Gardening Days Part 2: Raised Vegetable Bed

FYI: This post is going to be a picture parade!

Our amazing zucchini plants!
We have way more vegetable plants growing, sprouting and seeded than yard plants. First up is our raised and covered bed, which was made with some scrap wood and vapor barrier my dad gave us last year. You can see the post here. We've made a few adjustments to the original design, such as attaching small pieces of wood to hold the plastic frame down. After using this cold frame and growing veggies in it for 2 seasons, we would probably design it totally different. For a starting point, it was a great learning experience.
Here is a picture that we took in the fall. To be honest I was happy to reuse material, but I thought the outer boards were a bit ugly. So an idea started forming...
Here is the after pic! We invited over family and everyone took part in painting the outside boards. Everyone had fun free handing it and painting whatever they wanted.

What you will need to paint your raised garden bed:
-White outdoor primer (paint the outside boards carefully and let dry)
-A variety of acrylic paints, paint brushes, a blanket to put on the ground, a fun group of people and a great imagination!

This is a wonderful project for children with adult supervision of course. It encourages interest in growing fresh foods! My lil one constantly looks out the window or runs outside just to look at his artwork. I didn't realize how much of an impact this would have on him, he just loves that he painted something outside. The added bonus it looks beautiful compared to the boring old wooden boards they once were!





My son's beautiful choice in colors!


My lil one took this pic of me this morning when I wasn't looking! My hair is getting so long you can't even see my face in this photo! I think I was pulling some baby slugs out of the garden (our major pest this year). I'm just grateful they are not those big, ugly slugs! I won't touch those things.

Here are the vegetables in the raised bed...
Green Bush Beans that are constantly fighting to survive against those slugs
Cucumber plants that I had to purchase as starts. I planted Spacemaster seeds, but they never came up.
A lettuce mix that included parsley, basil, swiss chard and 4 different types of greens! This was my first time trying out seed tape, which is basically seeds placed in bio-degradable tissue that you plant out in the soil. Saves you time, plus the small seeds that can be hard to work with are spaced evenly within the seed tape. I had mixed results with seed tape so far. The first growth only grew half the row, but the second growth seems to be sprouting well.
Baby strawberries on the way!
The strawberry plants...with a yummy red berry ready to be eaten!
First strawberry of the season, picked by my lil one. We shared it, and it had amazing flavor!
Since taking these photos a few days ago, I've planted some radishes (only a 20 day crop!) and 2 more lettuce mixes. Hopefully in a couple weeks we will see some sprouting!

So ends the tour of our raised garden bed, up next is my container gardening! I have about 20+ large containers full of veggies!

Berries, Apples and The Fair...Oh My!

Leftover Berry Crisp! MMMMmmm
I have so much to share from this past week and weekend. First up this delicious Berry Crisp! I officially did my last blackberry pick last week. The berries were either over-ripe or a bit under-ripe, not like in August where almost every berry was perfect. The squishy over-ripe berries were great for the berry crisp though.

Before I give you the recipe I have a hilarious story to share. I was picking the berries when I started hearing voices coming from the corn field behind the blackberry patch.

I see these 12-13 year old boys destroying someones corn crop. Throwing corn, ripping the plants from the ground, stomping on them, so I had to do something! I kept thinking about what if that was my crop, my hard work and my income. I hear them talking about how "badass" they are for sneaking in to the field, so I hide behind the blackberry bushes and yell out "hey there are little boys ruining the corn! Hunny call the owner and the cops they are trespassing and destroying property." They heard me, got very quiet and then bolted. As they were running away their cool, baggy jeans started falling down. Oh it was the most hilarious thing I've ever seen! I officially felt old and awesome!

Okay back to this recipe, which was made on a whim and AMAZING! The best part about this recipe is it can either be baked or eaten raw. It's delicious both ways!

Maggie's Lovely Berry Crisp
2 cups of Blackberries
2 cups of Blueberries
2 Peaches (optional)

(Topping)
1 cup of Almond Flour
1/2 cup of Dates
1/4 cup of Coconut
1/2 cup of Sunflower Seeds
1/2 tsp of Cinnamon


Directions:
Place the fruit into a oven safe dish. Then use a food processor to blend the toppings together. The topping mixture shouldn't be a super sticky consistency, so be careful with how many dates you use. Once done use about 1/4-1/2 the topping mixture to coat the fruit. Then take the rest of the topping mixture and spread it on top of the fruit, making an even top layer. Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes or until the topping becomes brown/crisp. If you choose to eat it raw, then forget about baking it and dig in or place it in the fridge for 30 minutes to let the topping mixture mingle with the berries.

Note:I also tried this recipe using Rice Krispies as an alternative to almond flour and it worked great. I was all out of almonds and Rice Krispies worked amazingly well. You can also play with these measurements, since I threw everything into my food processor and the measurements listed are estimates.

Apple Harvesting
A couple days after blackberry harvesting we went apple picking! My cousin's neighbor was generous enough to share from his tree. There were so many apples hanging off the tree we didn't have to use the ladder we had brought with us. My sister and I picked for maybe 30 minutes and were able to harvest three big boxes of apples.



We don't' know what type of variety this apple is, but they are crisp and tart, perfect for pies and dehydrating. Speaking of which I used the dehydrator for the first time!
Apple Chips
If you are going to attempt this then I recommend you read a dehydrating guide, just in case you run into problems that I do not cover in my directions. I know I had a lot of questions that needed answers when I attempted this.

Directions:
Wash, peel, core and slice apples into 1/4-1/2 inch thickness. You can do this by hand or you can use an apple peeler/slicer. It can be easier, since slicing the apples is a bit tricky in terms of keeping them a similar thickness. While processing your apples place all slices into a bowl of water/lemon juice. The lemon juice helps delay discoloration. Once done drain and rinse the apple slices. Place them on a dehydrator tray. Dehydrate for 8-12 hours at 115 degrees. I did this just before bed and woke up to apple chips! If you are unsure whether your apple chips are dry enough for storage, take a chip and tear it apart. If you see any liquid then they are not dry enough for storage. If they are crisp and/or leathery they should be fine.

Note: Some dehydration guides tell you to blanch the apples in hot water before dehydrating to cut down on the drying time. We didn't do this and they worked out fine. I might try this step next time to see if there is much of a difference. Also other recommendations are to dry the apples at a higher temperature, but I wanted to keep it lower to not kill the enzymes.

This was an experiment for me and my guy, since we had never made apple chips before. We cut about 3 Excalibur trays worth of slices, which made about 3 full mason jars for storage. As of last night they were all gone! Delicious, and flavorful!



The Fair
A playful baby goat
We had our local exhibition/fair over the weekend. We spent about 5 hours there on Saturday and had so much fun. I really think it deserves it's own post since there was so much to see and do. I'll give you a sneak peek though....
We toured the animal area and saw lots of demonstrations on how to properly care for farm animals, which was nice to see. Then it was off to the fair rides, where my lil one was fearless and tried out 5 different rides! Then we viewed the exhibition hall where there were competitions for everything and anything.
From the longest zucchini and I swear it was as long as my leg!

To the make an animal out of locally grown vegetables. I loved this teddy bear! So cute! It's made with potatoes, ripe and unripe blueberries and cherry tomatoes.

Until next post :) Enjoy!

Top Ten

I thought I'd do something a little different today and post my top ten list. I dreamt about doing this, which I think is hilarious and pathetic. Don't I have anything better to dream about other than blog content?!?! I guess not :)

These are in no particular order, rather they are all things that are making me happy at the moment.

1. Our Fall Garden

Our fall veggie garden has been planted and it's beautiful. The picture shows that we made a simple raised garden bed. We might do another raised garden bed with some stone/concrete slabs we found when digging out the yard for this veggie garden. It will probably be a flower or herb bed :D
Butter Lettuce
I planted quite a few veggie starts including kale, broccoli, butter lettuce, and romaine. There is about 24 plants in total planted. I hope to plant from seed some spinach, since it's only a 30 day crop. It's amazing that it can take only 30 days to grow spinach. Kale

2. Gardening Tips
I love learning about new and especially old ways of gardening. I find learning the old tricks of trade are really the most useful :) Here are some of the things I've learned from preparing a raised garden bed for this upcoming fall season...

If you are placing your bed on lawn or soil than you only need to add about 6" of soil mix. If you placing your raised bed on top of concrete, hard clay, or anything the roots of plant can't penetrate than you need roughly 9-12" of soil :)

We used a mix of our own compost, peat moss, and store bought organic topsoil. Try to find out where your soil is from and if it's been sterilized. Super important, so that your plants don't catch disease.

For fall planting know when the first frost of the season hits and count back from there to know when you should be planting. For example first frost hits mid October for us, so we will be planting our 30 day spinach crop anytime before mid September. Check out the above picture to locate your frost season in North America :)

3. Saving Plants

The little one and I did a wander through Wal-marts garden section and the plants were looking so sad being at many were at end of the season. We found these little guys though and rescued them! Four beautiful, small oregano plants, for only 50cents! We couldn't leave them behind and look how wonderful they look potted up together :) I've already used some in a soup and it was perfect in flavor!

4. Blueberry Basil Limeade
This has to be one of the most decadent juices I've tried. It would totally suit a special dinner or party. I think the basil gives it such a nice twist! I found this recipe on Gone Raw. I increased the basil, blueberries and lime in this recipe because I found it to watered down at first. Once I did that it was spot on, so you might want to decrease the water :) Just play with it and you'll find what you like best, so worth it!
Here is what I did...

2 cups of blueberries
6 large basil leaves
1/2 a limes juice
1/2 teaspoon agave (or whatever sweetener your prefer)
2 cups water (or less to your desired consistency)

Blend it up and serve over ice and garnish with some basil.
This juice of course does not have to be for special occasions like I mentioned before. It's a great everyday juice. My lil one LOVED it! He gulped it down and wanted more after :)

5.Spending Time doing Nothing
This is something I try hard to do! That sounds odd, but seriously when do we really do nothing these days. The past four weeks for us have been busy...I guess all of August has been non-stop, no wonder it's going by so fast. A couple nights a week my lil one and I will watch a special movie together that he has picked. Well last night it was Winnie the Pooh. This used to be one of my favorites as a kid, I'd always ask to watch it. It surprised me when I didn't remember the ending very well, which is a conversation between Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh. Don't worry this does have a point! Their conversation revolves around remembering to do absolutely nothing sometimes and just enjoy what is around us.

"Don't underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering" -Winnie the Pooh, A.A Milne

6. My Son's Cowboy Garden Project
Here are pic's...



It's coming to end this little garden. We've been enjoying it for a couple weeks now, picking here and there. We've been adding it to salads and toppings on veggies. My lil guy LOVED this project and I would totally recommend it to any parent. What's great about it is that everyday they get to watch it grow, water it and the sense of accomplishment is priceless for sure. In the end we get to eat the sprouts yum!

7. Breakfast
I've never been a huge fan of breakfast, but since incorporating smoothies, green juices and fruits/nuts I never want to skip it! I actually look forward to breakfast, not the clean up though. Who likes cleaning up their juicer, really?!
Here are some pretty picture's of breakfasts that I usually have during the week :) Fruit and Nut Breakfast Bowl with Blueberry Syrup
Blackberry/Blueberry Oat Milk Smoothie
Zucchini-Romaine Green Juice

8. Wire Jewlery
I love making making wire jewlery. I used to sell it online on artfire.com, but I found it wasn't really worth the fees per month, in comparison to how much I was selling. I did make some profits though, which paid for materials. Once I started working I totally stopped making new pieces because my time was so limited. I would have had to sacrifice other important things in my life to be able to do it, so away it went. I started making a few more pieces again, here and there. Mostly for myself or if a friend asks. It's something that I do enjoy doing because it's instant satisfaction.

Here are a few more of the pieces I've made :)
9. Blogging

I enjoy blogging because it's a medium in which I can express myself creativly through food and my life expeirences. I also found out quickly that it's a great way to connect with people, make new friends and be part of community of my interest. There is no way that I would be able to part of a large food community like this if I weren't online blogging. Another reason I blog is because it's my "me time." It's something that is seperate from being a mom, wife, friend, etc...I feel like I can be myself with no titles, roles or labels that I carry during the day.

There have been down-sides at times to blogging. Have you ever got sucked into the vortex of reading blog after blog, until you realize that you spent 2 hours just reading about other peoples lives. There are a couple blogs I have stumbled upon that leave me feeling like I am an ametuer blogger. These blogs tend to have perfect photos, good content, strong opinions and seemingly high education on varying topics. They leave me feeling inadequate, like their is no messy life behind their blog.

I am currently taking an online course that at one point will be discussing how women often compare themselves to other women. I guess in this case bloggers comparing themselves to other bloggers. Even though I have been blogging since 1999 having my own personal journal, I never felt as though I had to meet up to others expectations. Why do I sometimes feel this way now? Probably because I have moments where I compare myself to the seemingly perfect blogs. Leaving myself feeling the need to meet some expectation. Haha when did my blog ever become that important!

I realize I should take a look at the positive aspects of this situation. I should learn from these bloggers, appreciate what they have to share and I should learn to NOT compare myself to others. I also try to remember why I have my blog for the reasons I previously mentioned. That takes a lot of the pressure off and takes me out of that inadequate place.

Do you ever feel inadequate about your blog? Do you ever find yourself comparing yourself to other bloggers?

For some great blogging humor, check out these comics...they make me smile and laugh :)

10. Blog Awards
I was surprised and grateful when two bloggers decided to pass on awards to me.


Thank you so much blessedmama for the Happy 101 award! The award works this way, I list ten things that make me happy (done!). Then I pass on the award to ten blogs that make me happy :) If you've already received it and I mention you than just enjoy how much I appreciate your blog!

LittleMissBaker: This is my youngest sister's blog. She found something she is passionate about and I hope it leads her down a healthy, happy path.

Contagious Health: Melissa is compassionate, intelligent and fun blogger. I always look forward to her recaps, pictures and stories :)

What Run's Lori: Lori is insightful, inspiring, funny, exercising, delicious food making goddess!

The Way: Elle has one of my favorite blogs. She discusses important topics from health, wellness, spirtuality :) I love reading the articles she posts!

Bites and Bliss: A dedicated daily blogger! I admire those folks :) I feel like I get to follow her through a journey of healthy eating, exercise and life.

Raw Food Inspirations: I always try Pam's recipes, because she knows whats delicious!

The Raw Butterfly: Raw Butterfly is gentle, loving and kind. She posts helpful information and beautiful photos.

The(Teen)Age of Raw: A wonderful blog full of beautiful photos, stories about her life and eating raw as a teenage woman.

Rawkinmom:Love this blog because it's eating raw vegan through another mom's experience. Her family is amazing and she is so knowledgable :)

Rawdawgrory:I stumbled across this blog and I'm so glad I did. Rory is hilarious, educated and has amazing recipes. Not to mention him and his family are on a trek across the USA, talk about a journey :)


The rules for this award are, thank the person who gave you the award. Tell 7 things about yourself. Pass the award on to 10 bloggers you've recently discovered and you think are fantastic!

Thank you to Vegan And So Forth for the Versatile Blogger award!

7 things about myself

1. I have 3 sisters, but no brothers! Always wanted a older brother growing up :)
2. I have a degree in Social Work, my focus is in the mental health field.
3. I have moderate scoliosis aka my spine is curved. I have the typical S-shape curve, that you often see associated with scoliosis.
4. I broke my left wrist when I was 10 and my right ring finger when I was 12 both were during school related activities!
5. I do not have cable television. I watch movies in the evening sometimes, other than that the only shows I follow are HBO's True Blood and Grey's Anatomy.
6. I grew up living with my parents and grandparents. We lived on a large property where my grandparents had large gardens, and fruit trees.
7. I've travelled by car/truck, bus, train, ferry boat, passenger plane, canoe, kayak, hike, walked, ran, biked, but never by commercial airline!

I'm going to do what others have done with this wonderful award and pass it on to any of you that read my blog that have not recieved it. I know quite a few of you have, so if you havn't please do so because you deserve it :)