January 23, 2013

This was my breakfast today.   It consists of kale, pac choi, cucumber, spinach, orange, apple, lemon, and ginger.  This is typical of what I use daily, with minor substitutions when I am out of something or have to use something up.  The produce goes in "Hal" (my Omega juicer) to make the green juice elixir that wakes up my cells and gets me moving every day.

My goal is to eventually grow everything in this picture, with the possible exception of the ginger, since I'm not sure if I'm in the right climate for it.

With that goal in mind, I went through my seed inventory to see what I could plant now.  The only seeds I had for the above mix that were suitable to plant this early were pac choi, so you will see some of those in the containers.  (I also found some cucumber seeds, but I planted those too early last year, and I don't intend to repeat that mistake.)

If you look at my previous blog (below), you'll see one bush that looks like it has a bunch of yellowing leaves on it.  Those aren't leaves, they are lemons.  I have a LOT of lemons.  I also have a lot of oranges, so good to go there.  I hope to buy an apple tree this year, as well, although it will be a few years before I can hope to really harvest any fruit from this year's plantings.

I found some other seeds that I decided to start today, including chives, onions, parsley, basil, and scallions.  Some of them are from last year's crops, and some are from commercially-purchased packets from last year.  I am excited to see if my own seeds hold their own, since I would love to get into a self-sustaining cycle of being able to collect seeds at the end of the one year to start the harvest for the next, rather than having to buy them.

Okay, one more admission, for those of you who are concerned about the footprint we leave on the environment.  Yes, these are styrofoam cups.   I did not buy them, but through a twist of fate, I ended up with about 500 of them, and I have been storing them for four or five years now.  This year, I finally decided to use them up, rather than just dispose of them.  It was the best thing I could think to do with them, using them to help create something that will be good for the environment to offset the damage they will do when they are thrown out.  You will also see (and can see behind the cups in the left-hand side of this picture if you have a good eye) that I also have plastic water bottles.  I used to have water delivered and bottles refilled, but the water company (Alhambra) used a driver who repeatedly left my gates open, and I would come home to find goats wandering around in places no goats should be, resulting in the destruction of fruit trees and the death of one of my goats when she got into the tack room and ate more than her fill of wet COB (corn, oats, and barley mixed with molasses).  So now I buy my water in bottles, and I am not organized enough to remember to take an empty bottle with me for refilling, so I just buy the 2.5 gallon jugs.  You'll be seeing some of those again in future blogs.  They make great little greenhouses.  :)