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Blue Bungalow Farm: October 2009

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Words and images from the life of a writer and urban homesteader. Saturday, October 24, 2009. Trial and Error, Part II. As promised, here's a more detailed report of my experience growing various fruits and vegetables this summer. My dwarf fruit trees and shrubs (pomegranate, fig, blueberry, orange, pictured to the left) did well. They quietly grew all summer long in containers on my front porch steps. Some of them doubled in size, and one of the pomegranates even grew a few tiny flowers. The onions I pl...

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Blue Bungalow Farm: April 2011

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Words and images from the life of a writer and urban homesteader. Tuesday, April 19, 2011. The Joys of Nurturing Baby Plants. In about one week I’m going to plant two more flats of seeds: pumpkins and sunflowers. I start these large, fast-growing plants indoors, even though the package directions say to sow them outside after the last frost. Why? The seed starter mix I use is based on the following recipe, inspired by Gayla Trail of You Grow Girl. Combine equal parts of:. In early May it will be time to ...

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Blue Bungalow Farm: May 2011

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Words and images from the life of a writer and urban homesteader. Wednesday, May 25, 2011. In my last blog post. I shared some of my knowledge about composting in honor of International Compost Awareness Week. I began composting in 1999, when I bought my first bin (something along the lines of this. A hot compost pile is desirable because (A) heating causes compost to form much faster – it only takes about three months; (B) the quality of the compost is higher because of all the additional microbia...

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Blue Bungalow Farm: Transitioning with the A/C

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Words and images from the life of a writer and urban homesteader. Saturday, July 2, 2011. Transitioning with the A/C. Today I caved and did something I've only done a few times over the last four years: I turned on my air conditioner. It's not particularly stifling according to the thermometer, but after 24 hours with a heat index in the mid-to-upper nineties, it was steamy inside my house. The six of us (including one 90-pound, long-haired dog) were starting to wilt. And various e-mail lists. Part of tr...

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Blue Bungalow Farm: Vanishing Bees

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Words and images from the life of a writer and urban homesteader. Thursday, June 9, 2011. I held on to my fear of nearly all creatures of the order hymenoptera. For a very long time. That fear worsened as I grew up and read books like A Taste of Blackberries. In which a young boy dies from an allergic reaction to bee stings. My grandma is allergic to bees, so I figured that I might be, too. All the more reason to flee on sight of any yellow-and-black-backed insect. Photographer: Steven T. Zydek. And http...

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Blue Bungalow Farm: December 2010

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Words and images from the life of a writer and urban homesteader. Tuesday, December 28, 2010. My Gardening and Sustainability Year in Review. As I prepare for the start of a new year, I've taken a few moments to reflect on some of my accomplishments and failures in home and garden, and on what I plan to do in 2011. Helping a neighbor compost. After last year's debacle getting our home inspected by Keith Williams. The bare root hazelnuts I ordered last year from Gurneys. Killing ants with pesticides.

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Blue Bungalow Farm: A Fishy Trip to the Beach

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Words and images from the life of a writer and urban homesteader. Tuesday, July 12, 2011. A Fishy Trip to the Beach. One of our favorite perks of life in the Milwaukee area is easy access to the shores of Lake Michigan. We moved here in 2006 from land-locked Champaign-Urbana and soon formed a habit of visiting the lake, sometimes daily, to dip our feet in the water at Bradford Beach or walk along the shore at Klode Park in Whitefish Bay in search of sea glass and cool rocks. By global climate change?

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Blue Bungalow Farm: August 2009

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Words and images from the life of a writer and urban homesteader. Thursday, August 27, 2009. The Trials of Life. The summer has gotten away from me, I'm afraid, and as I was preparing a post about what I've learned this season about gardening through trial and error, a much bigger life lesson was pitched my way. I found out on Monday, August 24 that I have thyroid cancer. This is the note I shared on Facebook announcing the news to friends and family:. This morning, pre-surgery #2, I'm trying to keep bus...

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Blue Bungalow Farm: March 2011

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Words and images from the life of a writer and urban homesteader. Monday, March 28, 2011. More on Grow Lights. After posting Read This Before You Buy Grow Lights. I received a couple of responses to the post, mostly from commercial vendors of grow lights of various types. I found one of those messages intriguing because it presented a concept entirely foreign to me: growing under LEDs (Light-emitting Diodes). Here's the letter sent by Alex McQuown, Research Director of EcogroLED. In Riverside, CA:. For j...

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Blue Bungalow Farm: January 2010

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Words and images from the life of a writer and urban homesteader. Tuesday, January 26, 2010. This time of year, I start to go through green withdrawal. I can already feel myself welling up with a desperate longing for warm weather, for the sweet smell of dirt and rain and chlorophyll and the sight of green life springing from the earth. To ease my withdrawal symptoms, today I took some stratified. Posted by Heather Zydek. Tuesday, January 19, 2010. Toilet Paper Rolls for Seed Starting. Random Acts of Pub...