Category Archives: family life

The Twenty Minute (Vegetable) Gardener

Posted on by
1

I was gifted with the book The 20 Minute Gardener a while back, and I finally found the time to read it. Despite being more about flower gardening than my forte, growing vegetables, I’m thoroughly enjoying the stories and the advice. It’s a little like Click and Clack Grow a Garden, if you’re a Car Talk fan.

I spent much more than 20 minutes a day over the weekend. I came indoors Saturday night tired and sore, very sore. Sore legs, sore feet, sore back, sore thumbs – you name it, it hurt. A tall gin and tonic eased some of the pain and provided some much needed rehydration, and a Harry Potter marathon let my mind settle.

Sunday, silly me, I did a lot of the same. It’s been crazy busy and crazy cold in the past two weeks, so I grabbed hold of the weekend sunshine while I could.

Monday I did a lot of walking, but not so much bending and twisting. I joined La Petite and her friends in a visit to Hippie Tom’s Serendipity Farm. We had lots of fun and found (surprise, surprise) lots of crocks! Anyway, Monday was a short day (or evening) in the garden. After a 2 hour drive home and a short break for supper (Chuck’s German potato salad – Yum!), I finished planting the tomatoes and spent some time watering.

Back to the book title: The 20 Minute Gardener’s philosophy is that a lovely garden is potentially possible with an investment of only 20 minutes a day. It’s the end of the school year, and that means that 20 minutes is all I have most nights. In Tuesday’s twenty minutes I planted herbs in some of the smaller crocks. Thyme and two kinds of basil took up the 20 minutes between arriving home and starting to cook.

Tomorrow I may have more than 20 minutes (no barbershop rehearsal on Wednesdays). Watering everything, turning a little more soil, planting lettuce and root crops, spreading mulch (a.k.a. pine bedding that the rabbit no longer needs) – that plan sounds like more than 20 minutes.

The main reasoning behind the 20 Minute attitude is to lessen the stress. If I can commit 20 minutes a day, I don’t have to feel guilty about not spending more time at it. I can feel good about what I do, rather than feeling down about what I didn’t get done. If I only get the mulch spread and the tomatoes watered, that’s enough.

The side benefit? Simple: I’m away from the computer and the television news for at least 29 minutes every evening. That’s stress relief right there.

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Stalking the “Wild” Asparagus

Posted on by
Reply

I’m a forager wannabe, as my regular readers know well. I’ve been known to pick dandelions for the rabbit and to incorporate into salads, pesto – you name it. When Chuck and I take walks, we’ve learned the location of raspberry bushes that no one harvests.

I have my perennial rhubarb and a raspberry patch that is slowly but surely recovering from its near-destruction in the building of the new garage. I have my annual garden patch with tomatoes, peppers, and whatever decides to bloom where I plant it. So far, that includes potential for zucchini, spinach, parsley, peas, and perhaps butterfly garden flowers. Maybe.

I bought the butterfly garden seed-infused mat from a recent online auction. My main objective in this auction was a 10 inch cast iron skillet, and as long as I was bidding, I dropped a minimum bid of $2 on the butterfly garden. Now, I have no idea how old this batch of seeds might be, or how many of those seeds were stolen by the cardinal family in the backyard. I tore the mat apart to spread it out to fill the space, and it fell to pieces. Is that good or bad? No, don’t answer that. Here’s the result.

Lovely? Not yet. I planted peas in the spaces in between the mats.

But I’m off on a tangent. I didn’t start out to talk about the potential butterfly garden. I actually started out talking about foraging in the great urban-slash-suburban cityscape. I was at a most unlikely place when I saw asparagus growing. The airport, my friends, it was the airport. While waiting for Petunia’s plane to arrive, I kept myself busy playing Pokemon Go. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that a gravel landscape between the parking and the pick-up areas had a speck of green in it.

The wind was blowing hard and blowing cold, so I did not get out of the minivan to take a close-up. The signs that said “No Unoccupied Vehicles” might have had something to do with that, too.

Well, there you have it, people. I found asparagus growing in the gravel at the local airport. Foraging now is simply fun. If it ever becomes a necessity, you’ll want to be with me. No matter where we are, we’ll stalk something edible.

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Priorities, Priorities.

Posted on by
Reply

Where to start? That’s the question. Here are a few choices.

  • Clean up the weeds near the deck where the black-eyed Susans are supposed to grow.
  • Split rhubarb plants to better fill their tiny plot.
  • Break up soil in sections of big garden.
  • Spread compost on sections of big garden.
  • Finish clearing weeds around rhubarb.
  • Turn soil behind garage. Weed around garlic.
  • Clear an area behind garage suitable for spinach. Plant spinach seeds.
  • Pull up creeping ivy around bushes.
  • Put cushions back on porch swing (Amigo would put this at the top of the list).
  • Weed around transplanted peonies.
  • Go to Fleet Farm and buy new rain barrel.
  • Find something to plant in the papasan-turned-planter.
  • Measure sections of big garden for square-food planning.

Then again, I could relax and watch the Milwaukee Brewers game with Amigo. I think I’ve found a solution.

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

It was inevitable – viral, even.

Posted on by
Reply

I was already feeling lousy when I walked into the post office extension to mail a book. The clerk was in a corner blowing her nose. Her nose (the aforementioned) was red and so were her cheeks. I thought, Oh, No! Then she reached for hand sanitizer before she checked me out, so I thought, Maybe It’ll Be Okay.

I headed to rehearsal with Amigo and helped out for a bit. Then I headed into my private room (the Sunday School room where I hang out with my laptop), and almost fell asleep. Yikes, I thought. This is Not Good.

Long story short, I took the next two days as sick days. Chuck had felt ill over the weekend. In fact, he woke up that morning to a coughing jag so rough it pulled a muscle in his back. I am not making this up. He missed work for two days, too.

Now Amigo is feeling under the weather. We’ll do our best to keep him hydrated and resting (the second one is easy) to preserve his voice for the contest coming up. Most of all, we’ll try not to spread this crud anywhere else – or to anyone else.

Cough. Cough. Ugh.

 

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Teacher Appreciation Week

Posted on by
Reply

I was taking advantage of a teacher discount last night. Papa Murphy’s Take and Bake Pizza offered 50% off to teachers for Teacher Appreciation Day. Chipotle had offered a Buy one Get one (BOGO) the day before. Once a year, a handful of businesses let us know we’re valuable.

So back to the story. I was sitting down, feeling fatigued from this nasty virus that hit my family this week, and a teacher pal came in. After we greeted each other, I had a flashback. This incident happened when Teacher Pal and I (and three others in our building) were in the midst of our graduate program. I needed to send a fax to the university’s registrar, so I was in the school office asking the secretary for help. Principal overheard me telling Secretary to let me know what the cost would be. At this, she called out loudly, “There ain’t many perks in this job, Daisy! Send the damn fax!”

That, um, “conversation” took place more than ten years ago, and the memory surfaces all too often. When I’m pulling out my school ID to get 50% off on pizza and cheesy bread, when I picked apples from the tree in front of our office, when I planted milkweed from pods I salvaged when our office landscaping was dug up – I’m always hearing that comment in my mind. “There ain’t many perks in this job!” And even thought it’s true and it’s not a good thought, remembering that moment makes me smile.

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Alternative Jams?

Posted on by
Reply

Actual text message conversation:

Daisy: We’re on our way to your place. Hitting the road now.

La Petite: See you soon!

La Petite: I have a ton of small mason jars from candles if you want to take them home.

Daisy: Yes, I can fake the jars off your hands.

Daisy: Take.

La Petite; Fake jars!! Fake news!!

Daisy: Dad wants to know if they’re alternative jars.

La Petite: They’re filled with alternative jam.

Okay, readers, it’s your turn. What’s alternative jam to you? Preserves?

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

And the season begins!

Posted on by
Reply

Not baseball, silly readers. Planting! Seedlings are started. The tomatoes are doing well, the peppers following slowly along. Lavender and baby’s breath have sprouted, and they’ll be ready to go in a large crock (it was a deal due to a large crack) sooner or later.

There are two containers that I didn’t label. I know at least one batch is milkweed, but I honestly can’t remember what else I started in the small containers. Marigolds, maybe? It’s kind of crazy that I was so good about labeling, but the two I didn’t mark did not come up…yet. I keep hoping.

We picked up a couple of raspberry canes at Fleet Farm last weekend, and I put them in to help strengthen the returning raspberry patch. If these two send out shoots along with the recovering canes from last year, we’ll have a decent size patch in no time at all. Well, in a few years. Gardening time is measured in seasons and years, not weeks. Perennials in particular often need time to grab hold.

Strangely enough, strawberries are coming up well. I didn’t think they were in a good spot – not enough sun, too much shelter. I might still be right; they might not bear fruit. But right now, those jagged green leaves sure look pretty.

Lettuces and other greens have gone up in price. I might check the farmers’ almanac and see if I dare start lettuce seeds this early. In Wisconsin, folks, we can still get snow or ice storms in mid-April. We can’t assume anything.

And so it goes, as the planting season starts.

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Boycotts – to buy or not to buy?

Posted on by
Reply

Chuck’s new job (electrician, fire truck manufacturer) is turning out to be tough on his jeans and tee shirts. Luckily, he wears jeans and tee shirts, not anything more valuable or expensive. But I’m standing in the closet staring at two pair of good Lee relaxed fit jeans that are ripped in the rear, and I don’t sew.

I did what I do: I reached out for help online. My post said “DH (Darling Husband)’s new job is hard on his jeans. Do iron-on patches still exist? I don’t sew.” The responses were mixed, but positive. Sort of.

“Yes, you can buy iron-on patches at WalMart!” I don’t shop WalMart. I haven’t for years. In my state, WalMart encourages their employees to sign up for the state health plan for low income residents. It works because WalMart doesn’t pay enough for their typical worker to buy health insurance through the company, thus saving WalMart the investment in health coverage. Therefore, I’m already subsidizing WalMart through my tax moneys. Shop there? No, thanks. That company doesn’t deserve any more of my money.

“Try Joann Fabrics or Hobby Lobby.” Joann Fabrics, okay. They’re in the same mini mall with Penzey’s Spices, and I love me an opportunity to shop Penzey’s.

But Hobby Lobby?

Remember the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court case? Hobby Lobby brought suit against the Affordable Care Act complaining that the company did not want to pay for coverage that included birth control. They claimed it was a faith-based decision. Let me get this straight: a nationwide corporation, claiming deeply, sincerely held religious beliefs, can apply those beliefs to its employee benefit programs. I haven’t shopped there since the decision.

That leaves me with Joann Fabrics. I certainly hope they actually carry iron-on patches. If not, keeping up my principles might get expensive. I might need to buy a sewing machine and learn to sew.

Share and Enjoy !

Shares

Starting the Garden in Winter

Posted on by
1

Defiant? Maybe. I get more tomatoes than strawberries.

There’s snow outside, but I know it will melt. Give it a few months.

 

I’ve also heard that to start planting in winter shows faith that spring will come. What does it mean if we bought grow lights, seeds, and a snow shovel from Home Depot today?

 

 

Share and Enjoy !

Shares