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- All Things Garden
- Beginner Basics
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  - Monarchs
Food & Ferment
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👀 "How do you use all the food you grow?" has q

👀 "How do you use all the food you grow?" has quickly become one of the most common questions I get here, along with questions about how to store and/or preserve it. 🌿 So, get ready for some serious garden-to-table food inspo! This week I wrote up a new article "How to Use, Store & Preserve Garden Produce to Reduce Waste" to talk about all of that, and more! (See Homestead and Chill, link in bio)
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I dive into our favorite recipes for both fresh and preserved produce, everyday meal ideas, cooking tips, and examples of what we eat for B/L/D (not usually recipe-based), tips on how to harvest and store produce to best extend its lifespan, places to donate excess to, garden size planning, ways to upcycle food scraps, and other clever ways to reduce food waste. ♻️
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I hope this gives you plenty of ideas to make the absolute most of your hard-earned homegrown goods! 🥰
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#homesteadandchill #eatwhatyourgrow #wastenotwantnot

🌻 Happy Flower Friday! Alternate caption: "Bees

🌻 Happy Flower Friday! Alternate caption: "Bees are fish!" LOL, keep reading... 🐝🐟
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While we wait for the summer food crops to fill in, the spring flowers are commanding the garden... and the bees are all about it 🙌🏼 It was a monumental week here in California for the bees, as it was made official by the courts that bumblebees can now be protected by the CA Endangered Species Act ~ something no other *insect* has ever been protected by (only mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish are covered by definition). Yet lawyers were able to successfully argue that since other terrestrial invertebrates (like snails) are covered under the "fish" umbrella category of the Act, then bumblebees should be too! This sets amazing precedent for the protection of monarch butterflies and other invertebrates, which actually make up the vast majority of life on earth. 🦋❤️🌏
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Check out the massive bumble napping in one of our seashell cosmos on slide 5! Possibly the largest I've ever encountered 😍
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#homesteadandchill #savethebees #pollinatorgarden #beesarefish

Ready for the dehydrator and future salves 💜 Di

Ready for the dehydrator and future salves 💜 Did you know that all varieties of lavender are highly medicinal, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and soothing? English and lavandin hybrid varieties are most sweet and thus popular for edible applications, and sometimes more sought after for herbalism/apothecary use too. The higher camphor content in Spanish and French lavender make them less palatable and sweet – yet camphor is an excellent terpene to ease swelling, itching, and pain! So we like to use a combination of them all. I wish you could smell this! 👌🏼🌿

🪵 Have you heard of hugelkultur, or used it in

🌿 Last weekend's harvest was the most diverse t

🌿 Last weekend's harvest was the most diverse to date at the new homestead! 🙌🏼 Broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, kohlrabi, snap peas, daikon radishes, swiss chard, turnips, kale, radish pods, lemons, strawberries, herbs and flowers 🥦🍋🥕🥬🌼🍓
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It feels so good to once again be eating simple, fulfilling meals like the ones on the last slide: lightly sautéed veggies and garlic ~ all homegrown ~ over a little brown rice, black beans and cheese. I don't always feel like documenting our meals (I try to mostly unplug after 6 pm these days) but that's a prime example of what we eat quite often. Seasonal veg with some sort of grain/legume base - be it quinoa, lentils, chili, etc and switch up the seasonings to keep things interesting. 👌🏼
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💡 Psst, did you know the seed pods that develop after radishes bolt/flower are super delicious? Especially if you harvest them when they're still young a tender. They're like a zesty little radish-flavored green bean, and are good both raw or lightly cooked. So, if your radishes bolt on you, its definitely not a "waste"! In fact, many folks grow radishes just for the pods.
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#homesteadandchill #gardentotable

🎑 Last evening in the garden 🌕 Did you get t

🎑 Last evening in the garden 🌕 Did you get to see the lunar eclipse? Unfortunately the sky was super misty (only to the east of course!) so it was nothing but a faint blur for us. I was a bit bummed, but the other views were pretty spectacular so... 🤷🏼‍♀️🌿😏
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#homesteadandchill #gardenlife #lit

🌠 Mulch Magic 🌲 This weekend we finally tack

🌠 Mulch Magic 🌲 This weekend we finally tackled a project we've been eager to do since the day we moved in: re-mulched the orchard, which was in desperate need of a refresh! And what a HUGE difference it made 😍 I'm so freakin' sore, but it was totally worth it! 💪🏼We also added a little pathway to the main garden space with a few pavers we had leftover from that project. Swipe through for before and afters.
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🌏 Mulch is KEY for soil and plant health. It aids in moisture retention, insulates plant roots from temperature extremes, keeps microbes and other members of living soil food web alive and happy, reduces erosion, evaporation and runoff, and is a fantastic way to organically suppress weeds.
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😷 While mulch is great for soil, it may not be so good for you. We masked up while moving all of this because a) its a super messy job with dusty wood bits going airbrone and all over us b) there can be a lot of gnarly bacteria and fungal spores in mulch, wood chips, compost and soil. SO many of you reached out to share stories about you or your loved ones getting Legionnaires disease, Valley Fever, other gnarly respiratory infections, hospitalizations, and even one death from working with mulch.... 💔 so be careful folks!
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We had 19 yards of local "walk on bark" delivered. Its like a combo of wood chips, bark and shredded bark, and supposed to mimic a forest floor. We used about 17.5 yards of it, applied about 3 to 4 inches deep. Before the mulch, we also added a few scoops of compost around the base of each tree too. Be sure to keep mulch pulled back at least a few inches away from the tree trunks!
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I've written a few articles on mulch: one that covers mulching 101 (basics, best practices, FAQ, mulch for garden beds vs pathways or flower beds, etc) along with a post that compares the pros and cons of 8 popular types of garden mulch (e.g. straw vs wood chips vs compost) so if you're curious to learn more, simply Google "Homestead and Chill mulch" and you'll see em! ✌🏼
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#homesteadandchill #mulch

🍅 How to Prune and Support Tomato Plants❓️

🍅 How to Prune and Support Tomato Plants❓️ That's the theme on H&C this week, with two new resources to help you this tomato season!
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First, a new article ~ "6 Ways to Train & Support Tomatoes" that covers how to prune your plants (or when not to) along with how to use cages, trellises, the Floroda weave, lower and lean system, or string to support tomatoes - with pros/cons of each style. I also show/explain our new A-frame tomato trellis system in more detail there. 🛠
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Second, a new quick YouTube video (I'm finally getting a *little* more comfortable in front of the camera 🙈😅) on how to make super durable, sturdy, large and inexpensive DIY tomato cages! The tutorial has been on the site for a while, now with video 🎥
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You can head to the blog and search "tomato" or just Google "Homestead and Chill tomato" and you'll see all the resources, including our full tomato grow guide and recipes too 👌🏼 Hope you find these helpful!
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#homesteadandchill #tomatoseason

Showing off my 🍑 and 🐈 for World Naked Garde

Showing off my 🍑 and 🐈 for World Naked Gardening Day this year 😉 This week we welcomed home 3 new fruit trees: a Santa Barbara peach, Double Delight nectarine and Santa Rosa plum ~ all low-chill hour varieties suitable for our temperate climate. Winter chill hours are *essential* for certain trees to break dormancy, develop flowers and fruit come spring. Wrong varietily for your area = little or no fruit! Chill requirements can vary alot between cultivars of the same species though, so you can find something compatible with every climate! 👌🏼
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🍎 Check out the chart I made (slide 2) to see the chill hour requirements for dozens of popular fruit tree varieties, and then head to the newest article on Homestead and Chill to learn more! I included lookup tools and maps so you can easily find how many chill hours your area receives. (🍐 Also a full chart that includes pear varieties, I forgot them at first - oops! But this version fits to post here so...🤪)
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I hope this is helpful, 'cause few things beat tree-ripened homegrown fruit!
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#homesteadandchill #growfood

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