Author: beautifulchaosorg

Hi, I am Carolien and I am a Dutch woman trying to build a self sufficient homestead on concrete and rubble. Follow my husband and me on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@straverhomestead9667

Getting garden GOLD

We got 2 manure spreaders full with cow manure, coming direct out of the cowshed
The best thing ever when building garden beds from scratch

This is from the farmer we get our beef from and we are so happy with it. We got it direct out of the cowshed. As you can see on this picture the farmer is loading up the manure spreader.

Manure spreader being loaded with cow manure by a wheel loader, standing underneath the roof in frond of the cowshed

Back home my husband turned the manure of and made a nice big pile with the cow manure.

1st batch of cow manure being turned of the manure spreader in a big pile on an unused pasture
Second batch of cow manure being turned of the manure spreader in a big pile on an unused pasture

Obviously this is fresh and only for next years use. The temperature is at 140°C at the moment. Once this cools down we will load the manure up again and make a new pile, so air can get in again and the composting process will go on again.

Soil thermometer in fresh cow manure pointing at 140°C

We have been trying to compost hay and straw with not the success we where hoping for, since the material lacks the needed amount of nitrogen. Composting first uses a lot of nitrogen, which is released again after the process is done. In the fall we will already be using this manure on our compost beds to get them really going and have garden beds that are rich of nutrients for our plants next year.

A “thank you” to our donators.

2 cows standing in the sun eating hay

And the best thing is, there is more to come this winter.

Here is a link to our video about getting garden gold.

My experience with food during pregnancy

Are you nauseas an exhausted during the first trimester of pregnancy?
Than read my story with a few helpful tips.

So far to “healthy eating” and what would “healthy eating” during pregnancy actually look like?

My text down below is somewhat unorganised and unstructured. Maybe you would like to read it anyway, maybe you don’t and that is fine as well. I hope this article may help other women in the first trimester of there pregnancy, who are having a hard time.

As I mentioned in my previous post I am currently pregnant with our 4th child and by the time the 9th week of pregnancy ended I was doing really bad, but before writing on about this some information on forehand.

What did I eat as a child?

As a child and young adult I ate a lot of candy, cookies, chocolate etc. I also had some teeth problems and very sensitive teeth, reacting with cold and with very sweet.

Changing my diet

At some point I tried to reduce the amount of sweets I was eating. Especially during my previous pregnancies I would eat muffins and chocolate. The more processed sweets (like chocolate with caramel) made me feel sick, so that was easier to do without. After my third child was born the corona lockdown came and we reduced doing our groceries to the organic store in our neighbourhood. Since the organic sweets are ratter expensive we stopped buying sweets, cookies where a treat now and then and a cake I baked myself now and then. We are really cautious with sugar containing products for our kid’s, since I know how hard it is to get away from that again and we really notice on there behaviour when they eat something with sugar. I was really informing myself about nourishing ourselves healthy. I got the book “nourishing traditions” and was partially really shocked over the information in there and a little afraid to buy anything that is processed in some sort of way.

Well not buying anything that has been processed is not something you can do over night, but more like a change in progress. Baking bread has been a changing process from yeast bread to sourdough bread, back to yeast bread and back to sourdough bread. Meanwhile I have managed to bake tasting sourdough bread and my family does not what to have yeast bread anymore. I also use the same dough for pizza crust. We love pizza. A totally different thing is making sauces. With the mayonnaise it was a long journey with a lot of waist, since the taste was so terrible in the beginning I threw it into the compost. Meanwhile I can make a mayonnaise that meets our taste for use as a dressing in salads, but we do also still buy mayonnaise for convenience and as a dip for the French fries.

Meats we eat

But I am drifting away from the topic on hand. An important thing I want to mention is that I pay attention to the meat I buy. We eat a lot of meat and I used to buy all organic grass fed meat, which is very, very expensive. We have met a farmer in our neighbourhood who raises cows, pigs and poultry. He is not organic, but put only his own manure on his fields and only uses medication on the animals when really needed. The animals are kept mostly free-range. The way he farms is good enough for us, we can visit the animals, have them butchered the way we like and we save a tremendous amount of money. Last fall we got a cow from him whom we had butchered and just recently we got some chickens ready to be eaten.

Morning sickness and exhaustment during pregnancy

Now back to the theme on hand. I had been noticing some nausea from the beginning, but it was manageable. At some point I was graving greens and fruit and orange juice, so I got that covered with the next groceries. We where busy planting, so I did not do much baking (meaning pies, bread is a must, since we do not buy any). I eat grapefruit and oranges, which I was really craving for. The citrus was making my belly blow up like a balloon, so that was not very useful and I just let that be again.

Nausea, sick and exhausted around the 9th and 10th week of pregnancy

Coming into the 9th week of pregnancy I was nausea up to feeling really sick from the moment I woke up until I went to sleep at night gradually getting worse and worse.

A lot of food was not doing me well at this point. Bread was a no go and beef just took to much energy to digest. I actually had to take several naps during the day, just to digest the food I had eaten. As time went on I started craving for chocolate cream cake of some sort, or something else with a lot of sugar in it. Then the point came where I thought my body was going to break down and I could only cry. I talked to my husband and thought back with him what I used to eat while pregnant.

Food that helped me back on track during the first trimester of my pregnancy

Well, he went to the grocery store and brought me back some Belgian waffles with chocolate (sugar content 26%). I would say, these saved my life. I ate the entire package within 2 days (8 pieces). After that I could manage with less, luckily. After a few days (when I was starting to feel better) I looked on the Ingredients list and was reminded as to why we normally do not buy processed foods. After a week I was able to do without the waffles. I have 3 waffles left from 4 packages which are still in storage for emergencies, but these can easily also wander in the trash….

Obviously I did not only eat these waffles, they where merely extra. I somehow managed to make simple meals and when my family eat bread in the evening I eat leftovers from lunch (like plain rice) or something else easy to digest.

Fruit

My husband also bought nectarine and peaches, which did me very well. My question is why they do me so good; since they have about the same fructose amount as an apple (we usually eat apples), but apples did not appeal to me at all at that moment. I started eating apples again when I was doing better again.

Vegetables

I was craving vegetables though and regularly made broccoli out of the oven backed over with cheese and bacon. Carrots, spinach, lettuce and cucumbers where good as well.

Homemade soup from homemade chicken bone broth

A homemade soup from homemade chicken bone broth with some vegetables is great. I have always craved carrots during pregnancy and this time is no different; raw, but also in the soup.

Soft cheese/ quark

Soft cheese/ quark (I am not sure what the correct English phrase is) with a bit of maple syrup stirred in also did me well, as breakfast with some fruit, but also as a snack.

Cheese (Gouda) with honey

Surprisingly cheese (Gouda) with honey made a great snack as well. Usually when I would eat a slice of bread with honey on it, I would feel unpleasant afterwards, but now honey in this way is great (or could the combination with bread have been the problem?).

Schmalz

Another thing I was craving is schmalz, but what to buy if you do not want any “bad” ingredients? Well after checking on the internet it is very easy to make yourself. My husband cut a big piece of white fat from a pigs belly in small pieces and I cut an onion and an apple into small pieces. Cook at low heat (stir, stir, stir) until cracklings are nicely browned, fill into jars and let cool down. We loved it. Bread was doing me no good, but a slice of bread with schmalz now and than was ok. Apparently I was in need of fat. The kid’s also love the schmalz.

Caramel/ toffee

Another great snack is caramel/ toffee, but of course a homemade version. My husband had found a recipe online and helped me make it. With the first batch I let the sugar burn, but the second batch turned out great. Now and then, when I feel like I need something, I eat a small piece.

Teeth

With all of these sugary foods my teeth started hurting again. The caramel I have to suck, because when I chew on it I experience an extreme jolt of pain. Luckily this became less again after reducing those sugars.

What does my body needs during pregnancy?

I assume in time of greater needs, what during pregnancy the case is, my body falls back to the habits out of my childhood. A question I have is what my body actually does with all the food (I thought is good for me) I put in it. My body apparently needs sugars in some sort of way. I try to eat foods which naturally have sugar in it or use maple syrup or honey in whatever food I prepare if the food calls for a sweetener. Obviously the caramel calls for refined sugar; in that case I use raw cane sugar.

My kid’s where very supportive and accepted without any mooning that they would not get any of the very sugary “bad” food.

A great tip for getting trough the very difficult time in the first trimester of pregnancy

After waking up, eat something easy to digest and lay back down for half an hour again. After that a normal breakfast is due, what ever that is for you.

This tip helped me a lot. After a night sleep, without any supply of nutrients, the body’s easy accessible reserves are used up, especially during pregnancy. So you need to give the body something to start the day on and give it a moment to digest so the energy is available to the body.

What to drink?

Now to drinking. As a child we drank Cola, Fanta, some kind of fruit syrup with water and juice. Trying to be a good example for my kid’s (and not wanting to withhold them something I do eat or drink) I got used to drinking water and sometimes enjoy a glass of apple juice together with my kid’s. We have apple juice from our own apples, so that is great. Well, the wetter was hot and drinking a lot was important, but I just could not get any water down, so I started drinking a lot of our apple juice, sometimes with some sparkling water mixed in. Now and then a glass of water is needed, but mostly I drink apple juice at the moment, which is doing me very well (Official authorities state that you should not drink more then 1 glass of juice a day).

What is important to go by during pregnancy?

All in all it took over 2 weeks for me to recover to a somewhat useful state again. Obviously the pregnancy is still very exhausting and I am very careful as to what I eat. Only easy to digest meals and homemade snacks, so I know what is in there. But most important, relax and don’t try to do too much physical work. The baby growing in my belly takes a lot of energy and I only have available what the baby does not use.

What would “healthy eating” during pregnancy look like?

Coming back to my question as to what “healthy eating” would look like, well that is different for every person and every situation. I am not saying other people should do similar as I did, but you should listen to your body and its needs (which is not always easy). In my opinion, the way I brought myself back on track is always better then going to the hospital and get some sort of infusion.

Planting a lot of my seedlings

It took a while, but we’ve got most seedlings planted

Somehow I am always behind on the season, but this year that was not so very bad. We have had some nice weather early in the year, but May stayed cold for a long time. Normally the middle of May is the time to start planting everything (even tomatoes etc.) outside. This year the second half of May was still very windy and chilly. The temperature at night still dropped to just above freezing, which is not very favorable for small seedlings raised in a greenhouse. What went completely past me (due to the low temperatures and the harsh winds) is that it did not rain since middle of April, but more to that later.

Around middle of May I transferred my Tomato and pepper seedlings to the greenhouse. I did not trust to do so sooner, because the greenhouse is not completely closed and it also cools down at night. The tomato seedlings where becoming so big that thy really needed to be potted and so I did, with the help of my children, who prepared the little planting pots with soil for me, this went quickly.

Tomato seedlings outgrowing there seeding tray

With all of the tomatoes and peppers in there own pots the greenhouse was very full and I was anxious to start planting my so many seedlings outdoors.

The second half of May we noticed our fruit trees, we planted last year, are suffering and I realized that the soil was so very dry. We started watering our gardens, which takes us a lot of time, so planting seedlings has been postponed.

By the time the end of May came it was not warm, but hot and the sun was burning terribly. I started planting my seedlings. I did not really have a plan as to where to plant which crops, but I did pay attention to curtain things as I went along with planting (for instant, need of nutrients, best neighbors, etc.). I had the feeling I was much too late with planting, so I planted as I had time. I did not properly prepare and did not harden the plants on forehand.

I started in our garden 2, the one with the raised beds, with some corn. I have some different types of corn, the normal sweet corn, one for flower, one for popcorn and one for polenta. I divided the different types apart from each other over the different gardens we have. My husband had dig in the straw mulch in one raised bed last fall and we hat green manure growing there over winter. Corn needs a lot of nutrients, so I decided to plant the corn in this bed. We mulched with a thick layer of straw.

Corn freshly planted in a raised bed with a thick layer of straw as mulch

Next thing up for planting where different kind of turnips. My husband even made a short video about this. There is not much to planting actually. Loosening the soil, making a hole, putting water in the hole, putting the seedling in, pushing back the soil and tuck in the mulch around the plants.

The important thing with planting is to pay attention to the planting dept. Some plants must not be planted to deep others win by being planted deeper. Like cabbage should not be planted to deep, so they can form a nice head without trapping soil inside. Tomatoes on the other hand benefit from being planted as deep as they have there seed leaves. They make extra roots on the piece of stem that will be covered with soil this way. They stand more stable and take in more nutrients.

Next thing up where the cabbages I have red and white once and they where outgrowing there seedling stage. I had bad experience with the cabbages last year, since the soil in the raised beds is lacking nutrients and cabbages need a lot. With the tomatoes growing under the greenhouse roof we had last year, I noticed a curling of there leafs. This can mean that there are too many nutrients in the soil. So that should be an ideal spot for planting cabbages, if it was not so very weedy and the soil so extremely compacted. So first things first. My husband came with the tractor and the rotary tiller and made this unusable growing area to a splendid growing area.

Tractor with a rotary tiller on a compacted and weedy garden bed

The rotary tiller divided the area into two beds and after a thorough watering we spread a thick layer of straw mulch over the beds, just like we did with the last bed in the article about the couch grass.

2 garden beds, thoroughly watered with a pile of straw waiting to be divided as mulch

I was experiencing some tiredness, but happily started planting the first bed with the cabbages. After that was done I was not feeling very well and had to get my husband to help with the further planting. He finished planting the cabbages in the second bed.

Red cabbage seedling planted and surrounded by straw mulch

There are a few left which will get a home some where else in the garden. After doing some research I decided the root celery is going in between the cabbages.

Healthy looking root celery seedlings in a soil block on a seedlings tray

They should profit from one another. So far for keeping planting distances, since I did not encounter planting something else in between the cabbages, but will see what happens.

By this time it completely hit me. A terrible “morning” sickness that lasted from the moment I opened my eyes until I fell a sleep again at night coming along with this extreme exhaustment that prohibit me from doing hardly anything. Well if you haven’t guessed jet, we are expecting our 4th child and pregnancy is coming hard on at that moment. I have handed the gardening to my husband and children completely, which is hard on me since I love it so much. All I did was telling what I wanted planted where and did some documenting.

Coming back to not noticing the lack of rain since April, I was noticing that from the over 50 meters of carrots I had sown (we love carrots) there where only about 15 cm where carrots had sprouted. This was very disappointing, but made place for all of the way to many tomato and pepper plants I had started indoors. Tomatoes and peppers like to stand along with garlic and onions, so everywhere where the carrots did not sprout there are tomatoes and peppers now. Since the soil in the raised beds is so very poor my husband worked in some manure and, partly composted, wood chips everywhere he was going to plant, even in between the onions and the garlic.

Tomatoes planted in between rows of onions in a raised bed

A thick layer of straw as mulch and we slowly started to progress with all of the planting we had to do. In the mean time we are half way trough the first half of June and where able to harvest our first strawberries. We even had a big one. Most of the strawberries we harvest are small, but that is because they also lack nutrients in the soil. That is something we will fix in the fall.

Large strawberry on a child’s hand

Middle of June we also planted a raised bed with cucumbers and basil, since nothing I sowed sprouted in this bed either.

Cucumber and basil in a raised bed mulched with straw

Beside all of the watering we had to do, which takes so much time, we made a nice progress with the planting.

What we have noticed while planting in the different raised beds is that the beds where we grew potatoes in last year the soil was noticeably better than in the other beds. The soil had a much darker color and there where more earthworms in the soil. Potatoes are a good first crop to work the soil on hand.

As I mentioned I did not harden the plants before planting and they where planted while the sun was burning from the sky. The result where sunburn and partly dying off of the existing leafs, but most of the plants recovered very nicely and are growing strong now.

A turnip with yellowing leaves from a sunburn
A turnip with yellowing leaves from a sunburn
A row of turnips growing back strong after losing its leaves due to sunburn
A row of turnips growing back strong after losing its leaves due to sunburn

We where very happy with some cloudy days, but we had to wait until the 16th of June to receive a good amount of rain. Since then we are very happy to have cloudy days, some rain and sunny warm days in change.

I almost forgot. We also did some weeding in between, but not too much. Is that a bad thing when getting such nice flowers?

Bindweed growing down a raised bed full of beautiful white flowers
Bindweed
A flowering meadow sage right beside a raised bed
meadow sage

The planting in the other gardens will become there own article, so stay tuned for that.