Secular Charlotte Mason

Spring is in the air and I find myself and the kids planning what we want to do with the backyard.  We are blessed with nearly a 1/3 of an acre (a large yard where we live) that is currently provoding nothing but cherries and grass to run on. Long term, we are toying with the idea of making the yard more useful by having various gardens, fruit trees (we do have apple, plum, asian pear and cherry trees that produce some fruit) and maybe even some "small livestock".  We already have plenty of fertilizer via our guinea pigs and are considering just enough chickens to supplement our egg supply.  What we don't have is a new compost pile or anything else that would create "nature" and "farm" areas.  Which all explains my current fascination with The Urban Homestead: Your Guide to Self-Sufficient Living in the Heart of the City by Kelly Coyne & Erik Knutzen.  This book is written for folks just like me! The ideas are quite practical and the directions are easy to follow. It touches a variety of topics and projects including gardening, urban livestock, urban foraging, food preservation, as well as water and power conservation. I think of it as taking many traditional ideas and simplifying them so that even the novice is willing to give it a try. I love that! Part of the Process Self-Reliance Series.

Yet another good book recommendation.  This is the first year I've ever gardened -- we've just put in two squares roughly following Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening.  A quick Amazon search for your book also turned up a couple others I'd like to read.

Karena,

Please post about the other books you found once you have a chance to read them/look them over. Curious minds want to know more lol. Our new thing for this year is chickens. Our plan is to use them to help us get our bed for next year ready by having them do all the scratching up of soil, preweeding and precomposting.  Let it sit fallow so the chickie poo doesn't burn the plants and then it should be ready for us to come in and do our gardening thing next spring or fall.

I like  Moveable Harvests by Crandall & Crandall  They grow everything up to corn and trees in containers.  I also have two squares in the Square Foot Gardening style in my yard.  Unfortunately, I also have leaf miners in my garden.

I'll have to look for that book.  This year I am mostly gardening using homemade self-watering containers since I need to give the chickens time to help prepare our future garden beds. My latest obsession is herb spiral gardening so if anyone has book recommendations for that I'm "all eyes".

Gina

Sorry it took so long for me to respond to your query.  Life got in  the way recently and I'm just getting back to my normal internet time.  The other two books I'm thinking of purchasing are Food Not Lawns, and The Backyard Homestead.  This is something I'd really like to get more into next year.  I'm still getting my feet underneath me with the homeschooling thing, so it's probably not going to happen soon!

You know, we've always dreamed of living on an acreage (thought I don't have a green thumb whatsoever), but this post has really piqued my interest.  I love the thought of container gardening.

Gina - how do you make self-watering containers?

secularcm at 05:42PM on May 14, 2009

I'll have to look for that book.  This year I am mostly gardening using homemade self-watering containers since I need to give the chickens time to help prepare our future garden beds. My latest obsession is herb spiral gardening so if anyone has book recommendations for that I'm "all eyes".

Gina

Oooh I'm going to have to put those on my wishlist or talk my mom into buying them (so that I can borrow them of course lol).

secularcm at 07:55PM on May 28, 2009

secularcm at 05:42PM on May 14, 2009

I'll have to look for that book.  This year I am mostly gardening using homemade self-watering containers since I need to give the chickens time to help prepare our future garden beds. My latest obsession is herb spiral gardening so if anyone has book recommendations for that I'm "all eyes".

Gina

Oooh I'm going to have to put those on my wishlist or talk my mom into buying them (so that I can borrow them of course lol).

Okay, somehow I quoted and replied in the wrong post.  I was trying to reply to Karena's two book recommendations.  I'd just delete it but with the way my day has been going I'd probably accidently delete someone else's post. Iye Yie Yie.

Heather at 03:45PM on May 28, 2009

You know, we've always dreamed of living on an acreage (thought I don't have a green thumb whatsoever), but this post has really piqued my interest.  I love the thought of container gardening.

 

Gina - how do you make self-watering containers?

There are many different ways of making them and the exact method usually is determined by what type of container you choose to use.  The method I came up with is a hybrid between the ways described in the Urban Homesteader and one of the spring editions of Mother Earth News.  The process is too lengthy to describe here.  I'll write a blog entry about it today or tonight so check over there. The containers are working great as I my lettuce has never dried out!!! That blog is so darn handy for all the info that doesn't fit anywhere else, along with my random thoughts of course, lol.

MommaElspeth at 11:45AM on May 10, 2009

I like  Moveable Harvests by Crandall & Crandall  They grow everything up to corn and trees in containers.  I also have two squares in the Square Foot Gardening style in my yard.  Unfortunately, I also have leaf miners in my garden.

Could you tell us a bit about Square Foot Gardening?  I've never heard of it before.