Garden, Microgreens, and Knitting

A lot has happened since my last post.

You might remember that last summer we were in the process of moving to someplace where we could have a homestead, and provide more for ourselves to be less dependent on the grocery store.

We ultimately decided to delay looking until such a time where we could move to somewhere where the prices for housing are much lower. Which might mean waiting as long as until my husband is retired. I hope we don’t have to wait that long, although it could be as soon as three years. But we are still continuing to look into the possibility of moving at this time or purchase land to move to. Also, we are continuing to learn new skills for self-reliance, improve the home we have to make it more valuable, and build upon the current things we are doing to provide for ourselves.

Our family has been looking on the Zillow site at a couple areas of the country to move to. It’s fun, and frustrating at the same time. Kind of like looking forward to Christmas, and knowing you can’t have it now. When you think you have found the right place, and yet you can’t quite see how you can do it yet. I tell myself to remember, there will still be many right places in the future, trust God for His provision.

I started some microgreens a little while back. Here are some pictures to show you. It was called Spicy Micro mix. They have a little spice/zest in them more like a radish, so not too strong. (I’m a spice wimp).

I will give these out to people at work for a sample. If they like it, perhaps they will want to buy, or tell friends and family about it.

Apples for the future!

The grape plants to either side of the arbor into the vegetable garden weren’t doing well, and I wanted to replace the apple tree in our yard, because it was too big for me to prune and spray. We took out the grapes, and had an arborist take out the old apple tree.

I had ordered some apple trees from Rainier Nursery in Washington state, for one red, and one yellow type apple trees. Here is a picture of them planted. They will look good pruned into a tiered flat shape on either side into the garden. We put a wire cage around it to protect the bark from a rabbit that likes to hang out in our yard sometimes. As you can see, we put some cardboard down, and mulch on top to keep down the weeds.

In the background of the picture, is the garden with a silage tarp on it to kill the cover crop, and when the seeds in the soil also sprout, the silage tarp will keep the light out, so that they will be killed also. Then the tarp will be taken off, and the vegetable seeds can be planted directly in the soil without tilling up the whole garden. This is one method of ‘No Till Gardening’. No expensive tiller, or hard work of shoveling it by hand.

Lavender and Wildflowers Galore

I had started some lavender seeds in my indoor greenhouse, and potted them up after they had grown some. I also had started Milkweed for the catapillars, and Wildflowers to attract pollinators to the garden. Here are some of the lavender plants potted up.

Up-doing Our Home

In getting our home nicer for ourselves, as well as making more presentable for increased price when we sell, we hired a gardener to redo the garden bed under our front window.

NO DIG GARDEN

After taking off the tarp from the garden, all I had to do was plant the seeds, because the silage tarp had for one blocked the light and killed the plants under it, but it also created a warm spot for seeds to germinate, and being no light there, they didn’t live. That created a planting bed terrific to start seeds in, with a leap ahead on the weeds.

To create the garden, I bought two bales of hay, and spread them around where I wanted paths. We also got out our soaker hoses we bought from Harbor Freight last year, and positioned them to give out water for the new growing plants.

At the end of the row is and Asparagus plant. There are three Asparagus starting on it!

KNITTING

I have finished the sweater I was working on. It was a pattern from Love Crafts called Novita. I had intended it for my husband, but it is a bit tight in the underarm area. So we decided that I would wear it, and make another one a bit larger for him.

That’s all for now.

God’s blessings be upon you and yours.

Grandma