As I have mentioned on my post on watering, I like to dechlorinate my water by filling 5 gallon buckets with water and letting them sit overnight. Though this year I always seemed to not have enough time (or foresight) to be diligent about this and ended up just dragging the hose out and watering the plants chlorine at all. Fortunately our friends at AllFilters have a solution to…
Last year I played with sprouting seeds in a mason jar to hold me and the kids over during the winter until it was time to start growing for the following spring. The process worked great but I ended up with way more sprouts than I could consume and most of the sprouts were wasted. One option was to use smaller jars and stagger the starting of the seeds,…
Most avid gardeners will tell you that planting crops in the summer can produce some wonderfully tasting vegetables. However, many of us are guilty of becoming too complacent with crops during fall months, leaving them diseased and unhealthy. It’s essential that harvesting is continued throughout cold winter months, to ensure vegetables have the best chances of growing naturally and healthily. In fact certain vegetables prefer to grow during cold…
In my last post I talked about my quest for a cheap smoker to make some of my own chipotle pepper powder. Typically chipotle pepper powder is made using red ripe jalapenos and smoked for about 24 hours. Given my lack of ripe jalapeno peppers (had 3 small ones) and it being the beginning of August I opted to make an alternate variety of brown chipotle powder. While picking…
After many suggestions that I should smoke my jalapeno peppers in comments of my making jalapeno pepper powder post, I decided to give it a try. After doing a little looking most recommendations say to use a new or very clean smoker so this eliminates using my propane grill as smoker and an excuse opportunity to make myself a smoker. After a little research on the internet I determined…
Given our 7 foot fence around the yard, have to rule out deer…my best guess is a raccoon scaling the fence for a snack. Probably the same one who decided that my first tomato looked too good to ripen to save for seeds and pulled the branch off. It was nice enough to leave the green ones on the fine which I have hung up on my garage where…
My daughters and I started a butterfly garden a couple of years ago, though we have seen a few butterflies pass by this was the first time we have been able to capture one on camera. This butterfly was visiting our butterfly bush, which for by many standards is basically a noxious weed. But it doesn’t need much water, makes pretty flowers, and butterflies/bees like it so seems like…
While heading to a friend’s house we came across a local fruit stand selling fresh peaches. With the great quality and low prices I couldn’t help leaving with a couple dozen peaches. By the time I made it back to the car, I knew there is no way we were going to eat this many so Maddie (my recently turned 6 year old) and I decided to make the…
Stevia is an ultra sweet sweetener that has no calories and is grown natively for ages in South America that is 300 times more sweet than other sweeteners. The good news you can grow your own in your backyard and make some in your own backyard. 1. You can start a stevia plant by seeds but you can save yourself a lot of pain and just buy one at…
Though not the best summer for tomatoes, our mild summer has been great for strawberries. Until recently I was picking about a pint a day from our modest “strawberry patch” Many became a quick snack, smoothies, and others got frozen for consumption this summer. This morning the kids wanted something special for breakfast so decided on making some homemade strawberry syrup. Homemade Strawberry Syrup Ingredients: 2 cups sliced…
This is an unfortunately record, being the latest I have gotten my first ripe tomato. In case if anyone was wondering, this was on the 1 gallon milk carton upside down garden planter.
The jalapenos are doing great, they are loaded with peppers and I already harvested some to make some jalapeno powder. The Cayenne peppers are looking good and though they are a little late, I am just waiting for them to just begin to change color before I dry them and make some cayenne powder. The bell peppers are not doing quite as well the ones above have a pretty…