Garden of Eatin' :: Tag Archive

Tag Archives: changes

New home, neighborhood, garden!

by Amy on February 9, 2009 in General, Tools, Products & How To

Now that the toilet and bathroom sink work, we’re settling in well. The move wasn’t bad at all. Except my ex-landlord stalking me. But I blocked her and she doesn’t know our new address so it’s all good now.

Our new neighborhood seems excellent so far. One neighbor said hi the night we moved in and another came by today and welcomed us and told us all about everyone (without being all icky-gossipy), and I guess there are regular neighborhood get togethers during the summer, block parties and yard sales and stuff, so it’ll be fun for the kids.

The yard needs a lot of work, it’s been neglected at least 6 months. Lots of leaves for the composter. We had to leave our compost behind (it was beautiful compost too, kind of sad about that), and we have very clay soil here so I’ll be getting a lot of amendments for the garden. Once the temps get above about 55 and I can stand being outside (I’m hypersensitive to the cold – one of the big reasons I am SO GLAD we didn’t move to Idaho), I’ll get off my duff (hopefully by then I’m completely unpacked) and get the yard and garden going.

Thanks to Compostings for posting a link to Skippy’s Planting Calendar, super useful tool!!! Now that I know I need to be starting some seeds pronto, be watching for actual garden updates and pictures :bounce

Boxes! AHHHHHHHHH

by Amy on February 5, 2009 in General

I’m going to have nightmares about monster boxes, I swear. Our one car garage is completely packed with boxes and there’s a good roomful still inside, plus furniture. I hope the 24′ Uhaul is enough – I figured without my dad’s stuff here and the paring down I’ve been doing, we shouldn’t need a 26′! We’ll see tomorrow!

My own done/to do list to keep me motivated cause it’s really lacking right now:

Playroom packed
Kitchen packed except stuff we’ll need and the fridge (I was bad and bought paper/plastic plates, bowls, cups and silverware…errrr, plasticware)
Living room packed
Computer room packed except, obviously, the computers
Daughter’s room packed
Oldest son’s room almost done

Packing the master bedroom/younger kids clothes tonight

Everything else tomorrow?

Get the truck then:
-Empty the fridge and freezer
-Bathroom and linen closet
-Computers
-Put all bedding in bags w/names

To put in van:
Cat (in carrier so I survive the trip)
Dog
Computers
Diapers/wipes!

Leave cleaning supplies, come back Saturday and clean after we drop off the truck.

Did I mention we have no help? This will be so.much.fun. At least it’s not a long distance move.

To buy: new broom and mop (hold over from my pagan days, the idea is not to bring old dirt/vibes into the new house)

Our new house

by Amy on February 4, 2009 in General

We move in Friday! Woohoo! :banana

It wasn’t the house in the previous post, but it will definitely do. It’s already got a garden plot! And a fireplace, and all hardwood floors (I freaking hate carpets) and cherry cabinets in the kitchen. The 2 things I don’t like about it: the 3 very, very yappy annoying dogs next door (and only chain link between the houses) and the dishwasher is half size.It’s like this but a zillion years old (which is so weird because the rest of the house is updated):

Edited to add, this is my real kitchen, sans flooring (it’ll be done before we move in tomorrow):

And the living room and part of the back yard:

Staying in Oregon and Strawberries?

by Amy on January 29, 2009 in General

NO IDAHO! YES!

Excuse the shouting, I’m very happy about it. I get to stay here!

We’ll find out today or tomorrow if we get the house we want – it has a backyard bigger then our current one (you’ve seen the pictures) with the entire back fence encased in blackberries. I asked the owner not to spray them as he was talking about, that we would keep them trimmed (yay pole trimmer). It’s a much smaller house, only a 3 bedroom, one floor, but it’s got enough storage room we’ll make due.

Since I get to stay local, I’m wondering if I can take our strawberries with us – can any readers help me out? Can I just dig them up, do I need to trim the growth, what should I do? They’ve been in the ground about 9 months.

Cross your fingers we get this house! I can’t wait to start gardening again!

3 weeks (dun dun duuuunnn)

by Amy on January 12, 2009 in General

3 weeks til we leave for Idaho – assuming the IRS gives me the refund instead of auditing me instead. Chances are low, yes, but I’m one of those lucky “special” people, you know?

So the bright spot – the only one (I really don’t want to live there) – is it’s almost gardening season. Assuming I can find a house to rent, in a short while I’ll be shopping for non-Monsanto seeds (though I think I have enough from last year, maybe will forgo the shopping part), sowing some indoors, tilling my garden with my uber-l33t Mantis (excuse the geek speak, I can’t help it sometimes) and starting the process again. I’ve already rolled up the fence to take with us and am working on getting all the gardening stuff ready to go. Looking over the past almost-year of posts gives me the oomph to trudge along, with the hopes I’ll be gardening again soon in a house that isn’t for sale/that we might have to leave any time even if we could afford it. Stability is awesome, I tell ya.

Efforts rewarded

by Amy on July 6, 2008 in Harvesting & Preserving, The Growing Garden

I thought it might be a good idea to check out the taters that were getting flooded over and over. The bottom 4 plants, the ones at the end of the line so to speak that keep getting the most water, got pulled up last night and turned into dinner. The 3 russets and 1 of the red plants, completely harvested, gave enough potatoes for 5 of us to eat (my 4 year old wasn’t interested) as a main dish. The peas are going nuts and today many are being frozen and I will indeed have zucchini coming out my ears very soon, like so many new gardeners!

The next few months will be hectic, as I am going to start getting rid of mass quantities of our crap that I don’t want to pack and unpack again, plus work and the garden and everything, but I’ll shoot for a post every 3-4 days with updates and pictures.

Here’s some for today:

Everyone was interested to see what broccoli looked like flowering, so we let one plant do so. Very pretty:

Our tater harvest:

Peas, plus a couple carrots that needed to be pulled to thin out the row and an onion just ’cause:

First zucchini:

4th of July and changes ahead

by Amy on July 4, 2008 in Off Topic, The Growing Garden

Gonna fire up the grill this evening and make some typical summer holiday food, nothing special. I make a killer potato salad, I sure wish the taters in the garden were ready! I might try to pay attention to my “recipe” and write it down to share.

I tried to kill the garden again last night, and left the sprinkler on ALL NIGHT, like 10 hours and one half of the garden plus half the taters were under water this morning. Apparently my subconsious knew I did something wrong because I had a dream about the garden that work me up at 5:30 (normally up at and I layed there for a while then realized I did it again. Duh.

I have some semi bad news. My dad has almost decided to stay in the nursing home instead of coming home (short back story: I’ve been taking care of him for the past 6.5 years, he lost his foot in december and went to a rehab center/nursing home until he could walk with his prosthetic)…I guess the cute nurses and constant attention are no match for family and freedom! But that means I’m losing 75% of our income, because he pays me to take care of him. So we’ll have to move, because I cannot afford my wonderful house Chris is working with Voc Rehab to get a job, but it won’t be enough to cover the loss of income from my dad, and I don’t make enough with web design to barely pay for anything. So after the garden is mostly harvested, we’ll till it under, roll up our fencing, pack our bags and move on. But I don’t know where to. Close to Salem, but I don’t know where. I can’t do apartment living, I just can’t. We’ll live in a tent before an apartment. Maybe we can find a little mobile home on an acre out in the middle of nowhere and I can have my huge garden? We shall see. But Garden of Eatin will live on, because I enjoy growing food too darn much!