New Beginnings

2011

In this new year my husband and I have embarked on a new adventure.  We moved back to Sonoma county for a great opportunity for my husband with a new job.  Now I have the privileged of staying home with our little three month old daughter.  I love being with her every day but I am also trying to stretch our budget to accommodate me staying home.  With that said, God provided an amazing house for us to live in. It is actually the old homestead from the 20's or 30's.  It has it's quarks of course but it is a great place to be.  It is really fun to think that we have our own little homestead in the city.   It has a great yard and I am going to try to start a year round garden for us so that I do not have to spend as much on produce for my family.  We try to eat organic and fresh vegetables but that really adds us.  I spend anywhere from $25-$30/week just on produce that I could grow a lot of it in our own back yard.  I have been reading a book that my aunt loaned to me called One Magic Square by Lolo Houbein.  This talks about growing organic food in a 3 foot by 3 food box.  It shows ways to use every inch of the box to grow your vegetables. I am using this idea but I am going to have 4 foot by 4 foot boxes because of where we are putting them in the garden.   There is also a website that I came upon, it is a year round planting guide for Sonoma County.  I was so excited because I could grow things year round and this guide is so easy to follow.  I am sure that it could be changed a bit to show almost any climate in California.  Now I just need to get my husband to start on the boxes.......my birthday is coming up maybe I can have them built for my present :) There are so many new possibilities when there is access to having a garden.  After reading this book I now realize that it does not take a lot of room to provide a lot of food for you and your family. Now if the rain would just go away and spring would come..............on well we need the rain!  Have a great day everyone!!

 We are going to put the boxes along this fence line

This is the other side of our yard. I think I am going to put flowers along this fence line.  

And this is our little ranch homestead.  It needs a lot of work on the outside yard because no one has really cared for the yard in about 5 years but it is a fun project for my daughter and I.