Spring has sprung

Warm weather has finally come and the snow is receding. The spring bulbs are coming up and the chickens are in heaven searching for bugs around the yard. And I have been one busy bee cleaning up the gardens that never got finished last fall, starting seeds and planting early crops. 

I'll tell you it is a whole lot easier to do garden work without having to carry an extra 10 pounds of baby while doing it. Not sure little miss really has an appreciation yet for growing things but soon enough she will whether she wants to or not. 

I'm still trying to figure out how to get as much as I used to get done, although I'm not so sure I ever will. Things take twice as long but at least they get done and I'll tell you, you tend to really get upset when all that hard work gets ruined because it takes you twice as long as a normal person without a baby and you really have like zero free time to re-do it. So when the wind knocks over your little greenhouse stand with all your cold weather starts it feels even more devastating that you lost half your starts than it would normally. 

I'm hoping to still have some plants to sell at local farmers markets, even though the wind tried to ruin my parade, and I'm hoping my little girl will pursuade buyers to buy our goods over others just because they want to see my beautiful little sweetie. 

Only a few more weeks till the markets start and I feel like I'm moving at a snails pace in getting it all done but I have to remind myself to just be proud of the progress I've made, I mean it is hard to do it all with a newborn and I've gotten a lot accomplished. 

Everyday I try and get one more task out there finished along with the endless loads of laundry and housework that also needs tending to. But every once and a while  you just need a day to rest and lounge around on the couch and you especially need them when your little one thinks its party time at 3 in the morning and you get all of 4 broken hours of sleep. 

Even with things taking far longer to get done, I am so happy for spring and warmer weather. Just getting outside puts a whole new prospective on things and sharing them with my little peanut is so awesome. She's in awe by all the new sights and sounds. I love watching her experience it all. It's a real trip but I wouldn't change a minute of it and before I know it she'll be out there helping me. 

So for now I've got to try and be realistic about how much I can do and not go crazy at the local nusery buying tons of plants, like I normally do. I've had to reel myself in a few times already and learn to ask for help when I wasn't able to contain myself, not an easy task for me. 

There is definitely a learning curve to having a new baby and doing the things you do normally and we're still working on it. But spring has sprung and we're making the best of it and enjoying every minute. 

5 Things to do During the Winter to Ease your Gardening Blues

1. Take inventory-  go through last years seeds and take an inventory, see what you've got and what needs to be ordered. I make a list of the seeds I have and how many are left so I know what needs to get ordered and also so I know what needs to get planted first before any new seeds.

2.  Order seeds-  one of my favorite things to do is go through the all of the gorgeous seed catalogs with a sharpie and circle all of the seeds I want to try out. I always go over board and more than half of the 6 catalogs have been circled and then I've got to go back and narrow it down some and still way over order, there could be worse things I suppose. 

3.  Organize seeds-  This was one project that my OCD was craving for quite some time now. For the past few years my seed packets have been unceremoniously been jammed into the paper bag in which I purchased them from and stored that way, making it very hard to see what I had for seeds and how much was left. Not to mention it definitely is not the best way to store seeds leaving them open to the elements.  So I've decided to organize and label them in a sealed Tupperware container to make them less susceptible to the surrounding atmosphere. I also color coded them to the time they need to be started and planted and organized them alphabetically and by type, veggie, fruit, or flower. Now my mind is at ease knowing exactly what I have for seeds and where they are and how much I have of them and when they need to be started and planted, it's pretty great.

4.  Create a garden plan-  This one is actually not my fortes. Every year I make one by the time it actually comes to planting it all goes out the window. The one thing that I have stuck to however is the planning of my raised beds and the placement of my garden beds, the placement of plants is a different story. I always inter-plant differing species and find the by the time everything is to its true size that I've planted things far to close to one another. So this year I'm going to actively try and plan out my spacing better and figure out some more companion planting to help minimize pest issues. We're also adding some more beds and getting a new fence so putting it on paper will be helpful to see the whole picture. You can do this the old fashioned way like I usually do on paper or there are some pretty cool garden planing apps for your phone or tablet out there now that you can always check out too.

5.  Start seeds-  Starting your own seeds indoors is a great way to ease those gardening blues and help you save money. Buying plants that have been starting can add up real fast and let's face it there really isn't much variety usually out there for them either. When you start your own you choose what varieties to plant and you know exactly where they came from and what was used when starting them. Plus you get to put your hands in the dirt and have the joy of watching them grow. Starting them indoors without a greenhouse can be somewhat of a challenge and can leave your starts off to a bad start because without proper light they can become spindly and can die due to dampening off. So having adequate lighting, humidity levels, air circulation, and not over watering are key to healthy plant starts but are a small price to pay.

Hope this gets you through till spring!!

~Megan~

Motherhood

The wait is finally over, after what seemed like an eternity, we finally got to meet our little girl a whole week early even. As I anticipated she came during a big snow storm along with 7 other girls that night. It's been a crazy mix of emotions and let me tell you motherhood is all consuming, filled with sleepless nights, and complete physical and mental exhaustion but like everyone tells you it's totally worth it, hours and days just fly past gazing at her endless amount of expressions and listening to all squeaks and groans she makes, I just can't get enough. Even in the godless hours of the night when my little angel turns into a nocturnal terrorist I still am so in love that even that doesn't get me regretting my decision to have her, well one or two really awful nights I may have questioned it but when the angel came back the next day I forgot all about it.

When I say it's consuming I mean it in every sense. I thought that I'd be able to do all of these things while she slept and that my life wouldn't change that much but I was wrong. My life is completely different and I honestly never thought I could care so much for someone else but I do. Those first few weeks you're so exhausted that even the thought of cooking dinner or cleaning wipes you out and if she's sleeping you better try to too or you'll regret it at 2 am while your little girl is screaming bloody murder and you've only had 4 hours of broken sleep to keep you going. 

You then start to wonder how you'll ever get your taxes done, or when you'll feel like writing a blog post, or even baking yourself something yummy. Slowly I'm starting to get used to the complete lack of sleep and am able to cook a nice meal or even go out for one. These moments are so fleeting and sometimes I'm grateful of that but they really are something to be treasured as well and I couldn't be happier to be able to experience them for myself, we are truly blessed despite all the poopie diapers and sleepless nights. Welcome little miss Mila, mommy and daddy love you to the moon and back.

~Megan~

Gluten Free Chocolate Cake With Strawberry Frosting

So it's my partners big 30th birthday tomorrow and of course I just had to bake him a cake for the special occasion, after all turning thirty and having a baby due any day now is a big deal. So when I asked him what kind of cake he would like me to make him he said chocolate strawberry cake, kind of an unusual request I thought but I can make it work. Strawberries at the grocery store in February aren't very appealing, so thankfully I had just enough left in the freezer that I got at the farm stand this summer, so I could make the frosting strawberry as requested. The rest was pretty easy whip up and I'm sure it will make the birthday boy, or man, very happy! Here's how I did it:

Ingredients for the chocolate cake: 

- 2 cup organic sugar

- 1 3/4 cup of gluten free King Arthur multi purpose flour mix

- 3/4 cup cocoa powder

- 1 teaspoon salt 

- 1 teaspoon xanthan gum

- 1 teaspoon baking powder 

- 1 teaspoon baking soda

- 2 organic free range eggs

- 1 cup milk 

- 1/2 cup organic canola oil

- 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

- 1 cup boiling water 

Instructions: 

Preheat oven to 350 and grease 2 9 inch cake pans. Add sugar, flour, cocoa, salt, xanthan gum, baking powder and soda to mixing bowl and mix together. Then add the eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla extract and mix with the dry ingredients. Then add boiling water and beat until well combined, mixture will be thin. Add batter evenly to both cake pans and bake 30-35 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting. 

Strawberry frosting ingredients:

- 1 cup of organic strawberries

- 2 sticks of butter, softened

- 3 1-2 cup of organic powdered sugar

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions: 

Purée the cup of strawberries in a blender and add it to a sauce pan. Reduce the strawberry purée by half over medium- low heat, it should take about 20 minutes or so. Allow it to cool completely. 

In a stand mixer, beat butter till fluffy and then add a cup of the powdered sugar and beat some more.  Once combined add 2 teaspoons of the purée and the vanilla extract and mix well. Then add 1/2 a cup of powdered sugar to 2 teaspoons of purée at a time until all ingredients are added and well combined. Now use frosting to frost the cake and enjoy a big hunk for all of your efforts!! :)

~Megan~

Immune Boosting Tropical Smoothie

This is one of my favorite smoothie recipes. It's bright and citrus-y and packs a good punch to fight off any invaders of your immune system. It's chuck full of lots of vitamins and minerals and with the addition of coconut oil is also antibacterial and antiviral. The chia seeds add a good amount of protein and the coconut water adds electrolytes to keep you hydrated and its just plain good,  so what's not to love? 

Here's how to make it:

Ingredients: 

- 2 organic bananas 

- 4-5 organic oranges, segmented 

- 3 organic carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

- 1/2 cup or so of frozen organic mango

- 1-1 1/2 cups of frozen pineapple 

- A heaping tablespoon of organic extra virgin coconut oil

- 1-2 tablespoons of chia seeds

- 1/2-1 cup coconut water 

- 4-5 ice cubes 

 

Instructions: 

Add all the ingredients into a high powered blender and blend away until nice and smooth. Poor into your favorite glass and enjoy!! 

~Megan~

5 Tips to Keep your Houseplants Happy and Healthy During Winter

If you are anything like me when winter is at its peak, your looking for ways to get your hands dirty and have some greenery around.  Houseplants are a great way to fill the gardening void but can sometimes prove to be a challenge at keeping happy and healthy during the long cold winter months.  The air is drier, there's less light, and some houseplants can just be miserable and even die  because of it.  If your house is anything like ours and heated with wood heat is can be a challenge getting the right temperatures and humidity levels that a lot of houseplants thrive on and also poses some other challenges as well.  Here are a few tips I've learned over the years to help keep those houseplants, and you, happy and healthy throughout the winter.

1.  Make sure there's an adequate humidity level-  The dry air in winter can really cause havoc to a lot of your houseplants.  Most tropical plants need the humidity levels to be around 70% and the majority of the houseplants are of the tropical variety, with the exception of succulents and cacti which do just fine in dry climates.  You can add moisture through the air by running humidifiers, simmering water on your wood stove, and by making sure that it doesn't get too hot in your home by trying to regulate your heat source, which is not the easiest thing to do with wood heat but worth an attempt. Also letting your house get a few degrees cooler at night will really benefit your houseplants as well when transpiration rates would naturally slowdown.

2.  Increase watering-  With winter drying everything out and the artificial heat, it is really important to keep an eye on the soil moisture level of your houseplants as well.  I tend to increase my watering of my tropical houseplants from once a week in the summer months to twice a week during the winter.  When temperatures are high and there is low humidity plants transpire at a much higher rate and therefor the require much more water to continue to stay healthy in that environment. Just go around and stick your finger in the soil to see weather or not they need an extra drink, if it still feels moist skip it.

3.  Dust your Houseplants-  Wood heat, along with other heat sources, can really cause an abundance of dust floating around and it tends to accumulate on the leaves of your houseplants essentially strangling them.  Plants breath through the stomata in their leaves and stems and when a thick layer of dust is blocking them from opening and making gas and moisture transfers the plants really begin to suffer.  Houseplants aren't exposed to rain like they are in nature to remove the buildup so it is our job to keep them clean.  I really like being hands on with my plants so I usually will wet down a rag with water and hand wipe the leaves and steams to clean off the dust, dirt and cobweb buildup, but you could easily put them in your sink or shower and spray them down as well. Although something seems so impersonal about it and you can't guaranty that you've gotten it all off that way either, just my opinion, many people use this method to save time and energy. I suggest doing this at least twice a year if not more.

4.  Spray down houseplants to remove salt build up-  hosing out the soil near the end of winter is also a great thing to do to keep your houseplants in optimal health.  Many of us have treated water in one sense or another, like water softeners, or chlorine treated tap water and the salts from these treatments tend to build up in the soil over time causing toxicity, so it is imperative to really hose out any of the buildup in the soil.  In the summer months I water our house plants with collected rain water from our rain barrels but have to water the houseplants with our treated well water in the winter, so usually sometime in March I take our 30 something houseplants into the shower one by one and give them a thorough soaking and let them sit in there to drain before putting them back to their respected homes.  Sometimes I even wait till spring to do this so that I can use the rain water but really as long as you're really rinsing out the buildup it shouldn't make a difference. If you always use treated water on your houseplants you may want to consider doing this twice a year.

5.  Add lighting if needed-  The shorter days of winter can make some of your more high light house plants unhappy and they may benefit from some artificial lighting to supplement, especially in the really dark months of winter.  I know the houseplants that we have on our balcony by our staircase just doesn't get as much sunlight as in the summer months and our plants tend to suffer there because of it, so we have gotten a couple plant lights to shine on them during those times.  Or if you know that about a certain spot you may want to consider moving higher light plants closer to a window during the winter months or choose plants that can handle low light locations for those spots that get darker in the winter months.

There you have it, with these few tips you should have all the tools you need to keep your houseplants happy, healthy and radiant even in the long months of winter, while also curing your gardening itch until spring comes around.  If you have any comments or tips to add feel free to add them, we'd all appreciate it. Thanks!

~Megan~

DIY Nusery Art Projects

It was really important to me to have a creative and unique space for my baby girl to call home, so for me that meant making it my own, myself.  I'm a big advocate of skipping the big box stores in loo of doing it yourself.  I understand that not everyone is super crafty or has the time to make things themselves.  I get it, modern day life is chaotic, but honestly these projects don't really require a ton of time to invest into them and are really easy to make, plus you can customize it to your own personality and it's a pretty inexpensive way to decorate your nursery.  I know I posted the DIY butterfly mobile tutorial the other day but here are a few more DIY projects for you to try out.

 

There you can see the mobile that I posted the other day and the embroidery hoop art that I did as well.  Both are pretty easy to make and customize you can use any color fabric, paper, paint, and shapes.  Here is another DIY project that I did for the nusery too.

What better way to teach your little one the alphabet than putting it up on their wall?  For this project I went to my local craft supply store and got letters in all different sizes and from different collections of alphabet styles to create a uniquely shaped alphabet. Then I painted, modge podged scrapbook paper and glued beads and glitter to the letters making everyone different.  I painted the Z in zebra stripes, the G in gold glitter, the Y yellow and painted the P purple and put polka dots on  it to go with the theme.  Not all of them fit the B is for blue or V is for violet but a lot of them do.  I think that this is a great way to decorate a nursery wall that is not only totally cute and customize-able but also educational as well.

Here's another way to jazz up your nursery or any wall in your home really.  Get some cute printed fabrics and some cheap embroidery hoops and BAM you've got some custom wall art!  By far this was the easiest of all the projects and took the least amount of time to make, and I'm even thinking of adding a few more smaller ones too.  Ok so here's how you do it and what you need:

Supplies for Embroidery Hoop Art:

• Printed fabric of your choice
• Embroidery hoops of varying sizes
• Good fabric scissors
• Hot glue gun

 This could not be easier, choose your fabric and hoop size and cut out fabric to fit the hoop, like so:

Then you could iron the fabric but honestly there's no need to because the fabric is going to be pulled really tight in the hoop eliminating any wrinkles and I really never iron anything, ever, so why add another step.  Center the fabric to the top of the hoop where it will end up being hung from and add the outer hoop and tighten so that the fabric is nice and taught.

Next trim off excess fabric and cut slits every inch or so around the hoop to reduce bulk when hot gluing.  Then just hot glue the left over fabric to the back of the hoop all the way around to create a seamless look.

And that's all there is to it!  So simple yet so cute and they literally took tops 10 minutes to make.  You just follow the same steps for them all using differing fabric and once they're all done hung 'em up with a small nail right where the hoop comes together.  If you want you could also paint the wooden hoops different colors or buy the plastic ones that are already different colors or just leave them as is like I did.  The beauty to these projects is that you can really make them your own and totally personalize your space.  Well hope you enjoyed these fun and easy projects. Take care!

~Megan~