Avivah Werner

Category: Gardening

  • Harvesting our citrus trees – oh how our garden is growing!

    We’re beginning to experience the ‘fruit’ of our labors!

    Last year was the first year we could harvest any of our fruit trees, and there were just two trees to harvest then, the clementine and orange.

    Our orange and clementine trees are growing beautifully and producing abundantly. We began picking the clementines first, since they ripened first. It’s nice not to be overwhelmed by all of the fruit being ripe at the same time.

    My sixteen year old son estimates that we’ll get around 300 clementines from the one tree once we finish picking.

    As far as the oranges, we’re just starting to pick them now. I don’t know how many there are, but it’s a nice amount.

    I’ve been pruning both of these trees to keep them easy to pick from; they’re probably less than 12 feet tall. My teens want me to stop pruning them so they’ll get taller, since they like how they look. I told them that if we do that, we’ll end up not being able to reach and harvest a lot of the fruit. As they are right now some fruits are only accessible because I pull the branch down to me to pick the fruit.

    This is the first year that we’re able to harvest our kumquat and lemon-lime trees. Our lemon-lime tree is pretty small; I think if I had gotten a regular lemon tree it would have been much bigger by now. But like so many things in life, there’s an organic process that has to be respected. So patience is in order.

    I didn’t think our black sapote tree would make it after ds8 hacked away at it with garden shears and pruned it down to a trunk less than eighteen inches tall. It’s been amazing to see in the last couple of years how it not only survived but is shooting up.

    It doesn’t have any fruit yet, but as I said, every tree grows when it’s ready. I just have to make sure it gets the fertilizer and water it needs, and then trust the process. Just like children: a parent provides the essential physical and emotional nutrients, and the child unfolds at his own pace.

    I didn’t think I liked kumquats – why did I plant them? Because citrus grows well in Israel, and I didn’t want to plant the same trees that everyone plants. They look beautiful and I figured I’d deal with what to do with the fruits when it came to it.

    Well, it’s come time to do something with them, and my husband and I enjoyed them fresh from the tree as we sat together in the warmth of the morning sun. So piquant and delicious!

    I thought I would salt and ferment them, but now that we’ve begun snacking on them daily, it’s looking like we won’t have much to preserve!

    I heard a tip years ago that has made picking our citrus much more enjoyable. Since most citrus trees have thorns, picking the fruits can result in cuts and pokes. I snipped off each thorn when they were small, using a baby nail clipper for a clean cut along the stem. The thorns don’t grow back once clipped away.

    It might sound like a nitpicky kind of thing to do, but it’s taken less than three hours total over the years, and I found it kind of meditative and relaxing.

    Today I looked for thorns I missed, and found a couple of large ones on the clementine tree. I found some small ones on the younger lemon-lime tree that has been slow to grow.

    Dd8 saw what I was doing and was very eager to help, so I gave her the job of looking for thorns and snipping them off. I’m getting the next generation trained at a young age!

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    We have a number of other fruit trees: two different kinds of pomegranates (we’ll harvest this year), starfruit/carambolo, 2 different plums, blood orange, apple, persimmon, pineapple guava and moringa. And there’s another tree in the stone fruit family but I don’t remember which one. I have another couple of years to wait for most of those to be ready.

    I also have two different kinds of passionfruit, and an edible monstera.

    I have space for one more tree but I’m not sure what I want to add. I don’t want something that will get huge. And I don’t want more citrus like pomelos or grapefruits, since so many people grow them.

    I thought maybe a nut tree, but the almond tree I planted didn’t make it, and again, I don’t want a huge tree that will be impossible to harvest when standing on the ground. So the other nuts are out.

    I’m leaning towards a loquat but it has such a short growing season, and that means there’s a huge amount of fruit in a short time to deal with. They are delicious, though.

    I considered lychee, but a couple of years ago when we harvested a bucketful from someone’s trees, I preserved some by canning, and it just wasn’t a hit.

    My other consideration is an avocado, even though it grows tall, and even though I’ve planted two avocados and both died. Avocado is something we eat a lot of and would be very useful.

    A teen son commented on how beautifully everything is growing, and I reminded him of how many plants I’ve lost. It’s another good life lesson from the garden: You keep on and even though everything isn’t successful, you’ll still end up ahead if you don’t quit when everything isn’t working out.

    Unfortunately our nectarine tree died this summer after four years, just two months before we could have harvested it. That was disappointing.

    I recently found a plant discarded by the side of the road that might be a banana tree or might be a mock banana. Whatever it is, I like how it looks and planted it in the garden; maybe it will surprise us by fruiting one day!

    If you have suggestions for trees that you’ve had success with, please let me know!

    Avivah

  • The chicks are hatching!

    I got home with dd 6from her therapy appointment on Friday and was greeted by the first chicks to have hatched – twenty cute little balls of cuteness.

    My son decided in the summer that he wanted to sell his flock because he’s too busy to continue being involved in chicken care. I’ve gotten used to having chickens around and really like them, so we decided to buy his flock. Though we agreed that I would take over all the care and hatching of the chickens, that didn’t happen as intended – I do most of the chicken care but he and my fourteen year old have dealt with all of the incubation tasks.

    Being transferred from the incubator to their new coop

    My son built this incubator a couple of years ago using a small fridge someone gave away as the housing, then wired in all the electric elements that he purchased separately. It has the capacity to incubate a large number of eggs at a time and has served us well.

    Here’s a rare look inside our incubator – my son doesn’t like to leave the door open more than an instant because he wants the temperature to stay constant so the eggs hatch and then once there are chicks, he doesn’t want them to get cold. So I usually only see the chicks once they’re out of the incubator.

    Below you can see the different levels. The empty shells are from the chicks that hatched out; once they hatch he transfers them to the bottom floor so there’s no risk of them injuring a foot by getting it caught in the netting of the higher shelves. They stay there in the incubator for a day after hatching before being transferred to the outdoor cage that he built that has a heat lamp. When they’re old enough, they’ll be transferred to the coop with the adult chickens.

    Here’s a chick starting to break through his shell
    The newly hatched chicks still in the incubator, staying warm next to the heat light

    It’s a lot of chicks but experience has shown that a large hatch rate doesn’t always equal a large survival rate. Last year seventy chicks were lifted out of their covered brooder pens in our yard by foxes over a two night period; we didn’t know that that was even a possibility and it wasn’t until neighbors who also lost chicks checked their security cameras and saw the foxes making repeated trips into their yard on the same night that we understood how our chicks disappeared. Then there’s the unavoidable chick who isn’t strong enough to survive. We’ve learned from experience and hopefully most of these will survive.

    Avivah

  • Getting ready for the fall season, plans for the week

    Last week we were busy getting our yard ready for the rain, which turned into a race against the weather!

    I’m so glad we enlarged our goat pen before the holidays, because there was so much to do to get things in the yard waterproofed before the first rain of the year (for about seven consecutive months a year we don’t get rain here in Israel). First and most important was the goat pen: the boys built a roof frame, then lined it with what they were told was a waterproof tarp.

    We were rushing to get the hay covered as the rain began. It quickly turned into a downpour, and we were relieved to have finished the goat pen roof in time…until it became clear that the waterproof tarps we used weren’t waterproof after all, when we saw the water was dripping through onto our unhappy goats.

    Talk about finding alternative solutions quickly! I suggested grabbing the large blue foam mats that we used under the pool and stapling them up; they did that in the pouring rain and then we all ran for cover.

    They took the entire roof off to redo it on a sunny day, but it began raining before it was put back on. They once again ran to get it over the goats, but the pen had gotten soaked and the next day I and one of the boys had to completely clean everything out.

    Until now, I’ve been cleaning out the dirty hay by shoveling it into a thirty liter barrel, then carrying to the chicken run and dumping it in. I do a load every two or three days. The chickens love picking out any insect larvae and with their constant scratching and pecking, break down the hay and in essence, compost it. My plan has been to eventually pull all that composted hay out of their coop to use on the garden beds.

    With the sudden huge pile of wet hay, it was too much work to take it all to the chicken coop, so I changed direction and after shoveling it all onto the garden beds, suggested to my son he let the chickens out into the yard to work the hay. They’ve been loving free-ranging again, and we’re enjoying our ‘chicken tv’ again, as we sit in the yard watching their antics.

    Speaking of the chickens, we need to cover more of their coop area with a waterproof material as well. Since part of their coop is rain-proof, we put our focus on getting the rabbits and goats waterproofed. Then after the downpour I noticed some of them were wet; I suppose they didn’t want to limit themselves to staying in the dry area. So this week my son will extend that for them.

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    Today my plans include making a huge pot of compote, then canning it all up so we can enjoy it in the winter.

    I’ve done all my winter clothes shopping for the boys, but I still need to organize it all. We’re at the stage of the days being hot but the mornings being cold enough for winter wear. So in the next couple of days I hope to finish getting all the clothes sorted.

    Also in the next couple of days I need to figure out how to transport a buck to our home for breeding. I’ve been pushing this off until the pen was enlarged and then rainproofed; now I need to get this done or risk missing the breeding season. (Goats need to be bred to continue to produce milk.) I think we’ll keep him here for a few weeks, and will see how that affects what has been a smooth running daily routine with our three females. Male goats have a reputation for not being fun to have around and their presence supposedly makes the milk taste more ‘goaty’.

    When I ordered two bales of hay, it was with the thought it would get me through until the next hay season. Then we got a third goat (it was going to be for my daughter and then ended up a better fit for us), and now with the male goat…we’re going to be needing much more hay than I initially planned for! In a non-shmita year, I would order a bale at a time, but now even though I have a lot left, I need to order more this week while the hay farmer still has non-shmita bales (from the year before last) available.

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    When I bought barrels for animal feed from a private seller a few months ago, he offered me a couple of rusty hoes for free (just the head, no handles). Seeing they were heavy duty metal, I accepted them, figuring we could sand them down and get new handles for them. I’ve been very disappointed with how poor the quality of new garden tools are – almost every rake and shovel I’ve bought has broken after less than a year of use. Not heavy duty use, either. The first shovel that I bought seven or eight years ago is still going strong, though, even though it’s seen much more use than all of the new implements put together.

    I haven’t gotten to sanding them down these rusty hoes yet (and it’s not on my list of immediate projects to do since they’re usable without sanding) but we did get new handles that fit perfectly at the hardware store. Additionally, I’ve bought a couple new shovels and two hand trowels. The trowels look like excellent quality and if I can keep track of them and not lose them (I tend to put them down and then forget where I put them…) they should last a long time.

    After a year of not touching the garden because of shmitta, there has been a lot of work to do – weeding, trimming, pruning. I’ve gotten a lot of garden clean-up done in the last couple of weeks. This week I’d like to get some seeds into the ground and will see if I can get a crop before it gets cold. The vegetables I’m thinking about traditionally are planted in the spring so I don’t know if planting now is being smart by optimizing the planting season or being overly optimistic. We have a warm climate and sometimes even in January it’s warm so it theoretically could work; all I have to lose is some seeds and some time, so I’m willing to experiment.

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    There’s lots more to do this week, but these are my ‘discretionary’ projects. I’m conscious of how much these activities add to my day, but I do them to the degree that it works for me, and it’s a nice feeling to be purposefully busy.

    Avivah

  • Busy in the kitchen – it’s the fall and it feels like harvest season!

    My newest grandson’s bris was a week ago on Thursday, and all of our family members stayed for Shabbos, which was lovely. We held off on my birthday circle for a week to celebrate with more family present. I don’t remember what inspired me to begin the birthday circle tradition and when we started – though I know it’s been at least ten years – but it’s become so rich and meaningful to hear people share what they appreciate about the birthday celebrant, and I personally found it very touching and affirming. (My 28 year old son was amazed at the depth of what his 12 year old brother shared – he said he couldn’t have thought of things like that at such a young age. But then again, he hadn’t grown up listening to birthday circles for years by the time he was 12!)

    Sandwiching the enjoyment of time with extended family has been different kitchen projects I’ve been busy with of late.

    Making applesauce. Canning applesauce. Using apple scraps to make apple cider vinegar. Canning pomelos. Using the pomelo peels to make a citrus cleanser. Making washing soda. Mixing up a new batch of all purpose cleaning powder (which I’ve been using as a frugal eco alternative to laundry detergent). Making meat broth. Canning meat broth. Canning meat. Canning beans. Canning beef stew. Canning 21 pints of mandarin oranges, then turning them into 7 pints of jam. Making lacto fermented lemons. Harvesting moringa. Drying moringa.

    Most of these were new projects to me, and new projects always take more time since I have to learn about it before doing it.

    I canned low pressure foods like meat and beans when living in the US but sold my pressure canner when I made aliya over ten years ago. Since the winter I’ve been thinking I really, really want to have a pressure canner again, and been wondering how to get one from the US to Israel (since the shipping and taxes are so high if I have it shipped directly, it would be almost three times the cost of the canner itself!). It finally occurred to me to ask my sister if I ordered one and had it sent to her in the US, would she be able to mail it to me? I am so deeply appreciative for her willingness to help me out, and though I had only asked this favor with the agreement I would pay shipping costs, she refused to let me reimburse her (and shipping was more than the cost of the canner). I can’t tell you how happy I was when it arrived three weeks ago – it’s like having an old friend back in my kitchen with me!

    This year I want to spend some time learning more about herbal remedies. I’m heavily reliant on vitamin C, because if you know how to properly dose (most people think that 1000 mg is a normal dose to take when sick and that’s hardly worth anything), it takes care of just about everything. Literally. However, it’s something I order from afar that I can’t manufacture on my own (at least not yet – as I wrote that, it occurred to me that maybe that’s something to research, too!) and with a shaky supply chain it’s foolish for me to rely so heavily on someone else for something critical to my family’s health. While every locale has its own medicinal plants available, learning to use them it requires learning and that takes time!

    One beautiful plant I have growing in my garden is ‘sheba’. I didn’t know what it was when I bought it – I thought it was pretty so I planted it. I misspelled it in Hebrew when searching for the English translation, so I didn’t find out what it was for quite some time. I asked others who grew it if they knew what it was, and they told me it was very healthy and useful in multiple ways…but didn’t know the translation. I was excited to finally learn that it’s called wormwood, one of the most powerful anti-fungal herbs in the world. Right in my garden without me realizing it! This morning I was noticing how lush it’s become and it needs to be harvested. That’s now been added to my list of things to learn about. 🙂

    Busy and blessed, that’s me!

    Avivah

  • Is there anything cuter than baby chicks??

    Every morning, I go out with the leftovers from dinner to feed the chickens – as soon as they see me they run from the far side of the yard for their breakfast! Our chickens have a very nice life free ranging in the yard and they return the favor by scratching around in my garden beds, eating bugs and fertilizing the soil – it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. Then they turn my scraps into eggs – and now, into baby chicks!

    Yesterday afternoon ds14 came in with great excitement to announce that there were two newly hatched chicks. His hen made her nest at the base of the pandorea vine, and was almost completely surrounded by the leaves. I could hardly make out one chick – he said the other was under its mother.

    This morning, I thought I’d be helpful and put food next to her nest so she doesn’t have to go hungry while sitting on her eggs. But she jumped up with the others to get food, so I peered in. I saw one little chick looking solemnly out at me. I stepped back to look around to see where the other chick was, and saw it had followed its mother. Then that one ventured out to join them, so all three had breakfast with the others.

    Many mornings after putting ds9 and ds4 on their school van mornings I go out and sit in the yard and just sit and watch the chickens. They’re very entertaining, much more than ducks.

    I thought that ducklings were the cutest thing ever, but I think it might actually be baby chicks. I had the strongest desire to just scoop up and stroke the little chick learning to walk on his new legs, but I didn’t. Instead I took a picture for you.

    Ds14 has had a variety of experiences raising poultry – starting with ducks, then quail, then chickens and lastly geese, and has decided that chickens are the very best. (I agree.) These chickens hatch their own eggs, versus him needing to incubate the eggs for all the other birds. Did you think that all birds hatch their own eggs? Not at all. It’s been bred out of them, I suppose. After all the ups and down and various experiences he’s had, it’s been especially gratifying for him to watch his flock multiply without his intensive involvement.

    As we were watching together, he commented, “It’s so nice for the chickens to have mothers.” As attentive and responsible as he is, it’s a qualitatively different experience being raised by a mother hen, who keeps her chicks warm under her, teaches them to run and forage, shows them how to be safe, and protects them from threats.

    Mother hen with chicks that are less then a day old

    It’s also really nice for him to watch things come full circle. He bought the original chicks in the beginning of the spring when they were two weeks old. A few died in the early days, a couple were sold as they got bigger (not more than one rooster, I insisted!) but mostly he’s watched them grow and it’s really nice now to see them with chicks of their own.

    These tiny guys aren’t the first chicks to hatch this season. Four chickens went broody all at once – one hen made her nest in one area, and three others all sat in nests right next to one another. The first eggs to hatch were from one of the three hens – only two eggs hatched, and those hens sitting right next to the mother were just as proud and protective as if they were their own (none of the other eggs hatched). Those chicks are now about six weeks old, and they still all travel together, as well as another hen who latched on to them as soon as the first chicks hatched. My son says they have four mothers; I think of them as one mother and three very devoted aunts.

    The second hen hatched three eggs, and she runs around on her own with them.

    Mother hen with six weeks old chicks

    It was a surprise when ds found the new nest a week or two ago; it was well hidden and he wasn’t expecting it. There are eight more eggs still in the nest and when dd21 checked them she said they all look viable. We were pleasantly surprised that they were fertile since the rooster was rehomed before Sukkos. I don’t know what we’re going to do with them if they all hatch, but one thing is for certain – they aren’t all going to stay here!

    Avivah

  • The critical importance of opportunity for expansion

    As you know, I enjoy gardening and I often notice how the natural principles of growth and development express in the garden just as in parenting.

    Part of my evolving garden landscape – so many lessons in this small space!

    Recently, I planted a number of flower bulbs, some in the ground, and others layered lasagna style in two pots. In each pot I planted the same bulbs in the same pattern. Once I finished, I placed the two pots three feet from one another, one on each side of our patio bench swing. It became quickly apparent that one was getting more sun than the other, as one grouping of bulbs was sprouting much more quickly. When I noticed this, I placed the lagging bulbs in the sun to help them catch up. I took this picture after it had been catching up in full sun over a week.

    Every child is born with potential. Some get the sunlight and water they need in the ideal proportions, and their beautiful growth is visible. Others who may have the same potential don’t have their needs met in the same way, and as a result they appear more limited. However, the limitation wasn’t inherent in who they are, but in what resources were available to them.

    Here’s another illustration. These two plants were identical when I purchased them. One was planted right away, the other was transferred to a pot while I decided where its long-term location would be. The one in the ground not only had more light, even more significantly it had room to spread its roots and grew dramatically bigger in a short time.

    Right – bush planted in the ground with room to spread its roots; left – bush whose growth was limited by the pot size

    Roots need to reach and seek new footholds to become stronger and more established. I’ve noticed that many parents and educators have a lot of fear about giving children room to grow. While hopefully everyone will agree that children need love and warmth, many will argue that it’s dangerous to allow children unsupervised time.

    My twenty year old daughter is a dorm counselor in a seminary, and the girls were complaining that they came to Israel for the experience, and instead are spending much of their free time doing the mounds of homework they are assigned. She went to the dorm mother to ask about why the girls are given so much homework. Before she told me the answer, I interrupted and said, “Let me guess! Because if they aren’t kept busy they’ll get into trouble.”

    Yep, that’s exactly what my daughter confirmed she was told.

    For years I’ve said that kids need to learn to manage their time, and they can only do that by being allowed to have unstructured time. Sometimes that will be filled productively and sometimes the person will be bored. Boredom isn’t dangerous. Boredom is a learning opportunity.

    What’s dangerous is not allowing people room for personal expansion. If the potted plant above was left in a pot long term, it would never look much bigger or better than it does right now – let alone become the very big and lush bush it’s genetically intended to be.

    Learning to manage one’s own time is a skill that develops over time. You can’t expect anyone to suddenly have lots of time on their hands and to make good use of it, if he hasn’t had opportunities to take responsibility for his time prior to that.

    When I plant something in my garden, I don’t know how big it’s going to get or how well it’s going to grow. Sometimes it gets too big for the space I allotted it, and I move it to where it will have more space. Some may later need to be carefully pruned.

    But I can’t plant something in the garden and not give it room to put down its roots. That will compromise the inherent potential of the plant. The roots are what provide support for the visible strength and growth of the plant, and strong roots are what support our children for their entire lives.

    Avivah

  • The Biggest Little Farm – permaculture as a parallel for healthy parenting

    Today I watched a movie that my husband saw on his flight from the US over 18 months ago. He told me then that he thought I’d love it; I finally enjoyed it with the boys today.

    The Biggest Little Farm is a beautifully filmed true story of a couple that decides to leave the city, buys dried up farmland and uses biodynamic principles to turn the land into a lush, healthy biosphere where crops and animals live in harmony and support one another in a cycle that becomes increasingly more powerful as time goes on.

    Ducks are used to remedy the massive snail infestation, nesting boxes are installed to encourage predatory birds to make their homes in the orchard where gophers are damaging the tree roots and birds are eating the fruits, and animal waste products are a critical part of the process of strengthening the soil. (When the person was enthusing about the waste cycle supporting soil health, one of my boys laughingly said, “Just like you, Mommy!” Yep, me and my appreciation of duck doo. 🙂 )

    Afterwards I was musing about how an approach that trusts the effectiveness of natural principles always means keeping your vision on the long term and investing more upfront. No quick fix to get the results you want and sometimes it looks like those using mainstream approaches are getting ahead, but by working together with nature, your efforts end up supported rather than thwarted and your job becomes easier and easier over time.

    Exactly like parenting.

    It feels harder when your child is throwing a tantrum to listen and guide their emotions, rather than firmly tell them to stop crying. It seems easier to punish a child who isn’t acting the way you want (an example from the film would be to shoot the coyote), but those problems then only temporarily go away. And new problems are created with that approach.

    When you build your child up with your belief in them and your belief what they can be (ie trust the natural principles and be willing to give them time to mature, just as true of plants as children) instead of breaking them down with your criticisms and frustrations (film parallel – douse the crops with heavy doses of pesticides), they become stronger and stronger, and need less and less management and feedback the older they become.

    This film is a heartening vision of what is possible, and seeing what is possible rather than being told how the world is on self-destruct mode is certainly a much more appealing approach for me. And it’s possible on a very small scale – these are principles that I try to integrate into my gardening.

    Another very enjoyable and educational documentary that we watched three weeks ago was Kiss The Ground – I found it free on youtube but when I just now did a quick search to link it for you, I don’t see it there now. It might have been pulled or you might need to search a little longer than thirty seconds. 🙂 It’s worth the watch; if I had to choose between the above two films, I personally preferred Kiss The Ground because it was so much more informative though the cinematography of The Biggest Little Farm was fantastic.

    There is also a TED talk (this was the first thing that I watched on the topic, after lots of casual online reading) on the transformative power of regenerative agriculture, the approach detailed in Kiss The Ground, ‘How regenerative farming can help heal the planet and human health’ by Charlie Massy. Understanding carbon sounds like a bore but it’s really interesting and actually has the power to reverse decades of damage to our planet.

    Avivah

  • My first grandson, gardening and other random stuff

    A couple of weeks ago my oldest daughter called to let me know she was in labor, and since the next night I was scheduled as the keynote speaker for the online Jewish Homeschool Convention on the topic of: How to Enjoy Homeschooling: Trusting your child, yourself and the learning process, I quickly jumped online to give you the details before I headed out to be with her.

    Unfortunately, it was only two weeks later when I got online again here that I saw that in my haste I didn’t push the ‘publish’ button! However, there are recordings of the great lineup of speakers for a nominal fee, if you’re looking for some inspiration/perspective/encouragement.

    Back to my laboring daughter…I now have a beautiful grandson, joining our three granddaughters.

    When my husband and I had a new baby, for the most part we were on our own. It wasn’t until our seventh child was born that we had parents living nearby, but by then we were used to doing everything ourselves and they were used to us doing everything ourselves, so the main support for me after birth was my husband and children. When there was a shalom zachor/ bris to make, we (ie my husband and kids) made all the food, did all the setup, cleanup and organizing. It’s so nice how different it is for my daughter to have so many family members to lend a hand – all of the adult married kids were commenting on how very different it is from when they were growing up.

    We were hosted for four days by our second daughter, who lives a short walk from her older sister and made us feel very much at home. Not an easy feat, when hosting seven people all day and night (in addition to hosting the bris) in a two bedroom apartment! We rarely go away – the last time was for my daughter’s Shabbos sheva berachos almost three years ago – and we all enjoyed it so much.

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    I wrote and rewrote in my head various posts for Down Syndrome Awareness month over the last weeks, and didn’t post any of them despite my intentions. I hope to share about why another time (time allowing, which is the big challenge).

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    The weather report said that rain is imminent and that caused a flurry of activity in the last couple of days. Firstly, since we don’t have a storage shed, we decided after Sukkos ended to leave our schach in place on top of the pergola, and then to top that with a rainproof covering. Yesterday we bought the heavy duty covering and last night got my husband and ds13 got everything covered and rain tight. Such a relief to have it done before the rain!

    Then it was on to preparing a dry spot for our animals for the rain. Right now that means two ducks, four quail and three chickens. (We got a chicken chick to keep the sole surviving quail chick from the batch he incubated company, but then the chicken outgrew the quail and we borrowed two chicks from a neighbor to keep the chicken company!) The boys decided to take the chickens to a local farm for the winter, where they previously sent our two muscovy ducks when a neighbor complained about them perching on our mutual fence a couple of months ago.

    Ds13 waterproofed the quail pen and ds11 waterproofed the duck coop, and then ds11 and I laid out a path of synthetic grass leading to the animal area so that they won’t track mud into the house when it rains. (At least not from that area!) Ds13 pounded in six foot posts and strung a tarp over it to make a dry spot to keep their bikes in the backyard.

    We also cleaned up the little corner of my yard that has become a dumping ground for various project materials. Before we bought the used kitchen that we installed (I’ll do an update on that separately, I’m pleased with how it’s turned out), we got another kitchen that didn’t work for us (it was my husband’s first time making that kind of purchase- usually I buy those things – and he used it as a valuable learning experience.)

    Though we gave away all those cabinets, I’m left with three slabs of granite countertops and two sinks that I might want to use when I redo the kitchen upstairs. Yesterday I spoke to the handyman I was told could do this kind of work but he said that he can’t do the finely skilled cuts for an indoor kitchen that I would want. So I’ll think a little longer about if there’s another project I want to use them- a potting sink for the garden, maybe? -before passing them along.

    Then there were all the boards stacked messily and other odds and ends from various projects. We cut some of the boards down yesterday to make additional shelving inside the kitchen cabinets and neatly stacked all the rest, so now we can get rid of all wood that was left. It’s so nice to have it look nice and be possible to walk through that small area.

    I’ve done lots in the garden, and there’s still plenty to do! There’s actually something quite nice about that; it’s not a pressure for me. I really enjoy gardening. I’ve been fairly steadily adding to the garden beds – I have nine fruit trees now, along with a grape vine and a pitango bush, so most of my additions have been decorative plants and a few palm trees.

    My next project is to install a drip irrigation system and possibly sprinklers if that will be necessary for grass; I made an appointment with a gardener to come in a couple of days for a consult so I can understand what’s involved, and see what installation we’re ready to take on ourselves. Then I want to put down some sod grass so I’ll have something beautiful instead of a big mud puddle in the winter. There’s not much of a chance of successfully growing grass from seed with two ducks free ranging around!

    I recently learned the term dehisence, and for the first time recognized what the seed pods of periwinkle look like. My eyes were opened to the possibilities of gathering seeds. I gathered a bunch of the periwinkle seed pods with ds13, then we went on to gather seeds from the yellow gazanias and orange marigolds. I told him he could sprinkle some in whatever garden bed he wanted, and we’d see what came up. I’m not such a fan of planting seeds because I don’t tend to get them to a big enough size to transplant into the garden before something happens to them, but I’m packing these away and in a few months will plant them to have ready for the early summer.

    —————————————

    On a communal note, we enjoyed hosting a minyan in our yard during the Sukkos break (our family members made up half the minyan!). We even had a sefer Torah, which was very special. Once the boys went back to yeshiva, we ended the minyan. However, we appreciated the sense of connection with other attendees that was created and would like to continue to help build a sense of community at a time that it seems to be disappearing. Beginning this Saturday night, we’ll be hosting a weekly melave malka/kumsitz for men and teen boys.

    Not to leave out the girls, though! Because quiet time for me to write or prepare classes is so limited in my life at this stage – and being that I get up so early, it’s challenging to stay up late enough to give classes – I’ve hesitated about offering classes for women even though I’m a teacher to my core. But a recent conversation with a teen inspired me to offer a teen girls discussion group/kumsitz, beginning this Saturday night. The focus will be what is essentially at the heart of all my classes, regardless of the topic, living a life with meaning and joy. And since I’ve committed to doing it, I’m going to somehow find time to prepare and stay awake!

    I thought I’d leave you with my weekly menu plan, but naturally my planner has temporarily disappeared and since I can’t remember it by heart, I’ll have to leave you with my good intentions instead. 🙂
    Since ds13 has recently gotten interested in cheese making, I’ve spent a lot of money on milk and we’ve been enjoying homemade yogurt and cottage cheese for breakfast this last week. I can also tell you that lunch today was chicken jambalaya and dinner is supposed to be sweet potato peanut burgers but will be a simplified version since I didn’t feel like making something with that many steps later in the day. :):)

    Sending you all my warmest wishes for a wonderful week to come!

    Avivah

  • What are companion plants and why do you want them in your garden?

    What are companion plants and why do you want them in your garden?

    Companion planting is such a fascinating concept! This is the term for when you plant various plants together that enhance the growth of another, provide pollination benefits or help resist pests.

    Around each of my fruit trees, I planted flowers that will help repel harmful bugs while attracting beneficial insects. The flowers I’ve so far planted are marigolds, zinnias and petunias. All of these attract bees and butterflies, while repelling harmful insects. (I’m going to be interplanting these with my vegetable plants once they go in the ground, too.) There’s lots of fascinating information online about what chemicals they release in the air and in the roots, what insects they repel (and even what harmful insects they draw in).

    Also in that same garden bed I’ve added four different gardenias, lavender and sage that are also great companion plants! I’m planning to add in some more green herbs, like parsley, basil and mint (which will have it’s own area since it spreads like a weed).

    I’ve been composting heavily in the center of this bed, which is why I have so many more plants in the middle than around the edges. I’m working my way outward. All of these plants will hopefully spread and fill in with time and become much more lush.

    If you’re doing some planting, however small, consider adding some companion plants that will make the birds and butterflies happy, while helping your main plant stay healthy!

    Avivah

  • Putting in fruit trees

    Putting in fruit trees

    When we bought our last home five years ago, it was critical to me that it had a garden, and in fact the home we bought had a small garden (28 meters) as well as a large porch. I was so grateful for that outdoor space! I had an extensive collection of succulents growing in pots on the porch, and a small border of plants and two fruit trees growing in the garden.

    We are now in our new home and I am SO grateful to have a much larger yard so I can do more extensive gardening! I just love being outside and getting my hands in the dirt. I even enjoy weeding. 🙂 Which is good, because my yard is one huge mess of 4 – 5 foot high weeds.

    Though I did some initial decorative planting, my priority was to get fruit trees into the ground before it’s too hot so that they can set better. I’ve spent a few weeks reading about different fruits that I’m interested in (many exotic and unfamiliar to me) but honestly got a little overwhelmed thinking about it all.

    I decided to keep it simple and enjoy gradually expanding and learning new things, rather than trying to buy everything I might want at once.

    Here’s what this space looked like before. I was hopeful that the tree there was a citrus, but when I asked the guy at the nursery, he said it absolutely wasn’t. He thought it was probably ficus, a large tree planted for shade with destructive roots that rip up concrete, and strongly recommended removing it. So I did and it’s now in a pot next to my front door.

    You can see the corner where I started weeding. 🙂

    As soon as the local nursery reopened for in-person customers last week, I was there first thing in the morning!

    Citrus are easy fruits to grow in Israel and I bought a Valencia orange and clementine; I don’t see the other citrus options being something we would use much of. I strongly believe in planting things you will eat. It doesn’t matter how well it grows; if you won’t use it, why bother planting it?

    Additionally in this 18 meter space I’ve planted loquat and persimmon. I did quite a bit of reading about spacing for fruit trees to determine how many I could plant; I was surprised that fruit trees in a home garden can be planted just 18 inches apart if they are well pruned! In addition to typical planting, there are also some cool things you can do like espalier (growing along a fence) or growing them over a garden arch.

    I considered putting eight trees in this space. The choice was: more kinds of fruits but more pruning of each tree, and less yield on each tree, or more fruit on fewer trees and less pruning. I decided to go with the latter.

    Back to front: orange, clementine, loquat, persimmon, each surrounded by companion plants.

    I got one grape vine, the Isabella, which I read is the only grape vine in Israel that doesn’t require spraying with pesticides. It’s good for eating and making juice. I only got one because grape vines spread tremendously so I’ve left over ten feet in each direction unplanted. I intend to tie it up so it will cover this very strong but not too visually appealing fencing.

    A few days later at a different nursery I got two pitango bushes, which will grow into a living fence along the fencing we put in to close off the back yard. Pitango (also known as pitanga or surinam cherries) make a great hedge and also have edible berries. My preference is to grow plants that have some kind of edible output.

    I also planted an Ettinger avocado in a different part of the yard (a pic of that will follow in a post regarding a different project). I planted this separate from the others because it grows much taller and I wanted it to be in a space where the shade it provides will be appreciated (ie not next to the pergolas which will be our sukka!).

    When I go back to Beit Shemesh in the next couple of weeks to get the last of our stuff out and clean up our apartment, I’m going to take out the plum, nectarine and jasmine and replant them here.

    Avivah