Sunday, November 18, 2012

Miscellany Around the Homestead

Wow...  Where does the time go?  I think I must be in some secret time warp or something.  I realize that being busy has that effect on a person but this does seem excessive.  :-)

So what have I been up to?  We're still working on cleaning up the garden spaces since we kept everything going until the last minute.  It was much more easy/pleasurable to clean up the tomato cages when the plants were dead and brittle than when heavy and still green.  One advantage to procrastination, maybe. 

I've been working things out in my head as to what our garden placement will be next year.  I like to rotate everything and this year I am working toward more companion planting. 

Already I have moved my tea roses where they get more sun than in the spot we hurriedly shoved them into last year when we moved.  I've planted a semi-circle of chives around them (dividing them up and getting them out of the pot that they had grown in for the past 4 or 5 years) to help deter the pests.  I'm eager to see how it looks this summer.

I've got a couple crazy garden ideas in mind, such as... 

1) We are saving all of our empty toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls to make our own seed starters this year.  I got the idea from Whole Larder Love...  (One of my very favorite homesteading blogs!!)

Then I found some simple directions on how to do it at SimplyForties.  It's a neat little tutorial.  :-) 

What an awesomely inexpensive and green project.  If this turns out to be as nice as the Jiffy Peat Pellets that I use I will be very happy because the cost will be about half of what I pay for the pellets.

2) I am saving all of my 2 liter bottles and will hopefully have enough to sink halfway into the ground to make a border for a raised bed for my pepper plant next year.  I plan to plant carrot seeds in the soda bottles.  There's a lot of garden projects using 2 liter bottles but so far I haven't seen my idea done.  There may be a good reason for that, right?  Ha Ha!!  But we'll see.  The hardest part will be getting DH to part with the cash needed to get some really good top soil to fill in the bed and bottles.  :-)

Some of my indoor projects have been decluttering and organizing.  I've also resumed my kombucha culturing and have begun a batch of soda culture to make some Ginger Beer (not alcoholic).  It's been a while since I've made any and I've been hankering for some.  It's so delicious. 

I am STILL canning tomatoes as they ripen.  My table is still covered in ripening tomatoes!!!  One day I thought, "How crazy!!  Who else in Missouri is canning tomatoes in November?"  But I had been complaining about not making my quota what with the drought and extreme heat that we had this summer.  When most gardeners were calling it quits we were really just getting hammered with overabundance.  The nice thing is that I have lots of green tomatoes to share with family!  :-)

When I have spare time I'm usually on Pinterest or researching herbs and natural healing.  It is my dream to someday soon open an herb store.  :-)

This Thanksgiving week will be a busy one for us with a get-together with my family and also a big dinner here at our little homestead with Son #1 and his family and also Son #3 coming in for that. 

My camera is STILL missing and I am getting worried.  The last time that we used it was Halloween day when we took pictures of our little Dachshund Uno had an allergic reaction (probably to a pecan that got dropped on the floor!) and we took pictures of how swollen up he was before we took him to the vet.  It was a mixed up and stressful day and who knows where that camera's final landing spot was.  It certainly wasn't in any of it's usual spots!  I'd really like to have my camera for the holiday!!

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