Leg powered lawn mowing is gaining momentum

I have the worlds best sister.  She found an old reel lawn mower left out for free.  Only a true sister would know this old - dinosaur - out dated - rusty- uncool piece of discarded trash would make me very happy!

A few years ago, I looked into reel mowers for our home.  After much, probably too much, research I decided my lawn is too big.  Plus it has too many bumps, sticks and pine cones for a reel mower to handle.  On top of that, I wouldn't be able to grind up leaves, straw and grass for my lasagna garden beds.  So after much ado about mowers, we got a hearty craftsman.  (Which I really do love- it is a work horse for chopping up and mowing)

But now I have my reel mower. It needed a tiny bit of TLC- mainly blade adjusting which my husband and neighbor did for me- thank you!!!  Mowing is one of the little things in life, and this little act of kindness from my sister, hubby and neighbor is priceless. 

7 bonuses gained from leg powered lawn mowing

1.  No gas!  Gas cans, gas spilled on gloves and sometimes shoes, lifting heavy gas cans, discovering you need to go get gas before mowing, gas fumes, gas used and of course gas purchased.

2.  No mower noise!  As I mow I can actually hear birds singing.  My hubby calls out the door, I just stop walking and we can talk like normal people.  Now all I hear is mower scissors happily clipping away. I don't have to wear ear plugs, damage my ears or irritate the birds and bees.

3.  Our dog Sally is much happier!  She smiles as I mowed.  She used to hide up on our back hill as I mowed. Then when I moved to the front lawn, she got all droopy as I shut her in the back yard. Now I let her stay with me for the whole yard- this has made my flop eared smiler very happy!

4. I am getting my farmer muscles back.  While this mower is not hard to push at all, I have noticed it is a lot like exercise.  As my grandpa Alton would have called it - power by arm strong.  I don't know about you, but staying strong and having time to work out is a constant battle.  Mowing gets me outside.  I can feel myself getting stronger and I'm accomplishing something at the same time- sorry gyms!!

5.  It is environmentally kind.  Not only am I not using any gas there are no emissions.  A few years ago, I heard every time you start your lawn mower, it is the equivalent of driving from Seattle to Spokane!  With this mower I don't even use electricity- only foot power!

6.  Less prep.  When I use my gas mower, there is more prep time to get into my work jeans, my gardening gloves and shoes.  I have to pull the mower out of the shed and fill it up with gas.  (hopefully the gas can has gas or is not freshly filled and heavy)  Now I put on my five fingered shoes and go outside.  Last night I mowed my back yard while my veggies were roasting in the oven.

I'm sure I will still use my hearty craftsman when the grass gets too tall, after a wind storm, when it rains and of course in the fall and early spring as I build my lasagna garden beds and need mulch.    My gas powered mowing is not extinct but is greatly reduced!  

Reel mowers may not create world peace, but they make this mower Smile!  

    Happy smiling and mowing to you,

            Denise

"Smile a while and as you smile and another will smile and soon there will be miles and miles of smiles because you smiled"  Author unknown

   

Lettuce fresh out of my garden has more protein

Does my red leaf lettuce have more protein than store bought lettuce? There is a high probability that it does.

Yesterday, I cut fresh lettuce for our dinner. I've learned to put the lettuce in a bowl of water, let it sit, while the sand and soil sink to the bottom. You can imagine my surprise when I looked into the bowl to find two slugs climbing out. Kind of cute really, they were all stretched out with their little horns finding a way out of the water. I should have taken a picture. If I have lettuce again today I'll take one. No doubt the little devils will join me-again. (If this blog comes with a picture, you will know what happened.)

The sand had pretty much fallen to the bottom, but really do you think I could let sleeping dogs lie, drain and serve my fresh, organic, home grown lettuce? Yuck! I carefully inspected the whole bowl cleaning each leaf with extreme awareness. If I had not gone to such extremes we would have eaten two more slugs!!!

Have I or one of my family members ever eaten a slug? Probably. Hence, my lettuce has a higher protein content than most store bought lettuce. The books make organic gardening seem so romantic. In truth, gardening is not for the faint of heart. You must press on even in the presence of slimy, crawling and buzzing.

This year, I am growing broccoli for the first time since I was a kid. I have delayed in growing broccoli because I clearly remember finding and picking little green worms out of our home grown crop. Last year, my mom grew her broccoli next to cabbage and swears all the little green worms went to the cabbage. I'm growing both. This morning, I noticed I have a little head of broccoli. I will tread ever so carefully from here. I don't want too much protein with my veggies.

Wishing you health and not too much protein,
Denise

Do the farmers market experiment

Last night for dinner we had fresh asparagus. I can't believe I'm saying this but the asparagus was melt in your mouth heavenly! As a kid growing up in Colorado, we would go pick wild asparagus from the lake bank over by my grandpa's house. I hated asparagus- loved picking it- hated eating it. It's amazing what your taste buds do as you get older. Thinking asparagus is heavenly would have been like thinking going to the dentist was a treat. Things sure have changed!

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Last night's asparagus came from our local farmers market. May is a month to celebrate the return of our farmers markets and farmers. The local honey, fresh baked bread, beautiful bouquets of flowers, fresh picked in the morning veggies: pea vines, mustard greens, tender baby broccoli, red leaf lettuce, mustard greens, baby garlic, onions, asparagus . So much local abundance waiting to come home for dinner.

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This summer I invite you to do a little experiment. Spend some time at a normal grocery store or discount store. Just listen, smell, look and notice- what do you see and how do you feel? What are your fellow shoppers doing? Now go directly to your local farmers market and conduct the same research. I think you will be amazed at the differences.

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When I did this experiment, I spent a morning at the farmers market as a volunteer, afterwords I had to stop by a discount store and pick up something. My senses were shocked. Inside the store I found shinny floors, clanking carts, florescent lights, advertisements and folks looking a bit sad and lost. In contrast, the morning at the farmers market, I had been surrounded by flowers, popcorn popping, families strolling and laughing, sunshine, fresh air, fresh food, local growers visiting with customers and lots of contented, happy looking faces.

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It was truly an ah ha moment. This spring, summer and fall go shopping and support our local markets. You will be helping local farmers and in return you will get a slice of life. If you are not sure when or where to find these markets not to worry, I found this little web site with all the details. It will also give you the local harvest schedule. http://www.pugetsoundfresh.org/.

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I can't say as a kid this asparagus would have been better than the wild we cut, learning to love fresh asparagus just takes time, but I'm sure I would have enjoyed shopping at the farmers market more than the grocery store.

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Happy fresh and local shopping,

Denise

The fresh documentary

This morning I'm preparing for this afternoon's documentary party. The movie we'll see is called "The Fresh Movie". It's about sustainable agriculture. As you probably know by now, I come from an agricultural background. My degree is even agriculturally bases- Agricultural Business. Both grandparents were dairy farmers, we raised beef cattle, my Aunt Velma still has some dry land wheat. I guess you could say agriculture is in my blood and long before I even knew what organic was I was organic.

This morning I was visiting with my dad about composting, my upcoming movie and his organic background. He was explaining how his parents farmed organically. They practiced crop rotation: barely, alfalfa and then corn. They used the manure from their cows for fertilizer. Close by were huge flocks of black birds they relied on as their pesticide. My dad and grandma were the herbicide-at the end of a hoe! This was normal life not some new discovery.

My aunt Velma has had a compost bin out back much of her life. At our house we raised our own cattle, had a huge garden and one summer had 40 chickens- but that is a story all in itself. We fed our kitchen scraps to the cows. I remember watching Princess S and Mable wallering a corn cob in their mouths and then spitting our the cob when it was stripped of corn.

This afternoon, a few of my friends and I will gather in my living room to watch and then discuss this movie. A movie like this is most defiantly a thought and discussion provoking movie. I don't really like watching something like this by myself. Too many thoughts get in my head. It's great to have time and friends to mull over the movie while eating fresh strawberries, homemade scones and real whipped cream.

I hope both the food and movie are good I haven't previewed my new scone recipe or the movie.

Wishing all a happy May,
Denise

If you can't learn with your friends who can you learn with??

The great lasagna garden experiement of 2010

This is the beginning of my lasagna bed. I wrote a little about this last fall, but in case you missed my earlier blog let me give you a reminder.

Lasagna gardening was introduced to me be a former neighbor, dear friend and excellent gardener. She thought I would enjoy lasagna gardening.

Lasagna gardening is kind of like sheet composting, where you lay organics out, layer by layer and let mother nature do the work of breaking them down. You use compostable material you find around your home and neighborhood such as grass clippings, fruit, veggies, egg shells, coffee grounds, leaves, straw, compost, wood ashes. You can also use local compostables such as manure, hay, straw, sawdust, seaweed/kelp. The author of the book Lasagna Gardening also relys on peat moss between each layer of compostable material.

I found this form of gardening fascinating for several reasons. You don't have to pull up any sod, as you lay newspaper or cardboard over and smother the grass and weeds. You can rebuild soil that seems unable to grow a good garden. You use your own resources instead of buying new or throwing away organic material. Supposedly, you don't need to do much weeding, you don't have to till the ground each year and you don't have to water as much.

Sounds almost too good to be true doesn't it? After many years of pondering this type of gardening, I'm going to do my first lasagna experiment this spring. Last year, I experimented with water and sweet potatoes. This year it is lasagna gardening.

The site I chose is going to be a great test. There is perhaps 1 inch of top soil here, below the little layer of top soil is a lovely bed of rocks. Of course, I wouldn't normally choose this soil for a rich garden but if lasagna gardening will work here it will work any where. On the good side of this site, it is close to water, I can easily see it and enjoy my gardening process from my office window and maybe most importantly it has the most sunlight in the summer.

As you can see in the above picture I have been assembling organics since last fall, borrowing grass clipping and leaves from my neighbor. My friend Tina grabbed a bale of straw from a Autumn display. As of today my lasagna bed is about 4 inches full of compost, straw, grass clippings, and one layer of peat moss I had left over in my garden shed. I need to build this bed up to about 18-24 inches- I have a long way to go.....

I'll keep you posted of this experiment as I play through the process. If you are interested the book I'm working out of, it is called Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza. Hope you join me in playing in the dirt this year.

Happy composting,

Denise

True Sustainablilty

Two springs ago I was in Arizona visiting my grandma and grandpa, along with my mom and aunt Velma. Many of you know of my amazing family. Aunt Velma just turned 100, grandpa turned 96, a couple of days ago and just got his drivers license re-newed-until he is 101! Grandpa doesn't even wear reading glasses.

I guess you could call my family a sustainable family given our longevity and health. But that story is for another day, this this is about the sustainablity of usable materials.

My mom and I were cooking up some fried apples with honey, cardamon and grandpa's home grown pecans. I noticed the stainless steel pan looked brand new. Wondering if grandma got new pans I asked my mom- how old is this pan? "Oh I'd say its about 50 years old. She's had that pan forever".

And there it was, sustainability, it smacked me right in the face. This January Dallas and I will have been married for 20 years. During that time I had gone through 3 sets of Teflon type cook ware. Not only did the finish wear off - we probably ate it-uggh!

Since that discovery I have switched to quality stainless steel cook wear. Cooking in stainless took a bit to get used to but once I got it there is no turning back. It started with 1 10inch pan my dad gave me. Now I have a full set. My budget didn't fit with a full new set. I found great buys at TJ Max, Goodwill and estate sales. For the same cost as my previous 3 sets of disposable and unhealthy pans I have a full set of 50 year pans. Now that is true sustainability.

happy home travels,
Denise