My Garden in May

Do you remember what my garden looked like a month ago? Isn't it amazing what one month can do? My broccoli is gigantic, though sadly, one of them died of some kind of wilt. We have been enjoying lettuce and peas and soon we will have beet greens! The summer crops have all gone in, though I definitely want to add a few more peppers, but I will buy those already grown and plant them in the next week or so.

Look in the foreground of the pictures and you can see what look like weeds but are actually strawberry plants! I planted 18 Everbearing strawberry plants and if I am lucky I will get a small harvest in September.

I have two tomato plants in the front garden beds, two in pots in the back and three still under the lights in the basement! Canning tomatoes this year will be a stupendous endeavor!

I decided to plant some marigolds because they are pretty AND they deter pests. So far so good. Here are some things that I have learned recently:

•  Plant WAY more peas! I only planted 3 seeds to begin with and this variety really likes to be close with other pea plants and produces better when it is; plus I didn't plant enough for our enjoyment. These peas are very sweet and wonderful tasting right out of the shell.
• Mulch, mulch, mulch! Right after I plant seeds I really need to mulch next time. The sun just baked my carrot, spinach and scallion seedlings despite diligent watering. I only have 4 carrots, 3 scallions and 5 spinach plants from the initial 20 or so seeds I sowed for each variety!
• Plan on planting garlic rather than planting it as an after-thought after some cloves sprouted in my pantry. They need to be planted earlier. I have two that are going strong, though, so I should at least make up for that.

I love my garden and so does Andrew. Despite the work that it entails Andrew and I really enjoy working in the garden together. Oh! I checked on my composting worms today and they are doing great! I found tons of cocoons and they seem quite happy. I am glad that they are so easy to take care of!

Changing The Way We Eat

A moment of Ravenna for those who read this blog only to see her

Now, for everyone else...

Everyone has their own ideas of what is "healthy" eating or on the other side of the spectrum don't really care what they eat; whatever is cheapest and easiest. Some people follow the fad diets, others are religiously low fat, or high protein. Over the years since my diagnosis with insulin resistance/pre-diabetes DrewCarrie tried many a different diet plan in an effort to stay healthy and feel great.

The first post-diagnosis diet was the diabetes recommended "low fat/sugar; high fiber/protein" diet which meant that I was basically allowed to eat beans and vegetables. I felt miserable and that diet lasted only about a month. When I got pregnant we went on the "fast food/cereal/ice cream diet. This was probably not the best food for a fetus, but I am sure many pregnant women will understand. After Ravenna was born and I found myself as a stay-at-home mom in the lonely state of Wyoming we began the "Mormon Mommy" diet which was based around low-cost meals and jello salads. This was a good learning time for me as I learned to plan menu's and make meals from scratch. I also developed the skill of making bread from a starter culture which was a precursor to my life-changing discovery, but more on that later.

After we moved to Pennsylvania I started experimenting a bit with vegetarian cooking, unfortunately for my Father-in-law. No offense to vegetarians, but most vegetarian meals lack a satisfying flavor and texture and my cooking self-esteem took a huge hit. Then at 15 months Ravenna developed some nasty digestive issues and so began the "elimination diet" saga. We went dairy-free, soy-free, and any other free you can think of until we found gluten-free. While I am not sure being gluten-free made a big difference for Ravenna, it sure did for me and that discovery is what led me to our final destination:  Traditional Foods.

Through the blogosphere I discovered that many gluten-free bloggers also followed a diet based around a cookbook called Nourishing Traditions which lays the foundation for a Traditional Foods diet. Most simply this book says that the way your ancestors ate is the way you should eat and that diet will enable our bodies to function best. That idea really struck a chord with me and given my recent readings of In Defense of Food and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, I embraced the idea wholeheartedly. I felt that in all my culinary wanderings, I had finally found my home. With Andrew's blessing, DrewCarrie once again radically changed our diet.

 The "Fermentation Station"

Fermenting Sauerkraut and Water Kefir

To give you a basic idea,  this is what eating a Traditional Foods diet entails for us: 

• Sprouting, fermenting, and soaking foods to make them more nutrient dense and digestible.
• Very liberally using good, natural fats in our diets such as butter, EVOO, palm shortening, extra-virgin coconut oil and even lard (read this enjoyable article if you don't believe me).
• No processed or artificial ingredients especially MSG, high-fructose corn syrup and sugar substitutes
• Buy as many locally sourced, pasture-raised animal products as possible. I learned in my four years in the FFA that the way that you treat animals raised for meat/dairy/eggs does matter very much in the quality of the product. It makes sense to me that it is safer and more nutritious to eat products produced by animals that eat a natural diet and that are cared for in a humane fashion. Food safety is a HUGE problem in the US, mainly because of the way factory farms raise their animals/crops. Yes, I pay more for what we eat but I do so with the assurance that if I have a concern, I can go straight to the source.
• No refined sugar and using natural sugars sparingly. We use Sucanat/Rapadura, honey, maple and date sugars.

This is a very general picture of what we do. If you were to classify this diet into a group I would call this a "whole foods" diet. After gradually easing into this diet for a number of months I am finding my stride. There is a lot to learn (hello! Eating like a Pioneer, people!) but there have been so many rewards so far. I have found that eating a TF diet helps me to feel the best, Andrew loves it and Ravenna's digestive issues have gone away. This is the diet that works best for OUR family. While I believe that most, if not all, people could benefit from aspects of eating a traditional foods diet, I don't believe that it is right for everyone. This works for us and we are very happy!

Ravenna had a Birthday!

 Apparently she also can't believe she is two years-old.

Ravenna is 2 years old! I cannot believe it. We had a little family party to celebrate with grandparents, great-grandparents and even a crazy uncle. In our family we try to make sure that the gifts we give are meaningful and/or useful and everyone was very helpful in keeping up with that tradition as well as respecting our 2010 family resolution.

This year I made Ravenna a felt birthday crown that she can wear every birthday. She loves hats so the crown was a BIG hit. Andrew even got in on the handmade action and helped me to dye some play silks using Kool-Aid and this somewhat ambiguous tutorial. We also got her some fun crayon rocks.

The Birthday Crown

Dressing-up in the hand-dyed play silks.

I love this little girl so much it takes my breath away. How could I not love such a spunky, friendly, genuinely happy person? She is such a fabulous human being; I feel baffled as to how I was chosen to be her mother. Just so I will remember, here are some of my favorite things a:bout Ravenna at age 2:

• When she wants to sing, she pretends she is conducting music
• She figured out how to use my iPod Touch and appropriated it for her own use. Whenever she see's it she says "Pod? Pod!"
• She loves to do songs with motions especially "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" and "Once there was a snowman"
• She copies the things I say when I am frustrated like "Oh, dear" and "Okay...okay" 
• When I am upstairs and she wants me to come help her with something she says "Carrie! Carrie!"
• She talks to herself when she is playing and sounds strangely like me...
• She loves to roughhouse with her daddy 
• She loves to be outside and garden with me; she is very gentle with the seedlings
• She is obsessed with animals as long as they don't get too close
• She is not afraid of bugs
• She makes friends wherever she goes, especially elderly ladies

I guess I could go on forever listing things I love about Ravenna, but I think I will go tell her myself.

The First Harvest!

The garden is doing very well so far! We had a problem with a cat using it as a litter box but I think it finally realized that the garden bed was not conducive to clean paws, either that or the animal repellent we put out finally did its job. In the front row you can see my lettuce patch. I just planted six more lettuce seeds. One of my varieties did not germinate at all (grrr...) so there should be more here but c'est la vie. The spinach is doing lovely. We have 4 plants right now but only one is ready to harvest. In the very back we have some bush peas and the big ones in the middle are the broccoli. The second spring planting is finished and there will probably be one more planting in a few more weeks to keep things going.

 Our First Harvest

Indoors we have zucchini and sweet peppers germinating and a bunch of beautiful tomato seedlings basking in the artificial light. Oh and great news! we might be able to get a small raised bed in the backyard! There is one spot in the back that gets sun most of the day. I will probably plant my tomatoes in pots and put them back there to see how they do and then next year, if they do well, we can put in another raised bed and have lots of stuff growing back there.

More Thrift Store Finds

These finds are not from this last week, they are from all the way back in January but I forgot to post them.

Last week I found an awesome deal on canning jars and bought 44 of them plus a mismatched set of stainless steel eating utensils, so there wasn't much to see there.

In January I found this super cool vintage fabric and some darning thread. Ever since I saw this tutorial I have wanted to learn how to darn socks. I am not very handy with the fiber arts, but I am very practical and if I can save another sock from being turned into a duster or a sock monkey, so help me I will!

I don't really have plans for the fabric yet. I thought about reupholstering a chair with it since it is a heavier weight cotton, but I am afraid 2 yards won't be enough. I do love the colors though, don't you?

WORMS!

While this may gross some people out, this is our worm bin. We made it ourselves and it cost us less than $10 using this tutorial. I would have taken a picture of the inside but I didn't think anyone would truly appreciate it, especially the worms since they do not like to be disturbed. Worm composting or Vermiculture is a very simple, economical and fast solution to composting if you: 1) Do not have much space and 2) Do not want to have to deal with the sometimes complex nature of traditional composting.

Worm composting produces the best kind of compost you can get: worm castings. You can't compost with just ANY worms though, you need Redworms, or Eisenia foetida. These little guys eat half their body weight every day and with one pound of Redworms you will have about 5 gallons of worms castings in around two months.

Redworms, as you might imagine, eat organic material. Their bedding is made up of strips of newspaper that have been moistened so that they can breathe. They eat the newspaper. They also like to eat kitchen scraps. They just LOVE rotting organic material. The only things that they do not eat are meat and dairy. As far as pet's go they are very easy and prefer to be left alone to reproduce and eat.

So, does anyone have any questions?

This Week's Flea Market Finds

Ravenna and I took a trip to Roots again this week and despite getting the stroller stuck in the new laid gravel, we made some lovely acquisitions. Two things were different on this trip from the last one: 1) It was SUPER hot; and 2) I didn't think it was possible but it was even MORE crowded. While I am not a huge fan of crowds especially with a stroller in tow I braved my way into the flea market area in search of the ever elusive butter dish and came out wanting. There was nary a butter dish to be seen, or that I could see hidden among the vast tables of junk and treasures.

In any case, I did not come out empty handed as you can see above. The best thing is, I only spent $11.50! I discovered that if I wanted to get rock bottom prices, seek out the elderly gentlemen with the less pristine items. All the items I bought were in need of some TLC but cleaned up beautifully.

The end table was a steal at $10. It was tagged at $15 and the guy selling it says "I can give you a really good deal on that table $12" and I was thinking "yeah, I could use a table like that but would it work...?" and then the guys says "Ok! I will go down to $10 but no lower." I was perplexed because I didn't actually do any haggling. I accepted the price since I am not much of a haggler in the first place and it fit really well right on top of the stroller.

The juicer was selling for $6 at another vendor's table but I was able to get this one for $1. Woot! Amber and I had been checking out a similar one the last time we went but neither of us wanted to pay $6 for it. $1 though? I could do that.

The cup was a gift for Andrew. He grew up in and around Strasburg so I thought it would be fun to have. It was made in Japan. Didn't you know China is the new Japan? Once upon a time all the cheap souvenirs in the US were made in Japan, not China. Fun stuff.

I need to find a babysitter and go thrifting with other like-minded women. Not that I don't love my constant nearly 2 year-old shopping companion but it is so much more fun with people who are enjoying the hunt as much as I am.