My 6 month urban gardening journey so far

When we moved back to the city in late March 2017 I brought with me all my container plants from the farm. In photos I'll show you the highlights of what has been happening here these last 6 months. 

If you like watching videos...

Here is my latest Urban Garden tour YouTube video that I put out just last week!

These are my winter container plants in crates from the farm; carrots, chard, greens and broccoli.

I grew shorty carrots in crates at the farm over the winter! This batch of carrots was harvested from my 2nd attempt, which I planted a month after my first attempt. The first attempt did germinate but they didn't grow big tops on them and after 3 mths I harvested them and they were only an inch or two long. These carrots above were grown well and properly and did great!!!

Here are my container plants leftover from the farm just as we got to the new house. This is a side yard in an urban neighborhood, it is east facing and in shade from 12pm and on. 

A small succulent "garden" I put together! It brought me a lot of joy until it died due to lack of water one time when we were out of town, the irrigation line that was near it fell away from it. :(

I got a few more plants and in this photo you can see my 3 citrus trees I dug up and brought with us from the farm!

Beautiful succulent!

Grape planted in a tire raised bed! <3

I got new plants in early June to take on a new project of finally making raised beds because almost everything I had in individual containers...DIED....

I picked a spot along the side of the house and prepped the soil with amendments...

And used 8 tires to make 4 raised beds.

And I planted veggies and herbs in all of them, right away! I used composted woodchips, potting soil and amendments. I also added red wiggler worms to the soil in these beds to help have happy, healthy soil!

The very next day I made a DIY shade cloth and added bamboo fencing between the tires and the side of the house because the stucco side of the house gets really warm fast and radiates that heat back at the plants.

Then I came through and added a flower or two to each tire bed to add color and hopefully bring in the bees to help pollinate my veggie plants!

A fun shot one evening gardening at sunset!

I put together more crates to garden in because I decided I wanted to put in corn before it was too late (this was early June 2017).

I also planted sunflowers in the containers beside the milk crates. And then in the 2 end milk crates I planted okra and green beans.

Then I did more rearranging of the old small chicken coop and moved my garden shed over to the east side of the garden and used 6 old tires (and painted them this time) to put in a few more beds. 

I picked up sweet potatoes and cucumber in these beds to try to see if they would produce late in the season. 

This is what the corn containers looked like before we went on vacation back to Arkansas in June.

2 & 1/2 weeks later when we got back this is what our corn looked like!!!

Here are what my other plants looked like when we returned home. We lost flowers due to lack of enough water with the soaker hose irrigation system I setup for while we were away. They were on an auto timer and the soaker hose but I don't think they got enough water or they got too much sun.

Green beans and okra came up!

Sunflowers came up!

My corn growing in milk crates at about 4 wks old! <3 It is so beautiful that even if it never produces the way it really should...it has served a purpose to bring me happiness! <3

Basil and Thai basil are going crazy and they're so pretty!

Tomato plants sprawling!

Green beans and okra; I pulled out the struggling seedlings and left 1-2 plants in each.

Beautiful 6 wk old corn!!

I caged my 3 tomato plants.

Beautiful flowering basil!

Flowering Thai basil! Gorgeous!

The 3 tire beds on the east side, all of those plants died while were gone. So that area rested for 2 wks and then I planted new seeds. These are the purple hull cowpeas I planted popped up after just 3 days! These sturdy seedlings are only 3 days old!

7 week old corn in crates! Growing like a beast. I have fertilized it once with nitrogen.

Acorn squash seedlings 4 or 5 days old!

Basil and Thai basil going crazy! They are well overdue for a harvest!

I finally got around just this week to harvesting my basil plants!

The amazing harvest, so beautiful and smells beyond amazing!

I had a lot of fun washing and drying basil in my food dehydrator. I have a video coming up on that in a few days. Until then if you want to take a peak at what my garden looks like as of a few days ago check out the video in the link below!

Here is my latest Urban Garden tour YouTube video that I put out just last week!

xoxo,

Elizabeth

Back to school time for my boys! Junior High, that is!

If you followed our journey on our YouTube then you know that for the 2 years we were at the farm I home schooled Riley. He had been in school in Maricopa but when we moved to the farm there was only 1 options for a school and after a month of going there I decided I would rather give it a try to homeschool him to see if that served him better. I did that until we moved back to Maricopa in March 2017 and at that time I put Riley in the local school (his old school) to finish out 6th grade. He transitioned really well and actually did well, which gave me confidence for the time we had spent home schooling. He excelled on all but 1 of his major tests, language arts has always been a weakness of his, something I wish we had worked on more in our time together at home.

Now with Konnor home with us I got the boys all signed up and this year the city moved 6th grade to the Jr High so THANKFULLY the boys get to go to school together. Konnor is in 6th grade and Riley is in 7th. I managed to luckily get them both into the 20+1 program!!!

The 20+1  program is a blended learning environment where kids have a larger class size, 2 teachers instead of one and they work from laptops to do their assignments. They are given all of their weekly assignments on Monday morning and they have all week to get them done. So far their structure is basically 1 subject per day. So they do all of their Science work for the week over the course of one day. 

This allows the kids to be independent learners and thinkers as well as teaching them to be accountable for their own work AND time management skills. One day a week the program focuses on group work and kids pair up into groups of 4 or 5 and work on a group project that has something to do with what they're learning for the quarter. This teaches them the skills of working with others and generally involves very hands on tasks, outdoor activities or creative arts projects. 

On top of all these awesome features the kids still have regular electives like all the other kids. This year Riley signed up for Drama and PE. I urged him to do Drama because he is my quiet, kind soul and as he's almost 13 and already entering his teenage years in size and personality, I want him to get to be more comfortable talking to others, talking in front of groups and expressing his really cute quirky personality in front of people. So I'm hoping that the drama class will do just that and so far he's really enjoying it. Konnor's electives are PE and Computer Applications. So far he is a "peck and hunt" typists, lol, (aren't most kids) but I'm hoping at 11 years old he'll heed some of the lessons in the class because I first learned to type at 13 in a keyboarding class and knowing home row has brought me to where I am today, able to type 85 words per minute! So I hope he at least learns home row this year, haha!

Thankfully we live close enough to the school that the boys can ride their bikes to school! Riley got a new bike for Christmas last year (when I got one soon after so we could do family bike rides, which have been super awesome!) and we saved Riley's old bike for Konnor when we knew he was coming back to live with us because it is just his size and he always used it when he was here visiting last summer. The school is, I think, too far to walk. It is probably a mile and a half way from home but on a bike it doesn't take them more than 10 mins to ride to school. It only sucks a BIT this time of year because it is still 102-105 in the afternoons on their way home. 

This photo is the last time my boys STARTED school together, in 2012. It was June of 2013 when Konnor moved to his dad's. My, they sure have grown!

xoxo,

Elizabeth

In June 2017, I got back full custody of my younger son, Konnor!

In the summer of 2013 my younger son, Konnor, went to go live with his dad in Arkansas. At the time I was a struggling single mother to two boys, self employed and doing everything I could to provide for my children. But Konnor, unfortunately had a lot of asthma issues and the dry desert wasn't doing him any favors. He had his dad and step mom and both of their entire families back in Arkansas (where all of my family is). So he went to his dad's for the summer as a trial to see if his asthma would be better there and in fact, it was. And soon after he got a new baby sister and he loved living there, in the country, with 2 parents and pets and grandparents that had horses. One summer turned into 4 years. For many reasons that time was wonderful for Konnor because he wasn't plagued by illnesses like he had been earlier in life. 

Now the seasons have changed and his dad is going through a divorce and life is rocky there so I got a call asking if I could take back full custody of Konnor because his dad was going through a tough transition that was causing undue stress on our son. I SAID OF COURSE!!! I made plans within a week to head back to Arkansas to pick him up. The last time we had seen him had just been 3 mths before, because over the years we have made it a point to go to Arkansas 2-4 times a year to see him because his dad would never bring him to Arizona or meet us half way. 

So in June Riley and I set out for Arkansas and that is what this blog post is about...me getting back the other part of my heart, that I had been missing ever since the day he left! <3 

Beautiful clouds somewhere over southern New Mexico!

Just east of Dallas, Tx there is beautiful rural country and I imagine my future homestead to look a lot like this one! Or at least I hope!

It is a LONG drive!

Finally back on the roads I grew up on, in north central Arkansas not too far from the Missouri line! 

Heading to Konnor's grandmother's house to pick him up.

This is Konnor's grama's (on his father's side) hobby farm! It is absolutely splendid and until I walked around there I hadn't realized JUST how much I had missed MY farm since we moved to the city 3 mths prior...

This is Konnor's grama's (on his father's side) hobby farm! 

She has a glorious, magnificent wood stove! #lifegoals #homesteadgoals

This is Konnor's grama's (on his father's side) hobby farm! 

All of my family is together again!

A few days later we headed down to "the bottoms" where my dad and the rest of the Huskey gang farm land that has been in our family for generations. As far back as 4-5 generations ago this land was homesteaded by my great, great, great, great grandfather!

Farmer's daughter all the way!

There's my dad!!! It took us 45 mins of driving around to find which tractor he was on, haha!

Yay! My dad was so happy to see us that he almost cried! He said "nobody ever visits me in the bottoms, I can't believe you came so far out of your way for me". Well of course, I wasn't going to come all the way to Arkansas and not get to see my dad just because it's planting season!

The next day we went to visit my Mamaw and Papaw (my dad's parents) who have been on THIS piece of land ever since they were newlyweds. This very house my Papaw built and they raised 5 kids in it and are still there to this day. This place was where I always spent time in the summer when my dad was farming and I have some of the fondest childhood memories from right here!

I love and admire this woman almost more than anyone in my life, I say she's 2nd only to my Mom. 

My Mamaw's garden!

I didn't realize until this trip just how much my soul was needing a good re-charging! It felt amazing to reconnect with family that is dear to me and land that has soothed my soul for so long!

Turns out, we're twins! haha! <3

More vacation fun!

We ended up staying so long in Arkansas (totally unplanned) that we just stayed for and through the 4th of July!!!

They sure have grown! Riley is not even 13 yet and he's already taller than me!

Over the next few weeks I hope to work on catching you guys up on the biggest highlights of the last 2  years so that you might understand everything that has brought us to where we are now in our journey. And getting back custody of my youngest son was the BIGGEST thing that has happened to me in all of 2017!

xoxo,

Elizabeth

Where have I been...

...well, you know life can get crazy! I was having so much fun doing my YouTube channel as well as this blog and THEN gardening AND homeschooling all on top of being a single Mom who is self employed (yeah that sounds like fun, right??) and then it all just got to be too much. So the blog was the thing I had put the least amount of time into and through  YouTube I was feeling a real connection with new people and a growing sense of community! So that would be why you haven't seen me blog in some time.

And now here I am in a whole different life, it seems, and having a growing sense to reconnect with the writing sides of my passions. Writing for me has always been a true hobby, passion and something that makes me feel almost centered and connected with who I am. I sit down to write and it feels like I put absolutely no thought or effort into what comes out, like it is coming from my soul.

So here I am, trying to reconnect through this old blog which I hope becomes a present blog and carries us into the future. Here I hope to bring you guys thoughts and ideas that I can't put into a video and maybe also share my new videos but likely not all, unless I feel they're something special. If you want to see our YouTube channel, as always, I highly recommend checking it out.

Check us out on YouTube here!

The YouTube channel is up to 5,500 subscribers now!!! Can you believe it?!? I am just blown away with the growth the channel has had over the last 18 mths and also with how amazing and supportive people are!

I hope to bring you more very, very soon! Until then stay safe, stay blessed and always find the bright side of things!

XOXO,
Elizabeth