Freedom and Squashtopia

The girls got a little freedom this morning.  Funny how they stayed so close to their run.  They could have gone into the whole rest of the backyard but just stayed on the hill outside their run.  Do they spend their days longing for the grass on the other side of the wire? 

While they poked around, I planned the squash invasion.  Only three of my squash seeds (yellow straight-neck) sprouted so I decided to go get some transplants.  I picked up some butternut squash and slicing and pickling cucumbers.  I also picked up some sherbet watermelon and mini pumpkin seeds.  Hopefully those do better than the first batch of seeds I put in. I threw in the mini pumpkin seeds and tried again with the pattypan seeds.  I put the watermelon seeds in a different part of the garden.  I've dedicated this entire box to squash. 


They came in 6-packs but I got more than I was bargaining for as each little pack had two or three sprouts in each compartment.  I planted all of the cucumbers in hopes that I will have an abundance for pickling and snacking all summer long.  I planted three of the butternut squash so they'd have room to grow.  Gotta find another place to put the rest.  I already made a little makeshift area for a couple zucchini.  I'm thinking I may have to do the same for these. 


I know I may regret going full steam with all these squash plants.  Experience tells me that even two zucchini plants is one more than anybody needs.  But here goes nothing! 

LET THE SQUASH INVASION BEGIN!!!

Let's meet the girls

Our little flock includes 3 three-year old hens and 3 seven month old hens.  We adopted the three older hens and bought the three younger hens from Sandy, our chicken guru.  We thought we would start out slow with three older hens that were already socialized with children and maybe next spring add to the flock.  But we got the chicky bug bad! 

My hubby designed and built us a totally custom coop and run.  It fits six perfectly.  We could probably push to eight but I don't think we will.  Another day, I'll write about the coop build.  It was an intense two weeks.

So back to the girls.

Cleopatra (Cleo):  Cleo is an Easter Egger.  She's on the top of the pecking order for sure.  Cleo is the name she came with and we kept it because she is beautiful but fierce.  She lays large green eggs.

Wilma:  Wilma is our other Easter Egger.  She loves to eat.  She pushes over anyone to find out what treat is being brought her way.  She lays large blue eggs.  She's Cleo's flunky.

Betty:  Betty is our Buff Orpington.  She was at the bottom of the pecking order when we first got the three older girls.  We were actually concerned that she may not be able to stay because their previous owner said that the Easter Eggers and her did not get along.  Turns out Betty was ill when we first got her.  I didn't know enough about chickens to recognize it at first.  I did notice however that her comb was half black and droopy.  After about ten days of good food and water, I noticed her comb was back to a perky red and she wasn't getting picked on so much.  It took her almost that long to start laying again when we got her.  She lays large brown eggs.

I'm still getting to know the three younger girls.  They all lay medium brown eggs.

Frida:  A Rhode Island Red.  She seems to have a gentle spirit.

Jade:  Jade is a beautiful Black Austerlorp.  She's quiet.

Pepa:  Pepa is a Silver-laced Wyandotte.  She thought she was at the top of the pecking order when she arrived with the other two little ones but she was quickly put in her place by Cleo and the other two older girls.  The merge was the toughest on her.  She's doing okay but I think the descent to bottom of the totem pole has been rough.

Back at it. Now with Chickens!

Well...I got a little sidetracked.  I had a baby.  He's two now.

A lot has happened in the two and half years since I last posted to this blog.  But as I read what I wrote in the About Me section three years ago, I realized that not much has changed at all.  I still love my garden, get inspired by sustainable living, creativity, and people living outside of the box, and am creating the life I want to live on our little piece of land in the Grove.

Our garden is still going well.  That winter garden I talked about planting in 2010 never happened.  I got pregnant and couldn't stomach vegetables.  So I didn't see much of a point.  We finally got around to planting a winter garden this past fall 2012.  It was AWESOME!!!  We planted kale, chard, collards, cabbage, broccoli, and lettuce.

The Napa cabbage was amazing.  I only planted a couple but next year I will make sure to plant much more.  The broccoli was very tasty, much sweeter than store bought.  The most impressive though has to be the rainbow chard.  It's the plant that just keeps on giving.  It's still going strong with all of the new spring plantings arranged around the chard.  I just couldn't bring myself to pull it out when it is still producing so well.  Besides, the chickens LOVE it!


Speaking of chickens....Yep, we got chickens!  

We started with three that we adopted from a family that was moving and just a few weeks later we decided we needed more!  Now we have six:  Cleopatra, Betty, Wilma, Frida, Jade, and Pepa.  They are awesome and although my chores have increased, I am having a great time!  The chickens are actually what brought me back to the blog.  They are an adventure and if my hubby has anything to say, that adventure may continue with rabbits and a turkey too.  My little garden is turning into a little farm!  That's good stuff!

Winds of change

I've been super busy the last few weeks with work starting up again.  Unfortunately that means my garden has been neglected.  Here's what happens when you don't pay attention to zucchini for awhile.

To the left you can see some normal size zucchini in the pot.  The ones on the counter are about 2 feet long.  Ahhhh!!!! I'm so over zucchini.  We gave all of these to a friend.  He said he wanted 1.  We gave him all of them plus a pumpkin, some cucumbers, and some tomatoes.  We're ready for new crops!

The next round of crops will include winter squash, cabbage, beets, onions, spinach, chard, and lettuces.  I'd also like to put in some cauliflower, broccoli, and brussel sprouts.  I may look into buying some transplants for those.  I thought I was going to have a new planter box where I was going to put all of the greens.  But that's not looking very probable right now, so I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to organize the garden.  All of these seeds say to plant in September in my area.  I've only torn out 1/3 of my summer garden so far.  I think I'm just going to completely tear out the zucchini.  That will give me tons of room.  I was trying to research if it's okay to plant winter squash in the same place that I just had summer squash, but I haven't found an answer yet.


It will be very interesting to see if my fall garden is as prolific as my summer garden was.  It's like starting from scratch again!

Moving to the Safe List....I think?

This summer I have been diligent about reading labels, cooking from scratch, and gently testing certain foods for reactions.  In the last couple weeks in particular, I haven't had a breakout of hives at all! Here's what I've learned:

CORN:  Yep, definitely react to this.  Especially, corn syrup, cornstarch, maltodextrin, and modified food starch.  It seems however that some of the derivatives don't bother me.  I'm not as worried about citric acid, guargum, xantham, etc.  They don't seem to bother me.

SOY:  The jury is still out.  I seem to do fine with Soy Lecithin and haven't noticed reactions from Soy Oil in products.  I will still limit it's consumption anyways since it's not supposed to be beneficial for thyroid function.

EGG:  This was extremely borderline in my testing.  The technician told me she only added it to the list because it was one of the ones that I came in questioning.  My reaction was 5/8.  Not even close to my reactions with all the other allergens.  I'm definitely moving EGG to the safe list.  This is such a relief as far as breakfast goes.  But I still won't have it everyday.

I think this is good progress.  I'm feeling better, have learned lots in the kitchen, and am leading a generally healthier life.

What a week away can do.

I just got back from a week visiting my sister in St. Kitts.  I left my garden in the hands of my husband.  I knew he could do a good job, but was a little concerned since I knew he was super busy with work.  To top things off, I have been combating a case of powdery mildew on my pumpkins.  I was a little concerned that my garden would not be the same when I returned.

Well I was right!  It wasn't the same.  It was even BETTER!

The eggplant has taken off.  There were two more large pumpkins.  The tomato plants have replenished their leaves.  A whole new batch of tomatillos were ready.  And three bell peppers are taunting me.

Oh and remember the basil that I had so many problems with?  The earwigs attacked it.  I transplanted it after it was overshadowed by the huge tomato plants.  It hung to life with one half eaten leaf.  Well, it has gotten over its shock and is now flourishing.

We also got our first fig harvest.  I had never had fresh figs before.  They are DELICIOUS!

Maltodextrin is a NO!

So I'm still doing trial and error with the whole food allergy thing.  If you go to a corn allergy website you will find a list a million miles long of all the products that are derived from corn.  At first I was trying to stay away from all of them.  That was overwhelming and frustrating.  Now I am learning which ones seem to cause a reaction and which ones don't.

I have clear evidence now that Maltodextrin is a big NO for me.  I have already learned that I can't use Splenda powder.  I was pretty sure it was the maltodextrin, but not totally.  I have recently been testing two different water flavors that you can add on the go.  One is Aquafusion and the other is Crystal Light PureFitness.  The Aquafusion has Maltodextrin as its first ingredient.  The PureFitness uses evaporated cane juice and stevia.  Well it's official, on the days that I only used PureFitness, no hives.  On the days that I only used Aquafusion, hives.  They both have other ingredients that could possibly be corn derivatives but if those were bothering me, I would get hives on both days.

So yay for me!  This is a big help.  Now I know that corn syrup, cornstarch, and maltodextrin all give me hives.  I'm so happy that more products are using stevia and real sugar.  Now I know which ones to choose, instead of having to skip them altogether.

I'm going to test eggs next.  They were very borderline on my skin test.  Last time I tested eggs, I was having Splenda everyday, not realizing about the maltodextrin.  Maybe I'll be able to take eggs off my list to avoid.  Boy that would make breakfasts a lot easier!

Pickles...easy, but how will they taste?

Today I made pickles with a bunch of cucumbers that my friend gave me from her garden.  My cucumber plant only is producing about 2 cucumbers a week, so I doubt I will ever get enough to pickle my own cucumbers.

I followed the directions laid out in my Whole Living magazine but I'm a little anxious to find out how they are going to taste.  Before I started, I didn't even think about how many varieties of pickles there are.  I have no idea if the pickles I made are going to be sweet or dill.  I'm pretty sure they won't be any other variety since I didn't seek out a recipe.  The magazine says that the recipe is for Sour Pickles, but I used apple cider vinegar and the pickling spices smell very sweet.  We'll see.  It was fun and easy. 

Here's the video!

Canning Tomatoes and much more!

Oh my goodness! Today I learned and did so much!  I made my first attempt at canning tomatoes and learned about a local CSA that I'm gonna try out, a farm that gives out free mushroom compost, and a local elementary school that has an organic garden to teach the kids how to grow and cook organic!

I made a video of my canning adventure today!  Enjoy!

After I finished, I read that I was supposed to use bottled lemon juice and not fresh because it has a more consistent pH value. But hopefully it isn't a problem.  I guess we'll find out if the tomatoes spoil in the jar.

I also froze some yellow zucchini today.  I'm pretty much sick of zucchini at this point.  I plan on freezing most of what grows from now on.

Tomorrow I will be making pickles!

I had a great time today.  I'm proud of myself for learning so many new things and excited about how easy and fun it is to make little changes towards living more sustainably.

Creole Pork Round 2

Tonight I made Creole Pork for the second time.  It was delicious as ever.  This time I made a salsa from my vine ripened tomatoes, mini peppers, Italian parsley, and red onion.  This meal is a perfect summer dish. 

The tomatoes have arrived!

This is today's harvest.  The tomatoes have officially arrived.  There are at least twice this many on the vines that are still orange and twice that many that are still green.

Even though there are tons of tomatoes, I am concerned that my tomato plants are in distress.  First, I forgot that I was watering the plants and left the water on for 2 hours.  That turned a couple plants yellow.  They seem to be recovering though.  Then we had a heat wave this week.  The plants definitely struggled through that.  The grape tomato plant is so huge that it is breaking and leaves are dying.  But it is still producing so many tomatoes that I'm just letting it do it's thing. Next year, I'll give the tomatoes much better supports.  Some of the Early Bird tomatoes are getting this weird gray patch on the bottom of the fruit (see below) and the Mountain variety has these weird translucent patches on lots of the fruit (see below).  I have no idea what either of those are from. 

I love having so much fresh stuff from the garden.  For dinner tonight we put some turkey burgers and yellow zucchini on the grill.  Then I chopped up some just picked tomatoes and a cucumber with some red onion and Italian parsley.  So fresh.  So yummy!

Oh, and here's the pumpkin update.  It's doing fantastic!

No new pumpkins yet, but this one looks pretty healthy.  I wonder how long I keep it on the vine now that it's turning orange?  I guess I have some research to do!

First tomatoes and confused cucumbers

My tomato plants have gotten too big for their britches.  I learned a big lesson this year.  My tomato plants will need lots of support and more room next year.  I am starting to get ripe tomatoes now.  The yellow grapes are delicious.  The other ones are still just starting to get orange.

The cucumbers are doing great, but I just found these 2 hiding.  They had gotten tangled in their own vines and came out a little funky.  And the yellow zucchini parade continues. 

Today I will start prepping another area in our yard.  We have lemon trees that are on an eroding little hill.  We are going to use the landscaping ties from the garden to create a tiered retaining wall.  Then I will have a whole new area to plant.  I still haven't decided what will go in those little areas.  I would really like to have an herb garden, but herbs haven't worked so well for me.  It may end up being an area for flowers.  We'll see.  Here's the before picture.

Detox and Green Smoothies

This week I have decided to go raw in order to hit the reset button on my allergies.  Since Memorial Day weekend, my life has been super busy, stressful, hectic, and fun!  As a result, ever since then I have had hives.  We went camping and our routine went out the window from there.  I had four weekends in a row where I didn't have time to do my Sunday shopping and food prep for the week.  It got so bad that my hubby and I even ended up ordering pizzas for dinner a couple nights.

It is very easy to stay away from my most reactive allergies when I am only eating raw fruits and vegetables.  It gives my body a chance to calm and reset.  Summer is a great time to do this because the warm weather makes me crave fresh fruit and veggies anyways. 

This is the fourth time that I have gone raw.  The first time was 6 years ago.  I started with a 28 day cleanse and felt so good that I stayed raw for 9 months.  The second and third times lasted about 3 weeks each.  Each time I have scoured the internet looking for blogs and articles about the raw lifestyle seeking encouragement and support for the drastic change.  Each time I learn a little more about what works for people and what doesn't.  This time everywhere I searched people were talking about Green Smoothies.  I can't imagine that it's a new craze that I had never seen before in my years of learning about raw foods.  I guess this time I was just ready for the information.  Must be, because I LOVE my Green Smoothies!!!!

They are so refreshing and delicious!  Here is what I made this morning.  It's my favorite yet!

lemon (without rind)
frozen peaches
apple (without core)
slice ginger
spinach
spring mix

Ok I admit, it doesn't look so hot.  But YUM YUM!

Best raw zucchini salad ever!

I'm getting about 2-3 zucchinis a day now.  I've had to get creative with recipes. This is a raw zucchini salad that is delicious!

Recipe: 
Thinly slice 2 medium zucchini (mine are yellow) I used the slicer on my cheese grater.
Thinly slice 6 mini peppers (red, yellow, orange)
Thinly slice 1/4 of a large red onion
Chop 2 roma tomatoes.  (Put 1 in the salad, save the other)
Chop 1 clove of garlic
Put remaining chopped tomatoes with chopped garlic into a slap chopper to pulverize tomatoes.
Add to salad including juices.
Add 1 tbsp olive oil and 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
Add salt & pepper to taste.

Let marinate for 30 minutes to an hour.
YUM YUM!

Bolting lettuce, incredible squash, and tons of green tomatoes!

Summer is in full effect and apparently it is too warm for the lettuce.  My novice eyes were very impressed when I saw the lettuce burst up 2 feet high.  But the leaves taste really bitter.  I learned from a gardener at the County Fair that my lettuce has bolted.  It's time to tear it down, chop it up, and throw it in the compost.  Oh well, I got a couple good salads out of it.  But look how beautiful it is!

The squash is amazing!  Turns out I planted yellow zucchini.  It tastes just like zucchini, only it's yellow.  I have been putting zucchini in everything I can imagine.  It grows so fast you can almost watch it grow before your eyes.  I have to check it daily or else the fruit will get too big.  The first pumpkin fruit has appeared.  I'm fascinated by this.  That means it will grow all summer and then be ready for harvest in the fall.  Oh my!  This might be one heck of a pumpkin.  My sister told me that you can put a piece of wood underneath the fruit so that it doesn't sit on the wet soil.  I'm gonna give it a try.

This is a gorgeous eggplant flower.   The eggplant has started to bloom all over.  I'm a little nervous that I planted it too close to the zucchini (which has turned into a monster plant).  I LOVE eggplant so I can't wait to see what we get out of this plant.

Tomatoes:  The tomato plants are enormous.  The yellow grape tomato is literally 6 feet tall, but it's fallen because I didn't have it supported well enough.  There are so many little green tomatoes.  It's like watching water boil.  I can't wait until they ripen!

Creole Pork....delicious!

My new recipe for the week was creole pork.  The recipe couldn't be simpler.  I mixed together the rub, chopped the veggies, and pan-fried the pork.  Simple as that!  It was awesome and very inexpensive.   I switched the recipe up some to work with what I had.  I used pork shoulders (on sale this weekend), organic mini grape tomatoes that I found at the 99 cent store, and fresh squeezed lemon juice from our trees outside (instead of lime juice). 

Now I'm itching to have people over for a dinner party, just so I can serve this.  It's so pretty on the plate and soooooo easy.

Getting so big and first harvest!

I'm so proud of my little garden!  It has really exploded.  If things continue, we will soon have a beautiful harvest of tomatoes, zucchini, tomatillos, and cucumbers!  I guess I should have listened to the recommended spacing, but I had no idea that they would all do so well!

Today we harvested the first cucumber.  It was about 7 inches and soooo yummy! 

I transplanted the pumpkin plants finally.  They didn't take the transfer very well, but I'm hoping that they perk up and take off like the rest of the plants have.

So far, the sonar gopher repeller is working really well.  I stuck it right in the middle of the tomatoes, in the hole that was left by the one plant the gophers took down.  The three lettuce plants that hadn't been kidnapped by gophers are now growing undisturbed.  I even felt confident enough to plant some more lettuce in that same bed.  

One curry per week!

I have started to experiment with curry recipes.  Last week we made a lamb curry.  Today I made a ground turkey with garbanzo curry.  Yummy.  I got both recipes from Kalyn's Kitchen as usual.  I'm trying to vary flavors in our weekly meals.  I'm finding that Indian foods are great for me because they don't often have any allergens.  Lucky me, since I LOVE Indian food!

Those lovely tomatoes are organic grape tomatoes that were on sale this week at Henry's. NICE!

Sunday: Not a day of rest but a nice day of cooking!

About 10 years ago a friend of mine declined an invitation on a Sunday because she said that she would be chopping veggies and preparing food all day.  She explained that she did most of her cooking on Sundays to ease her load during the week.  It made sense, I guess.  At the time, I couldn't imagine what in the world would take all day to cook and why it was worth it to her to lose one of her days off.

Now I get it.

I learned this past week that something will always have to give.  The consequence of 3 fun evenings out this week (errands, dad's birthday, girls' night) was that I didn't cook 3 dinners.  No dinner means no breakfast or lunch for me since I always cook extra to take leftovers.

So today I went all out.  This morning I made our weekly menu, went grocery shopping, and went at it!  Here's what I've made today.

• Green salad w/ peperoncinis, roasted red peppers, and feta (lunch)
• Turkey sliders w/ tzatziki sauce (lunch)
• Spinach, mushroom, and turkey bacon quiche (hubby's breakfast for the week)
• Quinoa w/ squash, eggplant, and mushrooms (My breakfast for the week)
• Tomato Bisque (lunch)
• Cobb salad  (lunch)

All this prep should help hubby and I stick to our menu plan this week and save me some work in the mornings too!

Yo Ho Yo Ho...a Pirate's Life for Me!

That's what I figure the earwigs are singing every night as they drowned themselves (literally) in beer.  I have discovered that the pest that is doing the most damage to my crops is the earwig.  I have also discovered that they are suckers for a cold brew!  Every night I crack open a couple beers, fill about a dozen catfood tins with beer, and place them throughout the garden. 

It's working pretty nicely I think.  Each morning I go out and see tons of earwigs floating in the beer.  They are still getting to the plants, but I think they get quickly lured away by the sweet scent of a brew and can't resist.  It's a tedious process but for now it's the best I've got.