Beekman Seeds, Week 2

This past week, we finally got everything started for the garden with my Beekman heirloom seeds. Considering what it looked like before, I was happy how it turned out. Since we are in a rental and potentially moving this year, we wanted something portable that could go with us if we move. I also have not spent time learning to cultivate container gardens (other than herbs) but I have read so much lately of the ridiculously amazing things people are doing in small spaces. (A wonderful book that I found for a resource in making these things amazing is Gardening In No Time by Tessa Evelegh.)


We found these great bins at Costco that we altered by drilling drainage holes in the bottom. I put a layer of rock in the bottom to assist in drainage and then filled with dirt. Of course, I had some help:



Jack approves the dirt selection


Once everything met Jack’s approval, we planted four of the heirloom seed packets that were ready (carrots, turnips, spinach and radishes) as well as one bucket of garlic and onions and one of potatoes. Many moons ago when my boyfriend was a child, he described to me a manner of growing potatoes inside a stack of old tires. While it seems odd, the pinching off of some leaves and cover with dirt in multiple layers over time made a lot of sense. We are trying this in a container this year to see how it works.



I already have some sprouting and will put those pictures up next week. Have you planted something yet? It’s good for the soul, try it!

It does help if you have some help...even if that help is kind of
 lazy for the most part.  :)


Mango supervises the project

 Have a great week everyone!  Peace to you.

I Beekman, do you?

Last year, we had the great good fortune to happen upon the Fabulous Beekman Boys on Planet Green. Often the discussion in our house has revolved around dreams of having a farm. While each of us have different reasons for wanting one, Little Monkey bases this decision on wanting four fainting goats she can name Ennie, Meanie, Miney, and Moe. No, I don't know why.



We spent our extra time catching all the episodes as they popped up on our DVR and laughing along with Josh at Brent's need to channel Martha Stewart (as so frequently I do) and became big fans of the diva on the farm, Polka Spot. When they guys announced that they were taking viewer questions for their holiday special, Little Monkey was quick to offer several for Polkie. I registered her once she narrowed it down but I didn't hear back from them and it eventually slipped to the back of my mind. Imagine our surprised when, as we are watching the holiday special, once the guys head to the barn to ask Polkie a question, we hear "Emma Harris from Arlington, Texas asks...". You would have thought Little Monkey had won the lottery. She recorded it and forced everyone visiting our house over the next two weeks to sit down and watch the holiday special with her. She called her dad (who lives out of state) to inform him of her celebrity status and was dismayed to learn he didn't even know there was a Planet Green nor who the Beekman Boys were (this resulted in him loosing a multitude of cool points with her). A visit to the farm is now on the family bucket list and once circumstances and finances change, I will be getting her there one way or another.



This year, the Beekman Boys have partnered with Williams Sonoma on a package of heirloom seeds and a community gardening project. Living in a rental with very little yard, we are relegated to a small, long space currently covered in ice and snow, but I couldn't turn Little Monkey down. She is very excited about growing plants and the idea of expanding from pots of herbs on the porch to raised beds with tasty edibles. I am excited to see her have so much fun learning about something that she can use when she has her own space to grow when she is older.

Site of future most awesome garden

I am by no means a master gardener so it will be interesting to see what I can do and what I can't with what I am given. If you are interested in joining us, you can still get your seeds and sign up. If you have a Twitter, I would recommend following along with the guys and all the action.



Happy planting!

Eat Dinner

Sounds simple right?  I guess I am just a different kind of parent but its seems a no brainer.  How will you know much about your kids or partner if you aren't sitting down with them for a meal at least occasionally?  I am not unrealistic, people are busy, but when companies start movements to encourage family dinner, I have to ask, what the hell?  Everyone is stressed, rushing, texting while driving, hurrying around like their heads are on fire.  Is all that stuff that important?  What are you teaching your kids if you are in a mode of constant rushing and stress?  SIT DOWN.

A common complaint is "I can't cook."  I don't believe that anyone has zero skills, but that can happen.  Stop at the grocery store, pick up a rotisserie chicken, a bagged salad, a package of Hawaiian rolls and a gallon of ice tea/lemonade/milk.  Go home, put it all on the table except the salad which does require opening all the packages and dumping in a bowl and mixing with tongs or a wooden spoon.  Poof.  Good food that took more time to pick up than put on the table.  Certainly you can add to this by picking up a great bottle of wine, a bunch of flowers for a vase and cut fruit for dessert but I don't want to confuse you.

Have a few skills?  If you are looking for the proper way to bake or cook something always go to Martha.  While I have stacks and stacks of cookbooks and magazines, recipes printed and on cards, if I ever need to know the proper way to do something, Martha always has the answer.  The difference between her instructions and just about everyone elses is that she explains the proper way to do it.  She doesn't say "cook this"  she gives you specific steps to follow.  For anyone that is trying to learn skills, she is the best teacher.  If you can boil water and will tolerate semi-homemade, this is one of my kids favorite things:

Chicken and Rice

1 can of Cream of Chicken Soup

2 cups of cooked rice (you can use any variety)

2 chopped, boiled chicken breasts or 2 cans of cooked chicken (found near the tuna)

1 Tablespoon of Lemon and Pepper seasoning

1.  in the pot of cooked rice while hot, dump the soup, chicken, seasoning and stir until mixed through out

2.  eat

Don't like Lemon Pepper?  Easily you can just use ground pepper, or dill or even rosemary.  This is where you can impress yourself when you gain confidence and switch stuff up.  I keep boiled chicken breasts in the fridge because these can be used in a multitude of ways.  Buy a bag in the grocery store frozen section, skinless boneless breasts are best but the boneless skinless chicken tender strips work as well if they are on sale.  At home, heat a pot of water to almost boiling and put all the chicken in it.  Once it starts boiling again, set your timer to 20 minutes.  At the end of 20 minutes, drain and pack these in a container for your fridge.  (This can help with time during the week if you do this on Sundays.)  Add this dish with the above mentioned salad and rolls, or get crazy and nuke a can of green beans and corn to go with this and you have another meal ready in less than 20 minutes.  (tip for canned veggies:  rinse these well before cooking and it will improve the taste, add butter pats, salt and pepper with them in a bowl and nuke for two minutes.  Yes, that easy)

Feeling like cooking more or learning more while doing that?  Get a great book, definitely one or more by Martha but my current favorite is by Katie Lee and her book The Comfort Table.  This book has great menus done for different occasions and are quick easy ways to have a great meal.  I just made her after Thanksgiving menu and it was AWESOME.  Oh, and why do you save the "nice stuff" for other people?  You and your family are worth it.  Take it out, celebrate your life, use cotton napkins and champagne flutes for sparkling water.  It will make you smile.  Trust me.

Take this time to be proud of what you do for one another.  Give everyone a job so its done even quicker.  TALK to one another.  One of my favorite things to ask at the table is what was the best and worst thing that happened to you today?  You will share in small victories and be able to talk through uncomfortable situations with your family, building their confidence and providing everyone with comfort and love.  Who can't use that?  A new question I have incorporated is one I just heard from Diana Sawyer, what interesting questions did you ask today?   You will be surprised how much your kids and/or partner will tell you if you only ask.  You may discover things you didn't know!

I am thankful that there is a movement to bring people back to the table, don't get me wrong, I just don't think we should ever have left.  It is a rule in my house that we eat a minimum of one meal a day at the table with each other.  Period.  On days when everyone will be out in the afternoon/evening, that is breakfast, otherwise its always dinner.  On family movie night, we may order a pizza to eat while we watch a movie but we do it together, hanging in the living room.  Its just the way it is.  It doesn't matter if there are after school activities and friends, we work around that and plan for eating together. 

And no phones turned on or at the table.  Period.

Slow down, stop the spinning out of control and see what it can do for your life.  Eat dinner together.  

My Funky Tree

While admittedly behind the norm for me in a holiday season, we finally got the tree up!  I have used an artificial tree for much of the last ten years out of convenience and the quality of them has so drastically improved, however, while shopping at Whole Foods (possibly my favorite place in the ENTIRE world) we saw their selection of Frasier firs.  If you have never used one but like live trees, I highly recommend them...the smell is superb and they hold ornaments quite well.  Whole Foods is supporting a family farm with their effort and you gotta love that.  Over the last five years, I have been doing a great deal of simplifying, so for this tree we opted to make a large portion of what would go on the tree.  Our one rule that stays the same every year is that things from previous years must be repurposed/reused/recycled.  What we don't use is either passed on to someone else I know that can use them or it is donated to Goodwill for someone to buy them while supporting a great charity.  From last year, we kept the background of natural items consisting of grapevine garlands, pine cones, pecan garlands and various pieces of primitives to include rusted star garlands and rusted jingle bells.  We also had filler bulbs that are chocolate brown and brown glitter snowflakes so that went on first with the twinkle lights.  On top of that, we added knitted garlands by middle monkey in turquoise and orange and glass ornaments we got from Michael's.  On these we painted the interiors with blue, orange, white and glitter paint.  This is a super easy and cheap way to customize your tree!  We added two beaded orange garland we scored at HomeGoods super cheap and constructed a topper from blue beaded picks we found at WalMart.  Obviously, these are not item handmade items but they do look like it and add to the over all funky vibe of the tree.  Underneath the tree, we added the two orange wool blankets we have collected from thrift stores and Army/Navy supply stores over the years.  

Normally these spend the year in the baskets for the cats to sleep on but for Christmas they become our tree skirt.  Previous to this incarnation, we did a Mardi Gras theme that was a ridiculous number of colors and this orange option underneath is a carry over from then.  Though each blanket is different (one is a Danish Army officers blanket, they other knitted by someone and abandoned) it adds to the spirit of repurposing we believe in greatly.  Here in our town, we will be able to recycle the tree at a drop point and pick up bags of mulch in exchange from others that did this last year.  It makes me feel better that buying at Whole Foods, we got a tree from a family farm and it helps me feel like I am contributing directly to someone to keep their business rather than buying something faux from a big box retailer.

Middle monkey had some difficulty with the photographing...she is not a fan of twinkle lights because it is hard to get a picture with everything lit.  Little monkey told her that she would get over it...in true little monkey form.  We put on our fireplace DVD and listened to Christmas music in the library while putting everything together so we are all very much ready for present time!  Now I just need to get shopping...

DIY Done Right

 One of our favorite things to do, besides art projects is to decorate.  Always having more ideas than money, this was one of those times to use both skills.  After a long marathon session of 9 X Design episodes, we fell in love with Ann Carrington's work.  While I am confident it will take winning the lottery to afford one of her pieces, the girls and I decided we were going to try an art project INSPIRED by the great and wonderful Ann.  We started by taking a large piece of denim we already had from another project and used a bleach pen to do the outline of a peace sign.  From there, using primarily vintage buttons from Ebay, we started (or rather I started) sewing buttons onto the fabric.  This monster task illustrated to me why Ann has a great team...GEEZE it was time intensive.  As days melted into weeks, we decided both to switch to various glues and add multi-media elements.  My wonderful boyfriend added his carpentry skills by building a frame and stapling it on.  When completed, there was actually a section of the project that represents each person in the house. We incorporated old keys, foreign and domestic money, political buttons and sheet music just to name a few things.  Little Monkey (who is a great fan of Nate Berkus, as am I) decided this would also be a great I Spy piece and constructed a list of items and a key.  Despite all the work, I think the finished product came out well.

Paired with lamps I scored on serious clearance at Target, a clearance bowl from Pier 1 and a ten dollar orange platter I found at Walmart it looks great.  Both kitchen table are made from old doors.  The white buffet table, one I scored in a Galveston Island junk shop for 35 bucks and the other, the former front screen door from my Grandparents house in the 70's.  The legs came from Ikea (both sets on sale) and a local glass shop provided the tops.  My chairs and bench on the other side I already had in a previous kitchen incarnation and I painted these from red to beige.  Even the light fixture was a clearance item from Home Depot and the baskets under the white table, Longaberger that I purchased 10 years ago.  They have served me well for the cost and have gone from living room toy catchers for little ones to comfy cat bed for our aging flock of furry babies.  The vases/candle holders on the kitchen table are punch cups from a pottery punch bowl set from Thailand.  Not too bad if I do say so myself!

Eat local and Learn to Can!

In our ever increasing quest to eat local, eat healthy AND on the cheap, we decided to check out a local only farmers market in our area and it was AH-mazing!  the kids had a great time and we spent very little to come home with arm loads of tasty things.

I was lucky enough to win a canning book over at one of my favorite sites and quickly bookmarked a million things to try.  I started with Peach Butter and Pickles (though not in the same jar)!

I will say, to get the right consistency took FOREVER, but man were we rewarded!  This stuff is summer in a jar.  This will definitely be something we make to give away as gifts.


 *makes mental note to get busy for Christmas

The pickles were fun.  Leave it to me to have NO IDEA there are a million different recipes for this.  They turned out great but they are not the crispy Vlassics I am accustomed to.  Also unknown to me until I started the process but to get this crispy pickle you have to put an additive in the mix.  Since I was trying to do the local and organic thing, I opted not to do this.  I guess I will have to decide next time if that is the way I will keep it.  I think a pickle recipe without the additive would probably be better done as thick slices.  But that just the foodie in me over thinking it...

Fun stuff!  Think about finding a place in your area and try it!