... pay it forward

Hello everybody,

Some time ago I met a charming woman called Kelly through a knitting group that she organizes. I really enjoy knitting and this group meets at a coffee shop on Saturdays in a town not too far from where I live. I wish I could get out there more often but life and building the house and working the garden seems to get in the way.

When we met I explained that we had recently moved to the area, built a straw-bale house and we lived off the grid. Kelly was quite interested in the whole thing as she and her hubby are planning to build a new home themselves and want to be off the grid.

Last night they visited us at our home. Frank and I spent quite a bit of time explaining to them exactly how our system works and answering any questions they had. We also discussed straw bale building and the theories of passivhaus for having a tight building envelope for energy efficiency.

We are very happy to share any knowledge we have about how we live here. We believe that the more information that people have, the more likely they will be to chose to live this way. Perhaps they will not want to be completely off the grid as we are but maybe they will put up some solar panels to help to generate some of their hydro and feed back to the grid. Every little bit helps.

The other aspect is something that I have already blogged about. Building a very energy efficient home. Straw bale was our choice but there are other options out there.

I sometimes think that when we tell people we live in a straw bale house off the grid it conjures up images of a couple of old hippies without modern conveniences who light the house with candles. Nothing could be farther from the truth. 

Our home is just like any other house. Three bedrooms, living room, dining room and a nice big kitchen. The only modern conveniences that I do not have are a dishwasher and a clothes dryer. We have a fridge, a large chest freezer, washing machine and a microwave. I use a vacuum to suck up the vast amounts of hair that our two Labs shed for most of the year. The only difference is that I check on the state of our batteries before I vacuum or plug in my iron. 

So we are very happy to explain the process to anyone who is interested in this sort of lifestyle. The more people who know, the better.

Thanks for stopping by. Cheers.

... all good things must come to an end

Good evening everyone.

Well it had to happen. We have had a very good run at it but we are not cutting any more asparagus. Since this is the first year that we have cut it we did not want to be too greedy and take too much and stress the plants. 

I got an email from Veseys to say that my plant order has been shipped and should be here shortly. That will give me several days yet to get the strawberry beds ready. I can easily keep the plants safely in the house for a few days if necessary before they get planted out. 

Short post tonight but will be back, likely tomorrow, with photos of the rhubarb in it's new home. Have a great evening. Cheers.

... an additional new blog

Hello everyone,

I have decided to start an additional blog to run along with this one. The new one is at diaryofamodernhomesteader.blogspot.com

For the past few years I have kept a written journal of the work we did here with regards to building the house, starting the garden, etc. 

I think that keeping records on the new blog will make things easier for me. It will be easy to reference things done previously and I can compare garden results from past years.

We are finally getting some badly needed rain today and it is supposed to rain more tonight. I will be back out in the garden tomorrow attacking the couch grass again. Nice respite today though.

Thanks for visiting. Cheers.

... and a little more of the same

Hello everybody,

The warm weather is continuing here and I decided to give myself a day off from garden work. Ran some errands, did some grocery shopping, that kind of thing.

However, even though I am not on my knees weeding, there is always still something that absolutely must be done. 

The asparagus must be cut.

You cannot let it get out of control and get too big.

We have had a lovely asparagus and mushroom omelet with a big bunch of it and last nights dinner was a "clean out the fridge" kind of stir fry with, you guessed it, fresh asparagus.

Since we only eat Ontario asparagus, we eat a lot of it over a fairly short period of time. And by that I mean we eat it pretty much every day. 

It is very easy to get bored of it, especially if it was only just boiled or steamed every time. We wait all year for the taste of that first perfect green spear so we must never take it for granted. There are probably thousands of ways to prepare it. Use your imagination and delight in it while it is here 'cause it is gone all too quickly and it is a long wait until next year.

Have a wonderful weekend and a very Happy Mom's Day to all you mummys out there. Cheers.

... strawberries & rhubarb

Hello everyone,

Strawberries and rhubarb. Makes you think of pie, doesn't it? Me too. :)

When we first fenced in the kitchen garden back in 2011, we planted 4 rhubarb plants. They have never done well here. We have never harvested a single piece of rhubarb from any of them. 

And after some research, I now know why.

They do not like our soil.

So this year I decided to do something about that. This is in conjunction with the idea I had last year about putting in a strawberry patch. I do believe that we are back where we started. You know ... pie.

As I have noted in previous posts the area that is now our kitchen garden was once a lovely hay field. It sat unused and uncut for over 30 years before we bought the land. In that time it ceased to be hay and turned into weeds. Lots of perennial wildflowers and LOTS of COUCH GRASS. So last spring I decided to try to save myself some labour and we covered a large part of what would be the strawberry patch with cardboard and tarps in the hopes of killing the weeds. They tarps are still in place now. I am almost afraid to look under them.

The rest of the strawberry patch was left and would have to be dealt with this year since we ran out of tarps and cardboard.

This picture will show you what I am dealing with. Couch grass. It has other names but basically it is just plain old bad news. Very hard to dig out. I have tried a couple of different methods and finally settled on kneeling or sitting on the ground and digging like someone demented with a two prong hand fork. This seems to work best for me. I can get down about 12" with two passes and I get my hand in there to feel for the roots which I gleefully yank out. You really need to try to get all of it or back it will come.

The entire area that needed to be cleared is about 14 feet wide and close to 20 feet long. I have been at it now for 3 days. I am about 1/3 done. 

Did I fail to mention that the temperatures have soared here in eastern Ontario. It was 30 degrees today. I may have also forgot to mention the Black Flies. Yes, it is that time again. So there I was, in my bug shirt, digging like a madwoman with the sweat running down my face like a tap and stinging my eyes. I finally could not take it any longer and took off the net bug shirt and gave up caring whether the little beggars bit me or not. I do not think I have any bites. I think it is even too hot for the Black Flies.

When I look at the patch that I have cleared, I know that all this hard graft is worth it. The rhubarb will have a new tailor make home in which to grow and with luck, we may even get to eat some next spring.

I have 150 strawberry plants ordered and they should be here in a week or two. That should give me enough time to finish up and create the beds for them. I have heard this heat wave is to end in a couple of days and the temperature is to drop quite a bit. Sounds absolutely wonderful to me. I will just keep on digging with a mental picture of a lovely pie in my mind.

Thanks a lot for stopping by. Have a wonderful day. Cheers.

... a bit more about asparagus

Good evening everybody,

We have been having amazingly hot weather here in eastern Ontario. Today felt more like a day in July than early May. 

Our fruit trees are seriously thinking of bursting into bloom and I really wish that they would not. If we get a cold spell, then that will be the end of the fruit. I really hate it when we do not get a proper Spring. Winter ends only to have us leap directly into Summer weather. But enough about that.

If you are considering putting in a new veggie garden, I would strongly suggest that you consider asparagus, obviously only if you like it or course. 
It is a long term commitment but the benefits make the time well worth while. I will have a blog post about planting the crowns shortly when my plant order arrives as we are putting in an additional 48 crowns to replace the dead ones.

Tonight I harvested two pounds of it. We eat tons of the stuff when it is in season that then that is it. No more until next year. tomorrow we will have an asparagus omelet for breakfast. Tonight we had roasted asparagus and pasta with clam sauce.

Roasting it is so incredibly easy. I wash them to get all the sand and dirt off. Dry them off well and lay out on a cookie sheet. I drizzle extra virgin olive oil over them and then add some salt and pepper. Toss them around so they are evenly coated. Into a 400F degree oven they go but they only take a few minutes. You definitely do not want to over cook them. Absolutely delicious.

Well that is it for me for tonight. Hope you are enjoying this sunny weather. Personally, I have my fingers crossed for rain. Cheers.

... patience

Hello everyone,

I know that posts have been few and far between these days but the gardening season has arrived here in eastern Ontario and with it, lots and lots of work. I will try my best to post at least once a week.

And now, on to the topic of my blog post.

Patience.

I do not have a whole lot of it for a great many things in my life. However, I am a gardener. And generally speaking, gardeners have all the patience in the world. We have to. And most of the time our patience is rewarded. And mine was tonight.

My friends, I am talking about ASPARAGUS!!!

When we bought this land, the very first thing we did in our kitchen garden was to put in an asparagus bed. We planted two different varieties, namely "Jersey Giant" and "Martha Washington". We planted 50 one year old crowns of each. Sadly we lost almost all of the Martha Washington plants after one year. I have ordered another batch of crowns and they will be planted as soon as they arrive. 

Happily, the Jersey Giants are mostly doing really well. We planted the first crowns in 2011. We waited the required three years and were all set to enjoy that first taste of our own asparagus last year but this entire area was flooded in the Spring, as were my asparagus beds. We thought it was prudent not to harvest anything to allow the crowns to recover from being underwater for so long.

So this year I spent an entire week weeding all the beds, watering them since this has been a very dry spring and waiting, patiently.

And then a couple of days ago .... there it was ... an asparagus spear poking it's little head up out of the soil. And then another ... and another.

And tonight, there were enough of those beautiful little darlings that I picked a half pound of them and we had them for dinner. They were sublime. I absolutely adore asparagus. I do not buy the stuff in the grocery store that has traveled here all the way from Mexico or Peru. I only eat Ontario grown, and now I can eat my own. 

My patience has been amply rewarded.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a wonderful week. Cheers.