Our Family Garden: Pt 2 of 3

You can find Our Family Garden: Part 1 here.  In part one, my little scientists/engineers assembled the Tower Garden, set up the pump, and started our seeds in the provided rock wool.

Once our seedlings reached at least 3 inches tall (and weather permitted) we finally moved our Tower Garden outside into the sunshine, filled it with water, mineral solution, and transplanted our seedlings.  Once filled and plugged in out backyard was filled with the sounds of trickling water.  So our backyard garden doubles as a water feature.  The most relaxing sound ever!  (By the way, there is no reason to set this thing up inside at all.  We could have waited to set it up until our seedlings were ready to transplant outside.  We were just so excited to see that huge box when it arrived and wanted to set it up immediately, even though that meant living with it in the kitchen until our plants were ready.)

So how we did it.  We used our popsicle stick labels to cut and divide the rock wool 'brick' that we started our seeds.  My laborers carefully transplanted each little section of rock wool filled with its seedling and roots into each little black basket on the tower. 

 We placed our cucumbers and zucchini on the bottom, kale and lettuces in the middle, and left room at the top for our basil and stevia plants.  (More on the basil, stevia, and tomatoes in Part 3 of this series.)

Here is a close-up of one of our kale seedlings newly transplanted into its basket on the Tower Garden.  It is being nurtured by the mineral solution that is pumped from the base and rained down on the roots.  What are you planting this season? 

We live in Kansas where you never know what the weather is going to be like.  So 4 days after we transplanted our seedlings, we ended up with snow, sleet and freezing temperatures.  We raced home from that Thursday afternoon to rescue our lovely little plants.  I grabbed this image with my phone while we were frantically pumping water out of the base in order to the lighten the load before we carried it back inside. Fortunately all of our little plants seemed to have survived.

Our Tower Garden is back in our kitchen for now.  Below are some close-ups images of how the rock wool sections and seedlings sit in the Tower Garden. 

This is the basket where the seedlings will be 'planted'.  It's important to securely place your rock wool transplant all the way in.  The roots need to be touching the very bottom of the basket to make sure it receives sufficient water and minerals.

The rock wool and base of the plant will nearly fill the entire basket.  This is one of our cucumber plants.

Another cucumber plant.

The left and middle plants are the cucumbers above and the one on the right is one of the zucchini.  I can't wait to get them back out in the sunshine.

Stay tuned for Part 3 to see it back in action outdoors and see how quickly our plants are growing!  Anyone else have to make a mad dash to save their little plants due to weather change?  Your comments are blessings!

Our Family Garden: Part 1 of 3

I am so excited to have an aeroponic garden this year!  I cannot wait for fresh tomato and basil salad.  No worrying about GMO's or pesticides.  Yay!

Last year our backyard garden was nearly a complete failure.  The heat and the drought were just too much for our daily watering, and then there was a fungus that attacked some of our tomato plants.  It was deflating.  And then there is the month of June.  Every June I am away at church camp with my little ones for one to two weeks.  And when I'm away, I always lose about 1/3 of my garden due to heat and lack of attention.  Even when I hire someone to water.  I need a garden that required less maintenance, could stand up to the heat of a Kansas summer, and didn't require a gazillion gallons of water to maintain.  What I found was the Tower Garden.

We ordered ours in April and promptly set it up.  Set up was so easy that my little ones tackled it while I was still fumbling with my camera and the instructions.  (Please excuse the mess.  I still had moving boxes in the living room when we set this up back in early spring.)  This fall I will be picking up a grow lamp and setting up the garden in the basement to keep us supplied with kale, lettuces and herbs all winter.  So excited about that.  I will be journaling our experience here at My Blue Daisy.

Unpacking and organizing.  Can't you tell it's organized?

Installing the pump and connecting it to the base of the tower.

All assembled!

Preparing the rock wool for the seeds.  They aren't always so thrilled about having a camera following them around... 

This is what we planted.  So far all the seeds came up beautifully except the canteloupe.  None of the canteloupe seeds germinated.  Sad, sad.

Inserting seeds into the center of each rock wool section.  

All carefully planted and labeled the seeds.  Just waiting to be covered with a teeny bit of vermiculite to hold in the moisture.  My 10 year old made a nice diagram and write up for her science notebook.

All done!  The basic Tower Garden can hold 20 plants.  We started 18 seedlings and I ordered several tomato starts from an organic heirloom seedling store that we will transplant into those last two spots.  

And here is the warm, sunny spot for our seedlings to germinate.  Next week I will show you our current status of beautiful seedlings transplanted into the Tower Garden!  Anyone else using an aeroponic garden?  Or are you planting traditional style?  What grows at your home?

You can find out more about the Tower Garden here.  In part two I'll show you where we set our aeroponic in the back yard, how we transplanted our seedlings, and the result of Kansas snow in MAY.  Argh!

Scheduling School

I hope this will cover the questions on how I plan school.  The pictures are fairly hard to see; click on them to scroll through larger images.   

The first thing I do is figure out how many week's of school need to be completed.  Check your teacher's manual (if you use one) and double check your state requirements to make sure you aren't left in a deficit.  

Then I look ahead at the coming year and decide when I want to be DONE with 'school'.  My little ones compete on swim team in the summer, plus the pool, lake and parks are just irresistable when the weather is lovely.  I know I want to be done with our core curriculum before swim team practices start up in the last week of May.  (Daily reading and math are completed year round.  Get up, eat breakfast, do your math and read something - that's just how we roll; I'm sure you will find your own path for family education.)  

Once I know when I want to be done and how much there is to be done, and I start counting backwards adding in flex time as needed.  I rarely build in specific days off, aside from important holidays.  Instead, I build in margin so that days off can happen naturally without causing tension in our schedule.  Adding in margin allows for a day off for nature hikes on gorgeous fall days, rest days when everyone is tired, or scrubadub days when we need to pull the house back in order.  Once that is done I find I am typically looking to start school around the middle of August for second grade on up, and September for kindergarten and first grade.  

This is what our calendar has looked like for the 2012/2013 school year.  My second and fifth graders are working together through the same core curriculum  - My Father's Work Creation to Greeks (CTG).  Each school week is denoted by CTG: Week 1, etc.  Note that I didn't schedule kindergarten most of the school year?  Explanation on that down below.  

August 2012.  We start the year out slowly in mid-August adding a subject at a time into our daily routine.

September 2012.  We took off the week of Labor Day (again still completing math and reading daily).

October 2012: We schooled all through October, but stretched two weeks of curriculum out across three calendar weeks to allow for rest, nature hikes and deeper study of some subjects.

November 2012.  We stretched one week of curriculum across two weeks to allow for Thanksgiving cooking and time with family.  

 December 2012: Plenty of time off to spend with family.

January 2013.  Back to schooling right on through.  

February 2013.  We moved in February, so we definitely took some time off for packing and unpacking.

March 2013.  Spring break in March was full of snow sledding.

April 2013.

 May 2013.  Finishing up Fifth and Second grades in time for swim team.  Still working through A to Z (kindergarten).

June 2013.  Continuing with kindergarten.

July 2013

August 2013.  Finishing up A to Z (kindergarten) just in time to start first grade.

My youngest isn't technically school-aged, yet.  Through most of the school year I have been fairly laid back about using our kindergarten curriculum.  She sits with her older siblings during most of literature, history, science and Bible and enjoys a computer-based phonics program, too.  But recently she has been more interested in having her own school time.  Plus I am enjoying more one-on-one time with her now that my second grader has better study habits.  So we are now moving quickly through her own curriculum (My Father's World A to Z) and plan to start her in first grade (My Father's World Learning God's Story) in the second week of September.  If we had started our kindergarten curriculum in September, we would be done about now.  And honestly, with the work she has done with her siblings this year we don't even need to go through this curriculum.  We are only continuing on through because we love it so much.  It is such a full and fun curriculum.  It's like icing on the cake she already has in front of her.  I love the flexibility and customization of home education!

So that is how we schedule our school years but it's only one way.  Feel free to share how you go about this process!

Linked up with We Are That Family, Mom's Library, Teach Me Tuesdays and Titus 2 Tuesdays.

Counting the Costs

When friends and acquaintances ask me about homeschooling, my response tends to sound like rainbows and roses.  Not because I intentionally spin homeschooling in a golden-hour glow, but because we love it so much.  My husband often warns me to send people to him to chat about homeschooling after they have spoken with me -tongue-in-cheek, of course.  So today, let's talk about the hidden costs of home education and counting those costs.  Did you count the costs at first or did you just jump in with both feet?

I recently read through Educating the WholeHearted Child again (by Clay and Sally Clarkson).  I appreciated the section in chapter one where Clay talks about counting the costs.  I recommend their book!  Check your library for it.  

Homeschooling will change you; it will change your parenting; it will change your heart.  Are you ready for that?  WERE you ready?  I wasn't - at first, but now I am so thankful.  I am a better parent for my decision to homeschool.  One of the things I have learned is that I can't HIDE from my children on bad days, messy-house days, or sick days.  I can't pretend life is grand when my head feels like it's going to split open or when our schedule has become overbooked.  My children can see right through any mask I might try to paint on during those tired and cranky days.  I have learned that they can see right through me so I might as well get real and honest with them.  What a blessing in disguise.  Homeschooling has brought me so much closer to my God, my ever present Help.  I can do anything through Him, right?

Homeschooling will change your life in unexpected ways.  Some changes take prayer and sacrifice to accept and some changes are blessings in disguise.  I have finally embraced shopping with my children.  I have learned to involve them - not just in meal planning, but even in the budgeting and selecting.  And guess what?  They are excellent helpers!  The only time I blow the budget now is when I shop alone.  When they are with me, we run by the bank first and pick up cash.  My three little ones arm themselves with calculators and diligently subtract away as we add items into our cart.  When we get close to our goal we have to start making tough choices.  Do we pick up an extra pack of nitrate-free bacon or that dark chocolate bar as a treat?  Do we still need 8 pounds of organic apples this week, or can we substitute a pound or two of the bananas or oranges that are on sale?  My children never cease to amaze me in their decision-making capabilities.  

Have you surrendered your home and housekeeping?  We just recently moved and not everything is in place, yet.  We needed to get back to our studies, so much of the painting and arranging will have to wait for summer.  I have a spacious dining room, that has become the homeschool room. We are planning out built-in bookshelves for the dining/homeschool room, but that will have to wait until summer.  In the meantime I have cardboard boxes as book shelves.  In our last house we didn't have a homeschool room at all.  Our books and supplies pretty much took over the living room, and well - the whole house.  Even now with a dedicated room, we have to be diligent to keep it contained.  My early-rising 10 year old prefers to do her math in her bedroom as soon as she wakes up - even before breakfast.  My little guy likes to do his math lying in the floor.  Reading happens everywhere all at once - literally.  Science typically happens in the kitchen and dining room.  My house often looks like a paper explosion.

There are papers, memory scriptures, notes, maps, and art randomly stuck on my walls.  I do try to keep this limited to the homeschool room, but its there.  Flip side is everyone seems to love huge wall maps.  I would love to have another.  It's a great conversation piece!

There are random toys mixed in with school and water bottles left all over the house.  Everyone has their own summer and winter water bottles and I am constantly chasing them down.  And there is no doubt that learning happens in this home.

See that pile on top of the white counter space?  That's my to-be-filed pile.  I promptly cleaned that up as soon as this picture was taken, but I know it will return.  I am outnumbered by my children, after all.  Keeping up with them is a full time effort.  

 Yes, we have systems and closed storage, but life happens and this is a real blog post.  Sometimes my house is neat and tidy just they way I prefer and other times it looks just like this with paper stacks on the counter and hair bands and paper airplanes on the floor.  I am learning to be content in all situations and learning that somedays school is set aside while we all scrubadub.  I am certain this will be easier when our built-ins are completed or after I declutter our books (hardest thing for me to do!!)  In the mean time...

What costs have you had to count?  What unexpected sacrifices and blessings in disguise have you encountered?

Linked up with ABFOL One Project at a TIme, Mom's Library, Teach Me Tuesdays and Titus 2 Tuesdays.

Why do we Home School? And How Did We Start?

This question comes up occassionally.  And wow is it tough to answer short and sweet.  I doubt there is a simple, one-sentence answer for most families.  And it seems the longer we homeschool, the more reasons I have to continue.

Let me start with how.  How did we start?  

I researched. I looked at curriciulums.  I read books.  I planned.  But in the end, I just had to START!  That is the most important step - just start.  If you choose the wrong curriculum, you can change.  If you don't have the right materials for your child, you can change.  Sometimes you have to actually start before you can figure out exactly how this will work for your family.  Our homeschool has grown and evolved through practice, grace, and prayer.

Google your local area for homeschool conferences.  I am thankful for our local Midwest Parent Educators group.  They host a conference in Kansas City every year.  Families can attend workshops, find mentors, and browse homeschool curriculum materials.  It can be overwhelming at first, but I loved being able to flip through the top curriculums on my list.

Why did we start?  

We were called to do so.  When my first child was born, I just couldn't even imaging handing her over to someone else to be educated.  She was our blessing and I wanted her at home.  I enjoy watching her learn and grow.  I enjoy learning and growing along side her.  I wanted to give her a thorough, customized, individualized, Biblically-based education.  I looked deeper into public school and researched the best local private schools, but what I envisioned for her could only happen at home.  I wanted to be able to read all day on those rainy days when that's what seemed best.  I wanted to get outside for all-day science experiments on the most beautiful days.  Homeschooling isn't something (most people) just wake up and decide to do.  It's a conviction, a calling, a committment.  It's something for which we changed our life.  

As I type this out, it's 2:30 in the afternoon and we have yet to "do school" today (in the traditional sense of that phrase.) But what we have done is:
make breakfast and lunch together, plant 6 different kinds of seeds, learned about and built an aeroponic garden, wrote a report about that aeroponic garden, built two large forts, and everyone has composed their own short story.  As soon as they complete that second fort, we will all snuggle in that fort with a snack while I will read history and literature and help the youngest two finish their math.  This is not our typical day, as many days do resemble a more traditional school.  And it's not everyday you get to build an aeroponic garden! But rainy days, like today, might look just like this.  

How do you choose a curriculum?

That's a big question.  There are many great choices available these days and many curriculums even use very similar literature, math, and science.  But perhaps the teacher's manuals, the schedule, or arrangement is laid out differently.  And then!  Well then there is unschooling or pulling your own curriculum together.  One method isn't necessarily better than the other, but one method is very likely better for YOUR FAMILY than another.  Here are a few of my favorite books on homeschooling that might help you in your research.  

101 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum  Cathy Duffy's book gives a nice general view over all different forms of homeschooling.  This book will take you through a questionaire to help you find your preferences and strengths.

A Charlotte Mason Companion: Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learning  If you are interested in incorporating more nature, exploration, literature and flexible scheduling, you might enjoy this book.  I did so love this book.

The HSLDA website is also a good place for information on state regulations.

After combing through curriculum reviews and choices, we chose My Father's World curriculum for our home.  My Father's World meets the key points in my reasons for homeschooling.  And it meets and exceeds the requirements for university acceptance at all the universities I checked. It is flexible, Biblically based, partly classical, partly Charlotte Mason, and thorough.  And they have excellent customer service.

As more children have been added to our family, each with their own personalities, likes and dislikes, our reasons for homeschooling have only grown.  We used to say that we were only homeschooling for now, or taking one year at a time, or that we would continue to do so as long as it worked.  After 6 years, I can't imagine it NOT working for our family.  It's a blessing - a little bit of magic that happens right in front of us on a daily basis.

Zuppa Toscana - Paleo Style

Our family loves Zuppa Toscana.  Ages ago, we enjoyed this soup in the traditional recipe.  But these days I have my own modified recipe that works around all our food issues.  

Let me recap those food issues real quick (or not so quick).  One daughter is highly intolerant to potatoes - and that includes anything related to potatoes, like "enriched" products, potato starch, and anything with added "vitamin B" to name a few.  She also cannot tolerate dairy and grains together at the same meal.  Strange, yes?  But evidently not as uncommon as you might think.  It took us three years of praying, searching, food journaling, and allergy testing to finally identify what was causing her such pain.

My son has full-on food allergies.  He is allergic to... Are you ready for this list?
Wheat, Oat, Barley, Rye, Dairy, Egg, Strawberry, Nuts and Treenuts.  Strawberries give him hives, gluten-containing grains and dairy produce eczema, and nuts yield wheezing and anaphylaxis - generally speaking.  I make sure none of these are in his diet and am careful to avoid any cross contamination.  

As for myself, well I avoid grains, sugar, most dairy and all legumes.  I've learned through trial and error that those ingredients just aren't tolerated well in my body.  Can see why most paleo-style recipes work really well for us?

Back to zuppa.  The protein in my recipe is  Italian pork sausage.  Find one that does not contain any MSG and is light on sugar.  The label should read something like pork, water, sea salt, fennel, pepper, and oregano.  Possibly some sugar as the last ingredient.  If you don't like pork, feel free to subsitute with some grass-fed beef.  You will love it just the same and your soup will be lighter.  Add some fennel when you brown the meat to bring in that sausage flavor.

The broth of my recipe is chicken bone broth - homemade and packed with minerals.  You just can't have enough homemade bone broth in your diet or freezer.

Here is my tour of Zuppa Toscano for the paleo / Whole30 / food allergy family.  Start out with good ingredients.  Not many required are for this simple recipe.  I'm going to make a double batch and freeze half; feel free to halve the ingredients if you are not interested in batch cooking.

• 4 pounds of Italian Sausage (or grass-fed ground beef)
• 2 large onions
• Cauliflower (two heads or two packages of chopped frozen)
• 2 Qt bone broth (and another 2 qt on hand for the half to be frozen)
• seasonings: oregano, basil, crushed red pepper, real salt and pepper (details below)

If you are using homemade bone broth that has been frozen, start warming that up while the other ingredients cook.

Go ahead and start browning your meat while you chop the onions.  Add those when the meat is about half-way browned.

When the meat and onions are nearly cooked through, add your seasoning to taste.  Now this can be tricky.  Did you salt your bone broth when you prepared it or are you using seasoned store broth?  Did you make your bone broth from well-seasoned chicken bones?  What about your Italian sausage - was that well seasoned or mildly seasoned?  This is where it pays to know your ingredients.  So please consider your own ingredients and season the zuppa to taste.  

• 1/2 teaspoon dried Oregano and 1/2 teaspoon dried Basil
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper (How spicy do you like it?)
• 1 Tablespoon dried garlic
• Salt and Pepper to taste - remember to use a good quality salt.

While the meat finishes and the seasonings are marinating, wash and chop the cauliflower.  If you are using frozen cauliflower, grab it from the freezer.

Give it a rough chop.  It's going to break up nicely while cooking, so no need to be percise.

Once the meat is cooked through and seasoned, I pull half of the meat and onion mixture off to cool in a mixing bowl.  I'm going to reserve this for the freezer.

With half the meat cooling for next week's menu, add in your chopped cauliflower.  Give it a stir and let it start to cook.

Once your cauliflower is warmed nicely, add your broth.

While your cauliflower is warming through and softening up in the soup, go ahead and prep a freezer stash of zuppa.  I add the cooled meat into the bottom of a freezer container and then top it with chopped cauliflower (fresh or frozen).  Seal it with a lid and stash it in the freezer with a 2 quart container of bone broth and a stash of kale.  The next time our family needs a quick meal, this soup can be warmed up and served in less than 20 minutes.

The next step comes with my favorite greens tip.  I love the big bags of organic kale found at Costco.  I buy them two or three bags at a time (because you never know when Costco is going to run out!) and drop them into the deep freeze as soon as I get home.  For soups or smoothies, just open the bag and crumble in the amount you enjoy.  No chopping and no worries about any of those greens spoiling in the bottom of your refrigerator.  Add as much as you like.  Kale is so nutrient dense, so add plenty.

It only takes a minute to warm the kale through and you are ready to serve.  Give a taste to check your seasoning level and then dish out a bowl.  

This is exactly how my son loves his zuppa.  Two of my girls prefer heavy cream drizzled into their bowls, so I keep rass-fed whole cream on hand for them.

I have read that many in the paleosphere enjoy coconut milk in their zuppa, and occasionally my son does, too.  As for me, I like it just fine without.

I hope you enjoy this recipe!  Don't be afraid to tweak your past favorite foods to fit your current food lifestyle.  Please feel free to share what tweaked traditional recipes you love below in the comments!

Linked up with Kimi @ the Nourishing Gourmet: Pennywise Platter.