Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Renaissance Women!

I am VERY excited about this new group and learning some pioneering "survival skills" from all my fellow eager earthies. Plus I have homework- this blog. Which I had planned to start as my own unpublished garden journal (because who wants to read someone else's garden journal. Except me- I would love that), but when Heather emailed with a blogging assignment, I thought Bingo! I'll follow the two birds/one stone adage, which has been around forever so must be good advice.

So, introducing my garden planning/Renaissance Women experiences blog. I'll try to make the two tie in as much as possible. For example: goat milking (Renaissance Women) as I ponder my weed problem (my own garden stuff). Just an example- we won't only be milking goats. Here's what we will be doing:


  • making and distilling essential oils


  • fermenting sodas/ kamboucha (soooo much better than it sounds!)


  • making yogourt


  • making sourdough starter and bread (Yay! This has never worked for me!)


  • making soap (last time I made soap it involved melting a bar of Ivory, perfuming it with something bright blue and pouring it into a mould shaped like a mermaid. Booooo!)


  • identifying wild mushrooms/plants, and EATING them (that's right)


  • sewing from a pattern (OK, I know how to do this one. Nose to the sky, Angie.)


  • milking a goat (while you garden)


  • making cheese and enjoy with wine (this is officially and prematurely my favourite night of all)

  • bee keeping (woo hoo!)
And possibly:

  • building a cob oven (so I can then build my dream cob home)

  • making paper


  • killing a chicken (this one sounds slightly less cheery then the others, but I'm all over it)


I missed our first meeting, so off to a bit of a bad start :-/ But it was a planning meeting, no milking or slaughtering small animals- no fermenting things. Think I can catch up all right.

So, until February 20th...


Wednesday, January 5, 2011

The Great Comfrey Project

So Comfrey sounds pretty magical and I plan to grow a batch of it right next to my compost bin. Not only can I throw in a few handfuls now and then for a compost boost, but it makes a nutrient rich tea to spray on plants and the leaves make a great mulch. Plus, it looks pretty and anything pretty in our mud pit of a backyard is OK with me. Go Comfrey!

Some more than helpful garden blogs I've found:

Time to plan!

It's that time of year! I'll start with my official list of seeds:

Seeds left over from last year
  • sugar pumpkin
  • California Wonder peppers
  • Genovese Basil
  • Jalepeno
  • Thai Dragon Peppers
  • Cupid Tomato (2)
  • Peron Tomato (4- vine)
  • Cascadia Snap Peas
  • Oriental Greens
  • Beets

Seeds to Buy

  • Calabrese Organic Broccoli
  • Salad Bush Cucumbers (container)
  • Redbor Kale
  • West Coast Market Blend
  • Copra storage onion
  • Redwing storage onion
  • Red Habanero pepper
  • Chieftan red potatoes
  • Bush tomato (Celebrity?)