Winter Storm 2016 - I'm ready for spring growing!

Good afternoon to our growing peeps! We hope you're staying warm, cozy, bellies filled, and enjoying the extra family time that winter weather often brings!  Personally, I do not like snow or ice, but I do enjoy watching the joy it brings others like my sweet daughter, who in her youngness can't see all the inconveniences that winter weather can bring. I mean the internet could go down, we could be without cable for a few days, our cell phones may not work, we're not going to be able to just run to the store to pickup what we forgot, and there may not be pizza delivery for a few days! And then I think, "are being without these conveniences for just a little while really that bad?" Nope, in my personal opinion it's not. Don't get me wrong I enjoy these conveniences, but can definitely go without them atleast for a while!

Actually, my daughter is more focused on the joy and excitement of life standing still for a just few hours or several days, rather than the hardships or inconveniences of life happening through a disrupting storm. She makes a very valid silent argument here!

Winter Storm 2016- Our little fantasy farm sleeps!

 

     Even though our garden is forced into a deep sleep right now in this winter season, I'm excited that seasons change, people! If you're in an extended winter like I am personally, then be encouraged, spring always comes as the winter season ends! And, praise the Lord when spring comes, newness begins to appear as winter slowly fades away! And I can tell you that I am so very ready for a spring in my life! I am ready for a spring slap full of newness and new growth! In February, in the coldest part of winter, here, where we are, beautiful fresh chives begin to poke through snow and ice with vibrant green blades while everything else is still wet, soggy, nasty, dead, dreary, & frigid! If you're a gardener your favorite herb is chives! It is mine and not due to it's fresh flavor! Chives are my favorite herb to grow because chives signals spring newness is coming even when I can't see spring physically anywhere in sight with my own eyes, but those tiny sprigs of green that reach up through such adverse conditions renews my faith that spring is indeed near even though I can't see it yet.

Organic Chives-Feb 2014 with snow on the ground

Organic Chives- March 2014 growing through ice

Organic Chives- May 2014 with old winter no where in site

     I really hope your family will consider picking up chive starters to transplant in your first garden or a great addition to your current family garden this year! Once established your chives, which are perennials, are going to come back every year and they come back much thicker every year. Chives multiply all by themselves! And you too will have your own secret indicator that spring freshness is almost here even when you can't see it yet!

     I recommend both transplanting chive starters, and sowing lots of chive seeds in the spring after all danger of frost has past. It's always good to learn to germinate your own seeds of each vegetable even if you buy starters for conveniences. Sometimes you bank on your starters taking right off, but sometimes their growth stunts at first or the starter just doesn't make it at all. This can be rather discouraging especially during your first year and first gardening attempt!

     When sowing chive seeds don't freak out if you don't see the sprouts immediately they can take 7-14 days to germinate! I'd sow no deeper than 1/4" and make sure to gently sprinkle potting mix or light weight soil over the top to cover. Pack down the soil gently but firmly with your hand (for the injured/ill just walk across the row lightly toe to toe to the end of the row), then water gently in and keep the soil moist until all have sprouted! Your outdoor soil really needs to be consistently 60 degrees or higher to germinate well.

     Last night as the winter storm was inching closer to us I always get to work pre-making several conveniences that will warm up quick and easily either on our gas grill or on top of our wood burning stove. Generally, I make extra and divide a few portions out in the event we need to take our elderly neighbors a hot meal if need be. Two years ago we had a knock at the door from one of our elderly neighbors who didn't have an alternative heat source, so she came here knowing we keep them in mind and have a wood burning stove.

     When you see me preparing ahead of a weather storm, it's not because I'm afraid or freaking out because I work daily to keep us prepared ahead of the need as God provides. I'm actually preparing ahead to feed more than my own family if the need arises! God will and does supply all of our needs and most of the time He's done that several months in advance, but He may call on us to supply someone else's needs during the unexpected events so we like to try and be ready.

     One of those quick and easy meals we began preparing ahead was homemade BBQ shredded pork tenderloin & homemade potato salad. I let the pork tenderloin slow cook all day yesterday with a whole chopped onion, and garlic, pink salt only. Last night I shredded it up with a fork and poured BBQ sauce over it, tossed, and then turned the crock pot up on high just to get the BBQ sauce to adhere. After the crock pot cooled we divided, some went to the fridge, and some went to the freezer broke down into smaller freezer bags.  I'd planned on making the potato salad today since I was too tired last night, but my sweet husband decided he wanted to learn how to make what I call "church picnic potato salad". I love it when someone wants to learn something, it means they get the opportunity to grow just a little more in that moment. Today daddy grew a little bit, as he now knows how to make my church picnic potato salad on his own! It will go nicely with the BBQ shredded pork tenderloin sandwiches I think?

          

   

Video (for his grandmother) of daddy finishing up his first church picnic potato salad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfS0CZEul8k

 

 

Yeah my daughter was all like, "Snow? We may not be able to leave? Hot brownie bites?" You can see how unfazed she is by all the inconveniences this winter storm has dealt out. And the most exciting part was we were all home together which is what life is all about anyway!

 

 

 

 

I learn so much from her daily like don't sweat the small stuff and just pass the brownie bites! LOL 

 

And as always we pray that you will continue to take every opportunity to grow in what God has for you and your family in 2016, because for me ijustwannagrow!

 

 

Checking In

Hope everyone is well and have enjoyed growing in the year 2015! I've been away for a while waiting for God to show me how I could best use ijustwannagrow for Him in encouragement to others.  I believe I have more direction as to how that can be accomplished moving forward or ATLEAST a direction for now! I'll be back 1st of the year with ATLEAST a weekly blog! For now I pray that God blesses your family in 2016 with plenty of growing personally, in friendships, your family, and OF COURSE in your gardens! 

PS- While I was away I've done some growing on my own ;) 

Blessings, 

ijustwannagrow 

Chicken Adventures- Valentines 2015

Our first and only rooster Pretty Boy Floyd

Floyd and the chicken to the left that has the white ear? She lays white eggs. So fyi, you can tell what color eggs a chicken is going to lay  by their ears. 

Pretty Boy Floyd loves his picture take as you an see! 

This chicken lays medium sized white eggs. I'd rather have large egg layers! And these girls are a bit on the snitty side if you will. They are escape artists as well! Always causing a ruckus! We love them, but we more than like won't get anymore of this variety by choice!

We LOVE our black Australorps! GREAT BIG brown egg layers! I mean HUGE eggs! We'll be getting more of these beautiful birds this year! Very happy with this breed! And very docile in our opinion! They don't make waves, and the do and don't do what ever Floyd allows.

Black Australorp

Bottoms up! They're doing a great job preparing our brassica patch for spring!

I get new baby chicks this weekend for Valentine's Day gift! I can not wait to have chicky babies again! My daughter and I LOVE this time of year! 

Zaycon Chicken Fritters Review

 

First of all it's NO SECRET we LOVE Zaycon Foods. We've been extremely happy customers for almost 2 years now! We have YET to have a bad experience and we don't plan on having one anytime soon. This is our first time ordering Zaycon's pre-breaded chicken fritters. They come in a box with 4 x 5lb bags. And it may not look like much in those two bags, but let me tell you 5lbs is A LOT! I ordered 2 cases for my family and happened to have enough referral credit built up that we were able to purchase a third case and we split the third case in half sharing between 2 other families. Man what a blessing God provided for us all! There are absolutely NO excuses for this family to find themselves in a drive-thru of any sorts order anything ESPECIALLY chicken nuggets/strips/chicken sandwich/chicken parm subs/ or anything of that nature, because we can make it at home quickly and for much less with our order! So here's our first meal using our fritters! 

 

 

4 - 5lb bags to a case

 

 

 

We just toasted some rolls in a pan

We tossed fritters in a sauce pan frozen with a jar of our favorite marinara

Pulled the shredded mozzarella out of fridge we just picked up on $ale

And tossed steak fries in the oven 

 

Barely 20 minutes later we were ready to build these bad boys

 

 

Hot seasoned fries straight from the oven on the side

 

 

Sprinkled the cheese on that hot pan toasted bun

 

 

2 chicken fritters with extra marinara 

 

Folded that saucy puppy over

 

 

And I had one amazingly HAPPY HUSBAND!

 

 

After the first bite. You can see how quickly this was devoured!

 

 

 

If you've never heard of or ordered from Zaycon Foods we just want to say we are COMPLETELY happy with every single purchase and the Customer Service is OUTSTANDING! They literally do all the work for you! We love the pay now, pick up later concept! It gives us time to prepare for our incoming bulk order and we can think through how best to use our purchase and how to find a way to share each order with other families! We have a referral link that you can click on, set your family up your own FREE account and search for sales in your area! You don't have to be in our state to click on our referral link! 

 

Just Click Here

https://www.zayconfoods.com/refer/zf244779   

 

I'm still alive! And a homestead update

Man, have things been SUPER crazy here around our .44 acre homestead in the making! We've been busy learning SO many new things that we've not had the time to sit and post anything on our blog. We have been able to manage uploading to our ijustwannagrow facebook page to try and keep people learning what we're learning and answering as many questions as we can to help pass on the learning we're learning or have learned. Our facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/ijustwannagrow?ref=hl . Come by and like our page and stay up to date on our progress in having fun "growing" as a family and sharing with friends and family!

This year is quickly coming to an end and my head is spinning how much we accomplished for ourselves here at home, how much money we've saved in doing more ourselves, and how much more we've learned throughout this year!

Some of the things we've learned:

>how to make our own laundry detergent (thank you to the Duggar Family for sharing their recipes) by the way we've washed laundry on $18 worth of homemade detergent for the ENTIRE 12 months of 2013! Who needs a coupon, seriously?

>learned how to stretch off brand liquid fabric softener

>learned how to make our own cleaning products

>learned how to grow fresh greens through the winter

>learned how to grow new crops successfully: 3 types of kale, pumpkin, salad mixes, broccolini, potatoes, and a few others that I just can't remember

>we grew our own: scallions, chives, rosemary, oregano, sage, leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, bib lettuce, salad greens, spinach, radishes, carrots, eggplant, pumpkin, summer squash, LOTS (buckets) of tomatoes, over 200lbs of cucumbers, swiss chard, dill, pole beans, bush beans, okra,  savoy cabbage, broccoli, kale, potatoes, green peas, sugar snap peas, snow peas, and a few others that I just can't remember right now

>learned how to make a green bean teepee

>learned how to sheet mulch with cardboard requiring NO DIGGING to start new garden space

>learned how to merge two flocks of chickens: we're up to 9 and adding 4-6 more in the spring! YAY

>learned how to pressure can from YOUTUBE VIDEOS LOL

>learned how to buy meat in bulk by only buying one meat at a time then canning it all up for the pantry

>learned how to dehydrate with skill

>learned to get out of buying prepackaged foods and do it ourselves now or don't buy it in most cases

>learned how to make our own instant rice blends, and herb blends

>learned how to cost every thing we buy based of cost per unit of measure

>learned how to share MORE than we ever have before

>got to help teach several families how to grow their own food, how to raise backyard chickens, and how to can their own food

God has been TRULY amazing this year to our family! My head still spins when I think about all He has brought us through, all He has shown us, and all that He continues to ask us to learn/grow moving forward!

We are truly blessed with amazing friends & family and we've been apart of some amazing "growing" opportunities this year both in the garden and out of the garden this year!

Got a busy end to 2013 coming up, and looking forward to growing more both in the garden and out in 2014.

So definitely stay tuned!

Glory to God,

ijustwannagrow

New 2013 Adventures Coming Soon...stay tuned!

Lots of new learning & adventures took place since I've last blogged. I'll be back with LOTS of new

learning come September. So stay tuned! Hope you enjoyed your families, friends, and those gardens

this summer! Prayers to all!

Praise the Lord for all of our blessings this summer!


ijustwannagrow

Raised Bed relocation project underway

Awh, just like I've always dreamed...now it's GROW GROW GROW! I finally WON 1/2 the front yard growing space! I knew my husband would finally break :D  Love him! Will post as the garden looks much more lush! And lots more edible! LOL  I have 2 4 x16's still in the back with all the spring stuff.

ijustwannagrow

Goals for summer!

Cost savings goals for our family for summer 2013:

1.) install laundry line and USE it!

2.) stop buying store bought bread except on special occasions & hamburger buns 'til I learn how to do that too!


3.) install 2 additional cieling fans in the house to reduce the need for air conditioner to drop below 70-72 degrees!

4.) install drip/soaker irrigation through out the garden

5.) plan out all of our fruit trees, fruit bushes, & fruit vines locations (prepare the site) in prep for next spring

Facebook Page Contest: check it out, runs through 05/31/13 midnight

The link to our page:

https://www.facebook.com/ijustwannagrow

Friday night taco night on Tuesday night?

Why is that when some one mentions they're having tacos at home you immediately CRAVE them regardless if you specifically bought a corn tortilla press for Friday night taco night at home and it's only Tuesday night? It's bar none my FAVORITE meal at home! Most of the time it doesn't matter what your economic status is, taco night normally fits in there somewhere! Memories of my dad making us tacos before we went to church on a Wednesday night or two. Nothing like a hard shell taco straight from the box. I'm a die hard crunchy taco fan; however, with our venture & journey on doing "more with less" this seemed like it could fit in for the future IF it went well. Other than the first one being a bit too thick (would have rocked as a tostada for sure) it went superb! My family seemed to enjoy the extra effort mom put out there for them, but regardless it is even cheaper to just make them than buy them in a box (but I still have a small stash). And it didn't take but a second well actually 15 seconds on each side in a non greased/oiled cast iron skillet! The $16 I paid for the press should keep on giving and pay for itself not to far in the future! So give it a whirl, it's NOT hard! And the home made taco seasoning is a MUST do! No more prepackaged seasonings for sure thanks to pinterest. Just do a search and then adjust for your taste. I added more oregano to mine, 'cause that's just how I roll!

Happy Future Taco Nights in your home w/ your family

ijustwannagrow

Canning Swap

So since I just canned some jalapeño salsa my parents who just canned this delicious corn salsa is swapping me a jar! Swap with someone and diversify your canning pantry, it's taste & it's fun!

Test?

 Can I blog from my iPhone?? No way??

CAN IT! Um, Yeah I did!

So yeah, I've been gone for a while from my blog; HOWEVER, I've been super busy in "learning overload"!
I have had a BALL over coming my fear of pressure canning and well canning altogether really. I'm SO PROUD of myself for finally after 1 full year of purchasing my All American 21 quart canner I FINALLY decided I could do it! My husband stood around in the kitchen and definitely helped me lift that heavy sucker, but I did accomplish all the canning.

My first canning experience finally happened April 2013! That canner is built like a tank, it's SO heavy and for a first time canner it was a bit intimidating to be quite honest! But I FINALLY FOUND my MUSTARD seed and jumped up and did it! I had found a great sale on chicken breast & pork loin and my freezer space was getting narrow! And I wasn't letting the meat spoil! I've been watching youtube "how to's" canning videos for a year, so I knew what to do it was just doing it!

For an entire year, I bought canning stuff, LOL

the hubs helped me prepare the pot for first time use

First pressure canning (or canning ever for me) pork tenderloin on left and chicken breast on the right

Yeah the canning bug has hit me for sure. I asked for canning jars for mother's day. Here my buddy and I are picking up my gifts! So I'm looking forward to preserving our harvests by canning/ dehydrating/ freezing, etc. this year! It's just awesome to have so many options now!

I've never bought 16lbs of roma tomatoes before? But heck I can CAN now, so it was onto homemade jalapeno salsa this past weekend! I wanted to practice before my harvests start coming in!

Got 6 pints, then put the rest of the other 5lbs of chopped/skinned romas on the dehydrator 'cause I was too tired from being sick this weekend. But nothing wasted!

It's definitely a humble start to my first preserving pantry, but I'm enjoying teaching my little girl how to carry on family tradition! The rich chicken stock on the top shelf on the far left my mom canned! I've got a about 6 pints of homemade stock in my freezer I'm going to thaw and can this week from my own broth making! The lower shelf is to be preserved...empty jars to fill up with beautiful fruits/vegetables/meats/ and home cooked meals for winter!

 When I look at this cabinet it makes me think of of my Aunt Gertrude (my grandpa hash's sister). She lived in bunker hill, wv which is in the northern part of state. When we'd take grandpa to visit her house was decorated floor to ceiling with her preserving. She could whip up a garden fresh gourmet home cooked meal in a matter of minutes all the way from the homemade canned apple butter & jam on the scratch made buttermilk biscuits to the home canned chicken w/ scratch gravy to home canned green beans! Her canner was always running on her stove with the smell of garden harvest! The jiggy danced and the aroma was memorable! I wish she was still here, so she could see the humble beginnings of Savannah being taught to preserve and mommy learning to carry in family traditions! And Clint's grandparents Floyd & Martha canned a lot of their food/harvests as they were farmer's in KY/TN. There have been many times over the course of dating and being married to my wonderful husband that we dropped by to visit Floyd & Martha and they were canning their FAMOUS Pear Preserves! I hope to get the recipe to carry on this tradition with Savannah! And my parent's special "hunter's delight" recipe will be passed down to my daughter as well!

Get wild & crazy and "CAN" something! It's not as hard as you think!

ijustwannagrow

-I want to thank Michigan SnowPony, BexarPrepper, 255Sage, MistyPrepper, Noreen's Kitchen, West Coast Prepper RN, and the Prepper's Wife for uploading FREE educational videos of canning home harvests. And my special friend Sarah Wright who uploads her beautiful photos of her home canning and all her encouragement and guidance! I'm a visual learner and your videos TRULY helped me learn how to preserve my families garden harvest. We just have a small garden, but now I can shop at farmer's markets and not be afraid food will spoil and our diets will be come much more healthier by default skipping all the additives and preservatives that come prepackaged! It's just nice to have options! Thank You!

Happy Valentine's Day to Me!

Every year I ask for 20 bags of composted manure for Valentine's Day. I'm not a jewelry every year kinda girl! I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that, it's just that it's not what works for me! So the hubs got me my 20 bags x 40lbs = happy wife, a new chicken feed, onion sets (red & white), 2 shop lights w/bulbs, 2 seedling mats, organic seed starting mats, and organic all purpose vegetable fertilizer. Oh and two fig trees! Super STOKED about these! Happy Valentines Day to ME! But first things first, the girls are dropping eggs like hot cakes again. Those sneak peaks of spring are in there sights and pearl seems like her molt is over, so she's back open for business too!

Normally I am practically standing out there to get the eggs; however, I realize now that since Savannah was sick I didn't get out there for two days. Total of 8 today!

Those 8 eggs I harvested today along with the + 4 eggs we had from 3 days ago = 1 dozen eggs we didn't have to buy! Praise the Lord!

Got my grow lights up and running! Since I didn't want to purchase another shelving unit this weekend, I do have 6 inches of wasted light space that hangs outside of the shelving unit on each side! But I just used what I had for the moment! And also need a timer, so it will automatically shut off after 12 hours. Even seedlings need sleep.

Got my seedling mats down: spinach is waking up on the left, ripbor curley leaf kale is on the right

I started more broccoli, dinosaur kale, redina red lettuce and stuck them right under those lights. I need 4 more grow mats and 4 more grow lights and then I'm SET going forward!

My leeks & onions are straightening back up to a stand up position now under the lights.

A bunch of Romain lettuces. I didn't know they'd ALL germinate since they were older seed! Who knew? Hopefully they're not too leggy since they literally just popped up in the last 24 hours!

It's all a learning experience, but you can learn. You really will get what you put into it most times. I appreciate ALL of the wisdom other organic farmers, friends, and perfect strangers I run across at the feed stores/gardening forums/blogs/facebook/  etc.

I learned today that my local feed store gets baby rhode island reds, Americana, Wing Dots, and bard rocks in this week! WHOO HOO!

We rejoice in all of these blessings and are excited to continue to learn and share what we learn!

ijustwannagrow


 

Sprouts continue to sprout!

For Valentine's Day this year my husband is being super sweet and getting me grow lights and seed starting mats. It's like the BEST Valentine's Day ever!  Will post pics next week after it all arrives and gets set up! But in the meanwhile I'll just give a quickie update on what's growin:

Rosemary seems to still be growing, but I can tell it's time to fertilize them with some organic fertilizer.

I can't believe how this cheap little greenhouse has restored life to a completely dead pot of Italian flat leaf parsley from last season!

This is a multiplier onion. Also known as a potato onion.

According to a friend of mine "Margo" who is a certified organic farmer. A real farmer. I only farm in my fantasies/dreams!  She said, "peel off all the brown, outer skins. You should find several "cloves" that can be carefully separated and each one planted". So if that's what Margo says, "you can pretty much bank on it". I'm thankful she knew what to do because I could hardly find anything on the internet about these suckers! So happy planting potato onions ya'll!

  

What THYME is it? I could begin using Thyme if I chose to, it's pretty much ready to go back into the garden beds, but will wait until it's much warmer. So glad I've got them growing again ahead of time. Definitely a jump start!

On my way back in from church I checked my greenhouse and I just can't say enough about how much it makes my day to see fresh new seedlings emerging everyday!!!!!

Super excited for this new rearranged/repurposed set of raised beds! More pictures to follow in coming weeks. I've got the chicken coop moving to the end of these two beds so that the chickens will work these beds in between season changes to clean out the buggies/fertilize/and turn my soil! Love my chickens, they're really hard workers!

I think the most exciting sprouts I have right now are leek, glad stone onions, & ever bunching green onions. I've never grown any of these from seed. I've never grown leeks or glad stone onions before. It's a whole new journey that I pray ends bountiful!

ijustwannagrow