sb country n news-homesteading

SB COUNTRY N NEWS-HOMESTEADING

liberty hill living magazine

now that we have moved
i guess i dont get to homestead anymore
now that we dont live at the country n anymore

now
i get up each morning
go to my garden plot at the gardens
carrying my container of compost materials
say hi to the four chickens there
dump the best of the stuff in the container
over the fence to those chickens
lucky girls
the rest
i dump into the compost piles thats maintained there
its 9 piles that are 4 ft x 4 ft x 4 ft each
i sometimes will stir down into the pile
just to feel the heat and see all the worms working
like crazy

then over to my garden i go
i put my shadow in my garden as much as possible
looking for problems like unwatered plants
insect infestations
varmint damage
lucky for us we dont get too much of either of these
just think you can garden here without
ever stepping onto a mound of fireants
or
get bitten by mosquitoes

after inspecting things well
i hand water my garden
i try to do this at least twice a week
it reduces water use
it makes me come to the garden and make sure
its all ok

ill also harvest things if they are ready
right now thats broccoli swiss chard kale spinach
arugula lettuce mix cilantro carrots beets sweet peas
green onions if i decide to pull them early
before they get big

for onions i planted mostly the texas 1015 yellow sweet onions
they seem to be short light and hopefully will do well
here
i have close to 150+- of the different onions
i have 3 other varieties planted
including a red variety

i also while i am there stroll through the garden
looking at the other 20 plots
sometimes i run into another gardener
i stop and visit with them for awhile

i also commonly will walk down through the orchard
where there are numerous different citruses
bananas mulberries pomegranates avocados to name
some of them
ive been known to reach up and pluck one
for my immediate consumption

fresh flavor is the best

so i can spend a few minutes there
and
i have been known to spend over two hours there

usually once a week
i volunteer there for 2-3 hours
doing whatever the garden manager needs done
like
making a bed to plant
planting veggies
harvesting veggies
putting down mulch
putting out fresh compost
organically treating veggies for insects
enjoying every minute of it

the produce from the central plots are donated to
food kitchens

then im off to do whatever i want the rest of the day

like the new 310 gallons of rainwater catchment at the school where i
volunteer at once a week

recently
i was able to access this article in the liberty living magazine
where they interviewed me about my garden at the country n in texas
here is the link
the section on my interview is about half way down the page

yes
we are no longer homesteading
but
well
we sort of  are
santa barbara style

mudslide update
hwy 101 due to be opened on monday
one local school district carpenteria opened back up
the mudslide area is still blocked off from folks going back
20 dead 3 missing 127 houses destroyed 254 damaged
it will be years before this area will if ever brought back to normal

thatcher update
he is unhooked from everything
he is now in a room with mom and dad

here is his gofundme account
#thatcher strong

the organicgreen doctor

is this homesteading

IS THIS HOMESTEADING
well not really
its quasi homesteading

in our garden we grow just enough that we consume
most of it and only a little is left over to save
especially after we give some of it away

i planned it that way so we would not become overwhelmed
by the production
like what almost happened when all our tomatoes came in this year
we were eating tomatoes for breakfast lunch supper and snacks
and still had left overs
so we put most up in the freezer to be used later for cooking

the rest of our veggies we can usually eat up as we go
except of course the potatoes onions and garlic which we store
when we harvest them in the late spring

here eg is our garlic chimes
i wove all our garlic together and have them hanging in our
bbq area
when we need garlic we just cut it off these woven garlic chimes
these will last us well into this time next year
its hard to use a hundred garlics in a year but we try anyway

here is a picture of my lunch sandwich i have every day
thats fresh tomatoes fresh squash fresh onions and usually
we will add cucumber and malabar spinach to it
what a delicious meal this is
it will be sad when this hot weather shuts down the cuke
squash and tomato production

this is an eggplant dish from mollies primi platti cookbook

the last two weeks or so we have been pretty much eating
a vegetarian diet by eating only out of our garden
since we are producing cukes beans tomatoes squash
okra bell peppers poblano peppers jalapeno peppers egg plant
malabar spinach arugula swiss chard pursalane and soon to be peas

yes this is best time of the year for our diet here at the country n
and our pocket book
garlic $2-3 a head
onion $2-4 a piece
tomatoes $3-5 a piece
eggplant $3-4 a piece
squash $3 a piece
lots of small tomatoes okra beans
all organic of course
the garlic is worth close to $300
the onions are worth close to $900
so yes this is the favorite time of the year here at the country n

oh this is a mother in law melon
i call it that because my mother in law comes to visit every
summer so i plant her a couple of cantaloupe plants just
for her

reminder if you want fall tomatoes
the next 2 weeks is when you plant them
some nurseries have them
you plant them mulch them well and put shade cloth over them
this protects them from the hot summer sun
keep them watered well this summer
for a good fall crop
if we have a warm fall late winter you can have tomatoes late
into december

you can also if you have an indeterminate tomato take the vine
and cut it off and bury part of it in the garden bed still attached to
the original stalk
when new roots have started then cut the vine away from the original
stalk
then care for this with watering mulching and shade cloth

yes i love this quasi homesteading here at the country n

the organicgreen doctor