Spring is Here, Are You Farmin’??

Ahh, life on the farm. Always busy, but so rewarding! And easy. I mean, the sun is ALWAYS shining. It never rains! And, I never have to water! But my crops still grow! There’s no pests, no disease, and no weeding. It’s phenomenally easy to be a farmer, really. I just plant some seeds, and two minutes to six hours later, I’m harvesting fresh, perfect, delicious produce!

Oh wait. That’s just my Hay Day farm.

In reality, growing your own food is quite a bit of work, even on a small scale. It does rain, and then it doesn’t and you have to water, and there’s spiders and slugs and other pests, and neighborhood cats poop in your fresh planted lettuce box! But the rewards of eating fresh, home grown produce are worth way more than some experience points from swiping a fake scythe through your imaginary wheat. Here’s just a few!

1. Fresh food tastes better! Produce you grow yourself, in season (or get locally from a farmer’s market) always tastes better than some waxy, mealy, previously frozen and shipped store-bought offering.
2. Pride! You grew something! Be proud!
3. Healthy eating is easier when you can just pick a few lettuce leaves for a salad versus having to go buy salad because you forgot about that box of lettuce in the fridge and now it’s green smelly sludge, and forget it, let’s just eat pizza and candy for dinner.
4. Being outside more is good for you mentally.
5. If you grow things to can, freeze, or otherwise preserve you are also stocking up on less processed foods for the winter when not much grows.

Those are just a couple benefits from growing your own food. Hubbins and I are determined to make our fourth year garden the best one yet. I took these pictures of our early spring progress last week, but then I got busy and neglected to post them. So here they are now!

rhubarb looking good

garden view, ignore that cat poop!!

spinach and sprouting radishes!

new pallet strawberry box

my wild berry box

new lettuce box with window for growing in the winter!

So far we have lettuce, spinach, sugar peas, green onions and leek seeds, radishes, onion sets, and some garlic started. And of course all the berries. We’re still going to add carrots, potatoes, tomatoes and tomatillos, cucumbers, and I’m working on a bunch of pepper starts inside. We’re hoping to really to good this year, so stay tuned!

More Fun with Your Homemade Soaps!

Just a quick post today, with a couple different soap variations. First are some things you can do with some pre-made bars of your soap. If you have a batch that looks funky, you can grate it up and melt it in a double boiler, and make something else out of it, or just use home made soap in place of buying soap for making liquid hand soap. I don’t know how lard soap would work in laundry soap however so I can’t recommend that today.

You can also make nice gift soaps for the gardeners in your life, or just for you. Grate 8 ounces of unscented homemade soap. Melt it down in a double boiler. One at a time stir in

• 1 Tablespoon oat flour (make by grinding oats in a coffee grinder or Magic Bullet)
• 1 teaspoon almond butter or other conditioning fat
• 1 teaspoon essential oil blend for bug repelling power: eucalyptus, citronella, catnip, and cedarwood are examples.

Be patient when mixing as it may take a while to blend in. Pour into a mold and let sit until cooled, remove from mold and let harden back up for a couple of days. The recipe says it makes two 4-ounce bars, so pick your mold accordingly.

Another recipe I found is for making dish washing soap. I have tried many different variations of homemade dish soap and I’ve yet to find one that I really love, but I’m going to give this one a try. You need:

• 16 ounces of grated soap
• 40 ounces water
• 4 ounces liquid glycerin
• 1 ounce rosemary essential oil
• 1 ounce sweet orange essential oil (note:these two oils are suggested to cut grease, but lavender, patchouli, or sage are also suggested as options to add in for scent, one drop at a time until you like it)

Prepare four 10-ounce bottles. (Or two 20-oz? One 40-oz? I would think so.) Combine the water and grated soap into a double boiler and heat until the soap has melted and the liquid is clear and runny. Add the glycerin and the essential oils. Blend well and pour into your containers! Scrub a pot!

Another gifting soap is a lavender oat exfoliating bar.

• 40 ounces grated soap
• 20 ounces water
• 1 cup lightly chopped oats
• 2 ounces lavender essential oil
• .5 ounce whole lavender flowers

Melt the soap gently in the water in a double boiler with a minimum of stirring. When it’s runny looking, add the oats, oil, and flowers. Pour into molds and let cool until firm to the touch. Release from the molds and let dry for 2 to four weeks. (So, doing the math, if you are making soap that needs to cure, AND turning it into this recipe, make sure you start early enough to get your gifts done in time!)

Lastly, if you aren’t too keen on making soap from grease drippings, or maybe you have a vegan friend that you’d like to impress, you can make pure olive oil soap! Follow the  soap making directions from last time with the following ingredients:

• 100 ounces olive oil
• 12.6 ounces lye
• 30 ounces water
• 4 ounces essential oils if desired

Notice that this recipe calls for less water than the other ratio. Because of this, it sets up very fast and gets very hard. She states that she unmolds and cuts after about 8 hours, but the cure time is about six weeks. A unscented version of this would probably be very nice in any of the above recipes too!

There you have it! This ends the soap making series, I hope you learned a few things, and I hope you’re ready to get out there and get soapin!!

Origami Seed Packets

A few weeks or maybe months back I wrote about saving seeds, and I think I mentioned posting a tutorial on making simple seed packets. Hubbins had discovered the pattern for them and made a couple, and he said he would make me some more. So I waited, and waited, and waited… until yesterday I decide I’d just do it myself. And good gravy, if I had realized that making them takes approximately three seconds each I would have done it weeks or months ago!!! They are really so so SO simple. All you need is some squares of paper.

I happened to find some actual origami paper on clearance for like two bucks, but had I known better I would have just used junk mail or something. Computer paper, seed catalogs, Trader Joes bags.. really anything you have on hand, just cut a square out of it. If you have a rectangle of paper the first step is to fold the square in half, so fold the edge of your rectangle over, making a triangle, and cut off the extra bit at the bottom. Or measure and cut squares to your desired size. The origami paper worked well for small seeds like peppers and green onions, but a larger, thicker paper would be better for beans or other large seeds, or just large quantities. Got your squares? Prepare for the hardest origami ever.

Can you handle it?? Is it too hard?? I hope not, please don’t be mean to me if it IS too hard, blame my lousy tutorial and google it and you’ll find many many more photo how-tos. Here’s another pic to show how the seeds go in.

It’s really that easy. Just three simple folds, fill, and you’re done. These little pouches store easily, are reusable and easy to open and close, and if you use recycled paper you’re sticking it to the man and saving the earth simultaneously. Go make a few right now! I’m thinking of lots of other uses, craft items maybe, or little treasure pouches for kids. Maybe fold one out of fabric and hand stitch the edges and make a little coin pouch or something. If I get around to it and remember to do it and actually try some of those ideas I’ll be sure to tell you all about it six months after I said  I would, so look out for that post sometime mid-summer next year!

Still a little more paring down to do, but look how much neater and tidier my seed stash is!

FREE! The Best Price for Food

I have a clear memory of getting something for free, maybe my first freebie. I don’t know how old I was, but I remember being in an antique store, and there was a trunk that said “Free” on it, filled with some random goodies. There was a little glass vase with a handle, and I could NOT believe it was free! Someone was just giving it away?! My mom had me check at the counter, where I found out that yes, it WAS in fact free, and they even wrapped it up for me so it wouldn’t break. Amazing!!

Free is still my favorite cost, and of course it is, because getting something for FREE is the best! It’s especially rewarding when that free thing is something useful. And what could be more useful that food?

Free food comes in many forms, and over the next couple of weeks I’m going to describe some ways you might acquire free food, and what to do with it when you do. Specifically I’ll be talking about free produce, which generally comes as a gift from someone, or you forage for it. (Foraging combines free with self-sufficiency which makes it a double whammy!) For this first post I’m going to talk about zucchini.

ZUCCHINI? Blech! Seriously, I hate squash. Pretty much any squash product except pumpkin pie, and even then it needs lots of whipped cream. Zucchini has a reputation too, as that never-ending garden product that you beg your neighbors to take off your hands and secretly hide in your friends cars. Seriously, why do people keep growing the stuff? No doubt you or someone you love has received an unwanted zucchini. Once the initial shock has passed, you can reevaluate your choice of friends and hide in creative ways when the squash season is in full swing.

However, believe it or not, there ARE things you can do with zucchini that don’t include building a catapult and launching them off a freeway overpass, as fun as that sounds. Here are two things I like to do with randomly acquired zucs.

First. Believe it or not. Because I don’t. Grilled zucchini is actually edible! (If you’re reading this post and you really, really, TRULY like zucchini, one, liar!! two, sorry to offend) I discovered this sometime last year, which inspired me to grow our own, which I will not be doing again, because they just go crazy. But with a little olive oil and salt and pepper, a few slices of grilled zucchini aren’t bad.

I also like zucchini fritters! These are actually really tasty. Here’s what you do. First, grate your zucchini and sprinkle with salt. Let it sit for ten minutes or so and then squeeze it in cheesecloth or press in a sieve to remove as much water as possible.

There are TONS of zucchini fritter recipes out there, and so you can kind of just experiment. What we did was mix our zucchini (one large or two small grated) with a little flour and some panko. I don’t find that exact measurements are needed, but of course, if you do, probably like a 1/4 cup of each. Salt and pepper to your taste, and two eggs. I’ve seen recipes with baking powder, but I didn’t use it. If you have parmesan cheese you can sub it in for the panko. Add some sliced green onions if you want. Want it spicy? Maybe a touch of cayenne or smoked paprika. Once you get your mix how you want it, heat some oil in a skillet. Form the mix into balls and press them flat, then fry for a few minutes each side. Best served warm. Serve with sour cream or yogurt or just some buttah on top. Easy and tasty and kids love them too!

One last super useful thing to do with zucchini is to stretch your ground meat. Whether you just don’t have a big meat budget, you’re trying to eat less meat, or you’re just trying to eat more veggies, this is perfect. Grate and drain zuc as above. Mix with ground meat. Done! We made a three pound pack of meat into four pounds plus ten ounces by adding three zucchinis. Once you cook up the meat with seasonings, you don’t notice the addition of zucchini instead of more meat. Perfect for stir frys or taco meat, maybe even burgers, but I haven’t tried it.

What do you do with all your extra zucchinis??

Next week we’ll talk berries and foraging!

Oh and just for fun, here is me last year at 19 weeks pregnant, when my app told me my baby was the size of a zucchini, and I picked this thing from the garden that day. And I wondered just how big she would get if this was 19 weeks! 😉

Garden Tomatillo Salsa

What in the world are tomatillos?? They look like firm green tomatoes wrapped in a papery husk, but they have a unique taste all their own. I haven’t discovered very many things to do with them yet, but I HAVE discovered that they are so ridiculously easy to grow!! In fact, if some rogue tomatillos fall into your garden bed and either decompose there, or some get mixed into your compost, the odds are that you’ll get some volunteers the next year that will produce just as nicely as the original plant. I had two big plants pop up in my cucumber boxes this year. You can stake them or use a cage like a tomato but they’ll pretty much just grow by themselves.

My favorite thing to do with tomatillos thus far is to make salsa! Just this year I’ve experimented with oven roasting them, and I have to say, it’s amazing. And easy! Here’s my recipe for oven roasted tomatillo and tomato salsa.

all homegrown except the garlic and lime!

Take as many tomatillos as you have (about a pound for full tomatillo salsa, less if it’s mixed with tomatoes), a couple cloves of garlic, an onion, and some peppers. The amount of peppers depends on how hot you like it. I used a jalapeno and a hungarian hot wax, both with the seeds removed, and it’s pretty warm. Peel and rinse the tomatillos (they are kind of sticky) and cut them in half. Cut and seed the peppers, and peel and cut the onion. Leave the skin on the garlic for roasting. Put on a dry baking sheet and broil on high for about 5-7 minutes until you get a little blackening on your veg.

Mix all the roasted ingredients (peel the garlic now!) and use your favorite food chopping device to whiz them up. Add juice of half a lime, and a half bunch of cilantro, and as many tomatoes as you like to fill out your salsa. Eat!! I like it warm, but the flavors really get a chance to meld when you cool it for a while.

We’re using it on taco salad tonight, but a quick and easy recipe is to take a batch of salsa (I’ve only done this with full tomatillo versions of salsa) and mix in a can of cream of mushroom soup. Layer corn tortillas, meat of choice, cheese, and the sauce to make a tasty batch of enchiladas!

Yum yum!!

Grow Your Own Irish Dinner

Several years ago I visited Ireland with my sister and our long-time friend. One of my absolute favorite parts was climbing the mountain Benbulben. The elevation is just over 1700 feet, making it not quite a hundred feet taller than Green Mountain, which is a small peak you can climb that’s about a half hour from my house. It’s just a couple miles to the top, and it’s an easy enough hike that you aren’t totally dead at the end. How hard could climbing this little Irish hill be?

Well it turns out, it was pretty hard. Benbulben is kind of a wedge-shaped tabletop mountain, and as you can see from the picture above, it’s got some pretty steep cliffs there. (Those little colored dots are the three of us girls) In order to climb it, we had to traverse along the side of the mountain to the point of the wedge, around the other side, to an easier spot to work our way up. Then we walked across the TOTALLY flat top, to the other side, and slip-and-slided our way down. Also, there are no TRAILS, we just picked our way up and down little crevasses and over barbed wire fences and past scared sheep and through a nasty cold rain and wind storm that kicked up as we approached the top. And we were all wearing thin little tennis shoes, while we splorged across a mucky, nasty, oozy bog. SO MUCH FUN!

It was. It really was. It was hard, and gross at times, and my sister kept saying, “are you ok…?” because I guess my face was showing a rather un-fun attitude, but it was a blast. I climbed a crazy mountain! With no trails! With soggy feet! I climbed barbed wire fences! My friend took the best picture of me that’s ever been seen and then promptly lost her camera somewhere on the backside of the mountain! Climbing Benbulben was a crazy adventure, and a whole story on it’s own.

But today we’re talking about FOOD! Why am I talking about a mountain? Well, I was reminded of our glorious hiking adventure yesterday and all of our fun Irish adventures, so I decided to talk about quick and easy Irish meal you can grow in your own yard! I’m going to be honest, I did not have two of the three items grown yet so they are from the store. However, they ARE growING currently, so by fall I can make this all from the garden. What is it?

Colcannon! There are many different recipes out there, with different ingredients. According to an Irish cookbook I have the ONLY way to make it REAL colcannon is with kale, but we don’t like kale, so no kale for us. Also his recipe calls for scallions, and I found great success with leeks. This is another of my non-recipe recipes, so just do what you feel! It’s just food, man.

 

How to Make Colcannon (my way)

You will need: Potatoes. Probably any kind will do. I use russet usually, but I have purple ones growing and I think that’ll be quite fun. Cabbage or kale. Apparently kale is traditional, I used a lovely purple cabbage. Leeks or green onions. I like the flavor of leeks and I have a lot of them, but I also used green onions. Salt, pepper, milk or cream, butter.

Wash, peel, and boil your potatoes as you would for mashed potatoes. Note I am not giving any amounts. You should have MORE potato than cabbage/kale. So decide how many you’re feeding, and go from there. I think I used six big potatoes because this was our whole meal, but it makes a good side too. While the potatoes boil, start some water for your cabbage. Cut it roughly, and boil it too, for about ten minutes to soften. I used about a half gallon bag full of cabbage with my six potatoes. While all that is going on, heat a cup of your milk or cream in a small saucepan. (If you’re making a big batch, up the amount accordingly). Don’t let it boil! As it heats, add three-four tablespoons of butter. Chop your leeks or green onions finely, and add them to the warming milk and butter mix, and simmer for a few minutes. Don’t cook too high or you’ll get a weird filmly brown milk substance. Drain the potatoes. Drain the cabbage and let it cool a little, then chop it up a little finer. Mix potato, cabbage, and pot of milky-buttery-leeky-oniony goodness together and mash! Add plenty of salt and tons and tons of pepper, and then more pepper because I’m really weird with all my pepper. Top with more butter for serving!

The end. That’s all there is to it! It’s essentially mashed potatoes, with some cabbage and onions. As I perused the vegetable section of my Irish cookbook, it seemed to me that a great many of the potato dishes are in fact just mashed potatoes with slight variances. Or mashed potatoes cooked into a different dish. Or a dish topped with mashed potatoes. Like seriously, it’s Ireland. It’s all about the potato. Which is good, because my Hubbins loves some him some potato. And onions. So stay tuned for more potato and onion recipes, because honestly, we eat them a lot. Potatoes and onions are cheap after all, so save some money, and eat like the Irish!

OHHH and for a real treat, make this dish with some Kerrygold butter, which is in fact the best butter ever made on earth.

Sláinte!

Just another Benbulben picture for kicks

Drying Onions for Storage

We sure love alliums in this family. Onions, leeks, garlic.. oftentimes all in the same dish. They are cheap to buy, and also super simple to grow, especially leeks and green onions, that can stay in the ground all winter even and be just fine. But what about storage onions? Is it difficult to prep onions to keep?

Great news! Storage onions are super easy too. The easiest way to grow them is with onion sets, which look like little dried up mini-onions. There are tons of onion varieties, the ones we planted were called “Stuttgarter” and honestly, they came from a box I bought at Fred Meyer. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but last year we picked onions as they grew and used them fresh, and we still ended up with about 16 pounds of onions that lasted us all winter long! I don’t think I bought onions until.. March maybe, from last summer. And now that our onions have grown again, I won’t need to for a good long while.

But how do you prep the onions for storage? Basically, you pull them out of the ground and let them dry. You need nice warm/hot weather for this, and a dry, somewhat sheltered area or a space in a garage. When your onion stems topple over on their own, they are ready to be pulled. (See photo below) Pull them out of the ground, when they are dry (it’s best if you haven’t watered them in a day or two, but our onions got watered regularly as they are right in the middle of our garden, and we just waited until the next morning before watering and they were fine)

you can see the toppled over stems ready to be pulled! and some garbage?!? 

Last year we laid all the onions out on an old cabinet door propped between the wheelbarrow and a chair or something. THIS year we’ve gotten fancier, and we’ll be laying them out on an old picnic table. Movin’ on up. You can use a sheet and lay them on the ground on a warm driveway or in a garage. I wanted them up and off the ground to keep them dry just in case it rained. Then they sat out back in our covered car port for a couple of weeks drying in the heat. The exact time to sit out is not specific, basically you leave them until the stalks are all shrively and there doesn’t seem to be any moisture in them anymore. You can see in the top picture last years onions, a few newer ones thrown in with some very shriveled ones. Once they are nice and dry, cut the stems off close to the bulb, and cut the excess roots off. Dust them off a little if you like, and stack them gently in a box for storage. Store where you would usually keep onion, a cool, dark place.

You could no doubt get all fancy with your onion drying and storage, and if you wanna, go for it. This was the easiest way to do it, and it provided us with onions for like half the year! We’re going to replant some sets as we clear out the onion box, and those we’ll probably use smaller and straight from the garden as summer and fall progress.

I hope you find this post a-peel-ing! haaaaaaaaaaaaaa…..

 

Farm Fresh Italian Sodas and a Sad Farewell

It is with a heavy heart that I begin this post. I lost a dear friend today. My hot pink berry colander.

AUGH! I was headed down to the garden to pick berries for this recipe, when somehow I dropped my little metal berry colander for no apparent reason, and it just so happened to land on this random hunk of cement paver that is on the side of our house. Snap, Crackle, Pop. I was so upset! I still am! I love that little colander. It was a present from my mom, and it has so many uses! The worst part is, I was trying to compose a sentence about the merits of a berry colander and why everyone should get one when BAM! Colander down. If it had landed LITERALLY ONE INCH to the left, all would have been fine. Hubbins says I can get a new one, but it just won’t be the same. Farewell old friend. *sniffle sniffle*

Ok, colander funeral out of the way, today we’re making Italian Sodas!! Yum!! They are super easy to make, and you’ll wonder why you never did it before! All you need is a few simple ingredients to make a deliciously fancy looking beverage.

First, the fruit. We’ve been making these out of our garden grow berries, raspberry, or raspberry mixed with boysenberry. Oh man boysenberries are good. This was all the berries I could find today:

Not very many, but you only need one cup of fruit, so I rounded it out with a peach from Trader Joe’s. You could use blueberries or strawberries, or OOH blackberries, which I will be doing when foraging season starts in just a couple weeks! Cherries… nectarines.. pretty much any fruit can be syrup. If it’s a good jam, go for it.

Mix one part fruit, one part sugar, one part water. I used one cup each. Simmer over low heat, mashing the fruit as you go. Berries break down much quicker than the peach did, so your cook time will be variable. Just make sure your fruit breaks down pretty well and your sugar is all dissolved, and don’t burn it! When it looks sufficiently cooked down, strain through a mesh seive (or layers of cheesecloth if you don’t have a sieve). I mushed the last of the fruit bits to make sure all of the syrup is out.

Once your syrup is done, let it cool. My 3 cups of starting ingredients made 1.5 cups syrup. Fill your desired glass with ice cubes. Add some syrup, more for a stronger flavor, less for a light flavor. One batch of the syrup make two sodas each for me and Hubbins, so we use just over 1/3 of a cup syrup. Add about the same amount of club soda. Top with a splash of heavy cream.  Stir to combine. Top with some whipped cream if desired. That’s it! Enjoy!!!

Oh and you really should get a berry colander, like this one, because they’re super handy for a lot of things. But you should probably NOT drop it on cement and break it. Just a tip.

My posts may contain some affiliate links, this just means if you buy a product I recommend in a link, I get a small portion of the selling price, with no increase in price for you! I only recommend products  I actually use and believe in. Thanks for your support!

The Importance of Seed Saving

What is seed saving, and why should you bother? First, what is it? Seed saving means not harvesting all of your crop each time, and letting it go to seed, or saving the seeds out of what you harvest to use for next years crop. That’s the basics, and while there are some really simple seeds to save (for instance, when you clean a jalapeno, put the seeds you scrape out on a paper towel and let them dry for a couple days. Bam. Saved your seeds), there’s actually a lot of complexity to some of them.

We’ve started doing some research on seed saving, and while this post isn’t going to go into much detail, one neat thing we learned is that you can cultivate and save seeds that will grow best in your yard. You do it by (again this is the bare-bones explanation) continuously saving seeds each year from the plants that do the best. You can also experiment with hybridization and other stuff, and I’ll really have to do a longer and more detailed post later!!!

But WHY should you save seeds? As I mentioned, one reason is to cultivate the best crop for your garden. But more importantly, it leads to your food independence. An interesting book I’ve read called Independence Days: A Guide to Sustainable Food Storage & Preservation  talks about having access to your own food stores as being the ultimate in self-sufficient living. We depend so much on grocery stores these days, and the author states that if there were some disaster to occur, those stores only carry three days worth of food at a time, and what will we do after that? She also says that many think “oh I can grow food if that ever happens,” but again, where will you get the seeds when the stores are empty? We also watched a really interesting documentary called Seed: the Untold Story (it was on PBS but it has vanished from online, you can  stream it for a cost) that tells the tale of how what used to be a very diverse food supply has been mainstreamed down to very few food varieties, and many of the older heirloom varieties are disappearing. Also, buying seeds each year costs money!

So! Take what you will from all that, there’s a lot of different reasons you might consider  saving seeds.

As I mentioned, things like peppers are super easy to seed-save from. Today I’ll tell you how to save seeds from green onions! One thing to note is that a lot of plants require you to leave them in the ground for two years to reap the seeds. Green onions, leeks, and carrots are a few examples. The onions pictured above are our green onions from last summer that overwintered. As this spring and summer progressed, the flowers dried and puffed open, exposing the lovely black seeds! My sweet Hubbins harvested the flowers, put them in a paper sack, and shook the dickens out of them. He then sort-of winnowed them, by sifting them between two bowls and letting the excess flower bits blow away. Not all of the blossoms were fully opened, so he has them ripening up a little in the paper sack, to try to save as many as possible.

seeds saved so far, you can see more seeds in the blossoms! 

We won’t be storing them in baby food jars forever (even though it looks super cute) because that takes up too much space, but he found a nifty origami tutorial for seed saving envelopes on YouTube, so we’ll probably make some of those. All in all, it took him maybe 20-30 minutes to get what we have so far, and that’s way more seeds than you would get in one envelope already! I hope to never buy green onion seeds again!

So, that’s it! Green onions are so easy to grow, and so easy to save seeds from! Now when all the stores are empty, we can eat onions to our hearts content, and no one will bother us, because we’ll smell super bad.

GO SAVE THE SEEDS!!

My posts may contain some affiliate links, this just means if you buy a product I recommend in a link, I get a small portion of the selling price, with no increase in price for you! I only recommend products  I actually use and believe in. Thanks for your support!

Country Living, City Style

Hello! It may seem like I’ve forgotten about all my loyal readers (hi mom!) but I’ve just been super busy with the baby of course. I have been planning some new posts, and getting photos and such prepped for them, but in the meantime I thought I’d just do a quick photo gallery of some of our suburban farmy fun! Up above you can see my lovely herb box in full bloom! I picked some to dry, more on that later!

sweet baby o’s cloth dipes blowing in the breeze

Does anyone know how to make cloth diapers NOT be super crispy after they line dry???

yummmmy!

Bath and Body Works has nothing on MY sun-ripened raspberries! They keep spreading every year! I dream of being a berry mogul!

kitchen cleaning supplies

New dish soap recipe I tried out, I’ll let you know how it works! Baking soda for stubborn stains, and of course, some lovely Easy Peasy Hand Knit Dish Cloths!

ooh nice garden clog

These are our green onions that overwintered from last summer, you can see the seeds popping out of the flowers, Hubbins is going to harvest them, which we learned you do by winnowing them on a breezy day! Neat!

Well there’s a quick peek at some of the self-sufficient activities we’ve been doing around here. Stay tuned for more!

And here’s Sherlock for good measure: