Tending Seeds Transcript - Episode 7

Planting Frenzy

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Sara Schuster  0:08  
This is tending seeds, a podcast about my adventures and homesteading and herbalists on. I'm Sara Schuster, and I'll be your host. Thanks for being here today. Hi, friends, Sara here, it's may 1. So happy May Day and Bell pain to those of you that celebrate. This is supposed to be the midway point between spring and summer. And if you're like me, you're probably going pretty nuts right now, there's so much going on here at the farm. And honestly, I'm struggling to keep up. It's all great problems to have though. No worries. On the other hand, I do feel like I'm drowning a little bit. I'm pretty much getting up in the mornings going out working on planting, heading off to my side, hustle gig off the farm, coming home and working again, you know, until I'm losing daylight, you know, just chasing dusk and and coming inside of the last possible minute. And it kind of feels like like it's going to be that way for a good while from here on out. So we're going to have a little bit of a shorter episode today. Apologies for that. But it's not even just my to do list that's pulling me away. It's also just this amazing weather. It's not too hot yet. I'm getting up. It's in the 60s in the morning, still here. And it's just fantastic. And I know that this isn't going to last and so I really just want to take advantage of it as much as I can. While this weather is here. I've been working hard to get as much planted as I can, especially with our trees. So I've gotten a bunch of fruit trees planted. Right now we have a huge persimmon tree that was already here on a property, a fig tree and some elderberries I planted last fall, which luckily have all come back and all made it through the winter. So that's super heartening for me. I've also planted more peach trees, apple trees, and also have added and chestnuts and hazelnuts I'm really hoping those will take I'm super excited by the prospect of having, you know nuts to harvest and use the a protein source here for us. I'm getting the vegetable garden and and then also transplanting lots of fun medicinal herbs. So I'm really thinking about, you know, the financial impact when people talk about like, wow, you're spending so much time doing this and like, Yeah, well, by growing vegetables, we're hopefully reducing our grocery and food bills, that means less money going out from our household. And then by growing the medicinal herbs, you know, which is part of my overall business plan long term here. Hopefully that's going to bring some money in. And so I think in the end, you know, it definitely will justify all the time we're spending out there. Maybe not this year, it's our first season I'm trying to, you know, give myself some leeway and some grace there. But in the end, I think it is going to all work out and it will be fine. This first season especially is just going to be so busy. That's the upside of planting perennials, though, is that once you get those perennials established, you're not having to replant them every year. And so hopefully, what that means is that year after year, it should get easier and easier to get that garden going each new season, not least of all because my skill set and my timing will have gotten better and faster. But also because some of these plants are just going to be coming back and returning each each year. I do have one quick story to tell you all about though before we go today, and get back to work outside. I know one of the reasons for starting this podcast at the beginning of our homesteading and farming journey was that I wanted to be able to share the ups and downs of this adventure with all of you and give you a chance to laugh at any of the mishaps we've had along the way. And we haven't really talked about any of those yet. So I do want to share a quick one with you today, maybe give you a good chance to shake your head and laugh. The big lesson that I have unfortunately learned is that if the previous owner of a house tells you that they didn't smoke in their house, don't believe them, y'all just don't. I believed her because she had a young child. And because the house didn't really smell smoky when we came and looked at it, but I should have known better. The master bathroom was one of the last places that we painted in the house because we were so focused on getting the common areas done prior to move in. And so we were actually living here for several months before I thought that painted. And it was around that time that I started pondering the truth of her statement about not smoking in the house. Because we started getting lots and lots of heavy rain for you know, several days in a row. As we headed into that season, I realized that neither of the two exterior doors on the house had any sort of overhang over them. And for some reason, my brain just followed up with that and thought, well, where did she start to smoke then when it was raining, and I was thinking about that. And that's when it really clicked for me that she probably was smoking somewhere in the house then I wasn't sure where that would have been. But I soon found out. Before we painted each room, we would go through and wipe the walls off using a sponge and like a vinegar solution just because they were sort of dusty and dirty. And like I said one of the last rooms to get painted was that master bathroom. None of these problems were instantaneous. Yes, I didn't notice them right

away. It actually took a few months after I finished painting that bathroom. For me to see a problem. I got out of the shower one day and noticed that the condensation on the walls seemed really streaky. And it normally wasn't like that. So I thought it was kind of odd, but I just figured that my really hot shower had seemed the place up, you know, maybe more than usual. But now it kept happening with each falling shower. And then I realized that this condensation wasn't drying up or even going away between showers. And then I started trying to like wipe it off. And it was gross and sticky. Yep, so our bathroom walls were literally bleeding nicotine out through a layer of primer and two coats of paint. So I was pretty frustrated and grossed out I got online to look up how to best deal with this. And so now I have to go back with some serious elbow grease and a cleaner and scrubbing power and try to get this nicotine off of there. Also, the frustrating thing is I know that in the process of doing this, I'm probably going to end up you know, scrubbing some of the paint off and messing up my paint job. And so now I'm gonna have to repaint the whole bathroom once I've got it clean, and then cross my fingers that no more nicotine comes through that coat of paint either. I'm not excited and this cleaning would have been a lot easier to do before I painted. So that's my hard learned a lesson to share with you today. If the previous occupants smoked, assume they smoked inside of the house to regardless of what they tell you. And go ahead and scrub accordingly. Before you paint, it's far easier to do it then rather than later on. Okay, all again, I'm sorry that this is such a short episode, but I didn't want to leave you hanging. And we will be back in two weeks. So we still do new episodes the first and third Wednesday of each month. You can reach out and connect with me by email Fox and elder at gmail. com. Or you can hop on over to Instagram I'm pretty active there if you want to see what's happening at the farm what's getting planted, what's coming out of the garden and going into our food. It's Fox and elder all one word on Instagram. Also, I just want to apologize for any of the cat meals that are coming through for you today. Sherman is super worked up this morning and he did not want to cooperate with the recording schedule. If you're enjoying the show, please subscribe rate and review share with a friend thanks to those of you who have already done so. I hope you're out there in the garden working on your stuff as well having a great time. Until next time, keep your hands dirty and your heart open.