A Lazy Thanksgiving

Like a lot of families in Canada, yesterday was our turkey day. I had Thanksgiving dinner at my sister’s, who cooked chicken instead of the traditional turkey. Chicken and gravy, mashed squash, basmati rice, home-made cranberry apple spiced sauce, and salad. Mini angel food cakes with home-made cherry pie filling (from their garden) and whipped cream. Yum! I thoroughly enjoyed the dinner, and Cody was definitely a gentleman by not whining too much under the table for scraps.

So, today I’m having a lazy day. I initially intended to get a lot done, but thought it would be fun to do a couple of things that have been on my radar to do.

1. Harvest a tray of worm castings from the Worm Farm I started in this post.  I could have done it last month before I left for Italy, but never got around to it before my sister started to look after them.  I will say that there are loads of worms now!  I harvested over 1/2 of a large dish pan of castings, and put back about 4 good cups of mostly worms into the bin.  Note to self, make sure that you don’t over water the bin before you go to separate the worms from the castings --- it was more difficult than it needed to be.

 

2. Break out the Sun Oven I bought, to see how I can cook a meal inside my house on a sunny day without using the oven!  I’m still learning how to focus it, but I think it is a feasible thing to use, even in my house (I have a large window that faces south).

   

You can see by the temperature gauge that its getting up to almost 250 d. Fahrenheit (and that with just being focused for about 1/2 hour. I just read the temperature after 1 hour of it being in the sun, and its holding steady at 250 d. That’s about high temp on a slow cooker, and it is supposed to retain heat and be able to be used as a heat retained cooker, so I’m going to monitor the temperature and hopefully by dinner time, everything will be done! I still have 2 good hours of cooking, and have 2 casseroles inside, the bottom one with mushroom rice, and the top one with a 1 lb meatloaf and tomato sauce.  Judging by the temperatures so far, I can see why they say that in the summertime the Sun Oven will get up to between 350 d. & 400 d. Fahrenheit! I know I’m going to be doing some baking when I’m camping next year!

Such a good day to count my blessings. Hoping you and your family have a great one too!

Update!

Here is what the meatloaf looked (temperature test), sliced, and with the rice I made. Its supposed to be sunny all this week, so I’ll be trying to make some dinner to be ready for me when I get home from work this week!

With a little (LOTS of) help from my friends!

Since my husband died last December, my zest for gardening has waned. I did do the front yard, but in the process totally neglected the back yard. It became so weedy that I hated to even go back there. It was almost beyond hope, and I needed to focus on my week off to get it done. With lots of help from my friends, a date was set for a garden work party.

Before the party, I spent a full day clearing out the junk from my husband’s shed.  I borrowed a trailer from friends to put stuff into… and then made a dump run.

I did find some satisfaction with the progress I made, but it will be a while before it is exactly the way I want it.

Before and after:

I got a huge chuckle out of some of the stuff my husband set aside for “just in case”.  There was a neatly rolled piece of window screen material, about 10 inches long by 15 inches wide, neatly rolled up, and secured with green painters tape…  There was also a neatly folded piece of plastic…wait until you see the labels Needless to say those two items made my day, and brought back some fond memories of my man.

Now more on the garden part of this post.

I really hate to show you the before pictures, but you need to see them to appreciate how much we accomplished in such a short time… The majority of the work (really, the foundation of weeding and redoing the pathway) took us 4 hours, including lunch! The rest I have worked on over two days (resetting the cement slabs under the pergola, planting the uprooted strawberries, and finishing off the blue chip gravel and putting in bark mulch).  Not bad eh! 

Truly I really could not have done it without my friends!

Before:

After:

 

The garden path before the garden work party.

During the party (we had 8 people show up, which effectively filled the yard with activity!

 

The garden path after the work party!

 

There is still work to do, but it is at the point that it is a pleasure to be in my back yard again.

I know that I can’t thank my friends enough for lending a hand and giving me the impetus to get going on an overwhelming prospect! I’m starting to love my back yard again!

Almost done!

Just a quick update…. the front yard is almost done… all that is left is to purchase approximately 7 packages of annuals for fill in, and to spread the bark mulch. So by this weekend, my front yard will be done! Only one month behind.

I’ll try to take this angle of picture for next years comparison.  So far so good though!

 

I will have to draw out what plants and perennials I’ve planted, and where, so I can keep the record of how things do. I am quite pleased with how I see it turning out though.  I just realized that I thought I had bought blue carpet juniper, but the one I actually got is more shrub like (spread is 3 ft high by 5 ft wide), so I can see those coming out in about 10 years…. oh well. Gardening to me is always a work in progress

The lawn is gone!

I am so excited! The front lawn is finally gone, as of this morning! Lots left to do, but I thought I’d celebrate by showing off some pictures of the front garden (warning, it is still a work in progress).

Once I get all the plants in the ground, and the bark mulch in place, I will do another update.  I can not tell you how relieved I am to have that lawn as history!

May 24th and 25th - Front yard update

I think I must have put in well over 12 hours the past two days on the front yard renovation.  I am exhausted, but as soon as I post this, I’ve got to mow the back lawn (much neglected).

At 11:30 am this morning:

After 6 hours of labor, the front yard is starting to take shape.:

The plants on the lower part of the picture have just been heeled in, as I’m moving around a lot of plants that were already in the yard.

I think I am about 1/2 way through…. there is more sod to take out (I think I took out 1/2 of it so far). I want to make a annual flower bed that has room to walk around it, and then have more plants to plant for the perennial/evergreen part of the front garden.  Then probably 2 loads of shredded bark mulch to put in, to keep everything easy to maintain.

Its going to take me two weeks to accomplish this, as I don’t have whole days of free time in the next little while.  I am really happy with the path that I made with blue chip rock, and my choices of plants so far.  If I get a chance, one day I will “map out” my garden beds to give you guys an idea of what I actually have planted in there.

The back lawn is calling my name…… sigh.

I’ve got worms!

I knew I’d get you with that title!  Not parasites, but red wigglers! I decided that the best way for me to get rid of my produce/bread/pasta/grain/newspaper waste was to do vermiculture…. aka, having a worm farm!  I wanted something small enough for just me… so I invested in a Worm Factory, which can be inside (in the winter) or outside (from the spring to the fall). Until the worms get settled, it will be inside. The best thing about having a worm farm like this, is that you have a spigot to harvest the compost “tea” for healthy fertilizer for your houseplants etc.

The worm farm I chose was from Amazon.ca . . . Nature’s Footprint.  It is expandable incase I get it going really well, and get my neighbours involved!

 

My compost outside did not have a huge amount of worms in it (I have to admit that I have neglected my composter for the past 6 months).  So I opted to purchase some worms through Burnaby Red Wigglers.  I mailed off my cheque, and before you knew it, I had worms arrive at my door! He also has some information here. Very nice to deal with! Wish I lived in the Lower Mainland to get to one of his workshops.

Here’s a picture of the worms…. most were hiding, but I could tell that there were lots of “babies” in there.

I’m trying to convince Cody that we have new “pets” in the house LOL!

Once I get this worm farm producing, I will post more of my vermicompost adventures!

May 20th Gardening update

Well, I’ve procrastinated long enough. I’ve been meaning to take out the front lawn, and have started the process.  By hand. I don’t think I will make the deadline I set in last month’s post. I can’t believe that it has almost been 1 month since that post!!!
Cody enjoyed being out there with me.. some before, during and after pictures for you.  I ended up getting about 1/3 of the lawn dug out. I think in practicality, I will leave a strip around 8 ft deep in the front of the “lawn” that will just be covered with plastic and bark mulch this year. I’m thinking that it will take a good three years for the front lawn to be the way I envision it turning out.  Cross your fingers for me!

Above, the view of the yard from the neighbor's side, and Cody enjoying being outside with me.

Above, Cody was trying not to be in the way, but invariably was right where I wanted to dig. Then the view from my side of the work in progress. That big pile is sod that I’ve shaken the dirt out of (for the most part)…. not sure how I’m going to get rid of it!
So, the game plan is to get the majority of the sod dug out by Thursday night. Friday and Saturday I will be getting 50/50 mix to enrich the areas I plan to plant, as well as a healthy amount of shredding fir mulch to cover the planted beds.  Oh! I forgot to mention it, but I will be getting pea gravel to make a pathway between our places for the mailman and us to use.  Stay tuned!!!!

April 27th Gardening updates

Today I am so excited to go to the mushroom workshop at Tsolum River Truffula Tree Farm!  I realize though that I’ve not done a gardening update.  I’ve been so busy trying to get the yard in order, and renovating what I have.
My goals this year:

1. Raised garden beds in the back yard.
2. Re-do the lawn edging along the path in the back yard, from the house to the workshop. I want to use landscape ties instead of the plastic edging. When doing this I want to incorporate a future fire pit/ bbq area  (On my bucket list is to make a Cobb Fireplace/Rocket Stove/Oven). I’m still pondering how I’m going to do this.
3. Weed and mulch the soil under the Prune Plum tree to plant “Garden Giant” mushroom spawn.
4. Completely redo the planter bed between the deck and the workshop. Its overgrown with weeds and lawn seed that I missed vacuuming up (long story from last year I did not share online). Mulch it well so it will be lower maintenance than it is now.
5. Take out the lawn from the front yard. Plant with shrubs, perennials and annuals, and mulch heavily to make it low maintenance.

I’ve got #1 done on the list, although I still have to tweak the positioning of the landscape ties that separate the garden from the lawn.  The wood I used was 2”x12”, and it provides a good height that the dog thinks is separate, and so far hasn’t gone into (crossing fingers!)
Here’s a picture of the back yard garden, the first picture is when I was making them, and the second picture is filled and partially planted. 



In the first bed I have 1/4 planted with Garlic, 1/4 planted with one Cardoon, 1/6th planted with Sugar Snap Peas, 1/6th planted with Red Russian Kale, and 1/6th to be planted (I’m thinking with Perpetual Spinach).
In the second bed the planting is more free-form. I planted a one foot by five foot strip of sugar snap peas along side the fence. The central part of the bed has five sprouting purple broccoli plants, surrounded by three different types of lettuce (12 plants total). The remaining part of the bed is filled with “walking onions” (Egyptian walking onions… you treat them like green onions, snipping what you need, and then let them go to seed… they form bulbuls that make at least five more plants!)
I’m debating on what to plant in the last bed, closest to the greenhouse.  I’m thinking squash, although I may try the Three Sister’s Planting method one more time. I know that I want a good planting of Purple Peacock Pole Beans - I really enjoyed them last year!
I should note that between the last bed and the greenhouse is a Lovage plant that barely survived me digging it out and leaving it “bare” over the winter.
Below, Lilac and Asian Pear Tree in bloom.

Below, the info. for the Purple Sprouting Broccoli, and Blueberries in bloom.

My Dad used to say “no rest for the wicked”…. Now, I really didn’t think I was that bad!!!!
Stay tuned for more gardening updates in the next month or so… did I tell you I wanted to accomplish this all by the end of next month?????? YIKES!

What a ‘Shroomy Day!

Today I had the most fun that I’ve had in a long time! My friend Patti came over, had breakfast,  and then went with me to Tsolum River Truffula Tree Farm and purchased our project for the day!

1. 4, 4 ft. long logs
2. 200 Oyster mushroom plugs
3. 4 oz. of local beeswax

With tools in hand (plugs, drill & hammer)

We set about our work, drilling holes and hammering in the plugs.

Then covering the plugs and holes with melted beeswax.

And the finished project.  They are waiting for me to put them in their new home tomorrow, behind the shed, where they will be shaded all seasons. Brooke from the farm suggested planting them about 6 inches deep (in sand) in a bucket in the ground.  I’ll post pictures when they are in their new homes, and that section of the yard is complete!

I’m really looking forward to the workshop that the farm is offering at the end of April, and hope to be doing Shitake mushrooms and Garden Giant mushrooms then! The class must be full, but if you email them, I’m sure they will get back to you about when the next workshop will be!

truffulatreefarm @ gmail . com (remove spaces)

I just love the thought of not having to buy mushrooms again!

A good weed – Lambs Quarters

One of the things I remember about my childhood and gardening, is some of the more interesting things my Mother taught me about gathering weeds to eat   One of my favorite weeds is Lambs Quarters. I let them seed all over the garden, so I can eat them when I want. They have a deep rich taste, and are great steamed and served with butter!

It is best to pick them young, and all it requires is a simple pinch with your fingertips to break them off near the ground.  The lambs quarters in the picture below is about 3 1/2 inches tall. Perfect size IMHO.

I picked about 4 cups of lambs quarters, and assembled ingredients for a quick wholesome lunch.

• 1 chopped onion
• 1 cup canned ham (diced, and home canned)
• Yam fries
• 4 cups lamb quarters
• 2 eggs
• rye bread

Yam fries went into the oven first, as they take about 25 minutes to get toasty and crisp.  I browned the onion in a small amount of oil, and drained the ham “liquid” into another pot to steam the lambs quarters in.  The ham went in with the onions to warm. I poached a couple of eggs (one per person).

 

After all was cooked, I plated my meal (hubby doesn’t eat weeds, so that meant more for me!). You are looking at the amount of lambs quarters I got from that pot full… under 1 cup cooked!

I neglected to say I served everything with rye toast and chipolte dip I made with chipolte in adobo sauce, mayo and sour cream… it is a must have with yam fries!

So, when you are out in the garden, think of what weeds you can eat!