Aphids attack the office Garden :\

The Office garden is just chugging along, and I even have a few bell peppers coming.

A few days ago, my coworker asked me if the eggplant was being eaten by bugs. I said, "not that I know of, but I saw the holes, too and wondered". Well, after she left that day I took a closer look and flipped out. Mother F! it's Aphids! The scurge of all the gardening seas! Aphids are my worstest nemesis out of all my nemesises!

(you can click to zoom in on this picture)

Man, no wonder the blossoms were dropping off. Since these aphids are green, they had been reproducing uncontrollably without anyone knowing! They had all sorts, Big, small, winged ::shudders::

Now I don't know about you guys, but I get hebbe jebbe about bugs.
I may have seen just a few, but to me, that's like millions. In fact my igination takes over, and then I start thinking there's aphids everywhere in my office and on my clothes...

Aphids have always been a mortal enemy to me, because they are SO hard to get rid of! When I had aphids on my pomegranates, I couldn't wait till spring to put them outside, because they would all magically disappear if I put them outside (maybe the winds or the rain, or the ladybugs, --- who knows). However, with it being November 17th, I have a long way to go until it's spring.

Insecticidal soaps, neem oil...
anyone have a scoop on how well they work? the basil seem unaffected by the aphids on the eggplant, but I notice the aphids have spread to my bell pepper.

So far, I am taking off leaves that have lots of aphids on them, and squashing a bunch of them by giving the leaves a "massage". My mind is screaming as I'm doing this. "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE gross!!!"

I don't know what I have against spraying, but I will give the dish soap/water/vinegar solution a try on Monday when I get back to work.

<3 Holz

Fall is here, and time to plant Garlic!

After seeing the kids onto the bus, I took a look at my zombie garden.
The neighbor has been raking her leaves and putting it out to the curb for the trash to pickup. When I am able, I take a wheelbarrow over there and shovel up the leaves with the kids, and then proceed to dump the leaves all over my gardens. I figure it's free nitrogen and worm food. She has told me in the past to feel free to take her leaves :) (Whilst I sit back and wonder why she sprinkles fertilizer on her trees/lawn, and then bags up all the clippings and leaves for the trash to haul away. It's a vicious cycle of her losing all the fertilizer she's putting into the place.)

As I scanned the garden, the tomatoes were all droopy, and the sesame leaf stems were drying out to be stiff in the wind... and I saw something growing out of the leaf mulch. huh... looks like... GARLIC?! That's Madness!

I planted that in the Spring, and I didn't see it growing at all! In fact all summer, while I was tending my garden, I was somewhat disappointed that only 1 garlic stem was growing. By the time Fall arrived, I pulled that 1 garlic to find... 1 big bulb on the bottom. Wow that really didn't look like Garlic at all. But now, here... every single one of them are greeting me... WTFFFFF??

So what exactly did I do wrong? (O_o)

Well, I found out from Natalie, our local expert, that Garlic should be planted in the Fall to harvest NEXT Fall. So it has a whole year of growth underground. Wow, so all the garlic that are coming up now are ready for being in the ground next year :) ! HA! I totally am way better at this that I thought! In fact, I could maybe say I MEANT to do it. ::Evil cackle::

This actually makes me want to plant even more garlic, because now is the season to do the planting. That, and any of my friends will tell you I LOVE garlic. I love to eat it on pizza, with stir fry, roasted, and sometimes even raw with food (learned that from my Albanian neighbors).
This is much to the dismay of my friend who have to be around me after I've been eating a whole head of garlic.

Some other good news: I found the digital camera, and I can soon add photos to this bloginess!
In true digital camera fashion, I found it had drained the batteries that were in it.

Here's also a photo of the front of the house from Spring. We've since painted the white/primer parts a tan color, but the shape of the front yard is pretty much the same. This will be one of a few "before" photos used before the front yard is transformed by my friend Pam from four seasons, who has encouraged me over and over not to give up on the dream of edible landscaping.

Here's a shameless plug for such a sweetheart of a person!
http://www.4seasonslandscapeanddesign.com/

Fall is here/building the home orchard

Well, there was a preliminary light frost a couple days ago, but today I looked out the window to see the inevitable REAL frost. Everything was slightly whitish... beautiful yet deadly :(

On Sunday, I wanted to go to Home depot. The trees/shrubs were on clearance at 50% off.
Heeeey now, I can build my mini orchard for Half the price! LOL.
We ended up going to a home depot in Vernon hills off of Milwaukee and 60/town line road.
The kids found the trees, and they all looked pretty scraggly. It wasn't only because it was the end of the season. The stores around here buy trees in the spring, and again in the fall. Those are the times you're supposed to plant. I asked the kids to help me look for nice looking trees, with fruit that they'd eat... and surprisingly, we found some REALLY nice looking trees and took them home.

Benefits of planting in Spring:
Warm Weather
Instant gratification
easier to tell if the tree is dead/alive so you can get a refund for it

Benefits of planting in Fall:
Roots grow during the winter, so growth is greater in Spring
Dormancy leads to less transplant shock
more productive tree, because of the larger roots

I like buying trees from Home Depot. Not only, because of the sales... the garden club gave out coupons via email that had "buy 1 tree, get 1 free", but because they carry dwarf/semi dwarf trees, AND they allow you to return it a year later no matter what the reason as long as you have your receipt.

I had to return a peach tree that was plain out dead on arrival, but I just thought it was dormant :( and I am contemplating returning the bartlett pear tree for a Semi-dwarf bartlett tree. I do, after all, only have a 10th of an acre to work with.

On Sunday, I picked up a Montmorency Tart cherry
http://www.arborday.org/treeguide/TreeDetail.cfm?id=95


and an Elberta peach
http://www.arborday.org/treeguide/TreeDetail.cfm?id=72


It was $10 each tree, so I can only hope that maybe next year I'll get $10 of fruit. The first year of fruits are supposed to be cut off, so the tree can concentrate on growth, but I don't see the fun in that. In Nature, they'd have fruited, and I leave it at that. let the kids pick the fruits and love the tree that gave it to them.

(I highly recommend people to read instructions even if you don't follow them. Then you'll know what you did wrong if things go awry. )

With the winter approaching, some of my posts from Edible Landscaping will cross with Urban Homesteading, because they are very intertwined with eachother.

Urban Homesteading Vs. Survivalism

While I was visiting the Victory Garden Intitiative's Facebook page, I happened across a guy and gal who posted their "we live off grid" website...I decided to let my curiosity get the best of me, and perused their site. It was very nice and information driven. I like that they have an indoor garden going. Kinda like my office garden :)

It also has me wonder. Where is the line between Urban Homesteading, and being a Survivalist? I am a member of a Survivalist board, and some people there are really into the deep end. No doubt in my mind, they will have it MADE when SHTF (a loving acronym of "when shit hits the fan"). Urban homesteading seems somewhat parallel but not the same.

One one hand, I feel that Urban Homesteading is almost a mini version of being a farmer. Having good ties w/your neighbors, and using technologies and knowledge to help sustain your family on the land you have. When I read books on urban homesteading, I fall asleep going "oh someday I'll have goats for cheese!"

They both talk about canning/preserving, and depending on who you talk to, some survivalist people who live off grid are basically homesteaders.

On the other hand, the survivalism has stockpiles of canned goods, it creates in my heart a constant and somewhat uncomfortable sense of fear and urgency. It also makes me realize that if SHTF my neighbors are my worst threat, because they might come begging for my supplies. There is a need for firearms to fend off people...
When I read the survivalist threads, I stay up thinking "I better board up the windows! How can we use candles without people knowing we're in the house??!?!?!"

This also conflicts with a part of my faith that says I'm not supposed to be like that. I'm supposed to love, share, depend on God for my resources, and it hasn't failed me yet. But it's really really easy for me to panic myself into the category of people who might dig an underground bunker and Hole up canned goods.
Muuuuust restraaaain myself! For the most part, Humans are gooooood!!!

Anyway. Just putting that out there. I know I've thought about this more than once. Maybe you have, too? I'd share my chicken eggs. I'd share my food.
I lean in favor of urban homesteading. It helps me sleep at night.

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In the beginning...

Last night I met with my friend Natalie.

Long time childhood friend, I didn't really see her for maybe 10 years. It's kind of neat that we met back up together to find we were both actively involved in the urban homesteading movement. I was involved by association, since the things I do to save money and eat the foods I like - parallel the movement, and she actually studied the theory/wrote thesis and even studied abroad in Scotland (correct me if I'm wrong, Nats??) to visit places that practice permaculture and Urban homesteading in a sustainable level.

I ordered hazelnut trees, recently to go with my chestnut trees. Once again, my motives being wanting "free food" as opposed to the environmental reasons...
But she was just in disbelief that so many things I did were just happenstance to wanting free food as opposed to deliberate involvement in urban homesteading. LOL

I learned alot from her last night about Zones around the house, where Zone 1 would be the circle that contains your house, and all the plants that need the most care, then a second further circle of things that need less care, and the outermost circle is a bunch of fruit or nut trees or other things that don't really need much maintenance.

I also learned that Chestnut trees would love to be with nanking cherry bushes, and hazelnuts. and it is SUCH A wierd coincidence that I have chestnut seedlings, nanking bushes, and ordered some hazelnuts. I mean, if there could be an award for "that is just downright funny how that all came about"... last night would have taken it.
We both also love goat milk and goat cheese, and discussed meat rabbits and raising chickens.

I've invited her to commentary on this Blog, as she is much more scientific, and informative about the things she talk about, and my posts are more like "today I blah blah blah, and oh hey free food". Ha! :)

I've also decided to make this a seperate blog from my edible landscaping one... they are in similar movements, but Urban homesteading is far more involved than just edible landscaping. It involved alternative energies, landscape, sciences, theories, meat, grains, all sorts of things.