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
Both of my grandmother's had cast iron collections. These were things they either purchased in Kansas or are my family's heirlooms. My mom's family on a road trip to Washington DC. My granny on my mom's side married a jerk, (to say it mildly) after my grandpa died. He made her get rid of her … Continue reading How I Restored My Antique Iron: Two Methods
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)
There are three ingredients and four steps to making your own yogurt: ultra pasturized half and half (for those of you who live outside of the United States, it's half milk/half heavy cream), a bacteria, and inulin. You add these all together and heat the mix for 36 hours. The rest of this article is … Continue reading L. Gasseri, L. Reuteri or BC30 Bacillus Coagulans Yogurt Making-The Ultimate Guide
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
This month is heavy on the picking and light on the work. Why? Because I worked hard in the spring to create this exact scenario. Water-wise, deep beds have yielded incredible amounts of produce. See how we built them here: Hugelkultur, Keyhole Gardens: Bridging Ideas and here: Mother’s Day Raised Hugelkultur Bed! Instructions for creating … Continue reading Reaping The Rewards Of Spring Planning
Flowers are beautiful examples of sexual reproduction. We gather them, we create bouquets, we stick our noses into a plant's sex organs and take a deep breath of intoxicating fragrance. The idea of sex (at least when we look at our own species) seems to be incredibly more complex and inherently immature. I will point … Continue reading Be The Bee! How And When Hand Pollinating Makes Sense.
I just pulled 40 ears of corn out of one of my raised beds. There's still another 20 or so still ripening. I love late May! Nonastringent Persimmon I started working on my perennial food forest about eleven years ago. Gardening is my hobby, not my job, so those eleven years took time I might … Continue reading Food Forest
Cardboard and paper trash is a gardener's treasure! This is a Hugelkulter/Keyhole cross, garden bed. I have grown in beds of this design for close to 10 years and I love them! I can grow an endless amount of things in these beds. This is a banana in the background and okra up front. Overwintered … Continue reading Building The Perfect Raised Beds
It's summer and that means high temperatures and no rain for my part of Texas. Everything dries out. My hugelkulter beds still retain moisture but I do need to add water a couple of times a week to get peak health from my vegetables. One of my favorite ways to water my big hugelkulter beds … Continue reading Watering With Soaker Hoses
Four years ago today I finished this project and wrote this post on how to paint kitchen cabinets. I have to say that they are still one of the best home improvement projects I've done. Not simple. Not easy. But very worthwhile. The finish is just as nice as the day I rehung the cabinet … Continue reading I Painted My Kitchen Cabinets And I Love Them!
This Easter we went to our family's low country shrimp boil in San Antonio. I love the food every year! This year though, was a bit different. I discovered last year that I can't eat wheat. I've developed an allergy to it, and it's pretty serious. The wheat sensitivity, is way back from climbing up … Continue reading Best Damn Rainbow Fruit Skewers And Dip Out There!
Chronicling a delusional gardening experience.
Crazy Green Thumbs 