Mark & Beth's Homegrown Adventure
We're learning how to live more sustainably at home in the suburbs. Come along and learn with us!
Tag: nature
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Season of Renewal
When I started this blog, my goal was to update it weekly in the hope of building a following. But life got messy, and I told myself monthly would be okay. But life got messier, and here I am, not having posted since October. The truth is, my inspiration has been low. We’ve continued to…
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Bittersweet Day in the Garden
Well, today’s the day. The low tonight in our area is forecasted to be around 35 degrees and there’s a freeze watch. So we spent the morning harvesting anything that was ready to eat and likely wouldn’t survive a freeze in case we do get one. The harvesting part is fun of course. We got…
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September Garden Update
I’m really enjoying September in the garden. Granted, we had a serious heat spell early in the month that threatened my fall plants, but with some shade and lots of water, the broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage survived. I should have taken a picture of it but forgot… but we had a beach umbrella in the…
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August Garden Update!
A lot has happened since our July garden update. It’s weird that I don’t feel like we’ve gotten a ton to harvest, but when I was collecting pictures for this post, I realized that really, while we haven’t had an abundance of anything in particular, we have indeed eaten a lot of different things that…
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Three-Ingredient Wild Blackberry Jam
Mark and I were hiking down a trail we’d never checked out before in our local park, hoping to come across some chanterelle or oyster mushrooms (no such luck yet, but I have hope). Instead, among a forest of poison ivy, we found brambles on brambles of wild blackberry bushes! My first thought was a…
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It’s the Season of Cucurbits
Can you tell I only learned the word “cucurbit” this past year? These are the plants that make up the gourd family, including things like zucchini, summer squash, watermelon, cucumbers, and winter squashes such as spaghetti and butternut. Here in late July, they’re also the plants that are requiring the most effort for me. I’ve…
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Cute lil’ Harvest & Garden Pupdate
I was about to write, “we finally did some harvesting from the garden!” But really, it wasn’t our first harvest. Just our first big(ish) harvest. Before today, we picked some sprigs of rosemary, mint, and parsley, some sweet peas, and enough lettuce and kale for a couple small side salads. But it doesn’t feel like…
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Summertime Foraging
Gotta be honest, foraging in the summer isn’t quite as fun for me as foraging in the spring was. I think the summertime finds are less exciting and less desirable to eat overall (other than the wild black raspberries, which I didn’t get a picture of because I ate them too fast). Not to mention…
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June Garden Update
Patience, patience, patience. A necessary trait for home gardeners, especially if you’re starting from seed. That’s one of the biggest lessons I’m learning here in our first year of gardening. Things are growing, but slowwwwwly. The weather has been a challenge, and apparently many gardeners in my area (Pittsburgh) are experiencing similar problems. We had…
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Hey, What’s Bloomin’?
While summer technically isn’t here yet, it sure has felt like it lately in southwestern PA. The last couple weeks have been crazy dry (like, no rain whatsoever) and crazy hot (90 degree days in late May). It’s required a lot of work in the garden to make sure nothing was burning out or drying…
Mark & Beth's Homegrown Adventure 