Challenges Ahead

We are so grateful and happy that our little vegetable pad is doing well - thus far at least. There were instances of suspected fungal issues (which went away after I watered less straight after transplanting and avoided overhead watering), some aphids issue (which we resolved by releasing a whole lot of ladybugs into the garden), and caterpillar issues (which we determined were the bad sort and is currently under control by the use of some neem oil as well as physical removal of the voracious eaters). I am still watching the lemon and blueberry shrubs carefully, which all seem to be malnourished or not quite 100% given their yellowing or disfiguring leaves. For them, I've added iron and sulphur as well as other nutrients. I hope it's not Nematodes or other more serious disease I am not aware of. I've been reading so much trying to figure out what's wrong (and what to do), yet one can never be sure based simply on a few pictures. Just as when Dennis was ill (he is all well again, thank goodness. A case of food poisoning or stomach flu is what we think it is), all his symptoms corresponded to all kinds of illnesses. Same with the plant leaves coloring that I tried to match to pictures I find on the internet. For now, as a matter of expediency (for lack of time), I can only sit back, observe, and hope that I've provided the best possible care already and hope the plants have sufficient reserves to fight back on their own.

Looking ahead, there is so much to do still. Since we didn't grow up with gardening and do not have natural green thumbs (they were heretofore rather black), we embarked on this in a rather academic fashion. That is, we haul loads of gardening books home from the library, I signed up for classes, we research online, take notes.... Part of the challenge is that not only do we want to grow food, we want to do it ecologically, sustainably, and do it beautifully. And did I mention economically yet? In short, not only do we (or I) have to come up with a grand design in terms of uses and look/style, we (or I) have to think about and incorporate all kinds of ecological and biological variables that would make or break the plan.

And there is so much to think about! How to design such that we can have a sustainable garden that invites friendly wildlife, have an area to entertain and have fun with the children, as well as relax and unwind? What would go where?

We say patience. Sit back and observe first the land, how the sun falls, the wind blows, the life that the soil supports (weeds)... however, sometimes, the weeds and the general messiness makes my heart impatient. Still, I'll have to be patient. Bun 2 will be arriving in three months and some and I expect I won't have much time in the immediate months after to do too much planning.

More harvests and illnesses

Dennis has been going through a rough patch health wise. It began with the awful episode of gout, which started to plague him during our trip to New York (seriously marred our trip). His toes started to hurt, but the pain migrated to his knees (not sure if it was gout too or it was because he was putting his weight all funny on his knees), and then caused all over distress in general because he couldn't get comfortable. It wasn't until a few days ago that he regain full use of his body and was fit enough to walk normally and even to do gardening work. In short, it took just about three full weeks for him to recover. Unfortunately, he woke up all tired today. We didn't think much of it and enjoyed a morning with our friends. But as soon as they left, Dennis practically collapsed into bed. He was so tired he was shaking. He had a long nap, but woke up with a massive headache and nausea. Thinking it was simply a case of having too much sun and not enough hydration, he took an advil and drank plenty of water. He recovered enough to take Zoe to pick up groceries. I decided it was not a simple case of exhaustion (or heat exhaustion) when, after dinner, Dennis started to get the shivers and chills again. He came to bed to rest, and woke up only to throw up, hydrate and brush his teeth. Very worrisome!

He is sleeping next to me now, under two layers of blanket. I'm hoping the Chinese method of sweating it out - i.e. elevate body temperature to kill the virus - would help. But he seems not at all sweaty under all that layers. I don't think he is even feeling hot at all. Sigh!

All the healthy eating of fresh produce from our garden hasn't helped. Alas!

Sheet Mulching!!

We have been meaning to sheet mulch many areas of our garden. We finally started on a section of our front yard this past Friday. Sheet mulching, by mimicking what happens on a forest floor, is a method of soil improvement without tilling and for killing existing weeds. Basically, to sheet mulch, one lays down layers of manure, compostable weed barrier, natural mulching material such as leaves or seed free straw, more compost and a final layer of weed barrier such as grass clippings or fine wood chips. One is supposed to water well in between the layers.

The method sounds simple. Most books or people who have done it says the challenging part is the gathering of all the material needed before hand. I would agree with that. But now that we have done it, I'd say they should have warned that it also takes quite a few hours to lay the material down in layers. For us, it was really a full days' effort for an area about 8' x 45' in size. I started on Friday morning with cutting down the weeds and putting down a layer of manure and things like blood meal. Dennis and I continued with putting down the card board (the weed barrier layer) in the late afternoon. On Saturday, it was basically another full 6 hours of labor on Dennis' part to get it all done.

The completed sheet mulch

But what satisfaction it is when it was finally done! We have been admiring it since. I really hope this helps improve our soil condition - it is hard, hard clay we have.


We still have six bales of straw leftover, and our friend Sean and Christina promised to bring us more of the moving boxes they want to get rid of. So, with any luck, we'll probably get around to more areas in two weeks' time.

First Harvests

Our little dream is coming true! We are starting to eat from our garden! I harvested a few zucchinis for lunch on Friday (cooked it with tomatoes, garlic, chickpeas and tossed with penne). The zucchinis were still small, around three inches long. But I read that they are good and tender at this stage. Also, I noticed some were hanging low to the ground and I didn't want to rot before we have a chance to get them. Today, I cut a bunch of spinach leaves from the heads we have been growing to go into the miso udon soup we were having for lunch. It made for a nice, light and wholesome lunch.

Looking like a school girl already

A woman's love of shoes must be innate

Dennis and I decided that a woman's love of shoes must be innate. Today, Zoe saw for the first time the pair of sandals PoPo and Gong Gong bought for her. First she tried to put the pair of sandals on herself. Without success, she let Dennis help her. When it was on, she looked down at her feet and declared them "lovely." Then, she did a little pose with them. Dennis kept asking me if I taught her this, unbelieving that our little girl has such a love for shoes. It has nothing to do with me! As much as I love shoes, I haven't indulged in shoes in a long while and so she has never seen me salivate after shoes. It must be instinct.

Talk about instinct, we are also very pleased with Zoe's generous instinct. Today, a Giggle Store catalog arrived in the mail and I showed it to Zoe. She studied it closely and not long after pointed to a playmat said "Mama, you should buy this for baby brother! He will like it." She also admired greatly a height chart (because it has a few star fish on it) and said that "I'll get this for baby brother." It made us smile. Bun 2 is so lucky. His big sister already loves him so!

Garden Progress

"Everyone who owns a piece of land should husband that land as wisely, knowledgeably, and intensively as possible."

I forget where I got this quote from. But that's what we are trying to do these days with the land we have. Though we have come a long way, there is still a long journey ahead. It is May now and I am happy to report that we have one garden bed going (and looking good). Another one is planted with seeds (carrots, lettuce, choggia beets) and some store bought young plants (spinach, beets, onion and garlic). One also set out seeds in another herb bed, but that's been two weeks now and has failed to take it seems. We also planted one Dwarf Meyer Lemon tree and five blueberries plants a couple of weeks ago, and I just sowed plenty of New Zealand white clover as cover crop in the space between them. Hopefully these grow In short, I've met put of my goal of getting at least one vegetable bed going this year. And I'm trying to - or setting them out as best as I can - using permaculture principles.



What the garden (and house) used to look like



We discovered a friendly snake while clearing the garden area right outside the kitchen


Dennis working in the garden with Zoe watching


The area cleared of vegetation and partially amended


Zucchini - When it was still small



They got big!


Our little garden helper

New Template & New Title

I haven't been posting to the blog the last couple of months with great regularity. It all stemmed from frustration with blogger. For some reason, I was not able to post pictures. The upload would be successful, and the preview would show the picture but the actual published post would be sans picture. It was all very vexing. I was about to abandon Blogger altogether last night (after yet another failed attempt to understand why I could not longer post pictures) when Dennis finally intervened. After some investigation, we figured out that it is not my mac that is causing the problem (Dennis used my computer to post pictures to the blog successfully). After further investigation, we realized that the interface I got and the interface he got for posting to the blog was different. Finally, clever Dennis found out that blogger had switched me to "Updated Editor," which clearly wasn't working out for me. He switched me back to "Old Editor," and voila, everything works the way it did again. I am happy as a clam again, but until Dennis resolved it, I was a raving mad bull about to rip some asses and rib cages! Have I become a Luddite? I really don't like it when technology company - albeit ones providing free service to me - change things without asking and change things for the worse no less.

Anyhow, now that the picture upload is resolved, and I feel renewed vigor towards keeping our blog updated, I thought it is a good idea to change the address and blog title to reflect the expected arrival of baby boy Kim. Dennis agrees and so we changed the address from Dennisjackie to Fourkims and to shorten the title from "Adventures and Misadventures of Dennis, Jackie, & Zoe" to simply "Growing Children, Growing Plants." It is more accurate too since we are out hiking & backpacking less (or hardly) these days and our main preoccupation (after work and Zoe) is gardening.

I also changed the template to reflect the changes that are happening and will be happening. I'll probably muck around a little more before settling on a look that both Dennis and I like.

It's a....

Boy! We went in for our scheduled Amniocentesis yesterday morning. Right before it, we - baby and I - received a thorough ultrasound check up. And there, after a few minutes of looking at the vital organs, backbone, bone structure and so on and so forth, the technician asked us if we were interested in baby's gender. We said "yes!" She maneuvered the - whatever that thing is called - to the baby's genital area and we saw quite clearly that bun 2 is going to be a boy! Even though Dennis and I didn't really have a preference, we were both overjoyed to hear that bun 2 is going to be a boy (subject to the results confirming this of course). A girl and a boy we would have. What happy news. Zoe is going to have a little brother, and Dennis and I are going to be parents to a boy too.

Baby Inside

Zoe knows of the baby growing inside me almost right from the beginning. We thought she deserve to know, and should be prepped for it, since her life would be vastly impacted after the arrival of another little one in the family. So far, aside from a short period where she was at turns extra clingy and extra hard on me, and insisting that she is a baby (and no longer the "big girl" she was so proud of being), she is taking it very well. She says things like "I'll sit right here next to Mama so that I don't squeeze baby, alright?" or "I'll sit down carefully on Mama's belly, alright?" She obviously took to heart what Dennis said about her being careful with mama and not plopping herself down to hard on my lap. The other day, she stuffed one of her animals under her dress and proceeded to tell me how she too she a baby in her belly!

Of course, no matter what, there must be a period of insecurity when a new baby comes home. For the first couple of weeks, as I recuperate and adjust to taking care of a newborn again, I'd have less time for Zoe. No longer will she have (almost) undivided attention from me. She'd have to share!

We are preparing her for it - at least trying to tell her about the things she can do. We tell her that she can teach the new baby things. In fact, when I told her as much the other day, she thought - with her thumb in her mouth - for a minute, and then declared that she would teach the baby "how to suck the thumb!" (Of course, She removed her thumb from her mouth just long enough to make that declaration).

Sixteen weeks inside!

Expanding Family

Soon, if all things go well, we'd have to change the title of this blog to the "The Adventures & Misadventures of Dennis, Jackie, Zoe and Bun 2." Yep, we are expecting. :)

I hope we are not plain old crazy to want to do this again. Well, too late now!

Potty Milestone

Funny thing to record here, but record here I will so that this milestone will not be forgotten: Zoe managed to go successfully on the potty three times today. One of the time, it was on the portable potty (we had to wait for nearly half an hour while she sat on the portable potty in the trunk). Zoe kept saying "not yet" I thought it was yet another failed attempt, but when I lifted her up, the yellow pee was clearly there. What joy! I think she was so interested in the new portable potty, and encouraged by her success, she became immensely interested in using the potty. Exciting!!