Early Spring Gardening In Michigan

As I sit here anxiously awaiting consistently warmer temperatures outside, I thought I would write up a little recap of my gardening efforts so far this year.

Last year I measured out my plan to expand the garden for 2022.  We became overwhelmed with potato bugs towards the end of last summer and I couldn't keep up with picking them off of the plants, so I resorted to spraying them, which seemed to help at least a little.  The potato bugs had shown up one other time a couple years prior but I caught them early and was able to pick them all off.  I figured they showed up in such aggressive numbers last year because we had planted potatoes in the same spot multiple years in a row.  The bugs also made their way to our tomato plants last year.  I'm hoping we can avoid the potato bugs this year by planting our potatoes and tomatoes in a brand new patch of garden.  I'm also trying out a new mulching technique this year that I hope will keep down pests and weeds.

The state of the garden as of March 14th.

The state of the garden as of March 14th.

I read up a lot on "no dig gardening" last year as I was struggling to keep the garden weeded and sufficiently watered with our very sandy soil.  While we don't have enough compost to truly implement Charles Dowding's methods, I am putting two layers of cardboard over the entire garden to keep down weeds and improve moisture retention.  I will simply cut holes through the cardboard to plant seeds and seedlings in the garden.  I owe a huge thank you to my mother-in-law for collecting loads of cardboard for me from her place of work.  When I began this cardboard project I vastly underestimated how much I would need and she truly saved me from having to abandon the idea.

A rainy view of the garden on May 6th.

I have already planted kale, tatsoi, and snow peas this spring.  April was so cold and cloudy that my peas took an entire month to sprout.  I cut strips out of the cardboard to make rows for my leafy greens, but the cardboard swelled and shifted with the rain and nearly covered my rows.  I redid my leafy greens area and planted new seeds in bigger spaces.  I can see tiny tatsoi sprouts coming up already.

During a couple of freakishly warm days in March I spent three and a half hours hauling an old pile of manure out of the barn and dumping it in the garden.  The next day I put up a much sturdier fence than what I cobbled together last year.  I have almost finished two complete layers of cardboard in the garden and I'm planning to put cardboard on both sides of our row of asparagus.

We have tilled up the new garden section once so far but will probably need to do it one more time at least where we are planting the potatoes.  Another new thing I'm trying this summer is using cattle panels as a trellis for our tomato plants instead of the traditional tomato cages.  Our tomato plants always end up out growing the tomato cages, tipping them over, and then the top branches of the tomato plants are laying on the ground with the tomatoes rotting away and being stepped on.  I'm hoping that tying the plants to the cattle panel will work much better than the tomato cages.

In the middle of March I started two trays of seedlings and they have exploded into taking over nearly an entire table.  We tried out some old leek seeds in a big round pot but none of them came up, so I stuck some nasturtium seeds in there and have ended up with one seedling.  I'm growing yellow pear tomatoes and two varieties of Romas this year.  Right now I have over one hundred little tomato plants.  I'm also growing luffas, zinnias, lavender, strawflowers, cilantro, and chamomile.  I can already see some chamomile sprouts in my landscaping that must have self seeded from the plants I grew last year, but I still started seeds indoors to make sure I had chamomile plants again this year.  The seedlings have been hanging out on our enclosed porch for about a week now and yesterday I was actually able to have them outside for maximum sunlight exposure.  

Some of my seedlings.

The rest of my seedlings and my mint plant I over-wintered indoors.

Once our final frost has come and gone I have two varieties of beans to plant this year and plans of where I want to plant gladiolus, hollyhocks, and sunflowers this year.  Hopefully my lavender seedlings take off enough I can plant them too, but they're looking pretty tiny right now.  I also have moonflowers seeds and a free packet of flox seeds to also plant this year.  Basically I'm trying to fill up our property with as many flowers as I can.

In case you're curious, here's everything I'm planting in our vegetable garden this year.  We buy our seed potatoes from Menards.

Tatsoi

Russian Red Kale

Blauhilde Beans

Red Chinese Noodle Beans

Martino's Roma

Roma Tomatoes

Yellow Pear Tomatoes

Yellow Potatoes

Red Potatoes

Luffa

Green Beauty Snow Pea

I'm really excited to also plant these moonflowers this year!

All of my new seeds for this year.

I'm Always Learning New Things As A Homemaker

 An entirely homemade breakfast.  

Yogurt, orange marmalade, peanut butter, and whole wheat bread made with freshly ground flour.

I'm not sharing this little breakfast to brag about it.  What I want to point out is that these are all things I learned to do within the past 2-3 years.

It's a lot cheaper to make yogurt at home with a gallon of milk rather than buy a tub of it already prepared, so I learned how to make yogurt.  

Someday I hope to make jam with fruit from our own fruit trees, so I started learning those skills by making and canning marmalade with store bought oranges.  

We discovered we could make peanut butter ourselves without any added oil or sugar, resulting in a more nutritious food we could enjoy.

Noah did the math on the cost of a loaf of bread from the store as compared to the sandwich bread I could make at home.  This led us down the rabbit hole of freshly ground flour.  We bought a grain mill, some bags of grain, and we haven't bought a loaf of sandwich bread from the store since.  The bread I make it home is a bit more expensive than the store bought bread we were buying since it is a higher quality product, but it is much more nutritious so I think it is worth the price difference.

On one of my favorite podcasts, Homemaker Chic, they often talk about "skilling up" as a homemaker.  Their view is that a homemaker might not be an expert in a specific field of study, such as someone with a job dedicated to one subject, but she does have the advantage of her knowledge being very broad simply because of everything her vocation entails, and the opportunity to continually improve her wide skillset.

My marmalade did turn out a bit runny, sometimes I over-proof my bread and it falls flat, and I'm often forgetting to do things around the house.  So I might not always execute things perfectly as if it were the only thing I'm focusing on, but I'm still learning and making an effort.

I am blessed with the responsibility of taking care of my family and the many avenues I travel day to day fulfilling my purpose.

One day I might be learning to bake a new bread or special treat to go with a meal.  On another I'm reading about gardening techniques so we can grow vegetables in the summer.  I'll find new activities and books for the kids to enjoy.  I'm trying to keep the kitchen tidy so I can make meals efficiently (I'm always working on that one).  Forever keeping up with laundry so everyone has clean clothes to wear.  Teaching the kids how to put away dishes, sort laundry, and clean the house.  Learning what to do when the kids are sick and how to keep them comfortable.

There is never a shortage of things to do or new skills to learn having to do with our basic daily needs.

Every homemaker is different and we all have a wide range of interests.  Don't feel like you are limited because you don't have a "career" in the worldly sense of the word.  Instead, take advantage of your tasks at hand and learn how you can "skill up" and accomplish them even better.

1,000 Hours Outside - End Of Year Recap

Here we are at the end of our 1,000 Hours Outside challenge.  We lost our way a bit during the last couple months, but I know the kids still spent a lot more time outside this year than they have in the past.

We spent the end of October away from home on vacation.  I guessed the amount of time the kids probably spent outside with my parents while Noah and I were in Arizona.  The weather here in Michigan turned cold while we were away and I had to start bundling up the kids to send them outside.  Between the cold weather, the kids being sick, and just life in general, we somehow lost momentum with spending time outside.  The kids got sick again for a week and a half over Christmas which put another hold on spending time outside.

Despite the vacation and sickness, I think we still managed to spend a good amount of time outside this year.  Here are the monthly totals.

January: 9.15 hours

February: 6.85 hours

March: 33 hours

April: 30 hours

May: 58 hours

June: 52 hours

July: 64 hours

August: 56 hours 15 minutes

September: 74.5 hours

October: 42 hours

November: 25 hours

December: 11 hours

Total time spent outside in 2021: 461 hours and 45 minutes.

I didn't really expect we would reach 1,000 hours by the end of the year, but I am really impressed with what we achieved!  Especially with how many hours we accumulated in September, a month that usually brings on the beginning of cold weather turned into an extra month of summer for us!  This post from the 1,000 Hours Outside Facebook page was especially encouraging for those who didn't reach 1,000 Hours.

I don't think I'll be tracking our time outside again this year.  I have other things I want to focus on (such as a bigger garden this summer and crocheting a temperature blanket for the year) but I am going to make sure to shoo the kids outside when the weather is acceptable for spending time outdoors.

1,000 Hours Outside - August and September Recap

August feels like the last "official" month of summer.  Most kids have gone back to school by the end of the month, the vegetable garden gives a final push before slowing down in September, and you rush to do all of the summery activities you haven't done yet.  

September didn't bring in the rush of cool weather that I was expecting, so it felt like we actually got an extra month of summer.  The evenings were cooler and we didn't have the blazing midday heat we contended with during the previous months.  Overall the weather was really pleasant for most of the month.

We spent about 56 hours and 15 minutes outside during August.  A little more than June, but less than July.  In September we spent 74.5 hours outside, our longest time spent outside so far this year!

The cousins having a fun time together at the zoo.

During the past couple months we harvested the last of the tomatoes from the garden, took a trip to the beach, went to the zoo with our family, and I started some simple preschool with Adeline.  The kids love to go off on adventures around the property and Noah is working on fixing up an old play structure so they have another place to play outside.

I know it's likely our time spent outside will decrease as the colder weather arrives, but I'm still going to try my best to bundle up the kids and send them outside every day.  Often when they start becoming too loud and rambunctious indoors I send them outside to play and burn off their energy.

I think keeping track of how long we have been outside had helped us spend more time outdoors overall, and I know it helped improve my mood at the beginning of the year during the last couple of dreary winter months.  It just feels good to get some fresh air!

Dahlias and Lattes

 Have you ever seen a dahlia as big as your head?  They are an amazing thing to behold.

I haven't had the guts to try growing these beautiful flowers myself, and a friend of mine said growing dahlias is not for the faint of heart in our 5/6 growing zone.  But I have had the privilege of judging the photo competition at the 2019 and 2021 Dahlia Shows held at the Frederick Meijer Garden and Sculpture Park.  I greatly appreciate the West Michigan Dahlia Society asking me to judge their photo competition.  

After judging the photos, I get to spend time admiring the beautiful flowers filling the room and of course take pictures of them.  During my first time at the dahlia show I was quite speechless as I admired the amazing flowers filling the room.  You might think of dahlias as big, fluffy, showy flowers, but there is actually a lot of variety among dahlias.  The tiny, round dahlias remind me of Dr. Seuss trees.  Some blooms are speckled or almost striped.  Others have a more traditional flower shape instead of being poofy spheres.

It had been two years since I last visited the botanical garden and I was greatly impressed with their new welcome center that had been under construction during my last visit in 2019.  The structure has a sleek, modern museum feel to it.  

On the way home from the dahlia show I stopped by Full Circle Coffee in Byron Center.  I first learned of Full Circle last year before the pandemic lockdowns began and I have been meaning to stop by ever since.  I very rarely visit coffee shops.  I used to visit Starbucks occasionally when we still lived in Holland, but lately I make sure to visit locally owned shops when I'm going out for a coffee treat.  I used to always get a Chai latte because I couldn't quite master making one at home.  After buying a Chai tea blend from Adagio I am able to achieve a pretty decent Chai latte on my own.  I wasn't sure what kind of coffee I was going to get when I walked into Full Circle, but after a quick glance at their write up of special flavors sitting on the counter, I settled on their caramel and cardamom latte.  I have baked and cooked with cardamom a few times, so I was interested to try it with coffee.  The cardamom gave the coffee a warm, cozy flavor, and I appreciated that my latte wasn't sickeningly sweet.  So many times I've ordered some kind of coffee only to feel like I'm drinking a dessert.  I do enjoy some sweetness to my coffee, but I would also like for it to actually taste like coffee.  I hope to visit Full Circle again soon!

With beautiful flowers and tasty coffee, I had a lovely Saturday morning.