Cultivating Summer

I sure won't be whining when I am knee-deep in the bounty of my garden but gosh darn did it ever take ages to get it sorted. (Not that it's technically done either!)

It was my big plan the Sunday before last to spend the day getting the garden ready. But a sleep-in until 10am quickly kiboshed that plan. Especially since I still had to get some seeds to round out the goodies that are to come.

First there was weeding to prepare the space. And the soil was in pretty sad shape so I added a pile of compost. But even that was a can of worms (oh I am too funny!) because for some crazy reason there was so much rubbish in the compost that we inherited with the new house. So many twist ties and lots of plastic pieces of clothes pegs and other things that not only will never breakdown but also, based on the proximity of the compost bin, are baffling as to how they ended up in it.

It was dark Sunday evening before I even placed the first seed in the soil. I managed to take care of the potted herbs section but still had much to do before I could sit back and enjoy the looming harvest.

The following Monday, I realized that I shouldn't just chuck everything in willy nilly so then I had to spend another hour researching companion plants and mapping out a plan. Which finally I put into place over last Monday and Wednesday evenings after work:

The problem was that the wind came up Sunday and kept whipping around through Monday and Tuesday. Not only did it hide my packet of basil seeds but it dried everything out! So even though I tried to keep everything watered, a couple seedlings were needing life support by the time I got to them on Wednesday - it's a long long garden space so it took a while!

I am happy to report that my buddies watermelon and pumpkin on the left here are alive and well to date. But the garden still needs more netting and we need to make a hose plan because the garden is too far for the current hose! This is making the whole garden project such a mission but like I said, when it all comes up and we're feasting it will all be worth it!

Just like Dustin's Saturday morning activity: putting down another brew. This was the first all-grain mash that he did so a few more steps involved but well worth it. 

Hop-E and Malt-D brewing up goodness in the cauldron.

Notice the fuel of choice is orange and macaroni-y.

It is lucky that Eric is Canadian, otherwise we might not have shared our stash of Kraft Dinner with him. But we knew he would appreciate it. I don't think it's something you can introduce to someone after childhood and have them like it as much.

So now that we have gotten a few of the must-do's out of the way for the house (1. ceiling/underfloor insulation, 2. replace garage roller door with one that doesn't take He-man-strength to slide open and that doesn't wake up the neighbours with its squeaking, 3. get garden growing in the nick of time for late spring 4. changing door handles and other minor things like that), we can focus on starting some routines again. Such as making beer and getting into making more of our own dairy products like the butter we made last week. Let's just say it's very easy but not quite as easy as the internet says it is but that could have been a tool-choice error or a temperature error. We went to a cheese-making course on Sunday so will also be starting to make feta cheese, ricotta cheese and sour cream of our own, although we need to order some enzymes and cultures first! Then we will cheese it up!

Stay tuned for more homemade stories. Oh and a photo tour of the new digs - you might not believe me but we still aren't fully unpacked and tidied up. That was the plan for this past weekend but life didn't cooperate enough to make that happen. So a little bit tomorrow night, a little more this coming weekend and we should be nearly there!

Then we'll start cultivating some more changes I am sure...