Tag Archives: growing food

What Gives Me Purpose

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Another beautiful sunny morning. It’s day 24 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I love waking up with the birds and sun. I’ve had my cuppa, played Wordle and Spelling Bee. I can beat Wordle most days but having trouble with spelling. I’m in a spelling rut but I can leave it without frustration.

I’ve made my morning trek to the greenhouse and planted my first tomato – a Sweet One Million. I disturbed the earthworms from their sleep. The soil was alive with them. I will plant one more later – a Red Torch. And that will be plenty in there. Real estate is at a premium in there. I want to make good use of every inch. It’s hard to envision now but it doesn’t take long before it’s a jungle. Here’s what it looked like last summer.

Going into the 4th year of the greenhouse, I’m working at maintaining my health and vitality. I need both to keep on growing our own food. I was careless last year and I suffered for it. Now I working out in the weight room, training almost like Joan. Growing our food, maintaining my health and that of our planet gives me purpose and meaning. It’s easy to relax, slide and let everything go to pots. All my little every day things keep me mostly on track.

WHAT NOW, THE DAY AFTER

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What Now, The Day After

November 1, a new month, the day after completing all 31 days of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. What do I do now, rest on my laurels? I’ve decided to blog on. I brush my teeth every morning and evening. Writing is another thing in my self care tool box. It is effective. I shall keep it. Besides, someone mentioned that it is NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month. It’s writing a novel of 50,000 words in the month of November. I had high hopes of writing one ever since high school. I gave NaNoWriMo a go or two. The first time I had a few chapters of 7,358 words. The second time 300 words. I still have the files on my desktop.

I didn’t know how hard words are to come by till I tried. I’m not aiming for a novel or 50,000 words. I haven’t lived up to the name of this blog yet – a thousand and two (words) , my daily goal. My goal for this November is to write each day concentrating on the progress of our greenhouse and food growing. But who knows where I will meander. Like Caroline Myss often says, this is an amazing time in history. I have to perk up, pay attention and make notes on EVERYTHING. And maybe, after this month, I can write that novel.

I had aimed to have fresh greens from our raised beds till end of October. I gave up too soon in the 3rd week in a cold snap. Had I left the crop covers on, the spinach and kale would be fine. And maybe the lettuce and Chinese greens, too. I harvested them, not wanting to lose all. But I see that the ends are still green and alive in this bit of warm spell. I shalt cry over spilt greens. I shall grow more. The herb spiral still looks pretty good, too. The basil, of course, bit the dust, but the lavender, thyme and oregano seems ok. I have them in pots inside just in case.

Our greenhouse is almost finished – 4 walls, roof, vents all closed up. Just missing a door. It’s pretty snug and warm on a sunny day. We’re been mostly lucky with the weather building it.There were a few cold days but it’s warmed up for the finishing stretch. I took this opportunity to fill a few planters with top soil to warm up inside to ready for seeding. It looks like we will have 4 days of warm weather before it dips again to daytime minus temperatures. I hope that’s enough time to help them germinate. It’s a grand adventure. Nothing to lose and everything to gain.