My chickens blessed me with 2 eggs, too bad my husband ate 3 for breakfast, so now I am down 1 egg ;). And I harvested some herbs, I decided this would be right to do now because it is supposed to be getting colder from now on, and it would be a shame to let them go to waste!

Parsley - 23 grams

I cut it into pieces and froze it in the storage container. So whenever I need some I can just get the amount out that I need and leave the rest in the freezer. The same goes for the chives (87 grams!):

For some reason I can’t get the picture to turn the right way :S

And finally I harvested 26 gramsof oregano:

Which I will leave to dry and then store it with my other dried herbs so I can use it when I make dinner.

So I guess not a bad day!

Today I made a raised bed and planted garlic. It is my first raised bed, but the rest of my garden is kind of full with stuff from this year (pumpkins) and strawberries. And I made my garden a little bigger this weekend, but that is hard work, and I decided a raised bed would be quicker. I just put it on top of the grass, I decided the grass will probably suffocate and die and be a good compost layer. Then I added some halfway composted grass and fully composted material. I am anxious to see when my garlic will sprout. I was wanting to buy real planting garlic but I couldn’t really find it so I just used cloves of garlic from my kitchen. And of course I added rainwater.

On the way home from picking up my son from daycare (I usually walk because that way I can take the dog) we picked up some apples for the rabbits/chickens, they were very happy about that! Here you can see the rooster enjoying an apple.

I have a question: I want to grow potatoes next year, but the thing is, in order to store them for a long time you have to keep them in a cool, dry, dark place. I have a cellar but it is not try at all, and I can not think of another cool/dark place. Any suggestions?

I have been wondering about what I should write on this blog about for a while now. I would like to say I have a pretty interesting life, but I am not sure how many of you would agree with me :)

Last year in september (2011) we bought a house in Germany, we have about a 1000 m2 garden, so not to huge but big enough to become a little more self-sufficient. And I think that in the last year I have been turning into a “Hippy.” I am not sure how else to describe it.

I study animal sciences in the Netherlands, I major in animal nutrition, but I was also interested in sustainability, so I took some classes about that. Ever since I did I have become more aware of the environment around me and the way people (including myself) treat the environment.

I have decided I will do my best to be more sustainable. I have a small vegetable garden, so far this year we have eaten many strawberries, all sorts of lettuce, kohlrabi, peas, zuchini, and many more, I have herbs (oregano, chive, parsley, mint and some more), all sorts of berries and an apple tree (no apples this year since we moved it last year). What we don’t eat ourselves is fed to the chickens and rabbits.

As it was my first year for a garden I didn’t make it very big. At the end of the winter:

Early summer:

Since Zuchini plants take up a lot of room:

The zuchini plants didn’t do very well this year, while last year I had them in pots as well and I was giving them away for free.

I would really like it though if next year we can make it to christmas with our own grown veggies, so I am making it bigger and better next spring :)

As I said we have chickens and rabbits. 2 laying hens and 1 rooster, I hope to have chicks next year so we can expand our chicken population :)

They are orpingtonchickens. They are supposed to have a really good character, but when we got them they were already a year old and they haven’t been in contact with humans a lot. I think we’ve had them for 2 months now, and they are getting more curious, especially the rooster.

We also have 2 rabbits, they live with the chickens in the same outdoor area, but have their own “house”. We made a bunker underground for them 2 weeks ago and they have a lot of fun in there. We had 3 rabbits but unfortunately we had to put one down this week because it was very sick.

I really like looking at these pictures because it is all so green, now after about 4 months of them living in there it is not very green anymore. So now when we mow the lawn we dump the grass, and when I am making my veggiegarden bigger I dig out the grass and place it in the rabbitpen, it never lasts very long :)

Whenever I don’t have something myself I would like to purchase it local. I have seen signs of farmers selling right from the farm. I keep telling myself I should go there but I never do. Now I will, I have set the date for friday to go to the farmers market (about 30 km from here) and a farmer that sells beef, potatoes, chicken, pork and some other stuff. I just need to find an address for milk/yoghurt/cheese.