Adventures of an urban homesteader growing greens, preserving the harvest and tending a backyard barnyard
We knew that Baby River was special the moment he entered our lives, but we didn’t know he was extra special until he was six days old. That is the day when we got the call that his newborn screening test came back positive for PKU. Coincidentally, that is exactly how old my now 15-year old nephew Evan was when we got the call that
Finally our heirloom tomato plants are ready for harvesting! We are running through our regular list of ways to enjoy fresh tomatoes, but just found one more to add to the mix: homemade pizza topped with fresh tomatoes. Get ready for something delicious and easy. I found the pizza dough recipe on AllRecipes.com aptly named “Quick and Easy Pizza Crust“. It requires no rising, which saves a
I planted two different varieties of onions in early spring along the perimeter of our raised beds: red onions and Walla Walla sweets. You know it’s time to harvest onions when the greens start to die back, which usually happens in late summer. That means the plant is done sending it’s energy from the greens down into the ripening bulb. I just recently pulled almost my
Our homestead garden plan includes a small area reserved for an evolving nature play space for our little ones. We didn’t have a budget to work with, so most the play elements were based on what we had on hand. It’s a flexible space that can change over time as the kids grow and their interests change. That means none of the play elements are permanent or expensive.
Some of my fondest childhood memories were made among a berry patch. We grew raspberries, blueberries and strawberries on the urban farm where I was raised. Blackberries grew along a neighbor’s fence and we would cut them back just enough to keep them on their property, but within reach when the berries were ripe. In my design work, I have found that berry bushes and
“I think I had better go lie down. I think that may have been a labor contraction…” I was standing in our garden next to the raised beds talking with my Dad about the garden. Contractions had been getting more and more frequent for the last week, but had yet to turn into real, belt-tightening-feeling labor contractions. As a second-time mom, I’m told that’s common
I’ve started a little trend lately here of taking you on a tour of our house, a year after move-in. Let’s continue to another room we gave a facelift to: our quiet and calm bedroom. This was less reno and more facelift because everything we did was simple cosmetic changes. The room had a yellow print wallpaper with matching yellow curtains when we bought it,
The mid-century home we bought a year ago had solid bones, but fabulously outdated interior spaces. Every room came with it’s own unique patterned wallpaper and a thick layer of beige carpet. It was hard to imagine we could polish this into a gem, but we took a leap of faith and snapped the house off the market. Since that time, we have slowly transformed this house into
Hardscape pathways in the garden can turn an otherwise messy space into a cleanly organized area. It’s one of those garden elements that doesn’t seem as sexy and fun as building a pergola or raised beds, but it will make a major impact in the overall visual appeal of a garden. Over my years of homesteading, I have experimented with many different materials for pathways: wood
When I was growing up, we always had a whole shelf in our freezer devoted to frozen blueberries. Around early July our family of six would visit the same local blueberry farm to u-pick about a hundred pounds of berries. All of us kids ended up with berry-stained hands and bellies full of fruit as we drove home with the car packed with berry crates.
