Marsia's Diary

There's never a guarantee but with all you're doing you know you're giving your body and brain the best possible chance of staying healthy.
 
Marsia said:
You guys are the best!!!
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You are :)
 
Went Christmas shopping in the city yesterday. Got some really wonderful books for everyone and some cute pjs and animal socks for my kid. Ate some quiche for lunch at the bookstore, and just scraped off the flour crust. But my matcha tea, which I asked if it had any sugar in it and was told it didn't, really tasted like it had sugar. But I drank it anyway and savored it a lot - matcha tea is a big favorite of mine. But today I am down a quarter pound, so no harm done!

It was nice to do something my mom really wanted to do (go shopping in a particular store she loves) and get to relax with her. She is being respectful of me now that I left her alone to drive herself everywhere for a few weeks. She saw that I wasn't kidding that as Silicon Valley invades our town, the traffic has gotten horrendous, and the driving style pretty aggressive. So after a bunch of lectures and being left to drive though this on her own, she has stopped back seat driving. Hope it lasts!
 
I'm so glad that you & your Mum enjoyed your day. Hopefully, she will keep remembering what she learned xoxo
 
Thanks Cate and LaMa! Her memory isn't good, but I am sure she will remember how scary it's been for her to drive around alone. Hopefully that motivates her for a long time!
 
Nothing much new here. I am a little under the weather this week due to having had sugar by mistake which when I am about to get sick really affects me, but otherwise doing well. I have been researching the microbiome and what foods are good to eat to support it (prebiotics and probiotics). It's so weird that we are made up of more microorganisms than human cells. It seems like a really amazing medical breakthrough discovering this and learning to eat what supports our colony of helpful bacteria.

With the ecoli outbreak in our romaine lettuce in the US and the recall of health protections like checking water supplies for our crops (which is why our romaine had ecoli), I am planning out my veggie garden this week. I am thinking of making a big berry patch, and may even be able to grow unusual things like cranberries and paw paw trees. I want to start with just a few bushes and expand, but want to plan things out and save room for everything. I would eventually like a little greenhouse to sprout things in and to have a few tomatoes and peppers in. We are too foggy to grow things like tomatoes here. But berries do well, so I am thinking of making them a main crop.
 
Growing your own food is wonderful & you don't actually need that much space. We have raised beds in a fenced off area & haven't bought lettuce in particular for a couple of years. I always let some go to seed & they come up everywhere. It's excellent when you know that no sprays are used. Get some perpetual spinach. It's excellent! Herbs grow well in pots too. We have pots of herbs everywhere- rosemary, chives, sage, pineapple sage, mint, lemon thyme, thyme, coriander, lemon balm.... Nothing beats having an edible garden :)
 
cate said:
Growing your own food is wonderful & you don't actually need that much space. We have raised beds in a fenced off area & haven't bought lettuce in particular for a couple of years. I always let some go to seed & they come up everywhere. It's excellent when you know that no sprays are used. Get some perpetual spinach. It's excellent! Herbs grow well in pots too. We have pots of herbs everywhere- rosemary, chives, sage, pineapple sage, mint, lemon thyme, thyme, coriander, lemon balm.... Nothing beats having an edible garden :)
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I wish our climate was as great as yours for growing veg, everything is dying for me at the moment, even the hardy stuff.
 
Thanks Cate! I am doing raised beds, too, because otherwise the gophers dig everything up. I may put netting around each raised bed, too, as the raccoons like eating all my seeds and like flipping over baby plants to find grubs. It's either them or the skunks. They are all in cahoots. We also have huge yellow banana slugs. So I am researching how to make raised beds that still look nice but are protected on all sides. I love the sound of your herb garden and want to make a nice one full of chives, oregano, and bee balm especially. I have a couple of lovely sages and rosemary around the property already. What do you use the sage for in cooking?

J wants me to put a nice seating area in the garden, too. That would be so great if I could get him interested in growing things. He is such a city person, but living in the beautiful countryside is making him come around.

Tru, have you tried automatic drip irrigation? I did that one year when I just didn't have the time to water, and it worked great with a little timer attached to the hose.
 
Marsia said:
Tru, have you tried automatic drip irrigation? I did that one year when I just didn't have the time to water, and it worked great with a little timer attached to the hose.
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I have drip feed on all of my garden beds, however, we are in drought and live on tank water, temperatures are averaging high 30s to low 40s with no rain.
 
Trusylver said:
I have drip feed on all of my garden beds, however, we are in drought and live on tank water, temperatures are averaging high 30s to low 40s with no rain.
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Wow, really awful. So sorry you are going through all of that! I'll cross my fingers for rain for you!!
 
I'm spoiled rotten where fresh produce is concerned as my parents have a huge fruit&veg garden. It's great and I miss it a lot! Berries, green beans and sugar snaps are probably the ones I'd be getting first if I had a garden. Beries because of how expensive they are and the other because of how great they are when truely fresh instead of a week old or picked when already too big.
 
LaMa, you are making my mouth water! We had a big garden growing up and it was so wonderful picking the young fresh peas for a snack while weeding in the garden. It's amazing how much better they taste fresh off the vine and small so they are not mealy. I feel like that about a lot of the veggies, and really want a little greenhouse some day because fresh tomatoes grown in lots of manure so they are bursting with flavor are probably my favorite thing from the garden.

I went to the grocery store early to get lettuce and found huge rows of spinach and arrugula instead of lettuce - they just aren't stocking any in our stores. So time to go to the nursery and get some baby lettuce and get out the old skylights I saved from the remodel and make my own little lettuce protectors for the winter in the garden. I have a few spots that are cleared where I can plant them and put the skylights over them. It will be a good experiment.
 
Sounds like a good plan, Marsia. Fresh lettuce that you can pick leaf by leaf is the way to go. There is no reason you couldn't plant them in pots either. Is there anywhere in your house you could put them? A back porch that gets some sun?
 
Hi Cate, it freezes here, so I could bring them in and out each day from the porch, which might make more sense so I don't forget them in the garden! Nice idea, thanks!
 
Marsia I wonder how long that scare will last . I have a friend in Miami and he is really missing salads leaves too .
I have not had a veg garden in a few years . But your making me rethink doing one again . Perhaps raised beds for me is the answer. I don't want a huge space to look after as I don't have time with work .
A seating area sounds nice . Go for it .
 
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