Harvest Monday 2/21-2/27 2012

lovely beet greens, we are still thinning.

More peas!

I love the beet greens, especially the color. We harvested a lot of greens (kale, chard, and spinach) without taking pictures this week. Most were blanched and added to the freezer. The others were added to yummy salads along with claytonia, mache and the last of the lettuces. I also decided to try and make our own spinach powder this week by drying out some of our spinach, wish me luck. I just remembered to add that we also had 5-7 radishes that we harvested this week.

Sadly we had a couple days full of wind and our peas were stripped from there trellis and snapped down in half. I picked the mature ones of the plants and I hope for the best but who knows if they will make it. Everything else in our little garden is perking up with the sun...I keep on the water since we still are waiting for the rain. I love sunny weather but know that rain is what is best this time of year...rain...please come!

I made it to the market this week so here is the first list from the Chico Certified Farmer's Market: Saturday Feb. 25th 2012

Herbs- dill, cilantro, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, chives, fennel and lemongrass.

Fruit- grapefruits, many varieties of apples, tangelos, oranges, kiwi, mandarins, lemons, limes and strawberries.

Greens- red Russian kale, dinosaur kale, curly kale, bok choy, arugula, mustard greens, collard greens, many different types of lettuce, tatsoi, spinach, escarole, swiss chard, aruglua and chicory.

Root veggies- parsnips, carrots, beets, turnips, daikon, radish, turnips, and many types of potatoes.

Others- many types of winter squashes, regular cabbage, broccoli, romanesco cauliflower, celery, red onions, sweet onions, garlic, green onion, leeks, mushrooms, sunchokes, avocado, sugar cane, savory cabbage, and asparagus.

Happy Harvest Monday, we are linking up with Daphne's Dandelions...so go check out with others are harvesting around the world.

Homemade Shampoo and Conditioner: Updated

Check out the new Homemade Shampoo Recipe here!

I found a couple recipes that I liked so I mixed them together to create what I needed. I used Stimulate from instructables and Quench from instructables to create a shampoo. Then I used a couple different recipes mixed together from Hazel Tree Farm for the conditioner.
Here's my shampoo recipe:

1 tsp baking soda (skip if using the baking soda cleanse, see below)
1/4 tbsp aloe gel (optional, I now skip this step to avoid extra build up)
1/4 tsp avocado oil (optional)
1/8 tsp tea tree oil
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup liquid castile soap (we used Dr. Bronner's Peppermint, but understand that it is strongly scented. We are used to it because we also use Dr. Bronner's peppermint bar soap)

Mix ingredients together in an old shampoo bottle, do not shake, just swirl it around a little bit every time before you use.

For ladies with long hair, I start from the base of my neck at the roots and work my way up to get all my roots washed, then squeeze extra shampoo into the rest of you hair. I let it sit in my hair for a little bit (10-30 second) and rinse out. It felt really weird using it the first time because your hair kinda feels greasy after but trust me it all turns out fine in the end. Also I only wash my hair every other day.

Here's my conditioner recipe:

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
2 tbsp-1/4 cup fresh rosemary
1 1/2 cup water

Bring water to a boil, throw in rosemary and steep for at least 2 minutes. Remove rosemary and cool water. Add rosemary water and apple cider vinegar to a spray bottle.

After shampooing hair spray water/apple cider vinegar solution all over hair and rinse well. I usually do this twice and it seems to work really well.

After about a week of using them and reading this blog post (on just a couple acres) I decided that I wanted to try a baking soda cleanse to get rid of any old build up from the old store bought shampoo and conditioners. I never got around to trying it so I finally mixed 1 tsp of baking soda into the double batch of shampoo I had already made.

It took a few weeks for me to really get the recipe worked out perfectly. I think it also just takes a few weeks for your hair to adjust to the change. Here is another great blog post about going no 'poo' written by The Crunchy Wife. It explains more about the advantages of going "no poo" and the disadvantages of store bought products. Now I understand why I have the whole dry/oily scalp problem.

I love the way it is all working, my hair actually feels much cleaner and its much much easier to brush. I also feel like I am wasting a lot less water. We have a water softener so it takes a long time to really get store bought conditioner rinsed out of my long hair. The homemade rinse comes right out! I have also noticed that my hair is much less oily. It used to get pretty oily by the end of the second day but now its barely oily at all. Plus I can tell that my scalp is in better shape, not dry or itchy anymore. Sorry I have no before and after pictures. I forgot to take a before, so now an after is pretty worthless.

I learned a little more about how helpful the tea tree oil and rosemary can be for your hair through this article about the 5 best essential oils for hair, check it out!

Harvest Monday 2/14-2/20 2012

Chard, kale, mache, claytonia, spinach and a radish

More spinach, and our first beautiful peas (Sugar Magnolia Purple Snaps from Redwood Seeds)

PEAS! Finally some yummy peas, they tasted amazing. We were not sure if we were ever going to get any since we planted so late in the fall. They managed to over winter and produce! We also had lots of greens to add to salads and a few radishes. Still looking forward to more root veggies and our brassicas in the future.

Sadly, we did not make it to the farmers market this week to get the list. I have a feeling not much changed but next week we will be back with a full list.

We also added a little bit about us (click here) to our blog. Happy Harvest Monday, we are linking up with Daphne's Dandelions...so go check out with others are harvesting around the world.