Stitchify - Crafts and Fiber Arts Inspiration

I am in my third week of school now, and I am so thankful that I sucked it up and went to summer school. My three classes are incredibly heavy, and I am glad that I don’t have to carry a fourth. I’m in Christianity: Jesus to the Reformation. I enjoy the lectures but the reading is tedious. I’m also in Europe Since 1945, which is majorly depressing because we’re starting out with the human effects of WWII. We’re reading Girl in the Red Coat, which is easy reading, it’s a novel, but it’s a downer. None the less, I like the class. It’s important to honor the past and learn about things even if they’re sad. Finally I’m in a senior seminar for my major. The prof’s slant on it is Food, Farming, and Faith. I LOVE it so far. We’re reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. She is a novel writer, so it’s really readable too.

The Kingsolver book is non-fiction and follows her family as they move from Arizona to Appalachia on their journey toward sustainable living. The story is lighthearted at times, but also has lots of scary facts about genetically modified foods, the commoditization of our food supply, the carbon footprint of out-of-season produce, the ownership of patents on produce, the extinction of hundreds of varieties of produce…

We watched a movie called “The End of Suburbia” which was also scary. It’s about “peak oil” and how life as we know it will change dramatically in the very near future. Sorry for the play-by-play of my semester. It’s just what I’ve been up to lately.

I have been doing some really fun things too. I went roller skating last week, played Bunco with some girlfriends, and did some work toward a more sustainable living too! As you know, we totally revamped our backyard last year. The last piece of the puzzle was to build a raised vegetable bed in the back of the yard. Learning about how rewarding growing your own food can be gave me the nudge to get the bed in the works.

I went to Home Depot on Friday and scoped out what lumber we needed, what cuts would need to be made, what hardware we would need to buy. When Andy got home from work we went back together to make the purchase (he has a bigger car than my little VW), had Home Depot make all of the cuts, and then on Saturday we put the whole thing together in an hour and a half! I couldn’t believe how fast and easy it was! And I was really pumped that my plan worked out! I had never built a large structure out of wood before.

I took pictures of the whole process and kept my notes, and at some point in the future I will post a tutorial. You’d be really surprised how easy it is. And it cost a grand total of $70 for the structure. The cost for dirt and plants will vary for you depending on what you already have available.

I found some great planting calendars online and brought them with me to the nursery. In September in Sacramento you can grow a fairly good variety of things from plants, and not very much from seeds. We ended up planting broccoli, lettuce, onions, and green onions from plants, and carrots and radishes from seeds. I am so excited about our garden! When I get home I run straight to the bed to see how my new babies are doing. They seem to be very happy (the pictures of the plants are after they have been in the ground for two and a half days. So far so good!). I can’t wait until the first radish and carrot sprouts poke through the dirt.

Lettuce

Broccoli

Green and White Onions

The seeds are in the blank spot in the lower right corner. Hopefully there will be itty bitty veggies there soon!

I  will update you with more pictures as there are appreciable changes. Now, I’m off to complete my TEN chapters of reading I have to complete this week. Gah!

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 3:59 am and is filed under gardening, sustainability, West Coast.