Living Simply… Parenting by Instinct

This is my planned gardens for this year: I’m going to have a 20′ x 40′ main garden, divided into roughly 4′ square plots with two feet between the rows. Then I’m going to have a 18′ long 1′ wide window boxes in my covered porch divided up into 2’square plots. Then I’m going to have several containers either in the house or in the porch containing several of my more sensitive herbs.

I’m growing:

*tomatoes

*cucumbers

* peppers (sweet and hot)

*pumpkins 2 types

*eggplant

*okra

*dill

*onions (bulb and bunching)

*radishes

*beans

*leeks

*peas

*endive

*lettuce

*kale

*spinach

*turnips

*potatoes

*cabbage

*echinacea

*goats rue

*marshmallow

*nettle

*lemon balm

*catnip

*chamomile

*fennel

*fenugreek

*heartsease

*lavender

*motherwort

*oregano

*California poppy

*Shepard’s purse

*vervain

*pot marigold

*comfrey

*valerian

 I also plan to plant some wildflowers and other random flowers to attract butterflies and other pollinators. I also am hoping my husband can find me some blueberry, raspberry and wild rose plants to transplant to the property. They are native plants, they just don’t happen to be located right here now. I want to transplant the berries and just let them go wild. The roses I want to keep semi contained.

So what do you think?? I plan on drying, canning, and freezing all our surplus to keep us in food in the winter. Some of the herbs are for health issues too. I was going to freeze a bunch but then I thought about it and we only have the one deep freeze and we’re planning to get several chickens, a pig and a beef to put in the freeze in the fall. And that doesn’t even include hunting. So I think I’ll stick to canning and drying the majority of the veggies. The potatoes will keep for a while in our cold cellar if placed on the cement without any special preservation methods so… 

I think we’re in pretty good shape. Hopefully spring comes early and we don’t get a monsoon season like last year. 

I am experimenting with growing indoor vegetables and some fruits. So far I’m doing great. I have tomatoes plants, pepper plants, peas, beans, eggplant, onions, strawberries, blueberries, and tons of cucumber plants. This year is experiment year, so I snapped up all the seeds I could get my hands on and collected up containers. This is the year of "why not?". Thats what I say whenever Nic asks why I’m trying to grow ____ : "Why not?"

I’m so excited. I’ve never grown things before and everything is doing very well. I’m particularly pleased with my pepper plants and my blueberry (its only a little wee sprout but still; everyone said I’d never get it to grow). 

I even went online and bought a book from ebay for an exorbitant amount of money b/c books about indoor veggie growing seem to be very few and far between but its a pretty good book considering its age (almost 20 yrs). But really how much can change plant wise in that time; if anything there should be more hybrids that can weather container growing than when it was published. Although, the authour claims you can grow melons in containers inside… I’ll have to try that one out when I get some room on my plant table; its full to the brim right now.  

So I have recently come across some information on www.westonaprice.org that makes me wonder.

Is commercial formula actually better, more healthful for your children than any kind of homemade?? Now, I do admit for most of us on the surface this seems an inane question with an obvious answer, but look closer.

When you stop to consider what constitutes a formula: mostly unconstituted then reconstituted milk proteins, vegetable oils, and sugar as base ingredients then fortified with whatever vitamin, mineral, fat or nutrient that is fashionable in nutritional science during the say 5 year period before it is mixed up; is it really fair to say that parents who rely on homemade formula are doing such an irresponsible thing??

Why is the nutritional scientists guesswork more healthy than any given parent’s?? Anyone who cares to peruse the history of infant formula can instantly see that formula has been one big experiment from the get go. Babies aren’t thriving?? Hmmmm maybe if we add more oil, more fat, omega-3s, DHA, whatever has been newly discovered in breastmilk; that must be the missing ingredient that makes babies live longer, be smarter, avoid cancer.

Who can say really? Is one guess better than another? 

I know its a huge fad but there may be something to this movement. I am currently reading the 100 Mile Diet. I am highly intrigued by the downsizing of the variety in our diets. I am researching old time pioneer type heirloom varieties that were once raised successfully in our area. I’m thinking of conducting experiments with fruit trees and other crops and see what I can coax into growing. Its going to be a challenge considering our location. My husband thinks I’m crazy but what is there to be lost by trying right??

I’m looking into programs like Community Supported Agriculture but I can’t find information for anything in our area. I have found some farms in both my mother and my little sister’s locations and have passed on the information; though whether or not they will do anything with it remains to be seen. I have found one farmers market in Kapukasing only 100 km away. We’re going to go check it out on Saturday. We need some produce at least until my indoor vegetables start to produce. I also have some patio tomato seeds and some strawberry seeds coming from Stokes. I’ve never tried indoor fruits and vegetables before so this winter will be an experiment.  Wish me luck.