’m sure there are more, but I cant think of them right now.  I would love to try to plant cantaloupe this year if I can find some seeds at a good price.

Anyone else looking forward to their garden yet?

Gurney's 2011 Catalog

I recieved my official 2011 Gurney's Seed catalog in the mail today.

I get so excited to look through this catalog and determine what I want in the garden, where I want to put my plants, etc.

For now, I have to go through my seeds to see what I already have so that I dont duplicate them.

I vowed last year that I would not start anything from seed.  Everything I've started from seed did not do well.  However, I am going to look into getting more strawberries from Gurney's, and possibly blueberry bushes or blackberry canes.  OR...possibly concord grapes.  I dont know...the possibilities are endless.

Does anyone else act like a giddy little schoolgirl when they get their Gurney's seed catalog?

Ways to Save Money

I have been thinking alot about the New Year lately.  The New Year is like a new, fresh start, where I have all of these things that I want to do and learn. Some years, I fail miserably, other years I dont do too bad.  Not only do I have my "2011 Asprirations" already written out and ready to conquer, but I want to try to find ways to save money. 

Todd and I are pretty cheap frugal.  We do pretty well, I think, when it comes to alot of things.  However, there is always room for improvement.  We (aka Todd) spend money at times when we shouldnt or when we dont need to.  So, I've been thinking of ways to help save money into the New Year.

This is what I've come up with:

• Start searching with Swagbucks while at work (I use Google to search alot and could probably get quite a few points throughout the year) and redeem them for Amazon gift cards to use for gifts throughout the year.
• Bake more from scratch
• Use the envelope system as Dave Ramsey teaches for our entertainment budget
• Stay home and enjoy each other more doing things we already have or things we enjoy doing together
• Make a small batch of laundry detergent from scratch and use when doing my laundry to help save on buying detergent.
• Grow veggies that produce alot and take up minimal space (so I can can/freeze more veggies)
• Buy apple trees when on clearance for our "home orchard."

I bought an adorable plastic coupon/envelope with dividers in it to help with our "cash envelope" system I'd like to put in place.  I was thinking about putting the grocery budget in this as well, but then decided against it.  I like that Todd can go out and pick up some things before work at WalMart if he needs for his lunch (alot of times, it's just lunchmeat) and I can track it with Mint.com.  I can see what we spend per month on groceries really easily using the program.  The main reason I wanted the cash envelope is because we (me) are short-changing ourselves out of the "fun money" we get every month.  We have $100/month to spend together to do fun things.  Well, many months, we dont even spend half of that.  But then I get cheap and tell Todd that we cant go to a baseball game, or a basketball game because I dont want to spend the money.  WE are entitled to go if we want to because we dont spend nearly as much as what's in our entertainment budget.  So...this way, we will accumulate our money throughout the year, and if we want to go on a night out on the town in Cleveland that may cost $250, and we've got the money in the envelope, there is no way I can say, "No, we dont have the money."  It will be right there for both of us to see.

Staying home and enjoying each other - I would like to do that alot more.  I have really been lacking in the bedroom with my husband (TMI!)  I would like to enjoy one another again openly and freely without any restraints. Maybe we can commit to one day a week, just him and I, in the bedroom, nothing else.  Breakfast/Lunch & Dinner in bed.  Not only in the bedroom, but also just here around the house.  I miss playing Wii Sports with him, or watching a movie with no interuptions (internet or animals.) I would like for us to start reading the Bible together and talk about whatever is on our minds.  I would also like to help Todd out with some of the home improvements around the house.  All of this, which costs nothing (unless we get pregnant.) 

I have made my own liquid laundry detergent in the past for the both of us to use.  Todd works hard, and gets REALLY dirty.  Not only at work, but around the house.  He has mentioned that he didnt like using the homemade detergent.  That is fine.  We wash our clothes seperately (most of the time) anyways.  So, I was thinking that if I make a small batch of detergent, I could use it to use my laundry and towels, and then we can use the regular detergent for his dirty, nasty clothes.  This way, we're not spending alot on detergent throughout the year, and I am a little more earth-friendly with my wash.

In 2010, I had a whole row on green beans.  We love greenbeans in our house.  Todd loves them fresh (I liked canned until I found out how great fresh can be from the garden this year!)  Those greenbeans took up a whole row in our garden.  I had planted bush beans.  The same goes for the roma tomatoes.  I planted a whole row, and then some of the larger variety on a trellis.  Those two things took up about half of the garden space I had.  I was informed that roma's were best for sauces.  Well, there were just too many of them, and they were alot of work.  So, this year, we will have lots and lots of tomatoes, but they will be on a trellis.  The same goes with the green beans.  I will buy the trellis variety this year and have several of them.  There is alot more room in the garden when veggies grow UPWARD instead of out. 

As for the trees, last year, we bought 1 apricot tree, 1 dwarf plum and 2 pear trees at a fraction of the cost (at the end of the season - Father's Day.)  We love apples.  Squiggy eats them, Lana eats them, we eat them...everyone loves them.  I'd like to purchase apple trees around Father's Day and plant them so that in a few years, we will have apples to pick.  We could have bought some in 2010, but I wasnt very comfortable with even the 4 trees we bought.  I didnt know how to take care of them, or if they'd ever produce fruit.  I'm not sure if the trees we bought will produce, but I know what I need to do to help them along.  What's another 2-4 trees, right?

While we are on the topic of fruits, I would also like to put in a row on blueberry bushes in the back of the house.  I want to be picking fruits/veggies throughout the whole season!  From Spring (strawberries) through Fall (Apples & Blueberries!)

Do you have any other suggestions on how we can save money in 2011?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I want to be RETIRED!

But if we had extra money, I want to own a pet sanctuary.  On the Husband Quiz,  Todd was right; I love all animals.  OK, I just lied.  I like all animals EXCEPT reptiles!  I can do without snakes, lizards, iguanas, etc. 

But cats, dogs, pigs, goats, cows, horses, deer, ducks, chickens…I love ‘em all. When I see one, I always give them kisses (gee, I have no idea how I got so sick last year!)  When I see kittle-cattle (yes, that’s what I call cows,) they get a big smack-a-roo on the moist nose!  They say cows are the dumbest animals, but I don’t care.  Dumb or not, they are oh so cute and they deserve love like everyone and everything else.  

Seeing as a sanctuary would have to be on more than the acre we have, I’d want a farm with a lot of land.  Maybe 20+ acres.  This way, I could plant an orchard with apples, pears, peaches, plums, rows of grape vines, red raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, strawberries and then my usual garden (time 5!)  We have two pear trees at home that we planted this year when they were on sale from Lowe’s around Father’s Day, 1 dwarf plum tree and an apricot tree.  I cannot wait until these trees produce fruit.  I had so much fun making apple pie filling, applesauce and apple crisp that I wouldn’t mind getting a few apple trees for the yard.  Todd calls me his little farmer girl.  I don’t know where it came from, because I grew up in the suburbs. At any rate, he has been reaping the rewards of our crop and doesn’t mind at all!

Red Raspberries

Even though it took a few years to get a good crop, I love what our red raspberry canes produce.  This is the first year we have been able to enjoy their abundance.  We get this many berries (fills a rice bowl) every other day.  I have put them in muffins, eaten them plain, and Todd loves them in vanilla yogurt.

Todd has mentioned that the raspberries have been his favorite from the garden of all the other vegetables.  I have strawberries in planters, but they did not produce this year for some reason.  I will be planting them in the garden when I get some horse manure in there in another month or so.

How is your garden doing?