Planting a New Garden

This past week, I have been planting a new garden.  Although I have spent a lot of time thinking and planning in the serene setting of my backyard, this garden will not be planted there.  This garden will be grown at my job.

I am a teacher.  A special education teacher, which, to beat you to the punch, does not mean I have patience.  I have to learn patience every year, just like my students have to learn new reading and math skills.  This year, however, I am starting out with a slightly new perspective, which involves the same patience it takes to grow a garden.  Let me explain.

A seed takes many things to grow, as we all know.  One of those things is the right soil/warmth environment.  Then their are the nutrients, the water and fertilizer.  If you follow my metaphor, the teacher is the gardener, the students are the seeds, the soil is like a classroom environment, and the water and fertilizer are the lessons.  The end goal is for there to be fruit, a harvest of skills and knowledge that will feed the growth of the student.

In years past, I have focused on the lessons I teach, practiced my delivery in my mind, wrote copious notes in my planner.  I hoped that with the right words or activities that my little seeds would exclaim, "Ah ha!!" and sprout.  And sometimes they did.  Sometimes, the right nutrients was all that was needed.  I hope this year to continue to give the right nutrients as I teach my students.  But I believe, this year, I need to attend more to my soil.

What I have learned through gardening is that setting up the right growing environment really gets things growing.  A heap of compost is like a super charged jump start.  Now I won't be heaping any compost on my students, but I have spent more than my usual time and energy setting up my environment for learning.
The fertilizer is in place, the water is automatic, so that my students and I can focus on the growth.

As with everything, there are a lot of elements beyond my control.  So I will have to regularly update you with the signs of progress, the glimmer of green coming through, or the opening of a flower.  As with everything, time will tell, and so will I, for better or worse, so that I may also grow.

Busy Week

Tried out the Perfect Pickler perfectpickler.com and it worked great - got a huge jar of pickling cucumbers together on Sunday ($1 per lb at the Farmers Market) and they were all briny and ready for crunching today.  My oldest daughter has already consumed 1/2 the jar, but we plan to set up a second jar tonight!

Then the beans came in.  They seem to be on steroids right now and we can't eat them fast enough.  So a whole bunch got crammed in a jar for later - thank you Ball Canning Bible for making this so simple!

I also picked up 5 ambrosia cantaloup for a buck a piece and made this cantaloup jam I have been dying to try.  It is truly heaven, and I highly recommend it.  The recipe comes from Blue Chair Jams, which was featured in ReadyMade magazine this month and is coming out with a new jam recipe book.  Not only is this jam very pretty, but it made 8 12oz. jars, so I have lots for gifts, if I don't eat it all!

Remember the apple pie filling that went into to jars a few weeks ago - we made apple turnovers that were to die for!  Our neighbors who shared the apples were mighty happy to have breakfast made for them that day too - they were in the midst of boiling meat for their homemade dogfood - not exactly breakfast feed.

The final achievement of the week was finishing up the larger chicken coop.  The girls seem to have settled in, although I still hear occasional squawking due to their pecking order maneuvering.  The egg laying has slowed a little, and although I put kitty litter boxes in there (on a tip from Mother Earth magazine) for nesting, they haven't taken to them.  They like laying during their foraging time, which results in us finding eggs here and there around the yard.  It's like Easter everyday!  Here is their new feeder, sleeping quarters and an antique doorstop that my mother-in-law found us.

The Latest in Summer Colors and Flavors!

I have to credit Punk Domestics for this awesome recipe - A jam made from peaches, sweet corn and bourbon ( just a splash).  It is absolutely divine.  Check out punkdomestics.com!

On a similar note, Blue Chair Jams is coming out with a recipe book soon and it should be a jam-making gem!

Here are some of the tomatoes harvested recently - so good!  

With a sprinkle of salt and pepper and a drizzle of balsamic if you're feeling it.  I love this time of year!

I won't show you my plants though, they are sagging under the weight of the huge ripening tomatoes, and diverting all their food energy toward the fruit, so the leaves are browning and turning ugly.  They need a little TLC right now.

But look at those tomatoes!