Indoor veggies have been planted

Today I got my winter garden planted - which will be housed in my office through the winter.  I have: spinach, tomatoes, green peppers, banana peppers, acorn squash, butternut squash, cucumbers, green beans, peas, carrots, leeks and celery.  Some of these will need to be hand pollinated.  I am laying a waterproof mat under my small greenhouse to catch water drips, and plan to let the squash climb my windows and the greenhouse its self.  The carrots and tomatoes will eventually move to a container on the floor near the window when they get big enough.  Now the only thing left to do is fix the zipper on my greenhouse cover as it is broken.  Then we’ll be all set

My latest research here on the homestead is on raising milk goats and my husband has shown interest in raising one or two at a time for meat.  I’m pretty sure they’re probably against city ordinances but it’s fun to learn.  And who knows – if I talk to my neighbors and they’re favorable, a little milk and eggs (from chickens, of course) go a long way to keep them from complaining…  I’ll let you know what I come up with.

A use skins and cores from apples

I taught my oldest daughter how to slice apples today because she wanted to help me can applesauce.  As I finished a half bushel of apples, and prepared to cook the slices until soft in applejuice instead of water, my husband suggested we try juicing the skins and cores that were awaiting the compost pile, and add that juice to the stock pot.  What a cool idea!  I could re-use my kitchen waste, and then the pulp would end up in the compost pile.  I know that I can use the pulp for additional meals but I’m not too sure how pulp from just skins and cores would be.  Well, I guess all I could do is try, right?  There was still quite a bit of flesh left on the cores.

So we did that and the juice is added to the apples that are on the stove.  And I may just have to save the pulp and use it in muffins or something and just see how that works out.  How cool would it be to be able to use everything and have zero waste?

Fall happenings

Life has picked up its pace quite a bit!

I have a few more heads of broccoli I’m waiting on in the garden.  Some carrots are ready to pull I’m sure.  My husband already wacked the corn stalks down (we left the roots to rot over the winter and provide nourishment for the soil for next year) and the kids love having a little fenced in area to play.  The corn is drying in my backyard and will be taken to my church to be used as decoration for an outreach project they’re doing on Halloween.  My tomatoes won’t quit producing - I have new blossoms and tons of green tomatoes growing but I think our first frost is going to happen here in the next couple of weeks.  I am going to be growing a garden indoors over the winter and my husband suggested uprooting a couple tomato plants from outside because they’re still producing and see if I can’t transplant them in a container to make use of all those tomatoes I’ll otherwise miss out on.  if I use some of my tomato cages in large pots, I should be able to keep them upright.  Whether they’ll survive the transplant or not is another story.  I’ve never heard of anything like this, but we figured what have we got to loose?

I plucked the heads off my sunflowers and have them drying on my back porch.  I’m not sure if I can keep them there because the birds will find them soon enough.  the heads are  HUGE and there are tons of seeds.  They’ll finish drying in the basement if birds become a problem.  I have a few sunflowers that I let sprout from the birdfeeder, I cut the heads off and am going to dry the seeds and put ‘em back in the birdfeeder.

We’re going to get another probably 2 bushels of apples in October.  My husband loves the apple pie filling I put up (using tapioca instead of corn starch), so those jars are quickly disapearing.  I want to put up more apple pie filling, applesauce and more slices.  We opened a jar of pears that I put up a few weeks ago and they were SO GOOD.  The lady we bought them from told me she has tried to can them season after season but they go mushy on her.  I told her how I can mine, hopefully she’ll have better luck and be able to enjoy the fruit of her orchard over the winter!

I have a couple Morning Glory plants on my back porch.  I thought I’d be cute and train the plants to grow up the rails on my back porch.  Well now they’ve nearly enclosed my back porch for me.  it looks pretty, but those vines are stuck everywhere and it’s going to be a bit of a pain to remove them!  lol.  They have engulfed the watemelon I had growing from a pot on the back rail, and my aloe plant hanging from the support beams of the roof. 

My mind has turned to what I’ll do next year to maximize the harvest and make the best use of my space.  I’ve decided on the ‘three sisters’ method of growing corn, squash and beans/peas.  Somehow or another they all work together - the beans nourish the soil for the corn, the corn provides a natural trellis for the beans or peas to grow up, and the squash provide natural ground cover to keep the weeds down.  I like it!  That will free up a few rows and my squash plot for something else next year.  I’d love to grow some sugar beets and experiment with making our own sugar.  I need to move the carrots away from the tomatoes – I had no idea how bushy and big my tomato plants would get.  They’re huge!  And have shaded my carrots nearly completely.  I’ll move my cucumbers to the side of my house and train them to grow up the side of my house.  I just hope they don’t get too high so the point that I can’t reach them to get the cucumbers.  Maybe i can grow them up my porch where the Morning glories are growing instead.  I will train my squash to also grow up something, somewhere (though preferably not along my fenceline… I don’t want my neighbors thinking I’m rude for overtaking the fenceline) to maximize space.

I will be doing more succession planting, start a spring garden outside earlier (remember I moved here in May, so I didnt’ get my garden in as early as I like to), re-use that space later for fast maturing vegetables once the spring stuff has been harvested.  I’m also going to expand my garden space.

‘Sugar pie’ pumpkins will be going in so I can make use of pumpkin, and some larger pumpkins will be going in for roasting seeds and having out front as a harvest decoration.

Anything that dies will be hacked off at the ground and the roots will be left in to nourish the soil.   My husband is going to try and build me two shelves to hold some of my herb plants in one of my kitchen windows, high enough to keep out of the reach of our kids and to keep out of my way (I use suction cups with hooks on the lower window panes to hold lightweight but frequently used stuff)

Next year I’d like to grow a butterfly garden for my daughter (well, I’ll actually make this her garden, she wanted something of her own so badly this year!).  My chinese lanterns never took off this year (I wonder why?) but I want to try again next year so I can dry the lanterns and add them to our fall/harvest decorations!

I’ll also need to look into space to grow food for rabbits – one more hutch and we’re good to launch our meat rabbit production and start stocking our freezer.  Chickens may come next spring if we have the coop ready.

Preserving the Harvest

Boy has our kitchen been hot the past few days.  We visited a family orchard near where we used to live in Erie MI and came home with tons of potatoes, apples, pears and peaches that I’ve been putting up for the pantry.  Tonight I promised my husband an apple crisp, then I want to make some pies to freeze.  I’m also going to can apple pie filling.  I may be out of apples at that point, but on Tuesday we’re going back to pick up another couple bushels of apples.  I’d like to also make apple sauce, fresh juice (to drink now, not to can), and put up some apple slices.   We tend to only buy in season fruit, so apples are one of those treats we usually only buy in season beacuse they’re so expensive any other time of the year (not to mention not fresh!).  If time permits, I’d also like to put up the rest of the tomatoes from my garden I have sitting here before it’s too late, then I have 60 lbs of potatoes to peel, dice and can!  I finished the peaches we had yesterday, and finished the pears this morning.  I’d like to cook up a few whole chicken, shred the meat and can it as well for an easy grab when it comes to chicken salads and pot pies.

If anyone is familiar with the Erie area, this orchard is small and family run.  They have amazing prices on their fruit.  They are located on S. Dixie Hwy near the I-75/Summit split.  Go S. on Dixie and they’re right before the split on the right.   Please visit them if you can, I’m sure you’ll be pleased with their pricing and the fruit is just delicious!  They’ll continue to have more apples and other produce, and plenty of pumpkins as they become available.

Garden update and apple tree

I have ears of corn forming!  Green beans are coming into full swing, as are the cucumbers and tomatoes.  THis is another exciting time for me – time to start feeling better by eating veggies fresh off the vine, and time to start saving money from outragious food prices. 

My birthday is coming up next week and my hope is to use birthday money to buy an apple tree.  From the reading I’ve done, a dwarf variety can be kept in a container, and considering we’re renting this house and not sure how long we’ll be here I don’t want to plant a tree that we may not be around to eat from = it can take 3-5 years for some trees to bear edible fruit.  If I get a dwarf variety that has more than one variety of apple, I should only need one tree for pollination purposes.  Or I can get two or more trees.  I have yet to see if any local nurseries carry them other than WalMart and The Andersons, but I’d rather support a locally owned private business before a big box store and I’d probably get better quality and service, also.  Trees look to be around $24-35 each, I don’t know what a container is going to run me I’ll see I guess.  Considering apples are the most expensive fruit we usually buy (aside from grapes!) I’d love to have a way to cut that cost in the fall, also.  Speaking of grapes, next year I want to get a couple grape plants to start, my husban wants some berry bushes and all of them can be kept in containers and move with us whenever we move.

I’m imagining no dependence on the local store for vegetables and fruit, at least in the summer/fall.  I’ll let you know this year how well my indoor garden works out to provide us with fresh veggies through the winter and maybe, just maybe, I can have no dependence on the local store for vegetables year-round.  Fruit, probably (unless I freeze a ton of fresh fruit during harvest season once we get fruit trees/bushes).  But we’re going to see how sustainable our little city dwelling can become because I’m getting fed up with the cost of food and this is one thing I know I can do to help recoop SOME of the cost (if only to put it in our gas tank!).  We have a nice walk-in attic with a lot of space in it for tables and lights if I end up needing to use it.  I’m hoping that with all the windows in this house (18!) I can find enough good sun spots to not need extra lighting but with the amount of veggies I want to grow, I may very well need extra lighting.

As I am forming this homesteading ministry I’ve mentioned before, I came across a thought… The word self sufficiency, to me, brings up an image of someone living life dependent only upon themselves.  I desire a self sufficient lifestyle.  Then I realised I cannot be truley self sufficient without the Lord.  I depend upon Him for so much… Maybe that term doesn’t fit into my lifestyle.  With this being a ministry I want to include the love of our Lord into everything I do.  I’m trying to write down my goals and description of what i’m trying to form, utilizing bible verses to show people how the Lord has designed us for this type of a lifestyle, and how it is pleasing in His eyes.  I’m having a lot of fun finding suitable chapters and verses in the bible that apply for examples.  I’ll share my findings one of these days, and more of my thoughts on a Christian and homesteading lifestyle.  For now though, it’s time to rest my weary eyes.  It’s been a busy past week or two and everything is starting to catch up!

Why I think things are only going to get worse

A reader questioned why I felt things would get really bad and asked me to blog about it.  So, in the spirit of homesteading here is why I think things are going to get worse, and what we are going to do about it.

 

The cost of everything is rising, while jobs are being lost, overtime is reduced/impossible to obtain for those who have jobs, and it’s hard if not impossible for people to keep up with the rising cost of everything, especially those who were living paycheck to paycheck before.  Businesses are going out of business, crops are being flooded out, massive recalls on meats and produce are making people sick and costing businesses lots of money, our dollar is weakening and no one is doing anything about it.  I’ve never been the type to expect someone to make things easier for me, so now the prices rise and instead of asking what is the government going to do, I’m asking myself what can *I* do to ensure my family survives, and what can *I* do to help those in need who live in my community.    I don’t read the books and articles about peak oil, ‘the long emergency’, or any of the things people predict will happen to our country.  I do read threads on forums where people are commenting, but I see enough around me to know what is already happening.  I truley believe that the economy is going to continue to get worse for quite some time.  I’m not surprised to see the cost of gas continuing to rise.  Instead of complaining about it, we limit our trips or simply don’t go places if we can’t afford it.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see gas get above $10 a gallon, and soon.  Even the prices of bare basic food necessities (milk, vegetables, flour, meat, etc.) are rising, making it hard for those who have always cooked from scratch, to be able to do so.  While cooking from scratch is something that people are turning to now to save money, unless you garden and grow your own meat your grocery bill is STILL going to continue rising with basic food needs.

 

We live on a fixed income due to my husbands disability.  I have to be home to care for my husband and have been asked not to work outside of the home by his doctor.  As a result, this severely limits the income we have each month.  The income we have is less than what my husband had coming in when he was able to hold down a job, and we were living paycheck to paycheck at that point. Occasionally he’d score some overtime and we would have some extra cash coming in but more often than not, the paycheck would be spent before payday was over, on bills.  Now we’re living on less with no chance for ‘overtime’ or extra cash.  I run a business from home which thank the Lord has been helping us get by.  We moved to the city, in a not so nice part of the city to save money on rent, be able to walk to stores or use public transportation to avoid having to travel 15-20 minutes to do grocery shopping or run errands.  Living in the city allows me a backyard, in which I can grow a big garden to feed my family, and raise small livestock (rabbits for meat, hens for eggs) to provide meat for my family.  The main cost of our grocery bill always has focused on vegetables, meat and the items I can’t make such as milk, flour and sugar.  I preserve as much of my garden harvest as I can by canning or freezing but have not been able to have a garden to sustain me until the next harvest.  Hopefully this year will be different.  But by being able to cut out vegetables (at least during harvest season, and cut out canned goods from the store and use homecanned) and meat (at least the bulk of it) we’ll be able to save money for the higher prices in everything else.  

 

How bad will things get?  No one knows.  I just need to be content with what I am doing right now to help my family and stretch our dollar, and not fear the future.  The Lord will NOT give us more than we can handle, I am confident of that.  We have to remain obedient and willing to be used by the Lord for His purposes.  At this point I am learning all I can about the things we can make and do ourselves.  I am also looking into the future and considering ‘what if’ we can’t afford to pay our electric bill or our heating bill.  How will we get by without electricity and heat?  There are many things I am learning about to ensure we CAN do without, heck our ancestors lived like that every day.  We can do it!

 

I was at the grocery store today and was stunned over the price of vegetables – two small green peppers were $1.99, a small bag of green beans were $3.49, cucumbers were still at an alright price at 2/$1 (however Walmart is charging them 78 cents each!!).  It’s obvious that ‘things’ (in terms of prices rising, jobs lost, businesses going out of business, income lowering, etc.) are going to continue to get worse for quite some time.

 

My biggest comfort in all of this, however, is knowing that the Lord is going to bring good out of this in some way.  We can’t guess, we can’t fight it, we can only do what we can to help ourselves and help our neighbor and be secure in the fact that God is allowing this for whatever reason, and He will not give us more than we can handle.  We have to set our sights on Him and live only for Him and not for the things of this world.  After all, for those who proclaim the Lord to be their Savior have a wonderful home awaiting them in Heaven.  A place where pain, suffering and sadness don’t exist. 

Do It Yourself Rabbit Feed

While looking into growing/making our own rabbit food for meat rabbits, I was pleasantly surprised by this:

http://homesteadingtoday.com/showthread.php?t=211220

The whole homesteadingtoday.com forum is SUPER!

Meat Rabbits – How to YouTube Videos

I think I’ve mentioned somewhere on this blog about my husband and I considering meat rabbits as well as chicken.  If not here, I know i’ve talked about it on my other blog as we were planning on doing it at our country duplex before moving.  Rabbits are not considered ‘livestock’ so they won’t fall under typical city bans like that of chicken.  They are a very healthy, very lean, and very easy to raise yourself meat. 

The only reason we haven’t gotten them here yet is #1 I want better fencing around our yard to keep stray cats and other nusances out of our yard, and #2 we need hutches.  Once we get those two things taken care of, we will begin.  My husband doesn’t like the idea of butchering rabbits we’ve raised – I can understand because I had them for 13 years as pets.   I dont’ like the idea of butchering anything, but to be quite honest with as bad as things are going to get I’ve been talking to my husband about hunting with him so we can get double the bounty (to our limit) on whatever we’re hunting.  He’s been good with duck and rabbit, and I think I could accompany him and handle killing something that we are going to use as food.  Better yet, I really think I can kill our own rabbits now.  A long time ago when we first began thinking about meat rabbits someone suggested that instead of breaking the neck or knocking them on the head, use a .22 and shoot them.  Put them in a box so they can’t move (a narrow one only as long as they are) and shoot them in the head.  Brilliant!  No big chance of a unclean kill and my BIGGEST thing about meat animals is I dont want them to feel pain before they die.  This is one way in which that can be accomplished, and I don’t need to worry about not hitting the right way, or not yanking hard enough, and no bruising of the meat.

We would most likely get a pair of lop eared rabbits for my children, something they could love on and have as pals so that they didn’t try to love on, play with or cuddle our meat rabbits.  I don’t want their hearts to be broken when the rabbits start getting butchered and the easiest way I can think of to prevent that is to give them their own pet rabbits, so they understand that the rest are for eating.  Then again, there may be no easy way to prevent a broken heart, but I am going to do what I can.  i also feel it is important for our children to know where meat really comes from, and to have the skill and thought to be able to provide for themselves.

Anyway, to help prepare me a little more I found these on YouTube tonight (my first time really getting into YouTube!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpwhOE74TMA Butchering and Skinning Meat Rabbits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3alV5xwwyE How to kill & prepare a rabbit part one (shows actual kill, may be graphic but if you’re planning on raising meat rabbits you’ll have to learn sometime!)