Hello Blogosphere!

The mantle at our new house. (The grass is from our front yard.)

It’s been WAAAAYYYY to long since we’ve posted on here!  So, since we posted last a lot has happened to our family, one of which is our move from Texas to Oklahoma.  We are no longer in the suburbs, but in a more rural area.  So, Suburban Homestead Blog doesn’t fit too well now, although our brother, Joel, is still living in the suburbs, and is planning on growing a garden in his yard.  (We’ll see if we can get him to blog on here about his gardening adventures!)

So, now that we are in a rural area, and have a larger yard, we’re planning on planting a large Back to Eden garden.  We haven’t been able to do it yet, but we do have a large pile of mulch sitting in our yard, waiting be used!  (We got it for free from a local tree service!)  One thing we have done since moving here (we moved at the end of July) is clearing the flower beds on three sides of our house.  They were filled with jasmine, a very invasive crawling vine, and rocks and other stuff that you would never expect to find in a flower bed!  (Yes, like wiffel balls, old work gloves, bottle caps and just plain trash…)  In those flower beds we put mulch to keep the weeds from growing, and some of them we hope to use for growing edible plants.

What else has been keeping us busy and keeping us from blogging?  Well, the main thing that has been keeping us is the fact that we don’t have ready internet access (as we had in Texas), so we have to go to the library or somewhere away from our home.  We’ve also been very busy with church activities (it was a new pastorate position for our Dad that brought us here to Oklahoma), school activities for those of our family still in school, and just settling in to a new home, town and state.

One of the cleared flowers beds by our front porch.

Swiss Cheese Ivy

We still have plenty of herbs in pots and portable planters.

Abby’s little succulents sit in a window sill by our back door.

A cold frame in which we hope to grow lettuce.

Oooo, something that we have had the opportunity to learn since moving up here is canning.  An older lady in our church has taken the time on two or three occasions to let us help her can different things, including: homemade salsa, pickles, tomatoes, pears, pear honey, and muscadine jelly.  So, in addition to learning the actual process of canning, we’ve also learned how to make salsa, pear honey and jelly.  It’s been great fun and a good skill to have, plus you get to enjoy the yummy products!  🙂

Dill pickles!

Oh my! This salsa was THE BEST! (And, yes, we already ate it all!)

So, don’t expect too frequent posts up here, but I’ll try to post as often as I can.  Be sure to check out the Back to Eden film, if you haven’t already, and watch it.  It’ll be very helpful for your gardening adventures, I’m sure!