I love using milk jugs! My kids drink a lot of milk and we always have empty gallon milk containers. These are always useful in my garden! I use them to harden off transplants and in this blog entry: to keep tender plants (like tomatoes) outside, where they're warm and have plenty of light, while … Continue reading Quick Mini Greenhouses From Milk Jugs
My grandmother used to make cinnamon pickles out of watermelon rind. It was a dessert she proudly put on our plates. They were delicious and in memory of her, I now make them yearly for my extended family and my kids. Last year I also tried a vanilla pickle which was pretty gross. I'm not … Continue reading Just In Time For Christmas: Modern Cinnamon Pickles And Lemon Candy Pickles!
So now that we're past the #!$@:! Frigging pool noodle lollipops, I have some relaxing projects to round out a candy themed Christmas display. First are the super simple candy cane straws. You can make canes with a bunch of PVC elbows but I think those look way more like a PVC pipe creation rather … Continue reading Candy Cane Straws and Ice Cream Sundae Outdoor Decorations
This tutorial shows you how to make the best looking pool noodle lollipops out there. Don't mess with the dollar store noodles. I decided to add some Christmas tutorials for my decorations outside. I'm creating a candy background for some characters from the Nutcracker Ballet. My first task was making some candy. I decided on … Continue reading Big Beefy Pool Noodle Lollipop Decorations
Winter is a wonderful time to read up on gardening literature. When your garden is fast asleep, it is the perfect time to make preparations for next year. Whether you are new to gardening or an old hand: this is the yearly time for reflection. What has worked for you? What have you struggled with? … Continue reading Winter: Garden Planning
So. I know better than to try and grow a large scale "defiance garden". That's what I call growing things that your climate and soil won't support. But, I'm a gardener. The whole point of gardening is to place plant matter in places that didn't have them before. Basically anything you purposefully put in the … Continue reading What If It’s Too Hot? Growing Fruit Trees In Texas.
Last Friday my youngest son came home from school and didn't feel well. He tested positive for RSV and he has bronchitis. He got some antibiotics to help with the gunk in his chest but we were having trouble getting him to cough it out. Fire cider to the rescue! This stuff is really good … Continue reading Fire Cider: Immunity Booster
Hmmm. Super long, snake bean. Usually when I am deep diving into large seed catalogs and I see "like ____, but better" I roll my eyes and think OK, I'm game. Prove it. This is what happened when I saw and then purchased seed for the Indian Python Snake Bean at rareseeds.com (AKA Python Snake … Continue reading Like Green Beans… But Better?
This is a great project! I've been able to reuse the original for nine years because I bought a dress form and a Styrofoam head that I restretch the ghost over every year. I really recommend getting a form for this project. Find out how to make her below! Halloween 2023 Oh, I had fun … Continue reading Easy Packing Tape Ghost
Here we go again! It's time for my Halloween tutorials! I'm always working on our Halloween display. This year I decided I needed jellyfish! I love spooky stuff but the creepy, gory, sicko type stuff just doesn't light my fire. However, glowing awesome jellyfish sounded way too cool to pass up! I got this idea … Continue reading Glowing Jellyfish: Outdoor Halloween
I am currently featured on one of Raintree Nursery's videos on YouTube. Laura and Raintree's Ambassadors have some excellent tips. You can see it here: https://youtu.be/qtfuw9u1_f8 For anyone interested in the hugelkulter bed I use in the video (my information starts at these three times 8:58, 20:26, 24:38 and are pretty quick) the instructions... and … Continue reading Hugelkulter High Density Fruit Tree Bed (Or Heather’s Humor Odyssey)
Hugelkultur The most expensive part of my garden is the city water that we're on. Our city water is piped in. The aquifer that our land is over does not have good water. We're near an air force base, started in the 1930's and I wonder if over the years, that aquifer has been polluted … Continue reading Watering In High Heat
I live in the South. Where I am: summer ends up getting really hot (above 100° Fahrenheit) with little to no rain for months at a time. In summer we get moisture that blows in from the Gulf of Mexico and that humidity (without rain) is a real problem. There are weeks where we don't … Continue reading Show Stopping, Southern Shrubs
The things I grow in summer are things that I don't have to baby. Today our "feel like" temperature was 103 degrees Fahrenheit. I'm not interested in doing manual labor in that sort of heat (Although, I did. I was out in that heat for about an hour and a half yesterday weeding and pulling … Continue reading Low Maintenance, Highly Productive, Summer Vegetables.
These cute glass mushrooms with solar lights built in are so easy and so cheap! Since I haven't had a craft on here in a while, I feel like I'm overdue. I'm super excited to share this idea with you! We're coming up on a year since my husband was able to come home and … Continue reading DIY Red And White Mushroom Solar Light
One of my family's favorite summer foods are often called either "quick" or "refrigerator" pickles. These make the crunchiest pickles because they aren't cooked. I grow Armenian cucumbers, which are actually melons. They taste like cucumbers and they don't get bitter in our high heat like actual cucumbers do. So, I always have fresh additions … Continue reading Quick/Refrigerator Pickles
Summer is officially bearing down on us down here in South Texas. Boy, is it hot! If you garden: you sure don't want to do it in the middle of the day when it's over 100°F! However, all the things down here that I choose to plant will usually sail through the heat as long … Continue reading Summer Sun And The Fruits Of My Labor
This is the most reflective paint I've ever seen! I'm at it again! My mom came to visit me and it's been crazy! We cut down two trees with a chainsaw. It was the above ground growth on an incense bush and a pomegranate, that died back during our horrible freeze. My 20 year old … Continue reading Fine Paints of Europe: Dutch Door Kit
I have about a quarter acre of land. When we first moved in it was just grass, a gravel play area and one small oak tree. Fast forward eleven years and my yard is fully planted. There are fruit trees and bushes, flowers and habitat for birds etc. I grow almost all of my vegetables … Continue reading Achieving The Best Use Of Solar Energy In The Garden.
While we had plenty of rain this year for my vegetables it was a poor year for fruit. We got so much rain this year that the peaches all aborted and the limbs oozed sap trying to find a way to compensate for the deluge. My persimmon also dropped most of its fruit in response … Continue reading Shrub-A-Dub-Dub What To Do With Imperfect Fruit
Crazy Green Thumbs 