August Garden Update
Tag: farming
My Garden is Growing
Today’s post will be a series of videos
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The garden is doing amazing!!! Now when dinner time comes it is like ok, what do we have from the garden that we need to use!
Food, workouts and plants
Joined Beach Body!!! Pretty stoked about it! I got all the workouts on demand for a year, all the accessories for the 2B mindset nutrition program and signed up for the monthly shakes.
Date night!!!! We saw avengers infinity war. It was really good in my opinion.
Another delicious breakfast curtosy of the BF
Upping my veggie intake
Taco salads were a major thing last week
As well as sandwiches.
More veggies!!!
I am obsessed with these lately!!!
I love Bulgogi!!!
Beach bodies energize is awesome!!! I don’t feel jittery or crazy or anything, I just have more energy
Fully on the shakology bandwagon
Been working out pretty consistently. Except for camping this weekend of course.
Love my sweet little girl
Our weights
My gardening partner
My fig bush is growing!!!
The peas are staring to climb super fast!
Still working on the yard little by little
It’s almost salad time!
Our first tomatoes!!!
My workout setup, 1 device to stream my workout, 1 device to watch amazing race hahahaha and my weights. And of course Artemis in the background
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Grouted floor and plants
Getting some runs in with the Puppy
Look at those beautiful floors!!!! I am so on love with them! Brandon has done soooo amazing. Slowly but surely it is coming along.
So stoked for some sugar snap peas!
Pease, beans, tomatoes, lettuce and zucchini
My first attempt at sugar pumpkins
Onions
Our raspberries are doing awesome!
My garden is growing
In our backyard we have a holly tree, we are going to trim down a lot of it because it like almost everything else is a little out of control but I love it! What great decoration! Come Christmas time I am going to deck my house out in Holly!!!!
Black Beauty zucchini has survived the transplanting process, I think 4 of my 5 plants are thriving, the 5th is still touch and go.
Sugar snap peas! Also doing great, we are going to grow them up the fence.
Our pear tree is starting to grow!! Look at all those little green nubs! I am stoked cause for like 2+ weeks it didn’t do anything and I was a little worried.
Just bought this to accompany the vegetable bible book my mom gave me. So now I know what to do and when then the book my mom gave me a few years ago goes in depth on each plant. They work great together!
And I bought my first gardening hat. Currently I am only outside like 2 hours a week so I am not wearing it yet ( I need all the vitamin D I can get) but come summer this will be my skin’s best friend!
Can’t wait to keep sharing more with you!
School+update
School is done and I couldn’t be happier. I ended with a C meaning I will have to retake the class to get at least a B which is what I need for nursing but I am ok with this. The last month of class I was sick and stressed and moving and so I let myself off the hook. I also have to remember that it hasn’t even been 3 full months since my brother died, my emotions are all out of wack. I am taking next quarter off school and feel great about it. This last quarter just exhausted me, I should have taken it off after my brother died but I didn’t and I know for sure that my health and well-being suffered for it. So I am putting me first and taking next quarter off. It will give me time to settle into the new house, which is currently still a mess, and settle into a new routine living with someone and commuting and all that. So that is that for school and here are more house and life updates:
The bathroom is finally starting to really come together! we have about 1/3 of the walls tiled now and even managed a bath yesterday which was AMAZING!! We couldn’t adjust the temp of the water because the spigot isn’t on yet so it was luke warm water coming out which we combined with boiled water hahahahaha, but it worked and being clean felt amazing!
We went for a short walk around the block on Friday morning, Artemis was very happy to get out of the house, though she is starting to settle in and spend longer amounts of time exploring the back yard.
Seed starts!!!! I am so excited about these!!! And I will probably have about 3-4 more trays before I am done! If even half of these survive we will have a GREAT garden and a good amount of food. I can’t wait to see how it all grows.
That is just a quickie update since I didn’t post on Friday. More to come tomorrow on Monday Motivation!!!!
I have sugarplum fairies dancing in my head
or more factually correct I have images of fresh baked bread and delicious meals and gardens and chickens dancing in my head.
I cannot wait to break out my bread maker for some fresh amazing bread. Sandwiches our first week in the house on fresh baked bread…..yes!
Brandon already said he would build me a chicken coup from some repurposed wood. In Salem you can have up to 6 chickens without needing any permits. I think we will start with 3-4 this year and see how it goes. Then maybe add the other 2-3 next year. Spacing them out like that will be good for timing too. They don’t lay eggs for about 6 months then they produce for about 2 years then it will be harvesting time. So each year we will have to order 2-3 new chicks (after the first 2 years) and I I’ll need to learn how to butcher a chicken.
I have already placed an order to the Burpee seed company, I will have 6 heirloom tomato plants shipping to me around April 9th ready to be direct planted when they arrive. I think I will pick up 1-2 cherry tomato plants just from the grocery store, not heirloom but that is ok. That is perfect timing and should give us about 2-3 weeks in the house to get the yard ready for planning. I will continue ordering plants over the next few weeks.
Ahhhh about 5.5 weeks at the most!!!!!
……………..Well we got a call and that 5 or 6 weeks we had until we got to move in just went down to 3! We just got notice that the tenets are moving out early! Which is amazing and moves our timetable up about 2-3 weeks.
We are hoping to start moving things in over presidents day weekend. Brandon gets that Monday off and he would like to refinish the tub that day so it has the rest of the week to “cure” and we could start using it the next weekend. The bottom of the tub is wearing off and pealing away a little bit, so Brandon bought a refinishing kit. This is much cheaper than buying a new tub (which one day we will do, hello claw foot soaking tub!!!! one day lol) Having the tomato plants delivering in early April means we have that as a deadline to get the backyard ready for planting. Spring is also when baby chicks are born and delivered so a chicken coup will be near the top of the list too.
It is going to be a busy but amazing few months as we move it, get everything up and running and settle in!
Here we come a-wassailing…..
As I have mentioned once or twice (hahahaha) a farm (or a city girls version of a farm) is one of my end goals for my future so I love to look back at old traditions and think about what I would want to do on my farm. I do plan on having some fruit trees so Wassailing will be a thing in my life. You may have heard the Christmas carol but do you know the story behind it?
According to Wikipedia there are 2 types of wassailing, one that is basically caroling though you would take a big bowl of wassail around to your neighbors and sing for them and offer them a cup of wassail. The 2nd type, and one I want to do, is to drink to the health of the trees on Twelfth night. You make a big pot of basically spiced cider and add pieces of toast to it, then you head out while singing and banging pots and pans (if you wish) out to the orchard and stick pieces of this wassail soaked toast on the branches of the orchard trees and pour a little wassail at the base and toast to the health of the trees. This is supposed to appease the universe and help ensure you have a plentiful harvest the next year. There are still many places in England that carry on this tradition and I read a book about a farm on the East coast side of the US that does and I just love it. It sounds so fun and I am all about embracing old traditions like this. So hopefully in a few years at most you will see some awesome posts about us Wassailing our fruit trees!!!!
Day on the farm!
Brandon and I headed out to his grandparents small farm in northern Oregon to hang out for half a day and had such a great time! It was so relaxing and wonderful.
From the moment we got there Brandon was in front of the blueberry bushes snacking away while we talked to his grandfather. Artemis enjoyed the flavor of the pigs trough water hahahaha. This is the only pig they have left and it is much more of a pet than something intended for a meal. It is getting old and grumpy though. It likes having its belly rubbed hahahaha!!!!! It was a little wary of Artemis but surprisingly she was not afraid of it!
I spent some time talking to his grandfather about their Israel trip which sounded amazing. Then we all went out to lunch and a teriyaki burger hit the spot.
When we got back from lunch Brandon, Artemis, the grandparents dog and I all set off to explore the property. 1/4 of their property is basically a little forest area that is super beautiful, the cows graze down there in the heat and there are blackberry bushes going wild. We wandered down there and explored and snacked on blackberries hahaha. Definitely getting our fruit quota for the day. Have you ever had a yellow raspberry? Now I have! they are pretty amazing right off the vine and according to his grandfather that is how you have to eat them because by the time you have them in the house they are starting to go bad.
At this point we were both super hot as it was the hottest part of the day so we headed back instead to talk some more and look at pictures and cool down.
Around 5:30-6 as the sun was starting to move toward the horizon and a lovely breeze started we headed out to feed the cows!! Got some hay from the barn and some treats for the cows and they slowly wandered over. We fed them some treats as well, their tounge feels like sandpaper like a cat! Again it took a minute but Artemis wasn’t afraid! Though they were a little wary of her hahaha.
Once the cows were chomping away happily we headed back down to the wood area and spent about an hour picking blackberries!
We went home with probably a good 8lbs of blackberries! I am so making a blackberry balsamic reduction to freeze to put on some amazing stuff this winter (that post to come). At that point the temperature was perfect, I could have stayed out there for hours, and the space and joy of the country was just everything. It was such a great peaceful day. I can’t wait to go back!
In a month or 2 their trees will be hanging low with Apples!!! Can’t wait to make some apple desserts and some great slow cooker meals with apples!
Blue Apron day 2 and studying
Happy Hump day!!! The week is now more than half over, woot woot!!
This morning I got the call that i wasn’t needed for package delivery today…….HALLELUJAH!!!!!! My right forearm and right butt cheek have noce bruises on them from a good fall yesterday.
I got to relax and sort of sleep in this morning then make myself a delicious breakfast sandwich.
After that came studying. I was actually really looking forward to studying today hahahaha.
I got through one module then took a break and did the reading on a second module. I got up to cook my Blue Apron meal.
There are short lecture videos and activities that come with studying so I did a little multitasking
Yep, I had videos playing while I cooked.
I got through 2 entire modules and a practice midterm today.
Here is the finished food product
In the PM I started to read one of my mom’s presents to me
I am so excited to garden this year. It will be a noce break between working and studying.
And I am soooo looking forward to all the amazing meals I will be able to cook with fresh food. The amazing boyfriend has agreed to help me with the garden as well 🙂 added bonus.
Have you ever had straight off the vine/branch/stem/out of the ground food?
Trailing the blonde 