backyard

School Garden

/ makingofahome / 1 Comment

From the very moment my two little girls entered this world, I instantly began worrying about their schooling.  I’m not sure why these thoughts consume me so.  Maybe it is my teacher-self knowing the importance of education.  Or maybe it is the fact that Twain’s “never let school interfere with your education” seems to beat a constant drum in my head.  But no matter the reason, schooling has, and I think will always be, on my mind.

When my eldest little baby ventured off to kindergarten this year, I felt apprehension in my heart and an uneasiness in the pit of my stomach, wondering if I made the correct choice in her schooling endeavors.  It is now that we are in entering our third month of school that I am fully confident that my husband and I have not only made a good choice, but one that has allowed me to breathe a sigh of relief.

My husband and I both have a background in education, so we have always been fairly confident we would be able to supplement academically where our girls may need extra assistance when it comes to their education.  But with family and faith as our top priorities in life, we searched our large city a great deal to find a place where these two aspects of life were not only mentioned, but highlighted and emphasized as being of paramount importance in life.

We found that place in the school that our daughter attends.  It is a place where love and respect for your neighbor is taught and encouraged.  A place where prayer has not vanished, as it has in so many other aspects of our culture.  A place where my daughter not only feels safe, but feels loved and accepted by her fellow peers, the teachers, secretary and principal.  A place of family and faith.

{One possible spot for our new school garden!}

And now a place that emphasizes the importance of being stewards to the earth and caring for God’s creation that He has set before us.  Yes, we have been granted full permission and support to start a school garden!

It is impossible for me to express in words the absolute outpouring of support I have witnessed since first mentioning this project only one month ago.  Over the course of the past few weeks, I have seen a group of adults go above and beyond their call of duty to do what they think is best for kids.  It is truly wonderful and awe-inspiring to be a part of.

And so we begin another new adventure in faith, family…and gardening!  What could be better 🙂  If any of you have experience in working with school or community gardens, please feel free to pass along advice in the comment section of this post.  I will be sure to keep you all updated with the progress of this very exciting project!

Autumn Bounty

/ makingofahome / 2 Comments

Last night marked the beginning of a new day at the Fagan abode.  We harvested our first batch of arugula from our fall garden.  In honor of this great day, I made a dinner filled with garden fresh produce, and I must say it earned rave reviews from the entire family.

Our meal consisted of a bed of organic pasta (not homemade I’m afraid to say 😦 ), topped with local sausage, the last of our tomato harvest, regional feta cheese, and finished with a large handful of the peppery arugula from our brand-new garden beds.  I dressed the entire dish with a drizzle of organic olive oil, a splash of aged balsamic, and a bit of sea salt.  Yummy.

Fried Green Tomatoes…Italian Style

/ makingofahome / 2 Comments

We have a LOT of green tomatoes this year.  A lot.  So, last night I gave fried green tomatoes a shot.  But instead of serving them up Southern-style, I decided to do a play on eggplant Parmesan. Instead of eggplant, I used some of those green tomatoes covering my countertop.

Italian-Style Fried Green Tomatoes

-Slice 8-10 green tomatoes and set aside.

-Scramble 3 eggs in a small shallow bowl and set aside.

-In a large shallow bowl, mix together 1/2 cup all purpose flour, 1/2 cup corn flour, 1 tablespoon dried basil, 1 tablespoon dried oregano, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper, 1 tablespoon garlic powder, 1 teaspoon onion powder.  Set aside.

-Pour about 1/2 inch of oil in the bottom of a frying pan (I used an organic, non-GMO canola oil.).  Heat the pan until very hot.

-Dip each tomato slice in the egg, then the dry mixture and then place in the hot oil.  Allow to cook until brown, flip and cook the other side until brown.  Remove the fried slices from the hot oil and allow to rest on a paper towel for a few seconds before plating.

I served my fried green tomatoes on a bed of pasta, topped with my homemade tomato sauce and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.  Enjoy!

–

Fall Preparations

/ makingofahome / 2 Comments

With frost now hitting our area in the evenings, this little family of mine has been rushing about, making final preparations for late fall.  I really do love this time of year because at this point, I am ready to nestle in and do a bit of indoor work (reading, crocheting, sewing) instead of the manual labor that is involved with a large garden during the warm months of the year.  I am so thankful that we live in an area that experiences all four seasons.  It gives us a chance to let our bodies and souls rest and rejuvenate before starting the growing season again the next year.

Our first order of business was to bring in all of our herbs.  These seem to be the first of our plants to get hit with frost, so they topped our priority list.  The girls and I picked our basil, oregano, sage and thyme and then dried it in our food dehydrator.  Once the herbs were dried I ran them through a quick whirl in the spice grinder and put them in Mason jars. We store our dried spices in our spare refrigerator for the winter.  The herbs keep very well storing them this way, and we have found it saves us a great deal of money in the winter months to have all of these herbs on stand by.

Next came the tomatoes.  Oh those tomato plants…All 36 of them.  I must admit, I was dreading this activity this fall.  Good thing I had a little helper by my side to keep me company and do some of the manual labor 🙂  We first picked all of the remaining ripened tomatoes.  Then we harvested all of those lovely green tomatoes (a recipe to come tomorrow), and took down all of the cages and composted the vines.

I received some garlic seed from my mother-in-law, so that went into some of the empty beds that had been cleared a few weeks ago.  Hopefully the seed makes it because a certain little kitty cat keeps wanting to dig it up.  We shall see if this little garlic venture is fruitful come next year.

We are trying something new this year for weed control.  Gardening is quite the effort in trail and error and each year we seem to fail in this department.  Last year, we planted annual rye grass in each of our beds.  The rye grass was suppose to act as a ground cover to help deter weeds, die off in the winter months, and leave the soil enriched with nitrogen and provide excellent compost to till in come spring.  Well, we didn’t get much of a hard frost last winter, so the rye did not die off.  Instead, we were left with garden beds filled with two foot high, green rye grass.

This year we are just aiming for weed control and plan to add compost to our beds in the early spring.  We stopped by our favorite local coffee roasters that I mentioned in this post, and got a bunch of burlap coffee bags.  I cut these and used them to cover each of our beds that will remain dormant for the winter.

And now we venture into the unknown with our fall/winter garden we added this year.  For now, it seems to be surviving the frosty evenings just fine and we should be able to start harvesting in the very near future.  A new adventure waits in the valance.  I can’t wait!

Forget About It

/ makingofahome / Leave a comment

It seems as if it has been a very long time since I posted a recipe in this space, so here goes nothing.  As I’ve said a lot over the past few months, finding my grandfather’s recipe box has been a fun adventure filled with cooking experiments and taste tastes.

This particular card has been one I have played around with quite a bit over the past few weeks. And this weekend, after a lot of testing and even more tasting, I think I’ve come up with a great pumpkin bread recipe that allows you to forget about adding in all of that refined sugar and unhealthy oil.  Enjoy!

Pumpkin Bread

1 1/2 cups honey

1 cup coconut oil (melted)

4 eggs

2/3 cup water

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

15 ounces pumpkin puree

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.  In a large bowl, beat the honey and melted coconut oil with an electric mixer.  Next add the eggs and beat until smooth.  Then add the water and beat mixture again.  Set aside.

In another large bowl, mix both flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.  Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture slowly, beating with an electric mixer.  Finally, beat in the pumpkin puree.  (I add dark chocolate chips at this point sometimes too 🙂 )  Pour into two greased loaf pans.  Bake for 55-65 minutes.

Bringing the Outdoors In

/ makingofahome / Leave a comment

As the mercury begins its descent, we are spending a bit more time indoors these days.  So with that, we are making every effort to bring a bit of the outdoors in.  I truly believe a great deal can be said for the tactile experiences of interacting with nature, and when the late fall and winter months do not allow for such easy access to these experiences, I think it is important for people (children especially) to not lose that intimate contact with nature.

For that reason, we have been gathering outdoor artifacts and putting them on display in just about every room of our home.  The girls love this activity, because they get to have a direct hand in “decorating” the house.  They have been filling up Mason jars with water to display mums and lavender, collecting rocks to sprinkle on tabletops, and picking gourds in the garden to create their own fall adornments.

I hope all of you are enjoying these first beautiful days of fall!  Have a wonderful week!

Season’s End

/ makingofahome / Leave a comment

This past Tuesday, our family gathered for our final “Tuesday Night Dinner” of the season.  We were planning to keep the dinners rolling through the school year, but my oldest is finding herself quiet worn out after a full, big-girl day of school.  And with dance and tumbling now under way for the fall, we thought it best to take a bit of a break to allow the girls some down-time.

Here is a little glimpse into our evening this past Tuesday…

Fall Planting and Harvest

/ makingofahome / Leave a comment

Upon our return from Disney, it was to the garden we went for some fall harvesting and some more planting.  We came home to our second round of beans, ready and waiting for us on the vine.  They were a very welcomed surprise after eating a bit too much non-homegrown food on our trip.

There were also about 80 tomatoes begging to be picked, and a whole lot of raspberries ripe and ready for a little princess to pick for her afternoon snack.

We then set to planting our new beds with some cold-hardy greens.  We are hoping to add a hoop house or some type of low tunnel over these beds once the frost sets in. (Even though that seems very far off at the moment, as I listen to my air conditioner humming at this precise moment, when it is a whopping 90 degrees again today.)

Suburban Homestead

/ makingofahome / 2 Comments

Amid the labyrinth of power lines and close proximity to our neighbors, we are slowly but surely developing for ourselves a bit of a suburban homestead paradise all our own.  When we took possession of this property four years ago, we were given a perfectly blank slate to work with because the previous owners had just filled in their in-ground pool.  This left us with a lovely, flat, fenced-in canvas that we are now able to glean a great deal of food from.

{Before.  Late July 2012.}

The gardening space we previously had contains 12 4X8 foot raised beds and one 4X16 foot raised bed.  Then just outside that space we have a smattering of lavender and rhubarb and some heirloom perennial flowers.  Last year we added 2 apple trees, an asparagus and strawberry patch, raspberry bramble and an herb garden to the mix.

And now, here we are…

I am so thrilled by how the space turned out.  I must say I was a little skeptical for a while there, when the vision in my head did not seem to match what lay before me.  But with a bit of digging, a little building and a whole lot of hauling, I am satisfied to say the very least.

We used the beautiful circa 1850 barn timbers I mentioned in a previous post to create a more permanent border for the existing asparagus and strawberry patch.  We used the remaining timbers to create a brand new perennial vegetable bed that will soon be home to more rhubarb (rhubarb wine here I come!), asparagus and Jerusalem artichokes.

We then added three additional 4X8 foot raised beds and one 4X4 bed.  This fall these beds will be loaded with cold hardy annual vegetables that we then hope to cover with a hoop house of some sort.  We are crossing our fingers this will give us delicious, fresh vegetables year round.  We also plan to add some gorgeous tree stumps around the fire pit for prime seating for those s’more-roasting evenings right around the corner.