Sound Trouble Again!

I do want to apologize for the sound once again. Part of it is on my end, idk what happened but maybe my headphones weren’t plugged in so Kara’s voice is on my track too, I tried to edit out this echo/double voice over as much as possible and then there are still sounds in the backgrounds throughout our conversations. So sorry listeners :((

I’m excited to introduce this guest because we met on Facebook and she has a great group I think you are going to be interested in called Organic Living For Moms Kara Grant

Tell us a little about yourself.

So I own a bed and breakfast, Ive been doing that for about 12 years, I was born and raised here in New Mexico. My parents were actually farmers and ranchers here.

I grew up with a love for the earth and gardening.

Homeschooling lesson on Apples for Organic Moms from the Facebook Group

homeschooled my kids

original education is in elementary education.

2 boys and 2 girls

• married
• college
• graduates

I’m 12 years into my B&B business

I’m actually more freed up

Organic Living For Moms

My son, he’s a digital marketer

So many women and people who would like the knowledge you have, this would be a great way to share it. You found me in that group.

So many questions I’m so curious about that B&B, what’s that like. 

It was kind of an accident, we had been restoring properties

• historic neighborhood
• We were living in it and we ended up buying the one next door
• home with our for kids
• I was like I’m up fixing breakfast anyways

We started with that house doing the work

• restoration
• landscaping
• everything

It has challenges because it is a business your on 24 hours a day. I actually got a phone call yesterday at 5 in the morning! People are in different time zones.

You get up and do breakfast, my kids have grown up and raised in it

My personal experience cooking and growing organically. We raised our own chickens so we cook their eggs and they are served to the guests

tomatoes are coming like crazy. 

fresh tomatoes

Canned up some jellies and the guests some times buy that. It’s a fun way to use some of the joys doing and passionate about in my business as well

It has its challenges, it’s a full time 24 hour a day

Fun business and a chance to meet a lot of intersteing people.

I feel like your kids got to meet some amazing people that way

They did! One of my fun stories is my son played the flute and they had a flutist convention. One of the big performers was actually staying with us and he worked with my son and he taught him some special techniques.

It’s been really and interesting and fun! But the kids sometimes say, where’s our private life? Sometimes you get tired of people too.

again

I do have a property 15

more of my chickens

It’s quiet place I literally just dive in and lose myself everyday

away quiet time

I grew up on a farm and a ranch so I enjoy people but I also love my solitude.

My parents only stayed at B&B when were kids, I don’t think we ever stayed in a hotel.

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

That was probably my first

growing up as a kid

to the side of the house

my parents always had an amazing big garden

time when it wasn’t

not fun

playground

as well 3 other siblings

found some unique way got us in trouble

that was probably some of my favorite things in the evenings as the sun was setting going out with my dad, and picking a cantaloupe him pulling out his pocketknife and us eating the whole cantaloupe together.

older

longing for that type of life 

mentality

way that it is so connected with the earth

a little bit more space! That’s why I am really grateful I can pursue that passion that I love. I actually enjoy going out and weeding.

How did you learn how to garden organically?

You know the thing about it, my dad being in the farming stuff he would always say, “I’m not an organic gardener”

I remember us growing up and him and getting a shipment of ladybugs and us going out behind the tractor and us throwing the ladybugs out into the earth. He took care of the earth by 

• rotating your crops
• not taking all the nutrients out by planting the same thing
• putting the right nutrients into your soil

a lot I did learn from him. 

Some of the things like making my own compost and stuff like that are things I have expanded on from my experience growing and continuing researching on my journey on my own.

Can I ask you about compost? Because I’ve been working on building this organic gardening course and to me compost is this easy extension of building soil, I can’t even imagine not composting? But I’ve been getting feedback from a lot of people I am talking to that it’s not that easy, for them. Or people are really struggling with what do I keep it on my counter that’s not going to let flies in or ants, etc. 

We keep ours in a bucket on the counter, and one on the porch and I have a compost bin right outside my kitchen so IDK, we don’t have that problem. How does your compost work for you? Do you keep it in the house?

It is what you said, people feel it’s tricky I mean you have to keep it rotated

we try to keep very green and keep all food scraps.

We have two buckets

One is the food off the plate that we scrape that’s for my chickens to enjoy

• eggshells
• coffee

that’s what I dump into my compost pile. 

For the coffee you can add the leaves you rake up

food is what I save to feed to my chickens

Some of the waste from chickens you can add to coffee grounds. I don’t feed them their own eggshells because we found the more you add eggshells to their feed the more prone to eat their own eggs.

soil compost my eggshells

I just have a large trough outside and when I move it from inside the house I just dump everything in that  large trough that’s covered and keep that then for my soil compost.

I don’t find it that hard at all. It’s just two buckets.

I dump it each day, it is important to keep them rinsed out, because that’s when the flies happen.

I do, what I use is I have big stainless steel cooking pots, almost for canning. I have a 2nd sink in the B&B so I leave those sitting in the sink and clean them out each day. They have a lid on top

like that

Our enamel compost buckets

We’re actually a lot like you, we have enamel buckets on the porch for the coffee grounds, and Mike also doesn’t let the chickens eat anything that isn’t vegetarian.

Tell us about something that grew well this year, I know you had pictures of okra in the facebook group the other day.

omgooodness

that grew really well

tomatoes

cukes

three batches of dill

sick of canning dill pickles

I got a recipe for cucumber jelly

a lot of okra. I went to OK to visit my grandson

you have to keep it picked

once it gets to a certain level

overly mature

I’m gonna save some for seeds for next year

I found drying it  I’m gonna make it into fall garlands

In New Mexico chili wreathes are popular and I have an idea to make some of my over-mature okra into like a wreathsta!

I love those chairs that you weave the seats, they came out so nice. I love the colors etc.

I was hanging one upside down, I was with my mom, I said lets make an okra-wreathesta! 

You sound like such a creative person. I thought you were so young, I thought your kids were toddlers.

Is there something you would do different next year or want to try/new?

One of the things that I want to try different next year, you know, this year IDK why I struggle with it but it was even worse this year then it’s ever been.

Squash Bugs

I had squash bugs so so bad, that’s the fun thing with my group page, someone was telling me, she said they waited till July 1st and they didn’t have any problems so thats something I am going to try!

I did use the diatomateous earth you have to stay on top of it

infestation

doing different trying to plant that particular part of my garden later, to see if that works, idk the correct name, we just called them

squash bugs

• little flat bug and they lay eggs on the underside of the leaf
• you can try to squeeze and kill them underneath
• if you kill them while they are young
• once they get mature that doesn’t work

tenacious little creatures and what they do is kill the vine and it starts withering and they won’t completely mature, the vine is not getting the nutrient

• squish them
• adult ones

once you get an infestation

in the past

every single vine

turn the leaf upside down

eliminating the eggs

there comes a certain point especially if you aren’t on top of it where they just take over and then you’re done!

Someone in my facebook group just posted about that and she said she was gonna charge $41.95 a zucchini for all the work she put into them.

I’ve talked to them at the extension office

where you planted them this year

move them and plant them in a different place

where the garden is planted I have flowerbed areas up close to the house, cause I said I am not going to put them in the area where the garden is and they were worse there and I was like what in the world? They say a lot if they are in an area, just don’t plant squash there the next year again.

soil in that area

that didn’t work this year 

Ia m going to try the tip of planting them later and see if that works. If you hear of anybody else. 

I know I did a bunch of research on this because someone asked about a vine bore or something I can not find the blog post if I didn’t write...