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It would seem that after the Holidays everything just went someplace in the basement... out of sight, out of mind.  I had about a 3ft path to bring the wood and knew this was something I need to tackle, just needed the courage ;o)

I took a couple of before and after pictures so I remember never to let it get to that state again.  Although I still have a bit more to go, I ended up bringing 3 bags of books for donation to the library, donated 3 bags of winter clothing for adults and kids, 2 garbage bags of junk, a list of items to sell on eBay/kijiji and some piece of mind. 

The first picture is from the landing looking to my left where we stack our wood.  On the right is a stack of shelves we built using strapping and old closet doors.  Have a better view of those in the after pictures.  These are great and sturdy shelves deep enough to store our camping gear, coolers, suite cases and even our rotational pantry.  It's amazing how neat everything is when packed properly on the shelves!

Basement After

Once I got started it wasn't so bad. Even my son pitched in and made a bag of toy donations, even though he played with them in the basement more then clean ;o)  It feels so good now to go downstairs and there is a place for the wood, recycled bottles and cans, tools, pantry is packed away, camping gear is packed away, Halloween and Christmas decorations packed away... just neat.

The lessons learned from this was one, we hold on to too much stuff and two, we have too much stuff.  What's hard is deciding what to part with and what to keep.  I'm one of those "I'm sure I could use that someday" guys and need to change that and stick to the necessities. 

We have some plans for the basement and the first step was to

Basement After2

declutter.  This summer we plan on putting in an egress window or a storm door so it's easier to bring in the wood in the fall.  I also have an ambitious plan of building a corner of the basement in to a root cellar so we have a good cold space for preserves and root crops.

In the last picture you can see a better picture of the closet door shelves.  Behind the wall on the right is another closed off section of the basement that was used as a wood working shop by the previous owner.  I didn't take any pictures of that room yet.  I just need to get my own tools to fill it up I guess ;o)

On to the next project for now...

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Backyard Garden 2009

For the past 3 years we've planted a traditional type of row garden in a 14' x 40' and 20' x 6' sections of our backyard.  When we bought the house from my parents, there was a large ornamental flower bed that we slowly converted to a full vegetable garden.  Not really knowing what we were doing, we started slow, learned along the way and know there's much more to learn. 

This picture is the only one I could find that showed the entire garden.  Even though it's a bit small you can see the rows and the 2 apple trees in the back that we planed last spring.  The large tree in the top left corner will be moved as this year we want to move towards raised garden beds.  We want to go down that road for a few reasons:

Dogs: We have a 3 year old and an 8mth old pair of black labs.  They are great but the little one is a digger and chewer, so this is one of the main reasons for the change.  She already chewed up my raspberry bushes planted last year, which was my fault for putting her out where she could reach them, what was I thinking??  More on my remedies for this later.

Square Foot Gardening: The last few years we basically bought our seeds on a whim without much planning.  This worked out OK, but we didn't space our our plantings and ended up with too much lettuce or cherry tomatoes all at once, not enough potatoes, beans or carrots to carry us into winter, etc...  This year we are going to plan for preserves and follow intensive square foot gardening practices to increase our yields and maximize the space we have.  Also want to try companion planting of mutual beneficial vegetables and flowers.

Extending Growing Season: I've seen a few articles on using 8' pvc pipe and cover to create nice row covers to extend the growing season here in our Great White North when frost comes earlier then we want, so want to test it this year along with possibly experimenting on a few removable "Cold Frame" cover for the beds.

Ease of Management:I've never worked with raised beds before, but from I've read and feedback I've received from others, they are easier to keep up and work on.  Ours will be hemlock, which will match our fence when it goes up.  Everything is at an arms length away and the paths in between give you ample room to move about, also important for the dogs and kids ;o)

Esthetics's:I honestly find raised beds more neat and esthetically pleasing to the eye.  Since my wife is a photographer, we have a few other backyard projects to create good photo ops, which will tie into the beds as well.

I'm still playing with the design and layout, but we can easily go with eight 4' x 12' raised beds in the main area and another two 4' x 8' in the back.  This year we're going to test growing potatoes in a "potato stack" so that will be in addition to the raised beds and another post all together.

Putting money away for this project already and will purchase the hemlock for the raised beds in end of April or start of May depending on how the thaw goes... can't wait and will do a follow up post including pictures ;o)

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2010 is here and with it comes new plans and aspirations.  I'm sure everyone has felt that there are just not enough hours in a day to learn all the things you want to learn... at least that's how I feel ;o)  It would seem that every time I start learning one thing I get an idea for another project so I'm trying to come up with a "list" to keep me on track.

Like everyone else, we have a lot going on in our family while still working on living a more sustainable lifestyle and making the right choices for the environment and our future.  The following list is a transcription of my notepad I drafted up today and expanded on... daunting at first glance, but nice to have a starting point and some ideas.

Things to Learn & Research

• Custom Glassware:  This is a small hobby project for my wife and I to possibly make custom jewelry from scavenged sea glass.  Also looking into small kiln to fire glass jewelry.
• Sewing:  Have the sewing machine, just need to learn how to use it.  My mom will teach me ;o)  She is an awesome quilter and I can only hope to be half as good.
• Soap Making:  Want to learn to do this with my son so he can make is own special soap (incentive to bath nightly..lol)
• Beekeeping:  Always was interested in beekeeping and can watch/photograph bees being bees all day long. 
• Chickens:  Want to learn all I can about keeping chickens for eggs so when the time comes that I convince my wife I can jump at the opportunity. 
• Plan Garden for Preserves:  We don't have the luxury of gardening year round and have a short growing season.  Although we eat fresh all summer, we run out by the Thanksgiving so this year want to focus on expanding the garden and planning for preserves for the winter months.

Building/Fabrication Plans

• Old School Chalk Board: We want a large old school chalk board in our kitchen to mark down notes.  I want to scavenge some old weathered window frames or something to frame the actual board to give it an old country look.
• Soil Seedling Pot Maker:  This is a must for this year.  I have plans in my head on how to build this and am a hobbyist metal fabricator with tools so this should be easy right?
• Compost Grinder: Currently have a homemade pallet composing bin I'd like to throw into high gear and multiply.
• Wood Caddy: Going to fabricate a wood caddy to bring in my 3 cords of wood for winter heating that will also double as a gardening wagon.  I am not doing 284 hand loads down a flight of stairs again next year!
• Design & Fabricate Garden Ornaments:  I've been asked to do some metal sculptures so going to start with scare crow, bean poles, tomato posts and other functional garden ornaments that come to mind.
• Seedling Starter Rack/Lighting:  This is a must this year and probably the first project as planting season is coming soon!
• Cellar Cold Room:  Want to transform one corner of our cellar into a cold room for storing food during the winter.

Yard/Garden Plans

• Potato Stack:  I read up on this last year and will give it a try this year in a 4x4 bin.  Still have to work out the details as I'm not using old tires, but am curious to see how this method will work out.
• Plan Raised Beds:  This is the biggest change as we transition our conventional row garden to square foot/raised garden beds.  This is mostly due to having dogs and not having a fence around our current garden, plus it will really give character to the backyard along with other design changes.
• Water Catching/Watering System:  Currently have 2 x 55gal water barrels used to water the garden, but have a design in mind to use a 250gal container (think old school western water tower style).  Excited about this one if i can pull it off.

Well that list is a bit daunting and I know some items will drop and others will be added as priorities are shifted and everyday life events occur, but it's nice to have a list and starting point.  Time to start reading and designing plans for the Seedling Starter Rack/Lighting... can't wait to start!

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Well we're already a few days into 2010 and I thought the best way to kick things off would be with a theme redesign.  I really liked the old theme but it was my first shot and I have many new ideas to bring to the site this year, including more dedication.

I wanted a clean display, quick loading and have the ability to customize.   The features I wanted to start with was to have a Twitter feature displaying my latest Tweet and a Picasa feature to display images.  I have other features in mind, but those are the 2 I wanted to start with and get the ball rolling.

Although the site is not 100% the look and feel I want yet, it was good enough to be live and give me incentive to wrap up the loose ends and then give it some personality.  We plan on giving more attention to the blog to document our ideas and progress throughout 2010.  2009 was more about research, 2010 will hopefully be more about application and learning by doing.  We found there are many excellent sites out there, but they are primarily in warmer, longer growing climates.  We look forward to sharing our experiences, good and bad, from our point of view in Eastern Canada where if you don't like the weather you just wait 5 mins.

This adventure really started for us when we bought this house in a 30 year old subdivision in Moncton, New Brunswick.  That's in the East Coast of Canada for those of you who don't know.  Starting with a small vegetable garden it eventually grew and expanded beyond just a garden, but looking at our lives in a different way.  Reducing energy consumption, planning the garden for canning & preserves, composting, recycling, doing away with gas mower and replaced with reel mower while reducing the amount of "lawn" with edible flower beds, planting dwarf apple trees, raspberries and black berries are just a few things we've done in the past couple years. 

Alright, so now that is done I guess I need to put the darn Veseys Seeds Catalog away and start finishing the posts I have started up in draft!!  I'd love to hear your comments and/or suggestions to make the site better and usable so don't be shy ;o) 

PS: If you are from Eastern Canada we'd love to hear from you as well to share experiences.

Thank you,

Henri aka SimpleLivingbyChoice

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Since it's well into 2009 now I thought I'd put down some of our plans for the Urban Homestead.  First though, some accomplishments from 2008.

We expanded the garden and learned how to preserve the basics of our vegetable garden.  We made 24 bottles of salsa and froze onions, carrots, beans and peppers.  After this experience we now have a better understanding of planning a garden for specific yields and times. 

We built a compost bin out of used wood pallets.  This was a fun project and we already have plans to add another to double capacity.  It took a night to build after supper with my 5yr old son helping along.  He is really into composting and helps keep our kitchen compost bin full.  Can't wait to use the fresh compost in the garden this spring.

Personally I learned how to make bread from scratch as well as pies, apple pies being my favorite!  This was a fun experience and we now make our own whole wheat bread regularly.  My 5yr old helps along as well and enjoys the process.  It's nice to see him learn where food comes from, the garden, and also involved in the process of baking.

Now that we have 2 summers under our belt, we are expanding the vegetable garden again.  We have ordered in 2 seed catalogs and are ready to plan/order for the spring.  I'll be starting seedlings indoors where applicable to get a head start.  More on garden planning to come....

We will also plant 2 or 3 Cortland apple trees this spring.  I'm investigating dwarf apple trees as I've read about them online.  We will also plant strawberries, blackberries, gooseberries and raspberries this year.  Not sure how much we'll get out of them this year, but the plan is to keep on them and eventually have enough for jams and preserves in the coming years. 

We already have a rain barrel for water collection but I'm putting together a better system to collect from both sides of the house and will run drip lines to keep things hydrated.  If money allows, we also plan on fencing in the backyard with a nice 6ft hemlock fence.  This wood is harvested locally and has the same rot resistant properties as cedar but less expensive.  It ages beautifully and should give a bit more privacy and a place for the fruit vines to climb along the edges.

We have many other plans but to start you have to at least put things down on paper.  This is a start and I'll be writing and posting pictures of each project as we go.  My wife is taking professional photography now so there's no excuse to have good pictures of our progress ;o)  Till then... cheers.