The past few days I went on one memorable adventure. Since I was chosen as a teacher of the year, we were given a trip to Smith Island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay! I walked away with a great group of new friends and a fire in my soul to make the world a better place.
Such a beautiful little town with amazing people!
A baby blue crab that we found combing grasses in the Bay!
We have a lesson with a local and she taught us how to make a Smith Island cake!
Sunrise canoeing in the bay!
We caught crabs!
I found a beekeeper on the island!
I got to pull in the rake that we used on the seas grass!
Kiss the fish before you set the trap!
My napkin for the couple days!
We found a pomegranate tree!
The compost bin in the kitchen
The compost bin outdoors!
I loved this sink setup!
The facility that is run by The Chesapeake Bay Foundation was beautifully green. There was a compost bin, recycling and the kitchen that was so efficiently green. I can’t say thank you enough to the people who made this happen. I am one happy greenie and I can’t wait to share with my students! Students learn even better when they can tell that you are passionate about certain topics, and they will definitely see my love come out when I talk about the bay from now on!
Where in the world have I been?! In the garden! I’m constantly harvesting, watering, pruning, weeding and mulching. But, I’m not complaining at all. I love this time of the year!
And now, the goal updates:
1. Sew my first quilt– The craft that I wanted to try was making my first quilt. Everything is sewn and I just need to quilt and bind it! ** When momma feels up for it, we will quilt it!**
2. Keep doing good for our community. The school garden is starting to produce little cherry tomatoes. And, the farmer’s market in town is doing amazing!
3. Can and save money on our groceries: We had a decent harvest of cucumbers, so those were turned into pickles. Plus the green beans are all being canned for winter too!
4. Use that camper some more!: We were able to have a nice day at a local lake. It was perfect!
**so here’s the change: I have lots of traveling with being the teacher of the year, so I don’t think that we will be doing much traveling this summer.
5. Compost!: We are still getting some food scraps dropped off, especially watermelon leftovers! The chickens love it! Plus, all of those composted pumpkins have regrown some volunteers for us!
6.Little free library/seed sharing-The Library is open and we have sooo many books! And check out that beautiful flag holder that the Mr. forged!
7. Grow some new plants: The ground cherries have really taken off! The bird egg gourds are going to look adorable in the spring, once they are dried out. And I’ve harvested a couple delicata squash!
Ground cherries
Bird egg gourd
Delicata squash
8. Yard to garden our bottom yard. We doubled the size of the garden last year and produced lots of extra food. That swing set was reassembled by a friend for her adorable twins. We are starting to harvest a good bit from this area!
After!!!
9. Keep reducing our trashWe are now on bag 3. We are continuing to watch what we throw out, and I’m thinking bag 3 will be leaving the house in August.
10. Create a Monarch waystation and tagging supplies-Last year we made a wildlife habitat area and we will continue to add to it! That habitat is being loved and used by so many pollinators! The monarchs have been laying so many eggs. We have released almost 10!
11. Teach the teen life skills– the boy is growing up way too fast. He will be in high school next year. I want him to be ready to be an independent adult when he decides to leave the nest many years from now!
*he was washing and waxing cars a lot last month. The waxing was with our personal vehicles and the washing was for a fundraiser!
12. Keep track of $ from gardening– We decided to use the money made from the garden cart to go towards the teen going to Disney with band. We are slowly making a little bit at a time!
July was a great month for gardening! Mostly working in the garden and taking in the summer warmth!
Panorama of the garden
Tomato jungle!
Beautiful zinnias, black eyed susans and milkweed
Hoping to do a walk through the garden Wednesday! Keep blooming friends!! 🌸💚
June went by as quick as a flash!! We made our way to Ocean City, so that momma could have some fun this summer. School came to an end, lots of time was spent in Baltimore, I had an interview for MPT and spent the last part of the month attempting to get rid of weeds!
And now, the goal updates:
1. Sew my first quilt– The craft that I wanted to try was making my first quilt. Everything is sewn and I just need to quilt and bind it! ** When momma feels up for it, we will quilt it!**
2. Keep doing good for our community. The school garden is looking better by the day! I was able to finally meet the hometown healthy coordinator and we will be getting our own farmer’s market here!
School garden tomatoes!
3. Can and save money on our groceries. Even though I had to buy the strawberries, I did get a few jars of jam made! And it is delicious!
4. Use that camper some more!: The boy and I enjoyed our trip to Ocean City! And I spent around a week in Baltimore too. I’m hoping that our family of 3 get to go on some sort of trip this summer!
**so here’s the change: I have lots of traveling with being the teacher of the year, so I don’t think that we will be doing much traveling this summer.
5. Compost!: We are still getting some food scraps dropped off here at the house. And, we are continuing to compost our food waste too! Thanks to all of that compost from last year, we had a great garlic and potato harvest this year!! Around 60 pounds of potatoes and 80 heads of garlic!
6.Little free library/seed sharing-The Library is open!! I love watching people stop by and grab a book! So far this is my favorite goal! (and we have been receiving lots of book donations too!)
7. Grow some new plants: This year we are hoping to grow ground cherries better, and we got a lot of volunteers! The purple tomatillos are growing great and the purple potatoes look great!
8 ball zucchini
Purple potatoes
8. Yard to garden our bottom yard. We doubled the size of the garden last year and produced lots of extra food. This year, we want to took out our huge swing set that hasn’t been used in such a long time and start getting rid of grass. The yard to garden is coming along!!!
After!!!
Beautiful fencing!
9. Keep reducing our trashWe are now on bag 3. We are continuing to watch what we throw out! And we are participating in plastic free July and tracking how much trash that we are producing.
10. Create a Monarch waystation and tagging supplies-Last year we made a wildlife habitat area and we will continue to add to it! The butterfly weed is blooming, along with so much else! Plus, we are not collecting and raising monarchs in my new outdoor cage!
Chilling on the butterflyweed
Lady monarch on milkweed
Totally upcycled monarch cage!
11. Teach the teen life skills– the boy is growing up way too fast. He will be in high school next year. I want him to be ready to be an independent adult when he decides to leave the nest many years from now!
*he really stepped it up when I was out of town. He got himself out the door to school. Plus he has done his own laundry this month and has been putting the chickens away some nights.
12. Keep track of $ from gardening– I’d love to eventually break even on all of our gardening! We have only sold a couple dozen eggs so far, but the garden cart will be opening this month with some produce!
(No garden cart sales yet! But hopefully soon!)
June was a busy month! Lots of trips and then lots of work getting rid of the weeds when I got home.
Last week was international composting week! It was fun to spread the message about the importance of composting and answering lots of messages about it!
The biggest question that I get a lot is: “can I just make a pile of my food scraps in the yard?” The quick answer is no. A compost pile needs to be almost equal amounts of greens (most things in your kitchen, even coffee grounds) to browns (sawdust, chipped leaves). Any pile that’s out of proportion will either give you a stinky mess or not break down quickly.
We received a compost drop off last week and it is quickly composting in the pile!
My mom is always sweet and saves me her compostables too! She even wraps them in newspaper to avoid plastics!
We try to recycle most of our paper, but we also use some in the compost bin. I just make sure to work in under the compost, so that paper isn’t flying all over the place on a windy day!
Another reason that I love luffas is that they go straight from being used and into the compost bin. They can be used for a long time before they need to go into the compost!
And I figured that I should show off some of the pretty things going on in the garden! The newly planted blueberry bushes are blooming! (And I think I see a few tiny berries!
The Spring raised bed has come to life and the radishes are even ready to be harvested!
The strawberries are starting to look more beautiful by the day too!
I’m going to be attempting to grow some winecap mushrooms underneath of the trellis. Hopefully I have a harvest by fall!
And lastly, I was able to score a couple fig trees for Mother’s Day! Hopefully these beauties grow and we can taste a real fig in a few years!
I can’t wait to share how our grand opening of the little free library went and how much we enjoyed having family over for the event!
Hello May! April was a very green month both at home and school! The goals are being checked off!
And now, the goal updates:
1. Sew my first quilt– The craft that I wanted to try was making my first quilt. Everything is sewn and I just need to quilt and bind it! ** I still need to quilt this thing!**
2. Keep doing good for our community. The town Earth Day clean up was amazing! We had close to 40 volunteers and look at all of trash we kept out of streams and the environment!
We also had a very green week at school and had a school wide composting day. We also planted our school raised bed garden! I’m hoping that the kids get to eat those radishes and some lettuce by the end of the year!
3. Can and save money on our groceries. I am hoping to make a lot of jam and jelly this year! Somehow I didn’t make any last year and the store bought stuff just isn’t the same! We are working on growing lots this year! * here are some strawberry blooms! I’m hoping to make lots of strawberry jam this year!*
4. Use that camper some more! Last year we remodeled and fixed up the camper and traveled to Yellowstone and back. It was a great trip and we have another family camping trip to plan in 2019! This is the major change.
**so here’s the change: I have lots of traveling with being the teacher of the year, so I don’t think that we will be doing much traveling this summer. Unfortunately.
5. Compost!! Composting at school is still going well and we have diverted around 150 pounds of food waste! We are still getting some compostables and I love the yard waste that’s becoming a nice mulch in my garden!
Cut grass makes great mulch!
Older food is loved by the chickens!
6.Little free library/seed sharing- The Library is so close to opening! The library placard is on the way and the ribbon cutting will be happening this month! It’s getting exciting!
7. Grow some new plants: This year we are hoping to grow ground cherries better. Plus, grow blue pumpkins, corn and more gourds! I picked up a lot of great plants at the master gardener plant sale (prickly pear cactus was my favorite find!) and I have a lot of the cooler weather crops in the ground already!
8. Yard to garden our bottom yard. We doubled the size of the garden last year and produced lots of extra food. This year, we want to take out our huge swing set that hasn’t been used in such a long time and start getting rid of grass. I’m hoping to turn this area into more food production with trees, bushes and understory plants.
**We are making progress! The swing set is gone, the little greenhouse was moved over and this month we will be getting rid of all of that grass!
9. Keep reducing our trash We are now on bag 2. We are continuing to watch what we throw out!
**we are still on bag 2!!**
10. Create a Monarch waystation and tagging supplies-Last year we made a wildlife habitat area and we will continue to add to it! We have lots of new plants and even more coming back from last year!
We have 9 butterfly weed plants that came back!
11. Teach the teen life skills– the boy is growing up way too fast. He will be in high school next year. I want him to be ready to be an independent adult when he decides to leave the nest many years from now! He learned how important that it is to help out the community and cleaned up so much for our cleanup day!
12. Keep track of $ from gardening– I’d love to eventually break even on all of our gardening! So this year we will see if we earn more than we spend on all of our efforts! Maybe?!
Our chickens are putting out lots of eggs and we did sell some at the craft show last month!
May is the big month for this region when it comes to gardening! So much will be planted this month and I can’t wait to start showing the walk through the gardens! What are you planting?!
This week started off with my family composting their food waste at our Easter get together!
On a Earth Day I took the scenic route and walked to work! It was a great workout! (Our view really is absolutely beautiful up here!)
The next day at school, my husband picked up the topsoil for our raised bed garden and my bff teacher and I were able to get the bed ready for planting during our planning!
And the students were able to get radishes and leaf lettuce planted the next day!
On Friday we held a school wide composting day and the students checked out some of the bottom of the compost pile. They loved seeing what their pizza crusts and other leftovers turned in to!
And check out how much trash was picked up at our town wide clean up!
We had close to 40 volunteers! I’m hoping to keep this going again next year and bring in even more help!
And look at this gem that my boy found sticking up out of the dirt in a ditch:
This evening I was cutting the grass. When I looked down, I was shocked to see these beautiful mushrooms sticking up out of the landscaping! They will be delicious!
And finally, I took in a few hens that tended to be escape artists and enjoyed visiting a neighbor. They are fitting in well so far! And, they lay beautiful blueish-green eggs!
It was a great green week and I’m looking forward to continuing to spread more green-ness wherever I go!
I have been so incredibly busy this month! I’m polishing my teacher of the year documents and getting everything for my portfolio in order. And on top of that, getting seeds planted and prepping for our 2019 garden!
Don’t mind the weeds, but I have 2 long rows of potatoes that are already starting to break their way through the soil!
I planted 6 asparagus crowns too!
Our seedlings under the grow lights are shooting up and I’m hoping to get our tiny greenhouse cleaned out and ready for more seedlings!
Cucamelons seedlings
Tomatoes
Jalapeño peppers
Ground cherries
We have also started taking in compostables and I’m hoping to get as much this summer as we did last summer!
Yesterday I was set up at a local craft show. It was a beautiful day outside, so not many people showed up. But, I did teach a couple people about the importance of milkweed for monarchs. And, I talked growing food and gardening with many others!
Last night we finally took the raised bed down to the school. I’m hoping to get the soil in it and planted by the end of the month!
This month is flying by and I’m looking forward to getting the garden planted!
March 2019 will be a month that I remember for a lifetime! I was named teacher of the year for my county, my boy made the high school band and all of our plans have been changed!
And now, the goal updates:
1. Sew my first quilt– The craft that I wanted to try was making my first quilt. Everything is sewn and I just need to quilt and bind it!
2. Keep doing good for our community. I am still planning the Earth Day cleanup for my neighborhood and I have been doing all kinds of volunteering with the Master Gardeners. I also had another nice day to do a clean up around town!
Master gardener demo garden
St. Patrick’s clean up day
3. Can and save money on our groceries. I am hoping to make a lot of jam and jelly this year! Somehow I didn’t make any last year and the store bought stuff just isn’t the same! We are working on growing lots this year!
4. Use that camper some more! Last year we remodeled and fixed up the camper and traveled to Yellowstone and back. It was a great trip and we have another family camping trip to plan in 2019! This is the major change.
**so here’s the change: I have lots of traveling with being the teacher of the year, so I don’t think that we will be doing much traveling this summer. Unfortunately.
5. Compost!! Composting at school is still going well and we have diverted around 120 pounds of food waste from the landfill. We are still composting our own food waste here at home. We have also been receiving some drop offs of chicken treats and tons of leaves.
6.Little free library/seed sharing- Well, the cabinet turned out to not really work. But, the Mr has been working away at creating a library from scratch! It’s looking great!
7. Grow some new plants: This year we are hoping to grow ground cherries better. Plus, grow blue pumpkins, corn and more gourds! I decided to pick up a few more seeds online. I have big plans!!
8. Yard to garden our bottom yard. We doubled the size of the garden last year and produced lots of extra food. This year, we want to take out our huge swing set that hasn’t been used in such a long time and start getting rid of grass. I’m hoping to turn this area into more food production with trees, bushes and understory plants. We planted a couple blueberry plants, but have plans for more. And, we need to break down that swing set!
9. Keep reducing our trash We are now on bag 2. We are continuing to watch what we throw out!
10. Create a Monarch waystation and tagging supplies-Last year we made a wildlife habitat area and we will continue to add to it! Our milkweed is growing so well! And I’m happy to report that many lupines are growing well too!
11. Teach the teen life skills– the boy is growing up way too fast. He will be in high school next year. I want him to be ready to be an independent adult when he decides to leave the nest many years from now! Turns out he already knew how to use a saw and square properly and helped to make the raised bed garden for my students!
12. Keep track of $ from gardening– I’d love to eventually break even on all of our gardening! So this year we will see if we earn more than we spend on all of our efforts! Maybe?! (Change in plans!! Turns out my boy is going to Disney World with the band. So, we will be putting any money that we make from crafting/blacksmithing and gardening towards this trip!)
March was a great month! I’m looking forward to getting more seeds planted and planting the raised bed garden at school. I can’t wait to get my garden planted and beautiful! What all are you planting right now?!
I know that I am looking forward to warmer. weather!!
Winter returned this week and we have had some snow, ice and lots of below freezing temps. But, there is lots prep work going on around here for spring!
The compost is cooking away and will make great plant food for the garden!
We have a few plants growing under the lights so far. The onions and milkweed are in soil and lots more seeds are being sprouted first. The pollinator garden should look pretty nice this year!
Butterfly milkweed
Sprouted lupine seeds
Did I mention that the chicken quilt topper is finished? Well, it is!! Now I just need to learn how to quilt it!
And before I started any seeds, I needed to plan my garden and make sure that I had room for everything that I wanted to grow. I needed to start my long season crops!
At school this month we have reached some green milestones! We have recycled over 300 pounds of plastic film, 1,100 plastic cereal bowls, and have saved 100 pounds of food waste from the trash! (Since the beginning of the year!)
Snow on the compost!
So many bowls. ♻️
And, here at home, we finally had to take out the trash for the first time in 2019.
And I always enjoy sharing a picture of our beabull! He thinks he’s a tiny baby.
I’m feeling the nerves coming on pretty strong for tomorrow! I have my interview to compete for the county wide teacher of the year. I just want to represent myself and school well! I could use lots of extra positive vibes sent my way! So, here’s to a nerve wracking Monday!
This week was a cold icy week and we didn’t have much school. So, that means that the teen was eating everything that was in our house! I eventually had to make extra yummy food! We had homemade fajitas (so easy to make! Flour, water, salt and shortening)
We also decided that we needed something yummy, so I thawed out some frozen zucchini and used the eggs that were frozen from the polar vortex to make some zucchini cake:
The Mr. has been busy in the shop working on a big project for the house! (Which I cant wait to share when it is finished!) But, he was also able to whip up a few hooks for someone else’s project!
At school, I managed to snatch up all of the plastic bottles from the faculty lounge to recycle for them. And, I happened to snag up some rolls for the chickens that were being thrown out!
And a sweet neighbor, who was part of our summer composting program, dropped off more treats for the chickens!
Maybe it’s the days getting a little longer, or all of the treats, but I’m just glad to see my hens finally laying some eggs!
For the rest of the weekend, I plan on working on my teacher of the year paperwork, sewing on my chicken quilt, starting my plans for the garden and spending time with my family.
🌱keep blooming friends! (Spring is right around the corner!) 🌸
llewellynhomestead 