Every Gardener Needs…..
Up until last year I have never owned a pair of rubber boots. Perhaps I did when I was little, but I don’t remember ever having a pair and I’m pretty sure I’d have memories of rubber boots! As a very frugal person, I really dislike spending money on things I don’t think I need, so I put off buying boots for the longest time. I finally broke down and purchased them, mostly for photos actually, but then I realized what an important tool they are!
I wear these boots ALL THE TIME, and I’m not joking. I wear them around the garden so much that I can’t remember what I used to wear? They come in so handy when it’s raining, snowing or in the muddy messy days following snow or rain, which is pretty much every day here in NE Ohio. They’re also very handy because you can slip them on and off very quickly and easily, thus saving me few valuable minutes every time I need to run to the compost, out to the garage get something, or down to the mailbox.
The funny thing, these boots became working boots instead of photo props, these are some of the few photos they’ve cameoed in. If you were reading back when I talked about the footwear I used to wear in the garden you’ll know how much better these are!
If you don’t have a pair of rubber boots, I cannot recommend them highly enough. I believe they are a tool that every gardener needs!!!
Do you wear rubber boots around the garden? What is a tool you’d recommend that every gardener own?
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Where the Magic Happens
I’m sure you’ve picked up on the fact that I work from home and have for most of my adult life. We live in a small two bedroom house, with one bedroom is set up as our office. Unfortunately there’s only one window in this bedroom and it looks at our garage, as a result our office is not very bright. I’m a big window, sun streaming in, bright room kind of person, so being stuffed back in my corner office can get a bit depressing, especially on these dark winter afternoons!
This is what my desk space in my home office looks like; you’ll notice how dark it is (it was 2 in the afternoon when I took this photo)! I admit, the dark green paint was a really bad choice, especially since we spend so much time in here. The thought of taking all the cabinets down off the wall to repaint is too much, so it stays.
When I started working for Ethel, I bought myself a little laptop. I knew it would be the easiest way to keep my on-line identities/lives separate. So now I am able to spend some of my work hours in the sunny living room. This is where I spend my time when I’m writing, blogging and social media management. I should say this is my Ethel Gloves office.
By some of the comments I hear from those around me, I think there are people that think my days are leisurely and filled with reading, cooking, gardening, blogging, and photography. In reality, the majority of my time is spend at my computer doing accounting, managing a few different businesses, writing, invoicing, taxes, editing photos, and all the fun stuff that comes along with being self-employed. I don’t blog about that because really, who wants to read about all of that! I really do enjoy what I do, it is work after all and there’s a reason I get paid to do it.
My desk isn’t as dreary as it could be, I have a Chiot’s Run calendar hanging beside my desk, along with a little magnetic board that’s filled with quotes and other things I love (a quote by Thomas Jefferson taking center stage). Beside my keyboard is my to-do list, which is divided into quadrants, one for each job. One of my friends gave me this idea, I print it out each week and populate it with what I need to get done. When you are juggling as many jobs and hobbies as I am you need something like this to keep it all organized so you don’t forget anything! (you can download it here if you’re interested)
If I could have the “perfect” work space, it would have a lot of windows, south facing preferably (with blinds for the summer months). It would be filled with lots of plants, have a big comfy chair in the corner and a few big photos of my garden on the walls. Alas, that is not my office, until I have that (if ever), I’m stuck in the corner in the darkest room of the house knocking out my work from day to day – just as many of you are. I think that is one of the things that drives me outside into the garden every chance I get?
If you could start any business at all what would it be?
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Eat Outside the Bag
I’ve been talking about starting a food blog for quite a while now and people have been asking about it since I first mentioned it. Figuring I’d never get it done if I waited until I had time, I spent a few hours last night setting it up. The introductory first recipe post is up, and soon all the recipes from Chiot’s Run will be transitioned over to Eat Outside the Bag.
Why Eat Outside the Bag? Because that’s how we eat. It will be all about the kinds of things I talk about here, focusing on real food, simple food, seasonal food, local food, and tasty food! Generally that means food that doesn’t come in a box or a bag, but from your garden, a local farmer, market or a small artisan producer.
There won’t be a post every day, probably once a week, I’ll try to come up with a specific day so you know when to expect something. I’ll also use it to post interesting food/health related articles that I find, quotes about food/cooking, great ingredients and cookbook reviews. Make sure you check back next week because I’ll be doing a giveaway of one of my favorite bread baking books.
For my first recipes: Grandma Graham’s Perfect Pie Crust and you can find a how-to video over on the Your Day Blog at Ethel. Head on over and tell me what your favorite kind of pie is.
Any recipe you’d like to see over there?
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A Native Hawthorn Hedge
“The beautiful Hawthorn, that has now put on
Its summer luxury of snowy wreaths,
Bending its branches in exuberant bloom,
While to the light enamour’d gale it breathes,
Rife as its loveliness, its rare perfume.
Glory of England’s landscape! Favourite tree
Of bard or lover! It flings far and free
Its grateful incense.”
William Howitt (from The Forest Minstrel)
(note – this is not a hawthorne hedge, but I didn’t have a photo)
I’ve mentioned my love of fences before. This past spring I was trying to figure out how to protect my garden from the deer that love my peas, beets, and other delicious homegrown organic vegetables. I would love to have a beautiful cedar fence surrounding the new garden, but I’d have to make it 8-10 ft tall to keep out the deer. Our homeowner’s association doesn’t allow fences over 3 ft tall and they have all kinds of other rules about them. Not to mention fences can be expensive!
After spending a lot of time last winter reading on permaculture, I decided a hedge would be a better option (my favorite book about it is: Gaia’s Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture). Permaculture focuses on using natural, native and beneficial ways to deal with the problems you have. For fencing, hedges are the best option since they can provide habitat for wildlife, food for birds, they help mitigate pollution and are much cheaper than fencing. Not to mention, there are hedging options that can provide you with food too!
After much deliberation, I settled on hawthorne as my hedge plant of choice. Why did I choose this particular plant over other options? The main reason was because it’s native to our area, and whenever possible I like to choose a native because I know they will thrive. Second, it provides lots of habitat and food for the wild birds, which is another one of the things I try to focus on when I choose plants. Thirdly, it’s an edible and medicinal shrub for humans. Here’s a great article at Way of the Wild Heart about the Hawthorne where you’ll find a lot of information about the uses of the hawthorne.
Last summer I planted about 200 hawthorne plants 2 feet apart around part of the new lower garden (my goal is to plant a few hundred more still). This coming spring, I’ll prune them low to the ground so they grow up nice and thick to provide a good fence alternative. I was pleasantly surprised by the beauty of these plants this past fall. They’re only 2-3 foot tall now and they turned a beautiful shade of orange/red. A few of them still have a few leaves clinging to their branches. They will be stunning in fall when they’re 8 feet tall in 5 years or so.
Do you have any hedges in your garden? Have you ever considered installing one?
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An Inspirational Tale
Mr Chiots and I have been spending a little time each evening watching through the Lord of The Rings Trilogy. I bought him the Lord of the Rings Extended Editions on blu-ray for Christmas (well worth purchasing if you’re a fan). He’s a HUGE fan, having read the books a few times and all the related books as well. I like the movies, but haven’t been able to sit through the books for some reason.
I find myself paying close attention to words and quotes as I watch movies. As I do when I read, I’m always writing down quotes and this movie has some great passages. A few times Mr Chiots had to stop it, rewind and let me listen to the quotes a couple times to make sure I got them down just right. Here’s one of my favorites sections, inspirations words to remember:
Frodo: I can’t do this Sam.
Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding on to Sam?
Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for.
I like to pair quotes with images too (hence the quote calendar), I thought this image from yesterday’s post was perfect for the last part of this quote:
This is a winter tradition for us, after we’re done with the 007 Days of Christmas, we move on to the Lord of the Rings. One of the things we really appreciate about winter is the little extra down time we have. We sometimes use this to sit down in the evenings to watch something entertaining. Now that this series is done, there’s nothing on our list. We don’t have cable, and we live in a rural area so our antennae doesn’t work so well. We prefer waiting till shows are over and on DVD to watch them so we can get through them quicker.
Do you have any great recommendations for us of interesting documentaries, movies, TV series that we should add to our list?
