I feel that we eat very healthy compared to most of the population. Our suppers are pretty much all home cooked and from scratch. I make my own broths, and I plan to can tomatoes and make sauces and salsa this fall. We have grown quite a lot of our own vegetables this summer, and I’m trying out a winter garden this year. I started that pretty late so I’m going to try and not be too disappointed if that’s a bit of a flub though.

All that being said, we eat healthy, but we don’t eat a huge variety. We have lots of great tried-and-true recipes, but I find it difficult sometimes to get out of the comfort zone of recipes I know we all like, and try new things. There’s also a lot of vegetables we’ve never really tried. Not because there’s anything wrong with them, but because I know we like other ones. In fact, when I was looking over the list of vegetables that work well in a winter garden, I almost gave up on the spot simply because a lot of the vegetables on the list are things we just don’t eat. (Cabbage, swiss chard, beets, parsnips, to name a few.) But then I changed my mind and went ahead and ordered them.

While I wouldn’t consider Meredith overly picky, she’s certainly suspicious of foods she’s never seen before, and she doesn’t like leafy greens much (though she ate almost an entire bunch of fresh spinach from the garden to herself once!). I think a lot of it is a texture issue. She used to eat mushrooms and onions no problem, now she pulls out even little pieces from ground beef. If any of the above foods actually do grow this year, I obviously want them to get eaten. So I’ve been reading a bit about hiding vegetables in food. There seem to be two sides to the issue: those who feel it’s best to get vegetables in your kids any way you can, and those who feel kids should be exposed to lots of foods and that you’re not doing them any favours (or giving them much credit) by hiding vegetables in food.

I agree with both sides. I want vegetables to get eaten, but I want them to be seen and enjoyed for what they are too. I don’t agree with forcing kids to eat things they don’t like. We don’t have a one-bite rule of any sort, though there have been times I’ve encouraged her to try something. With Meredith’s personality, it often works best if I offer it to her and then drop it and leave the food in front of her. Often she says no, but then if I drop it she will try some and before I know it she’s done hers and trying to steal mine too!

My way of going about “hiding” foods isn’t so much about hiding as it is about masking flavours and textures. When having pasta, we’ve always cut up and added onions, peppers, zucchini, mushrooms; basically whatever we have on hand. But even that she will sometimes pick out. I was reading about pureeing foods and decided to give that a go this week. Meredith often helps me cook, so it’s hard to hide something when she’s the one adding it to the food processor. She still sees the vegetable, I tell her what it is if she asks, she helps me pick them out of the garden, and she knows it’s in her food. My plan is that as she gets used to the tastes, I can puree it less and less and hopefully eventually just be chopping it coarsely. We also still offer other vegetables that we know she does like at every meal as well, so she’s still getting lots of exposure to different vegetables.

So far, it’s been fairly successful. We made sloppy joes with zucchini, green peppers, carrots, and onions pureed into the sauce, and then corn and mushrooms  in bigger pieces. We had curry last night with lots of peppers, mushroom, and onion. I have a menu plan for the next week all ready to go, with plans to add things like cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, and most of the above vegetables to various ones. We’re going away next week, but when we’re back I want to try buying some vegetables that may be out of my comfort zone and starting to add those in as well. Hopefully this will help get all of us eating a larger variety of vegetables, not just Meredith.

This post is my contribution to Food Renegade’s Fight Back Friday this week.

Related posts:

1. Fight Back Friday
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3. Meal Plan

Potatoes from the garden.

I’d almost given up on getting any potatoes this year. I misread how to grow them. You’re not supposed to water them until they start to get leafy, and I had mistook that for don’t water at all. So we did lose a few plants with no potatoes. But I went out yesterday to check and there were lots! The big ones on top are Yukon Gold. The smaller ones are Russets. There were actually some nice big Russets too, but we ate those already. The Russets were a bit of an experiment. I put them in a spot that gets literally no sun and very little water. I didn’t think anything would grow, but we got a fair number of potatoes. I’m sad that I can’t use the same spot for potatoes again next year. Not sure what else will do so well. There are more potatoes to be harvested too, but the plants are still looking good so I didn’t want to pull them up until these ones are mostly gone.

These are paintings that Kris' grandmother (who recently passed away) painted. There are two or three in each package. I can't wait to get them open and find places to put them. Random toys in odd spots are just the story of my life right now.

It's a bit of an eyesore, but we got this pool for $3 last year at an end of season sale. It was regularly over $40. We kept forgetting to put it up while it was hot, so it might be too late this year but hopefully we'll get some use out of it. The hose hooks up to it and it sprays water in the middle.

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2. Snapshot Sunday
3. How does your garden grow?

Some of my potatos were looking ready to harvest, and after seeing Kyre’s I was really excited to see what mine looked like. I was disappointed to find nothing but tiny tiny potatoes, smaller than a marble. I only pulled one up, so I’m just going to water the heck out of the rest of them and hope for the best. They didn’t get covered nearly as high as they should have been, because I ran out of dirt and the dirt was getting so high it was falling off anyway.

Some things are doing really well though. I harvested broccoli last weekend. We had sticky chicken with fresh broccoli and peas from the garden. It was really rewarding to eat food that I grew.

There's already more broccoli ready to harvest back there.

Cherry tomatoes starting to fruit

Roma tomatoes

The butterfly flower garden, with my sunflowers in the back. I've seen tons of butterfly and bumblebees here already.

Delicata squash flowering

Corn and beans. The corn isn't growing as tall as fast as I'd hoped, so I have to stake all the beans. I haven't done that yet.

Snap peas

Zucchini

In other news, we’re off to beautiful Tofino and the west coast of the island for a few days with Kris’ dad and little brother. I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve been starting to feel a little queasy in the evenings though, so I really hope the actual nausea can hold off until after we get back. I’ll probably have lots of pictures when we get back. For those who have never been, it’s a beautiful place. It rains a lot though, or so I’ve heard. I don’t think it’s ever rained when we’ve gone, so hopefully our luck holds out this time too.

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My very first homegrown food ever! My family had a garden growing up, but this is different. We did all the work ourselves. It’s such a small thing in the scheme of things, but hopefully the start of something much bigger. Meredith and I shared the strawberry, and it was delicious. We bought some strawberries from the store later and they tasted so bland and had such a different texture. The only problem with growing my own food now is that the storebought foods won’t taste nearly as good as they used to!

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1. Cranberry, Orange, and Chocolate Chip Muffins
2. “Hiding” Vegetables
3. Roasted Herb Sticky Chicken

I also transplanted my tomato plants and started hardening them off. I didn’t realize how windy it was one day though and left them out during very heavy winds and two of them are looking pretty unhappy. From what I’ve read about this though, it could still be okay and I’m just going to leave them both and see if they bounce back. Then the last one, which I hadn’t really put outside at all yet, got knocked off a table by my cat and the stem broke. Again, I’ve read this is something tomatos can sometimes bounce back from too if you bury the stem in dirt, as they’ll sprout roots all along the stem. So I’ve done that too. I may not get any tomatoes this year though! My friend Kyre also pointed out to me that when sites say you can put tomato plants outside once they have developed two leaves, it does not mean the two first leaves. I had noticed some sites did specify it had to be two true leaves, but they looked real to me. Well, I know for next year now at least.

Almost everything else that I’ve planted has sprouted or is starting to. Here are some more pictures of the progress.

The biggest major change is that we got the extra slab of concrete in our backyard taken out. I don't really have any great before pictures, but here's the edge of it with the garden covered to protect it from dust.

Here it's been started.

The big pile of concrete that we ended up with!

And here's that garden now. I love how it turned out!

Originally I was going to use the side where the slab was for veggies, but the friend who took out the slab pointed out that something may have leached into the dirt underneath from the slab. I did some research and posted some questions on a forum, and the answers I got ranged from it was definitely safe, to it’s most likely safe but there’s a chance that heavy metals or toxins may have leached into the soil and we should get a soil test to be safe. Since I wanted to get everything planted before we leave, we decided to play it safe and plant our vegetables in the dirt that wasn’t under concrete and put flowers on the concrete side. I’ve ordered some Indian Mustard seeds, as I’ve read that it’s great for phytoremediation (using plants to suck up heavy metals or toxins from soil). I’m also going to plant sunflowers on that side, as they’re supposed to be good for phytoremediation as well. I did plant raspberries on the concrete side too, but they likely won’t have fruit until the fall, so we’ll get the soil around them tested later in the season after the mustard plants and sunflower have grown. The walkway is just tile we got really cheap off Used Victoria. They’re actually meant for indoors and so crack easily, but I wasn’t looking for a long-term solution, just something cheap that would do for now. A few of them have cracked already, but it doesn’t bother me.

Because I’ve changed the layout somewhat, I have less room for veggies, meaning my veggie garden is going to be a bit squished. Oh well, I’d rather have more different vegetable plants that each produce slightly smaller yields. I’ve put my tomatoes in containers and planted some potatoes out in front of the house to give a bit more room too.

Peas, my favorite garden veggie

Peppermint

Strawberries

My Russet Blue potatoes are doing great and have lots of leaves coming up.  I noticed that four or five of the Yukon Golds that my dog had kept digging up are starting to push up leaves, so obviously she didn’t kill them! I am so excited about that. I have some carrots, lots of beets, and most of my greens coming up. I planted some more carrots and mescluns today. The only thing that hasn’t really sprouted are my onions, which is disappointing. I planted the broccoli seedlings outside today, and started some new cauliflower seeds outside. I also planted some peas along the fence where the hydrangea used to be. I’ve started corn, squash, pole beans, melon, and peppers inside, which I’ll plant out in June, depending on how warm it gets. Before we leave I’m going to put black plastic or landscape fabric down in certain areas to keep the soil warm. One of the seed packages I got was a mix of corn, squash, and pole beans, but there were only 7 squash seeds total in the whole package! I had wanted to plant seven squash. So I planted them all in separate containers and am hoping for the best with those.

I am so excited about my garden this year! I can’t wait for fresh vegetables.

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2. Garden 2009
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One of the first things I did this year was to take out the azalea that was in the corner by the house. It was in a very shady spot, surrounded on all four sides by concrete, and it just didn’t do very well. I threw some wildflower seeds into the little patch where it was, and a few are sprouting, so they might grow.  One big problem with that plot is that it is already as high as it  can be, because there is a drain for rain there and it’s only about an inch over the soil now. So unless I dig the dirt there out, I can’t put new, nicer soil down. And I’m not sure it’s worth it anyway for this particular spot. I might try potatoes and mound the soil away from the drain, or winter spinach. I got some bleeding hearts to go in the side bed, and planted herbs all around it. I left the rhubarb in. The herbs are chives, English thyme, regular thyme, lemon basil, and parsley. None of those have sprouted yet. I think it’s because the dog runs in that bed. We’re going to Calgary in mid-May and my mom may end up keeping our dog there (long story). I may end up having to replant the herbs the day we leave or something in order to actually get many to grow. (Luckily I have extra seeds).

Before:

Azalea that never bloomed

Befores of the side garden. These are actually more like partway through pictures. Previously, the weeds were so thick and tall, they obscured everything around them and were up past my knees. I didn’t think to take pictures until after I’d cleared the worst of the weeds. (This is true for all of the before pictures.)

After:

The barbecue that we moved so we can take out one of the two concrete slabs that make up our patio. The two planters have peas and potatoes. The potato one doesn’t normally sit under the barbecue like that, but I had moved it because it was supposed to rain.

The rhubarb and two bleeding heart plants in the herb garden. We’d like to pull up the stepping stones, put weed barrier underneath, then put them back down and fill in between them with gravel. Alternatively, I might put some sort of evergreen groundcover in between them, though that would be more maintenance.

In the back corner by the shed is a part of the yard that never gets sun. I decided rather than fight it trying to find something that would grow, it would make a good spot for my compost bins. I got two compost bins off of Craig’s List for $25. One is filled to the top with sod, the other I’m using for food and kitchen waste. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep that big pile of sod that didn’t fit in the bin or not. I may cover it with a tarp and leave it to compost until next year. There’s a lot of dirt because we dug quite deep, wanting to replace the clay that most of the yard was with good soil.

Here’s a before of the corner across from the shed:

Again, the weeds were so tall and thick that we didn’t even know there was a rose bush in there until I’d pulled them out. The rose has been transplanted, and I also pulled out the little willow tree and freecycled it. This year I dug a bed out about 4 feet, and raised it up, and here’s the result:

From left to right: carrots, beets, onion, romaine lettuce, and mixed mescluns. The last plot I will probably do either chard or spinach, or maybe even divide it in half and do a row of each. Depends if Kyre has extra seeds. This bed gets a lot of morning sun, but not much afternoon sun. I wasn’t sure where to put the onions until I read they are great for deterring pests from carrots, beets, and lettuce. Perfect! There is a big plot of potatoes to the right of here too, but it didn’t end up in the picture. I’ve put up a fence around this whole thing for now. Otherwise the dog would destroy it. The potatoes were planted for two days before the fence went up and she managed to dig them up three times. I’m really hoping they’re okay. I just bought some chicken wire and used some sticks we already had to put it up. It’s not pretty, but it’s only for three and a half weeks, and the chicken wire can be reused for a chicken coop afterwards. If she really wanted to, she could get under it, or even probably knock it down. I’m hoping she doesn’t try because if she gets past it, I would probably have to start the whole thing from scratch again. The only problem with the fence is that there is no gate, so to get in I have to unwire the edge every single time. A bit of a pain, but I shouldn’t have to get in there too much before we leave in May since I can water from outside it, so I’ve decided it’s less trouble than figuring out a real gate of some sort. You can see where the potatoes are in the corner in this picture.

Down the side of the fence I’ve dug out a bed that will be for corn, beans, and squash. I’ll probably throw in a few sunflowers as well. It won’t have to be planted until June so it’s not quite ready yet and needs a lot more dirt still. 

Before:

Now:

Originally I dug it out three feet wide, but I changed my mind and decided I wanted it four feet instead. For the extra foot I put down newspaper and covered it with dirt instead of actually digging it out. Next year the grass and newspaper will have composted and can be tilled in. For this year, I’m planning on staggering the corn, etc by putting one close to the fence, the next closer to the other edge. Those ones will be planted right on the edge of where the bed is actually dug, so their roots have room to go down, but aboveground there should be enough room for the squash to spread out. Here’s a picture partway through expanding this bed so you can see what I mean:

 The last bed is still a work in progress. I plan on having butterfly and bee flowers and a hummingbird feeder against the window, and then putting veggies around the rest of it. Hopefully the extra slab of concrete will come out this weekend. I’ve got peppers, watermelon, cucumber, broccoli, cauliflower and raspberries to go in that bed. Once the concrete is out, I’ll need to go to the beach and get more driftwood, as I have none left after edging the other beds. Then fill it with dirt (I’m hoping I have enough to do that!). I will have to dig up the roses and hydrangea that are there in order to raise the bed. Hopefully they all survive being transplanted this time of the year. I plan to dig huge holes around them and hopefully I won’t have to disturb the roots too much to raise them up. The dog will be a problem for that bed too, but I have no more chicken wire, so I think I’ll start everything inside, and plant them out the day we leave. A good friend has said she doesn’t mind checking the garden while we’re gone, so I think that will be the best option. Once the slab is out this weekend I’ll post more pictures of that part of the yard. I think this post has gotten long enough though.

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I am enjoying gardening so much this year. I really loved it last year too, but I had a crawling baby and not a lot of time or knowledge, and didn’t want to spend much money. This year we have more disposable income and Meredith is much more independent and I have a good friend nearby who has been giving me lots of good planting advice. I’ll have to post pictures later, but it is so much fun to watch things sprout and to imagine all the delicious food we’re going to have (hopefully) this summer. My dirt is still not very good, and my dog likes to run in the beds, so I’m not going to get my hopes up for a huge crop this year, but even small amounts of everything would be really great. Plus, looking at my before pictures and seeing all the work I’ve done this year (and last) pay off is really rewarding too.

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The azalea in the corner by the house has been pulled out. It just didn’t do at all well in that corner surrounded on all sides by cement. We decided that rather than pull the cement blocks on the side out, we should leave them there, as that edge has cement on both sides and little would grow there anyway. Instead, we moved the barbecue there and the plan is to take out half our patio on the other side, which is the sunniest part of the garden so would open up a lot of space for other things. Along the fence up to the shed is pretty shady until late afternoon, and then gets sun for most of the evening. I’m not sure what’s going there yet. I was thinking lining the walkway with lavender or something else that smells nice. (Kris isn’t a huge fan of the scent of lavender, what else would make a good walkway liner that has a nice smell?)

I want to have a lot of veggies this year, and was hoping to keep them away from the house, but since my only really sunny plots are against the house that’s where a lot of them will end up. However, I’ve made the plot there huge and so will have butterfly and hummingbird flowers and plants up against the house, and then veggies closer to the lawn. As per my sister’s suggestion last year, I will also be putting some sunflowers along the house.

Kris and I also dug a bed along the side fence and I’m thinking I’d like to put corn, beans, squash, sunflowers, and maybe lettuce along there. It gets a lot of sun, which the corn likes, and the lettuce can get shade from the taller veggies. Then there’s a little bed in the back fence that only gets morning sun that will be good for anything that likes cooler soil. The back corner by the gate is the shadiest part of the yard. It’s in the south-east part of the yard so it really doesn’t get sun at all any time of the day. Rather than fighting it and trying to grow something there anyway, I’ve decided to make that corner my compost pile. All the sod I’ve dug up will go in there under a tarp, and we’ll get a real compost bin to use for food, etc as well. I’m hoping having a compost will really reduce our garbage output too. I try not to throw out all food trimmings, as a lot of it is good for stock and the local SPCA will take some of it too for their animals, but nevertheless it’s still a lot of waste.

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The other day I was searching for somewhere local that I could buy a fruit tree from for the garden. As I was searching, up popped a nice looking acreage with a nice house in Duncan. On a whim, I linked it to Kris. I didn’t really expect him to give it a second look, but he agreed it was pretty nice. And of course that set me to looking on MLS to see what’s available nowadays. We’ve been keeping a pretty close eye on the market for a while now, mostly so we know what’s out there and what the costs are so that if something perfect comes up we’ll know whether it’s a good deal or not. I linked him a few in Shawnigan Lake (which is closer to Victoria and much less commercialized than Duncan), and some of them actually looked like they might be worth a second look. A friend of ours agreed to drive us out there to have a look this weekend.

We have looked at places before, semi-seriously. But never with any real intention to buy. Again, it’s always been more so we know what’s out there and so we have an idea of how to read behind the lines when looking at real estate ads. The three places we were thinking of all have some positive points, but also some negative points. None of them seemed quite perfect. But, it’s a nice drive and the weather might even cooperate for a stroll around the area and a picnic with our friend.

Then today, it popped up on the listing my realtor sent us when I mentioned we were maybe thinking of looking at some places. The place. Two acres, an orchard, a greenhouse, a cute little cottage (slightly smaller than what we’re in now, but the land is big enough we could build another house one day, or extend the current one). The cottage is beautiful inside, with a wood burning fireplace, a raised oven (a big bonus for Kris, he’s always talked about wanting an oven like that). It has a garden patio (something I’ve always wanted). It is a five minute walk from the ocean and a marina (something Kris has always wanted). It’s walking distance to a little village with a bakery, shopping, etc. It’s an easy drive to Duncan or Victoria. And we can afford it. In fact, if we work it right and roll our current debt into the mortgage, we’d be paying less on a mortgage than we do in rent and debt payments right now.

Part of me feels like it is too good to be true. I called the number on the picture and it turned out to be the owner who has been trying to sell it on her own, and the realtor just listed it yesterday. She will be around tomorrow and can let us in to have a look. There’s a part of me that wants there to be something glaringly wrong with it. How could we go from talking about living here for the next 2-5 years last week, to looking at a place we both may fall in love with tomorrow?

Things always seem to happen like that for us. Sometimes it feels like we do things on whims, but it’s never done us wrong before. In fact, the last time was when I decided on a whim to apply to a housing co-operative. They advertise that they often have a three year waiting list. You’re supposed to send in an application and then keep updating it every 6 months or so. They recommend applying to many different ones for the best chance. I applied to one only (our first choice), but was pregnant at the time, and didn’t feel up to applying to any others. Six weeks later, we were accepted in the one and only one I had applied too. It was their only opening in over a year, and they didn’t have another opening until 14 months later.

The biggest complication about moving so far for me is that I have a community here. I have a really good friend who is the only person I know in person who feels exactly the same as me as far as parenting goes. Meredith and her son adore each other. There are other people in this area who I also like and who would help me out no questions asked if needed. A friend I’ve known for 14 years lives in the same city. What if I get pregnant this summer like we’ve talked about and I’m alone on a homestead with a baby and a toddler next spring? Am I crazy to even be considering that? Should we just pull out now before we’ve seen the place in person and put the MLS listings on our blocked list until after next year? And how would I ever get my garden to the point it could sustain us with a newborn and so little gardening knowledge? (My friend here has been helping me a lot this year with that!)

But then, there are these:

Honestly, could you say no? It’s always been my dream to have a homestead. Though part of that dream has always been to have one or two likeminded families on the same property or at least nearby. I guess that could come. And two acres for Meredith to play on? The ability to have some chickens, maybe goats or even a cow, maybe a pony. I don’t know how big two acres really is, but it’s sure a lot bigger than what we have here!

I’ll update tomorrow after we go see it. At this point, I know I wouldn’t be terribly disappointed if it did end up having something really wrong with it, because something perfect will come up. But on the other hand, maybe this is that perfect place we’ve been waiting for and it would be a shame to let it pass us by. With all the coincidences and perfect timing that has happened in the past before for us, I do believe things happen for a reason. But we control our own destiny and I think I’d regret it if we didn’t at least go look.

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3. Change

Guidelines:

1) Link to Green Meme Bloggers. (use image if you like)
2) Link back to whoever tagged you. (no need to wait to be tagged!)
3) Include meme number
4) Include these guidelines in your post
5) Tag 3 other green bloggers.

1. Do you use baking soda toothpaste or baking soda shampoo? If not, would you consider it?

I use baking soda shampoo. My toothpaste is not homemade but does have baking soda in it and I would consider it a “green” toothpaste.

2. Do you make any home cleaning products?

Yep, pretty much all of my cleaners are homemade. Love them! And it’s so cheap.

3. What is your top green issue at the moment?

I really want to start composting but haven’t found a good composter for an affordable price. It’s something we’ll start this Spring though, even if it means having to buy one of the really expensive ones. I hate throwing away vegetable trimmings and food scraps that could be composted. I tend to freeze a lot of our veggie trimmings and either use them when I make stock, or bring them to the SPCA for the animals there.

4. Given unlimited cash, what is on your fantasy green wishlist?

An acreage I can homestead on. I’d love some chickens, a couple of goats, maybe a cow, and a lot of land to grow our own produce.

5. Have you implemented any new green act/behaviour/product this month?

We sold our car and chose not to buy another one. We’re going to try a car co-op instead.

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