Pardon the Garden

Confessions of a lazy wannabe homesteader

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Recharging

November 11, 2014 Marie 1 Comment

kitchen books butterskin stars

The weekend took its toll on me, and yesterday and today has been all about recharging. I found myself today wondering if I’m being the adult (and mom) I want to be. The answer was, resoundingly, no. I’m not doing the things I want to do and being the person I want to be, and there’s no better time than the present to correct that. So off the TV went, off the radio went, and we’re going on some lovely silence this afternoon.

I’ve been trying to make more of an effort to read books to the baby. We’ve received a small handful of books as gifts, but most of the books we own have been acquired at book sales or thrift stores. The Little House and Grizzwold were both rescued from a box of books destined for the thrift store. While I love the more contemporary books we’ve received (Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site, for example), I really do love the old children’s books and their artwork.

On the knitting front, I cast on a new sweater. It was supposed to be textured on the front and back, but since the pattern never actually said “start chart here” I forgot all about it and just knit happily along. By the time I realized my error it was too late. Not that I couldn’t rip it out, but that I just didn’t have it in me – not after so much progress had been made. So a plain sweater it will be. Perhaps, if I have enough yarn, I’ll add a cowl collar to it to cozy it up a bit?

I started knitting little stars yesterday. They’re quick and fast. The holiday bug has bitten me and it felt like the easiest way to scratch that itch. I think when I’m done I’ll string them up and hang them in the baby’s room so he has some cute winter decorations to gaze at.

Featured, Posts home, knitting, literary, Little Mr

Fall harvest

October 13, 2014 Marie 1 Comment

garden2 garden3 garden4 garden5 garden6

I finally stopped putting it off. Yesterday was supposed to be around 66 degrees, and the rest of the week cool and rainy. I pretty much had to do it yesterday otherwise I might never get to it before winter. And you can see in the first photo how overgrown everything is – we sucked at weed control this year and we had volunteer tomatoes that the husband let continue to grow instead of hacking them back to keep the garden neat and tidy. Our garden has it’s own eco system of bugs and spiders which, naturally, I have a love/hate relationship with.

I pulled out the carrier and wore the kid in that while I picked tomatoes. At least for a little while before the extra weight of him got to be too much for my knees (this morning we found out he’s 11.5 pounds, so it’s no wonder!). Those tomatoes weren’t supposed to be that small. They were supposed to be San Marzano tomatoes. Clearly, they’re not. I’m highly disappointed, of course. We plant 2.5 beds of tomatoes – one for sauce, one for sandwich tomatoes, and one plant for the tiny salad ones. And you know what we don’t need? 3 plants full of tiny freaking tomatoes! (We also don’t need 2.5 beds of tomatoes, but the husband insists and then I’m left trying to figure out just what I’m going to do with it all.) It looks like I’ll be ordering a new pack of seeds to start this year since the pack from this last year was mislabeled. Ugh.

I’m attempting to dehydrate a batch of the tomatoes to see how they do (either for use in snacks or cooking, we’ll see). Other than that I’m not really sure what to do with them. The peppers will easily get used up – they’re always the thing we use the most of from the garden. The green tomatoes… I don’t even know. You can only eat so many fried green ones. I could maybe freeze them, but then I’d have to admit that I have freezer bags of tomatoes in the deep freezer outside from… 4 years ago? Things go out to that freezer and then end up forgotten about.

We ended up with monster beets this year. Every year I’ve tried to grow them (because I love them very much) and I rarely ever have any success. Most years none of them ever come up. This year 2 came up in the spring, but by then I was so tired and not in the mood to mess with the garden so I ignored it. I figured maybe it would go to seed so I could save seeds for next year (with the idea that maybe, just maybe the seeds would actually grow this time). We never got any seeds from it – instead I ended up with two giant monster beets that I’m not even sure are going to be edible. I haven’t yet attempted to cut one with a knife yet. I’m going to assume they’re woody and gross inside. It looks like two seeds did happen to germinate late in the season, so we have a small and a normal sized beet as well. I feel like I should give up on my beet dreams, but every year I tell myself “this will be the year!” and it never is. Chances are I’ll try to plant beets again next year. And chances are I’ll be incredibly disappointed all over again.

Featured, Posts fall, garden, home

The great destash

September 10, 2014 Marie Leave a Comment

destash

The munchkin is a month old now, and I’m finding myself more ready to embrace the Real World. Not that I don’t enjoy soaking up baby snuggles or anything, because I totally do (also, baby farts are hilarious even if I do feel a bit bad about how uncomfortable the gas makes him). I just feel like I should start being a somewhat productive human being and start easing back into normal, everyday life so that my transition back to work in October goes as smoothly as possible. My goal right now is to just get up at a decent enough time instead of sleeping in every day as though it’s the weekend. It’s going to be a huge shock to my system if I have to go from sleeping in until about 8am or so to having to get up at 5:30am, and I’d like to avoid that.

So anyway, back to the point of my ramblings… I’m trying to be a functioning adult again. Which means I’ve decided I need to organize the house and downsize a lot of things as part of my “adult-ing.” I’ve narrowed the major problems in the house down to this: craft supplies, the kitchen cabinets, the bookshelves, and my closet. This week I’m working on the craft supplies. I’m realizing how limited my time is going to be once I go back to work and I may also have been reading a lot of blogs on minimalism. I’m finding the combination of the two has given me motivation to really start letting things go.

Today it’s the yarn stash and it’s the hardest. I tell myself I can use those partial balls of yarn for something and then I never do. I used to use them for charity hats to donate but I have to remind myself of my real desire to knit for the baby now while I can. Who knows when I’ll start up my charity hats again? It certainly will be a few years, and then do I really want to hold onto this yarn for that long? Do I really want it taking up all this space? No. It’s just stuff weighing me down and it needs to go. Also going are the yarns that are not tied to any specific project (think single balls/skeins purchased because it’s pretty/on sale) and yarns I purchased and tried to knit with but hated and don’t want to use. Most of what is going is acrylic and some scratchy wool. Sock yarns are exceptions to the great destash – even if I don’t need more socks I can always knit them as gifts. Handspun is, of course, also an exception.

Tomorrow, I tackle the sewing supplies/fabric – a much easier task!

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Garden Fresh

August 20, 2014 Marie Leave a Comment

veggies

Fresh tomatoes and peppers from the garden. I don’t dare show you the actual state of the garden – it’s quite the disaster this year, what with weeds growing everywhere and the tomatoes sorely needed tied up to the stakes more. I knew, going into the year, that the garden was going to suffer since I’d be pregnant and uncomfortable and not able to keep up with it much. I knew the tomatoes were going to ripen and that I wasn’t going to be able to can them up. I’m really pretty thrilled with the harvest we’ve managed to get with pretty much zero work, though. Weeds are going to be a problem next year, but hopefully by next year I’ll have some more energy and focus to give to the garden, especially since by next year we’ll have a 9 month old trying new foods and we can introduce him to the awesomeness that is home grown veggies right from the back yard.

Featured, Posts garden, home, summer

Rainy day knitting

June 8, 2014 Marie Leave a Comment

 

30weekswee_austin1 rainysunday2 rainysunday

 

The grass needs mowed, the garden weeds tamed, and the porch swept. The house needs cleaned, laundry needs done, the baby room still isn’t finished… but sometimes you just have to take an hour or three to sit on the porch and enjoy the rain. Miss Molly and I hung out enjoying the rain, she guarding her domain and watching as cars drove by, me knitting as fast as I could manage on my Wee Austin Hoodie for this Little Mr. I feel a bit like I’m running out of time to knit for this little one – 10 weeks seems so far away and yet as though it is tomorrow.

I’ll play catch-up on the chores this afternoon, of course. I can’t ignore them forever.

Featured, Posts home, knitting, Me, spring

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Pardon the garden. A phrase I’m most likely to utter anytime anyone visits the house during the growing seasons of spring through fall. Sure, there are pretty flowers and delicious veggies in there somewhere, but they might be a little hard to find amidst the mess of overgrown grass, dandelions, and weeds that have found their way in there and haven’t been pulled. Read On

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