People usually either love Pickled Beets or hate them. My daughter and I love Pickled Beets. This summer B decided to plant beets just for pickling. She planted Detroit Dark Red, mainly because we had three packets of them on hand, but also because it is a good variety for pickling and canning, plus they are really sweet. They took about 60 days from sowing to harvest since they weren’t in full sun and we also forgot them for an…
Hoping to provide refuge and bring more solitary bees, like the native Valley Carpenter Bee, into our yard, the kids and I created homemade carpenter bee houses over the weekend.
Now that our wet season is pretty much over, it is time to switch back to gray watering in the in the back yard garden. For a little over 5 years we have been using some of the water from our washer machine to irrigate part of the backyard. During most of that time, the washer machine water was just sent out through a hole I haphazardly made in the laundry room window and into a homemade surge tank. I…
Ever since I was a kid, my mom has made the some of the world’s best homemade ice cream. I am not just saying that because she is my mom. Ask any kid on my block, my family, friends, or any of the many neighbors on my block and they will all attest “Leanne’s mom makes the best ice cream.” She makes about 4 gallons of it for our 4th of July block party. The next day, I pass out…
I have been curious about making soap at home for a long time, but until this year, I had not gotten up the courage to try. The main part that had been holding me back was working with lye. As an organic gardener, I my initial instinct is to avoid strong dangerous chemicals. And to make REAL soap, there is no getting around using Lye in the processing. Lye is caustic and is a basic ingredient in most drain cleaners. …
About 15 years ago, my brother gave us a specialty stove top popcorn popper with a wooden hand crank. It works simply with just a couple of parts, and no batteries or cords. Therefore, there isn’t much to wear out or damage in washing. It has seen regular, almost daily use since we first got it. On my vintage Wedgewood gas stove, we can make a batch of popcorn in less than 3 minutes. What’s great about the stove top…
Last year was the first time I tried making my own soy candles as homemade Christmas gifts. I enjoyed the process so much, I did it again this year. So if you are a friend or relative…guess what you might be getting! My daughter, B, also eagerly helped me this time. This morning, she even took the time to make 3 extra purple soy candles. This way, we had some of them for ourselves for Advent. Soy is a good…
Yesterday, my neighbor, G, and I processed 1/2 of the frozen concord grape juice we made at the end of summer into jam. As I mentioned in my previous post about the first half of the grape project, Learning to Can: Concord Grape Jelly- part 1, G has been teaching me what she knows about canning, how to can grape jelly to be specific. She was mentored by an older friend, whose mom passed down the knowledge and skills to…
Just after dark, on Halloween evening, Peter Pumpkin, a Giant Pumpkin, usually makes an appearance at our house. He is a Big Mac Pumpkin that comes to life on Halloween to talk to the neighborhood kids that stop by. Peter once told me he is the cousin of the famous “Great Pumpkin,” mentioned in the Peanuts Cartoon, Its the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. Over the years, Peter has also learned Spanish and is sometimes bilingual. The pumpkin gained a bit…
For many years, my family has been blessed with dozens of cans of homemade jelly from our concord grapevine. However, I can not take credit for anything other than the simple acts of planting, pruning, and infrequently watering. My next-door neighbor has been doing the time-consuming and messy part for us, in exchange for a share of the grapes’ bounty. Most years, she even does the harvesting. I felt like we were definitely getting the better end of the deal,…