Garden's Bounty

Nothing is making me happier right now than my mostly successful garden. I was so enthusiastic about my first ever vegetable garden last year and was less than thrilled with the results. Although I did get quite a bit of lettuce and a few tomatoes out of it, it never really lived up to my expectations.

After several people who know a lot more about gardening than I do told me that my soil was REALLY sandy, I decided to call the place where I had purchased what they called "gardener mix" in the spring. I can't remember the details of all the back-and-forth conversations that we had, but in the end I was just plain frustrated when I realized that not only did they not seem to know what they were talking about, but I had been sold two truckloads of bad soil (or sand)!

I was utterly despondent for a month or so this spring when I realized all the work and cost that would have to go into having a garden again this year. I didn't have the money, energy or time to remove all the bad soil; purchase and load new soil; and buy all the seeds and starter plants to get this thing going. I told Brian it wasn't worth it and I just wouldn't do it this year.

Well, I think he knew how sad this made me, so he rallied, and spent one weekend removing all the bad soil, disposing of it, driving to Denver and buying new soil (from a different company, obviously), and hauling it all from the truck and into the garden! I can't thank him enough for all that hard work.

I went through all the seeds I had from the year before, gave myself a $100 budget, and bought some starter plants. I was a bit late in my planting, but figured I'd give it a shot anyway.

And, oh am I glad that I did.....

I'm currently harvesting lots of lettuce, Swiss chard, Anaheim chilis, herbs, and quite a few tomatoes (there are so many green tomatoes on these plants...I'm going to be swimming in tomatoes as they ripen). My other pepper plants are starting to produce, including green bell peppers and jalapenos. My squash, zucchini, and cucumber plants are getting big and trying to take over the garden. I'm also growing beets, carrots, and Brussels sprouts.



Another unexpected success for the summer is my compost pile! Again, something I was pretty depressed about after last summer because it appeared that NOTHING was happening....After declaring the compost pile dormant for the winter, I didn't even bother to bring the kitchen compost crock in the house this spring because I was so sure that I was a composting failure. But a while back I took the lid off my compost bin, thoroughly soaked it with water, and let it stay open to the air, sun, and excessive rain we were getting. And, lo and behold, my compost pile is cookin'! Literally! Take a look at this rich, dark soil! YEAH!

The greatest gift of the garden is the restoration of the five senses. ~Hanna Rion

Compost Isn't What It Used To Be

Well, my compost pile is well underway. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm giving it a go. I'm using this compost bin that my mother-in-law Chris picked up for me at Sam's Club for $40.00. Not bad!


Sadie and I collected sticks and twigs from my parents' property a couple months ago, and I used those as a base layer for my pile. Then I started layering dry grass,weeds and leaves with kitchen scraps. At the base of the pile I also added a little bit of bagged compost from the store, hoping that would help things get started.

And I'm using this fabulous crock for collecting scraps in the kitchen. It was a happy day at the thrift store when I saw this...just what I'd been looking for! It sits right next to the sink and all my fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds and filters, tea bags, and egg shells go there instead of the trash can. Every couple days I empty it into the bin and give it a quick rinse.

Now I just continue to layer kitchen scraps with dried grass clippings. Every once in a while I'll throw a little soil on top to keep the bugs down. I'm not going to be sticking my head in the bin anytime soon, but I have yet to have any complaints about odor. Nothing appears to be going too incredibly wrong. But I can't really tell if anything is going right, either! I'm hoping to have miraculously created rich earthy soil to thrown on my garden in the fall. We'll see....

In the meantime, it's AWESOME to barely be throwing anything in the trash. We recycle everything imaginable, and now barely throw any kitchen/food scraps away. The only things in our kitchen trashcan are plastic wrappers, styrofoam containers (which I avoid like the plague, but sometimes meat products are packaged with styrofoam, you know), and other types of plastic packaging. These days I'm also trying to find ways to minimize the amount of this type of material coming into the house.

So, it's a grand experiment. I'm trying to not overthink it. And crossing my fingers that this compost pile, if mostly left alone, will do what it's supposed to do.

Happiness In....

Local homegrown eggs of many colors

Go Green

Sadie and I just finished week two of Enchanted Chameleon's Green Smoothie Challenge and we feel great! No plans to stop drinking green smoothies anytime soon. Not sure if it will continue to be part of my daily routine, but hopefully I'll continue to have at least 3-5 smoothies per week. What a perfect way to make sure I'm getting all the vitamins and minerals I need from greens.

I've gotten a lot of questions about the smoothies since my last post and figured I would answer some of them here. Most of this information was passed along to me by Suzanne as part of my participation in the challenge.

Green Smoothies are made up of 3 things: 1 - 2 Cups of Water; 40% Green Leaves and 60% Fruit.

The greens that I used during this two week period were: red leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, rainbow chard, kale, spinach, and collard greens. The fruit I used was whatever suited my fancy that morning: apple, pear, banana, blueberries, strawberries, pineapple, mango, lemon, tangerine, orange.

I assembled my smoothies the way Suzanne shows in this video. I started with a couple ice cubes, 2 cups of filtered water, a couple big handfuls of greens, and blended until smooth. Then added my fruit and blended again until I got a smooth consistency.

I also experimented with adding ginger, but found that it didn't blend as well and left stringy bits in my smoothie...not so lovely. If I grated the ginger with a microplaner first, I had better luck.

Suzanne provides these links for more information:

• See the link "Ode To Green Smoothie" for awesome information and a few delicious recipes.
• Preview a chapter of Green Smoothie Revolution
• Green Smoothie Recipes You can review the recipes and pick a few that you would like. Suzanne recommends not keeping produce for more than a couple of days at a time.
• Or you can check out Suzanne's recipes under Green Smoothies on her website

Green Smoothie Goodness

I'm halfway through the Enchanted Chameleon's 2-week Green Smoothie Challenge.

• Green Smoothies are a blended mixture of raw leafy greens, raw fruit or veggies, & water.
• Green smoothies are easy to digest. When blended well, all the valuable nutrients in these fruits and veggies become homogenized, or divided into such small particles that it becomes easy for the body to assimilate these nutrients.
• Green smoothies, as opposed to juices, are a complete food because they still have fiber.
• By consuming two or three cups of green smoothies daily you will consume enough of greens for the day to nourish your body, and they will be well assimilated.
• When you consume your greens in the form of green smoothies, you can greatly reduce the consumption of oils and salt in your diet.

I started drinking green smoothies right before I got pregnant with Sadie, but they didn't jive so well with morning sickness, so I dropped the habit. Suzanne's challenge has me back on track and I've been drinking at least 16 ounces of green smoothie a day for an entire week so far.

My favorites last week were the following:

blueberry, strawberry, rainbow chard, apple

banana, mango, red leaf lettuce

apple, blueberry, ginger, lemon, apple, swiss chard

I've picked up big bunches of organic romaine lettuce, kale, and spinach for this week's smoothies. Also some mango and pineapple to add to the other fruit I always have around the house. Sadie was initially joining me in drinking a green smoothie every day, but I think the spike in fiber was a lot for her system to take, so we've dropped her to every few days (she usually has a non-green smoothie on the other days).

It's been relatively easy to incorporate making these smoothies into my morning routine. They keep me satisfied until it's time for my mid-morning snack, and give me great energy. I've lost weight since starting the challenge, and I love knowing that I'm soaking up all the amazing benefits of these greens. I think this week I'll make a bigger batch each morning and take another smoothie to work with me for later in the day. Yummmm.....

One Small Change: April 2010

It's a little late for this posting, but better late than never!

So, the change I committed to for March for Hip Mountain Mama's One Small Change challenge was to install and use an outdoor clothesline for at least some of my laundry in order to save the energy used with the electric dryer. Well....if you live in Colorado, you know that it was A VERY SNOWY MONTH! Like, seriously snowy. I feel like it snowed every day in March. Needless to say, it wasn't completely conducive to outdoor drying. I did get my new retractable clothesline installed and have used it a couple times. Sheets drying on the line weren't as picturesque as I'd envisioned.

Frankly, my clothesline isn't hung high enough for the sheet drying to be very functional. And Brian thought our bed smelled like dirt. That's probably because in my disorganization of hanging the sheets, they may have hit the dirt a couple times.

This is also going to be a tough change for me because I'm a working mama. Laundry doesn't always coincide with being home the next day. It's usually done when I'm out of underwear, on whichever night of the week that happens to be. Diapers, same thing. So, if I'm doing laundry at night, and I'm going to be at work for the next few days, it's tough to do the air drying thing.

But, I'm glad I've taken a step in the direction of using the sun for drying. I will continue to try to work at least one load of diapers a week around days when I'm home to dry them outdoors. And I think and hope that the snow is gone for the year, so that should help too. So, my one small change for April 2010, the last month of this challenge, is actually a very big change for our family. We're planting our first vegetable garden!! With the help of the neighborhood boys, we (well, I took on a more supervisory role), built this nice looking raised bed out of concrete blocks.

Before we could move any further we had to deal with Lake Peterson, which formed at the base of our yard, in front of the garden, as soon as it was built. After installing a modified french drain, we imported a wonderful mix of soil, compost, and sand this past Friday.
Sadie loved playing in the yard while we worked. And she even tasted the goods. Yum, dirt!

Now it's patiently waiting for its first seeds.

I've also started some seeds indoors and love coming home every afternoon to check and see if anything new has sprouted.

I can't wait! What a wonderful change for us. I'm so looking forward to being able to grow our own veggies this summer.

Food, Inc.

I've been giving a lot of thought to food lately. I'm making an honest effort to buy organic produce, I look forward to purchasing as much local produce as possible this summer, and I'm making progress on my vegetable garden.

I watched what I think is a VERY important movie this weekend that I think every American should see, Food, Inc.

Official Food, Inc. Movie Site - Hungry For Change? - Trailer and Photos

I cried and cried after watching this movie. I knew about a lot of the issues that are raised in the movie, but the way they were presented really hit me in the face like a ton of bricks. What I didn't really know as much about is the absolute power that a very small number of corporations hold over almost ALL of the food in America. The fact that it's illegal for farmers to save seeds, that it may soon be illegal to show pictures of huge cattle yards, and that you can be sued for speaking out against food produced by these large corporations is terrifying. Maybe all these people screaming about the government's involvement in our healthcare system should put some of that rabid energy into fighting against the government's nearly complete control of our food industry.

As scary and depressing as it was, I'm feeling more motivated than ever to continue to make responsible choices in the food my family eats.



A wonderful resource I've enjoyed for finding local farms and meat producers is http://www.localharvest.org/
I also really like this list of the 12 produce items that have been found to contain the highest levels of pesticides (and are therefore probably worth buying from the organic produce section).

We've also started watching a great show on ABC called Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. I have a big fat crush on Jamie Oliver, and he's even sexier when trying to make big, revolutionary changes in the way our country feeds our children!

One of the scariest moments in the the premier episode of the show was when a group of first graders couldn't name some of the simplest vegetables (tomatoes, potatoes, onions, etc.) Seriously terrifying!

All this has got my brain spinning. In some good ways and some bad ways. I feel very grateful for the delicious, homecooked, healthy, fresh meals I ate growing up (thanks Mom!). It was good for me then, and taught me good eating and cooking habits for now.

Here are the 10 tips to take in your own life to change the food system in the country offered by the "Hungry For Change" website.

1. Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages.
You can lose 25 lbs in a year by replacing one 20 oz soda a day with a no calorie beverage (preferably water).
2. Eat at home instead of eating out.
Children consume almost twice (1.8 times) as many calories when eating food prepared outside the home.
3. Support the passage of laws requiring chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus and menu boards.
Half of the leading chain restaurants provide no nutritional information to their customers.
4. Tell schools to stop selling sodas, junk food, and sports drinks.
Over the last two decades, rates of obesity have tripled in children and adolescents aged 6 to 19 years.
5. Meatless Mondays—Go without meat one day a week.
An estimated 70% of all antibiotics used in the United States are given to farm animals.
6. Buy organic or sustainable food with little or no pesticides.
According to the EPA, over 1 billion pounds of pesticides are used each year in the U.S.
7. Protect family farms; visit your local farmer's market.
Farmer's markets allow farmers to keep 80 to 90 cents of each dollar spent by the consumer.
8. Make a point to know where your food comes from—READ LABELS.
The average meal travels 1500 miles from the farm to your dinner plate.
9. Tell Congress that food safety is important to you.
Each year, contaminated food causes millions of illnesses and thousands of deaths in the U.S.
10. Demand job protections for farm workers and food processors, ensuring fair wages and other protections.

This feels like a good place to start. Here we go....

One Small Change: March 2010

For February's One Small Change challenge, I made a commitment to make small changes to the energy usage in our home.

I continued to keep our thermostat at a reasonable 67 degrees, and although I was FREEZING in my home a lot of the time, it made me feel good that I was making a difference in my energy consumption (and possibly my utility bill). I'd pile on a few more layers, warm up my rice pad, and curl up under a blanket. Sadie doesn't seem to mind, so I figure I should get over being a bit chilly.

Actually, as I looked over the past few month's natural gas bills, I found that my average daily usage decreased about 14% during the month of January (when we first turned the thermostat down) from the same period during December. Yeah!!!

I also found myself becoming much more conscious about turning off lights that weren't being used. I've always liked having lots of light in a home as the sun sets and into the evening. It has always made things seem a bit more cozy to me. This month though, every time I left a room, I'd turn its light off. I lit candles if I was needing that cozy vibe.

I also worked on addressing the "vampire" power use in our home. Vampire power is the energy that small appliances use when they are plugged in, even if they are turned off. This month I always unplugged the coffee maker, coffee grinder, two cell phone chargers, and overhead cabinet lighting when not in use.

Good habits to continue to work on and to teach Sadie as she gets older!

For March's One Small Change, I've finally gotten around to purchasing a retractable clothesline for our backyard. It should be arriving soon, and as the days get longer, lighter, and warmer, I'm so excited to start air-drying some clothes and Sadie's cloth diapers. Drying cloth diapers in the sun is better for them anyway...it removes stains and keeps them soft. Hope I don't have to fight with the Homeowners Association here in my suburban neighborhood too much!

Cooking Up A Storm

I love cooking so much! It's funny that when I first moved out on my own I swore I would never be a good cook like my mom...I just didn't have it in me. But I love my kitchen and I love cooking in it. I love making healthy, delicious, interesting recipes for my family and friends. Some recent meals we've enjoyed....

Homemade springs rolls and citrus brown rice salad with edamame.

From here

In this cookbook

Green chili and chicken posole. Hominy is my new favorite canned vegetable! (Is it a vegetable? I think it has something to do with corn, right?) Recipe from the Food Network Magazine, which I thoroughly enjoy. Found here.

And the most exciting recipe recently is this...homemade pho! It really did taste like pho! The secret to the broth...star anise pods! Who knew??? Also from the FN Magazine, found here.

While this is all fine and good, I'll admit that in order to make all these fun, delicious meals, my grocery bill isn't as low as I'd like it to be. So my new goal in the kitchen is to continue making great meals, but to learn how to be a bit more frugal about it. I clip coupons and try to look for what's on sale. I don't buy a lot of packaged food. What other suggestions do you have for me? Buying in bulk? Buying local? Buying fruits/veggies in larger quantities and freezing? How can I still eat interesting meals (not just rice, pasta, etc...) and lower my grocery bill?

I'm hoping to start a small garden this summer and be able to grow my own peppers/squash/lettuce/tomatoes/and herbs. Herbs are expensive at the grocery store! But especially in the winter months, the ingredients I like are not cheap. (I know when it comes to produce that's because they're being sent all the way from South America or wherever.) Not only are there the personal finances to consider when buying grapes in January, but the carbon impact of a purchase like that.

So, we'll see...I'm on a mission to stay within my weekly grocery budget and still have fun in the kitchen. Wish me luck...

One Small Change: February 2010

In January, as part of Hip Mountain Mama's One Small Change challenge, I made a commitment to bring more cloth into our daily lives and subsequently reduce the amount of paper and plastic products that we use and therefore throw away. I happily continued using my reusable grocery bags, lunch bag, and coffee cup.

I bought some reusable produce bags from Qwerty O on etsy.com. I love these bags! I think the clerks at the grocery store are somewhat annoyed (because I end up putting more than one type of produce in a bag together), but I've been really happy with the change.

Although I always used to save my plastic grocery bags when I still used them, I'll admit that I never saved the produce bags, which meant they went right in the trash. What an easy and important change to make!

We also used cloth napkins all month, and we will definitely keep up this habit! It was fun to go to my local thrift store and choose a fun and funky assortment of cloth napkins. We usually use them for a few days and then put them in the wash.

I actually didn't buy or use a single paper towel all month! (which wasn't really part of the plan...but it just ended up that way) The only time I felt the need to have a paper towel around was when heating food up in the microwave (to minimize splatter, you know), but I ended up either using a plate to cover the bowl being heated, or just let a little splatter happen.

I also purchased some cloth sandwich bags from Qwerty O's Etsy shop. It was great to buy them from this shop because they're actually sewn by her daughter who is saving all the money she makes from their sale for college!

So, I didn't actually use these great bags this month...but that's not because I was using plastic instead. I just don't really use baggies that often, and lately have been taking salads for lunch, which I don't need the bags for. But I'm happy to know that I have them to use instead of plastic baggies.

Overall, I am very pleased with the small changes we made in January.

So, for February, I'm turning towards our energy use. Actually, in January (without planning to), we turned our thermostat down three to four degrees. When Sadie slept over at her Grandma and Grandpa Peterson's house at the beginning of the month, the room she stayed in was much cooler than her room at home. And she slept through the night for the first time in months! So, we immediately turned our home's temperature to a more reasonable 66 degrees (from my preferred 69/70 degrees) and we've kept it there all month (I'll admit it's because Sadie has continued sleeping through the night and I'm convinced that's part of the reason...poor thing was just too hot!).

So...along these lines, I'd like to continue making small changes that will affect our household energy use. I plan to be more conscious about turning off lights that aren't being used. I also want to start evaluating the "vampire" power use in our home. Vampire power is the energy that small appliances use when they are plugged in, even if they are turned off. Studies have shown that this energy can account for around 10% of residential energy consumption! The easy ones to start with will be cell phone chargers, microwave, computers, and hairdryer.

I look forward to making this one small change in February!

One Small Change: January 2010

There are a lot of blogs out there that I stumble across as I wander around the internet. Many of them are written by like-minded mamas who inspire me every day as I work to make lifestyle changes, make responsible decisions as a consumer, and raise my daughter in a conscious, natural way. I came across Suzy's blog over a year ago when we met through the Widespread Panic group on Ravelry, a social networking site for knitters. Susy lives in Colorado and goes to a lot of the same concerts and festivals that we do. Although we've talked about it a lot, we have yet to meet in person...but I'm always on the lookout for her and her knitting when I'm at Red Rocks or at the Planet Bluegrass Ranch.

Suzy owns a business called Hip Mountain Mama which sells wonderful environmentally friendly products for natural families. I was so pleased to be able to purchase some of my christmas presents from her this year.

In December I learned about a new challenge that Suzy is embarking on, and she's welcomed her blog readers to join her. The idea behind One Small Change, in Suzy's words:

"We are passionate about educating others about sustainability and passionate about building community. Our desire to create a community of individuals who want to make a positive change has led to the creation of our One Small Change project. We want to challenge each of you to make 1 change each month leading up to Earth Day (April 22, 2010). It can be small or it can be huge, but all we ask is that you decide on something you will do to make a positive green impact and follow through with it. If everyone makes 4 changes between January and April, this can have a huge effect."

Suzy now has 150 people signed up to take part in this challenge and has created a page where you can see what changes other families are making here.

I was really proud of us when I realized that many of the ideas Suzy offers for this challenge are already a part of our household: recycling, cloth diapering, making your own natural cleaning products, bringing your own bags to the store, using rags instead of paper towels to clean up messes, and using reusable lunch sacks...

However, there were several things on Suzy's list, and ideas that I gained from other bloggers who are taking part in this challenge, that inspired me to start making small changes as part of this challenge.

So, here goes...January 2010: One Small Change in the Peterson household

MORE CLOTH!

As I've blogged about before here, cloth diapering has been wonderful for us...we're so pleased with it. In light of that, I'm hoping to bring more cloth use into our household. Specifically, by using cloth napkins, cloth/reusable ziplocs, and cloth produce bags.

I'll write about our progress and February's change next month. Until then....what changes will you make in 2010?