Another unschooler, Clint, has started posting five thing to be grateful for every wednesday from now until Thanksgiving. I thought I would join him this year.
I am grateful for:
1) the freedom to determine my own path in life
2) my life partner, Walter
3) the infinite love from my children
4) the chance to remake myself as often as I wish
5) my dazzlingly creative mother
Why don't you try now?
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Unschooling newspaper article
Yesterday's local newspaper has a very positive article about our unschooling family. A few parts of it are pretty funny but it overall made me smile. Enjoy!
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Reusable Straws
I am always on the hunt for reusable items in order to reduce the trash my family creates. I saw these cool glass straws at another unschooler's blog. At the DC Green Festival last weekend I also saw nifty bamboo straws. I am still not sure that we would use these enough to justify the expense but I sure do like them! Just thought I would share.
Apple Trees
I am researching apple trees since I want a few at my house. I am keeping with heirloom varieties. I start my quest at Edible Landscaping in Afton, VA.
Oh but I want kiwis, persimmons, berries, grapes, blackberries, jujubas, shitake log, and much more!
- Liberty - resistant to mildew, cedar apple rust and fire blight and immune to scab, zones 4-7, self-fertile, crisp apple kind of like a McIntosh
- Enterprise -
- Honey Crisp - (had these at Westmoreland Berry Farm and my kids thought nothing was better than these apples)
Oh but I want kiwis, persimmons, berries, grapes, blackberries, jujubas, shitake log, and much more!
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Vote for your Favorite Green Business!
Support businesses that are doing eco-friendly things by voting for the best Green Business today! My personal favorites are Reusablebags.com, To-Go Ware, and UsedCardboardBoxes.com.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Sheet Mulching
This past May, I posted about our guest and her kick in the pants to start gardening. This weekend, I am preparing more garden area for next spring. I am sheet mulching! Here's how I'm, doing it.
Today I used my flat spade to dig an edge to the garden bed. I used straight lines so it would be easy to use our riding lawn mower to follow. I removed 1/2 spade's worth of grass at the edge and put aside for later. In the morning, I will deepen this trench to about 5 inches using a small shovel and pick axe if needed. Then I will install the 5 inch plastic garden barrier edging that I purchased and use the spikes to pin it down. This point of this barrier is to help keep the grass roots from invading my garden bed. We have some nasty spreading grass and I really don't want to be pulling it out of my food plants all the time. Hopefully this will work! Now I can fill the inside.
First, a sprinkling of powdered lime to offset the acidic clay soil (although the acidity is hearsay as far as I am concerned - I have never done a soil test). The cardboard and thick newspapers get put down into a solid layer. The overlaps have to let no light in and no weeds through. This layer has to be good and soggy so liberal spraying with a hose will be needed.
Next goes fresh horse manure - just out of the stable this morning. Ideally the manure layer is a few inches thick; I'll just spread out what I have. Then a few inch thick layer of leaves. I grabbed these from a friend's house today. Her land is nothing but trees and a house. Great leaf production ;-) Then some compost, dried grass, anything else I can find which is organic. Oh I have some bone meal to sprinkle in there too. On top goes a thick layer of straw. Not hay which has seeds. This top layer has to have no seeds so you get no weeds. I might get some wood chips as well, but I'm curious how the straw does too.
That's it. Instead of composting kitchen scraps, I can just tuck the plant waste underneath the top layer and feed the worms and other organisms in my garden.
Than I'm going to go over to a friend's house and do it to her garden beds too!
For more info, here a couple sheet mulching links:
http://www.agroforestry.net/pubs/Sheet_Mulching.html
http://www.permaculture-exchange.org/sheet.html
Today I used my flat spade to dig an edge to the garden bed. I used straight lines so it would be easy to use our riding lawn mower to follow. I removed 1/2 spade's worth of grass at the edge and put aside for later. In the morning, I will deepen this trench to about 5 inches using a small shovel and pick axe if needed. Then I will install the 5 inch plastic garden barrier edging that I purchased and use the spikes to pin it down. This point of this barrier is to help keep the grass roots from invading my garden bed. We have some nasty spreading grass and I really don't want to be pulling it out of my food plants all the time. Hopefully this will work! Now I can fill the inside.
First, a sprinkling of powdered lime to offset the acidic clay soil (although the acidity is hearsay as far as I am concerned - I have never done a soil test). The cardboard and thick newspapers get put down into a solid layer. The overlaps have to let no light in and no weeds through. This layer has to be good and soggy so liberal spraying with a hose will be needed.
Next goes fresh horse manure - just out of the stable this morning. Ideally the manure layer is a few inches thick; I'll just spread out what I have. Then a few inch thick layer of leaves. I grabbed these from a friend's house today. Her land is nothing but trees and a house. Great leaf production ;-) Then some compost, dried grass, anything else I can find which is organic. Oh I have some bone meal to sprinkle in there too. On top goes a thick layer of straw. Not hay which has seeds. This top layer has to have no seeds so you get no weeds. I might get some wood chips as well, but I'm curious how the straw does too.
That's it. Instead of composting kitchen scraps, I can just tuck the plant waste underneath the top layer and feed the worms and other organisms in my garden.
Than I'm going to go over to a friend's house and do it to her garden beds too!
For more info, here a couple sheet mulching links:
http://www.agroforestry.net/pubs/Sheet_Mulching.html
http://www.permaculture-exchange.org/sheet.html
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