Take A Bite Into Beautiful

This year while planting my gardens, I took special consideration in planting flowers that aren't just appealing to the eye, but to the taste buds as well! Since many individuals are uneducated in the art of edible flowers, they tend to shy away from the idea all together.  Granted not all flowers are edible, and some can actually make you very sick, but if you stick to a few simple guidelines you can start serving beautiful dishes from your vegetable garden and your flowerbed!

When choosing edible flowers make sure you;
- Wash your flowers thoroughly,
- Eat only plants you have grown, and that you know are safe for consumption,
- Plant flowers intended for consumption away from pesticides or other chemicals (natural is always better),
- Remove everything from the flower but the petals (except pansies, as the stamen adds flavour),
- NEVER eat any flower you are unfamiliar with, or anything that comes from a florist or large chain nursery since they tend to use lots of pesticides.

Short List of Edible Flowers:
- Pansies and Johnny Jumpers
- Violets
- Carnations
- Mums
- Clovers
- Dandelions
- Day Lilies
- Hibiscus
- Honey Suckle
- Impatiens
- Marigolds
- Lilacs
- Roses
- Tulips

*Don't just use the petals as garnish, try infusing them in hot water and make a tea, or add to a cold pitcher of water on hot days. Also works well in butters and oils.

This Blog Is Carbon Neutral

Have You Caught The Gardening Bug?

So, living in the North means our Spring starts a little bit later, and this year it seemed like forever before the ice melted off the lake out back. Now, two weeks later, Spring has arrived full force! A rule of thumb my Mom taught me as a kid was, "as soon as you see your first Robbin, it's Springtime." Well, there is tons of Robbins chirping, and we even found a nest under our porch with four powder blue Robbin eggs! - Luckily I was able to snap a picture (careful not to disturb the nest) of the nest while the momma bird was on the hunt for worms on the ground from the rainy night before.
 

Robbin's nest in our backyard.

Since the weather has been getting warmer, HB and I decided to take on the project of creating a new vegetable garden for our 2011 harvest. Last year, we created a make-shift garden (since we we're new to the gardening scene), and seemed to run into a few problems (earwigs, critters, etc...) so, now we feel we have a little more experience under our belt, and decided that this time we'd make a more visually appealing design with an easier to harvest layout. Which will now be pest free...hopefully.

 I will make sure to post pictures of the gardens (before and after) as soon as it's finished!

Since HB has been busily working on building our vegetable bed, I've been getting my hands in the soil and getting ready to plant in the next couple of weeks. Today however, I decided to germinate a variety of different seeds to get a head start on this years harvest. I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to use, but I found an old egg carton in the recycling and it's perfect! I added a little seed starter soil in each egg carton cup, made a little hole, added the seed, sprinkled a little water, and Voila! instant germination station! I closed the lid to the egg carton, and put in a well lit window to give the seeds a greenhouse effect. Now, if my timing is correct, they should be ready to plant outside in a week or two, when the ground is perfect temperature for them to survive .

In this picture I have lemon balm, acorn squash, broccoli, and stevia ready to germinate.

What about you? Have you been bitten by the gardening bug? What do you usually plant in your veggie garden?

-xo Hippie Girl

The chicks are here!!!

Better late than never for another post! - was hoping to get on here sooner... but anyways, on to... CHICKENS! I cannot believe it! I have chickens!

I have been asking HB for chickens for about a year now, never really pushing the subject, but always throwing the idea around. The thought of having fresh eggs for Sunday morning breakfast (or really everyday of the week for that matter), is so fascinating to me! Of course! Why wouldn't I want chickens??

Finally, after doing a little bit of research, and finding an ever so helpful website (backyardchickens.com) I figured I'd gather all my facts and put together a fool proof proposal to show HB. Luckily, he's just as awesome as I am, and it didn't take much convincing! Once I got the okay, I anxiously searched for cute little chicks to start our coop! Sure enough, one week later...we became the mother hens to 6 little chicks!

Now, the chicks have been with us for almost a week, and are growing like weeds! They are still a little shy, but are starting to warm up to us the more we play with them. We have 4 different kind of chickens (polish-americuana, 2 brahmas, 2 silkies, and buff-orpington), and are eagerly waiting to find out if they are pullets (hens), or cockerels (roosters). My wish would be that they are all Pullets, so we could keep every one, but since we want the eggs, we can't have any roosters in our chicken coop. Kind of a bummer, since I'm already getting attached, but I do have people wanting to give any rooster we have, a good home... So that's comforting. :)

I would love to stay and blog about the benifeits of having pet chickens, but today HB, HD, and I are going to spend the day outside working on the backyard and it's time to start working on the coop before the chicks out-grow their brooder! Thank goodness HB is a carpenter!! More updates soon!





See you in the sunshine!
-xo Hippie Girl

 Buffy - Buff Orpington

 Ducky! - Polish-Americuana (she'll lays edible green eggs!)

 MJ - Brahma chick

 Nugget - Brahma chick.

 Salt- White Silkie chick

Pepper- Black Silkie chick

Hippie Girl's First EVER Post!

I've always been a weird kid... An oddball if you will. Not the kind that played with dead things, or anything, but you know...different. I guess I've carried that trait on into adulthood. I'm really glad I have actually. I like being creative and thinking outside the box. This blog is my adventures as Hippie Girl (HG, for short), and my wonderful boyfriend, Hippie Boy (HB), along with our trusted sidekick, Hyper Dog (HD), and Charlie (he's our cat, and he's so awesome he doesn' need a nickname).

HB and I like to keep it simple. We are trying to live our life as healthy, Eco-friendly and as naturally as we possibly can. We like to call ourselves Modern Day Hippies. Exploring different healthy and fun alternatives to the crazy consumer driven world we unfortunately live in.  Our quest for the perfectly healthy and satisfying life is just beginning, and I plan to use this blog to keep a record of all our exciting endeavors, but you never know where an open mind might lead you!

See you in the sunshine!
-xo Hippie Girl