Month: August 2022

It’s been a busy week here on the homestead. In addition to keeping up on chores and projects, the girls started school this week. I think school starting was harder on me than it was on the girls. I miss them not being home every day. Wyatt has a couple weeks before he starts. He will start school after Labor Day, which gives us some quality mother/son time. He is very helpful with projects around the homestead.

One project on the homestead that is now complete was a family affair. It’s been a while since I reached out asking for aluminum cans for a project that I had on the homestead, and thankfully a few people answered my request. The chicken tractor, even though the chickens have been living in it for a while, now has the finishing touches completed. I love the finished product!!

Wyatt was a huge help in this next project. When we expanded the garden earlier this spring, we had planned for a gate at the other end of the garden, but never got to putting one in. Well, Wyatt and I got it done. This summer we were fortunate to have someone offer for us to salvage items from a house that was being prepared for demolition. One of the things we found was an old barn gate. The gate was too big for our project, and had some rotten areas, so we had to do some modifications, but I love how it turned out! I like giving new life to things that would otherwise be disposed of.

Reusing items and giving them a new life/purpose reminds me of the Bible verse from 2 Corinthians 5:17. “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun.” The old in the scripture refers to our “old” nature – pride, love of sin, reliance on works/deeds, bad habits/passions. These old things have died, being nailed to the cross with our sin. But, the good news is, the new has come! The old, dead things are gone and have been filled with the life and glory of God. We find a new kind of love toward mankind, the sins we once enjoyed we now detest, our bad habits have been replaced with habits that brings joy to God, and we realize that there is no amount of money or time that we can give that will get us into Heaven…only a personal relationship with Christ himself. With the example of the gate, Wyatt and I took a gate that was rotting and falling apart. We removed the areas that were no good, and replaced them with new parts, giving it new life. So cool how references to the Bible are literally everywhere in our lives!!!

One final item I would like to give an update on…my pepper plants. Last week I posted how I learned a hard lesson, that grass clippings around the pepper plants was putting too much nitrogen in the soil, and while the plant was growing well, I was not getting any peppers. We have since removed the grass from the row of peppers, and this week it has been a joy watching all the flowers and baby peppers coming on the plants! I may get peppers this year after all!

I hope you all have a wonderful week. I’m sure ours will continue to be very busy. Between school, soccer, chores, noodles, bread, harvesting in the garden and canning season being upon us…I’m sure we are in for another crazy week. Take care, God Bless, and a reader question for this week…have you done a project where you have taken something old and given it new life? I wanna hear about it!

Life is full of lessons, both simple and difficult, and the work on the homestead is no different. Every year we are learning new lessons. I have eluded several times in previous posts about failures and learning hard lessons, and I have decided to share a few of them in this post.

The garden has been keeping us busy. Our tomatoes have been coming off in droves, and they are delicious. We have also been able to start restocking our green beans supply. A couple of the zucchini plants seem to be struggling after having been attacked by vine bore and squash bugs, but the rest are still producing. I was able to get some shredded and put in the freezer for me to use later this winter, and still have plenty to eat fresh. I’ve harvested several small cantaloupe, and they were delicious. And, the herb garden is doing wonderfully. I’ve been able to harvest and dry out several cuttings of basil and parsley, as well as hanging rosemary to dry out.

Even with all the blessings we’ve received from the garden, there is always more to learn. Proverbs 1:5 says “Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance.” A wise person is not a “know it all”, they are willing to learn from others to increase their knowledge and wisdom. With their increased knowledge, they are able to assist others. I’m always learning, and this year was no different.

I’ve written before how putting grass clippings on the garden is a wonderful weed barrier, as well as helping hold moisture for the plants. This has worked wonders for the tomato plants, zucchini, corn, cabbages, and peas. But in doing some research and talking with some veteran gardeners, I’ve gained some more knowledge. My pepper plants have really taken off lately. They are green, tall and bushy…however, I have no peppers. I already knew that plant rotation in the garden is a must, as plants take different nutrients out of the ground, and not all plants benefit from the same nutrients. Grass clippings add nitrogen into the soil as it decomposes, and while that is great for plants that thrive off nitrogen, it can hinder the growth of others. In my research and discussions, nitrogen can actually inhibit the growth of peppers. The plants themselves may grow, but the “fruit” will not grow. So…the grass has been pulled from around our pepper plants, in hopes that we might get a few peppers off our plants.

A first for us this year was dealing with aphids. Those little buggers were on my chamomile! I’ve had no idea what to do about them, so I had to do my research. I found that in addition to ladybugs being a natural predator, so are grasshoppers, and fortunately there was a grasshopper in the patch. But, in my urgency to get them taken care of more immediately, I wanted to find a natural remedy. I made a spray of water, a little dish soap and some peppermint oil. It worked!! (Side note……I also tried it on some squash bugs, and it worked on the young ones! Game changer!!)

The final hard lesson I had to learn this year was with my pumpkins and watermelon. I knew the vines of watermelon were very delicate and that you can’t damage them or it will kill the whole vine. What I didn’t know is that it even applies to the little “fingers” that grab onto things. If you move the vines and break those little grabbers, that will kill the vine as well. In my trying to keep the vines all contained in the boxes, some of them got broken, and all the vines died. No watermelons for us this year. We had a similar situation with our pumpkin patches. They got trimmed back (by someone whom I will keep anonymous ;-)…) and maybe got trimmed a bit too much. Between the over trimming and the squash bugs, the vines all died, and took the pumpkins along with them. We did salvage a couple jack-o-lantern pumpkins, but the rest did not make it.

This year was not a total failure. We were still blessed with a lot of food from our garden, and we are still able to bless others. Every year is another chance to learn, and use that gained knowledge for the next year. Blog question…what is something you tried to grow for the first time that didn’t turn out? There is nothing to be embarrassed about, and if you are a reader that can offer your expertise, feel free to have an open discussion in the comments. Have a blessed week!!!

How is it August already?! I am not ready for summer to be winding down. I realize that I may be in the minority, but I dread the start of school. I love having my kids home during the day. Not to mention this year I have my first senior!!! How did THAT happen?!?! It seems like just last year we were stressing over kindergarten school supplies…and now she’s going to be graduating?! This year is going to be full of new things with having a senior and all that goes along with that (senior pictures, cap and gown, graduation invitations, graduation party…..STOP!!!) I don’t need to think of all that today. But, this week we did try some new things here on the homestead. Let me fill you in.

We have continued to be blessed by our green bean plants, and were able to get another good sized picking. This time, I wanted to try out my new pressure canner. I have pressure canned beans before, but this canner allows me to do more than 4 pints at a time, compared to my mini pressure canner/cooker. Now, I had to read my manual about 4 times to make sure that I was assured of what I was doing, but I still had to “phone a friend” to make sure that what I was doing was right. Her reassurance was GREATLY appreciated! When all was said and done, I found out that I REALLY like this canner, and all the jars sealed. SUCCESS!!!

My last blog post I shared pictures of my abundance of fresh herbs growing. I decided that, if I wanted to make the best of what I had, I needed to do something with them. I did some research, and thanks to DirtFarmerJay, I was able to dry a large amount of our fresh basil. He had a great video showing how to step-by-step, oven dry basil. Now my goal is to be able to grow as much as he does!

I took the steps he showed for basil, and I also tried it with a LOT of fresh parsley. Much to my surprise, it took a LOT longer than the basil to dry out. It turned out great though, and I have the most fragrant, home-dried basil and parsley! It’s amazing how much more fragrant the herbs are when you dry them out yourself.

Canning vegetables and drying the herbs led me the a Bible verse found in Psalms: 21:20 “In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but the foolish devours all he has.” Now, I’m NOT saying that I’m wise, but taking into account the times we are living in, even the Bible says that it is responsible to prepare for the unexpected. Having extra supplies on hand (extra food in your pantry), could mean the difference between feeding your family or going hungry. We are not hoarders of food, or preppers…but we are trying to be good stewards of the bounty that God has provided us.

Another first for me, is I’m trying “second-planting” of some of my other produce. I have always read that you could plant some plants/seeds several times in one season, but I have never actually tried it. This year is the year. I had about 4 rows in the garden that I had just been staring at since the decision to expand the garden. When watering the garden I would water the rows around them, and just stare at them not knowing what to do with them. I decided to try a second planting of sweet corn. My first round of corn was kinda depressing. The stalks are only about waist high, and the cobs are tiny, if there even is any on a stalk. So I’m trying again. Almost all of the seeds took, and they are growing nicely, so far. I also replanted lettuce and peas. I was disappointed in my first pea planting as well. We only got 2 pickings, but part of that is because we were on vacation and a couple chickens got to them before I did. The peas and the lettuce are coming up nicely as well! Wish I could say as much for a few of my other plants…but that’s for another post. I’m going to have to share that I’m not a perfect gardener, and sometimes things don’t go well. I’m not going to share failures/hard lessons in this post 🙂

Hope you all have a great week! Reader question for the week: What is your favorite canned vegetable (either from a store or home canned)? Just by the amount that my family goes through, I’d probably have to say green beans.