Thinking Spring

I am counting down the days to spring. Not just because I am sick of winter, this is true. But also this long winter has left me with extra time to read about gardening and I am getting excited to start planting. Last season was horrible. It was cold and frost warnings in May and then too much rain and not enough sun gave me a lack luster crop. This year I attended a Rutgers Masters Gardner Lecture. If they offer such lectures I highly suggest them. The lecture was specific to my location, not just New Jersey, but our North Jersey clay soil and what to do to get the most from our garden. I learned a lot and some things I have been doing wrong, well maybe not wrong, but not right either. Its too early to even start seedlings yet. I've started onions, my first time growing them, because they say 10-12 weeks. This week I will be planting eggplant and peppers so they are also slow starters and need a decent head start. My list this year is long and I'm hoping to yield some amazing fruit and veggies. Nothing like getting your hands in the dirt and feeling the sun on your back. Now if this snow will just melt I can get to cleaning up the garden and dreaming off tomato sandwiches, stuffed peppers, cucumber salads, fresh beans and eggplant parm. Oh zucchini bread, carrot and salad. Winter produce is the pits. Summer I can't wait!

Growing and Growing

This is my first garden as a SAHM, an adult and homemaker. Because of this I have made some mistakes, mostly in my spacing. Man does zucchini grow like a weed. And who knew my tomato plants would grow so big. I am already getting an abundance of cucumbers and zucchini, and am already getting a little sick of it. I'm can't wait till my tomatoes ripen to make some yummy salads, with cucumbers and zucchini, but not as the star. I have 1 staple recipe for zucchini that is so easy and simply delicious. I just saute it with butter, a little salt and pepper. So far I have also added shredded zucchini to a lasagna, in some omlettes and made some yummy baby food for Ev. I also have been munching on an old family recipe for cucumber salad Sprinkle about 1 tablespoon of celery salt over about 3 cucumber cut very thin. Let sit a minimum of 1 hour, preferable 2 or more. Drain the water out.

Mix 1 cup white vinegar and 1/2c sugar or to taste. Add the cucumbers with 1/2 cut up onion and green pepper. You can add dill if desired. Let sit in the fridge, store in mason jars. This recipe tastes better the next day and lasts up to a month stored in the fridge. Enjoy!

Around the Garden

Since become a SAHM and/or "radical" homemaker I have added some hobbies or other homemaking skills to my repertoire, knitting, crocheting, baking, canning and my most recent obsession, gardening. I used to garden with my parents as a child, my father owns a nursery and my mother always had a fondness for Jersey fresh produce. But this is my first garden on my own. My 2 almost 3 year old daughter helps a lot, which is why carrots are sprouting up every where. She helps me water and loves to help me harvest. She is not so big on tasting them, but I hope she will eventually cave. We so far have been enjoying cucumbers, zucchini and a few cherry tomatoes. We also have blueberry bushes that we eat as they ripen. We just can't seem to wait for a bunch, they are just too fresh and good. What I love most about this hobby is how it brings people together, people talking and bonding over food and gardening. When I knit, cook, bake or can I am limited to who I can talk with this about. Only 1 of my friends crochets, none knit, no one cans and a few bake, but not like I do. They like the back of the box or fancy food dye sugar filled cakes while I enjoy fresh breads, muffins and the occasional cake from scratch.

But with my garden I feel there is something for everyone. I greatly enjoy talking with my father about the types of plants, which grow best, which taste the best and what plants are best for which part of the season. He enjoys some of the odd plants I found, my cooking them and my organic methods which he isn't too familiar with. I also enjoy asking my mom for old favorite recipes that she would use with all the fresh produce. I think she also enjoys my new skill of canning and I know she loves trying them. My children also love trying, especially the baby. Liv is a little more picky but I get her to eat those veggies in many ways she doesn't even know. My husband also has fond memories of his mother's garden and actually enjoys helping me take care of mine. It is the only hobby that we really enjoy together other then hiking and just being out in nature. The season is just starting up by me and I am enjoying read every cook book and preserve book I can find. I went way overboard and need to preserve as much as a can to not waste it. I also love talking gardening with people, people of all ages enjoy gardening so I find young friends, old neighbors and more are more then willing to talk you up and give some great advice. Most of all I just enjoy sharing my produce or cooked and baked good with my friends and family. I feel this garden has brought me a little closer to natures, closer to creating my own homestead, close to my past and homemakers of the past and closer to being a healthier, greener and self-sufficient family.

Green Thumb

Spring is well on its way and I have been playing in the thawed and warmed dirt. This past weekend I spent a lot of time planting flowers and working on my garden. This is the first garden I have grown by myself. My first "grow-up" garden. My dad always had a garden and I would help him, but this one is all my own. My husband built the structure for me, to keep the deer out, but the rest is all me. I used the compost I've been working on for fertilizer. My goal is to have an organic garden. I also used to organic mulch to help with weed control. I planted several variety of tomatoes, peppers, onions, peas, cucumbers, carrots, eggplant, watermelon, 2 blueberry bushes and some herbs.

Liv helped me plant the carrots, so I am starting to see them sprouting up all sorts of spots in my garden. But that's okay, my garden is not meant for beauty or order but to help feed my family and to help teach Liv about where food comes from. I'm also hoping that it will help her eat some vegetables. Tonight we had pierogies, she looked at the green peppers I sauteed with them and she said "yuck, I don't like this" She refused to even try it. I'm hoping once she sees then growing in our garden and gets to pick them right from the plant she might be more likely to try them. I find I am becoming obsessed with my garden. I have such pride in my garden and keep thinking how many wonderful meals I can make from my garden. I even checked out Balls Canning book from the library to preserve some of my harvest. I have very quickly understood why people enjoy gardening. The dirt in my fingers, digging in the earth, the physical labor, being out in the spring sun. I also love learning a new skill. Since being a SAHM I miss the intellectual stimulation from work or school.Gardening, at least for now, has seemed to fill that gap in my life. Even thought my dad gardened and even owns a garden supply store, there is so much I need to learn. First is learning how to garden organic, which is something my dad never did. But all learning how to do it myself. I usually just helped him plant, would water and then pick the harvest. But there is so much more. Crop rotations, how to fight infestation, staking and cages, planting, spacing, even learning what types of varieties there are. I really did not know that tomatoes come in a whole rainbow of colors, not just red. I'm also excited to learn more ways to cook and to save and preserve my harvest. And to taste fresh picked fruit and veggies, straight from the ground or vines. I feel very much like a homesteader or a housewife from the early 1900s, which I love. People with out gardens have no idea what they are missing.

Another Reason to Buy Local

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/08/honey-laundering/ Unsafe Honey Flooding American Super Markets

I have really gotten into the SLOW (seasonal, local, organic, whole) movement since reading Alice Waters book

It started for me as just a cook book to read from the library to get me and my family eating better, but the message stayed with me and has lead me to read many other books about the SLOW food movement and eating. I was a vegetarian for 10 years till I got pregnant the first time (cravings got the better of me, and a little anemia didn't help) so I am no stranger to animal rights, healthier food and sustainable foods, but recently I have been learning so much more.
We I read news articles like about about what horrible things get into our food it makes me more a more want to reach my dream of becoming a homesteader.
Hopefully one day I will be more of a homesteader and a radical homemaker then I am now.

Raspberry Preserves

Image via Wikipedia

I have become more of a homesteader and a better homemaker and what better way then to make your own jam. This way I know exactly what is in what we are eating, I love that. We have lots of local farms, some with pick your own, so I went out with Liv last week and picked as many raspberries as possible.
I tried to do the same with strawberries, but I missed a lot of the season so picking was slim and we just ate most of it. Hoping to make some yummy stuff with blueberries soon, they are now starting to get ripe up where I live.

I was totally surprised at how easy it was to make jam, and how yummy the results turned out.
Technically I made preserves, which is not as smooth as jam or jelly. But to make jam or jelly you need more supplies, and just in case I hated the process or got lazy (which tends to happened when you are 8 months pregnant in a hot hot summer) I wanted to start of easy.

How made Raspberry Preserves (yields 3 jars)
4 cups of raspberries, cleaned and picked over
3 cups sugar
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
Combine all ingredients and let them sit for about 2 hours, stirring occasionally, till all the sugar is dissolved
Pour into a heavy sauce pan
Bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer till a candy thermometer reaches 220 degrees F
Remove from heat, skim off any foam.
Ladle into 3 1/2pint jelly jars that are sterile, allow 1/4inch headspace. Cap and seal
Process 10 min using boiling water method.
Remove and let cool.
Enjoy!

Related articles

• 10 Ways to Use Raspberries (frugalrecipes.wordpress.com)

Homesteading

Image via Wikipedia

Homesteading is an idea I that I am sort of new too. As a child my parents used many homesteading ideas, we had chickens, a garden, my dad would pickle vegetables,and make jerky. But the older I got, and when my mom went back to work all of these things slowly ended. We bought everything we used and needed.
I still have fond memories of being a young child collecting eggs, pickling with my dad and tasting his smoked and dried meats. I remember having a friend whose mother always made all of her clothes. I always thought it was the coolest thing and was a little jealous of their unique clothes. Now looking back their mother made their clothes probably because they couldn't afford to buy them. But with that savings they put a decent amount of money away for their children's college, something my parents never could do.
Other then the money savings there is something so fulfilling about making things yourself. Being capable of truly taking care of yourself and your family in a world where we are so depended on the economic market.
So even though I have some experience in DIY I have decided to start small. This summer I took kitting lessons. Now for Christmas I received a sewing machine. I am hoping to be able to teach myself to make some summer dresses for Liv.
I just feel so strong that I need to teach myself how to do these things. We have just lost all connection in how to and where things come from. I want to be able to take pride in my homemaking and my skills. I want to do more then push a button to cook dinner, be a chauffeur for my children, and become a desperate housewife.
I will keep you updated in my DIY adventures and expanding my home into a homestead.

Related articles

• How to Become a Modern Homesteader (money.usnews.com)
• Self-Sufficiency: a back to basics guide (green-trust.org)