May 26, 2009

The Hyman Compound *Sarcasm Attached*

I dream of living off the land, that's no secret. I joke and tell people that we are going to buy a lot of acreage and call it the Hyman Compound. Brandon would kill me if he knew that I was blogging about this...lol! It has a lot to do with our frugality, and some to do with just being self sufficient and not relying on our grocery stores for food, our city for water, electric, and gas, and etc.. I would love to just be. I could knit or sew our own clothes, farm and can all our food. Hide chickens under my deck....lol!
To get some practice for our life of self sustainable living, we garden. We had a 4x20 garden in Corpus Christi, Texas that was nice, but this one is even nicer. Since we live over a cave, we built a raised cinder block bed. I posted about this in the fall. We laid chicken wire, landscaping cloth, and mulch before we laid the blocks. Then this spring we spent a fortune filling that bed with quality soil. We have onions, carrots, peas, tomatoes, broccoli, green onions, zucchini, bell peppers, green beans, romaine lettuce, spinach, jalapenos, strawberries and some herbs. I grew most from organic seeds, and we will not be adding chemicals or pesticides to our garden, but instead will use a natural approach to feed our plants and keep pests away. So far the coffee grounds are working excellent! It is so exciting to see everything come to life.
We also have four blueberry bushes that a pesky little rabbit or two nawled on and are coming back to life. We actually saw the rabbit trying to bite at the fencing to get to the plant...crazy!
And some of our sunflowers.
More pictures are to come, as our little beginnings of the Hyman Family Compound grows.

8 comments:

Katy said...

Totally impresed by the garden. I want to garden, but can't wait for them to grow. i am too impatient. You go girl!

-Katy

Katy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Missy said...

YUM!!!

Breann said...

Great Garden!!! Homegrown blueberries are the best.

Justine said...

So cool! You'll have to give me some tips. I totally want to do a little raised bed in the yard. Not this year though... No time for weeding! You can come supervise it next summer (:

Chatter said...

I'm with you on wanting to live off the land. I know it would be so much work but to be independent and to live off the grid. That being said, I would love to be part of the Hyman compound :).

Your garden looks fabulous! I am hoping to start one maybe next summer. We'll see...

Toni Lynch said...

I have the worst soil ever in my backyard. I planted cucumber plants and broccoli for the first time and they both died - probably choked to death in the clay dirt. I try to garden too so far my tomatoes, zuchhini, yellow squash, green pepper and banana peppers are alive....well for now that is. Oh and I am trying a raspberry bush - never tried that either....I guess if I keep doing this I need to invest in some better soil and maybe some cow dung....yuck I hate the thought of that!! hahah

Anonymous said...

Elisa,

I love your garden. Jason and I started a community garden but it is now down to just us. We still give away a lot of food to the other families involved. I am just like you, I want to live off the land:)

Tamra:)