The Shinn Digs

Deep breathing … that’s what I’m practicing now that FCA Camp season is over. This year I added FCA Cheer Camp to my agenda, which is deserving of a post all on its own … check back later. After two camps in three weeks, I’m ready for down time! I hope to blog a bit more this summer and share more about recent happenings, but for now, here are some updates on our gardening adventure!Here’s a list of produce we’ve already enjoyed harvesting (some are still in process):

•  lettuce (still harvesting)
• spinach (still harvesting)
• beets (still harvesting)
• radishes (round 2 is nearly finished harvesting)
• cucumbers (lots more to come)
• green beans (still harvesting)
• tomatoes (both cherry and big girl are still harvesting)
• raspberries (almost done)
• blueberries (still harvesting)
• carrots (just picked our first few yesterday to enjoy tonight)
• green peppers (still harvesting)
• banana peppers (still harvesting)
• jalepeno peppers (still harvesting)
• broccoli (one head harvested, and I’m not sure I did it right to encourage more growth … but we have several plants, so still harvesting)
• basil, cilantro, parsley and other herbs (everything but cilantro is still producing … there must be a secret to the cilantro we don’t know about!)

I’ve also really enjoyed the cut flower garden, which is finally really producing some great cut flowers. I was so excited to come home from Cheer Camp and see the gerber daisies doing so well! The other thing the Shinns seem to be experts at growing are gigantic marigolds! Here are a few pictures of things as they look right now (click hold cursor over the pictures to see captions):  

Admittedly I haven’t done much research on this … just watched this video. You should too. It is a worthy question to ask ourselves … how will we take a stand in making changes? Will we go to this extreme? Probably not … but are there changes we will make? Many think we won’t have a choice … we will have to make some changes. I’ve got go … the goat is chasing Zak and Kins has her hand stuck in the new hand cranked clothes wringer.

My thoughts feel quite random, but isn’t that sort of what makes a great bouquet? Vibrant colors, flowers of different sizes, shapes and textures. Somehow, the random is put together to make a beautiful piece. I can’t promise this will be beautiful, but certainly random! The bouquet pictured here is my first of what I hope will be a weekly picking from our new “cut flower” garden. I love having fresh flowers in the house, so we decided to do one more (and there may still be another before the summer is through!) garden box. This one is simply meant to grow flowers to cut and bring in to the house or give to someone. The garden is pictured to the left.The last 7 weeks we’ve been a family of six, rather than just four. Our good friends, Matt & Amber Moran, have lived with us while their house was repaired following a dreadful flooding incident caused by the refrigerator! [These machines are dangerous, folks!] Today they moved back into their newly remodeled condo. I must say, I was more than a little sad when Garth moved the two extra chairs away from the dining table tonight. It’s been fun having them join us each evening, though I’m sure their thankful to finally be able to sleep in their own bed after 7 weeks! And our guest room will not stay empty too long … Rebecca’s parents move in tomorrow for the rest of their week’s vacation …

Tonight we had our first salad from our garden! The lettuce, radishes, parsley, and cilantro all were home grown! Oh, and my latest obsession is growing my own sprouts, so there were also some alfalfa sprouts and bean sprouts in there as well (you have to sneak in vitamins wherever possible!) My best guess is that right around FCA Camp time (2 1/2 weeks) is when everything will be ready to harvest … nice. At least we’ll have fresh veggies to greet us when we come home exhausted on July 5th! Enjoy the slide show of garden pics!

Here it is … what you’ve all been waiting for … a new post! Both my parents and Garth’s have commented to us that they miss reading what’s happening at the Shinn household, and really … two months is long enough to not have anything to say. I hope this doesn’t disappoint (and someone - please comment that you wish Garth would blog … he has a password, username, and everything!)

If you drive by our house you may notice a light shade of green emanating from the property. I’ve found that once I gain a bit of knowledge about something, it’s difficult to ignore complacancy or injustice in that area. So, as I’ve done a bit of reading, enjoyed conversations with friends, and done some web research, I’ve found there really are (and probably should be) some small changes we can make to be more aware of our choices and the impact it makes on God’s creation.

Some small (and in some cases minute) changes that we’ve attempted to make are:

• using cloth/canvas grocery bags
• carrying our own coffee mugs (some former FCA Huddle Leaders - you know who you are - are still adjusting to this concept, though others we’ve converted very quickly!)
• not using bottled water (we’ve not yet graduated to the stainless or aluminum bottles, but maybe those will be in our future)
• walking to the grocery and Lane Farms
• composting (this experiment is still in it’s evaluation period)
• Garth is driving slower and tailgating big rigs in an effort to get better gas mileage
• I’m biking to campus as much as possible
• Planning errands to coordinate with kids’ after school activities to be more gas conscious
• Line drying clothes (this makes me feel like Laura Ingalls a bit, and I’ve now got some statistics that show this only saves $.14/load, so I don’t know this is something we’ll keep doing … imagine my disappointment!)
• Replacing light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs (thanks to someone’s vision of installing our entire house with recessed lighting, we have A LOT of bulbs, and therefore must do this gradually … yes - I’m the guilty party!)
• And lastly, our latest experiment … our “garden”

I put this in quotes, because I don’t know that you can yet consider what we have a going an actual garden (it’s a puny comparison to what my Dad & Mom and several of our friends have). But, if you’ve been to our house, you know there is VERY LITTLE free space to put a garden. The swimming pool in the back yard (and the concrete that fills the ENTIRE back yard) render that area not optional. We did have a few thoughts of taking out our front lawn and making a garden, but we opted for a smaller scale experiment.

After a bit of research, we decided to do what Mel says … Mel Bartholomew is the author of All New Square Foot Gardening and we are now disciples. This gardening method uses small spaces to gain the most productivity and variety possible (as opposed to the typical row gardening method). So, we built our garden in a space in our driveway that is basically dead space. We built three 4′x4′x6″ boxes and placed them two feet apart. In square foot gardening, you square off each box (we used string to do this) to form 1′x1′ squares. So there are 16 spaces in each box. You plant a different crop (or flower) in each square. We have mixed in some seeds, and some starter plants, along with some flowers. We figured since it’s right in the front of our house, it would be nice if this was somewhat aesthetic! It’s been a long time since I’ve gardened, unless you count the bumper crop of tomatoes from last year! We don’t really have any idea how much our garden will produce. Just this morning I spotted our first sprouts of broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. We’re looking forward to seeing how it goes. We have future expansion possibilities in mind … another available space on our property would be a roof top garden on our carport! I’ve added a new category (gardening), and we’ll update as things grow! Here are the very first pictures on Day 1 of the garden. The cardboard squares are supposed to keep the little seedlings from baking in the sun, but as of today I’ve removed them as (mainly because May Gray has officially set in and there is no sun!) Here’s to the possibility of some locally grown food in our future!