Earth Day 2022

 I wish we would stop and think about this planet that we live on more than just one day out of the year. It should be 365 days of Earth Day.

On April 22, 1970, more than 20 million Americans took part in Earth Day events, eventually leading to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The first official Earth Day was in 1990. In 2009, Earth Day was officially renamed by the UN to International Mother Earth Day. Organizers hope to plant 7.8 billion trees during this year’s Earth Day activities.

I think we, as a species, can do more than commemorate. It's estimated that more than a billion people, in over 180 countries, are believed to mark this day by holding rallies, planting trees and generally cleaning up the outdoors. I hope it's not too late. I have my own personal beliefs/fears on this subject.

Just in this year alone, I've witnessed some events that make me take pause here in my little corner of the world. From an unheard of, record breaking snow storm in mid-April in western Washington state to...

some major flooding that caused many thousands of dollars in damage, not just once this past winter, but there were 3 times that the Cowlitz River came over the banks...

to skies so filled with smoke that they turned yellow and blocked the sun for many, many days in September 2020...

and when we could finally see the sun, it was pink because of the smoky haze.

We've got to do better than this. We've got to be better than this.

I can only tell you what I am, personally, doing to change in my little slice of the Earth. First and foremost, none of this timber, on this property,  will be going anywhere unless nature takes it out.

Rather than buying everything that I need in the store, I've learned to grow my own produce. Today was carrot planting day. I think these 5 varieties, of which, one is a landrace, will fill my yearly carrot needs quite nicely.

I tend to purchase the majority of my seeds through Baker Creek. There is a reason for this. They sell only heirloom and OP varieties. What that means is that I can save seeds from any of these and they will grow true for me. If you want to view Baker Creek's website, click here.

So, why do I knock myself trying to get this area seeded in and planted? Well, that goes back to an Earth Day concept. Instead of purchasing vegetables that were shipped from all over the world, I want to save the fuel it would take (not to mention the pollution) and simply step out my door and pick what I may need for a meal. I'll be getting chickens up here soon. I'm going to have a rabbit or two. We want some ducks. We're debating on getting alpacas/goats or pigs.
I digress....
I garden. I make things from scratch. I try to lessen my carbon footprint in many, many ways.
Those are some of the things I do to try to save this planet.

We've no interest in removing any trees from this property.

We don't let anything go over the bank down to the creek below. We keep that area as natural and pristine as possible. I'm actually putting in fig trees to act as a buffer.

I discovered some old tires under my favorite cedar tree that we will be removing and repurposing into flower beds. I'll put them by the pig pen and plant them out with borage. These tires will not be going into a landfill. They won't be pretty, but they can certainly be used to grow flowers in.

When this fir tree drops it's cones and the seeds take hold, we won't be just pulling them up and discarding them. They will be transplanted into other areas on this property.

And I can't wait for these apples to come on! I'll be making applesauce (no more little plastic containers in the landfill), dried apples (no plastic waste). If we all take small steps it will, eventually, equal a huge step.

Happy Earth Day 2022.

End of April Garden Update 2022

 It's that time. I've had a bit of a growth spurt on my plants, so let's go stroll the garden and I'll show you what's growing on in there.

 
These are Concord grape cuttings that I traded for on Facebook. We dipped them in rooting hormone and put them outside after they started producing roots. We have our cutting production line going on in our shower. It's warm in there and we have a skylight so that was the best place to put them...and I can keep the cats out of them in there, too. It gets to be a pain to shuffle them in and out when we shower, but we only have polar berries left to go, so there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Polar berries are really cool. They are white blackberries. I was lucky to be able to trade for them.

These are our currant cuttings. I think that our freak snowstorm on the 10th may have wiped some of these out, but I think that there will be enough to survive that we'll be swimming in currants within the next few years. There's red, white and black ones. I'm only missing pink. On a side note, we discovered that we have a whole bunch of indigenous red-flowering currants all over this property. I saw them at Wilco. They are selling them for $20 each for a 2 gallon pot. I'm sitting on a goldmine!

In here, we have gooseberries and currants. If I get some of the gooseberries to go, I'll be quite happy.

I've had these two pots for years. The broken white one contains my ramps and garlic that I use for scapes. I have had these for like 5 years now and they never fail to produce. The one next to it contains my chives.
Behind that, in the upper right corner, that is the pot that contains my Jerusalem artichoke tubers. I'm still trying to figure out where I want to put them.

My potato bed. I wasn't sure if this would work or not. It seems to be doing just fine, including going through that snowstorm. We had leaves poking up, so we covered them in a layer of straw. The next layer will be a bag of mushroom compost. The great thing about this straw is that it simply breaks down and helps create soil.

This poor rhubarb has been through the wringer. We bought it when we lived in our old fifth wheel, the first year we gardened in the last RV park. I put it in one of my Trex grow boxes. It did fantastic in there. Then, we moved into this new fifth wheel and we moved it over and put it in a raised bed. The raised bed had the bottom fall out of it. The poor plant was traumatized. It did grow, but it didn't reach optimal potential...and THEN, we uprooted it and moved it up here where it sat in a bucket for a few months. That's when I decided that it just needed to go in the ground. I'm amazed at it's tenacity. It's still growing. It's going to look rough this year, but it should bounce back next year and be back to it's amazing self after that.

We cleared the old bullet casings and golf balls out of this hollowed log and I planted it with violas. Next to the violas, I put a pot of Night Sky petunias.

Night Sky petunias. These are my favorite petunias. They got hammered by rain and snow, so they haven't opened their blooms yet.

A pot of pansies because everyone just needs to have a pot of pansies. Pansies are edible, just as violets and violas are. I want to grow these out for a year or so and then make jelly with them.

In this bed, I have broccoli rabe, radicchio and bok choy. I need to start thinning. I practice the art of cramscaping, as you can see.

This is my bed full of mixed kale. You can see the Ragged Jack (also known as Russian Red) poking up in there.

Here's a look at my mixed kale bed. I have like 6 or 7 different types in there.

This bed has cilantro, spring rapini (broccoli rabe), black Spanish radishes and a yellow radish variety.

Mixed lettuce bed. I have around 10 different types in there. I mixed the seeds and broadcast them. I will use these for the 'cut and come again' method of harvesting.

The speckled variety is Drunk Woman Frizzy Head. Ask me how I know.

In this raised bed, I have red turnips and mibuna. Mibuna is a Japanese mustard green. It works great in stir fries.

The Egyptian Walking Onions are starting to develop their bulbils.

These poor garlic are like the rhubarb. They were planted, doing so well and then they had to be completely uprooted and replanted after they were up and growing. These are pretty tenacious little plants. I'll probably let them go another full year before I harvest them.

Bob planted out 100 multi-colored onion sets. We love onions in all forms, if you couldn't tell.

My peas are sprouting and starting to grow. We had to take the trellis down for now because of the wind. It just about wiped out my bucket of my most hard to find variety called Spring Blush. I was rather hacked about that. It seems I'll get just enough to come up to save seed from.

As soon as it dries out a bit, I'll have Bob go down and buzz this area with the weed whacker. But I still have beds galore to plant out with corn, squash, pumpkins, celery, celariac, etc. I'm not done planting by a long shot.

We still need to build out a pole bean area, too. I am growing out for Russell Crow (not the actor), so I'll need to keep those beans isolated and separated. With my own personal ones, I'll plant in blocks and save seed from those in the middle. Here's Russ' website if you're into cool and unusual beans. Tell him that Laurrie sent you. Also, if you're interested in joining any of my gardening groups on Facebook, here they are:

Heirloom Tomato Addicts Anonymous
Heirloom Bean Addicts Anonymous
Heirloom Pepper Addicts Anonymous
Heirloom Herb & Flower Addicts Anonymous
Heirloom Lettuce/Greens Addicts Anonymous
Heirloom Root Vegetable Addicts Anonymous
Heirloom Cucurbit Addicts Anonymous

Make sure to answer the questions if you want to join.

Moving on...

This is that big raised bed that was left here. I have it planted out with cabbage, broccoli, Walla Walla sweet onions and various beets.

Pink Lemonade blueberries (we're trying to figure out the perfect spot to put these in the ground after toting them around, in that same container, for the past 9 years). Behind that is my rosemary bush.

Once everything gets planted out, we can situate these benches, etc. This is at the very top of my terraced garden.

These are honey berry bushes that our old neighbor (from the RV park) gave us. I have no idea of what honey berries are, but I'm game to try. There's supposed to be 3 different types. She also gave me a boatload of different mints: chocolate, pineapple, lemon, apple and peppermint. I have a spearmint plant. I think I'm well rounded in the mint department. I expect that I'll be able to have some amazing tea blends come this fall.

I'm going to be swimming in strawberries if I can keep Rose and Sasha from running through them.

So many strawberries. There's also other random things planted out. Some of the things, I know, some I don't.

Here's one of those random plants that I have no idea of what it is...but it likes it there and, unless Bob takes it out, it can just grow. I'm okay with it.

I actually have a large growing area in my terraced garden. This is my raspberry patch. I have red raspberries, golden raspberries, black raspberries and purple raspberries. I just need white raspberries to round out the color spectrum. There are a lot of volunteer raspberries coming up. I need to get some lumber to corral these suckers somewhat.

The sage needs to be put into the ground. I think I've taken it as far as I can in a pot. It's in a 30 gallon pot and it's root bound.

I'm going to start a few more sage plants, as well. Sage is deer proof, or so they say. We'll see.

This is oregano. There are several that were tucked in here and there. I'm glad of that because I left mine behind at the old place after we put it in the ground. I think we've found this growing in 4 different spots so far.

Now, let's head over across the driveway, past the well, to the side of the bluff. (Rose, get away from the well!) I'll show you what's growing on over there.

We bought a fig tree! Bob cut the bottom out of that pot, we filled it with garden soil and we put it here on the edge of the bluff. Eventually, if the other figs take hold, I'll plant a row of them over here. Once it's established, we'll cut the pot off of it and let it go.

It's hard to tell it from this photo, but it's a pretty much straight 260 foot shot down to Owl Creek from that edge.

Now, into my plant 'nursery'. Not all of my peppers made it. I think we have a critter that is nibbling on them. They are ready to be repotted into bigger containers. I'm going to separate what I can so that I can make up for what has been lost.

I sure have some healthy looking baby tomato plants, though. Today and tomorrow, we'll work on repotting them.


So, that's the end of my garden tour. Let me know what you think in the comments below. Let me know what you'd plant in those empty raised beds that I have.

Thanks for hanging out with me for a while. We'll do this again next month.

Spring Frittata

 We decided to have a veggan meal today. Not vegan. It's veggan. Veggans eat eggs. It's spring. I have some fresh veggies in my fridge. I felt like making a quick meal and that would be a Spring Frittata. This is fantastic served with toast or with a green salad. We made a couple of pieces of toast from that loaf of bread I baked off yesterday.

This recipe starts out with a bit of milk and a cast iron skillet. It doesn't matter what type of milk. You can use whole milk (like I did), you can use 2%, you can use skim, you can use half and half...you can even use oat milk, if that's what you like! It doesn't matter. Just use what you have or what you want.

Next, you crack 6 eggs into the milk. I added in some herbs and freshly cracked black pepper before I mixed it all up.

I used a Penzey's Spice blend called Parisien Bonnes Herbes.This blend contains chives, dill, basil, tarragon, chervil and white pepper. It's absolutely delicious and it's right up there in my top 3 favorites from Penzey's.

Next up, I opted for some nice spring type flavored veggies. I used some spring onions, frozen peas and asparagus.

Just measure out your veggies so that they total one cup. 

These get cooked in a tablespoon of olive oil for about 7 or 8 minutes. You don't have to cook them that long. You could just sprinkle them over the eggs, but for Bob, they have to be cooked. I'm okay with that. 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Add your beaten eggs in. Sprinkle the top with 1/3 cup of cheese (again, whatever cheese you like will work). I used pepper jack. This goes in to the oven for 20 minutes and it comes out like...

This was our veggan dinner tonight. 

So, this dinner was completely from scratch and that includes the strawberry jam, as well.


Spring Frittata


6 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/3 cup grated cheese
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup total chopped spring onions, asparagus and frozen peas
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/8 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon Penzey's Parisiene Bonnes Herbes herb mix

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Whisk eggs with milk, pepper and herb mix.
In cast iron skillet, saute vegetables in olive oil for 5-8 minutes, sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add egg mixture, shake to distribute evenly.
Put in preheated oven. Bake 20 minutes.