Preparing the Garden!

As fall draws to a close and the days get colder and colder the garden dies back. Slow at first then faster, till nothing is left. Where your tall green plants where but a short time before there is merely soil. Dirt. Nothing. But beneath the crust of the cold soil, it is not quite as dead as you think. Of course the plants are dead, but the earthworms, the bugs, and the bacteria are alive and happy. They need food and warmth. The are decomposing your dead tomato plants and any other substance they find. To work with them to enrich your garden before spring follow some basic steps...


One. When tilling your garden turn the dead plants into the soil.

Two. Do NOT over till. This is VERY important. Over tilling kills the bugs and worms you need!

Three. Collect Leaves!!! All over your town people are raking leaves. We hitch up our trailer to the 12 passenger and go leaf hunting. It really is thrilling!

Four. Compost through the winter.

More Later...


Jess

A use for milk jugs!

Okay all you money saving guys out there! Here is a great way to save money!

When you use a milk jug... rinse it out, punch ONE SMALL hole in the bottom, bury it to the top beside your plants, and than fill. We water our garden and then fill the jugs once a day. This is great for your peppers, watermelon, and tomatoes because they need slow constant water!

Peanut Butter!

As if we did not have enough nuts in the house we bought some!!! Just Kidding! Really though we did buy an enormous bag of peanuts at the farmer's market and tried the peanut butter!

1. We first shelled them
2. Then we seperated the chaff and nuts
3. Then in the food processor we did about 2 cups of nuts with... oil, salt, and honey. We found you have to "eyeball it" for the amount if you need sweeter peanut butter do more honey.
4. We found that because our nuts were pre-salted we didn't need to add salt and we needed more honey.
5. When we first started using whole wheat we thought it had a strange flavor, now we think white flour tastes odd. The same goes for this, at first it tastes strange!

Our Strawberry Day!!!

Michael literally stuffed himself!

A fun day at the fruit farm and ten gallons to can! We had so much fun picking this beautiful fruit and then we had a picnic with lots of fresh strawberries! Then a hike and a tour of Palisades Park and we are headed home!

Compost Dinners!

This is our fertilizer. This is the nutrients for our garden.

This is also our key into if we had a healthy meal or not!

My Mom says that if you eat a meal where nothing went into the compost pile you shouldn't have eaten it. This is so true if you think about it. 

Even if your eating whole wheat bread if you didn't cut up fruit or veggies to go with it, it wasn't a full meal.

So next time you sit down to a meal think to yourself..." was that a 'compost dinner' "?

posted by Jessica