Its Snowing Outside: Perfect Time to Work on the Garden

As I write this post I am looking out my window onto my backyard which is covered in 6inches of snow and I'm thinking "perfect time of year to work on the garden."

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go trudging through the snow to plant seeds or anything but late Autumn and early Winter are crucial times to work on your garden; although, its not what most people think.

The first lesson when it comes to gardening is that making an effective garden is a year-round activity, at least if you want it to be healthy and fruitful. Sadly the majority of hobbyist/backyard gardeners only think of their garden when they walk by the potted plants at Lowes in early Spring. But if you haven't done anything with your garden by then, its too late.

You may recall from some of my dumpstering exploits that I procured a reasonable amount of lumber by which I was able to make two nice new garden beds. Because last year I spent way more money buying dirt and manure trying to fill the bed than I could have ever imagined (let alone the fact that nothing makes you feel more like a fool than buying dirt) I vowed to utilize only free sources to fill these new beds.

An added benefit to using this approach instead of buying commercial top soils and fertilizer is that you can have a healthy organic garden which can produce as well, if not better. To achieve this free, organic, biodiverse soil for your garden bed you first have to understand few things. Well... really only one thing actually: decomposition.

For decomposition of organic materials (the crucial ingredient in any good soil) you need: life (worms, insects, bacteria etc.), water (to encourage the life and to expand the cellular structure of the organic material) and time (often much less than you'd think if you have enough of the other two).

Soil is simply a combination of minerals, decomposing organic matter, water and filler material. If you look at your average commercial bag of topsoil and you'll often see manure, humus, peat moss and vermiculite. Translation of all of those things? Rotting stuff and filler. Just because it is simple though does not mean that it isn't vital in fact Colorado State University is currently engaged in a global campaign to revitalize soil. Plus, as President Roosevelt once said during the Dust Bowl crisis in America, "A nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself."

When starting a new garden bed there are several schools of thought in regard to preparing the site, many people will recommend things like tilling, either by hand or with a powered tiller. This is a good idea, as it loosens the soil and introduces air into the soil (something that many people neglect to realize plants need too). However, I'm a bit of a pragmatist when it comes to work, in as far as I don't care to do more of it than necessary. That being said, I prefer the "lazy man's" approach to preparing the site: laying down cardboard.

Charlotte helping flatten out the cardboard scraps.

Cardboard is easily sourced from.. just about everywhere, dumpsters, your own packaging refuse, or any grocery/department/liquor store will gladly give you more than you can take.

(photo credit)

The cardboard that I laid down in our new beds serves a few important functions. First of all, it creates a barrier for preexisting weeds so that they do not spring up from below when it comes time to plant your edibles. While this dense cardboard barrier is enough to keep weeds from popping up it is also permeable, organic matter. Once it has had sufficient water and time to decompose it will provide additional nutrients to the soil as well as be soft enough for the roots of your jack-o-lantern pumpkins to reach down through.

Charlotte's jack-o-lantern "Nice Guy" (ps. thats not a real knife she has)

However, the most important function which this wet layer of cardboard provides is an ideal habitat for worms. Worms are the hard workers that do the tilling and aeration for you, if you just give them the right environment, food and time to do the work. Not only is allowing worms to till your garden for you a less work intensive approach, but it is in fact more effective than hand tilling because it gives the added benefit of worm castings (aka. poo). I'm not enough of a scientist to know precisely how or why, but decomposed material which has been consumed, digested and expelled by worms has a significantly higher amount of certain important garden nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen than if the organic material were left to decompose by itself.

This is part of the reason this snowy, cold, wet, time of year is ideal to do these kinds of garden preparations, because enough moisture (by means of snow), time (by means of passing through the non-growing season) and encouraged decomposition (thanks to expansion and contraction of water logged celluar structures) takes place that by the time next spring rolls around you'll have a lovely dark, rich, worm ridden soil to plant your delicious lovies in.

Enjoying the fruits of last year's soil preparations.

The next step, after laying down your cardboard is to lay alternating layers of "greens" and "browns". Greens are things like: grass clippings, kitchen scraps, rotten jack-o-lanterns etc. Browns are things like: dead leaves, corn husks and mulch.

This time of year is often a great time to layer your kitchen scrap sourced "green" heavy compost because it has already had several months of hot weather, insects (flies, pill-bugs etc.) and moisture to allow for the scraps to compost nicely. Its a perfect time of year to empty out your compost bin into your aspiring garden beds.

Raking in a year's worth of kitchen compost

As for this time of year being a good time for "browns", I think you can look out at your leaf covered lawn and only guess. There are lots of good ways to get "browns" but frankly I can't think of a more universally beneficial strategy than to use the leaves from the trees around you, which so graciously have decided to fall down for easy pickings. You get to clean up your lawn, you get to add nutrients to your garden, you get to provide a insulation to the decomposing "greens" between each layer, and you don't contribute to our already over extended landfills. If you're nice I bet your neighbors will even let you have their leaves too!

(photo credit)

Once you have laid alternating 2inch layers of "greens" and "browns" until your garden bed is full, the last step is: wait. Simply let the worms do their job underneath, the organic materials throughout decompose and the snow, rain, and sun encourage the whole process.

Thanks to a little proactive work in the late Autumn and early Winter you can enjoy soil that retains water, but allows it to drain and is full of rich organic nutrients but resists the growth of unwanted weeds by next Spring when you're ready to plant.

Half Way There

Today is September 15th, which marks the half way point for our Spending Free Month. (See our original post with our rules and such here.)  So I figured I'd give you an honest recap of how we've been doing, and what we want to do for the next 2 weeks!

What we've spent money on:
A case (30 lbs) of pasture based butter (as explained here)- $102.25
A new saw blade for Joey's rotary saw- $10.78
Parking downtown for the art museum (of which we're members)- $5.00
Dog Food (whoops!  we ran out on the second day of the challenge!) $35.66
An Emergency Safeway run for frozen pizzas and juice when I was in bed with Strep Throat- $32.50
A few things for my Sister-in-Law's housewarming party that we didn't know we needed- $35.80
A "new-to-us" electric pottery wheel for Joey's studio (as explained here)- $525.00

Brent Pottery Wheel (not ours)

Farmer's Market- $22 over 2 weeks
Groceries for the first half of the month- $84.08
A meal for a homeless man downtown- $8.64

Without the wheel, that totals $300.91. (with, it's $825.91

Yup, way WAY over our $0.00 goal!

(By the way, this does not include our monthly bills and expenses that we can't get away without paying, such as electricity, water, our raw milk share, etc,)

However, with the exception of the emergency Safeway run, my sister-in-law's party purchases, and the homeless man's meal, all the other purchases fell within the rules.  Joey couldn't build any more raised garden beds, his goal for this month, without a new blade for his saw, and the other items fall into the category of "stupid-and-prideful not to make" (I'm not going to let our dogs go hungry, or deal with the repercussions of dumpstered food for them, nor will I pass up the butter sale that only happens 3 times a year, or the wheel deal that we've been searching for for months just because of our blog).  But, in the attempt to be completely honest, I've laid it all out for you fair and square.


So what are we going to work on for the rest of the month?

Joey is still working on raised garden beds for our yard (we have HORRIBLE soil!) and will need to find both lumber and dirt/manure/compost to fill them with.

I need clothes.  Like WHOA!  I'm loosing weight from my pregnancy like I can't believe, and I don't fit in any of my clothes right now- just that weird in between stage.  But I have a sewing machine and decent skills, so I'm going to try my hand at something like this.

I still haven't gotten my hands on a yogurt maker... hint hint, Dyno-Mom!

mmmm.... looks good, right?

I'm throwing a fancy cocktail party for some friends at the end of the month (which was planned before the month long experiment began) and I will need to procure several items somehow- including h'or d'ouvres and drinks. I'm going to try my hand at making homemade crackers and bruschetta bread, as well as try to invent a few drinks with the liquor we have on hand (not much, I might add!).  I MAY make a purchase of 2 here, like a bottle of wine, but I'm going to try and do everything sans money if I can. Anybody have any good ideas?

Joey will be explaining his 1 week rule for his "found objects", as well as showing you how he's been using the things he's discovered on his night time city explorations.

And so much more!  But all in all, we're going to be trying even harder to keep to our original plan.  As the month progresses, it's gotten both harder and easier.  I am getting super comfortable with packing lunches and snacks for the road so we don't get caught with a cranky, hungry toddler or growling stomachs, but I need to work on remembering our water bottles.  More than once have we been caught racing home to get something to drink!  I've done pretty well with my No Dryer Challenge, but some unfortunately cold, wet weather over the last week has caused me to have to plug it back in for a few days.  Otherwise we'd be naked.  If I were better at checking the weather reports and planning laundry days accordingly, I think I could do a lot better.  Also, Joey and I have both lost about 5 pounds this month- which I think is at least in part due to the fact that we haven't gone out to eat once!  THIS is our weakest point.  Even though we always try to choose the most "real food" option out there (hello, Chipotle and Sazza Pizza, I love and miss you both!), we eat out WAY too often.  We just love it too much, I guess.  But it's starting to feel more like the special treat it should be at this point.  I can't wait until Joey and I get to go on a date in October!  I'm going to pick the best restaurant ever, and know that it will be only a once in a while treat from now on!

So keep watching, and we'll keep trying to amuse and inform you.  Hopefully we're not the only ones getting something out of this blog.... hello, anybody out there? ..... We'd love all your comments with your own sage advice and honest questions and will keep trying out new ways to make a month without money both fun and interesting!

***Taking part in GNOWFGLINS Simple Lives Thursdays***

Guess what landed in our backyard: The Sequal

For all of you who were stumped by the images from our Guess what landed in our backyard post then brace yourselves for the answer:

*drumroll*

...I have no idea either.

What I do know is where it came from, which is certainly something and even more certainly less disconcerting. It was another dumpstering find, one that I wouldn't have taken home had Britt and I literally not just been talking about material to build an awning for our back porch that morning.

The object is... well, huge. I'm not particularly certain about its dimensions but spread out it nearly fills our backyard. That being said its likely somewhere around 1/4 acre. What is more shocking, and subsequently perplexing, about its size is that the piece we have is only about a quarter of the whole (I know because I saw the other 3 pieces laying near the dumpster as well.)

When I first picked it up I surmised it to be a billboard since many companies opt to use tarp style billboards instead of paying for the cost of painting and/or installation of more permenant billboard material. However, the dimensions on this thing are waaaaay too big to be a billboard. The "small" piece of it which we now poccess is probably a billboard size itself.

The other odd thing is that some of the text on it is only 2 or 3 inches tall, making it ineffective for billboard distances. What was this used for really? No idea, honestly. Based on the text and imagery it seems to have been some kind of advertisement for a phone company but this piece of material would have been seriously enormous.

Nevertheless, for our purposes its awsome. The material itself is some kind of rubberized plastic which makes it (as I'm sure was its intent) weatherproof. It also is actually a small mesh, which will allow for both (some) light as well as air to pass through the (for lack of a better word) fabric.

This is wonderful news for two reasons: First of all, this material will be essentially ideal for the awning which we are looking to make for our back porch. Allowing some light, but providing shade, and also able to stand up to sun and other harsh elements.

The other benefit of the material, since we have more than enough to spare, is that it should also function as a pretty useful cold frame for our garden bed. We have a funny growing season here, we have enough sun for many months, but frosts come in pretty early sometimes. Hopefully this material will be both insulative and permeable enough to give us another month or two of growing for our new crops of spinach, swiss chard, beets, kale and winter squash. Maybe pumpkins too, providing our dachshund doesn't eat any more of them.

guess what landed in our backyard?

Lemon Vinegar Cleaner

Joey just posted about finding loads of lemon peelings in a dumpster last night.

Thank you, sweetheart, for NOT bringing them home.  But for anybody interested in what you can do with leftover lemon peels, here's what we do.

(by the way, this works equally as well with any citrus fruit- lime, grapefruit, orange, etc.  Lemon just smells the nicest I think)

I stopped purchasing household cleaners quite awhile ago.  Not only was I concerned about the price of these chemicals, but I had a crawling baby at the time and really didn't want to rush her off to the hospital after ingesting something toxic, and I didn't like the other option of not cleaning!  So I found a great recipe for a general all purpose cleaner on this site.  And I pretty much use it for everything!  I will say that I have adapted it slightly to my purposes, but the basic recipe remains.  Here's what I do:

Homemade All-Purpose Cleaner

Mix 2 tablespoons of homemade citrus vinegar with 1 teaspoon of borax in a glass measuring cup. (this is very important that you do this first!  If you try to mix the borax in last, or the vinegar, you get a clumpy gross mixture that NEVER combines and ALWAYS gunks up your spray bottle!)

Fill the spray bottle half way with WARM water, and add HOT water to the glass cup with your borax-vinegar mixture.  I do this because the borax-vinegar mixture needs the hot water in order to incorporate itself into the mixture, but I usually use cheap Dollar Store spray bottles that can't handle the straight hot water.  After mixing the solution in the measuring cup with a fork until it is all dissolved, pour it into the spray bottle (use a funnel if necessary).

SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE!  Shake it until it's all well incorporated!

Now add 1/4 cup (no more) of Dr. Bronner's or similar Castile Soap.  I like Lavender the best, but Peppermint is good too.  If you're using Dr. Bronner's and you think he's a crazy nut-job like I do, you can opt to have your husband make funny little slip covers for the bottle so your guests and reading age children don't have to read his drivel.  Or you can just hide it under the sink and pretend like you have no idea what I'm talking about.

You can also add some tea tree oil (no more than a teaspoon) at this point for a disinfecting agent.  Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.  We try to not be too afraid of germs around our house.

Now, as for those lemon peels?  This is so easy, Joey does it!  (Actually, Joey is very comfortable in the kitchen, a fact that I am proud of, especially when I'm pregnant!)

Take your citrus fruit.
Peel it.
Put peels into a large mason jar, or other glass jar.  Whatever works.  Pack them in tight.
Now pour cheap, white vinegar- the kind that's $3 a gallon at Costco- into the jar.
Put the lid on, and put it in the back of your pantry, or some other place equally as dark and lonely where you will forget about it for several weeks to months.
When you do remember it, a year from now, strain the vinegar/peel solution through a cheese cloth to catch all the bits of fruit, and store in some other kind of glass container.  Or use right away.

The vinegar is a great cleaning agent by itself and has the added bonus of all of the cleansing properties of vinegar without the awful vinegar smell (something to which Joey is particularly sensitive).  Plus, the citrus oil has added cleansing powers! It's great at getting stubborn grease off your stove top!

A Quick Observation

More to come later today, but in the mean time here is a little teaser factoid for ya:

If anyone ever needs ...dozens of pounds of lemon peels, then you should go check out your local Chic-Fil-A dumpster. Not only are they plentiful, but they are clean and easy to grab, as they are thrown away in the boxes which the lemons came in.

And no... I don't know what you would do with pounds upon pounds of lemon peels either, but I'm not here to tell you how to live your life, ok?

Fulfilling Apspirations

When first endeavoring into dumpster diving I was asked what kinds of things I was seeking. For the most part my response has been, "I'm mostly just curious, but I guess I need some wood for some new raised garden beds."

With now literally 5's of hours of experience dumpstering in my neighborhood this past week I have come to understand a few things. First of all, the back of 5 Guys is THE GROSSEST place I have ever been. I won't say it was greasy because now isn't the time for dramatic understatement, I will however, say that after I walked away from the dumpster my shoes were slipping on the asphalt parking lot.

..nasty.

The other thing I realized is that I may have picked one of the most difficult classes of items to procure from a dumpster: building materials. Afterall, why would someone throw away lumber? At best I've been hoping to collect enough odd pieces of furniture or other refuse to create some makeshift garden beds and call it a day.

Enter in: the second lesson in the importance of building relationships: knowledge.

A friend of mine is a handyman/carpenter/cabinetmaker/pipe craftsman and I mentioned to him my fruitless search for lumber when he made an observation so obvious it had to come from wisdom. "Why don't you check out some places who are remodeling or constructing, you know, with one of those big roll away dumpsters." Construction site to find construction materials? Who would have thought?

Now, when people mention "free" and "construction site" in the same breath you are typically looking at jail time and hefty fines for grand larceny. But this wasn't my friend's intent at all, but instead the refuse from the both the demolished/remodeled site as well as the cull/fall from the job itself. He has worked at enough large construction/remodel sites in his life to realize that big contractors tend to have a different philosophy when it comes to their business model: fast is better than efficent. That being said, any length of lumber under 4ft is often just tossed. Extra driver bits, left over insulation, surplus nails, all of these things are typically just thrown away rather than stored because these big contractors work on a strategy of volume.

Well, this is all fine in theory, and I trust my friend's experience, but I've already checked 20 dumpsters and didn't see more than an old door stop when it came to lumber being tossed. So I figured I'd try it out and see what the dumpsters at remodels had in store.

*image to come*

...alright, so he was right. One visit to a single business undergoing a remodel and I am now the proud owner of enough straight, clean (besides the odd nail here or there), lumber to build at least one, perhaps two new raised garden beds. I'd have more but my car simply couldn't hold the rest of the 2x4's which were discarded by the re-modelers.

I'm looking forward to continuing to pick the brains of people from all walks of life and find out the little hidden secrets of what, when and how people throw things away.

With that in mind: anyone work(ed) at a restaurant know tips for finding the hidden stockpiles of compostables in the sundry trash bags filling their dumpsters?

Taking/leaving a Dump.

*sips a glass of homemade wine made from the fruits of our crabapple tree*

If you have talked to Britt and I over the past couple of months you'll likely have heard us muse about our plans to procure some land on the Eastern Plains and start out on a good ol' fashioned homestead adventure.One of the problems with this dream is that it would demand serious life changes of us, many of which I'm sure we can't even begin to imagine. But the ones which we do imagine are somewhat daunting.

As such, part of the impetus for us to endeavor into this month experiment is to prepare us for our hopeful move out into the wilds of the Colorado Plains. However, the motivator other than preparation is actually a beginning.  Why wait to start living a life of wise use of the resources before us?

In fact, this idea led to somewhat of a change of mindset in general. Before I move out of our current urban environment, I should probably become accustomed to the unique resources which it offers; resources that are not only plentiful and available here, but in fact unavailable for those who are living out the rural homstead dream.

This of course leads me to today's long awaited discussion of: dumpsters.

First of all, we live in a city which does not provide municipal trash collection, rather our community is rife with trash collection companies, many of which offer very reasonable rates and some of which even provide pick up for recycling. That's all fine and good, but since our family caught a bit of the "sustainability" bug before we even began this blog we frankly don't produce a heck of a lot of trash. At our best, between recycling, composting,  and re appropriation we were down to something like half of a garbage bag a week that was being taken away from our sidewalk. Talk about a frustrating weekly chore to have to gather all the trash particulates from around the house only to lug this measly bag out to the curb, knowing some guy I'm paying 15 bucks a month is coming to take it away. Nuts to that.

Enter: the dumpster. My folks own some property that has not only municipal trash collection but an actual dumpster which the city collects from weekly. While the dumpster is about 15 minutes away, the site is near to both of my sisters' houses, so its an easy excuse to throw a bag or two into the back of the car and huck it into the dumpster. Some more ardent sustainable types might argue that using a dumpster to dispose of trash isn't "off grid" enough, frankly not only do I disagree but I don't really care.

For me seeking an economical and ecological solution to finding resources to provide for my family is fundamentally an action of having eyes for available resources and taking advantage of them, in whatever manifestation they may come. In this case, I'm saving $15 a month, reducing the trips that our old trash collection company has to take, and all for adding no additional stress to the system. Afterall, my trash would end up likely in the same landfill or two and the city is going to dump that dumpster whether my bag of household trash is in it or not.

That takes care of dumpsters as resources in somewhat of an obvious manner and leads me to the other side of things. I'm sure that you know as well as I do that people tend to throw out things that others would consider still useful. Heck, the idea of giving someone else's trash a second life as a part of your livelihood is hardly news; bag ladies collecting aluminum cans, metal scrappers, and even entire communities of individuals have known this for years. What some of you may not entirely realize though is that there's some pretty awsome trash out there.

On my first night of dumpster diving I wasn't looking for, or really expecting to find much. When a friend of mine asked me what kinds of things I was looking for my first answer was, "knowledge" afterall, this is what this experiment is all about: being aware of resources and how to take advantage of them. Its funny that I live in a community where I don't even know what the back side of half of the buildings I walk by day to day look like, let alone what kind of little treasures can be found for free.

Thursday I was hoping to find some scrap wood, something that I could use to make some more raised garden beds in the back yard out of. Well I did find some kind of old shelving...thing in the dumpster next to a thrift store. I loaded that in the car and felt pretty proud of myself, but decided to go peruse a few more dumpster seeing what I could find. While I became aware of a few things (such as easily sourced bread from bags in Subway's trash and about 30lbs of pizza dough behind Papa Murphy's) I didn't find anything else which I was actually provoked to take home.

That is until I found myself behind a Rent-A-Center with my flashlight pointed directly on a couch. I know what you're thinking "oh boy, a couch in the trash great find Magellan". And don't get me wrong, it was a used couch. But this was no frat-boy, burlap-plaid, urine-reeking couch. This was a couch that was used in the same way a couch at a Mariott is used. Its probably had a dozen butts over the course of 6 months on it. Heck, this thing is in better shape than the first couch I obtained from Arc to impress my then new bride back when Britt and I were first married.

                                                 *shrug* if nothing else, Charlotte likes it.

I'll close this post by sharing a little secret. I know what dumpster diving is, I've even done it before but it took two local mothers to inspire me to make me really believe it to be a serious urban resource.

These ladies went from poverty which was less than what they needed to care for their families to full closets, furnished homes and stocked freezers of food, not to mention getting hundreds of dollars from reselling items, all thanks to just being aware of the free resources in their very own neighborhood. Bravo ladies, and thanks for the inspiration.

The 25 (across the) Yard Dash

It was overcast this morning when I woke up.

This wouldn't mean much, except we live in Colorado where we get 300 some odd days of sun a year.  When I lived in Virginia, I hated overcast days, but now I love them.  Except for one thing: Laundry.

One of my personal challenges for this month is to never use the dryer.  I got an umbrella dryer from Lowes a couple weeks back, and I've been trying to use it as much as possible, especially since my Joey occasionally needs to use the dryer's 220 outlet to run his kiln.

Did I forget to mention, Joey's a ceramic artist?  Here's his Etsy store (currently all but empty, but that should change soon).  But we'll talk more about that later.

Anyway, back to the skies. 

We use cloth diapers for both our babies, and need to wash them about twice a week.  I usually do Mondays and Thusdays because that means no weekend washing!  But I didn't get them in last night.  Also, I'd gotten a little backed up with our own clothes, which can be problematic.  No diapers and no clothes can lead to a very interesting situation.

So I hung our first load at 8:30 am, under grey skies and a load full of hope.  Soon enough the skies broke and out came the sun! Hooray!

Then, I hung a second load alongside around 10.  Full lines and full sun.  Perfect.

Then, right around nap time, I heard the first rumble.  We've had a bunch of fake storms around here, where it threatens and doesn't follow through, so I waited-probably a bit too long.  And then I had to run!

25 yard dash number one.

I went and hung it all back up around 5, and the shortly after dinner, the skies opened again.  This time the dash was a little wetter.

I was going to hang them up for overnight, but life just didn't get me there.  Overall, I got 2 1/2 loads dried in the semi-sun today.  Free, exilerating, and calorie-burning!  I can't wait to see how this helps our electric bill.

By the way, if you want a great tutorial on hanging your laundry, head over to Melissa the Dyno-Mom's blog here.

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Stay tuned for Joey's heroing tale of his dumpster diving expedition in tomorrow's blog!  You'll never guess what he came home with that I actually love!
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