Dreaming of days to come

My, it's been a while since I've found myself in front of this blank page.  I think it's been partly due to my will extending my after-Christmas holiday, partly due to our ramped-up winter busy-ness, and partly due to the coldest February on record for these parts.

We do see signs of spring on the horizon, though.  We can feel that the sun's rays are warmer on our faces, and we rise earlier in synch with that giant yellow orb in the sky.  Our local Seedy Saturday event came and went today, and there was a flurry of garden planning and eager anticipation before we bundled up and headed out the door.  The seeds are now here, recorded in my handy little spreadsheet so I can track what will be planted inside, when it will ideally be planted, and where it will go once the time arrives to introduce it to its outside home.  Yes, last night included mad scouring of companion planting tables, wishing that potatoes and tomatoes got along better (or at least could find one friend they had in common to go between them), and resolute determination to try out the three sisters method of companion planting.  Fresh in my mind was last year's vow that this year would be better, and plans were made for preventing the onslaught of weeds and late-night waterings.  Oh, and ideas for a quick to put together shelf by our huge south-facing window have been hashed out and should be doable within the week.  I'm so looking forward to this garden!

Also on my mind is how to give this garden and it's much hoped for abundance the attention it needs with these three little ones in tow and a schedule crammed full of springtime fun and games.  The first question that I've been pondering is how I'm going to look after myself.  I remember the many late nights of preserving, chosen intentionally so as to avoid heating the house during the hottest part of the day, and partly because that was really the only time the work would get done.  And it seemed to go on for days.  And weeks.  And months.  So something to fill my cup is definitely needed to run the marathon that lies ahead.  Something like waking half an hour earlier and doing a bit of yoga (outside, when the weather's nice, perhaps?), and soaking in the quiet morning moments sounds so nice to me. 

Working out something do-able and sustainable for keeping an eye on the children while working in the garden will take a bit more experimentation.  While last year's ideals were lovely (yes, I thought the combination of gardening and art would be alluring and keep everyone nearby), I soon found myself just trying to make sure we had all the gardening essentials.  Potential fixes could include having the kids pack up their essentials the night before, having our circle time out at the garden, ensuring there are books and a blanket to curl up in, amongst other things.

In the meantime, I'll keep on simplifying here and there.  I'll take the time to get myself organized so that when the time comes to jump into action everything is there waiting.  I can stock up on stuff like Pamona's Pectin and lemon juice, vinegar and pickling salt, garden stakes and gloves, well before we're in the heat of the moment, and I find the rest of the city is also hunting for such goods.  After all, I have a couple of months before I get to see and feel that black earth.  The work done today will ease the load tomorrow. 

Autumn harvest

Welcome, welcome, this season of the harvest, yellow leaves, crisp evenings, shorter days and longer evenings.  Welcome, this season of soups and chilies and soul-warming food that we look forward to reacquainting ourselves with.  Welcome, apples, pears and plums and simmering kitchens of sweet-smelling goodies.  Welcome migrating birds, who are stopping only long enough to fill their bellies before continuing on their long trek south. 

We welcomed autumn as a family this afternoon.  Shortly after lunch, we uncovered some very simple window art I had drawn up the evening before and the branch gnomes that stood guardians.  My hope is that these sweet gnomes will act as guardians for our nature bowl as well and that their little felt hats will change colour with the seasons.  We read We Gather Together:  Celebrating the Harvest Season.     

 We did a little harvesting of our own as well this afternoon.  We read the story of Benjie and the Turnip (from Healing Stories for Challenging Behaviour), where Benjie learns to ask permission from the root gnome to pick the turnip he's tended all summer and would like to make a lantern with.  Our gnomes joined us in the carrot patch, and the children repeated the root gnome request...

Gnome, Gnome, good Gnome,

May I take your carrot home?
 

Now, the soup pot is simmering with chicken vegetable soup.  We'll enjoy a simple harvest meal of soup, cornbread, and applesauce tonight, followed by warm baths and a story by candlelight before bed.  While the children slumber, I'll continue my own harvest work...checking on the onions and peppers dehydrating, making what is hopefully the last batch of pickles, checking the ripeness of the pears and perhaps making a batch of pear chips tonight.  Tomorrow the work of the harvest will continue...tomatillo salsa, pasta sauce, canning pears, sourcing some plums for plum sauce and more canning.  I'm trying not to feel overwhelmed by all the work that lies ahead and that must be balanced with the needs of my little ones.  I'm optimistic they will be eager to help, as we continue to read, write and draw about the changing seasons around us and all they inspire.

Club Day. The Nature Version.

Part of getting back into the summer-winding-down swing of things is getting the children's clubs back up and running on a more consistent basis.  We kicked off the 2013-2014 club year with the first Nature Club and a trip out to the community garden to check out how wild, luscious and abundant the tomato plants the Club started from seed had become.  I wanted the Club to have some sort of a connection between the seeds we planted and the pizza we soon will make, most of which coming from the pizza garden we dreamed up so many months ago. 

We also "foraged" our own snack by searching for cucumbers hiding underneath their lovely large green leaves, digging for carrots, and discovering the last offerings from the pea plants (peas in September seems unreal).

While we munched on our found goodies, we talked about the important role of bees.  We talked about how the bees pollinate the plants so that they will bear fruit, and how they might unknowingly cross-pollinate them and create fruit that looks a wee bit different than expected (like the few baseball-sized Roma tomatoes we found - they look suspiciously like a mix between my Romas and the neighbour's beefsteak tomatoes).  We also talked about how the cucumbers protect themselves by being slightly prickly.

In the next couple of meetings, I'd like to make cheese with the group (now that I know how to do it), and then make our garden pizza.  Looking forward to the upcoming mouth-watering meetings!

   

Recalibrate

I'm coming off a week unprecedented for preserving in this house.  In fact, I don't think I've ever had so many jars of applesauce sitting in my basement before the end of August.  Yes, there has been drying, freezing, pickling, and canning of all types and stripes here.  The pace has been frenetic, the days long and the nights short. 

There were some high moments...the first sip of the first apple juice I've ever canned...having enough carrots for freezing and dehydrating...the surprise that I could make apple sauce and apple juice at the same time (thanks to the Mehu-Liisa juicer we discovered this winter)...knowing we have more than enough pickles for the pickle-monsters that live here. 

There were some low moments.  Moments where I found myself sucked into a bewilderment of why I was doing what I was doing.  Moments where I was left wondering if I would go from loving food to hating it passionately.  Moments of frustration as I considered the homesteading and pioneering families of the past who would knock off (I perceive) a zillion things more than me, and I tried to figure out what their secret was - what did they know that I didn't about doing this work quickly and well?  Moments when I wondered whether anyone living here cared about the work I was doing, as they complained about the marinara sauce I had made last year.

And maybe they have a point.  After all, it's not as though we need to grow and preserve our food for survival.  Grocery stores are plentiful in our beautiful neighbourhood.  Surely it would be easier on our time if we simply went grocery shopping for an hour or two a week.  I'm sure we could find a balance between conventionally grown and organically grown food that we could afford.  As my family reminded me over pasta with marinara sauce, does it really taste any better?  Lastly, I must admit that I don't feel I've seen as much of my kids.  That makes my heart feel sad.

I think what I'm confronted with is a week where we've been out of balance.  My thoughts have been focussed on the tasks that need to be done and the schedule limitations I'm faced with.  I've done my best to ensure that my children are out and about but I admit that I haven't been present, whether in body or in spirit.  Little rest has led to a tired and irritable mama.  I keep sensing that demonstrating the values I aspire to live can be powerful, and my actions of late have focused on treading lightly on the earth by growing and putting up our own food.  My family is involved either on the periphery or directly, such as when we pick apples together.  But that "fun" factor has been missing.

So, yet again, I turn to the calendar.  I'll do what I can to carve out time and space for us to enjoy one another's company, whether it be a walk in the park or a game of cards.  I'll patiently remind the little ones here that how we spend our sacred time together is a choice we make together...we all need to work together to spend our time the way our heart truly desires.  I'll be forgiving of myself if I can't do it all or do everything that I had so hoped to do.  I'll be thankful for the bounty that the Earth has provided for us and share what we cannot use ourselves.

Ahhh...that feels better.  


 

Little orange success

My former workplace focussed on celebrating successes.  Big or little, corporate-wide or individually, success was something to be acknowledged.

After I came home from the garden last night, I didn't think there would be much to celebrate, now or any other time this year.  There was more that needed to be weeded than not.  There were some plants that weren't looking too healthy, and many that looked too little for this time of the season.  It appears that we will be heading to the farmer's market yet again for vegetables to sustain us for this week.  Kind of depressing stuff.

I returned to the garden this morning with the goal to weed the pickling cukes and the carrots.  That goal is now accomplished!  But even better was what I brought home with me...

I can't remember if I wrote about our carrot failure last year, when we were successful at growing only one single, solitary carrot.  And this year, why there are carrots in need of thinning!  For goodness sake, this is the first year that we've grown more than one carrot...ever!  Those I picked today will saddle up to the table for one meal. 

So celebrate I will.  I will wash one of those carrots carefully and bite into it.  In fact, I will savour it, and chew slower than I ever have in my life.  That carrot will get the treatment normally only reserved for chocolate.  We did manage to coax some goodness from the earth after all.  We have carrots!

A week's reflection

I find myself sitting at the table looking out into the dark, dark night, reflecting on the week that was and the week that will be.  Here's a glimpse...

  ~ gazing at the cherry jam that is resting on the counter, which I made this afternoon.  There is a box of canned cherries and dried cherries ready to go downstairs into our empty "open concept" cellar.  I hope we're able to fill it back up again. 
  ~ putting the final few things away from our week away at the lake, and feeling the desire to seriously de-clutter in the hope to make our lives simpler.  I'm thrilled to hear that my husband is taking a couple of days off to tackle the garage, though I was really hoping our basement could get double-teamed by us.
  ~ having mixed feelings about our garden.  The one at home is doing alright...the popcorn has reached the top of the fence and we've been treated to a few cherry tomatoes.  The community garden is looking a little on the sad side...too many weeds here, spotty plants there.  At least the beans are doing well.  I know both gardens have been neglected this year, but I'm not sure what the solution is at this moment.  Working hard to be thankful for what we have been able to grow.
  ~ taking a peak at a lesson planner (I found it free here).  It may be part of the solution for garden neglect.  I'm very much looking forward to writing "plan garden", "plant seeds" and "tend garden" into our days, in the hopes that it may happen.  Also looking forward to penciling in "project time".
  ~  admiring my daughter and how she will refuse to stay bored for long.  She's turned to art during the lulls in the day - painting yesterday and beading today.  Kim John Payne (author of Simplicity Parenting) definitely has it right - something interesting is right around the corner.
  ~ sending thoughts of light and peace to a friend in pain.
  ~ wondering what it will be like with two children away for the bulk of the next week.  Nicholas is attending a scout camp and Jaelyn is in a Chinese culture day camp.  The days will definitely be quieter...
  ~ looking forward to more preserving...blueberry roll-ups and jam, black forest sauce, perhaps some drunken cherries thrown into the mix (check out Put 'Em Up)

Wishing you a week of gratifying work and play!

Club Day. The Nature Version.

When we awoke this morning, things looked a little on the grey side.  I hurried over to the weather network and received a prediction that there would be rain in the morning - thundershowers, in fact.  Hmmm...that forecast wasn't what Nature Club called for this morning.  I headed over to Environment Canada's website, where they predicted rain in the afternoon.  Much better news!  And within ten minutes of reading that news, the skies did clear up and the sun was shining down upon us.  It was like an omen telling me to simply trust the latter prediction.

Now that it's summer and our Nature Clubbers are available morning or afternoon (or evening too, I suppose), we're soaking up the opportunity to be outside before our little part of the planet heats up too much.  I learned from last year's summer club days that the beautiful little people in our Nature Club tended to wilt under the sun's hot, hot rays.  We also have much more time to do an activity and have free time, so we can plan more elaborate outings.  Today's outing took us to a little berry patch just outside the city limits to pick some saskatoons.

Yes, our family has already picked many saskatoons this season.  Soon my freezer will be full and I'll be wondering where I can store the blueberries that will come in the next couple of weeks.  But the children who joined us today aren't as familiar with this humble berry, being from another province where they don't grow.  So what better way to learn about local, seasonal, good foods, diversity, and the joys of simply being outdoors than to experience it?

For those of you who aren't familiar with saskatoons, they look similar to blueberries but have a taste that is all their own.  They have a small seed inside them and while the seed is quite fibrous, it is edible.  Here are a few of the ways we enjoy saskatoons...

   ~ saskatoon berry muffins
   ~ mix fresh or frozen saskatoons with yogurt, cereal, oatmeal or granola
   ~ saskatoon crisp or crumble
   ~ dropped into pancake batter, or served on top of freshly cooked pancakes
   ~ saskatoon berry jam
   ~ saskatoon berry syrup (we will be mixing our syrup with club soda, as an alternative to pop.  A recipe for berry syrup is in The Homemade Pantry).
   ~ in fruit smoothies (but make sure there is a lot of liquid in your smoothie, as the saskatoons tend to absorb liquid and thicken the drink considerably
   ~ fruit popsicles
   ~ pie
   ~ just eaten by the handful!

The only thing I do not do with our saskatoon berries is dry them or make fruit leathers with them.  For me, the seed tends to take centre stage when they are dried and they do not seem to keep their sweet taste when they are dried.  Perhaps I dry them out too much, as I've read that others have successfully dried them.

If you're still not sure what to do with your saskatoons once they're picked, here are a few sites with recipes to get you started:

   ~ Recipes for tarts, scones, saskatoon berry loaf, crisp and syrup
   ~ Recipes including muffins, pudding, tea, vinaigrette, bars, squares and pancakes, just to name a few
   ~ Recipe for jam

The fruit farm tour

I feel like right now we are in the midst of whirlwind tour of u-pick farms.  For we have been blessed with the time, energy and support to make our way out to several farms to pick berries in the peak of the season.

Our first trip was on Friday, and was a drive into a picturesque valley overflowing with the summer's bounty.  Our sights were set on saskatoons, the very berry that we were so eager to pick last year, but were so bitterly disappointed with.   Alas, last year we didn't make it out until the end of the season and had hard picking, with mainly wizened berries to choose from.  No saskatoon berry jam last year.  But what a contrast this year!  The berries were big and plump, juicy and sweet!  With the help of my sweet, sweet parents, the children and I found jackpot after jackpot (as Nicholas and Jaelyn call the spots with lots of berries for the picking).  We soon had eight pails filled between the six of us (though my parents had a head start and picked most of them on their own).  Thankfully, most of my crew did there part to help out too.

Our second trip was today, with an hour's drive to the east for strawberries.  Yes, that's right, we found strawberries, and they were closer than we thought they would be.  Eight must be the number this year, as we worked together to pick eight buckets of these beautiful, sweet, red orbs.  Nicholas was such an eager picker that he picked three and a half pails by himself and wound up with a job offer to pick berries for the rest of the summer.

Now, I find us in our warm kitchen, doing the first of the processing of 2013.  Saskatoons have been frozen and poured with abandon into fruit crumble.  Our experimental recipe for the year is strawberry maple jam with vanilla (from Taproot).  If the few tastes I got are any indication, it is wickedly good.  Strawberries fill my dehydrator and my freezer.  I'm dreaming of what I can whip up with the berries that have not yet found a home.

Amid all this making and dreaming, I made some new discoveries too.  Like that my husband wrinkles his nose at strawberry pie and strawberry crumble.  That's okay...I still may pop into the library tomorrow to pick up A Year of Pies by Ashley English.  I also discovered that it is so much easier to remove jar lids from a pot of water with a magnet secured to a butter knife.  So long tongs!  And I rediscovered the simple joy of mashed berries on ice cream.  Yum. 

Let the fruit farm tour go on! 

Tales from the garden

I was so hoping to write a garden post last week.  My husband came home from the community garden one evening and reported that the garden was doing well.  So the next day, with camera in tow, I was excited to capture all the wonderful growth and greenery happening there.

I humbly found I had a different perspective of our garden.  I searched for the corn he said had poked through the earth, only to find three plants.  I squinted to see if there were any carrots growing or if it was just weeds.  The peas and the weeds were so indistinguishable that Nicholas took to hacking at anything and everything green before I could even ask him to slow down, take his time, and be choosy before bringing down the hoe on the green rows.  Then the allure of painting and reading lost its sparkle for Astrin.  And it started to gently and sporadically mist once we had finished our weeding and what we thought was the rest of our planting.  It felt like too depressing a visit to write about.

Time has healed my bruised ego now.  We returned briefly today, so that I could look with objective eyes at the work and replanting that will be done early tomorrow morning, before the kids rise and their father leaves for work.  I can see some of the successes we're having, here at home and at the community garden.  The spindly little tomatoes we started from seed look stronger, greener, and lusher by the day.  The beans Nicholas planted came up beautifully.  The popcorn at home is looking splendid, and I'm happy that I've had a chance to do a little bit of companion planting, using the corn for the pole beans to climb.  The potato leaves have pushed their way through the earth, the pumpkin is hanging on, and the zucchini is well on its way.  And while it's still to early to tell for sure, there may just be a few carrots that appreciated me gently "stirring the earth". 

While I do have a list of "to do's" for next year...get out there earlier, water more often, sow the carrots a bit shallower...I'm once again reminding myself to be patient.  Both with the plants and with me.  The cool, wet spell we've just been through made the growth above ground come to a halt.  But all that moisture will benefit those plants later on.  The sun will be shining this week and the heat will help those plants thrive.  Not all growth goes on where it can be seen...there's equally important stuff going on below the surface.  My vibe can be seen and felt by my children.  They can learn that gardening is frustrating business or they can learn to take the ups and the downs with grace. 

It may be small, but it is a life.  It is growing.  It is beautiful.  I will keep it in that perspective.

Elusive strawberries

I've come across some unsettling news as of late.  It appears that strawberries aren't doing well on the local farms and I haven't found a u-pick that will be offering strawberries this year.  At least not yet anyway.  Strawberries bring just a wee bit of sweetness in a kissed-by-summer kind of way (think fruit smoothies, strawberry crumble, dried strawberries in your cereal), and help us to remember that spring will return again on those dark winter mornings.  So I'm calling around to literally every potential strawberry grower in the province to see if any will be offering strawberries this year. 

I'm also a little unnerved by the whole thing.  I don't know why the strawberries haven't come through in this particular part of the world, and I'm holding my breath as I wait to find out about what's going on in the other corners of the province.  I hope the reason the strawberries didn't thrive was our cool, and I hope it wasn't because of something more sinister...such as collapsing bee populations, increasing toxins in the soil, water and atmosphere, the broader and little known effects of GMO's...And I wonder what crop be next to fold and simply refuse to grow - wheat, corn, tomatoes? 

Then I wonder about how successful our garden would be in the face of all these threats.  How well would we be able to nourish ourselves when one seemingly tiny organism in the web of life disappears and causes the whole web to fall apart?  While I cling to the utopian hope that indeed one person, or a small group of committed people, can change the world (thank you, Margaret Mead), I wonder how one can avoid such a devastating tsunami as a global food collapse...where edible plants will simply refuse to grow.  Because we are all interconnected - the Monsantos, the organic and biodynamic farmers, the beekeepers and the city slickers...what one does has an impact on the rest.

The best I can come up with is holistic and integrated gardening, where the garden is not just the plot of land or raised garden beds, but all the helpers that go along with it.  Chickens to eat the nasty bugs.  Raising bees (and doing what I can to provide them a safe place to thrive) to help pollinate.  Animals to cut the grass and provide nutrient-rich manure to feed the soil.  And what to do when all of this is illegal in a city?  Ah, that's where I get stuck.

While I ponder the fate of the world, I'll again take some time out for gratitude.  I'm thankful for a husband that is willing to travel to the far reaches of our province simply to pick strawberries.  I'm thankful for children who are excited to join us on this excursion.  I'm thankful for the farmers who honour the Earth and put their souls into the food they grow.  I'm thankful for the community we've found who might know of some secret strawberry patch, or perhaps some guidance for those more daunting fears and questions.

Tailgating at the garden

While offering young hands painting as an outlet during planting and weeding holds promise, we needed a plan for how to engage young minds while watering our large garden plot.  Whether managing turns for watering with the hose or waiting out watering with the fan sprinkler, it can feel a lot like watching paint dry.

Today, we added lawn chairs, snacks and library books to our gardening tool box.  After a short bit of weeding and our second interval of planting peas and corn (which Nicholas and Astrin lovingly helped with), it was time to water.  Nicholas insisted on setting up the sprinkler (and he did a fantastic job) while I got us set up for a lazy afternoon in the sun.  Oranges, cucumber and water bottles surrounded us as we dove into a Where's Waldo? book, followed by an animated retelling of The Gruffalo.  We capped off our tailgate party with testing out the water for ourselves...below are Astrin and Jaelyn shrieking as the cold, cold water finally reaches them.  What fun!

Lessons learned today: 

  ~ bring rubber boots for retrieving the sprinkler once the watering is done.
  ~ have a stick handy for scraping off all that mucky mud.
  ~ pick out a couple extra books to supplement the children's picks, as we could go through their picks quite quickly.
  ~ the garden would be a pretty awesome spot for practicing some of the writing tricks we learned on our trip through the Haunted Wood last summer.  Bringing writing and drawing supplies would be handy.  In fact, restocking and packing our art-on-the-go bags (from The Creative Family) would be a good idea.

Busy in the garden

It was a couple of weeks ago that I was feeling alright with the progress we were making in the garden, and that everything was on schedule.  Imagine my surprise when June came sneaking up on us and there was still a large patch of dirt without seeds or transplants or anything but opportunistic weeds growing in it!  Days that threatened rain followed by evenings filled to the brim with activities led to few trips to the community garden and a bit of a wild scramble this weekend.

This year, we built new pea fences.  The ones we used last year were too short and not strong enough to support the peas.  While the fences were built in plenty of time, they didn't quite find their way into the garden quickly.  We found that our rubber mallet wasn't quite up to the task of driving them into the ground.  While we borrowed a hammer shortly after, I discovered I wasn't strong enough to swing it up over my shoulder and land it accurately on top of the fence stakes.  So several didn't make it in until this weekend.  Which was okay for the peas, as I planned to experiment with staggered plantings this year so we could have a more continuous supply and space out our processing work when the harvest was ready.

What didn't work out was that I couldn't imagine how much space the pea fences would take up so I could plant the rest of the garden that would lay to the south of it.  The space itself was actually larger than I had planned for, which also changed my plans.  And I have a sneaky suspicion that I planted some things closer together than I had planned when I drew up my garden plan.  Yes, I could have used a tape measure to figure it out.  But in the heat of the moment, with a toddler wielding a paintbrush covered in red, another child asking questions about planting beans and a third starting to wiggle like bathroom time was just moments away, the tape measure was the last thing from my mind. 

Anyway, all those things combined led to tweaking the garden plan on the spot and some indecision.  Until there was really no time left for indecision.  I found myself at the garden by myself last night, while Chris set to work getting the children's weary bodies into bed.  I'm happy to say that I was able to get it planted and watered.  And I'm glad that while I let my disorganized self get the better of me, I still stuck with labelling all our rows and I did a better job in spacing the plants out.  Now we just need to weed, water, and ask the sun to help us out by sending its warm rays down on our little patch of land.

Please grow, little plants.  Thanks!

Circus gardening

The Selinger crew definitely had looks only a mother could love as we pulled up to our community garden plot after a fabulous spring party hosted by one of the families in our homeschool co-op.  I was dismayed to see that there were several other gardeners out, but thought they would be far enough away not to really get a good look at our painted faces.  I quickly unloaded our gear while the kids hopped out and set to work organizing them with where I wanted them to start digging holes for our tomatillos and Japanese eggplant.

But we must have been noticeable.  The community garden coordinator appeared out of nowhere and mentioned he needed to get a look at our scary faces (his exact words, no lie).  I simply smiled and told him we were kicking off our first time in the garden this year with a circus act.  I think we all had an opportunity to be more child-like and less serious, even if just for a moment.  It did my soul good.

(My facepainting was done by one of our generous hosts this afternoon - I'm a butterfly)

After a few more holes were dug, the kids were off to mingle with others they had met last year.  The were delighted to see the fellow with his bearded dragon and learned more about where these lizards come from and what they like to eat.  They headed off to talk to one of the garden watchdogs and picked some edible weeds (dandelion leaves) under his tutelage.  They were still in full conversation mode as I went to gather them up (leaving quite the impression with my neon painted face).  At least they left me a bit hopeful that our spindly little tomatoes may do alright in the end, and that it really was okay that not everything was in yet. 

There are such wonderful people, of all stripes, at our homeschool co-op and oucommunity garden.  It's a blessing to be a part of it all.

Club Day. The Nature Version.

Nature Club took another step forward in making the pizza garden a reality.  We got their hands dirty today, as we moved the peppers we started indoors out to one of the garden boxes.  As we worked, we talked about why there was wood (mulch) in the garden and the purpose it serves, which is to allow the soil to retain as much moisture as possible, as opposed to it evaporating.  We walked through the steps (dig a hole, gently push the seedling out of its cell, place it upright gently in the hole, cover, and replace wood chips as necessary.  We served our little peppers a bit of compost tea, then gave them a generous watering.  I was amused that the Clubbers thought that a little water bottle of water was sufficient for their plants.  They were amused when I squirted myself in the face as I replaced the watering lid to the water bottle (I found these awesome lids at Lee Valley, so each child can have a water bottle of their own to use). 

How did the Clubbers know where to dig the holes for their seedlings?  I placed large rocks in the garden box in the spots where I wanted the seedlings to go.  Each Clubber got a row to work with - they would remove a rock and go through the steps as independently as they felt they could.  My main job was to help get the seedlings out, and warn if the digging of one child would bury the seedling another had planted.

We also prepared a pot and moved one spindly tomato into it, as I've decided the rest of the tomatoes will go out into the community garden plot, where they will receive tons of sunshine.  This way, I can do a better job rotating the produce we grow, and hopefully we'll see the same bumper crop this year that we had last year at the community garden!  The girls did most of the work to prepare the pot.  They lined the bottom with small rocks, collected some composted manure from our neighbour, poured soil, mixed some Soil Moist (which we're trying in our clay pots for the first time), then planted and watered.

Slow gardening

It appears that we are (I am) embracing the concept of slow gardening.  I'm finding it easier to let go of the need to get it all in quickly and in one giant attempt.  Yes, this garden of ours is going to go in nice and slow.

I think that children will be more willing to help if they know that there will be a finish time.  While I struggle with the seeming paradox of keeping the peace and teaching to finish the job that is started, I think I should be able to manage our garden work in bite-sized chunks.  So, today, in our hour-long window, we planted zucchini, cucumbers, sui choy, pak choy and broccoli.  We did a bit of watering.  We stared wide-eyed as an ant dragged the body of a much larger insect along the dirt.  And we did a bit of garden art.

Our garden art project came about from a deficiency in last year's garden.  Last year, I did a poor job of marking our rows.  In the heat of the moment, I just didn't take the time to purchase or make proper row markers.  So this year, I thought we would use paint stir sticks (free!) to mark the rows and the children could decorate them, if they wanted to.  But it turns out that paint stir sticks are scarce right now, and we needed to make new fences for our peas to grow anyway, so we purchased longer 1" x 2" than we needed and cut them down, with the short left-over ends being our row markers.  As one set of large hands was finishing up his tasks while the smallest was starting to get restless, I brought out the acrylic paint, the paintbrushes, and let them decorate (and label) to their heart's content.  I'm feeling as though I came across a brilliant idea to keep the littler hands occupied while the larger ones and I do our garden work, as I can see there will be plenty of leftover space for future paintings.  All I need to do is add the painting supplies to our gardening stuff and we're set!
 

Content

You know those evenings when you collapse at the end of the day, knowing your body is going to ache tomorrow but your still happy for the day that was?  That was my day today.  Amid carrying squirmy toddlers, visiting our local greenhouse, hauling pails of manure, picking weeds, raking dirt, and playing fastball against high-school girls, it was a full day.  As I put up my feet (my that feels good!) and eye up a bottle of wine, I feel content.

Content in the fact that we are on schedule in this garden-planting business - I'm feeling confident we'll get most of what we need to get done in the days ahead.  Content with the fact that we are giving back to the earth and it will reward us with its bounty.  Content with what the children have learned about the plants we grow, as they were the first to spot the plants we needed amongst all the variety at the greenhouse, and were the first to transplant them, with no help from me.  Content with the fact that though this body is getting older and isn't quite as resilient as it used to be, there is wisdom with age, and sometimes that's enough. 

Alive

We had a really awesome day today.  Not awesome that knocks your socks off and is filled with extroverted excitement at every turn.  But a quiet awesome day - the kind that sneaks up on you and you don't really feel it's awesomeness in the moment, but at the end of the day when you have some time to put your feet up and think about it.

After everyone had finished up their schoolwork this morning, each little one and grown up made it outside at their own pace. 

Jaelyn had decided to make a blanket and was hand-sewing patches on while sitting on the back step. 

I decided it was time for the plants we had started indoors to get acquainted with outside.  I fertilized them with some more compost tea, gave them a good dose of water, and let them bask in the glorious sunshine.  I can honestly say that they look happy after their day outside...their leaves are a little greener, they are a wee bit taller, and working on building healthy, hardy roots to stand up to our strong prairie winds.

Nicholas later emerged and we noticed that it seemed everything around us was coming to life...leaves were starting to burst forth from the trees, the rhubarb is growing in great leaps and bounds, and the asparagus has made its entrance into the world.  It seems as though the earth has exploded into life.

After lunch, Nicholas and Jaelyn proceeded to make "potions" on the front step, including a batch of food-dyed sugar water for attracting butterflies. 

And what do you see on this blog?  Pictures for the first time in a long time!  Astrin was toting around an old camera case this afternoon as we walked between our two big elms.  She showed me everything she had packed in it...including the cable that links our camera to the computer that has been missing since Jaelyn's birthday.  I had a feeling the lost would be found today!

Club Day. The Nature Version.

It seems there is a battle raging between Old Man Winter and Lady Love Spring.  Just a little while ago I was ready to dance in the streets that Spring had finally arrived!  Little did I know that Winter was not yet ready to release his grasp on us.  The melting has stopped (those wishing for a slow melt have definitely received their wish so far), the wind had a bit of a bite in it, and it began to snow this afternoon.

As the Nature Club filed into our house this afternoon, I pondered out loud, "What do we need to do to make it spring here?"  One fellow, who was dropping off his sister, glumly replied that the Sun Salutations he was doing hadn't helped yet.  Maybe if more people were doing them, the balance would tip in the favour of Spring.  The rest, as if by reading my mind, replied that we should start planting things. 

And so planting we did, as we shoveled earth into our grow pots and planted the tiny seeds of some Roma tomatoes and sweet peppers, both ingredients for the pizza garden we planned a couple of meetings ago.  Spring, I'm hoping you'll win the battle and take claim to what is rightly yours, seeing as it is April after all.  If not, how will the Club grow their pizza garden?  Is it too early to start preparing this eager little troupe that the garden may fail before it's even in the ground, and to console them by reminding them the most rewarding learning experiences come when things don't work out exactly as planned?  Hmmm...sounds a little defeatist, and perhaps on the overdramatic side.  I think I'll hold off on that for a bit.

But the glum weather led me to change our plans a little bit.  I have scads of old seeds that I don't think will germinate well.  We were going to use them to make pictures with, by drawing a simple picture, covering it with glue and sprinkling seeds on top.  Instead, we opted to make popcorn.  Popcorn's a seed, right, so it was an easy substitution.  We read The Popcorn Book, then hovered over the stove to watch the popcorn seeds explode inside the pot.  By the time our late snack was finished, the snow had stopped and everyone tumbled outside to play in the fort Jaelyn, Astrin and I had made this morning.

At any rate, now the onions have some company.

Club Day. The Nature Version.

Hmmm...I do think that spring is making a valiant attempt to arrive here!  The sun felt just a bit warmer and the snow is perfect for snowballs.

With that in mind, Nature Club did a wee bit more to prepare for our pizza garden, by fertilizing and watering our young onion seedlings.

I provided Nature Club with bananas, carrots and hard-boiled eggs for a snack, with instructions to save their leftover peels and shells.  As we cut the banana peels with scissors, peeled the carrots and ground up the egg shells, we chatted a bit about the worms. 

I told them the story of how the ancestors of our worms entered our lives the same year that Jaelyn was born, and how those worms were of the revolutionary variety...meaning that we often found worms who had escaped from their container when we awoke in the morning.  And while we know it wasn't that worms wanted to escape from us but rather the less-than-ideal conditions we had created in their container, we struggled to fix it.  I had nightmares about walking across the floor with worms squishing underneath my feet.

We also talked about gizzards, which the worms use to digest their food.  The eggshells we crushed help them use their gizzards more effectively.

The worms don't escape anymore, thanks to a new container system, which is actually three plastic totes stacked one on top of the other.  The two top totes have holes drilled in the bottom so that liquid can escape.  The lid of the top tote also has holes so that air can circulate.

I'm pleased to see how nice the compost looks like!  I was also pleased at how the Club eagerly dug around among our kitchen scraps, shredded newspaper and worm casing to find some Red Wiggler friends.  Eventually we fed the fellows our snack scraps, then we pulled off the top two totes to see the "compost tea" that had collected.  This stuff is potent, so I demonstrated, using a syringe, how to drop just a bit (5 drops) of compost tea in each of the planter cells, followed by a good watering.  These onions are looking good so far!

With the worms were taken care of and the onions were tended to, we cleaned up our messy hands and made our way out to enjoy that glorious sunshine!

Here's a little poem I found (in case I needed it for the transition from snack to worms).

The Worm by Ralph Bergengren

When the earth is turned to spring
The worms are fat as anything.
And birds come flying all around
To eat the worms right off the ground.
They like worms just as much as I
Like bread and milk and apple pie.
And once, when I was very young,
I put a worm right on my tongue.
I didn't like the taste a bit,
And so I didn't swallow it.
But oh, it makes my Mother squirm
Because she thinks I ate that worm!

Dreaming of spring

I find myself gazing out the dining room window at the mounds of snow piled up everywhere.  It's been awhile since we've had this much snow.  I think the last winter that was this wintery was the year that Nicholas was born and my brother-in-law passed his time by moving the snow from our front yard into the park that backed our house.  I don't think all this snow will be gone until April, at the earliest.  It's hard to believe that it's time to start dreaming up the garden of 2013.

Yet dreaming I did a few weekends ago.  I don't even know what motivated it.  But somehow, I went from doodling to having a full-fledged "concept drawing" (which is how we've come to refer to my not-drawn-to-scale sketches) of our garden spaces, a list of plants that I thought we would enjoy immensely, and where everything on that list would go.  When the rest of the family arrived home and all the outdoor gear was put away, they had a quick look to make sure I hadn't missed something crucially important.

Every year there is usually some sort of experiment that we take on.  Usually it is some fruit or vegetable that we haven't grown before, but it could also be trying out a new space to grow our perennial favorites.  Last year was celery and the planters in the backyard and a community garden plot.  The year before was asparagus.  This year, we're planning to grow popcorn.  Just the thought of a fresh-from-the-vine tomato is heavenly enough, but the thought of growing something new-to-us really ups the anticipation.

This year, I think I'll also save a garden box or a planter or two for the Nature Club.  I read about the concept of a pizza garden in Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots.  So, I'll gather up ideas from Nature Club for pizza toppings that can grow in our climate, ask for their help with planting seeds, preparing soil, transplanting, weeding and watering, which will eventually culminate in a homegrown pizza!  Yum

I'll be slowly moving into the next phase of this spring dreaming.  We've browsed through some seed catalogues and I'm very much looking forward to Seedy Saturday, which is a local come-and-go for gardeners looking to swap seed or buy some from local vendors.  March and April will be a month of planting seeds and tending those little plants that will hopefully go out into the outdoor world in May. 

And May will be bliss.