Reusable Christmas

My parents were not the ones who taught me "eco-friendly" values. I picked that up from books, media, trips to parks, and my awesome elementary school. Slowly, as I started applying the lessons to my own life, my parents started to use reusable bags at the grocery store and put some food scraps into their green bin instead of the trash. Along the way, without anyone making an intentional decision, our gift-packing methods shifted. Slowly, we started to use less wrapping paper and more tissue paper and bags at Christmas (or as I think of it, the winter solstice celebration). Each year, we save the tissue paper and bags (and sometimes ribbons) to be reused next time. Each year, the pile of trash and recycling to be tossed after opening presents is smaller.

I am delighted about this shift. As I told my mother, this adds to my enjoyment of the celebration, rather than worrying about the environmental impact of wrapping gifts in disposable paper.

Baking bread

I recently read the book Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook from Scratch--Over 120 Recipes for the Best Homemade Foods, by Jennifer Reese. I'd always heard that bread is very easy to make at home, but this was the book that pushed me to actually try it.

The verdict? Everyone was right, and I have no need to purchase artisan bread ever again.

This bread is dense, with a thick, crispy crust, and I added poppy seeds and sunflower seeds for extra flavor. I brought these two fresh loaves to my parents' house for Christmas, and everyone seemed to enjoy it.

I will experiment with increasing the ratio of whole wheat flour to all-purpose white flour (the recipe calls for 1 3/4 C whole wheat to 5 1/2 C white), and with adding more types of seeds and nuts.

Jewelry making

I am writing this post in October, but scheduling it to show up after my family exchanges Christmas presents. This year, I was inspired to try my hand at jewelry making. The first step was spending two hours wandering back and forth in the jewelry and beading section of Michael's, and figuring out what the different tools and accessories were for. Second was picking out the colors and styles of beads I wanted to use. The third part, actually putting it all together, was surprisingly quick and easy.

Click on any picture to see it come up in a bigger size.

For my parents, I made three sets of magnetic wine charms:

And for my sister, I made a necklace in memorium of her beloved kitty, Sasha:

I was pleased to find a photo of Sasha in front of a window, making a glow around him that lends to the vintage feel of the brown pendant, beads, and leather strip. The beads match his orange tabby fur.

Pea flower

The first flower on the pea plants!

Never mind that it's December 22nd. We had a new nights of frost a few weeks ago, and now it's in the mid-60s again, so the plants are confused. The camellia out front is covered in flowerbuds and some are already opening. That's California, y'all.

Yard work

Went over budget this month on garden supplies, but my succulents needed a frost cover ASAP.

It's not exactly air-tight since the wooden planks below the balcony allow air flow, but cross your fingers for them. Once the frost passes (probably just another month, maybe two), I'll replant them into the big plastic bins as planned. I was going to do that today, but I broke my box cutter as I was shortening the sides of one of the bins. I'll add a new box cutter or maybe just a good knife to next month's shopping list.

I bought the frost cover at Pollinate Farm & Garden, my local urban farming/homesteading store (how cool is that?!). I also said hello to their beautiful chickens.

The hen on the right was really a gorgeous silver color. I am so looking forward to having chickens someday.

One other item I purchased: an impressive collapsible rake, allowing you to rake tight spots as well as store it more easily.

So I spent the afternoon cutting up branches that had fallen during the recent wind storms, and raking up a small portion of fallen leaves until our green bin was completely full. Being the gardening and organizing kook that I am, I enjoyed it!

Next year's gardening plan

Ate all the scallions and the last of the spinach this morning. The frost has arrived and they wouldn't have grown any more, as far as I could tell.

Speaking of frost, some of my succulents are struggling with it. I made a tiny greenhouse out of a translucent plastic tub for this one and a couple of other small guys. Crossing my fingers for them.

The pea plants should survive the winter fine and start growing pods next year. The parsley and dill should also survive, though I have been wittling them down stem by stem. Yum!

I spent yesterday planning my garden for next year. It was my first time making a formal plan, yet it was easier than I'd expected because my picky eating limits the variety of plants I want to grow, and I have even fewer containers to house them all. (I'm growing solely in containers because the soil here is poor and compacted, and I don't know when I'll move and would be sad to leave my plants behind.)

I live in USDA zone 9b. The first frost date is roughly December 15th (though it came a week early this year), and the last is about February 15th. This means that I have a very short winter to deal with and will be able to resume vegetable gardening in just a couple of months!

I am setting aside my largest container for a good crop of scallions, with successions planted every two weeks. I adore scallions, and even with the largest tub devoted to them, I know that I'll still be buying more from the store.

The rest of the containers are much smaller. The one that was sharing space between spinach and scallions will be in partial shade and grow successions of spinach only (seeds planted every 2 weeks in the spring and fall, since summer will be too hot). I will retry a couple of cucumber starts in the round pots. The dill and parsley and pea plants will be replanted in the same pots as needed.

I would like to add carrots, radishes, and potatoes to my garden, but I need more containers for them. (In particular, deep containers for the carrots and potatoes.) I'm in a serious money crunch right now and can't afford to buy more.

On the bright side, I found a giant plastic tub abandoned in a park and it will be a perfect new home for many of my succulents in small individual pots. That will make it easier to water them and move them when I eventually move to a new place. Plus, many of them are currently living in soil that's 1-2 years old and they need a nutrient boost. I'll do this transplanting next time there's a warm afternoon...

First meal from my garden, and compost progress

A delicious milestone: I cut the spinach leaves and ate them with pasta and a little olive oil and spices. There's one more portion left for tomorrow. I actually should have harvested the spinach a couple weeks ago, before I left for vacation. But even if the food doesn't come out perfect, it's still so satisfying to eat something you grew yourself!

The scallions (the skinny stalks growing between the spinach) will hopefully be ready soon, too. In the next planter over, the parsley and dill are looking healthy and delicious as well.

I was eager to open the compost bin and see the worms' progress while I was gone. I was blown away -- nearly everything in the bin is already broken down into dirt. Only the bigger and more recent additions are still whole. It smells earthy and good and soon I will sprinkle the finished compost into the potted fuschia and fern.

Garden Update

The most exciting update is that I finally was able to buy worms for the compost bin! There seems to be a shortage in my area, but I picked them up when I visited my parents.

I have a lot of affinity for these little guys now. (Sunk cost fallacy and all that.) They immediately went into the compost bin, along with some compost starter and a little water. I'm about to go on vacation for two weeks, so I'll just let them work their magic and start turning the compost after I get back.

I replanted my small collection of shade-preferring succulents, moving most of them from individual pots to a collective bin:

I will do the same for the succulents on the sunny patio, as well.

Veggie update -- the peas are close to escaping their pen:

I'm about to pinch the tips of the middle plant, and will let the other two spread outwards for a while longer.

Quick veggie garden update

The scallions are growing well, and the peas are shooting up skyward. The dill, parsley, and spinach are growing slowly. The two cucumber plants, unfortunately, are drying up. I believe that the nights have gotten too cold for them - we were expecting the weather to stay warmer for a while yet.

The compost bin accumulated enough green stuff (food scraps and fresh young leaves) that I was able to add a second layer of brown stuff (crumbled, dry leaves). I didn't find the smell of the food scraps bothersome until my housemate started adding her coffee grounds. However the coffee is very good in compost, and the worms will love it, so I put up with it. I haven't gotten the worms yet because there is a worm shortage in our area - wasn't expecting that!

Compost bin ready!

My plan came together mostly without any hitches. Meet the fancy new compost bin:

I bought two storage bins and punched holes in them for air flow. The bottom bin has a clear plastic door on one side which allows you access the contents without unstacking the bins. That is perfect because the finished compost will be sifting into it from above!

I cut out the bottom of the top bin and replace it with a metal mesh. The hitch was that I had planned to secure it with a staple gun, but my gun was not cooperating, so I resorted to duct tape instead (as one often does).

I excitedly filled the bottom with a layer of "brown stuff" (crumbled dead leaves), and then started the first layer of "green stuff" (food waste and some fresh leaves).

I still need to acquire worms, since the store did not have them in stock. After that, it's just adding, mixing, and watering!

Memory jar

This would be filed under "make" rather than "grow":

1. Clean out jar.
2. Cover with scrapbooking paper and decorate.
3. Add slips of paper with descriptions of happy memories whenever the thought strikes you.

Composting

This morning I attended a composting presentation put on the East Bay Regional Parks District. I had signed up because I curious about composting, but not expecting to actually do it at my current residence. However, it turns out that it's much easier than I'd expected, and now I am inspired to go ahead with this project!

I will be composting on a small scale, since I'll be producing most of the food scraps for it on my own, and I'll just be using the finished product in my small garden. So instead of getting a big tub for it or building somethig, I will buy a large black plastic bin at a home improvement store, drill holes in it, and add worms.

Here are some of my notes from the presentation:

Layer your compost about 50/50 with green stuff (food scraps, grass, fresh leaves) and brown stuff (coffee grounds or tea, dead leaves and small twigs, dry grass, shredded newspaper or other papers). No meat products or dairy. Turn it regularly -- if you turn it more than once a week, you can get good compost within a month! Keep it fluffed up and loose, and moist (about the moistness of a wrung-out sponge).

It needs heat to kill off pathoges and keep it moist and active. A minimum size of 3' x 3' x 3' is suggested, although you can go smaller (as I will) by keeping the dark-colored bin in the sun and adding worms to help process the stuff.

Use a hardware screen as a sieve over a bin or bucket to get the finished product from among the still-decomposing stuff. I will endeavor to stack two bins together with a screen between them, so that I can just shake the worm bin and the finished compost will fall below.

When using your compost for your veggies (as I will!) or heavily flowering plants, mix 50/50 with high quality soil, or add a half inch layer on top of the existing soil (then add mulch on top, to keep the compost in place). When using compost for decorative plants, use a smaller ratio.

"Compost tea": water the worm bin and collect the run-off, dilute, and use as liquid fertilizer.


I am so jazzed about this! First step is to go to the store and buy two black plastic bins, hardware screen, worms, and a hand rake for turning the compost.

Garden pictures

The peas sprouted last Monday. They're already a few inches tall! I waited a bit too long to thin them out, even.

Look at all those roots!

I also thinned out the dill - my first opportunity to eat something from my own garden!

In the words of the Thug Kitchen, "Put that shit right on that motherlovin' sandwich."

You hear so many people say that it's more satisfying to eat something you grew yourself. They are absolutely right.

The forget-me-nots just broke soil today.

Up in the succulent garden on the deck, we have a few getting ready to flower. (Click on any picture to see it come up in a bigger format.)

This one has been growing the stalk for the flowers for months! They're finally, slowly, blooming.

A few others that are looking good:

That last spotty one looks exceptionally like an alien plant. It's some rare succulent that I've only seen in people's gardens twice. It's planted next to something that is not a succulent, but was also planted in someone's succulent garden, so I harvested it. It's growing a purple flower. I have no idea what it is.

Tiny sprouts in the tiny garden

Peas and scallions which just sprouted, and the healthy parsley and dill (which I need to thin out again).

One of my friends visited on Saturday and asked, "Aren't you planting pretty late?" Our Bay Area climate is so mild that many plants can be seeded and harvested much later in the year. Plus, the lady at the edible plant store is counting on our typical "Indian summer", in which September and October are still hot. But if the plants fail, oh well, I'll just try again in the spring. There are plenty of seeds left in the packets.

Just bloomed!

Some sort of succulent.

The State of the Garden

As promised, pictures of my entire garden. You can click on any picture to see it come up in a bigger version.

The most exciting part -- the new vegetable and herb garden! In the back are two baby cucumber plants who are already twice as large as they were a month ago. After I took this picture I finally got around to giving them help to reach skyward via string. They have baby trellises above their pots right now, but obviously eventually they will need more.

The tupperware on the bottom left has one freshly planted row of spinach and scallions each. Once those sprout, I will plant another two rows, and so on. My first try at the critical skill of succession planting. Next to that is a container of just-sprouting dill, then parsley, then a freshly planted container of English peas, which I will trellis straight onto the pen. The pen, by the way, is there to keep both dogs and cats out of the "digging boxes"/"litter boxes".

Close up of the dill on the left and the parsley on the right. I've already nibbled on the shoots which I pulled when I was thinning the plants, and they did not disappoint.

This boring shot is of my freshly-planted Forget Me Nots and my big new watering can. The house I live in has on-demand hot water rather than a boiler, which saves energy but means that you have to run the shower for a while before the warm water reaches you. I save the cold water in a bucket, then transfer it to the watering can. (I also use the water for cooking, since it's the same water that comes through the kitchen faucet.)

This as my first non-succulent plant, a fuschia. It's got a few buds right now but isn't showing very well. It grows happy pink flowers regularly.

A big ol' fern which has been growing quickly during the past couple of months. It's in a huge pot because its mature size should be three feet tall and wide.

The succulents which like shade, blocked off from the dogs' pee by little fences.

And here's the entire rest of the succulent garden! I can't stop myself if I'm walking my someone's yard and they have a type I haven't seen before. Succulents are super easy to take care of -- you grow a new one simply by picking off a branch and sticking it in soil, and they are drought tolerant. They come in all kinds of funky shapes that are fun to look at. They were a great starter plant for me and allowed me to discover the joy of gardening. It is the most relaxing and fulfulling activity I can turn to if I am feeling stressed or depressed. My garden is a big factor in my sense of well-being.

Close-up of the strawberry pots. There's one plant in there that's not a succulent, and I don't know what it is, but it has pungent leaves and pretty purple flowers.

Shower caddy provides a space-saving way to display many small pots.

Close-up of left side.

Close-up of middle.

Close-up of right side.

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog, Grow, Make, Learn, Thrive. This is primarily a place for me to keep track of my gardening activity. I have been growing succulents in containers for a couple of years, and in the past two months I've decided to expand to edible herbs and vegetables. I will also be posting about my crafting and sewing projects, and other creative endeavors.

With my decision to grow edible plants, I've realized that my ultimate goal is to progress toward homesteading, at least at a simple, beginner's level. At my current residence, growing a small number of plants is the extent of what I can do -- physically, anyway. I can still learn and plan for a future home in which I may be able to harvest more plants, raise chickens for eggs, and perhaps other animals, too. Fortunately I am very lucky to already receive delicious eggs from a friend's chickens.

At this point in my life, my ideal home would be a tiny cottage or Tumbleweed house located on a large property, on which I would do small scale farming and have a dog training field with agility and obedience/rally equipment. You see, my day job and passion is dog training. Currently I teach basic obedience/manners and do behavioral problem solving, but I am on my way to also teaching the dog sports of agility and obedience, and probably more! You can see my professional website at Ruff Translation, and my blog for tracking my own dog's training at The Legend of Chimera Monstra.

When daylight returns, I will post current pictures of my succulent, edible, and decorative gardens.

Thank you for joining me on this journey.