Lost and Found: Finding Yourself and Gaining Clarity In Life
We started out November with some self-reflecting and observations. These observations could have been of yourself, of your loved ones, or maybe even of your so-called friends. Those things tend to change drastically over the years, and although we ebb and flow through them, there are some things that never change. My advice is to not get caught being one of them. Let’s take a look at finding yourself and gaining clarity in life through my story. Finding Yourself and Gaining Clarity Starts as a Child As we grow up and find our way as small children and then teens into young adults, we find a bunch of friends along the way that “have our back.” We find relationships and lovers with whom we think may last a lifetime, but perhaps may only be in our lives for a season. How is it that we remain blind to some things along this journey? And better yet, how is it that we can remain free of that blindness? During our formative years, some things set in, leaving us the fondest memories (and expectations) of how things “should” be in the future events to come. We find ourselves holding higher and higher hopes about what our friends and loved ones should be doing, while really, we should be focusing on the growth and changes that we ourselves have been making along the way. How do we overcome these obstacles during our youth, so that we can better navigate the realms of adulthood during the years where we’ll be challenged the most as an individual? How do we find who we really are without having to go through finding who we actually aren’t? Finding Out Who I Am The hard and real truth is however, that we simply don’t. Of course we all differ in our human experiences, and we may go through different truths of our own throughout life, but in my own personal journey, I’ve found that finding out who I actually wasn’t time and time again, has truly proved to myself now at 32 years of age who I actually am. I’m a writer, a better listener, a dog lover and adopter, a wife and a daughter. I’m also an entrepreneur, a fun-seeker, a (semi-adventurous) thrill-finder, beginner rock climber, moderately experienced hiker, semi-understanding gardener, and a lover of all things nature. I relish the days like this one where I get to enjoy my birthday in an off-grid location at a teeny tiny cabin settled into the autumn colored fall woods. I hiked in the rain with my husband and dogs, enjoyed meals cooked on a propane stove looking out into the trees, and walked down into the nearby creek to enjoy my morning tea. These are truly the moments that I love to fully immerse myself in. Related: Why I Chose Courage & It’s Endless Reservations Looking to the Past to Grow in the Future 3 years ago, 5 or even 10, I would have made the Mr. Yuck sticker face towards a day like today. You see, I’ve always loved things like this deep down, but for some reason it’s taken me until now to realize that birthdays can be anything you want them to be, and they don’t always need to be spent by pleasing everyone else. So often we spend our well-earned time off checking things online, ticking off tasks that others ask of us, or using our hard earned dough to spend on ourselves “because we deserve” whatever material thing it is that we’re longing for. If we would just simply offer more experiences to our physical being, perhaps our mental one would be in a much better state. Using Reflection When Finding Yourself and Gaining Clarity Reflection is about change. For years and decades I used to think that change was notoriously bad. If you changed, well then you must have gone to the dark side. Forgotten your truest self. Adjusted your ways for another. But as you reflect upon who you were this year, think about these things. Did you change something for the better? Or maybe for the worse, but can reel that in now and understand what needs done to adjust things moving forward? Perhaps you quit drinking, maybe you even made it to your 1 year sobriety coin. Or maybe you’ve decided to be a better listener to your partner to encourage a healthier and happier lifestyle as a partnership. Is it something that you’ve done for them…or for you? If you can help yourself by helping others, I don’t see that as being selfish in any way. Although, it’s okay to be selfish. It heals you internally when you do things that feel good to you. When’s the last time you had your favorite snack? (Without turning the TV on or scrolling through your latest YouTube shorts). Have you spent any time taking a relaxing bath or joining no one but your thoughts in the sauna? Look For Introspective Opportunities Being off-grid this weekend has been something I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time, and it’s perfectly suiting my feelings as well. We all live in a hyper-active and overworked lifestyle in 2023, and so I’m shooting for a little more slow down as we roll into 2024. My challenge to you this month is to really look inward and find what it is you have been searching for. Is it freedom from something, from someone? Is it finding a way to improve your own well-being to create a better you for the long run? Whatever it may be, just get started. Start reflecting more and taking a moment to pause and truly absorb whatever it is you’re doing. Enjoy life, by really living it to the fullest the best way you know how. Thank you for reading “Lost and Found: Finding Yourself and Gaining Clarity in Life”! Thank you for reading today’s post about finding yourself and gaining clarity! Let me know what resonates
How To Overwinter Your Garden & Maintain Crops Throughout The Year
Hey guys and gals! So, it’s the end of October already and that means a few things. One…winter is coming!! And two, it’s just about time to overwinter your garden!! Are you ready to learn more about how to do so and maintain some bonus crops throughout the year? I’m hearing yes…let’s go! Finding Balance Through Gardening Overwintering simply means prepping your garden for the cold season ahead. It is also about preparing what you can for the seasons to come. In my neck of the woods, I’m just starting to see the effects of the first frost on the leaves and plants around my property. It’s blissful and beautiful. But also time to start really getting more done outside before it gets too chilly! One of the things that we like to do ahead of the cold season is to pull out any remaining plants that will get frosted over and die. If you can do this before that happens, then great! If you’re like us and have a hectic schedule, try and get out there this weekend and do what you can. Remember life is all about balance my friends! We’ll be tearing up the remainder of the black plastic that we put down in spring for weed control. Then we will look at removing anything that can’t take the cold season. (Basically meaning for us this year, anything besides garlic and spinach!) We will however be leaving the established broccoli plants a while longer to ensure they’ve reached their maximum potential before we pull them out. Cole crops like this one can withstand the cold a little longer, so let’s give them their best chance, shall we?! Some of the plants and crops that can be moved indoors should be done so if you’re able to before the first frost. Obviously this day can come sooner for some people, so make sure to check up on which zone you’re in to ensure you’ve got enough time to do so! Related: Fall Into New Crops For Your Garden Winter is Coming…. A few years back, (well maybe actually a lot of years back)…we built a cute little cold frame next to our house. At this time, it’s definitely seen better days and may need some upgrading next spring, but for now it still works wonderfully to enclose any crops that will be okay through the chilly season and hold off the snow or ice from crushing them! If you’re looking to build a cold frame of your own, check out your local hardware store for some material or try using what you have around the house! You’d be surprised what you may have on hand that would work well for a make-shift cold frame. However, if you’d like to take the quicker route, check out this affordable one I found on Amazon that could be shipped to your door before the winter sets in! Cold Frames and Root Cellars If you don’t have a cold frame and don’t particularly care for one, don’t worry, there are plenty of other options! Something else we’ve done in the past is block up our window under the staircase. This is so that the space under our stairs was no longer just storage, but a canning closet and food storage area! The best rootcellars are underground of course so that they stay nice and cool throughout the years. However, this option has worked great for us to keep things just cool enough to last the time we’ve needed them for. We’ve stored potatoes, carrots, onions, herbs, seeds, garlic, and several other dried crops there for months at a time with no problem. Related: Dive Into Our Autumn Gardening Like a Pile of Scattered Leaves Do you have a storage space going unused that could be repurposed?? If you’re interested in learning more about how to start a root cellar, this Kindle option is on sale for just $4! How to Overwinter Herbs are something we use *all* the time in our home. Cooking, cleaning, medicinal, you name it. We love learning about these wonderful and incredible little plants. We also have acquired a handful of knowledge regarding them over the years. Cooking is something I currently have the most experience in with herbs however, so I tend to keep those nearby the most. My favorite herb of all time has got to be Oregano. It smells fantastic and goes good on basically anything. We also like to keep sage, thyme, basil, parsley, chives, cilantro, dill, chamomile, spearmint and lavender. Some of these will die out over the cold season, so feel free to dig them up (or start them in pots!) and bring them inside over the winter. Challenge yourself to keep them alive until they’re ready to be put back out there in spring! Some of these you can dry, but we’ve found that others are best frozen. For example, we now make room in our freezer for things like basil, dill, and parsley. We dry the rest either by hanging in a dark space for a little while or in our dehydrator. You can even make use of those pesky ice cube trays by freezing some in there for use in soups and cooking! Pruning for Winter Crops Although herbs thrive over most of the year, it’s best to keep in mind that you need to continue to prune them properly so that they don’t die off when the frost comes. If you see a woody stem starting, be sure to leave that on the plant and cut above it! This is the plant’s way of “hunkering down” for the season ahead. Allow the plant to go into its dormant state instead of harvesting too late in the season and encouraging it to work on new growth. What is Your Current Plan to Overwinter? So, what’re your plans to overwinter your garden? Have you done something similar in the past, or is this a new adventure for you?! Let us hear
Dive Into Our Autumn Gardening Like a Pile of Scattered Leaves
Hey all! As we turn over some leaves heading into Fall, (both literally and physically!), we’ve been spending a lot of time doing some Autumn gardening again as you may have heard from our previous October posts! It’s starting to really cool down during the days and especially during the nights. That means it’s that time again to start turning over our garden for the season! This personally is one of my favorite times of the year, so I can’t complain! Let me tell you why! What Autumn Gardening in Western PA looks like First of all, I can’t stand the heat, so I really prefer that sweater weather any day with jeans and boots. Especially over a tank top and shorts sticking to me with sweat. Ick! So I genuinely look forward to the best season of the year so that I can sweat less. I also encounter fewer nagging bugs and enjoy being outdoors with the cooler, crisp air. Whether or not you’re familiar with turning over your garden, one thing is for sure, and that is that it’s going to look different for everyone, based on your location or climate. We’re located in western PA, so we have a pretty steady 4-season kind of year. I like it. What’s yours? That means we start to experience the Fall weather during the last bit of September and the full month of October…maybe even a little in November if it gets that far. But my favorite remains October, and that’s because it’s before the snow flies but after the leaves turn. It’s a beautiful and refreshing site to see. During this month, we typically spend a lot of it doing clean up work in the garden, and usually a little tidying up in the yard as well, such as splitting wood, gathering leaves, or putting things away for the winter that shouldn’t sit out in the elements. (Lawn mowers, patio furniture, etc). Over the weekend we spent a good bit of time doing a bit of all of those things! Allow me to elaborate. Related: How Gardening is Good For Your Soul Gardening as a Team We split the tasks this time to ensure efficiency, meaning that the hubs took on the woodpile and yours truly headed towards the garden. I left my best gloves outside too long by mistake which was a total bummer, meaning I was going to have to pull out the slimy and rotting plants with bare hands! Don’t get me wrong, I love digging in the dirt but I don’t get all that excited about getting rotting plants and veggies on me. (Don’t lose your gloves, friends! Speaking of which, here are some super cute and durable ones on sale right now!) To Root or Not to Root It was a blast though, time flew by as I moved from row to row picking out which crops were okay to leave for now and which needed to be uprooted. This is what we choose to do just to ensure the rotting roots don’t collect any unwanted bacteria over the years, but a lot of folks like to leave the roots in the ground as well for those nice little worms that do a good job. The choice is yours! Deciding to leave the kale, broccoli, beets and swiss chard, I headed towards the sunflowers first. They’re super giant which means their stalks are very thick. I prefer using clippers for these and cut them above the ground. They’re the only thing I leave the root in the ground on, since they’re so hard to pull out! After that I decided to try my hand at preserving more seeds than usual this year. Which meant taking a little more time to move through everything. I snipped off the tops of the lettuce and radishes and tossed a few decent looking green beans into the bucket. Once the seeds were collected, (which we’ll take into the garage to dry before harvesting!), I started pulling out each plant by its roots to ensure everything was cleaned up and taken down to the burnpile. We’ll wait a little longer before burning since they’ll need to dry out some first. (Hooray for Fall bonfires!) Tending to Peppers and Tomatoes Before Cold Sets In The last bit of cleanup involved removing the stakes and twine from the tomatoes. Then pulling out those plants as well. My boots got squishy quickly after stomping on the rotting tomatoes underneath! (We’ll likely run a rake over the top of the black plastic before picking it up for the season…or we may leave it down to plant some spinach! Stay tuned for an update next week!) Once the tomatoes were handled, I moved onto the pepper plants. They were still flowering! Crazy, but they likely won’t produce much longer with the cold setting in. I picked off all of the non-worm eaten peppers and left the plants to try for additional peppers for another week or two. If they don’t follow through I’ll remove them before the frost sets in. Related: Fall Into New Crops for Your Garden Prepping for Winter Gardening Taking care of a garden can be tricky! I’m still learning but am hopeful that providing my journey along the way will invoke a sense excitement in taking care of (or starting!) one of your own! With each year comes a little more knowledge and a little more experience. Thus leading to increasingly better crops and better care systems. We do our best to work as a team with all chores, but have learned to lean into what each one of us is best at and let the other take care of their favorite tasks. It’s going well! Soon we’ll begin to plant some crops that will grow over the winter, so make sure to subscribe to follow along with what we’re up to! We’d love to hear about your journey as well if you’re up for sharing! Happy Fall! Thank you
Fall Into New Crops For Your Garden
Hey ladies and gents! If you’re wondering how to implement more in-season veggies into your life, I’d like to give you a hand! As we move into Fall and out of the Summer heat here in the Northeast, fewer things become available to harvest. There is still a lot of options for you though! Let’s check some of them out, shall we? What Are Cole Crops Again? We talked a little bit about “cole crops” in the last post, but I’ll provide a quick refresher if you missed it! Cole crops are perfect to plant when the Summer growing season is winding down and the cool, crisp air is picking up. They provide a great option to keep your gardening hands busy and to embrace some serious sweater weather! Cole crop are those which are in the Cruciferous family, such as broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, brussel sprouts, kolhrabi, and kale. When I first started gardening several years ago, I didn’t like most of these. I “icked” at them as a teen and a child, and definitely didn’t feel like going anywhere near them as an adult. But then as I found out how fun they were to grow, (especially during my favorite time of year!), and how little work they required unlike other crops, I began to fall in love with tending to them and with finding new recipes to make them delicious. Even though I’ve gone through a ton of recipes over the years however with adjusting tastes and trying new cooking methods with these veggies, one thing has stuck true. They’re best, in my opinion, with plain old extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper, baked in the oven. Try it sometime! It’s super easy to throw them in a baking dish, toss some oil on them and pop them in. Less is more, people! Related: How Gardening Is Good For Your Soul What Garden Zone Do You Fall In? Of course your location will play a big part in knowing when is best to plant these crops. Check out which Zone you’re in to determine a best date! This website will let you simply plug in your zip code and find out within seconds! Hooray for the internet! Once you find out which Zone you’re in, you can then determine which seeds or seedlings, or starter plants to invest in. I recommend going to local farmer markets to find some quality ones or if you’d like to stay home and enjoy your newest crocheted sweater indoors, then check out this top list of 2023 online to have them shipped to your door! After you have what you need from shopping online or locally, you can dig in. Literally! You can head outdoors with your gardening tools and your new plants or seeds and get ready. From our experience, we’ve had the best luck with rototilling in the Fall again, before planting our new cold season crops. This allows the ground to be broken up a little more after pulling all of the old crops out, and also gets anything leftover mixed into the soil again. (Here’s where we find our free tomatoes the year after! From mixing up the garden, many seeds that dropped along the way will find their way back upwards next season. Replant those suckers! Save their little plant lives and save some moolah at the same time! Related: Working Through Self Expectations & Limitations How to Plant and Grow Garlic In-Season Another popular crop to plant in the Fall, and particularly one of my favorites, happens to be garlic from the Allium family. Garlic is one of the simplest crops to grow as a “set it and forget it” type plant. This is something we’ll be working on quite soon since our best time is to plant in the September/October time frame! If you have garlic bulbs leftover from the year before, simply break those bulbs into cloves. Someone long ago taught me that using the bottom of the palm of your hand on the head of garlic can crush it just enough to make the cloves come off way easier. I still use that trick and highly recommend it! Keep the papery covering on the garlic cloves and then follow these instructions! Make sure your cloves are planted approximately 3-4″ deep. Always ensure that the pointy end is facing upwards! You’ll want to water just enough to let the soil settle around the cloves, then simply cover them up with 4-6″ of leftover Fall leaves or straw from your Halloween haybales! There are lots of ways people go about caring for and harvesting garlic, but we like to keep it simple and usually come out on top with a pretty hefty harvest. After planting, we just wait. When the garlic is ready, it’ll tell you! Side Note! Snip of the heads when they get curly, use these as garlic as well for an extra helping! After it’s wilted and died down, feel free to bust out your shovel again to dig those new beautiful bulbs! Related: Introducing Habitual Balance Implement More In-Season Veggies This Fall Between pulling old crops, rototilling, and planting new ones again, we know we’ll have a busy next few weeks! How do you plan your Fall planting? Do you prefer to end after Summer and look forward to next year? Or do you prefer to maximize your growing season with cole crops?! Let us hear about your gardening journey in the comments below! Happy planting! Thank you for reading “Fall Into New Crops For Your Garden – Implement More In-Season Veggies”! Thank you for reading today’s post about how to implement more in-season veggies! Let me know what resonates with you or if you have a suggestions for our next post by commenting below. Don’t forget to check out our sister site Rooted Drawers.
How Gardening Is Good For Your Soul
Hello friends of the online realm! Today we’re starting out a new month in Fall and a new topic for the next few weeks! October will be all about gardening. How we got started, what we do to maintain, resources that we hold near and dear, and finally anything that you may (or may not!) need to get started! Which leaves us today to talk all about how we first got into gardening in the first place, and how far we’ve come thus far. Yay for growth! The Gardening Girl Ten years ago (or so), I met my husband. That’s when I really started taking this whole “gardening” concept seriously. Before that though, I grew up gardening and didn’t even realize it. Until of course I recently reflected on it all while writing this post for you! Back in the day, I was a hardcore bug-smooshing, garden growing teeny bopper. Today, I’m still a hardcore garden growing lady, with much less of the bug-smooshing, since any harm to mother nature now pulls those good ol’ heart strings. When I was little, I used to garden quite frequently with both of my grandfathers. They had pretty decent sized gardens, and I got to be a big *little* part of it. I picked tomatoes, weeded around them, watered what I could, and watched and learned whatever it was that my tiny brain could absorb. Funny isn’t it? How much we learn as young children that we don’t even coherently remember. We take it all in, learn each new intricacy, but never fully embrace it until one day as a thirty-something year old it hits us just how exactly it is best to tie those darned old tomatoes up properly. An “Aha” moment, if you will. Weird. Being human, is weird. Related: Developing Routines & What is Sleep Hygiene Down on the Farm In the last decade though, I’ve actually had the honor of working on a farm nearby my home. It was such a beautiful time in my life. Right before my last big job, but right after the first “green light” of my working career. I had just quit a different day job (none of them ever felt quite right), and had been dreaming of being outdoors more often and in the bright sunshine and in the not so bright office light much less. I welcomed new feelings of freedom once I stepped out onto the gravel into dirt driveways that I would drive the old trucks on and felt right back at home when getting my hands in the good smelling fresh soil. At first, it was blissful. I could do this every day, all day, I thought. But then it sank in after the second season that I wasn’t cut out to do this as a full-time job. I hated the cold, hated the hot, and needed that Goldilocks kind of “just right” feeling. So, yet another job bit the dust. Starting Gardening at Home Once I had my home that we still reside in today, it was clear to me that gardening was going to be a big part of it. I loved it and still do. We rototill when necessary, put black plastic down instead of weed til the cows come home, and have learned oodles of tips and tricks that we will dive more into as the month goes on! Before working on the farm however, I never knew that “cole crops” were a thing. Did you?! Here’s a tidbit on its meaning if you’re still unsure: “Broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower are known as cole crops. Several other vegetables belong to this group, including Brussels sprouts, Chinese cabbage, and kohlrabi, but these are considered minor vegetables. Cole crops are cool season vegetables that grow best at temperatures between 60 F and 68F.” This is what we’ll be diving into soon enough during the month of October, since planting these bad boys will soon be in season for us here in western PA. They’re the coolest. See what I did there…They give you a second chance of sorts to continue eating in season, even during the Fall and Winter months of the year when the frost hits and the snow flies! What a wonderful opportunity! The best part about it all (in my opinion) is that there is SIGNIFICANTLY less bugs, heat, and little annoyances of such. I’m more comfortable in a sweatshirt and muck boots, not sweating buckets while breaking my back! Speaking of which, instead of bending over, I highly recommend investing in a nice kneeling mat. Don’t bother with knee pads. Those are MUCH more uncomfortable than you’d think after needing to bend up and down a zillion times in jeans. Related: Why I Chose Courage & It’s Endless Reservations What are Cole Crops? Do you know anything about cole crops? How has your summer been? Did you harvest a lot or just a little? This year we did great in the start of the season, but as life happened we began to slack off some. Our lettuce is now seeding along with most of our herbs, and the kale has basically taken over whatever it could by now. Our sunflowers are drooping and the broccoli looks more like broccolini these days. The good news is is that we’re coming to the change of season. Soon, it’ll be time to harvest the seeds and pull out the old plants to make space for new crops. The garden is ever-changing once you get the hang of it, kind of like life itself. We’re always going to go through changes and seasons in our lives, learning each day what is best to hold on to and what can be thrown to the outside of the fence. As we grow, we learn which battles are worth fighting and which tomato plants should just be pulled out before they cause a disease to travel to the rest of the plants. Keep working toward your goals and add just