Waiting

I have to confess that I am anxious today.  It's the end of March, it's beautiful outside and we haven't planted anything.  Our community garden doesn't open for spring planting until April 15th.  I'm a dreamer by nature and sometimes it's easier for me to dream instead of do.  I'm afraid that by the time April 15th rolls around I'm not going to be motivated to actually do any of the planting.  I hope that planting with Victoria will help keep both of us accountable to our little garden.  And until then we will plan and wait...

Looking forward to sharing some thoughts on garden layout with you tomorrow.

Wednesday Wants

Hope you are enjoying this beautiful day!

How charming is this honey jar?  You can find it here.

Love this little flower pot.

Would love to do all of my gardening wearing this hat.

Book Review: Make Your Place Affordable, Sustainable Nesting Skills

This is another small, but mighty book up for review.  Make Your Place is a book written and illustrated by Raleigh Briggs.  This book was a birthday gift from my husband shortly after we were married.  I cherish it and have read it over and over again because it is filled with so many hands-on recipes and daily information.

Make Your Place is divided up into three sections: Health & First Aid, Non-Toxic Cleaning & Body Care, and Gardening.  Each page is filled with darling illustrations and easy to read verbiage.  It is very clear that Raleigh Briggs knows what she is talking about.  In her introduction she mentions that she has spent time trying different cleaning, gardening and first aid methods to make sure that she has presented only the best results in this book.  

Before I dive into her section on Gardening (which is wonderful), I'd love to give you my favorite of her recipes in the Non-Toxic Cleaning & Body Care sections.  This is the best drain opener that I have ever used and the best part is that you have all of these things probably in your kitchen right now.  I use this recipe for our shower drains and it works like magic every time!

"DIY Drain Opener (Raleigh Briggs, pg 54)

Pour 1 cup each salt and baking soda, plus 1/2 cup vinegar down the drain.

Let it sit for 15 minutes, and then flush the drain with 2-3 quarts of boiling water."

I am so excited to be able to use the Gardening chapter over and over again this spring and summer.  You will find everything in this section from plant anatomy, when to plant, making raised beds, improving the soil, compost for beginners, staking and trellising, pest control and garden layout.  Garden layout has my favorite chart in it called Buddy System.  This has a chart of common grown fruits and vegetables with information on what grows well next to each other and what plants to keep far away from each other.  Who knew that carrots and lettuce like to be planted side-by-side?

Check out Make Your Place Affordable, Sustainable Nesting Skills for more great information.  You can buy your own copy here.

Menu Monday

I'm very excited to introduce you to my first weekly reoccurring blog post... Menu Mondays.  During harvest time I will be sharing a recipe with you using food from our garden.  I hope that these blog posts become a creative way to help everyone (myself included) with cooking in season.

Since getting married I have fallen in love with baking and cooking.  At first, I loved to do it because my husband, Jeff loved to eat.  Then, I started becoming interested in making and eating healthy food.  Food that isn't over-processed or full of preservatives.  I also became alarmingly aware that I was the one responsible for stocking our cabinets and filling our stomachs.  If I brought junk food home from the grocery store, then that is what we would eat.  Once that thought was in my head, I put forth more effort to buy better food and make more of our food.  It was difficult to make food from scratch because it was time consuming and foreign to me, but over the last three years it's gotten easier, as I've begun to learn the art form of making food.

I've started gathering some recipes that I can't wait to share with you as local vegetables become in season.  I also have some made from scratch breads, pastas and snacks that I hope you will love too.  Looking forward to sharing a great book review with you tomorrow.

The Earth is Yours- Gungor

Happy Friday! Hope you enjoy this video from the amazing Gungor band.  This song is from their album Beautiful Things.  Enjoy the weekend!

Book Review: Farming as a Spiritual Discipline

This little book written by Ragan Sutterfield, a farmer and writer from Little Rock, Arkansas, is, in my opinion, a must read for those who care about the earth and about the God who created it.  My husband and I have had the privilege of hearing Ragan speak a couple times at conferences at Englewood Christian Church, and each time we gained a wealth of knowledge.

I love this book because Ragan mixes theological ideas alongside practical applications for your life.  He shares early in the book "in our fallen state we have forgotten our place, both within God's will and love and also in our love and care for creation.  We need to be reminded of who we are and what we are about (pg 5)."  He suggests the practice of farming as a way to remind us.

Ragan spends some time talking about the Agrarian Mind as a practical way we can live every day with the virtues of humility and frugality (two virtues that he states become more apparent in us when we farm).  He gives practical examples of things that we can do like reduce our dependency in oil by biking or walking to places, learning to make food from scratch instead of buying it from the store and raise our own chickens.  Simple ways that we can make a difference in our homes and communities.

I'd like to share one more quote from the book "As we become more productive, we also become more aware of the labors of others.  We begin to respect chefs more as we learn to cook and farmers more as we begin to garden.  After growing a tomato yourself it becomes almost disrespectful to throw away a tomato grown well by someone else.  It is said that Ghandi would use a pencil until it was a tiny stub out of respect for the person who made it.  Such frugality almost seems absurd in our age when pencils are made fast and cheap in a factory (35)."

I share this with you in hopes that you can see the humor in the situation I almost got caught in today.  I was cleaning up our kitchen after lunch today, when I saw two over ripe bananas in our fruit bowl.  I picked them up and walked over to the trashcan to throw them out.  No one was going to eat those bananas around here.  Then, I remembered the imagery of Ghandi using a pencil until it was a little stub and I put them back in the fruit bowl.  I'd never made banana bread before, but I thought I had heard that you use over ripe bananas for that.  I found a fabulous recipe for them and spent my afternoon baking banana crumb muffins.  The redemption process is at work even in old, brown bananas.

You can order Farming as a Spiritual Discipline here.

Willie Streeter Community Garden

There are many ways that you can garden. We often fall into a trap that tells us that you have to own a home and have a lot of land to garden, and that just isn't the case. My husband and I rent a duplex in a neighborhood in a suburban university town (Go IU!). Our yard floods every time it rains, so even if we owned our yard, it wouldn't be ideal for a vegetable garden... (maybe a nice rice field though).  My friend Victoria also lives in a rented apartment so for us the best option was to rent a community garden plot.

In Bloomington, there are several options for garden plots and we picked the community garden that was closest to Victoria called Willie Streeter Garden. There are some benefits of this specific garden, they have bigger plots and provide tools, water and tomato cages. They also have garden experts that are there during certain times each week. This community garden is run by the city of Bloomington. These plots are $62 for the rental of April-the end of October. The only other community garden that I am familiar with is Hilltop Garden through Indiana University. They also have tools, water, and tomato cages available for all gardens. Those plots can be rented for $50 from April-end of October, but they are smaller. Both places are great to work with and well maintained.

Another benefit to gardening in a community garden is all the people you meet. Victoria and I aren't very experienced gardeners and there will be days when we might need to talk with people who know more than us. We are excited to get to know people that are passionate about growing food. I know we will learn a lot this year.

If you live in an apartment and the idea of having a garden plot scares you, why not try container gardening first?  Start some herbs in your kitchen that you always use in cooking. Learn how to dry or freeze them. Take note of how much work goes into just a few potted plants and think about what it would be like to tend an acre of land or hundreds of acres.

Excited to share a book review with you tomorrow.

Pinterest Project: Garden Row Markers

Happy First Day of Spring!

I found this cute picture on Pinterest and couldn't wait to start this project for our garden.  I've only finished a few of these, but will definitely paint the rest of them before all the planting is done.  These are perfect for row markers. I love that these won't fade in the summer sun or blow away with any thunderstorms, and they look great! And the best part... these are free to make! All you need are flat rocks and some acrylic paint.

I had a great time making these (and that's saying a lot since I'm not artistic at all). This would be a wonderful project for children to help with and allow them to get involved in the gardening process.

These row markers are sure to be a great addition for any garden.  Check back tomorrow for a post on community gardens.

Planning for Planting

The weather in Bloomington has been so wonderful, and it feels like spring has finally sprung.  The trees are starting to show their leaves, and signs of rebirth are everywhere.  The yellow daffodils and pink magnolia trees are blooming in yards and along the roads all over town.  I have to keep reminding myself that it's only the middle of March.

Victoria and I started dreaming up what our garden will look like and what we are going to plant in it.  We both had vegetables that were must-haves on our lists (peppers, green beans and broccoli for me, tomatoes, kale and cilantro for Victoria) and others that we have waited to see if we will have enough room in our plot.  We ended up with a great selection that we are both going to be happy with.

We will be sowing all of our colder weather vegetables from seed. The hotter weather ones we are going to buy as plants from the Bloomington's Farmer's Market.  We will be planting lettuce, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, carrots and kale from seed.  We will be buying tomatoes, peppers, basil, thyme, cilantro, sage and dill from plants.

I'm so excited to share with you the seed company that we are proud to support.  We bought all of our seeds from a local Bloomington seed company called Nature's Crossroads.  This company is a great place for Mid-West gardeners to purchase seeds from.  Nature's Crossroads was started by two gardeners that were frustrated in the spring when the only places to buy seeds from were either out on the West or East coast or mega-corporations that relied heavily on chemical products.  Nature's Crossroads seeds are a little more pricey ($2.49) than the ones you will find at Kroger or Lowe's, but they are worth the price to support a local company.  We purchased our seeds at Bloomingfoods.  Look at Nature's Crossroads website to see if there are any stores near you that sell their seeds, if not, you can always order them directly through them.  They are doing some pretty cool things, so check them out.

We are excited to be starting our gardening adventure!  Hope you follow us along the way.  I can't wait to share a garden inspired Pinterest project with you tomorrow.

What are you planting in your garden this spring?

Blessing of a Garden

God of the Universe,
you made the heavens and the earth,
so we do not call our home merely "planet earth."
We call it your creation, a divine mystery,
a gift from your most blessed hand.
The world itself is your miracle.
Bread and vegetables from earth are thus also from heaven.
Help us to see in our daily bread your presence.

Upon this garden
may your stars rain down their blessed dust.
May you send rain and sunshine upon our garden and us.
Grant us the humility to touch the humus,
that we might become more human,
that we might mend our rift from your creation,
that we might then know the sacredness of the gift of life,
that we might truly experience life from your hand.
For you planted humanity in a garden
and began our resurrection in a garden.
Our blessed memory and home lie in a garden.

Thanks be to God,
who made the world teeming with variety,
of things on the earth, above the earth, and under the earth.
Thanks be to God
for the many kinds of plants, trees and fruits
that we celebrate.
For the centipedes, ants, and worms,
for the mice, marmots, and bats,
for the cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers,
we rejoice
that we find ourselves eclipsed by the magnitude
of generosity and mystery.
Thanks be to God.

*From Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals by Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove & Enuma Okoro
You can find an online version of the book here