The Beginnings of a Garden

I am usually pretty good at completing projects once I start them, as long as it's on my own timeline... and my husband is also pretty good at working on projects, as long as I am there to get the momentum going. And I think that is why we've had trouble in the past with getting a garden going. We've grown herbs in small amounts, some flowers, but even though it was always something we wanted to do, we were never able to get ourselves in gear when it came to starting a spring garden, specifically a vegetable garden. 

I wasn't going to let myself do that again though, especially with all of the space we have now... last year I let us off of the hook because of how busy we were with remodeling the house and such... but this year, no excuses!

So anyway, I may or may not have mentioned before that I do not have a green thumb. Everything that I have ever kept alive was either a philodendron (notoriously hard to kill) or a succulent... and yet, I have still killed my fair share of succulents. All outdoor plants have always been tended to by my husband, but even though he can keep a plant alive, our botany based knowledge is barely beginner. So I called on my garden guru friend, Dolly, who, last year, lived her dream of growing tons of veggies on a plot of land with friends and sold the harvest throughout the year. Dolly specialized in permaculture gardening, which has many aspects but, put shortly, is a system that focuses on sustainability. She loaned me some books to read on composting and "Lasagna Gardening" and although composting is not a new concept to me, reading about lasagna gardening, was very interesting. The book focused a lot on the ease of the method (no building beds, no digging, etc.) but hidden behind that was the idea of "no-till" gardening (another important permaculture method). But I'm not going to lie, it was easy to say yes to the lasagna method for our new veggie garden simply for the sole purpose of ease and cost. 

I won't go into the technique too much, but lasagna gardening is a method of sheet composting/sheet mulching... which is basically just throwing down newspaper or cardboard which acts as a biodegradable weed barrier and making compost layers on top of that as a base for your garden bed. Just how compost provides nutrients to the plants when you add it to your garden, the lasagna layers do the same thing as the base for your garden. And building the beds on top of the ground provides all the benefits of any other no-till method, it doesn't destroy the nutrients and moisture in top soil and prevents soil erosion.

Another reason this method seemed perfect for us to try was because of our easy access to many of the materials needed to make the layers... we always have plenty of goat manure mixed with hay (usually already breaking down when we switch out the goat's bedding every couple of months), we always have a ton of dead leaves on our property (which also start to break down in the huge piles that we make) and we also have lots of ash from our wood stove (which can help to lower acidity in soil if necessary). Oh, and one more thing, I also have an addiction to online shopping, which helped with our supply of cardboard boxes that we used as the garden base ;)

Our first line of business, though, was covering our septic tank lids... they have been dug out ever since we had the roots taken out of our pipes. Luckily, since I work for a sheet metal shop, my coworker was able to build me some simple sheet metal risers with lids for easy access later. We had to cleanly dig out the concrete lids, place the risers and the re-bury them... it was a pretty easy task once we had the risers built! (wish we would have done it a long time ago!)

Digging out the concrete lids

All ready for the risers

re-burying

No more huge holes!

Our plan is to create a little gravel covered area with a bird bath or something so that we can easily remove the thin layer of gravel from and uncover the septic lids for future pumping!

With the septic covered, we really only needed to purchase a few things to start our garden... peat moss, more manure and lots of organic soil. Technically, with the full Lasagna method, you are supposed to "cook" your layers for months, over the winter usually, to create the beds, but in the book the author also mentions a "quicker" technique where you build the layers underneath and top it off with already finished soil... which is the late-to-the-game approach we took!

Leaving Home Depot with supplies

Some before shots of the garden bed area...

All we needed to do to begin was throw down our cardboard (weed barrier) and start making our layers... the process was very simple but still took us a couple hours to complete...

The cardboard is down and wetted

First layer of peat

Lasagna garden accessories: lots of notes, gloves and hydration!

Ready for manure and hay

Some of the hay was already composting into soil!

Next layer: dead leaves

More peat moss!

Lots of soil

And finally, some wood ash to top her off

Lastly, we covered the beds with plastic to wait for seeds!

The finished product!

A happy country gal

Since building the beds, we've planted in the two beds shown above. Sets of sweet onions and seeds for lettuce, broccoli, beets and snap peas went in less than two weeks ago, so I am eager to see what actually sprouts... my tendency to kill living green things gives me major doubt but the effort we've put into the beds give me hope! Only time will tell! Otherwise, spring has definitely sprung around these parts, everything is so lush and green and I am just trying to soak it all in before the summer sun turns everything "california gold".

James' pretty little peach tree

My amazing husband even built me a compost box one evening after work... we filled it with all the same things we made our garden beds with and topped it off with the compost we've been building up from our household scraps. We are still working on building up the layers but it won't be long until we are producing our own organic soil to use in our gardens... I am seriously excited!

Composter 3000, featuring removable front panel and all!

A little over half full

On another "lasagna" topic that really has no relation to gardening... we had our annual friend cook-off and this year the theme was lasagna. Everyone's recipes turned out seriously amazing and, as what has become the "usual", there were tons of babies, lots of eating and even more laughs!

The lasagna entries

Melanie and the newest addiyon to the squad, Aaliyah Eliana!

Ryden and Dad

Some of our judges

That's all for this one, hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful spring weather and soaking up the vitamin D... we sure are!

A Busy Winter

What happens when you write a whole blog post days ago and are just trying to get your computer to work long enough so that you can hit the “post” button, and instead you somehow delete everything you wrote… well, I get pretty annoyed… but you get Sarah, two LARGE glasses of wine deep.

So. The past two months have been a whirlwind. The holidays were crazy, as usual, but this year was a little special… there was a ton of babies (okay, 2)… but yet another one was born, on Christmas (I think I get to meet her this weekend). 

Cozy Holiday Cabin

This year was also extra special because we celebrated my husband’s 30^th trip around the sun! Went up to Tahoe Christmas night and had an absolute blast (can I just say how lucky we are that we live like an hour from the gem? … Tahoe that is… and people travel from half way around the world to see it!) Anyway, the end of 2015 was truly a gem for so many reasons! New Years was festive, but low key… the bestest of friends came to our house to burn our Christmas trees in a fat bon fire in the goat pen. Even the babies stayed up until midnight (and the adults didn’t last much longer).

Happy Birthday Lover

On a more personal note, the winter (so far) has taught me much about myself. (I’ll try to make this short) but, ever since I was a teen I’ve “suffered” from Seasonal Affective Disorder (a.k.a. SAD) which, for me, basically means that I get pretty blue during the winter months. SO this year, I said “no” and had a makeshift ceremony with myself, a few candles and some goals written on a piece of paper. I may or may not have burned the paper and sent it into the ether (that detail is neither here nor there). ANYWAY, since then I’ve been trying my hardest to practice presence, positivity and letting go of the ego (along with some other, more physical/earthly, goals) but whether it be coincidence and/or the power of the mind, I can honestly say that I’ve never felt happier and more in tune with my mind, spirit and body. I’ve also really taken a liking to yoga. I took a class in the fall and since it ended, I’ve committed to practicing almost daily… I’ve noticed a lot of changes in my physical and mental being that I attribute to it and I gotta say, I am absolutely loving it. Which leads me to my yoga room!

So, our spare room (since we moved in a year ago) has basically been storage for everything that we don’t need but can’t let go off. Well, last weekend, I finally let go of some stuff and/or put it to use! The need for a space to practice yoga really but a fire under me and with the help of my husband (and my lil sis who bought me the cutest prayer flags for Christmas), I finally have a yoga room. Not gonna lie, this room has been the least expected, favorite room of the “remodel”. Having this space has really helped me to commit to the daily practice and I am in love!

Panoramic"Before"

Before #1

Before #2

Before #3

And After!

I know, a lot of mirrors... it feels a little vain but at the same time they've helped me significantly with my posture and poses

...aaand Texas' little corner/office area... an inevitability for a yoga room in a 1000 sq. ft. house

On the “homestead” front, we are actually working to give that title something to stand on. Not long ago, we installed some beds for the start of a garden (but that will be it's own separate post, coming soon!) We are so excited to grow some veggies this year, I am already learning so much!

In the goat world, we've decided to hold off on knocking up the girls until fall... the summer heat on a fully pregnant goat mama isn't the easiest on them so we are hopefully going to have Christmas babies! In light of postponing that project back a few months, we've got chickens on our minds.

Willow Gal

Mr. Jones

Lady Sage

We've got so many projects in the queue and I'm hoping to be a little better about posting more often... So far, I am loving documenting this chapter of our lives but time flies when you are having fun!