garden

Reminders

January 31, 2012 Marie Leave a Comment

Today this post really hit home. I’ve saved it in my RSS feed so I can go back and read it often and plenty. Sometimes I feel like the dream of a farm is impossible. Not only is it impossibly expensive right now (unless you want a fixer-upper, and by that I mean “might-as-well-tear-down-and-start-from-scratch”), it’s also incredibly scary to even think about selling our current place and try to play the home sales game and hope that you can sell one to move to another without putting yourself into the two mortgage situation. And I love my garden and flowers to give up green space for a temporary apartment.

I tend to dwell on the negatives rather than the positives. I dwell on the fact that I can’t have chickens or goats or pigs, instead of focusing my energies on what I do have – a nice chunk of land for veggie growing, access to locally grown items I can’t grow myself, and the will and determination to do what I can with what I have until that fateful day when the perfect property comes up for sale and everything falls in place.

Sometimes it just feels like I’m playing house. Like all my ideas and desires to grow my own food, make my own bread, etc are just a whimsicle fantasy. Especially in these winter months when nothing grows outdoors. Perhaps I’m just restless and antsy for spring.

Regardless, it’s good to have reminders like Jenna’s post to keep me going, keep me growing, and keep me working towards that farm.

Winter Petals

January 26, 2012 Marie Leave a Comment

Just a few short days since my last post this little hyacinth has really started to bloom. There is a small hint of its sweet scent if you’re close enough to it – I could smell it while I took pictures – but not enough to perfume the entire room. I think I have a love of photographing flowers because they fade so quickly. Too quickly, if you ask me. Sometimes I wish I lived in a warmer climate where I could have blooming flowers year-round, but I try to remind myself that the bitter, barren winter makes me appreciate little things such as this so much more.

Though the winter equinox is over a month behind us, the days still darken early. A dismal gray fog settled among the trees and fields today, contrasted by amber-shaded grass in the ditches. It was beautiful and eerie all at once. The image brought Sleepy Hollow to mind.

Candles glow on the dining room table, the kitchen, the bathroom, etc for extra light indoors. I still have my holiday tree up simply because I love the soft glow the lights give off despite the holidays being well over. My oil lanterns are nearly out of fuel. I spend my evenings trying to make up where Mother Nature left off.

Garden Readying

January 10, 2012 Marie Leave a Comment

Readying? That doesn’t look like a word to me, but whatever.

I picked this little journal up at a local store on clearance last year. It started with an idea from SouleMama’s blog post about having a farm journal in her home to record everything from seed orders to garden plans and such. I thought it was a fantastic idea and a perfect excuse to find a journal (I think I paid $3 for this one?) to write in. As much as I love the internet and blogging, I really enjoy writing in journals.

I placed my big seed order for the garden this morning. Which wasn’t a big seed order after all – just $20 or so. We have a small area, though – not the big farm like I want to own eventually. I’m trying some new veggies this year – our garden has normally been a ‘salsa’ and ‘pickle’ garden, raising tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and onions. This year I’m trying some multi-color corn (for use as decorations and for tortillas, since the description says it can be ground up and used as so) as well as pole green beans and some black beans for soups and stews.

There are trellises to build, seeds to start indoors, and so much more. This year we’re going the vertical route, trying to trellis up as much as we can to maximize space. I love cucumbers and pickling, but one cucumber plant takes up a giant part of the ground space the way we normally do it. I hate that our growing season isn’t as long as some of the blogs I read (I’m talking about you, Californians!). We can’t do anything during these winter months but dream of digging back into the soil after the temperatures rise and the ground thaws. So until then I’m keeping myself busy with everything I can do.

Winter perks

January 5, 2012 Marie Leave a Comment

Sometimes being lazy with the gardening has it’s perks.

Last spring I bought some bulbs from the local home improvement retailer. I realize that a. I should have purchased bulbs in the fall and b. I could have gotten a whole bag for what I paid for the potted ones… But it was really a spur-of-the-moment choice.

Failing to plant these babies into the ground in the fall, they sat indoors by a window looking rather pathetic (after all, it was just a plastic container of dirt to anyone who didn’t know better). Until now – now they show signs of life. Signs of growth. Signs of the thing I need most this time of year: reassurance that winter, my least favorite season – made only enjoyable by warm hand knits, will be over before I know it.

First snow

January 2, 2012 Marie Leave a Comment

The first real snow. It doesn’t look like much, but I promise you there’s probably about an inch or so sitting there. The grass hasn’t been mowed since sometime in October. That rose bush needs trimmed bad. The garden needed tilled. But all of that is meaningless now. Winter is upon us, and I’ve once again proven that I can’t manage even the small tasks around here. What the hell am I going to do if I get the farm I so desperately want?!