I wrote in my last blog that I was going to ponder the term "Urban Homesteader" and I did without coming up with much more to say about it; other than,the title dose fit.We are growing our food,we can ,we cook from scratch,have chickens,barter/trade and make as many things as we can or need. No need for the tag line of Urban Homesteader it is simply who we are.
Chance and I set a small budget for our garden project when we started.The amount of $300 seems small when you start reading about people spending thousands of dollars to do what we are and to make their endeavors as green as possible. (This budget did not include the area where the plumb tree was.) We are not finished with some purchases we need and have spent our cash down.We got a bulk of the things we need but there are some gaps,mostly picking the seedlings up from a friends green house and a bit more seed.
What we bought with our money:
3 Yards of Soil for $130, this so far has been the best purchase.We have put a layer of soil on each Hay Bale,built 4 new garden beds,added some to three other old beds and we still have a yard left.
16 Hay Bales for $98. 15 have been used for the garden beds. One larger one for the Chicken Coop, on the garden paths and for the start of the potato beds.This was still cheaper than building wooden raised beds.
4 Chicks and their stuff,$30. A bit more than I thought but we needed a new water bottle and the bag of Chick Scratch which should last them for awhile longer.We are also getting Meat Chicks soon(eek I need to get on that.) so the water bottle will be reused.
Seeds,Strawberry starts,Onion sets,Chives,Parsely and Potato seed for $42.
Tomato Seedlings,well ummm I have 6 on hold and only enough to buy 2. But I have a plan for the money for the other 4.My Birthday is coming and my Mom takes me on a modest shopping trip so the shopping will be done at a family friends green house.I may have enough to buy the Tomatoes and some Hot Peppers.
Overall we are happy with how far we got.I am working on figuring out how much organic food I could buy with $300. My plan is to figure out the costs based on what we are growing and the eggs from the Hens.I estimate that we will come out way ahead once we are eating out of our own garden full time.I will post what I find out when I finish.
Like I said the budget did not include the area where the plumb was. We must come up with the means to build the Hop Arbor for over the front window.This is going to run us about $160 give or take.This will buy the support beams,2 Tea Trees and 5 Evergreen Blueberries.The rest of the space will just come as it comes.Hopefully through freebies, swaps and careful money spent it will get done over time.
The biggest ugliest job is looming, the grinding of the Plumb Stump.GRRR. We have a neighbor who seems to be phobic about trees in his yard.In the year and a half since he moved in he has slowly removed every tree in his yard.Here Chance and I are planting while he is cutting .During the last round of cutting Chance asked the Arborist who was doing the work for the neighbor for an estimate on grinding the stump,$200.Ouch,theres a big wad of cash for us. We are not going this route,there are so many other places that money could go. I think we will end up renting a Stump Grinder and doing it ourselves. Chance's buddy works for a rental place so maybe if Chance's luck holds we can get some sort of deal on the rental.
We went to Eugene to visit friends and on the way home detoured down to Cottage Grove to vist Territorial Seeds store. I had never been and because of their reputation I was invisioning a much larger store.But it had a nice vibe to it and we spent some money on starts and seeds.Issac picked out Russian Bananna Potatoes to try.He liked the shape and their name.They do have a kind of Bananna shape.
When we returned from our trip we built another garden bed in the front yard and did a bit of yard clean up.The veggies are coming up,the Chicks are starting to show their plumage in true Wynadotte fashion and the Hens are laying again.Thank goodness, I want real eggs and I did not want the older girls to become examples for the Chicken Butchering Class we are teaching soon.
The next part of this journey will be about getting smart with re-using what we have to finish some things,creative fund raising and waiting for the weather to warm up for the next round of plantings.
Rois