Naturally as Possible

The tomatoes have lots of blossoms on them, along with a few that have already developed tomatoes on them.  What a joy to watch them grow!  Mr. G is getting old pallets together to make stakes for these tomato plants.  Weeding time is upon us, but not too much or the native bugs will not have enough to munch on and will go after the garden plants.

The first mound is leftover white potatoes from last year that Mr. G planted in this mound and covered with 12" thick of hay.  The next row is red potatoes.  There are 3 rows of red potatoes and one row of white.

We have 2 patches that are 6' wide x 85' long.  We planted as many yellow beans as we could in one and green beans in another.  I know that for some folks a pound of bean seeds is nothing in comparison to what they grow, but this seems to be the right weight for us.

This week we plan to plant our lettuces and other annual herbs.  It is slowly coming together this year, but it's doing fine.

Cravings

There is an interesting combination of foods that I have been craving recently.  Oddly enough, this week, I haven't craved meats.  I eat them, but thus far today, I haven't had meat.  I've had proteins like pinto beans, cottage cheese, cheddar cheese, eggs and so forth, but I haven't had any meat at all today.  I'm not trying to stay away from meats, mind you.  I just haven't eaten them today.

Isn't that how it goes though?  Our bodies crave things, but do we truly listen?  Ever since I've been pregnant and given birth, I've tried to listen to what my body was telling me.  Although 17 years ago, my cravings for kielbasa and sauerkraut were so very real and ravenous.  Of course I didn't give in all the time to those cravings.  However, when it was that time of year to have kielbasa and sauerkraut and I happened to be pregnant, I indulged a little.  :)  But, what was my body craving?  Probably the fermented veggies.  I'm just beginning to learn about the benefits of fermented foods, so please forgive my ignorance.  Perhaps we could learn together?!  :D

Lately, I have been craving avocados with a little sea salt and pepper.  At other times it's pinto beans/refried beans with cheese.  I know that these foods are good for you, so I don't mind eating a small bowl of pinto  beans followed by an avocado.

Last week I couldn't get enough protein one day, so there has to be something to these cravings.

...as long as I don't give in to the Cheetos.  LOL

The Dirt and Food Connection...

In my last post, Amending the Soil, I wrote about how important it is to make sure your soil is amended with good organic decomposable things to make the soil rich and nutrient dense without chemical fertilizers or pesticides.  Since we started using this method, we've not used Miracle Gro or anything else, but the natural sawdust, manure, grass clippings, compost, and leaves for our garden.

Why?

We have a connection to the dirt.  It is the dirt that gives us the nutrients that we need to sustain life, regardless of the source.  Face it, we're stuck with dirt!

Now, having said that, the same would be true that whatever we put in to the dirt, would eventually make its way to our bodies giving us either optimal health or decay and disease.  If I put good foods in to my body, made with ingredients that the common ordinary person can pronounce, like eggs, milk, cheese, flour, coconut oil--things like that, then my health will be more optimal than if I fed it with processed foods filled with all sorts of disease causing ingredients that no one can pronounce.

So if we come from dirt and to dirt we'll return, it stands to reason, that the closer our food source is that grows from dirt or something that eats a food grown from dirt would give us the most optimal health possible?

Oh, but wait!  What about GMO's or Genetically Modified Organisms?


Deuteronomy 22:9  "Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds: lest the fruit of thy seed which thou hast sown, and the fruit of thy vineyard, be defiled."

Leviticus 19:19  "Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed:..."

Science Fiction Horror Story by Michael Pearl.

Amending the Soil

Seven years ago when we moved to our current home, the dirt was clay and hard.  We worked very hard adding leaves, compost, finding manure to add to the soil and grass clippings.  Our first garden here did not produce as much as we have at our previous home, where our garden was established, of course.  It was to be expected.  It took work.  A LOT of work.

While it does look brown in this picture, it was very compact and clay-like.  The work continued, until we reached this size garden.

For those of you who do not know,  the black plastic keeps the weeds down by burning them through the sun's rays heating up and being absorbed by the black plastic.  The weeds are decomposed and turned in to compost....unless they find their way through to the little holes where the tomato plants were to grow there.  To the little holes, we added grass clippings, leaves and mulch.  This began our first year growing here in our current home.

This is how big our gardens are now.  The big garden is 35' x 85' and the two smaller ones are 10' x 85'.  This picture was taken in 2010.  The mound you see is the manure/sawdust pile.  Currently, it is still there, but the friends we get it from have added goats, chickens, and cows to the variety of the manure, so it is a good thick rich variety of nutrient rich microbes for our soil and plants.

This year, we've finally added the grapes to the garden.  Yes, where you see the mounds of potatoes that Mr. G is watering, in the very beginning of the bed, closest to the mound is where our grapes are growing.  We only have 2 vines right now, but we plan to add enough to fill that entire 85' long bed.  The bed next to it will be blueberry bushes.  We'll do the same thing with them when we plant those as well, as finances allow.  We're hoping to fill that bed next year with those bushes and finish filling the grape vine area as well.

This year with our potatoes, we've added 12" of hay on top of the manure for mulch.  Our tomatoes and peppers are not as plentiful as they were last year, however.  We decided to scale down with them in order to plant other things with the kids.  The kids are working this year and with our school year beginning again on Monday, July 2nd, we may just let that part of the garden rest.

We do not use pesticides in our gardens.  We try to keep the weeds down within reason.  A good practice is just a few weeds for the native bugs to feast on.  I've seen bugs completely decimate a weed stalk while leaving the vegetables alone, so some weeds are good.

We plan to put newspaper around the plants, then put more manure/sawdust around the plants to hold the newspaper down.  We'll keep adding grass clippings as they are readily available.

A friend of mine mentioned "Lasagna Gardening" on her blog, so I looked it up and found some intriguing things that we were already doing.  :)

On my list of things to do is to look up a better alternative to our compost area than what is currently being used, which is just a pile right now.  I'd like to get one of those black--off the ground--tumbling kind that you just crank every so often.  In two weeks you're supposed to have good composted soil.  So, we'll see what happens.  It is an ever changing thing, gardening.  To think one particular way works every time, hands down, is not opening one's mind up to a variety of other things that could potentially help.

Read lots and lots of blogs, books and websites about gardening.  Try things out one year and learn from those ideas.  What works and what doesn't?  It's all a great experiment. :)