Sprouts

Lettuces have sprouted! Time to thin, pot-up, and transition outside. :)

1-11-11 and so it begins :)

So here goes! All the seed arrived in the mail. It was like Christmas all over again.

Whereas my dining server (that sits just below a large double window) will be converted into a seed birthing platform, I've asked my husband to help me bring the tiller from my mother's house here today to get my dirt on! Time to prepare the back and side yard for 12 months of fantastic beauty and edible delight!

Please, if you have a large dinner party, or want to contribute but do not have time or extra funds, please throw your vegetable and fruits scraps in a bag and either drop them off or give me a ring and I'll come pick them up. I'm talking to anyone who doesn't already compost themselves of course. We have been contributing to our own compost bin for about a year now and it is going well, but now more than ever I will need as much as possible!

I'm considering getting chickens, like Alice Fowler. I have to do some research and make sure that there isn't a city restriction preventing me from keeping chickens on my residential property. If not, I am looking forward to potentially owning two poop producing, compost enriching, egg laying chickens!

I better get changed, dirt gear needed.

Happy New Year!!!

Tristan & Jason

school garden project of Lane County

This single website may have changed my life. Its like I just found a lesson plan for the whole thing. I'm speechless. I feel like I've tapped into a thread. Please go to this site and look around. This is what I want to do, but on land I own for the sake of the nonprofit.http://www.efn.org

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

I bought seeds today from Baker Creek Hierloom Seeds. "All of our seed is non-hybrid, non-GMO, non-treated and non-patented." I selected a variety ranging from flowers to lettuces, herbs to sweet peppers. (Yes babe, I bought the chinese hot variety too.)

I feel a little overwhelmed to make this mixed garden a success. That's my fear talking. This is where I test and learn. Boy I hope I have yummy goodness to share with everyone this year. Here's a deep breath and prayer. Away we go!

Another patch

So this year instead of going to Lowe's or Home Depot for our Christmas tree Ryan suggested we head to Toogoodoo Tree Farm. Brilliant idea. As it is now we have a beautiful and native Red Cedar in our living room, root bulb in tact! A seven foot gorgeous LIVING tree, in a bucket, holding on long enough I hope for me to put her in our back yard. I'm feeding her Compost Tea from the Abby and we have enough soil to just cover her roots.

I love trees. And no, I'm not talking about sap hugging crunchy dreams, I mean I truly love trees. My calmest, most serene moments in the past few years have been when Ryan and I go camping in the NC mountains and I wake up under a canopy of trees each morning. I want this same awareness to be available to kids who never make it out of the city before they're adults. I want to build a house on a lot that only has enough clearing for the house itself, in the woods. Hollywood, Johns Island, any beautiful patch of land will do. I also want to plant a garden. A co-op garden that kids from the city can come and work in exchange for life experiences, trade learning, and crops to take home.

The night after we came back from Toogoodoo, I was home alone (as Ryan was working a 24) and I was sad amount a personal loss I had experienced a few days prior. I looked up at our new red cedar and it hit me. I wanted to start this. This garden, those trees, finding the kids that wanted to get out of the city.

I can't say this patch is ready to be sewn, but I'm looking for the fabric and thread as we speak.

Here's to Fred and Frank, our first two Christmas trees, and especially to Olivia Velma, our red cedar beauty.

The first patch

I realized I could start my patchwork project and stop waiting for the whole thing to come together if I just did a random act of kindness today. I could just make the first patch and stop waiting to figure out how to put it all together. No mission statements or grant proposals. Just walk out the door and make the first patch.

My mom said she was going to be raking and bagging pine straw this morning when I called her. Mom has bone spurs in her cervical spine and hip and though she is the only 57-year-old surfing on 23rd street every weekend of the summer there was no way she would make it through her front yard without feeling pain the next few days. I told her I would come over and help. I think she thought I needed to talk about something.

I went, we raked, we bagged, we climbed ladders and grabbed pine straw from gutters, and I left. I hopped in the car, facebooked that I helped my mom rake and bag her yard and went home. The first patch was done.

I'm going to continue making the "patches" and facebooking and blogging about it. Even if you do not post on this blog, please fb or twitter something when it falls in to the patchwork project. Oprah, TED talks, Good Morning Amercia... I hope the big media dials turn their noses towards this and it becomes a large movement improving Communities and their internal relationships- one patch at a time.