Mar 4, 2010 Posted by Tiffany

What are those nastly little black things?

I went out into the garden two days ago and wanted to take some photos of the garden to show you how sad it looked. As you’ve probably noticed, I still have not shared those photos because it’s even sadder than I thought. Our raspberry trellis fell over in a big storm we had last week, most of the plastic was ripped loose on our greenhouse as well. Everything in the beds is dead and yucky after... read more

Dec 17, 2009 Posted by Tiffany

Foraging for wild garlic

Although many things outdoors have begun to whither and die back, some wild herbs are still thriving…and possibly even becoming easier for you to find. Types of wild garlic and chives are one example. Can you spot the clumps of wild garlic in the photo below? I know it’s not easy but you can click on the photo to make it larger also. Did you find it? See the darker green clumps sprinkled... read more

Nov 2, 2009 Posted by Tiffany

Making homemade hand sanitizer

Cold and flu season is in full swing, and with H1N1 running around all over the place, taking a few extra precautions to keep germs at bay is never a bad thing. I’m not saying you need to bathe yourself and your kids in hand sanitizer every few minutes. Washing your hands with soap and water is still the best way to get rid of germs. But after an outing where you come into contact with a lot of germs... read more

Nov 2, 2009 Posted by Tiffany

The Complete Book of Herbs Book Review

I recently picked up a copy of The Complete Book of Herbs by Lesley Bremness because I’m really interested in developing an herb garden. Actually, it will be sprawling container garden along with some things planted in our garden just because there are so many great herbs to grow and we have plenty of space. The copy I have was published in 1988 (although there seems to have been an update in 1994)... read more

Feb 21, 2009 Posted by Tiffany

No greenhouse love for you

When we woke up this morning, we thought we had our weekend all planned out. Get up, feed Mack, walk the dog, down some Burger King (I know, the healthy choice, right?), drop off the dead computer at the PC repair place, and finally visit Hornbach to buy the twin wall sheet panels for our greenhouse. (I don’t know if that means anything to you, but I mean those plastic panels you put on greenhouses.... read more

Nov 7, 2008 Posted by Tiffany

Leave no seed behind!

I made the journey into our garden today and was relieved that I didn’t want to run screaming from it as soon as I opened the back door of the barn. Unfortunately (and sometimes fortunately), we cannot see our garden from the main house…only when we walk through the barn and open the rear door. I think this is a major reason why we haven’t gotten further with it yet…then again, I... read more

Oct 21, 2008 Posted by Tiffany

Herb gardens of inspiration

I know I’ve already gone on quite a bit about Hessenpark and how fantastic it was…but I’m not quite finished. Since I have a few more photos to share just about their herb gardens, and a bit of info as well, I thought I would break this down into a separate post. I was really hoping to find a bit of inspiration for our garden while we were there as I assumed they must have at least a... read more

Jul 29, 2008 Posted by Tiffany

An update on what’s growing

On Saturday morning, I passed by the thyme plant growing in my herb container garden and saw this! ICK!!!! I don’t know where they came from or how they got to be over an inch so quickly but these little suckers were munching down on my thyme plant. I quickly picked them off and disposed of them and thankfully have not found any more…but why we have so many caterpillars around this year eating... read more

Jul 22, 2008 Posted by Tiffany

What we’re growing right now…

If you read this blog often, you know that we tend to grow some things that some might consider strange. Even for us they can be a bit abnormal, but as we try to become more self-sufficient and look towards a future where food costs just continue to rise, we find ourselves focusing on growing more and more interesting things. For example, we’re now trying to grow ginger root. We were in an Asia store... read more

Jul 16, 2008 Posted by Tiffany

A bit of progress in the garden

Well, we finally did something about the garden. I feel guilty for not going back there the last two days but Monday I was still recovering from working back there 3 hours on Sunday…and today it was just too hot in the morning to get out there. I may squeeze in a bit tomorrow morning but I have errands to run all day so I think Thursday will be my first day back out there…it should be a nice... read more