Backyard Gardening: Round 2

 I am not so secretly obsessed with my backyard garden.  My dad was the family gardener growing up, so a lot of this development comes from him.  He focused on flowers and grew beautiful gardens every single year.  Usually each year, they'd get a little bigger and take up more grass.  This is especially true now that I no longer live at home.  There aren't kids running around daily and tearing up the yard anymore!  

When I did live at home, my dad encouraged me to garden and even give me a place to plant whatever I wanted.  I remember growing cucumbers, trying to grow peas, corn, etc.  There was some mild success in that tiny garden plot.  Not everything grew and I fought a number of battles in an effort to get things to grow.  I learned a lot and became excited to do that more when I moved out.  

I've lived in a couple apartments and tried to grow an indoor container garden.  Mild success.  I definitely needed outdoor space in order to be more successful.  It turns out, bees are important and I kind of forgot about that.  So then I was excited to live in a house and actually have a yard!

Fast forward to May/June of last year (2022).  We had been living in our house for a couple of months and it was time to plant things in the ground.  I started seeds inside and was ready to transplant them.  I cleared an in-ground plot and planted zucchini, tomatoes, and some other things.  It was definitely more successful than my pitiful indoor apartment container garden!  I actually got tomatoes and a few giant zucchini before the squash bugs took over!  I loved the feeling of growing my own food.  After my first real garden, I learned:

1. Squash bugs are the worst.  But there are things I can do to deter them.  I had some strategies I could try during the 2023 growing season.
   
   
2. Green tomatoes at the end of the season can still be used!  I found out that if you pick all of your green tomatoes and put them in a paper bag with a banana, most of them, if not all of them, will turn red.  That blew my mind.  I wasted a lot of perfectly good, but underripe tomatoes.
   
   
3. Label everything right away.  You will not, in fact, remember where you planted things.

Lots of good things, only some of which I applied right away this year as I planted my second garden at this house.

This year, I upgraded my garden and, with my dad, built three more garden boxes using some old decking I had acquired from my local Buy Nothing group.  I love having the extra space!  And I've made sure to fill every bit of it.  This year, I'm growing:

• Strawberries (ordered live starts from CZ Grain through Amazon and so far so good!)
• Sweet corn
• Pumpkins
• Chives
• Tomatoes
• Bell Peppers
• Raspberries (from my local Buy Nothing group!)
• Cucumbers
• Green Beans
• Zucchini
• Carrots

I have recently moved my carrots out of their original pot and into my raised bed in the hopes that they'll be able to spread out more and get bigger.  They were definitely growing, but they were pretty small when I pulled them out of their pot!  

Raspberries are doing really well but are reaching the point where they're starting to look spent.  That makes sense though.  I just found out that raspberries are typically in season until mid-July usually.  Raspberries tend to spread though, so my plan is to go in and spread out the new canes so that we can have even more raspberries next year!  I also learned about ever-bearing raspberries or fall-bearing raspberries.  Maybe I'll look into those for next year (or to plant this summer to get fully established).

Zucchini is my losing battle right now.  I've had to pull a zucchini plant already, leaving one of my original ones.  But that one is starting to get overrun by squash bugs.  I have put out a jar of soapy water so that I can put bugs in there when I hand-pick them off my plants.  Another neighbor suggested taking a spray bottle of soapy water and spraying down the plants.  I have planted chives, which is a good companion plant, but that's still growing and probably isn't affecting anything right now.  My next moves are probably going to be adding garden netting over the top of my plants (creating a hoop cover) and putting in diatomaceous earth.  Surely between those two tools, my zucchini will survive longer?

I did better with labeling things this year, but not well enough.  I thought I was really awesome at growing peppers!  But I mislabeled them and I actually have grown tomatoes.  I feel a little silly for getting some tomato plants from Home Depot when I had four perfectly good plants growing in my bigger garden bed right now!  There are some green tomatoes sprouting, so I'm excited to get some tomatoes in not that much time.  Then I get to learn how to make tomato sauce!  And ketchup :). There are a couple of things I will do differently though.  First, I will make sure to pick all of the green tomatoes off of my plants before the first frost.  Second, I want to try to overwinter my plants.  Last year, I pulled my tomatoes out of the ground and put them in organic recycling.  But that seems like such a waste.  What if I could keep the same plants and continue their production or at least keep them alive through the winter so they're ready for spring!  

There are some cosmetic things that I want to do in my garden as well over time.

1. I want to put landscape fabric and woodchips down between the garden beds.  I don't need the grass there and I think it'll help my garden look nicer too.  
   
   
2. I'd like to place stepping stones from my front yard to my backyard so that I can start trickling into my side yard and front yard, if I'm able.  Every year, I'm planning to expand my garden a little bit more.  It's really expensive otherwise.

One thing that's new in the garden this year is a compost tumbler!  I've been wanting to compost since we moved in and I was gifted one this year when I made that desire known (thanks, dad!).  I'm still learning how to cultivate that soil.  I just found out I need to be adding paper and watering it when it looks dry as well as adding my kitchen scraps.  I might have some compost ready to add to the garden by the end of the summer.  Cross your fingers.

A lot of things are happening!  I love this garden and I love figuring out how to make it better and grow more things.  I'm excited to see how things develop for the rest of the season and what things will look like into next year!

Snow Days

This week we had three snow days in a row.  I'm struggling to think of a time when I've had that many weather-related days off in the past.  We got absolutely dumped on.  I think I heard the Twin Cities got about 15" in the span of two days.  This third snow day we got off because the roads were still so bad and they wanted to allow time to clean up.  

Well, I say "day off," but they were technically e-learning days.  That just means I had to post an assignment or prompt on Google Classroom and then be available to students if they had any questions or were having trouble navigating the day.  But it's definitely not a normal day of teaching, by any means.  Not even close.  About half of my students checked in online each day.  

I got to the point where I was literally sitting in my house thinking, "When are we actually going to get back to school?" and I remembered the early days of the pandemic when we were constantly told, "We're going back next week.  It's just two weeks away and then we'll be back."  I mean, we knew we'd go back to school sooner rather than later this time because we were only away for snow reasons, but still.  I found myself slipping back into some old habits.  I did some catching up on grades.  I did a lot of laundry.  I did a lot of dishes.  This time I played with my son and we worked on potty training, which wasn't a thing that was going on the first time.  But then I got restless.  I played video games for the first time in months.  I watched a lot of "trash" TV (my words, not an actual category on Netflix).  I didn't leave my house for five days straight (I went to the zoo on Friday and didn't go out again until Wednesday to shovel a way to my car, which I didn't end up needing for another day.

I'm really glad that I like being home.  For some people, home can be a miserable place or just a spot to lay your head at night-- nothing special.  Home is where I thrive because so much of what I like to do is home-based.  But sometimes that makes it hard for me to actually want to leave my house.  This week I felt myself getting nervous about going back to school, which was interesting to me because this year is so much better than last year.  I don't feel like I have the level of school-based anxiety that I did last year.  But I still wasn't exactly looking forward to going back.  When I get to stay home, I love the routine I get to have.  I love my slow mornings and having time.  I love seeing the house get gradually brighter as the sun comes up.

We only have one day of in-person school this week and I'm already mourning the loss of my slow mornings, though I did try and hang on to some of that today.  I lit a candle and drank my coffee while adjusting my slides and plans for today.  I still have my Christmas tree up and I have string lights in my front window-- they look so beautiful in the dark living room, they just make me happy.  I like my job a lot, but I'm really glad that I love being home and creating a life for myself and my family there.  I love that I have a source of joy outside of work.

Snow days are nice and winter break was truly soul-lifting.  I'm ready to go back to school now and I hope I'm in a better place to inject more positivity into my school life.

Starting Some Resolutions

It's been a while since I've blogged... anywhere.  I used to keep up a blog about reading and such over at "...It's Like a Whirlwind Inside of My Head..."  The last time I wrote there was about two-and-a-half years ago after the birth of my son.  Like, I have a whole toddler now.  I talk to him and he talks back to me in full sentences.  Just wild.

Any way.

The thing about that blog is that it was created in part for a class I took back in 10th grade-- so when I was 15-16 years old.  I just celebrated my 29th birthday a week ago.  That's a long time to be writing, even off-and-on, in the same place and doing the same thing.  I want to get back into blogging, but I think I'm in need of a fresh start, a fresh topic... just something new.

Here's my life situation right now: I'm a mom to my two-and-a-half-year-old son, I'm married to my high school sweetheart (we've been together for 14 years, married for 6 of those years), we bought our first house just under a year ago in a neighborhood that is new to both of us, I'm about to enter the last semester of my Masters program, and I'm in my 6th year as a high school English teacher.  I'm at the point where I'm feeling pretty secure in my professional life and I'm ready to shift away from centering my identity on my job and things that support my job.  I love what I do, but I'm more than my profession.  I want to take time to celebrate the other parts of my identity and share other parts of my life.  That's what I'm hoping to do with this blog.  

Writing here is supporting the resolutions I have set for 2023.  I've decided that it's silly to wait until January 1st, so I've actually gotten started on several of my resolutions already.  Since my resolutions will largely be the motivation behind the things I do this year, I want to share them here.

1. Learn how to do something new around the house.  I'm learning how to use power tools and make things to help make our house a better place to live.  I've got some big plans!

2. 365 days of gratitude.  This is something I've been doing in my journal, but I have been doing this publicly through my Instagram.  I think sharing what I'm grateful for publicly might make the practice more meaningful.  I think that's what I'm trying to figure out and experimenting with here.

3. Successfully cultivate a sourdough starter.  I tried this summer and I just couldn't get it.  But I'm not giving up!  Sourdough is delicious.

4. Complete 5 exercise programs through Beach Body.  I started this early in the year and while I haven't been as consistent as I should be, it's already improvement that I keep back to these programs.  I like the choices in programs and I like the community I've found where we support each other.

5. Get my first tattoo.  I've wanted to do this for a while, so I want to stop putting this off and just do it.

6. Learn how to preserve food.  I started a garden this past summer, but I want to get into the habit of regularly making recipes and canning things so we can use every part of the harvest we make.

7. Learn how to make food items I would normally buy out of convenience at the grocery store.  This is related to number 6.  I have ketchup and pasta sauce in mind.  This could help us save money, use what we grow in our garden, and make healthier convenience food.

8. Find the best farmer's market in my area.  This will help me explore my area more and also support local farmers!

9. Take up blogging again.  Check :)

10. Explore 10 places in my neighborhood and around Minnesota that I've never visited before.

11. Get my nose pierced.  Another thing I've wanted to do but have repeatedly put off.  No more!

What was important to me when it came to making this list is that I stayed away from numbers as much as possible and that I focused on things that I've always wanted to do but have put off for any number of reasons.  I'm hoping that this will help me embrace who I am outside of teaching and once my Masters program is complete and no longer taking up all of my available time.  I'm really excited for what is to come in 2023!