Mary Mary Quite Contrary How Does Your Garden Grow?........

Well now the answer to that question depends on which plant you're focused on.  My cucumbers had a rough start with the ant population taking too many samples but they pulled through and I've picked enough to make a batch of relish, some for salads and some for our piggies.  The green peppers are doing great, sadly I only got to use 3 of the green peppers in my relish, the others were fed to the piggies by my Son without my consent.

My lettuce and spinach flourished until the pigs got out of their pasture, I may have left the fence turned off, and they ate all the lettuce and spinach.  And that brings me to the tomatoes.  If there is one particular item I look forward to and enjoy the most from my garden that would be my prized tomatoes.  Well, this year my prized tomatoes are in horrible condition.  The plants are dying from the bottom up, the fruit are rotting before they ripen.  I am not going to get one single ripe tomato from my garden this year.  I am very disappointed and discouraged.  I've done some research and the best thing I can come up with is Fusarium Crown Rot.   I try to rotate my crops but my garden is so small I don't have a ton of room to move things around. The plants are not in the exact area I planted last year but perhaps with tilling the soil it moved it around enough to cause problems.  I had the pigs working on an extension for my garden, they didn't quite get it all turned over before I had to fence them out and plant the garden.  Once my garden is finished growing this year I will release the pigs to turn it over again.  I've had a horrible problem with grass this year as well.  I originally blamed the grass for the tomato plants dying from the bottom but it's spreading right to the top, slowly but surely the plants are dying.

As you can see they grew tall and were healthy but something horrible has taken over and it's not good.

On a positive note we have a lovely sunflower growing in the garden......

I also had a nice harvest of garlic this year.  So it's not a total loss but the tomatoes are a big disappointment.  I am considering skipping a veggie garden next year and leave the soil rest.  Or move the garden but that's more time to invest that we really don't have.  I have all winter to figure out what I'm going to do.  

A Healthier Me.....A Work In Progress.... (a post I've worked on for a few months!!!)

It has been a long cold winter here in Nova Scotia.  It's pretty safe to say we're ready for Spring!  And I am sick of being sick.  Our household has been hit by way too many cold viruses.  It seems like we've been sick all winter.  My initial reaction has always been to swing by the pharmacy for some cold medications.  A surprise phone call from a friend who mentioned she could hear it in my voice gave me some advice.  She had done some research on how to boost your immune system to actually avoid getting the cold.  I'm not sure why I hadn't thought of that before.  I guess I sort of had, like adding more exercise and eating more vegetables.  I hadn't thought of adding herbs and juices to my diet to boost my immune system.  She gave me some recommendations from the research she has done.  The next day I headed to the grocery store for Elderberry Juice.  It's not cheap but if it helped me kick the cold virus it's worth every penny.  I can honestly say the next morning I felt better and progressively got better quicker than ever before.

I've spent the past few days searching Pinterest for ideas and advice on how to naturally boost my immune system and fight viruses.  Here's a bit of what I found:

*Mushrooms, even the basic white button kind, help to boost the immune system.
*Elderberry Juice appears to be a miracle elixir helping boost the immune system, fight viruses, fight inflammation, lower cholesterol, thin mucus.......Google it, it really is amazing stuff
*Lemon Balm Tea helps fight viruses
*Garlic helps boost the immune system and make your body an unpleasant environment for viruses
*Ginger helps boost the immune system and fight inflammation
*Carrots boost the immune system, lower cholesterol......  There are many juicing recipes for drinks containing garlic, carrot, ginger and apple

It's easy to do the research, there's lots of advice.  I went with my friends advice and pulled the most common items from the articles.

I recently purchased a juicer.  I've been making lots of carrot juice with various other veggies added to it.  I haven't acquired a taste for it yet, I drink it because I know it's good for me not because I enjoy it.  I think one of my problems with the juice is the same problem I have with eating whole vegetables, the quality of the taste.  I'm hoping when I have my own fresh produce and access to fresh produce from farmers markets the juice will taste way better.  I am not a fan of store bought carrots, I buy organic for eating.  To buy organic produce during the winter for juicing is just too expensive.

I've been trying to get more exercise into my life routine.  We have a chubby Beagle who can also use a walk so she motivates me to get my chub moving too.  The fresh air is so good for the brain too, it's great medicine.

Avoiding take out is still a struggle for us at times.  Crazy work hours make it difficult to prepare home cooked meals but we are working hard at it, trying to avoid take out as much as possible.  I am to the point now that if I eat take out I can feel it attacking my body, the high salt content really affects how I feel the next day.  And it really tastes horrible, a total waste of money.

So, the juicer is packed away on the counter collecting dust for now.  I will try making my own V8 Juice when I have delicious ripe tomatoes from my own garden.  I have, however, decided to give smoothies another try.  Fresh Strawberries will soon be available, they will make some delicious smoothies!  I've been researching some new recipes and ideas on Pinterest ;)

So, that's the update on my quest for healthier living from the past few months.  There will be another update on our Farm happenings soon, we have some new additions that I'm anxious to tell you about!  And there will be some new camping adventures to share!  And of course the weather will soon be warm enough to plant my vegetable garden, I hope!!

'til next time!!

How Far Do I Need To Go??!!

What a beautiful sunny day.  The sun is gaining strength, a sure sign its plan is to melt away the snow and warm the earth again.  With that comes dreams of gardening.  Today I was thinking about what the next season will hold for us.  An addition of new piglets, a pumpkin patch and perhaps an expansion of my existing vegetable garden.  I would like to expand the garden to allow more room between the rows.  Then I wonder if I should just plant less.....but I want to plant carrots, sweet potatoes, various lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, peppers...... and then I watched the "food industry documentaries" on Netflix.  Expanding my garden sounds like a great idea and I may research options for growing some of my own veggies during the winter months, or at least extend into the beginning parts of winter. 

The documentaries have over loaded me with uncertainties about what I am feeding my family.  I will certainly have to watch them a few more times to absorb the information.  It's interesting how they describe a lot of our food as "food like products".  They aren't "real food".  Most of our food is so processed and refined the nutrients are gone.  We're eating calories with no benefit to our body.  I hadn't thought of it that way.  From most of our food all we're gaining is fat!

This is not news to me.  We grow our own meats/eggs so we know what we're eating, we grow our own summer veggies so we know what we're eating....how much further can I take it?  I can't see me milling my own flour....in reality I shouldn't have to mill my own flour.  Would I have to grow my own wheat so I'd know it wasn't sprayed with chemicals????  How far do I need to go????  Do I just search out alternatives to processed bread products?  Are there alternatives to processed bread products?  What is really safe????  My mind is whirling with information overload and uncertainties. 

A lot of it is a no brainer - fast food, sugary snacks, sugary drinks, processed foods are all bad for us.  But what is really good for us?  Tomatoes are sprayed with a gas to ripen them.  Are organic tomatoes sprayed with that same gas?  How many chemicals are in a salad?  If the grass the cow eats is sprayed with pesticide that is in our milk, our cheese, our yogurt.......  It's crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!  It's scary!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We trust the food industry to supply us with nourishment but they don't deserve our trust.  They are failing miserably.  It's all about making money.  One documentary suggests sourcing local milk, flour, etc.  Government regulations frown upon sourcing milk from local farmers, they want us to drink only pasteurized.  In the eyes of the government we are no longer capable of knowing if something is safe.  Or that's what they want us to believe, that we need them to make sure our food is safe.  They don't want us to purchase milk, eggs, meat from our fellow neighbours.  They want us to support the processed world of the supermarket. 

We have recently found out government organizations are actually spending time on internet classifieds such as Kijiji watching for local people selling food products such as eggs, turkeys, chickens, pork etc.  Apparently, if you are not a part of the government organization, if you don't fill out their paperwork and abide by their criteria you are not seen fit to supply food to others.  To source unprocessed food you have to go underground.  If you could source whole milk you'd have to sneak it home and tell nobody.  As they crack down on our neighbours who are supplying us with unprocessed, hormone free, pesticide free, natural food it is going to be harder and harder to find someone to take the risk.  Threatening letters are scaring home farmers, making them afraid to share their hard work with others.  There's always the Farmer's Market, from what I understand those people have jumped through the hoops for the government to get permission to sell their goods to us.  It's a crazy world we live in!