A Common Life
Welcome to A Common Life where Morgan and Taylor offer month-by-month gardening advice to help your garden thrive. We also share our personal journey in seasonal living, aiming to foster a deeper connection with others, nature, and our Creator. Our hope is to encourage and equip others who are on a similar journey and to provide a space for community around these ideals.
A Common Life
Spring Hit Different This Year: Strawberries, Resurrection, Lettuce, and a Growing Garden
In this episode Morgan and Taylor look back on April and discuss the many pleasures of spring.
Mentioned in the Show:
Mountain Sun Farm
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Music on the podcast was composed by Kevin Dailey. The artist is Garden Friend. The track is the instrumental version of “On a Cloud”
Hello everybody, Welcome to a common life podcast. I'm your host, Morgan, and I'm here with my husband, Taylor.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody.
Speaker 1:Okay, so here we go. We're going to look back over April.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we are, yeah, we are. It's a great month.
Speaker 1:It really was. It really was so. One thing I think that happened this April is that spring really won our hearts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this was a pretty magical spring.
Speaker 1:So I don't know, in the fall we might say fall's our favorite.
Speaker 2:But We've always said fall was our favorite. It is still really an amazing time, love it. But spring this year hit different.
Speaker 1:it really did all the things that have popped up. Just watching everything come back to life. It's just amazing, every single time yeah, it is yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2:I don't know what I'm thinking about this, but I think I read something or I saw something, an article written about some trees in Ukraine and you know the war that's going on over there and how, after you know, I think the war started in February. I think the war started in February and it was just chaos and devastation, but the trees and the flowers still bloomed. And you just saying that about it's a miracle every time and it's just amazing. Every time it's like, yeah, that's something you can count on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it reminds me. I think I've already said this on a podcast, but it reminds me of when Aslan comes back in Narnia. It's like dead winter. And then all of a sudden there's like little whispers of oh, he's back, he's back.
Speaker 2:And the snow begins to thaw. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So this is funny, thinking about wind and the windy days that we've had. So our youngest, wilder he just turned one in April and one of the first things that I think we always teach our kids is the sign for bird and they just notice birds pretty early on. But I think Wilder thinks that the sound that birds make is what a tree sounds like, because whenever the wind blows and the leaves like that, I mean he points and he starts doing the sign for bird. He looks at the trees. I think he thinks that trees sound like birds which is really cute.
Speaker 2:That is really cute. Yeah, that's funny, cause he hears the sound coming from the trees, yeah, yeah. Wow, I know, um, one of the reasons why April won my heart, or just spring, is, like you said, the flowers, but I think it's the anticipation. We were really looking forward to it. We were waiting for all of the firsts that would be coming with spring and the warming weather. So instead of just waiting for the Virginia bluebells this year, we were waiting for all of the wildflowers and really making note Anticipating, anticipating.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that can make a season so much more special.
Speaker 2:So much more special and it's like now, you know, we were waiting for strawberries. It's here and we had it, you know. And so we're going to really just gorge and soak up strawberry season.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's going to make it that much sweeter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this last weekend Virginia Wilder and I went up to Mentone to our friend Liz and Brian's farm. So they do a CSA in our area. They do Huntsville, Chattanooga, Birmingham.
Speaker 2:They do a lot Mountain Sun Farm definitely support them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're in Mentone and so for us it's like an hour and a half drive and we kind of had a crazy weekend to be able to get there. But you know, I've just been thinking about how my hope in doing all these seasonal things like going to pick strawberries or getting tons of apples and making you know apples, all the things with apples that might, that I'll be building childhood memories for my kids. But I thought this, you know, trip to do the strawberry picking and wondering like, are they gonna have fond memories of this? Are they gonna be like, oh mom, like here we go again in the car for an hour and a half to go pick strawberries and you're hot and you're, you know, but my hope is that all those things kind of fade and they remember the taste and they remember, you know picking and.
Speaker 2:I don't know, they definitely will. They'll forget about all of those things. I hope so For sure. I'm sure the stories will become more extravagant, like you know, dragging us all over the southeast when really it was just an hour and a half away. But we go to their farm because they're organic, they grow organic strawberries. It's certified, very, very hard to find, and we have to get Liz and Brian on the podcast to just talk to them. They are incredible, like they're in their thirties and they're doing it Like, to my knowledge, they didn't inherit land, they didn't inherit, you know, a trust fund and they're doing it and that is so incredibly hard to do. Yeah, it.
Speaker 2:And that is so incredibly hard to do. Yeah, even if you are successful in growing the crops, being able to sell them at a margin to make a living, and so they're just so inspirational to me, and doing it, and doing it well, is Awesome people.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I want to talk more about that sometime, just about farming and understanding why it's important to support and purchase from the folks that are doing it. I mean farmers do it because they love it and enjoy it. I mean not all the time but like Liz and Brian, and I haven't really talked to them explicitly about this but they're doing it because it's what they want to do. But supporting the people doing that hard work is so important right.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's good, yeah, it's good. Well, okay, one other thing about things that have popped up that have caught my eye. I think it's really interesting how, if you are paying attention, like you said, you'll start to notice other things that you haven't noticed before. And for me this year that's been irises. I just haven't, I don't know, I'm sure I've. I mean, of course, I've noticed them, but they've won my heart in a new way this year, to where every way it's like, it's just like. You know what do people say when you get a new car? All of a sudden, everybody has that same car you have. It's like I noticed irises and now everywhere I go, I'm like, wow, look at that color. Wow, look at that color. You know.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, irises, they have a special place in your heart now they do.
Speaker 1:I know it's the season. That's why I want to plant some.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we'll have to do that. Yeah, you might become the iris lady. Good, what is it? Rosemary Gladstone? I said sunflower joy comet. Maybe you could be iris joy comet.
Speaker 1:No, I think sunflower joy comet.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, sunflowers are good ones, all righty.
Speaker 1:Looking back over the garden. Anything you want to say about that?
Speaker 2:Well, you wrote down seeing everything pop up resurrection life. This year resurrection day was on March 31st, so it wasn't in April. But yeah it is. Things come alive, resurrection, yeah. It's a good reminder the garden is. I am really happy, and really pleased with all of our cold season crops.
Speaker 1:They have. I mean, even in what? Was it two days ago where you accidentally left the water on for hours After that, like the next day when I came out? It's just going crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I did. I left the water hose on. It was pretty slow, but it was coming out and it was for a few hours, and so whenever you water in your garden, the general rule of thumb is to water deeply less times. So instead of light waterings every day, you want to do like one good soaking once a week, and the reason for that is because you want that water to go deep, and that forces the plants to send their roots deep. If the water just stays in the first two inches, that's where the roots are going to go. But if you water really deeply, then there will be water in the soil, it'll just be deep and it'll force it. It won't force them, but the plants will be encouraged to send their roots deep and they'll become more resilient. That'll preach. That will preach right there. Yes, so it was okay, but it was really a lot of water.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They're hanging in there, though it drained. We have a good draining garden and now they are looking pretty, so we have lettuce that we've harvested all of them. We don't really grow lettuce a lot. We haven't. It hasn't been something we've really just migrated towards.
Speaker 1:We really love cut greens. We do. We love that. But the head lettuce was good man, it was good.
Speaker 2:And we used it a lot. I think we will grow more head lettuce in the future. I think I grew Tom Thumb, that's what it? Was. That's what it was A Tom Thumb variety from Baker Creek, yep, yep, really good, hardly any bitterness.
Speaker 2:We used it in salads on our burgers, on our sandwiches, tacos, really good. And we've harvested all of it now. But you have cut it and it's kind of come back up from the roots, which is cool. I don't think it's marketed as a multi-cut lettuce. And then we have our onions and garlic that we planted last fall. They're doing great, they're doing well. Our garlic started to brown at the tip and I thought, hmm, that might be a nitrogen deficiency. So I put out some blood meal and they're looking good now. So I'm wondering if that was what. It was, just lack of nitrogen and then. So blood meal is a natural nitrogen supplement. Onions are looking good. They're starting to get a little thicker. I don't know when they'll bulb. I need to make a note of that. But parsley is blooming, so we're about to say goodbye to our parsley, but since it's been here for so long, you asked me if we should cut it out and I'm like nah let it bloom.
Speaker 2:Let it live its full. Yes, it's waited this long. Yeah, let it bloom. I'm I'm excited to see it bloom and see if we get some cool butterflies or other flying insects in there, because I think they're gonna really like it yeah, I keep okay, so we have potatoes and they look great, I know I keep wanting to mound them well, I think mounding would be a good thing.
Speaker 2:I've mounded them once, so all of the potatoes that were forming towards the top of the soil should be covered and they should be good. And I do think we just don't have much room and I don't want to pull soil from close, too close, and then, like, scoop up potatoes and mess them up you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, I see what you mean, and we just don't have much room in between or even on the edge. So I think they're just gonna have to do their thing. I think, yeah, but they're looking good. We're gonna have some taters. We have beautiful kale, two different types of kale, it it's doing great and broccoli is starting to head.
Speaker 2:And our cabbage, I think, is going to do the thing too. So here where we are we usually I used to say, hey, grow. I like growing cool season crops in the fall because it gets cooler and all the pests you don't have as many pests. Well, the downside I think to that is we start losing sun about the time things are trying to wrap up their growing season and so you can grow them through the winter and get into early spring. Even with some of your cool season crops that you plant in the fall and in the spring here it gets really hot in the summer, like we're about to start getting hot and bugs are going to get bad. I'll be curious to see how the broccoli, how the cabbage, finish up.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:Kind of like hurry, let's go. I know, yeah, it needs to happen soon and we'll see. We'll see how it does and we will report back.
Speaker 1:What has been getting some of our kale leaves? Do you know?
Speaker 2:That is the butterfly. No, that is the cabbage moth. Yeah, that's the biggest pest in the garden right now. Actually, we have peas.
Speaker 1:You see them flying around, you're like, oh cute little, but you want to just yeah, we got to talk about Alaskan peas, the peas we planted.
Speaker 2:There's a pest getting them. It's taking me off, man. They look so good though, yeah, until you walk out there and you see one wilted. But yeah, the little beautiful little white moth butterfly I don't know if it's a moth, but it's really pretty Hopping around boop boop, boop, boop, boop, dropping its little eggs that turn into little green caterpillars that eat our coal crops. Coal crops, the coal family, is like cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, yeah, and so annoying. So I just go out there like try to every day find them, pinch them, kill the little critters.
Speaker 1:We need to give Wheeler that job. I think he would enjoy that.
Speaker 2:He would eat the crops. He loves, going out there and just eating it, which is fine. Yeah, we should give him that job, definitely. It's a great idea. Finding them and killing them, all right. So the peas Mm-hmm, dad gum roly polies are nipping them. They're just cutting them. They're growing up and I need to go in there and pull out all of the leaves.
Speaker 1:Because the roly polies love leaves. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 2:They're not eating the leaves. They're cutting them at the stem, the stem Right where the stem comes out of the ground. They just chop them off, no Kills them.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:You sure it's the roly poly?
Speaker 1:yes, I'm positive, that's what those roly polies, do you think? Well, when no, but they're not. When they're doing destructive behavior like that, you should call them pill bugs. Pill bugs, isn't that what their like? Name is yeah when they're cute and roly polies yeah, I'd like to disassociate that behavior with the roly-poly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so sad. We still have a few left and now I just need to go in there and pull all of the leaves out. It's just going to be kind of a chore. I mean, it's actually I didn't even mulch, it's just leaves that have found their way into this little area. It's in kind of a raised area. I got stone around it because that's up against the wall. Yeah, Super annoying. We also went camping. That was really fun. At the end of April I didn't go?
Speaker 2:You did not. It was all boys from our life group, so there's six families in our life group and us men wanted to take our boys out. It was.
Speaker 1:It was really cool we, the wives we were so concerned about like what, what are you guys gonna eat? Do you understand how much these kids eat? And like I asked taylor, I'm like taylor, you got stuff packed like what do I need to do to help you? And he's like no, I got it, we got it. Well, what are you gonna? What are you gonna eat meat? Okay, yeah, we're gonna roast meat over the fire okay, well, what about breakfast meat.
Speaker 1:Okay, fine, y'all do it, do your thing. I think I mean all of the boys survived. Did you know? There's some funny, I mean one. They came back with tons of bugs.
Speaker 2:You know, look, here's the thing. I used to be scared to death of ticks, but then you live out on, like where we were and where we were going, like at the farm, and it's just like you can't be scared of ticks because they're everywhere and they're just going to get on you. Yeah, and if you're out in it, so now it's like all right, I see them, I. If you're out in it, so now it's like all right, I see them. I feel it crawling on me. I know, after being out in this tall grass or out doing my thing, I'm going to have them. I just got to check myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you got to pull them off and pray and hope you don't get Lyme disease. I guess, if that's even a real thing, which I'm sure it is, I think if you put lavender, lavender is one to put on it, some to put on it, some of that like black ointment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would be good, but okay, something else that was funny. Like these are the things that moms do, okay, I think one of the boys, like was freaking out because he didn't have his lovey and the mom had packed it, but the dad didn't know they packed it. The other thing I don't know if you know this one, the littlest. So one of the dads just brought three hammocks for the boys to sleep in and the dad slept in a lawn chair. Bad idea Three boys in hammocks. Well, he put the youngest on the top and didn't put a pull-up on him, whoops. So he teetied all the way down.
Speaker 1:All three hammocks were soaked with pee.
Speaker 2:Except he didn't have three boys, he had four, he had four all in their hammocks. Yeah, there was one hammock with two boys in there.
Speaker 1:I don't even. And I asked the mom, I asked her Kat, what she's like. Morgan, they do this at the house Like they just go out. When I'm talking four boys, I'm talking like six and under age-wise, like one of them is one Just sleeping outside in a hammock. It's fine.
Speaker 2:He's not one baby Charlie is like two, ruby is one. You're right, you're right, you're right, he's like two. You're going get sorry child control called on us two, maybe coming close on three. Yeah, it was great, I, I know that. Um, the dad who slept outside had to have oof, I don't know. You know, I slept on the ground, on my, on my. I slept. Yeah, I had a blow-up pad and I'm just now getting up up. We went to bed last night at 8.30.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm just still recovering from that, and then the next day of doing the work and whatnot. But, yeah, you don't recover like you used to Sleeping on the ground. Man, it's tough, yeah, but we had a great time.
Speaker 1:Good Well I think that's it.
Speaker 2:Looking back over April.
Speaker 1:So well, I think that's it, I think, back over april. So we hope you guys have a great week and until next time, happy gardening, thank you.