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I've been looking at photos from the past few weeks, especially since I found some recently on my Facebook page from last year at almost exactly this time, and well....I really have to pat my husband and I on the back. This is what really made the impact. The left side was from last year. No compost, no raised beds, No compost tea, no extra soil. Nothing. This year we've added raised beds, extra soil, extra compost, compost tea, vermicompost and bonemeal along with loads and loads of backbreaking work. So I guess I cannot attribute all of our success to the compost tea. However, the tomato plants in our planters are doing awesome ! We have diligently been following a schedule of compost tea one week, miracle grow fertilizer the next. The end result? Can you believe this!? What amazing growth! Next is our tomato and eggplant/pepper beds. Again just really awesome growth here. We've been out here almost nightly now so it's easy to miss how ...

My Top Five tips for lowering an Electric Bill

June 01, 2014

I write this now, coming from about 4 months, give or take, experience now at reducing our electricity bill each month. Energy here in Fairbanks, Alaska is expensive. In fact per the US Energy Information Administration only a few other states are higher. In case you're curious, Hawaii is the most expensive with New York and Connecticut following. We're number four on this list. Unfortunately for us here in the Golden Heart City though, we have a nasty little surcharge added onto our bill due to a legal issue that our Electricity company had some time ago, so it pushes that cost per kWh up around an extra .9 cents. That doesn't seem like a lot but when you multiply that times 400, 500 or 800 kWh. It adds up. The most important thing one has to keep in mind when trying to lower an electric bill is, while keeping an eye on your cost per month, you really want to look at your total kWh usage per month. If you do this you will be able to dissect the applian...

An argument for soil testing

August 12, 2016

I've been a gardener since in my early twenties. Yes, I was a novice but we have to start somewhere right? I started by killing mint and basil. I did try to grow them, but they constantly died. A couple of years later, I figured out what I was doing wrong, what the heck was the small spidery pest that was attacking (and killing) my bonsai, why was my mint taking over the yard, what were the green small bugs eating my cilantro, and WHY was my cilantro always developing seeds so fast? I got a bit better at planting herbs in the tiny spaces I had in all the houses we occupied, and upgraded to vegetables and even cherry trees (that the moose thoroughly enjoyed even though I did not). When we moved to Maryland all that experience was kicked into high gear as my family got hit by many unfortunate personal economic events. When you only suddenly have money for your house, your car, the repairs for the car and some of your bills and desperation hits in, well then you'll d...

Negative 36 with chickens in our garage

January 05, 2020

The past couple of weeks have been interesting to say the least. Our temperatures here in Interior Alaska have gone from positive temperatures in the teens to lows of -40. While the house is hanging in there, of course, no surprise there. This place was built to last, we have lost a couple of animals and now as of today, the 5th of January, we are housing three chickens in our garage. Unfortunately two of these girls had the bad luck to start molting late Autumn. Little Ms. Toriel started molting first in late November. Chloe came right behind her in mid December. By the morning of Christmas Eve it became apparent, we had to house poor little Toriel in the garage as first and foremost she had very little feathers on her poor body. She's also lower in the pecking order which means others are picking on her and she is not allowed to share their heat. As my husband brought her in to show me it was apparent, she was on deaths doorstep. Her eye...

Foraging from nature; Bunchberries

March 04, 2017

Cornus canadensis. Cornus canadensis is a slow-growing herbaceous sub shrub growing 10–20 cm tall, generally forming a carpet-like mat. The above-ground shoots rise from slender creeping rhizomes that are placed 2.5–7.5 cm deep in the soil, and form clonal colonies under trees. The vertically produced above-ground stems are slender and unbranched. The leaves are oppositely arranged on the stem, but are clustered with six leaves that often seem to be in a whorl because the internodes are compressed. The leafy green leaves are produced near the terminal node and consist of two types: 2 larger and 4 smaller leaves. The smaller leaves develop from the axillary buds of the larger leaves. The shiny dark green leaves have 2 to 3 mm long petioles and leaf blades that are obovate. The blades have entire margins and are 3.5 to 4.8 cm long and 1.5 to 2.5 cm wide, with 2 or 3 veins and cuneate shaped bases and abruptly acuminate apexes. ...