Riona's Micro Homesteading Thread, Part 2

What's Next:  Well I don't know for sure.  There are three choices as I reckon it.  Choice 1, if we find a small house or duplex we can move to where the landlord is flexible in the next 2 weeks we can give our notice and not renew our lease.
Option 2, we stay put for another year and I still garden on my very full-of-plants balcony.
Option 3, we renew here, but month to month so we can find a right place.  Month to month is spendy, but quite frankly if we can get what we're hoping to get it will likely cost a bit more anyways, so we should get used to it.

There are a couple of basic dementions to it all, I want a small yard, and I want to sell vintage+ from my living room.  It would be great if we could get something that is zoned mixed use, but since that's highly unlikely I'll go the home business type B route with permit, because in the metro area here going under the table will get me caught, unlike out in the country.  But I need to find a landlord who doesn't mind what I'm up to, with plants and with selling.  So its a tall order.  But having a vintage booth at an antique mall has only gotten me so far, I'd found a place that was starting to work for me, after failed attempts elsewhere, but it closed and while I've been scouting around for a new location to rent space at I really don't want to do that.

The flexability of selling from my living room is exactly what I need.  And I can balance it with my growing things, my peer support classes I teach and my singing gigs.  With my multiple disabilities I need flexible and the right small house or duplex with the right landlord could give me just that.  I want to add composting and mushroom growing to the docket as well if we have enough space, and get a Bokashi so I can compost meat and citris and bread.

There are other aspects we need, close to public transit, etc. but I'm not going to go into all of those here, every time I move its the same basics, but now we want something "better" than an apartment.

In the meantime:  I ground up a bunch of dried eggshells and put it on my broccoli pots so the seeds will have calcium.  I may have overdid it though because I used a lot, apparently that didn't stop a slug from chillin' in one the other night, the baby slugs have turned into big grownup slugs and they can still climb up here grrrr.  I check my plants each night, I learnt they can show up even when its not raining.  I can't know if they're there until I feel them and yick I toss them over the balcony, but then getting their slime off my hand is a chore.  Oh the joys of blindylife (sarcasm).
My carrots and fava beans are happening, and my calendula too, we ate the last of the white raddishes in our salad, plus some volunteer common nipplewort leaves, I'll leave a couple of those to flower just to see what they are like and the bees will have a turn.  Usually I just pull them when young and eat the leaves.  The wildflowers in one of my balcony hanging boxes are coming along and growing nicely, I planted some more in my self-watering boxes.  Also planted my serano pepper seeds, my baby white pumpkin seeds and my cantalope seed.  Started hardening the poinsetia today, I'll bring it out and in for a week and then leave it out for the warm season.

Eureka, We Found It:  Well that happened fast.  We found and went to view and applied for a little 2 bed 1 bath house which meets all of our requirements, and has a bit of earth for planting seeds in, and flexible landlords woot woot so I can do all my goals in there!  I'm so thankful and we can stay in the county we prefer and its about six min. from where we live now, and its cheaper than our current apartment!  I'm so thankful, it should take 2 or 3 days until we know if we're approved but I don't see a reason why we wouldn't be.  I have to get this house packed up and ready to move, as I'm hoping to take possession of the house on May 20th, and move in on the 22nd, as that's the latest we can do it since we need my MIL to help us and she has surgery coming up after that.

Meanwhile my cantalope seed has sprouted and some of my wildflowers look like they're ready to make buds.  My Italian plum tree is getting so big that it tickles me whenever I walk outside onto the balcony that naughty creature.  My poor pitcher plant, not sure how to save it, most of the cups are dried and shriveled and my attempts to gently get them to rehydrate aren't seeming to work.  My ornamental plumtree seedlings, 1 died but 2 are strong and happy, likely I'll keep one for myself and hopefully grow it to fruition and get the wonderful cherry-sized plums from it someday, my fave type of plum, and sell or give the other one to someone else.  I think I like growing trees from seed.  Even though it takes time it feels worth it.

Oh my goodness, it sounds like it was meant to be! Sometimes things just align in life and happen smoothly (after a lot of banging heads against brick walls!) I hope this move pans out and the house is all you hope it to be!

Thanks Nancy, FINALLY!  I mean the bit of earth is small, its a narrow yard that wraps around the house, but its so much more than I currently have that its very exciting to me.

Little yellow wildflower buds:  I have these wildflowers, they're Pacific NW native flowers, anyways they have grown their buds and will open soon!  A couple of other things have newly sprouted, time will tell if they're what I actually planted or other surprises as that is how things go sometimes.  I never got to use the growlights we borrowed from my MIL because they were missing a plug-in chord, but now we won't need them as we'll have plenty of sun at the new house.  I've started the process of packing, I think the actual moving is the worst part, but the packing is the close second.  Unpacking is more exciting to me because I get to figure out where everything goes in the new location.

Now you need to try and remember 'start small' and 'observe'....so difficult when you have a new patch of ground. Can we play fantasy gardens with you pretty please?

I'm so happy to hear this outcome! Been thinking of you and your situation for a while, how exciting!

Pitcher plant solved:
So we got some rain and with it some humidity.  Our humidity here is never intense, but we do have some, usually what others would consider midlevel, but occasionally more.  Well this bit of more humid is exactly what my pitcher plant needed, its pitchers are now supple and feeling more alive under my touch.  I guess they just got upset when its too dry in the air.  I probably need to get a mister spray bottle for them, my current spray bottle doesn't mist, it all comes out one hole.

Packing, preparing for the move.  Going on Thurs. to sign the lease and give them the money they require for move-in.  We're doing what I call a soft move.  Our big D-day for moving will be on the 22nd, with the rented truck etc. but before then, and after then if things don't all fit, we'll bring loads over in my husband's Rav4.  Its 6 min. from our current location.  I'm so excited, no more stupids living underneath me complaining about us being exuberant and living our lives, etc.  I'll miss the hot tub and being 9 blocks from my husband's work, and the view of the big hill, and this stretch of the creek, but I will be in walking distance of another stretch of said creek so that will be neat.

My broccoli sprouts are getting leggy, I can't wait to have full sun instead of mediocre sun.  My carrots are growing slow but steady.  The lettuce and spinich didn't end up growing, I think those seeds are too old.  Oh well I will toss them.  Only one snap pea plant took correctly, but I think I planted it early enough for it to grow better this year and not shrivel in the heat.  We've had a very sunny springtime, no 90+ degree days yet though thankfully.

The beginning of the move:  
We got the keys to our new little rental house on Thurs. and we moved our first carload of stuff over last night.  We're definitely not minimalists haha.  We'll move another load on Sun., Tue. and Thurs. before the big push on next Sat. the 24th during which we'll rent a moving truck and have kinsmen come help us move.  After that we'll leave a couple of large items in the old appt. as we have it until the 13th, I like having some overlap time, and I'll post those 2 large items for free on facebook marketplace and just come over here when someone schedules to pick them up to let them in so they can carry them out.  Those items aren't working for us anymore and we need different options which we will acquire at the new house.

Out side on my balcony garden, I've got some random big healthy blades of grass appearing in a couple of my pots, who knows where these things come from.  Anyways I'll probably uproot them soon.  I'm trying to learn how to handle climbing plants, obviously if they get big enough fast enough they can climb on the rungs of the balcony, for now, but other than that I have some sticks etc. for them to climb.  I tried clipping one of my fava bean plants to a stake gently to train it, hopefully that will work in its pot.  We've been getting rain this week which is good for the plantbabies. Last year my blueberry started flowering around this time, but this year no flowers yet.  I'm really looking forward to the better sun that my plants will get at the new house, I think that will solve a lot of problems like spindliness/legginess, etc.

Today I took a bag of vintage clothing to the consignment store, when I end up with clothing I sell it there, most of it was in trade for us helping a friend with a project a couple of months ago, some good stuff in that bag!  Once I get my type B home occupation vintage business going in the living room, I don't intend to sell much clothing there, because clothing can give off that musty smell in larger quantities, plus clothing doesn't get me excited enough, unless its faire costumes of course.

The creeks will sound happy to have you around

We'll be within a mile of that same creek, just farther down its course, so looking forward to learning it and seeing how it changes along its path.

Succession wildflowers:  
So I planted more NW wildflower mixed seeds in a couple of my containers, the ones I planted in early March are happy and the yellow ones are tiny but happy.  Waiting to see what else comes, both from that first group and from the more recent planting I did in late April.  

Every night I go check for slugs and fling them off the balcony when I find them.  Then I have to scrape their goo off my fingers before even trying to wash it off haha.  I can't use gloves because they dampen my sense of touch too much, and that's how I find them.  With my visual impairment most things are done via touch and so things that limit that, like gloves,  feel icky and yucky to me, so slug goo it is haha.

Riona Abhainn wrote:Every night I go check for slugs and fling them off the balcony when I find them.  Then I have to scrape their goo off my fingers before even trying to wash it off haha.  

You might find a 'beer trap' of use perhaps for that. Put a little beer in the bottom of a container and they happily crawl in and drown themselves. It is a little sad for the slugs, but I think they die happy. Other liquids work I gather, it doesn't have to be beer. You could then just empty the containers into your compost every day or so and you wouldn't have to touch the slug slime.
The only thing to watch is that if you part bury the containers in soil don't put the lips level with the soil surface; make them an inch or two taller, as ground beetles can fall in and not get out.