Cabbage Soup -The Cool Season Harvest

I ate a dandelion. It tasted interesting, but I wouldn't call the experience wonderful, however eating from your own garden is just that. I also notice, that when you are the one growing, you do everything in your power to save every last morsels, and somehow, you enjoy it more, it taste better. I get to eat straight out of my garden a few times a week now. here's how it's growing...

Cabbage, Broccoli and Lettuce are doing well. I put in on my sandwiches and it always crisp and delectable. I have eaten a few broccoli heads, I accidentally let some flower, but I ate the rest. We also had cabbage patch soup last night, I realized only after I harvested WAY to early, but it still take delicious.

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon oil
• some bacon
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 3 (14.5 ounce) cans chicken broth
• 2 cups shredded cabbage
• 1 cup sliced carrots
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 bay leaves
• 1 cup frozen green peas
• 3/4 cup sour cream

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Saute the bacon and onion in the oil for about 5 minutes, or until onion is tender. Stir in the flour to coat well, then quickly pour in the chicken broth. Stir constantly for 3 minutes, or until somewhat thickened.
2. Next, add the cabbage, carrots, salt, ground black pepper and bay leaf. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir in the peas and sour cream 1 minute before serving. Allow to heat through and remove bay leaf.

Asparagus: doing well, its just taunting me because I am not supposed to eat it till next year.

I got my first Strawberry- delicious. Got to it before the birds could. Strawberry Snatcher.

Potatoes and onions - doing great. I look t them everyday and say, I want to eat you.

Drying Herbs- Rosemary & Oregano

So I know there are like a million books are on this subject but, I have found that the more time you spend outside, the closer you feel to the community around you. We straight up live in the burbs of southern Clayton County. Am I thinking that my little sustainability project is going to bring me closer to my other .54 acre neighbors, not really.

So we have these guys living two houses down. They have 4 kids and he has awesome dreads and his name is Jeremiah. The only interaction I have with this guy is a conversation about his dog Polo (which is pleasantly screamed around the neighborhood) who likes to flirt with my Pomeranian Wicket. So since we started the garden, he is fascinated by us and one day talked to me for an hour about his own gardening woes. He is a chef, and he really wants to grow his own stuff, but the deer ate it all: So we chit chat about my deer fence for a while.

Yesterday, he comes up to us and is like, “yall’s garden is the shi*, so I’m going to copy you”. Then he says that his herb-turned-weed garden has way a lot of rosemary and oregano and do we want some. I’m in heaven because this fulfills my green dream of community agriculture and the wilderness idea of ‘foraging for wild herbs’ all at once! So I picked a boat load of herbs, and now I am drying them. The rest I transplanted into my own garden. SWEET!

DRYING HERBS

All I did was separate them into bunches, cut off the dirty ends, and string them up in a cool dry area. I am experimenting by putting some on my screened in porch and some in my hallway inside. My hallway (where my herb shelf is-thanks mom) is actually the consistently darkest part of my house that is also well ventilated. Another plus is that it in the middle of my downstairs living area so my house is smelling Rosemary sweet and Oregano Savory- better than a grade plug in could ever smell!

Fearless Motherhood

I happen to be mother to the cutest kid on the planet. His name is Søren, and he is the stuff. He can sit up, thinks I’m hilarious, and smiles at me every time I look at him, what can beat that? His new favorite game it wack. wack. wack. drop (mothers of 6 months old, you know what I mean).
I am not the most cautious person in the world. I thought being a mother would change that, it didn’t. We live in a culture that is very motivated by fear, since I fear little, its hard for me to jump through the modern day mommy hoops. For example, when I left the hospital, a very professional, serious looking doctor told me about 20 common ways I could kill my kid and at the end of her uplifting speech she told me to feed Søren every 2 hours. everyday. I was a dumb new mother, wanting to be commanded so I said ‘of course I will’ and meant it. We got home and the kid would not eat. He was sleepy and I had a nervous breakdown because I was sure I would be the first mom to starve her child within 2 hours of bringing him home. He lived, and I realized about a day later, that doctors are pretty much out of their minds. I snapped back into myself. I’m this precious angels mother, and what I say goes. He ate every 4 hours, gained weight fine and is one of the happiest alert babies I’ve seen. He sleeps on his tummy, and has never touched hand sanitizer, bathes once a week (if that) yet is rarely ever sick.
Fear gives birth to insecurity, insecure mothers are unhappy mothers. Be Strong and free for your little one! The more we fear, the less time we love. God created that little one in your tummy out of nothing, I think he can keep you baby healthy ad strong. Enjoy your babe, he is a gift. No fear.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love cast out fear: because fear torments. He that fears is not made perfect in love. 1 John 4:18

Eat your weeds- Dandelion Tea and Coffee

It’s only been a few days and my Herb Shelf has already grown! I am starting very simple, so first orange peel, second, dandelions! My husband was about to mow all them down so it was now or never. I ended up drying the flowers and leaves for dandelion tea later (indigestion), and cleaning, grinding and roasting the roots for dandelion coffee (earthy decaf cleansing coffee). I had some marigold flowers (antifungal and PMS helper), so I dried those as well! AND I haven’t even dipped into my herb garden stash, so exciting!

This is freakishly fun.

Dandelion Root (from the front yard)

Dandelion Flowers

My Expanding Shelf

How to Build a Rain Barrel

Not to get on a soap box, But less that 1% of the earths water is fresh drinkable water. Dispite this fact, and with our cheap water in America, we use water a lot. Water is projected to go up this year and I want to keep cost down. I am also trying to move to our household to a place of sustainability so I decided to start rainwater harvesting. This is just a classy term for using the water from rain, for the things I need around the house.

The first and easiest step in this process is making a rain barrel. It’s a contained that is usually connected to you gutters, that will store water to be used in the garden. The average roof can collect 15,000 gallons of water a year! Here’s how I did mine.

There are a lot of different ways to do it. I just used a plastic trash can. A nice lady at home dept helped me with the attachments, one of them was free because she said they had it, but they don’t sell it. You also need some way to filter the water to remove leaves and junk (this also help keep mosquitoes out of you barrel! I used an old screen to wrap around where the gutter connects to the rain barrel

1. Get your gutter about 6-8 feet off the ground

2. Make a some sort off raised structure: You must have gravity for the rain barrel to work

Tip: make sure your raised structure lines up with your rain barrels gutter whole

3. glue the attachment to PVC.

4. Cut a tiny whole to fit the PVC pipe trough, screw it in the inside with the rubber washer on the inside. (I had to use a few coats of PVC glue to keep it from leaking.

5. Get you trash can, cut a whole in it and make your gutter fit into that whole (fit filter around gutter). Try to fit it as snug as possible.

6, Then you can screw your hose bib on.

You have a rain barrel.