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.

• 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!

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

Pickles

So this past wednesday I immersed myself in pickles. I prepared and canned 32 pints of pickles. That is way more than I have ever done before. I never even liked pickles until I made them myself last year. That's what happens when your friend offers you cucumber seconds and says make pickles!

Bye Bye Trampoline - Hello Chickens?

Last week we took down our trampoline. It was used when we got it from our neighbor oh so many years ago. We have enjoyed it a lot. But ... the stitching started disintegrating, a few springs fell off, and then the fabric started ripping. It no longer was safe to jump on it and be sure that it would hold you when you landed. So down it came.

We had been thinking about ways to recycle or reuse the materials from the trampoline instead of adding to the landfill. The best by far was to turn the frame upside-down and attach chicken wire to make ... you guessed it ... a chicken enclosure! So what do you think? Should we start having chickens next year?

Doing Things Myself

Another unschooler and overall great lady, Robin, is prompting us to blog about things we do ourselves inthe name of sustainability and having fun:

I would like to see if I could get a small blog carnival going on the subject of "Do It Yourself". So if you have some skill that you know how to do - making jam, growing potatoes, baking bread, making yogurt, knitting a scarf, building a shed, or whatever you can think of, please share it on your blog and send me an email letting me know what post it is. I'll try to round up a good carnival on the topic of "DIY" on my urban farm blog. Deadline is November 15.


So what do I know how to do?
1) Make jam using seaweed thickener (agar flakes) - last year I made tons of blackberry jam and gave it out at Christmastime. This year I didn't actually make any. I'm not sure why.

2) Make mozzarella cheese using Ricki Carroll's fabulous instructions and materials. It only takes about 1/2 unless you are interrupted or only have a very small glass bowl to heat the cheese in. We like it with basil mixed in and layered with tomatoes and some olive oil. Yum.

3) Bake bread using my home ground whole wheat flour and the whey left over from cheese making - fabulous once I stopped baking the loaves too long. I use my Whispermill to grind flours of all varieties and love it.

4) Knitting and crocheting although simple stuff. I love the feel of bamboo yarn so prefer that for scarves. I actually sell some stuff at my etsy shop. I am working up to knitting in the round with multiple needles and using patterns. Stitches that require a lot of counting or concentration are out ... my youngest is five and I still get easily distracted.

5) I make yogurt too, but don't have the patience or climate to do it without the use of a yogurt maker. I tried. It was ugly and took a long time. My mother-in-law witnessed that daya nd happily purchased me a yogurt maker last Christmas.

6) I sew for myself and occasionally for others. I think I might make a long cozy skirt out of some organic sherpa this weekend. I need find a better place for my sewing machine though. Right now it is trapped.

7) I make my own tomato/pasta sauce. I made enough for the entire year (I think) this summer using seconds tomatoes from my good friend's farm. I canned it and everything. The quart jars are all lined up inside my new pantry cabinet that I blogged about earlier this year. I used the recipe from the book Animal,Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (which I loved). I used the squisher/strainer thing that my mother gave me from when she was my age and trying to live the same sustainable way albeit in Florida.

That's all I can think of right now. I do lots of things, but nothing that seems so out of the ordinary (to me - I know biased). I am now pondering what new skill I can add to my life ...

My First Sleepover

Yesterday I pulled out my circular saw to make shelves for a pantry cabinet in the basement (need somewhere to store all those canning jars full of yummy local food that I make!). Daughter and I went to Lowe's and get wood - but it was FSC certified hardwood plywood. We cut it to size with just one cut each piece. We soaped up the pegs to hold up the shelves and voila there we go. A pantry. Now I just need to go back and get more of the peg things now that I know they are the right size. I only have one shelf in my 3 shelf cabinet.

After that, I dropped Daughter off at her friend L's house (for the first time without me there) and headed off to my beloved yoga class. It was so nice to be there and it turned out to be a fabulous private class. Yeah for me! When I picked up Daughter, L came with us for our first sleepover. I don't remember sleeping over at a friend's house except maybe once when I was growing up so it all felt new to me. Since they had already had a few hours to play together, Daughter and L were getting along great when we got home. But they were getting tired already. We played restaurant (so they could have a snack), set up our city rugs and little cars to play, and got out some books for when we got tired. They were both so tired but unwilling to go to sleep early. I finally put on my nightgown, announced I was reading 2 books aloud and turning off the lights of my room. They each had a room they could go play in if they wanted. They opted to stay with me and lights out. I didn't take long for them to fall asleep. L had a bit of a hard time because Zelda the Cat was purring loudly. I got up at my normal time and hopped with into the shower. I was surprised to come out of the shower to Daughter dressed and ready to play with the sleeping L. Waiting is so hard sometimes. Zelda the Cat woke L up with her meowing for brushing to the wait wasn't too long. Getting started in the morning was a challenge with the two girls. I called L's mom and asked her to stop by and see if L was ready to go home. Once I got enough fuel into them, things were much better. L was not ready to go, so now they are in the basement being noisy and active and having a grand old time. I think it was a success!

Too Many Errands

Well, right now it seems that morning is when I have calm and quiet to think and blog. Yesterday Daughter and I did errands for entirely too long. We filled up on gas for our jetta wagon (a mere $52), dropped books at the library, tried to go observe a swim lesson but there was no one in the pool, took our trash to the landfill (yup - no trash pickup service for us - our choice), left an envelope at a friend's house, went to get milk and butter, stopped at the health food store, browsed at our local bike shop (its birthday month for half of our family), grabbed a dozen bagels, and purchased new homeschool journals for Son and Daughter's first one.

At the health food store (Country Nutrition) we were looking for natural versions of things we have recently started using. Son is working more on keeping his mouth clean and loving his teeth. He wants to use fluoride rinse (too many cavities) and I would like one without too many strange ingredients. I found several to choose from, but all were mint flavor which does not fly for him. Elaine is searching for more choices for us. Daughter loves to chew peelu gum (and it helps with oral care too) but doesn't care for the cinnamon flavor which Son likes. Daughter is very into self first aid for her own ouches. We are trying some arnica cream for bruises and a calendula ointment for cuts/scrapes (instead of neosporin).

Once at home, we worked on planning a pantry type of cabinet to hold canning jars and other food in the basement. Since we order from a natural food coop, we often have 1-2 months supply of some foods which live in the basement. We have these 2 large cabinets with doors which served as clothing wardrobes for our 100 year old victorian house in Chicago (which had no closets). They have poles to hand hangers from and holes in side to put in adjustable shelves - if we only had more shelves. That way, we have safe storage for the canning jars (applesauce, tomato sauce, etc) I work hard to produce. Once we obtain some shelves, we will have a pantry cabinet and a dress up cabinet. We measured and made out shopping list.