Seasonal doings, early March

I've earned my badge for first bike ride of the year -- a 3-mile evening jaunt on a relatively mild March 1 to attend a local Pinewood Derby. Weather-wise, I could have been a real eco star and hung the year's first load of laundry out back... but I haven't yet. 

A few reasons why I haven't hung laundry out yet: 1) The snow has only just finally melted, so the backyard is boggy; 2) a winter's worth of dog doo (anytime he did business out back instead of on his walk) is thawing into the backyard bog; and 3) I'm feeling cold and lazy. 

I'll get motivated to make the backyard ready for laundry soon enough. In the meantime, here's another seasonally relevant report. The first of every month, I get a planting reminder email from Gardenate, a simple site that can guide your gardening calendar based on your climate zone. Here in Zone 5a, February's email lists 15 different vegetables and herbs that I could now "Start undercover in seed trays and plant out in 4-6 weeks." In my experience, however, February has proven too early to start most things indoors, even with the grow light and warming mat to encourage them. Six weeks later is sometime in April, when a rogue cold day can still wipe out tender seedlings. And besides, almost all of the same plants are repeated in March's reminder, with another 30 or so others.

So now, in early March, I've opened my shoebox of leftover seed packets and spread them all over a table in the basement so I can start thinking about what I will plant for this year's garden. Procrastinating in stages feels like progress.

I was happy with last year's herb garden, so I'm hoping the herbs with perennial potential do indeed grow back, and I'll definitely plant some of the same annual herbs this year, with perhaps a few additions. And although I waffle on whether to bother with tomato plants, it's pretty likely I'll go ahead with those again, too.

OK, next seasonal chore -- stirring and using the compost. That bin is full after winter. I'm also curious to see how quickly (or slowly) last fall's chopped-up leaves will decompose as the weather warms up. For now, the leaf mold is still scattered all over the lawn, having been frozen in place by snow cover most of the winter.

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Leaf mulching

You know we love our compost, and we've always added some autumn leaves to the mix, but our yard collects far more leaves than we could possibly fit into our one average-sized home compost bin. I usually add light piles of leaves to some planted areas of the yard to serve as winter protection and later spring nutrients, but even still, there is an excess

The remaining options, then, are bagging the leaves for city pickup, which is fine. Those'll be composted somewhere. Or, I've seen people compress leaves into fire-starter bricks, which is project I'd maybe try. Maybe. Or, we could just leave the leaves be like a natural forest floor, but I think there are so many that our yard would indeed look like a forest floor--i.e., mossy dirt and leaves, because the heavy cover of leaves would kill the grass by smothering it or harboring mold. 

But there is yet another option. 

This year, we mulched the leaves. The smaller pieces will break down faster and mix more easily with  soil and other compostables, so we can add more of them to the compost bin and plant beds than we would have with whole leaves. Many of the chopped-up leaves can also be left to spread around the yard, because they can nestle down between blades of grass to the soil level, where they will break down faster while letting the grass grow through.

Some of the leaf bits will just blow away, sure, but because they are smaller, they can blow all over and disintegrate sooner rather than getting caught in a big pile along the curb where whole leaves tend to clog the storm drains.

Converting the thick carpet of maple leaves in our backyard into fall confetti.

We accomplished our mulching with our two electric leaf blowers that, handily, also work as leaf vacuums and mulchers. Guess where we got them.

Go on, guess!

All together now: Someone was throwing them out!

Actually, I think one of them may have been a Goodwill find. Regardless, here we are again with our second-hand lawn equipment, which may have required a little duct tape but worked out great. We attached a bag to one blower to collect some of the mulch for the compost bin and flower beds. The rest, we just let fly into the air and settle all across the lawn. (And in our hair and down the backs of our shirts...)

The yard looks messy by immaculate suburbanite standards, what with the mulched leaf bits all over the place, but there aren't piles of leaves anymore, and the grass shows through. My hope is that these chopped leaves will provide a little insulation to my bedded plants over the winter and then decompose into leaf mold (a.k.a. composted leaves, not to be confused with fuzzy mold that grows in damp places) where they sit, thereby feeding the grass and flower beds throughout the spring thaw.

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Water Update

I was excited to report back in June that we had lowered our own water usage by about 750 gallons (over 2 months). Well, we kept at it -- from little things like shutting off the faucet during those proscribed 20 seconds we're soaping our hands, to medium things like taking shorter or less frequent showers, to the bigger things like watering our outdoor (and indoor) plants solely from the rain barrels -- until they ran dry; I admit to hauling out the hose a few times. And, the results are in.

Our water bill for our May and June usage was down to just 2 CCFs! That means we cut our average water usage in half. How about that? 

Such reduction doesn't cut our water bill in half, mind you. There's a flat fee for service, but each CCF used or not used will add or subtract, respectively, about $5. The separate sewer bill is also a little bit lower, because it is also based on water usage. Over a year, those few monthly dollars add up, sure, but this is less about the money savings (where you'd typically see a higher return by reducing your gas and electric usage) than it is about the environmental impact.

It's easier to think about water conservation in the warm months, when gardens need to be watered, and pools "need" to be swum in. However, our consumption awareness must continue through the winter. The western United States is still, today, experiencing extreme and excessive drought. Even here in northern Illinois, despite the seemingly abundant gray skies of November, things are "abnormally dry." Again, I refer you to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Back to our record 2-CCFs water bill. During May and June 2021, we used approximately 750 gallons per month, or roughly 180-190 gallons per week, or 25 gallons per day. In some ways that number seems low, but imagine having 25 gallon-size jugs, some of them sitting on your kitchen counter and several others hanging out in your bathroom. And you're going to go through all 25 of those in just one day. It seems like a crazy amount of water!

We easily use less than that per day when we're camping, but when we're roughing it, we naturally use water very conservatively. Based on that observation, clearly showers, toilets, and laundry make the biggest impact. Dish-washing is also a potential area for improvement.

Our next water bill, for July and August, was back up to 3 CCFs -- higher than our lowest usage, but still lower than our original average. We're happy about that, but the drive for self-competition inspires me to keep trying to be even more conservative -- when it comes to water usage, that is.

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Garden Shutdown

 Chilly but sunny, this past weekend was perfect for some yardwork, as in closing down the garden for the season. We've already had a few mornings of frost, so the tomatoes are done anyway. Most of the trees around us have yet to drop their leaves, though, so that other big cleanup awaits.

We emptied the rain barrels and turned them upside down for the winter. They were both full, but we have little watering to do now. We used several gallons to give our perennials the scraggliest patches of lawn one last soak, and set some aside for the indoor plants, but most of it went into the street, to the storm sewers, where rain water naturally goes when you're not catching as much of it as you can.

We emptied the container garden -- the cut tin troughs of herbs, the large pots of tomatoes, the smaller pots of ornamentals. I have uprooted and potted two begonias to try to overwinter them indoors. If you know me, I am notoriously deadly to flowering houseplants... we'll see.

We also needed to make room in the compost bin for winter's kitchen scraps. I did my best to pull out all the "unfinished" compost, that is, the still-identifiable plant matter -- grass clippings, corn husks, dog fur from the vacuum, recently tossed romaine cores. You know, all the stuff that hasn't broken down all the way. I piled it onto a tarp so I could put back the bin later. 

For now, what we wanted was the stuff filling the bottom half of our bin, the rich, dark compost that looks quite like potting soil. It's full of worms, too. Nice, healthy food for the garden.

So, we spread this finished (or near finished) compost around our fruit trees, hostas, perennial flowers and herbs, strawberries, raspberries, onions, and rhubarb. My hope is that it will sit there on top and then, as the snow melts in the spring, it will slowly leech its way into the soil and provide a boost of nutrients to these plants' roots. Meanwhile, all the unfinished compost goes back into the bin, but now there is room for some of those fall leaves and a winter's worth of kitchen scraps before we stir it again in the spring.

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Summer 2021 Garden Update

Once again, someone was throwing something out. Some things. Several of these galvanized windowsill planters, originally sold with seeds and peat pellets for themed herb and vegetable gardens, were in the trash, seemingly unused, now just empty little troughs. Len had some length of chain left over from a project or some long-ago dismantled item, so he made for me this cute, hanging herb garden. We faced the planters backward to hide the labels "Cocktail Garden," "Italian Garden," and "Taco Garden," since those do not accurately describe what's growing in the containers—and, yeah, for a cleaner, unified look. 

I'm certain the Italian and taco gardens would have come with tomato seeds, and I just don't believe a tomato plant would grow very heartily from such a small container. Maybe that's why they were thrown out. I'm sticking to herbs, small hot peppers, and edible flowers.

I have been enjoying this herb garden, which includes my hopeful perennials on the ground (marjoram, tarragon, thyme, rosemary that I will try overwintering indoors, oregano, parsley, and a probably dead sage) and some annuals in the cute hanging arrangement (marigolds, chamomile, cilantro, basil, and a late-arrival tabasco pepper plant that is only just now getting buds). I find reasons to use fresh herbs in most recipes these days, and almost daily I pick 5 or so chamomile blossoms and lay them on a newspaper in the basement, where they can dry out before I store them in a little glass container (for making chamomile tea later, if you couldn't guess).

Spearmint and lemon balm are sequestered elsewhere in the yard, since the mint family tends to hardily take over any space within reach. 

The herbs are probably my best performers in the garden this year. At last, in late summer, our tomatoes are beginning to ripen.

Meanwhile, the strawberry plants have not spread as vigorously as I'd hoped and even seem to be dying back. It's hard to tell. I see new leaves grow and other sections go brown. Same with the rhubarb. We didn't eat any this year, as the shock of transplant stunted its growth and spurred flowering, but I do see new stalks appearing while others seem to be dying off. I don't know what's normal. As usual with my haphazard gardening, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a strong reemergence next spring.

In the category of fun stuff, we got some volunteer sunflowers from seeds left behind by last year's sunflower patch. They were conveniently growing on the edge of our now-designated apple tree space, so I let them stay. None of them seem to be the mammoth variety, at least not in flower head size, but they are taller than last year! (And there, below them, our espaliered apple trees are beginning to take shape. I need to fix those guide wires, which are all loose and wonky after someone bent one of our posts! Can you believe it?)

Speaking of trees, I've been spraying a homemade concoction weekly on the cherry and apple trees to combat what is either a fungus or an insect putting holes in the cherry leaves and potentially affecting future growth. I guess I'm not seeing further damage, but observations are ongoing.

Our other gardening of late has been toward ornamental goals. When the nursery/greenhouse near us put flowering perennials on discount, I bought some cone flowers, larkspur, asclepias, and coreopsis to add to the previously "installed" dianthus and creeping phlox. I also transplanted some tiger lilies from my aunt's yard, which she originally transplanted from my great-grandmother's yard. Then, Len found free hostas on an online marketplace, so we drove to the neighboring town to dig up some plants from a generous stranger's yard and further beautified the bare soil around our back patio.

All of this, including the still-fragile grass we planted in our lawn months ago, I've been diligently watering solely from our rain barrels. It takes more time and effort (especially time) than just using the hose, and as a result, I'm certainly giving the plants less water than the people who soak their gardens daily with a heavy stream from their spigot. I'm sure that's why they have such lush gardens comparatively, but my plants are alive (mostly), and I'm happy to know we can enhance our green space without the toll on natural resources. 

The rain barrels have reached near empty during a couple of especially hot, dry spells, after which we audibly cheered on the rain storms that broke the temporary drought (and watched some neighbor kids danced in the downpour). Here's to the bursts of rain that offset the heat these past couple of weeks. Maybe we can enjoy an actual tomato and pepper harvest before cool weather comes. Say it with me: Fingers crossed!

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Farming in the backyard (and side yard, and front yard...)

"You guys do a lot of farming," observed one of our eight-year-old neighbors.

Not as much as I'd like, was my first thought, and not nearly as much as the neighbors a few door down, who last summer put a basket of free cucumbers at the end of their driveway, from which we gratefully selected a couple for making cold cucumber-avocado soup. 

We're surely not suburban-homesteading to the max, but I guess what we do is impressive to the eight-year-olds next door. Together, we counted the edible things growing in the side flowerbeds and backyard (recognizing that many were not in their edible season):

1. Strawberries (recently finished)
2. Rhubarb
3. Raspberries (ripening daily now!)
4. Onions (Egyptian walking and green, always in season, really)
5. Sunflowers
6. Apple trees (maybe next year?)
7. Cherry tree (maybe next year?)
8. Tomatoes (possibly 4 kinds, but time will tell)
9. Marigolds (technically edible, but I have not tried)
10. Many herbs (generally in season all summer: cilantro, lemon balm, spearmint, oregano, basil, marjoram, and... parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme!)
11. And, newly planted (and therefore not previously counted) tabasco peppers and chamomile.

For not having any official "Square Foot Gardening" raised beds, we're cramming it in. I'm looking forward to our strawberry, rhubarb, and raspberry transplants spreading their roots and tubers and shoots this summer for a more productive crop next year. Fingers crossed. 

I wanted a more robust herb garden, so I spent money on it this year. But, I also like to at least pretend I'm self sufficient, so I'll be trying to save seeds from those herbs this fall.

I have been enjoying the blessing of time, thanks to working from home. Just a fraction of the time I used to spend on commuting is now spent tending the garden. I've realized that it isn't just an extra 10-15 hours a week I have -- it's extra energy. There's a momentum no longer interrupted by the commute. How many four o'clocks did I daydream at the office about some creative endeavor at home, only to find that energy sapped by 6:30? Motivation enough only to make and eat dinner, and maybe clean up after it. 

I'm still regularly a couch potato after 7 p.m., sure. But between signing off for the day and starting dinner, plus a lunch break in the backyard, there's time and energy aplenty for farming.

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And now, something fun - glass flowers

 Our garden is blooming with thrift-store glass, construction glue, and scrap rebar.

Inspired by the dozens of such lawn ornaments surrounding a house about a mile from ours, Len recently created seven of these glittering flowers that will be in bloom all summer long.

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Doom and gloom about water

Nine years ago, I wrote a post about conserving water and said, "while potable water may seem a constant to us Midwesterners, it is scarce in many parts of the world." Well, guess what? Even here, in the land of public drinking fountains (most of which have been covered and unused for more than a year because of the pandemic), unlimited free water in restaurants, indoor and outdoor waterparks, and the great fun of jumping through sprinklers until the lawn is soggy, even here in the land plenty, clean water is less reliable than it used to be.

And most of us don't know it. Yet.

I've already had water usage on my mind lately. A few weeks ago, a city crew was digging a giant hole in the street, repairing a water main. We had our water shut off for about half a day, and then we were under a precautionary boil order for 24 hours. It was a minor inconvenience but a reminder of how fragile some conveniences--like a constant supply of fresh water--can be. Remember when Texas froze this winter? Some people were without a water supply for more than week.

CCF = centum cubic feet = 100 cubic feet of water = 748 gallons

Also, we've been re-seeding sections of our lawn, watering from the rain barrels whenever possible, not only to be eco-friendly but also because last fall, when we were watering the lawn regularly (because our previously neglected lawn is undergoing resuscitation), we saw our water usage double from 4 CCF (almost 3,000 gallons) in a 2-month billing cycle to 8 CCF (5,984 gallons). Wow! But, get this. Apparently, the average household in our area uses 13 CCF (about 9,700 gallons) every two months, according this 2019 Chicago Tribune article. 

After that shocker of a water bill, our usage returned to 4 CCF on the next couple of cycles. We wondered, is 4 CCF the lowest we can possibly go, or can we lower our water consumption even more? The latest water bill just arrived. 3 CCF! That means we managed to use several hundred gallons less in March and April than our average. That's still over 1,000 gallons per month -- it takes a lot of water to live modern!

And then, just a couple of weeks ago, Ginger Zee on Good Morning America showed us the ruins of an old church, previously hidden underwater in a reservoir in Mexico, now regularly revealed by receding water levels, indicative of the megadrought affecting the western hemisphere.

Megadrought! An intense drought that lasts decades.

Here's the thing. That church isn't emerging from the deep for the first time just now. A quick Google to find the recent story brought me a story from 2015 about this same thing. Water levels in the reservoir have been fluctuating for quite some time, occasionally revealing the church and allowing people to canoe through the ruins. Even in 2002, water was low enough that people could walk through the church.

But that's Mexico, you think. Not us. Well, check out the U.S. Drought Monitor, and you'll see the entire southwestern United States is in a drought, most of it an extreme or exceptional drought on a scale that goes None, Abnormally Dry, Moderate Drought, Severe Drought, Extreme Drought, Exceptional Drought. In fact, half our country is abnormally dry or worse. I inevitably think of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, or perhaps a future drought era as depicted in Interstellar.

So, what do we do?

Landscaping, for instance. Plant for your geography and climate so your garden will thrive in the natural amount of rain it gets. Supplement with collected rainwater. We easily use 12-20 gallons of water from the rain barrels daily just for our new-grass patches -- on days it doesn't rain, that is. You could also use rain barrel water for washing your car or your patio furniture or anything else outdoors.

According to the EPA, 70% of the average American's water usage happens indoors, though. Letting it mellow will save you, at most, a few gallons a day. It's better than nothing, but there are more impactful water conservation activities to consider. 

Get appliances that use water more efficiently, if you can -- whether it's a full-scale gray-water system, an HE washing machine, a WaterSense-labeled toilet, or a high-efficiency showerhead.

Working with the appliances you already have, number one priority: fix any leaks.

Then, just take shorter showers. My mom used to wash her hair at the kitchen sink instead of in the shower. Like at a salon, the water was off during the shampoo scrub and while the conditioner soaked in. So, think of those types of adjustments that might reduce your time standing under the running shower. 

Also, hand-washing. Shut the faucet off while you're soaping your hands for the recommended 20 seconds. And, for goodness' sake, don't let the water run while you're brushing your teeth -- that's two whole minutes if you're doing it right!

I'll also recommend paying attention to how companies use water, from the obvious (like water suppliers and the agricultural industry) to the less obvious but heavy hitters (like manufacturers of anything), and how the government regulates them. You have the power -- by how you purchase things and how you vote, to name just a couple of ways -- to influence how your community and we as a nation conserve (or waste) this precious resource.

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A "reel" sense of community

Last Thursday, I took advantage of a beautiful spring morning to kickstart my day with some fresh air. I mowed the lawn before logging in to work. 

A mowing snapshot from last summer

Oh, my reel mower, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

1. It's much lighter weight than a gas- or battery-powered mower. I can just pick it up and carry it, which is sometimes a more convenient maneuver than pushing.
2. But, it's still a decent arm workout to push it across the lawn.
3. It's human-powered, which has several perks. With no gas or oil to fill, no battery to recharge, you just get it out of the garage and go. It's ready to mow at a moment's notice. 
4. The whirring blades are the only noise. Someone can get your attention without having to holler their lungs out. You can mow in the early morning without annoying your neighbors.
5. If you need to stop -- for conversation, for a water break, to get debris out of the way -- you can just stop and start as frequently as you like without having to get a motor going again.
6. You can feel good about being earth-friendly and lawn-friendly. The way reel mowers cut reportedly makes for healthier grass.
7. It's a conversation starter, and that's what really sparked this post.

But first, I'll also share the downsides of using a reel mower, just to give the whole picture.

1. Sometimes it leaves sprigs standing -- especially taller, thicker stalks of grass and dandelion flower stems. You have to go over some areas twice, or get them with the weed whip.
2. Same problem if you let your grass get too long. The wheels of the mower are more likely to mash down long grass before the blades can chop it.
3. Twigs will temporarily jam the blades. It's as simple as backing up so the stick can come loose, but it can be annoying. Take time to pick up debris from the yard first.
4. You must take the time afterward to clean the mower, which helps keep the blades in good condition. Some of you already take excellent care of your lawn tools, so this is not a downside but rather a given. 
5. A reel mower doesn't give you that quintessential fresh-cut-grass smell that a power mower does. Maybe because it doesn't shred the grass or heat it as it spits it out the other side. Maybe it's the missing cloud of gasoline exhaust. Anyway, the scent of a reel-cut lawn is lighter, more reminiscent of the grassy air that hovers over a quiet field than the heady mulchiness of hot-mown suburbia. But you can still inhale that childhood aroma as your neighbors cut their grass.

Now, back to mower's being a conversation starter. People see us using it and want to know.

How do you like it? I love it. 

Does it actually cut the grass? Yes, but see notes above. 

How often do you have to sharpen the blades? My user's manual says I could go several years without sharpening as long as I keep the blades clean and in good condition. This is only my second season mowing with it, but so far, so good.

Can I try it? Yes!

That's what happened last Thursday morning. A couple walked by, and the wife said something like, "She's got the mower I want!" So the husband asked me, "Can my wife try that thing?" Delighted to be of service, I let her mow a few strips of lawn for me. Try before you buy. Pushing is believing.

What a great thing about yard work. Meeting the neighbors. It's something Len quickly noticed when we moved into our new old house, something that had been missing in our old neighborhood, where the lawn (and snow) service was included in the homeowner association dues. 

The developer of our previous neighborhood had utopian ideas about a sense of community built into his neighborhood design. Large front porches, where people will sit and gather and chat. Wide sidewalks to easily accommodate two passing strollers. A centralized "town center" of small shops. It didn't happen. People hung out in their tiny, privacy-fenced backyards, barbecued in the alley out of their garage, drove their car one block to the mail room. Businesses fizzled. Sure, we met some neighbors, and the sidewalks were busy thoroughfares on Halloween, but we also lived next door to others we never saw! Without compulsory yard work to bring people outside, people naturally hid inside.

One could argue that if the regular maintenance of the lawn is taken care of for you, you have more freedom to do the fun kind of yard work, tending flower gardens and turning your front porch into a comfortable outdoor living room. We often ate dinner on our front porch. We liked it. But, well. We Americans are prone to maxing ourselves out, aren't we? A rare few of us choose a house we can comfortably afford, while many families buy the most house they can possibly afford, so they're still working long hours just to pay the bills. No time or money for gardening, home improvement hobbies, or just sitting out on the porch waiting for neighbors to stroll by.

I'm not saying people in our current neighborhood are more fiscally responsible. The difference here is that lawn maintenance is another bill to be paid -- you must budget some time and money for it, because it's your own responsibility. Some people put more effort into than others, but the fact remains: If everyone has to be outside at some point, taking care of their respective yards, you will actually encounter each other and be part of a community. It's nice.

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Green thumbprints

A brief spring garden update, with the joy of sharing plants.

Len and I were already out on an adventure visiting the Chicago Tribune's printing plant to pick up an old newspaper vending box, when he got a text from a friend. A new fence had displaced some raspberry and rhubarb plants in the friend's yard. Did we want them?

While I had transplanted a few raspberry canes from our previous yard to the new old house's yard, only one solid cluster had survived the drain line repair last spring. With the friend's offer, we could accelerate the spread of our new raspberry patch. I decided, as with the apple trees, not to be sad that I was no longer propagating a particular raspberry lineage but instead to be glad that I was continuing the tradition of growing any raspberries. 

We returned home with a trunkful of discards both manmade and natural. The vending boxes (two of them!) are in the basement, repurposing to follow. The rhubarb is now growing next to our small strawberry patch, of course, which, I may have mentioned, came from my parents' garden and has miraculously survived two moves. Here's hoping the strawberries thrive once more in their sunnier permanent home.

More recently, for Mother's Day, Len's mom dug up some plants out of her own garden so we could plant them in ours. I feel like a proper Mother's Day gift ought to have been the other way around... Well, we also have some hostas growing around our back porch that originally came from Len's mom's yard and have moved with us from townhouse to new old house. I was thrilled to see that most of them made it through the winter and appear to be coming back strong this spring. (They looked a bit pitiful last fall; I was worried.)

Special thanks to all the family and friends who've shared pieces of your garden with us. Whether in actual foliage or in spirit, your green thumbprints are all over our yard, and we love it. 

New goal for me: Just keep all this stuff alive.

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Mourning the Apple Trees and Moving On

There's a saying: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. Often used to inspire some action in one's life, it can also be taken literally, and that's what I'm doing today.

Twelve years ago, we hefted a grapefruit-sized (maybe bigger) Wolf River apple in our hands and thought, You are 300 miles from your birthplace in Thorp, Wisconsin. We are going to eat you. And then we are going to plant your seeds, just for fun. Probably nothing will come of it.

That was in fall 2008. The seeds we planted from that Wolf River apple, soon became seedlings and then saplings. They spent their first three years in pots, overwintering in our unheated garage with newspaper and blankets as insulation. In the spring of 2012, Len did the hard work of digging holes in the heavy clay of our townhouse yard and planted them . They bore fruit in 2015 and every year after that, although harvests were not large.

Our apple tree history in blog posts:

April 21, 2009 (seedlings)

November 3, 2009 (winterizing)

March 20, 2010  (after winterizing)

March 4, 2012 (pruning)

May 13, 2012 (planting)*

*The city suddenly cut down the ash tree in our backyard one day; Len dug out the leftover stump, and that is where the third apple tree now resides.

Summer 2015 (first fruit)

And now...

February 2020, we put our house up for sale because we'd signed a contract to buy the new old house. The apple trees were now almost as tall as the house. They would have to stay behind. (Our babies!)

I did a lot of searching and reading and video-watching. I cut scion twigs from each of the three trees (pencil-thick, straight, recent growth, each at least 12 inches long), wrapped them in a damp paper towel in plastic bag, and stored them in my in-laws' garage fridge, which held only beverages, so the scions could stay away from any other fruits or vegetables that could off-gas and cause early budding.

I ordered four dwarf rootstocks from an orchard, and they arrived in March. I tried my hand at whip-and-tongue grafting. Two of my four grafts seemed to have survived! Leaves popped on the scions. I planted one in the yard of our new old house and kept the other in its pot as a backup.

Come summer of 2020, some insect ate away the new leaves. I continued watering diligently, but there was no new growth. We eventually tossed the potted spare -- it also looked more like a stick now and less like a baby tree.

Now, spring of 2021, still nothing was happening on the grafted tree in the yard. I had to accept that it really was dead. (In fact, I just pulled it out of the ground like plain stick -- I guess the roots rotted, and the graft site had ultimately failed. Maybe I overwatered.) The cousins in Wisconsin have sold the farm. Unless we go steal an apple out of our old yard, this heirloom line of Wolf River apples ends its journey where it is rooted. 

Instead, we'll carry on the tradition honorarily. Last fall, I ordered three heirlooms from Trees of Antiquity: two Egremont russet apple trees, an English Victorian variety supposedly good for fresh eating and cider, and a Napoleon (a.k.a. Queen Anne) cherry tree, which is the kind my Grandma used to have in her yard (that tree cut down just last year and also on property soon to be sold). The trees arrived early this April!

Our new experiment, besides just trying to grow trees, is the art of espalier. Espalier should be a good strategy for growing more productive trees in a compact space, here along the fence (I know, I know, easy access for the squirrels). 

The first task was (gulp!) an aggressive prune to encourage side branching. 

Wish us luck.

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Just dandy - a lawn that's greenish

Feast your eyes. This is what organic lawn maintenance looks like.

Hundreds and hundreds of dandelions (and other weeds for which I don't have names but know I don't want taking over my yard), pulled out by the roots. This is just one hour's work in one afternoon. There have been several afternoons spent before it, and I even did 15 minutes of rapid weeding yesterday morning before logging on to my day job.

These hours of hand-wrenching, back-aching work are what you have to look forward to if you want to maintain your lawn in an organic, earth-friendly, chemical-free way. That is, if you're trying to maintain the typical neighborhood's green-grass lawn on a lot that was not so well-maintained in the years before you owned it. We're nursing our suburban fescue back to life.

This endless toiling is a big reason why most eco-friendly lawn options involve natural landscapes of native plantings. 

Here's an example from a neighbor's house.

It doesn't look like much right now, but then, the Illinois prairies are only just awakening from winter dormancy. In the summer, tall grasses and wildflowers fill out the little homegrown preserve here. It's pretty and requires far less watering than a short-grass lawn.

We're keeping most of our open lawn, though, because we like to get out on it to play yard games. I like to keep our lawn and garden as green as possible, and I don't just mean the color of the grass. We moved our compost bin and its contents with us, when we moved houses last spring, so you better believe I'll be using our compost to fertilize the lawn. Our lawn mower is a good, old-fashioned (but brand new from Home Depot) reel mower, and our weed whacker is battery powered.

But, we've never been 100% green. We balance being green with some convenient shortcuts, because not everyone can be a full-time homesteader. So, in our garage, there's a stinky little bag of organic chicken manure from a local garden center, and there's also a bag of very non-organic "weed and feed" from my grandma's garden supplies. I'll pull as many weeds by hand as I can, and I'll even ignore a few of them, but I might pull out the weed killer spray at some point for a targeted assault. We'll use water collected in our rain barrels as much as possible for watering the grass seed when we sow later this spring, but I know we will sometimes just use the hose straight from the house, because going back and forth with the watering can is a huge time commitment.

All that is ahead of us yet. For now, I'm diligently scouring the yard with the forked precision weeding tool, a.k.a the "pokey dandelion thingy."

I'm letting most of those piles of pulled dandelions dry out, and then I'll toss them into the compost bin. But, yes, we did eat a handful.

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Marching on

I'm writing this one week ago today, fingertips tingling as warmth returns to them. It's somewhere between 40 and 44 degrees outside, depending on whether you ask the Amazon Echo or the thermometer on the back porch. The sky is sunny, and the wind is gusty. As it is in March.

What's this all about? March 11 was our first outdoor laundry hanging of 2021. Sunny and gusty is exactly what you want, and then the air temperature doesn't matter so much. Except to my fingers. 

I wrote about laundry and numb fingers in October, too, and yes, I wimped out promptly thereafter. I'm also disappointed to report that I did not test hanging a towel out in January to see if laundry would dry on a sunny but sub-freezing day in our backyard. I forgot about until I just now glanced back at that October post. Oh, well. Next January?

March is also a time for starting seeds indoors. This year, I treated myself to a warming mat to put under my seed trays, which are set up in the basement with a grow light. 

The seeds went in on February 27. Marigolds were the first to sprout, followed by tomatoes, and now I'm starting to see some petunia, moss rose, and basil cotyledons (the first two seed leaves). Still waiting on the other herbs to rear their heads. I'm brewing an idea for a vertical herb garden along our fence, where the plants can better share the space with rain barrels. Hm...

It's probably time to flip those rain barrels right-side-up again. They'd been disconnected, emptied, and stacked upside-down for the winter. Let's add that to the to-do list and see how quickly I forget about it.

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Spring is coming

Remember in the late fall, those first mornings of light frost on the ground? It feels chill-you-to-the-bone cold and wet outside. Time to line the windows with plastic wrap and hunker down for the season. Sorry, dog, just a short walkies today. Your face stings in the northerly wind. Your bare hands take turns holding the leash, one in a jacket pocket while the other one turns red from exposure to the icy air, then switch.

And now, in this last week of February, after an epoch of single digits on the thermometer out back (and some double digits, but all negative) and never-ending snow, the temperature cracks 30 and even creeps above freezing. The sun is out. Oh, glory! Spring is coming! You strip off the wool mittens, unveil your face from behind the Tom Baker scarf, and let your bare skin breathe in the refreshing air. The dog gets a full four blocks today. Steady on the ice patch of a sidewalk. Never mind that four months ago a day 20 degrees warmer felt like certain frostbite.

So it goes every year, I think. You face November's dropping temperatures with dread. Maybe you have holidays to brighten things up, but they'll only carry you so far past the winter solstice, i.e. early winter. Most of the season still lies ahead. The sun disappears forever, temperatures continue falling, your living room couch becomes a hoard of fleece blankets, and you know that old groundhog is going to see his shadow like he always does. And then one day, it's five o'clock and you notice sunlight still lingering on the horizon. Today, it might be 20 degrees colder than that first bitter wind promising winter was coming, but it is also 40 degrees warmer than it was two weeks ago. Sweet joy.

At this point, green thumbs start to itch, and the snow can't melt fast enough. There will still be temperature ups and downs. The weather will oscillate between hints of spring and reminders that it's still winter, getting our hopes up, and then trying our patience. 

I'll try to moderate my springtime dreaming, try to keep it real. Here are a few seedlings of hope in my head right now:

• New trees! Apple and cherry, scheduled to arrive in early April. We're literally putting down roots at our new home -- and attempting to espalier. Expect future posts on this topic.
• A more purposeful herb garden. I have some perennials (sage, oregano) in a bed out front, but I have my eye on a sunnier space along the fence in back, near the rain barrels. It will be a lush mix of more perennials (thyme, rosemary, parsley) and some annuals (cilantro, basil, chamomile) -- with cutesy identification markers.
• The Big Restoration of Our Windows and Doors. You're right, this is not very moderate. It's huge. But there it is. Hopefully, future posts on this as well.

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All the work nobody sees

Think about all the things that just are. The things you don't think about until they're broken.

You open a tap, clean water comes out. You plug in your laptop, it charges. You store food in your pantry, it sits there. Until... it doesn't.

Proofreading the house

I'm thinking of the trivia of home ownership, but I've complained about the similar catch-22 in being a proofreader: When someone reads your perfectly clean copy, they fly through it, never stopping to praise such excellent editing. They find one single typo, however, and it's a huge distraction, tarnishing their perception of the perhaps-talented but imperfect proofreader who missed it.

So goes maintaining a property, where so much of the time and work and money are spent on things behind the walls, never seen or cared about by anyone but you. Suddenly, a 99% that was so impressive as a midterm exam score is now a bothersome disappointment when a living room window only closes 99% of the way in the dead of winter.

Of course, some home improvements are quite visible. There are fun projects you get to show off to your friends -- What bold paint in here! Did you lay that tile yourself? How do you grow such beautiful roses? Regular old maintenance projects just to keep the place looking nice are visible as well. They're the "proofreading" of home maintenance. These are the things that are generally unremarkable when in good order but become a noticeable nuisance if you don't take care of them -- mowing the lawn, shoveling snow, vacuuming up pet hair, cleaning up after yourself in general.

But, the realm of projects unseen is vast. Many are just embarrassing little inconveniences you want to fix so you can comfortably host guests, but you wouldn't necessarily show off these upgrades -- fixing a toilet that doesn't flush well, patching pieces of roof that are falling off, replacing a broken window, cleaning up after a mouse sighting. Others -- the most expensive, it seems to me! -- are projects that no one but you will ever know about unless you tell them, and they're not exciting enough to tell. You, yourself, might not even give them much thought until something goes disastrously wrong.

Take, for instance, the basement flooding. You'll mop it up, and then you'll get a guy to clean the tree roots out of the sewer line and inspect it with his camera snake thingy and discover a section of clay pipe that ought to be replaced. More guys come and dig a ginormous hole in your yard and, when they're done laying the new pipe, they fill the hole back in, somehow with mostly random gravel on top, which you'll painstakingly pick out of your yard in your efforts to try and grow grass there again. What are you going to do, take someone on a tour of your basement and say, "Ta-da! How 'bout that dry floor? No drain back-ups for six months now."

"Didn't she do a great job?"

When we were negotiating the purchase of our new old house, the buyer's agent admired her fellow realtor's (the seller) renovation work, gushing often, "Didn't she do a great job?" OK, when you just look at the place, it's easy to be taken in by the updates. Trendy gray walls with white trim. Shiny, refinished original hardwood floors. Brand new granite countertops against a classy subway tile backsplash. She did a great job revealing the house's charm. She did not, however, do a great job on all the actual work.

Example 1: Paint was hurriedly sloshed on every surface without proper preparation. Up close, the peeling chips of the old paint are visible under the new paint on the wooden siding. From the street, it looks fine. Opening windows for the first time required some chiseling with a putty knife. What's noticeable are random bare strips of wood where the thick new paint moved with the window rather than staying put on the frame. Above each ceiling-mounted light fixture, there is an unpainted patch of ceiling, noticeable only in daylight.

Example 2: Also hurried and therefore not well-executed was the bookend to good preparation, properly finishing the projects. The new tile floor in the kitchen, the countertops, and the grout between the subway tiles had never been sealed (i.e., not prepared for actual daily use). So we did that. We finished up that kitchen. Can anyone tell by looking at it? No.

Example 3: There had been squirrels living in the attic. She had her guy drive them out and seal up the holes. Kinda. The squirrels got back in! We hired roofers to come out and replace the chewed-out trim for real. Can you tell? No, not from the ground, and certainly not unless you have a vivid memory of the holes in the old trim.

I could go on. 

In review

Instead, just for fun, I made a chart of some of the work we've done our first year in this old house, a lot of it completed in the first 90 days. I've categorized it into the showcase-able stuff, the invisible but important, and the in-between things that are generally unnoticed except as a day-to-day nuisance or that otherwise negatively affect the aesthetics and comfort of the home. Asterisks indicate work we did ourselves... and by "we," I mean mostly Len.

“Ooh, ahh!”	Invisible, important	Upkeep, improvement
Keys for old-fashioned locks Expand patio with found bricks/stones* Stain the fence* Plant trees* Build secret door bookcase* Game room in basement: build mini-golf green, partially restore foosball table* Frosted glass treatment on front door* Build porch rocking chairs* Restore interior of built-in cabinets* Build shelving in under-stairs storage Install wash basin in laundry room* Restyle various furniture pieces to suit house, fit space* Free or low-cost “new” furnishings*	New lock sets Add support beams in garage* Repair water heater vent hood Repair furnace gas line Reroute and add electric to garage New roof trim around dormer Two rounds of electrical upgrades Seal crack in foundation wall New spigot outside* Massive attic cleanout* New sewer line Test tap water for lead Restore doorbell* Clean out under front & back porches* Build insulation cover for whole-house fan* Caulk exterior holes left by old cable* Repair section of gutter screen* Seal all tilework in kitchen* Seal granite countertops* Level furnace condensation line* Multiple plumbing repairs in upstairs bathroom* Fix gaps in basement HVAC Have ducts cleaned Eradicate mice and seal entry points*	Remove old satellite dish* Prune dead tree branches* Fix fence position New washing machine* Install rain barrels* Run new internet line Remove old cables* Replace glass in broken window* Install garbage disposal* Install ceiling fans* Clean out gutters* Plant grass, kill weeds* Install work-light in basement* Restore proper function of bathroom vent fan* Minor (in size, not in cost...) asbestos removal Repair/replace ductwork post-asbestos removal* Attempt to better align/fit exterior doors* Weather stripping on doors* Add insulation to attic*

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Homegrown, home-roasted sunflower seeds

 One of my favorite things to do in our 2020 summer garden was to stand face to face with our sunflowers and watch the bees work on them. There were frequently large bumble bees but also several smaller types of bees, all of them busily focused on their tasks, not minding if I leaned in close to get a better look at the packs of pollen bulking up their little bee hips.

And now, we are enjoying the fruits of those bees' labor. Sunflower seeds!

With daily vigilance this past fall, I checked the drooping sunflower heads for signs the seeds were mature. For example, on the mammoth sunflowers, the seeds start out white, but then the telltale gray stripes appear as they ripen. Another sign that the seeds are ready? The squirrels and birds start going after them. 

The critters got most of our sunflower seeds (in fact, I watched a squirrel drag a whole sunflower stalk up a tree), but I did manage to save three of the mammoth sunflower heads and a couple from the smaller varieties, whose seeds I'm saving to replant next year. So, when the flower heads had drooped, the outer petals had wilted and fallen off, the calyx (the back of the flower) had begun to dry out, and the seeds looked ripe, I cut off the flower heads along with a handful's length of stem.

The next step was to rub away the remaining tiny petals that covered the seeds. This is easily done with your thumbs, and your hands will smell like flowers afterward. But, careful! There are also some prickly parts of the sunflower -- especially along the stem. I had a few spiny splinter-things to pull from my fingers later.

Then, I put my flower heads in a large paper grocery bag, which I hung from the basement ceiling, where they could finish drying out in a cool, dry, dark place away from dust and (eek!) mice. And there, I let them dry out for... a couple of months! Because I just left them there until we finally got around to dealing with them.

In late December, I finally harvested the seeds. That meant more thumb-rubbing to loosen the seeds from the flower head. I'm saving some seeds for planting next spring. Those went straight from the flower into an envelope. Most of the mammoth seeds we roasted to eat.

This is my first time harvesting and roasting homegrown sunflower seeds, so I Googled around. The method I tried called for soaking the seeds in salted water overnight, letting them air dry, and then roasting them at 300 degrees for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Easy. Except... 

What do I do with all this extra chaff that came out with the seeds? Is there an easier way to get rid of this stuff than hand-picking every little speck? 

First, I tried putting the seeds 'n' stuff through a salad spinner. No go. Only the smallest bits of chaff came out, and so did some of the seeds. There is, however, a simple, easy way to separate the seeds from the chaff, and it's been done since the begining of humans' harvesting things.

You spread the seeds and junk out on a cookie sheet, shake it around, and blow on it. Lightly, now. It's easy enough to blow the seeds right off of the tray, too, so the trick is to whiff away the chaff but make sure the slightly heavier seeds stay put. You can also set up a fan to blow the air for you. You'll have to give the tray a few more shakes, blow again, shake again, blow again. Ever so lightly.

It works pretty well. Oh, and makes a giant mess. Do this outside or over a really big sink.

The end result? Tasty.

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Weekend Homesteader Ideas, April-June

This is a continuation of my review of my weekend homesteading ideas and goals inspired by The Weekend Homesteader by Anna Hess, as well as her and her husband's blog, "The Walden Effect."  I haven't looked at this list in five years. Let's see if I've accidentally achieved any of these goals. My original notes are in italics.

Our back patio, planting day.
From "Containing the Garden," June 2016.

April
Find room to homestead - check. We had the community garden for a few years but eventually conceded to nature in the Battle Against Weeds. For the past few years, we have been working toward maximizing our front and back porch gardens.

The sweet corn in strawberry pots worked!
But the ears only grew to six inches or shorter.

Survey your site - um, check? Front porch, back porch. There it is.

Plan your summer garden - improve. Still a problem for me: reconciling the ambition of what I want to plant versus the reality of what I will be able to grow and grow well.

Kill mulch - huh? Look into this. Having not ever looked into this, I did just now. Oh! It's not a command to kill the mulch, it's a kind of mulch that kills. A component of no-till "lasagna" gardening in which you add a layer to help prevent baby weeds from popping up. We have not done this. But, I learned about some no-till gardening on a recent visit to Heritage Prairie Farm, and I'm interested.

May
Plant your summer garden - check. We always do.

Watermelons and winter squash in hanging containers grew
vines and baby fruit, but ultimately nothing harvestable.

Nutrition - hm. "Discover what types of food make your body happy and healthy," the book says. Um, all foods.

Mulch - hm. We add compost to our garden (oops, I see that's under June), but that's not what this is. It's hay or other mulching materials to help keep weeds at bay and protect the moisture of the soil around the garden plants. I have thus far been too lazy to bother. But I think it would help the garden.

Teamwork - check. Yep.


June
Compost - check. Last summer, Len completely emptied our compost bin and filled five five-gallon buckets plus a wheelbarrow-full with "finished," soil-like, ready-to-use compost. It was awesome, and we smothered (not literally) our vegetable garden with it. I think it may have been two full years since we'd used any compost, so that could explain the abundance. But, we do compost more than the average two people—there's our huge load of apples each summer, with plenty of peels and cores going into the compost, and we find extra veg scraps where we can. Like, when we see jack-o'-lanterns wilting on our neighbor's porch, we (Len) will ask the neighbor if we can have them for our compost bin.

Worm bin - well... We have the outdoor compost, and worms thrive in it. Why do I need a worm bin indoors?

Seasonings - herbs? Improve. I would like a more comprehensive herb garden. It's slowly growing (not at this very moment; it's January) as I experiment and try not to be lazy about nurturing the plants.

Your real hourly wage - hm. This is about the true value of your time. Is your job is really worth the time you put into it? How much are you actually being paid per hour? I understand the concept and think it's worthwhile to a degree, especially if your job makes you unhappy and the take-home pay barely covers the expenses that are caused directly by having the job. A good example is the parent whose entire salary is eaten up by childcare expenses—worth it if the parent loves the job and/or the job furthers the development of a desired career (or if the job is the only viable source of health insurance), but not worth it for a dead-end job that provides no security, joy or sense of purpose.

On the other hand, I think you shouldn't necessarily look at it that way, because you can run the numbers in a variety of ways, and when you have bills to pay, even modest ones, it's difficult to put a fair monetary value on your time and happiness. It reminds me of how my mom often responded to my creative hobbies, "You should start your own business!" But I would have to sell whatever craft I made for way too much in order to net more than $2 an hour. And, I'd have to spend way more than 40 hours a week crafting, which would destroy the joy in it and still not cover the mortgage.

I have to quote from the book here, because it gets a little extreme—at least, for me.

Start with those 40 hours in your cubicle, of course, but then add in the hour you spend grooming, your daily commute, the mandatory downtime you use vegetating in front of the tube to wind down after work. Do you have to study or take classes to stay up-to-date in your field? Do you end up spending a week in bed because you're so run-down...? ...

Next, sum up your work-related expenses. These include the gas and upkeep on your car, those fancy duds you wear to the office, every meal or $5 cup of coffee you consume away from home because you're too busy to pack a lunch, the six-pack of beer your drink while winding down after work, the massages you pay for to wipe out the work stress, and the money you give other people to do your household chores (day-care, house cleaning, lawn upkeep, etc.), since you don't have time to do it yourself. Don't forget to include your taxes. (The Weekend Homesteader by Anna Hess)

While those time and money expenditures may describe some people and their jobs perfectly, there are several things that I cannot in good conscience include in my tally.

The "hour" I spend grooming is not even close to an hour, and even if I wasn't going to work, I would still practice daily hygiene. Most of the time.

My fancy duds often come from Goodwill.

I make the time to pack a lunch (usually leftovers from dinner the night before), and we do all our household chores ourselves, which means they just don't get done if we don't have (i.e. make) time.

I unwind not with a six-pack but by flopping on the couch in front of the TV, which "costs" time, yes, but not money. Unless you start counting electricity usage, and if you do that, we have to go back to the time spent getting ready in the morning and factor in electricity for that—I'd be less inclined to get up and out of bed while it's still dark out if I didn't have to be at the office.

See? There are so many ways to complicate this if you really wanted to. Is that worth your time?

Weekend Homesteader Ideas, January-March

As usual, January's relative un-busyness (oh, it's still busy! But relative to the rest of the year...) has led me to daydreaming about the garden—always too ambitiously—and perusing old blog notes. And, what's this? An old list?

Five years ago, inspired by a book called The Weekend Homesteader by Anna Hess and her and her husband's blog, "The Walden Effect," I made a list of weekend homesteading ideas and goals. Let's see if I've accidentally achieved any of these since. My original notes are in italics.

January
Soil test - need to? Still haven't.

Baking bread - oh please. check. Hm, we have not been baking a ton of our own bread lately, but that reminds me of a different post I'd like to write... but first some side research.

Media consciousness - hm. I couldn't remember what this meant, so I flipped back through book. Essentially, it's being aware of how your media consumption affects you; i.e. you should voluntarily consume less of it. Er, nope. We do watch (and yell at) the news every morning and often listen to talk radio in the car. And we subscribe to newspaper delivery a few days a week.

Turning trash into treasures - you betcha! Improve? Oh definitely. We continue to salvage and repurpose. Len has just recently built several pieces of furniture and home decor out of discarded wooden pallets and even sold a couple of items, plus given others as gifts.

February

Our raspberries sprawl more
heartily every summer.

Planting berries - well... I failed twice at planting blueberry bushes. I'm certain the aforementioned soil test (and then appropriate soil amendments) would remedy that, but I am only mildly scientific with my garden. Our strawberries are hanging on year to year, but could use some TLC to boost output. Our two varieties of raspberries thrive, though. We have ordinary red raspberry plants purchased from Home Depot and an heirloom black raspberry plant that is progeny of bushes from my aunt's yard, which came from bushes in my great-grandma's yard.

Stocking up on dried goods - look into. I don't remember why I wrote "look into." We do buy some dry essentials in bulk—flour, sugar, sometimes beans—and we are always in a position to cobble together a meal out of our pantry and/or freezer. I feel this has been the case for a long time, but maybe it wasn't so five years ago. Or else I believe I shouldn't have written "- check!"

Backup lighting - other than flashlights and candles? We have flashlights and candles, what else is there? Solar lighting, I guess. We don't have that unless you count a few little solar-powered yard lamps.

Setting homesteading goals - yes, let's! I suppose that's what this list was, but it didn't get farther than that.

Originally a Bed Bath & Beyond item,
our mini greenhouse is second-hand.

March
Spring planting - get on this, improve! Len built a cold-frame out of a papasan chair skeleton, and we picked up a tiny greenhouse at a Savers thrift store. We do use these to get seedlings going before spring truly begins, but we still could improve quite a bit. (It's back to that only mildly scientific thing—my seed-starting and spring planting could use more science, really.) 

Growing edible mushrooms - maybe later. Yeah, maybe later. I've seen mushroom log kits you can buy. They don't particularly seem worth the cost and effort versus just buying mushrooms at the grocery store.

Bees - attract more! Ok, I saw bee houses (meant to attract and house wild bees) at Menard's, and I want one. The problem is, where to put it? Not in the apple trees—we'd just tick them off when we tried to pick apples. On the side of the porch, where we can show them off to guests? Possibly not. Just across the sidewalk in the park that is technically not our property? Maybe.

Learn to enjoy what you've got - when it's better, I will. Geez, that seemed cynical. I think I do enjoy what we have, though I admit there is always a nagging desire to grow even more of our own food in what little space we have.