Day one of the TED

Yesterday I went to the store to prep for the total elimination diet. 

I got an 18-lb turkey (the only uncooked one at the store!) and am baking it right now, in a turkey pan that we recently inherited.  Instead of rubbing it with a complex herb mix and stuffing it with rosemary twigs and lemons as usual, just be coated it with olive oil and sea salt.  I'll make some rice-based gravy and mashed sweet potatoes and grilled zucchini to go with it.  Then overnight the crock pot will cook up half the carcass into some bone broth concentrate... the other half will be frozen for later use.  Theoretically I need a pound of meat a day to get the right amount of protein, but I don't know how much actual meat is on the bird. 

There are also 2 pounds of lamb, but I have no idea how to cook this.  I don't even think I've ever tried eating sheep!  I picked the cheapest cuts just to try... "sliced neck meat" and "shoulder blade chops."  If you have cooking ideas, lemme know.  Grilled kabobs sound pretty nice...

I also found pear juice, canned pears (in pear juice only), 3 types of fresh pears, rice flour, plain rice cakes, and grey squash to mix it up.  I know, I know.  I'm walking on the wild side here.  I didn't get any rice milk because I will make my own... rice milk tends to have the most arsenic in it, but the white basmati rice I have already is one of the lowest-arsenic rices.


So I'm all set to avoid the challenges.

Starting off with such a huge bounty of food (a whole turkey!!) will give me no excuse to slip up.  Well, my first-born's bleeding also gives me no desire to stray.  But you know what I mean.

I've set up a shelf in the fridge for just my stuff, and am avoiding the pantry altogether... the dry goods and fruit are just on a section of the counter top, as are the crock pot and rice maker.  This was very wise, because I keep finding myself wandering into the kitchen to look for food, and it's right there to remind me.

Entertaining and dining out will probably be the most difficult issues, because I'll be exposed to lots of tasty things I can't have.  But so far the elimination diet foods have been tasty enough, and the rice cakes provide enough crunch.  The pear tea (small amount of pear juice in hot water) is doing great as a tea substitute.


And so, it begins.

I've always kind of wanted to do an elimination diet as an experiment, but never went through with it.  I'm curious as to whether it will have an effect on my asthma, allergies, and energy levels.  It'll be interesting to see what happens.

I also heard back from the pediatrician today... the last stool test just came in 2 weeks late but it DOES say that he is probably allergic to something, so we finally get to visit that pediatric gastroenterologist. 

Now, off to play with my husband's new iGrill... right now the breast meat is 52 degrees while the inner thigh is 84.  Destination:  165.

Talkin' TED

Torin has been having digestive issues that leave his diapers in Christmas colors for the past 2.5 months, and I'm very very tired of it.  I have been completely off of dairy for 11 weeks so far at the doctor's and lactation consultant's request, and have done all the tests on him that can be done (but they don't do allergy testing on babies), and have seen only mild improvement.*



Say hello to TED.


And so, I'm doing a Total Elimination Diet to see if that improves things.  The diet can include:

• Turkey
• Lamb 
• Rice
• Millet
• Summer squash
• Sweet potatoes
• Pears and diluted pear juice
• Olive oil
• Sea salt
• 1000mg calcium supplement in divided doses
• My multivitamin and vitamin D (I have already tried excluding the vitamins)
• (Some add in potatoes, but that's a nightshade so I'm leaving it out)

Well, what do you know... I just happen to have rice and millet in 5-gallon buckets.  And we need an excuse to try out Ryan's new iGrill on a turkey!


When should we expect results?

It seems that most women report that the green and red disappear dramatically after 3-7 days, and the mucus goes away in another 1-4 weeks.  So I'm expecting to stick to the diet for 2-4 weeks, then start adding in new foods at a rate of one every 2-4 days.

• 1st:  omega 3 supplement (I don't want to wait to add this back in since the fats are good for Torin's brain)
• 2nd:  the least allergenic things:  most veggies and fruits
• 3rd:  the common protein allergens:  wheat, beef, eggs, nuts, corn
• 4th:  the worst offenders:  peanuts, caffeine/coffee/tea, tomatoes, citrus fruit, shellfish
• 5th:  the most likely secondary intolerance:  soy
• 6th:  the thing that I know affects him some:  dairy

I'll have to keep close details about my diet and Torin's fussiness and diapers... but I like science anyway.  And I'll also have to keep in mind that if he reacts to a raw veggie or fruit, he may be fine with them when they're cooked. 

Some women say that by the time they returned everything back into their diet, their baby had outgrown the intolerance... I'd be cool with that!


Boooooring!

The diet sounded daunting at first.  But why the heck should I not do it... I can do anything for 2 weeks, and for Torin's health I can do anything for as long as it takes.  This is one situation where my biggest personal flaw, stubbornness, comes in handy.

There are a few recipes out there for some tasty TED things, like lamb pear squash kebobs, gravy using turkey drippings and rice flour, marinades and sauces using pear juice and salt.  There are some substitution foods like rice milk and rice puff cereal that can be used as well.  And I can make some tasty bone broth, though it'll be missing the herbs and onions. 

If I find anything especially delicious, I'll share it... but to be honest I'll probably get bored of the flavor mix and end up eating the same thing every day.  Maybe simplicity would be nice for a change... no decisions to make.

Ryan is going to get so bored with dinner (he has bravely said he would join me, but I will need him to empty the fridge of perishables first).  I am going to miss hot sauce and tea and BLTs with avocado.

Alright... time to go find me a turkey.


*Disclaimer:  The pediatrician has said that only dairy in my diet can cause bloody stool in diapers (after a few other non-diet-related things were ruled out)... if it's not that, then the only other thing he could be allergic to is me personally and formula is the answer.  I feel that the dairy-only thing is a bunch of crap, since the entire internet says babies can be intolerant to tons of other stuff in their mom's diet.  The lactation consultant says other allergies are so incredibly rare that she'd not recommend cutting anything else out.  I have learned with Kaiser that I have to be my own advocate.

Garden bug of the day: Cutworm

Kiss me.

...

I SAID KISS ME.

First sprouts of the year!

Arugula and mustards have sprouted already... are these not the cutest baby plants ever?  Well, they're cute to me.

It's ALIVE!!

The flat light held up by bricks is an actual plant light, given to me by a friend who was throwing away a broken growth chamber, and it is on for 18 hours a day to encourage sprouting and give a boost to the winter light filtering in through the solarium's roof.  The big light bulb is a heat lamp that I used for my iguanas and geckos, and it is just there 24 hours a day for warmth 'cause those tomatoes won't come out until they think winter is over.

The cells that are empty are for future arugulas and mustards... technically ones that I should be planting within a day or two.

I am just barely beginning to see some roots poking out from the tomato seeds too.  So far, so good.  Let's keep our fingers crossed!

Volunteer Mustard Surprise

Hey... those look an awful lot like mustard seedlings!

The "embarrassing side yard" has something to be proud of.

Early this winter I pulled out the mustards and a cilantro and parsley or two and set them in the side yard to dry with the hope that I could get free seed out of them.  Then, of course, they were forgotten and rained upon over and over.  They ended up in the trash... but not before they dropped viable seed.

This is awesome... an effortless first harvest in a few weeks!  It's also where I want the Lakota squash to go later, so it's perfect for an early salad spot.  I must spread some mustard seed deliberately in early winter this time.

Geobin

The Geobin arrived!  

Yep, I ended up getting one from Amazon.  

It was a bit difficult to put together by myself at first because it wants to roll back up on itself tightly, so I wrapped it around 3 stools to keep it open.  This made it so much easier!  It can be opened up to a 4-foot diameter or less, but composting reaches optimal internal temperatures (high enough to kill pathogens) at a 3 foot diameter, so I made mine 3 feet wide.

The Geobin now has a place of honor in the corner of the yard between the fruit trees.

Ta da!

Filling the bin.

The trick to filling an outdoor compost bin is to get a certain concentration of carbon to nitrogen, but in essence you want to balance an equal amount of "greens" (nitrogen-heavy) with "browns" (carbon-heavy, in half-inch or inch thick layers.  If the pile starts smelling badly, add more browns, and if it is progressing too slowly add more greens.

Between the frost-killed nasturtiums, weeds, dying garden plants, and excess old chocolate mint (egads, so much sun/frost-burnt mint!), there were enough greens.  Later I will add lawn clippings and food waste.

For the browns I used primarily apple leaves (I swear the tree dropped all its leaves last week), old partially-rotted plum leaves, and dried mustard/chard/cilantro stalks I'd kept for seed.  I probably won't have many more easy browns to find this fall, so to balance any more greens I'll be adding newspaper, dry leaves from the pool, and dry pine needles from the Christmas tree.

I also tossed in some soil to introduce some natural bacteria, and compressed it down as much as possible.  The next time I'm on a cutworm hunt, I will also gather a few earthworms for the pile.  

The bin is now half full!  That was pretty easy, and I cleaned up much of the yard waste to boot. The stakes in there are temporary until the bin stops wanting to curl in on itself.  I'm sure the pile will compress a bunch with rain and time, but it's an excellent start.  I am going to try to add as much as possible until it is a well-packed 3 feet high, because that'll compost the fastest.  If I'd have started earlier in the year, I would have had a TON of birch and plum leaves to add, plus all the plum and fig leaves from the neighbor... enough for perhaps another full bin's worth.

But when will I have compost?!

No compost until late spring at the very earliest, I would imagine.  

As for maintenance, the instructions say to turn the bin every 2 weeks, keep it moist as a wrung-out sponge, and it should be ready in 2 months.  Turning just involves peeling the bin off your pile (which will keep its shape), setting it up next to said pile, then pitch forking it back into the bin to mix it up.  I will try to turn it more often in hopes of getting an early batch.

The fruit trees should enjoy it sooner though... any rain that falls on the pile will leak compost tea to their roots.

Update on zee goals

It's been half a month, so let's see where we're at!*


The Minutes

5 minutes of weightlifting:  
Missed one arm/back day, because I had carried the baby all day since he was incredibly fussy after getting shots.  The amount of carrying might actually count as weightlifting?

10 minutes of pilates:  
Missed one day, the same day as the missed weights day.

10 minutes of blogging:  
Never missed a day!  I've been doubling or tripling this, now that I have an ipad and can write and nurse at the same time.


The Long Term

1000 miles by foot this year: 
20.3 down.  This isn't the greatest.  If I was on track, I would have done 41 by now!  The pregnancy hormones separated my hip bones painfully and I'm not quite over it so I was expecting a slow start, but not this slow... I should at least be getting out on most days.  I use the baby and sleep deprivation as excuses, but they are bad ones.

"Handmade Christmas 2015":
I have found the main patterns and half the supplies needed to get started.  But I have yet to actually start... that one I CAN blame on the baby, since I need 2 free hands and half-hour chunks of time that aren't filled with survival stuff like showering, cooking, cleaning, gardening, exercise.  This will be my hardest challenge for the year!

Figure out how to grow seedlings:
So far, so good.  No actual sprouts yet, but now I am working almost in greenhouse conditions like I did at a job 10 years ago, even down to working with the same potting design, so I've set myself up for success.

Avoiding jeans until Valentine's day:
This is the easiest one of all, since I dislike jeans anyway.


The New One

Stand on one foot while I brush my teeth: 
(2 minutes, the sonicare times it nicely).  The next day, I switch feet... someone recommended this one to me.  This may sound like a totally silly one, but I feel like my balance is off after (ok, and during) the pregnancy.  I wobble when I stand up sometimes due to my hips feeling unsteady.  Standing on one foot for a long period of time used to be easy breezy, but now I find it taking actual concentration around the 30-second mark!  This is such an easy goal to integrate into my daily life that I probably won't mention it here again until I start seeing results.


*Remember that days away from home don't count... there have been 4 of those.

Come out, come out, wherever you are...

No seedlings yet... but hope is in the air.

Planting at night.

Tick on tick action

Ryan found a tick on Stormy*, and I found a tiny tick on the tick.

A little internet research later, and it turns out that they were mating!  Not a bad way to go, I guess.  I dropped them both into the vitamin bottle of rubbing alcohol that contains all the preserved ticks (well, just 5 now) that Stormy has ever encountered.  Then I realized something.

They will be making love, forever, in that jar.

Epic love story?

*No worries, Stormy is up to date on her lyme disease vaccine and we are watching her closely.

Ending 5 years of coffee abstinence

I've been avoiding coffee for 5 years, from when I was first diagnosed with silent reflux.  It was silent in that it wasn't painful, it was just making me feel inhumanly ravenous and making my asthma worse.  Quitting coffee, both decaf and caffeinated, helped only slightly.  Or maybe not at all... it could have been the placebo effect. 

A year later I quit caffeine (in tea form) cold-turkey as well in anticipation of a pregnancy.

It turns out that the reflux was stress-related.  Within a month of leaving the ol' job, the reflux was gone.  Totally gone!  

Yesterday I had to get up early after 3.5 hours of very broken sleep for Torin's doctor appointment, and the aroma of Ryan's freshly ground beans was intoxicating.  Maybe... just maybe... some coffee would help.  And hooooo boy, it did.  I only had 1/4th of a cup.

Not only was I giggling about how much I love mornings (normally I don't!), I ended up sleepy and in bed by 10pm for the first time in ages.  Actually sleepy!  (Though, I didn't sleep much, Torin had just had his shots.)

Thus ended my 5-year streak of no coffee, and my 4-year streak of caffeine-free life.

So here I am, sipping my second 1/4th cup.  It is glorious.  Perhaps I'll look peppy for Torin's video doctor appointment in a half hour.

Cutworms Galore

A different kind of harvest.

Looks like the garden produced more pests than tomatoes last year!


I was pre-digging the soil to get rid of the few cutworms I knew were present so that I could add the compost, and decided the results were worthy of an entire post.


This is what I harvested from 25 square feet of the lowest raised bed:

 

Sharpie for scale.

This is a 4th of a pound of insect.  All within 4-6 inches of the soil.  Sometimes my thin spade would bring up 10 at once.

I am sure there are hundreds... nay, thousands... more.  Squishy, hungry thousands.  *shiver*


Why are cutworms bad?

Cutworms are sneaky.  They come out of hibernation in spring, and emerge from the soil every night to eat your seedlings.  They retreat into the earth before dawn, leaving you wondering why everything dies so quickly.  Often they will eat straight through the main stem, effectively cutting down the entire plant, hence the name "cutworm."  They're not technically a worm, they're moth larvae.

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!  Do NOT click this photo to see the original size!!

I wonder if this is one reason I had such a horrendous time getting my seedlings to survive last year.


What can I do about cutworms?

Well, first of all, I can dig up as many as I can find.  I am totally on board with that.

Other options are to spread diatomaceous earth, coffee grounds, or eggshells around the plants... cutworms won't cross them.  Ryan drinks tons of coffee, I cook tons of eggs, and there's a 2-gallon bag of diatomaceous earth in the shed.  I'm ready.

I hope the birds are ready too... I left the dish of cutworms out for them to find tomorrow morning. 


Dig in your garden soil and see what you find... 

Compost Conundrum

According to my Smartgardener account, I have 432 square feet of planting space.  According to this Compost Calculator, I need 72 cubic feet of compost to get 2 inches over all fruit/veggie space, or 25 to cover the main raised beds.  Whoa.  I don't want to spend that much on rotted crap.


I have a vermiculture bin that has been pretty neglected this year, but this gives me inspiration to get it up and running at peak production again.

I'm of half a mind to get a $30 Geobin... it is basically an expandable tube with holes that is 3 feet high, so it would hold about 21 cubic feet of stuff to compost.  If I can get this to compost everything 3 times a year, it would cover my fertilizinging needs over the long term.  We do make a good amount of waste between the lawn, fallen tree leaves, shredded mail, and kitchen scraps, but I don't know if we would actually be able to make that much!  Where would we even put it?

For now, I just got 10 cubic feet of the cheapest stuff and will supplement with some leftover organic fertilizer.


What do you do for compost?

Amazed at Hindmilk

I am just sharing this because science.

Foremilk, what comes out first during a feeding, is supposed to be sweeter and high in sugar, while the hindmilk is fattier and more white.  I've heard that this happens because as milk is produced but not expressed, the fats settle out a bit. 

Anyway, I have a bit of an over-supply, so I have to make sure that Torin nurses enough to get at that fatty hindmilk.  I never realized how much fattier the hindmilk is... but now I have proof!

A few days of travel and less-frequent nursing resulted in a familiar bruised sensation that means I need to pump (hey, avoiding mastitis sounds like a great idea).


The setting:  nursed on the left side 20 minutes before pumping both sides at about 10pm (when my supply is lowest).  I pumped for 10 minutes and had 2 letdowns.  This means the right bottle is a typical 10-minute feeding (usually he goes for 15-30 minutes), and the left bottle is all hindmilk due to having been recently emptied.  Then I refrigerated it overnight, and the fat layers separated.

Lefty and Righty

Dang, look at that fat layer in the hindmilk!  I am kinda shocked that it constitutes at least 60% of the ounce, while the 10-minute meal consists of only 6% fat.

Alrighty... time to freeze those together to make a rich tasty baby snack.

Does anyone know someone who needs frozen milk?  I have some from when I was still eating dairy products, which Torin can't have.  Seems a shame to waste it.

Today's the day!

I delayed planting until today due to a 4-day trip so that I can closely supervise the heating of the germinating seed.  It's only a teeny setback, and was well worth getting a chance to introduce the baby to his great-grandpa who lives the farthest away.  I am so lucky to have inlaws that I adore!

All of the planting supplies arrived right before the trip, and I was delighted to see that the trays were the same exact ones I was familiar with from my work with arabidopsis* in a greenhouse. The cells that hold the soil are different, but the smaller ones are about arabidopsis size (for herbs, lettuce), and the larger ones will do very nicely for the many tomatoes I am attempting this year.

So, today's plan is:

- Start indoors in large plant cells:  pepper, tomato
- Start indoors in small plant cells:  arugula, beet, calendula, cilantro, chard, sage, and random lettuces

The rest of the week's plan is:

- Harvest last of the garden things:  some greens, edible flowers, turnips
- Get rid of cutworms in soil (using a tool donated by a great-grandpa!)
- Add compost and other organic fertilizers to soil
- Plant outdoors:  garlic, miner's lettuce, arugula, kale, radish, turnip

The plan.  (Seeds below are for direct-seeding)

Do you have any garden plans this week? 


*I was about to post a link here to my paper to show you the results, and then remembered that this is a semi-anonymous public blog.  Oops. 

Happy unemployed anniversary to me!

It occurred to me last night that today is the anniversary of my "retirement" from my fancy fungal/algal scientist job.


On the one hand, 

It feels like I left just a week ago. 

I could still regale you with tales of Haematococcus and the snowflake-like delicacy of Micrasterias.  The hum of the environmental rooms still vibrates in my head, the cool air filled with cave-like smells from freshly opened culture cabinets.  I know the exact hues of all the algal cultures... at a glance I can tell when they're happy, or at the cusp of needing new media, or when they are so far gone that they need a lot of attention to survive... and I still dream about them.  I can hear the mycology professor's yell of "YESSS!!!" as he fist-pumps the air in excitement that I got an exceptionally difficult fungal culture to shoot off spores perfectly on cue under the scope during class.

I did a lot of work to free myself of the negative effects of the past, but it still feels like luck.  That I have somehow retained the best parts of the job (the art and the science and my passion for the cultures), yet also released the negative parts (the daily vomiting from stress, the unrealistic workload and 12-hour days, those around me playing politics, the smell of BART)... it feels like a miracle!


On the other hand, 

The depth of relaxation in my life is so intense that it feels like it was 5 years ago.

I have slept enough that my body has acquired and kept its natural circadian rhythm for the first time (sleeping from 12 or 1am to 9 or 10am).  I have hermited enough to feel fully socially refreshed.  I used to always be the kind of person who needed to plan every social thing far in advance to even consider doing it, but now that the stress is gone so is my need for control.  I enjoy getting up for the day and I appreciate even the little things that used to feel grating...  like sweeping floors that are dirty because our dog loves the outdoors, or cleaning dishes that signify a satisfying meal.  I can get outside and read or run my fingers through soil at any time.  I feel like the better, more true version of myself.

I share my husband's schedule and weekends finally, and that alone is worth it.  My time with him has at least quadrupled!

And then there's the baby, of course.  Torin is 12 weeks old today, the end of the "fourth trimester."  I left employment and became immediately pregnant (practically a miracle after the fertility issues!), which made it easy to compartmentalize the different chapters in my life's book.  This is probably why the past seems so SO far away.


In any case... today is a day to celebrate!

I have been far happier over this past year than I have been in ages.  I opened my traditional birthday coconut, and it was perfectly fresh and fragrant, a good omen.  We put Torin in 6-month-old clothes for the first time (dang, he's big for his age, 100th percentile!), and I think I might just have a glass of wine.  Skål!*


*We recently watched The Almighty Johnsons, and that's a Norse drinking toast like "cheers" or "slainte."

Spring Plantings

The plan has been revised.

Well, I did some research into last year's plantings, and decided I needed to change it up.  Last year I went with the most conservative last frost, April 9th.  However, most websites plus the Farmer's Almanac are saying February 15th for zone 9.*

Instead of being ultra conservative, this year I'll go with Feb 15th and just be on high alert for cold temperatures, and cover the beds if needed.  I'll even keep the smaller strands of xmas lights handy to spread some warmth about the most tender plants if I have to.  This theoretically will give me another SEVEN weeks of the growing season.  But it also means I must start stuff much earlier than expected.


Crap, I gotta do this stuff NOW! 

Good thing the seeds and seed-starting supplies arrive tomorrow.

Here's the updated week-by-week spring planting schedule (there are repeats due to succession planting):

Dec
Week 3
- Start indoors:  arugula, beet
- Start outdoors:  garlic
Week 4
- Start indoors:  beet
- Start outdoors:  garlic

Jan
Week 1
- Start indoors:  beet, calendula, cilantro, pepper, sage, tomato.  
- Start outdoors:  garlic, miner’s lettuce
Week 2
- Start indoors:  calendula, cilantro, sage, tomato. 
- Start outdoors:  arugula, miner’s lettuce, kale. 
- Transplant:  arugula from dec  
Week 3
- Start indoors:  calendula, chard, cilantro, sage, tomato
- Start outdoors:  arugula, miner's lettuce, kale, radish, turnip
Week 4
- Start indoors:  basil, chard
- Start outdoors:  arugula, carrot, kale, radish, turnip

Feb
1
- Start indoors:  basil, chard, zucchini, summer squash, Lakota squash, sunflower
- Start outdoors:  beet, carrot, kale, radish, turnip
- Transplant:  kale
2
- Start indoors:  zucchini, summer squash, Lakota, sunflower
- Start outdoors:  radish
Feb 15th = Last frost??
3
- Start indoors:  cucumber
- Start outdoors:  chard, radish
- Transplant:  beet, chard, cilantro, sage
4
- Start indoors:  cucumber
- Start outdoors:  chard, radish
- Transplant:  calendula

March
1
- Start indoors:  cucumber
- Start outdoors:  calendula, chard, cilantro, nasturtium, radish, sunflower
- Transplant:  basil, zucchini, summer squash, lakota, sunflower, tomato
2
- Start outdoors:  calendula, cilantro, cucumber, nasturtium, radish, zucchini, summer squash, Lakota, sunflower
- Transplant:  cucumber, tomato
3
- Start outdoors:  basil, cucumber, radish, zucchini, summer squash, lakota, sunflower
- Transplant:  pepper, tomato
4
- Start outdoors:  basil, radish, zucchini, summer squash, Lakota, sunflower

April
1, 2, 3, 4 (all the same)
- Start outdoors:  basil, radish, zucchini, summer squash, Lakota, sunflower

May
1, 2
- Start outdoors:  radish, zucchini, summer squash, Lakota
3, 4
- Start outdoors:  radish

June
1
- Start outdoors:  radish
 

I planned this all out through SmartGardener... but I can't add berries to the garden on the site without purchasing it for $2 as an add-on.  Bah.  They have a bunch of cool features this year, stuff I really wish it had last year, but am currently not going to pay for it.


*Mom and Dad... I'm a zone 9b, and you're a 9a... my planting rules should apply to you, if you want to take some of my extra seedlings (assuming I can make them this year). 

A post about nothing.

I wanted to make a post about the handmade gifts I'm planning for the "Handmade Christmas 2015" thing my family is doing, but my family reads the blog and it'd ruin the surprise.

So... no post for you today. 

That said, I will document it all and 2016 will be full o' those crafty tales... so far there are 10 different awesome projects.

Are you annoyed yet with all the waiting you'll have to do?  Bwahahahaha!

Garden proto-plans

I'm getting started on the garden plans ASAP this year so there's plenty of time.

New seeds!  Because addiction!

I ordered 8 new types of seed:  Yoden's German yellow tomato, egg yolk tomato, fordhook zucchini, white scallop squash, mexican sour gherkin cucumber, lavender, broad leaf sage, attila strawberry.  Baker creek heirloom seeds for the win!  I still have a ton of seed left from last year, so let's hope it's all still viable.


And then, I swallow my pride.

Maybe I'm a one-trick sprouting pony.

About a decade ago I used to work in a greenhouse, and did excellently with growing plants from seed to maturity... but I also had actual greenhouse supplies and wasn't trying to direct-seed anything.  Since last year was such an epic failure, I figured that it'd be worth it to invest in some actual supplies.  I took to Amazon and got the same stuff I used to work with:

• Plant trays, 5 with holes, 5 without
• Plant starter cells to fill those trays... 120 large (for tomatoes/squash/etc) and 144 small (for lettuce/herbs/etc).  Came with a few plant labels.
• Organic seed starter mix

This'll be complemented by supplies I already have:

• Solarium on the house = natural light source and extra warmth (aiming for 60-70 degrees)
• One mini fluorescent greenhouse light (about 2 feet wide) and a timer = light source to hang 3 inches above plants for 16 hours a day.  This is really only enough for 1-2 trays. 
• Fan = agitation to make the seedlings sturdy
• One dining table (we have 2, to make a long table) covered in plastic = plant stand for the 5 trays
• Watering can & spray bottle
• Makeshift plastic wrap sprouting domes = humidity for sprouting
• Reptile heat mat and rope xmas lights for under-tray germination heating
• Plant labels
• Larger 4-inch pots left over from previously purchased plants

I may need to invest in actual fluorescent lighting during early spring, but so far this is a much more professional start.  I'll be planting a new batch of seeds every week or two in an attempt to have continuous harvests, so I should be able to empty and refill one tray every few weeks.


But then, it's back to the original plan.

Click HERE for the full plan.

Since I worked so hard on planning out the optimal garden layout last year, and I still have most of that seed, I will just add in my new seed and attempt to do the plan.  Shouldn't be hard, since I blogged the plan last year and still have my SmartGardener layout ready.

According to last year's SmartGardener plan, I start the earliest seedlings around February 8th, but put garlic in the soil (mostly for the delicious greens) February 1st!  That leaves me a month to:

• Dig through the soil 6 inches deep to remove all the cutworms (ugh, I started on this just a little and there are a TON)... Stormy likes to help with this.
• Harvest the last of the greens and turnips currently in the beds, and trim back the mint.
• Amend the soil.  This time I'm adding the full 2 inches of compost, mixed 8 inches deep.
• Finalize the garden layout.
• Set up the solarium for wintry sprouting fun.

Here's hoping that the 2015 garden is miraculously bountiful, and that I have so many healthy vibrant seedlings that I am forced to give extras away to whoever is willing to take them. 

Wish me luck!

New goals, and the Christmas of Handmade Gifts

My parents read the last blog entry, and after a few phone calls the family members are all on board for making Christmas 2015 be the holiday of the handmade gifts. The excellent thing about this is that I know exactly what I want to make for most of them, because I had it all planned out (but ran out of time) by October last year.

So!

Current 2015 goal:
- Hand-make all Christmas gifts for my side of the family. Potentially do the same for other friends and family. This will be excellent practice for the future etsy store, and if it is fun I'll end up making extras to attempt to sell once it is up and running. (A healthy amount of online crafting sales is my eventual business goal/fantasy especially once kids are in school and I have lots of free time.)

Potential 2015 goals I am pondering:
- Figure out how to grow healthy seedlings that survive, and get them planted outside on time. Sounds like a small goal, but this was my biggest garden issue last year that led to almost nothing producing a respectable amount of edibles. And I have a LOT of seed.
- Slowly weight lift daily for at least 5 minutes, arms/back one day and legs/stomach the next. Sounds simple, but whenever I have steady weight loss, I am on this regimen. I could use some muscle gain.
- Walk 1000 miles, as tracked by my Fitbit. That equals 2.75 miles a day... I tend to do a mile a day if I am totally sedentary, so this should be a doable goal, especially as I work up to longer hikes. This requires that I get outside almost daily, which I need to be doing more anyway, especially with a high-energy dog. The baby can handle a jogging stroller in 2-3 months.
- At least 10 minutes of Pilates or swimming per day. I have ten 10-minute Pilates video segments in my DVD arsenal and a saltwater pool in the backyard, and tend to feel the best when I have been doing these two exercises regularly. How hard could it be to find 10 minutes?
- Blog for at least 10 minutes per day, whether I feel like it or not. This would be encouraged by the new iPad, which is currently helping me type while I nurse.  Talking with an artist and researching writers online, it seems that they force themselves to create daily even when they're not feeling the creative spark... it works for them.  Maybe it'll work for me too.
- Avoid wearing jeans until Valentine's Day, to be able to say I avoided real pants for a year. Hehe.

If I do all the potential goals, that is an investment of a minimum of an hour per day in mostly small chunks. Torin's getting better at entertaining himself now that he's found his hands, so... heck, I'll do them all.

For a daily reminder I will make up a list of daily and long-term goals to use as my computer background.  My exception will be that the daily items can be skipped on days when sick or not at home.  Lastly, I will update here once a month with my actual tallies of miles walked, produce plucked, gifts made, etc.

Think it can be done with a baby in the house?

In Retrospect

Alrighty... it's my birthday, and it's the first of the year, so it's time for that good ol' goal setting thing.  Normally my "resolution" is to make no resolutions, but for some reason last year and this year I feel the need to do something more substantial.  


2014

The past year had a bunch of extreme successes, and a bunch of failures, but it was also one of the happiest years I can remember.


Basically, the three most important goals of the year were accomplished: 

• Leave my job (the end of a 3-year attempt to leave)
• Work every day on stress reduction and relaxation
• Get/stay pregnant after 3 years of fertility issues and pregnancy losses. We finally have that healthy baby we've been wishing for!

In the face of that, who cares about the rest?


So, what now?

Here are the goals from last year... very detailed, and apparently very optimistic.  See below* for details on what was accomplished!

It has become obvious that I need to make goals that are either few and important, or many and easy.  Do I gather all the mini-goals from last year that were abandoned?  Or just the most important ones?  Do I make super easy short goals like "perfect my thai soup recipe" or longer easy goals such as "do 10 minutes of Pilates per day"?  Do I reach for the stars, or reach for the nearest cup of tea?

Either way, I need to head in the direction of improvement.  My fitness is rather sub-par after a difficult pregnancy, the blog is lagging, my Etsy store seems to be just a far-off fantasy compared with how much free time I have, and the garden is a huge waste if I can't get it to produce anything again this year.

I need to ponder these things more deeply, so it'll have to be another post on a later day.  In the meantime...

Do you have any goals for the year?  Do you have any inspiring tales of goals accomplished in 2014? 



*
Here's what did get accomplished:

• "Retire" from my job.  Heck yes I did!
• Cook purely from scratch... well, I mostly did this.
• Meditate daily and keep stressors down.  HUGE success here.
• Doubled the garden space.  Weigh all produce for accuracy.
• Deep-clean and declutter house.  Technically I did this, but then it re-cluttered halfway.  It's an ongoing battle with my hoardy instincts.
• Paint and furnish the extra bedrooms... did 2 out of 3, not bad.  Put in new carpet and beds!
• Minimized the overall budget.  Not as much as I could have, and still plan to do more next year, but it was enough.  Kinda shocked that we didn't really feel the loss of my income.
• Making friends... the neighbors' kids come to play with Stormy on occasion now, and I have 1 dog park friend.
• Increased disaster preparedness to cover 3 months of bugging-in survival.
• Slowly train Stormy to carry water on hikes.
• Get pregnant, stay pregnant.  Damn right, I had that baby!
• Keep blogging.  Technically I did not give up, despite very few posts.
• Host a party... there were 2.

Major 2014 goals not accomplished:

• Double the garden produce.  Didn't even make a 10th of last year's.  Horrible weather patterns, horrible luck with seedlings, mysterious tomato failures, lots of mammal and codling moth pests.
• Become a badass hiker.  A high-risk pregnancy meant an end to my hiking... doctor's orders.
• Build enough stock for the Etsy store to actually start the store.  But I did learn to crochet!
• 2014 food storage plan... only did about a 4th of it or less.  Pregnancy food aversions, ugh.
• Hand-make gifts for the holidays... well, I did a few of them.