Stop Weeding Your Gardens And Do This Easy Trick

Surprisingly, not many people know that you can easily keep weeds out of your garden.  Weeds not only are unsightly, but they steal the nutrients from the plants you are trying to grow.  Hand weeding takes forever and, I don't know about you, but by the time I'm done weeding, I feel like I turn around and more have snuck up and started growing.  It's a never ending process.  The store bought commercial weed block is expensive and once you want to tear it up, it just shreds.  Chemical sprays, like Round-Up, aren't very good for the environment.  They harm beneficial insects and I don't want that stuff anywhere near my veggie garden.  I don't need to eat poison.  Mulching your garden will help tremendously, especially if you use a mulch that will decompose and feed your plants.  Rocks and plastic mulch will work, but rocks are hard to weed around and very hard to dig in and the plastic will leach chemicals into your beds.

I like to use wood mulch or straw/hay but unless I get it really thick (4 or more inches), I still get a lot of weeds.  Thick mulching prevents soil erosion, retains moisture in the soil, and keeps the roots of the plant warm during the cold winters.  Laying down cardboard or newspapers really helps keep weed seeds from germinating in the ground and weeds from roots already in the soil won't grow through it.  You can even lay it directly over your lawn and not have to de-sod first when putting in a new garden or expanding an existing one.  This makes less work, it saves me from buying lots of expensive mulch, and I can recycle paper and cardboard!  Win, win, win!  Another great benefit of using these materials for weed control is that they decompose and become part of the soil so it feeds your plants.  Another win!

Now you may think, how am I suppose to get tons of boxes or newspaper?  Who gets a newspaper anymore?  You can ask people (Craigslist, friends, neighbors, even enemies - but only if you need to) for leftover newspapers or find a local recycling drop off and get the newspapers from there.  I have found that cardboard boxes are easily found for free from grocery and other stores. Cardboard is the best material to use for weed control in large areas because it's easier to handle then several sheets of newspaper.  The cardboard is also heavy enough that, when wetted, won't blow away like newspapers.  For curved beds, just cut your newspaper or cardboard to follow the curves.  Cardboard is also good for as a base for a lasagna garden or raised vegetable bed.

Some tips for using cardboard:

• Use brown cardboard only—avoid white, brightly printed or waxed.
• Remove any tape or staples.
• Overlap edges by about 6 inches.
• Water the cardboard well before you add mulch.
• Poke holes through the wet cardboard if you need to add plants.
• You can add wood chips, straw, compost, or any other organic material on top.
• Newspaper can be used instead of cardboard

 If using newspaper is easier for you, use 4-5 sheets (or more).

Since cardboard is a "brown" and carbon rich, include nitrogen-rich "green" materials, like compost, coffee grounds, cured manure. Here’s a little trick: sprinkle a light layer of rotting vegetables on top of the garden area before you put down the cardboard to entice worms. When making a new vegetable garden, cover the cardboard with a 1-3″ layer of composted manure or other finished compost and then cover that with clean straw or leaves.

Will you eventually get weeds?  Yes.  There is no barrier, cardboard or landscape fabric, will stop wind-born seeds or runners that creep over from another area.  If you keep your garden well mulched on top of the cardboard, you will find that weeds are easier to remove or rake through.

 

 

 

My June Garden Update, Problems With Tomato Blight

I went to pick some sugar snap peas and do some weeding on 6-13 (darn Friday the thirteenth) and I ended up trying to save my tomato plants. 

Let's start with the bad and end with the good.  Here is the dreaded tomato blight.  I caught it fairly early, hopefully early enough. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have several with affected stems.  I got some dirt and buried the stems.

 

 

This stem is so affected that the plant fell over.

 

 

 

This one doesn't have appear to have any blight on it and is my tallest tomato plant.

 

 This is one of my zucchini plants.

These pictures will now be from 6-21-14.

Isn't this picture beautiful?  It's a little cucumber, only about 1/2" - 1" long.

My watermelon hasn't died yet.

Zucchini is really growing.  I should be eating some within a week.

 



 

 

This is the tomato that didn't appear to have any blight.  I've got lots of tomatoes on it.

 

 

Super hard to see through all the weeds, but in the front of the picture is pumpkin.  Farther back is cauliflower.  The sides had peas that were just torn out and what remains is the Kentucky wonder green beans I planted about 3 weeks earlier.  Everything else (and there's a lot) is weeds.  It's hard to weed through a trellis of peas.

 

 

My jalapeño plant.  I have never harvested peppers, but I haven't stopped trying.

 

 

I forgot to weed this before I took a picture, but the rows are carrots.

 

 

Cucumbers

 

 

Cauliflower

Making Your Own Trash Bag Holder

I keep my trash can in my pantry.  I know that I probably shouldn't keep trash next to the food we eat, but I don't really have a choice.  I would put it at the end of my counter, but then everything the two little ones pick up would end up in there.  They love to pick things up and put them in other things.  Sometimes, when it's time to pick up toys, they can be very helpful.  They also love to take containers and turn them upside down so everything spills out, so sometimes they are the opposite of helpful. 

 

So to protect our valuables, I keep the trash can in the pantry.  They don't yet understand that Mama's phone should not be thrown away and the pretty external hard drive should not be thrown away - the one with all our photos, that I almost didn't catch was thrown away.  I don't know if I missed anything that was thrown away, but I probably have.  That's why I keep the trash can in the pantry, next to our food, that I also protect from being ransacked by insane kids who think it's ok to dump an entire bag of food on the floor and play in it. 

 

I really wanted to have my trash bags off the shelves so I could have more room for food storage.  I found out that I could buy a bag holder for around $20, but that seems like a lot of money to spend on something to hold trash bags.  The one that I want is found here.  I also found that I could use a dowel rod or a paper towel holder of some sort and put the rod through the center of my trash bag roll.  Well, the skinny dowel rod won't fit.  Or at least not very well.  I could have gone smaller, but then I was worried it would break from the weight of my bags.  So I decided I would use a shoe string I had lying around.  It's a heavy duty one, made for hiking shoes.  I used a thin dowel rod to push the shoe string through the bag and tied the ends of the shoe string to picture hangers.  The problem with that is it took several tries and at least five minutes to keep a roll of bags up.  I also had to keep unwinding the string.  Every time I took a bag off the roll, it rolled the string up. 

 

 

Here you can see my pathetic string set up.

 

 

 

When I was getting ready to take the trash out one evening, I was trying to squish my sisters 2L bottle in the trash.  Then a light bulb came on in my head and I grabbed the bottle and decided it was the perfect size to hold trash bags.  I just had to wash it and cut the top off.  It was pretty close to the right size.  The roll of trash bags was a little bit big, but I could try cutting a slit in the bottle.  I pulled out my scissors and cut the bottle.  I had to put the lid on and stab it with a knife to get a hole started.  I'm a little clumsy so I probably should have asked my husband to do this for me, but he was out and I was too excited to do this.

 

I cut a triangle down to the bottom of the bottle.  Can you see it?  The bottom of the triangle is all the way down to where the bump on the bottom of the bottle are.

 

Then I positioned the bottle the way I wanted it in the pantry.  There was just enough room between the trash can and the shopping bag holder.  Then I used my drill and drilled 2 holes through the slit, into the bottle against the wall.  I put in plastic wall anchors for extra support in the dry wall.  Ideally there would have been a stud right where I wanted to but the trash bag holder.

 

Here's the screws and anchors  I used.  I used the biggest ones in here.

 

 

This is what it looks like without the trash bags in there. 

 

Look, the trash bag fits really nicely.  Sure the bottle is a little small, but the edge of the roll rests on the triangle I cut out and I can easily pull a new bag.

 

I have had this in for about a month now and it is holding up really well.  The bottle is holding up and it is staying on the wall.  The best thing is that I didn't have to pay any thing for it!

 

 

compensation disclosure



No-Cook, Raw Honey Strawberry Jam

I recently bought some raw honey when we picked strawberries.  After I tasted it and realized how amazing it was, I started thinking up ways to use it.  I would definitely not be baking with it.  That would ruin the "raw" of it.  I don't usually like honey, at least not by itself.  I like to put it in my homemade bread or add some to my tea.  Since we had strawberries, I wanted to try making some honey strawberry jam.  The pectin I usually buy is a cook kind, so I did some research and found out that there is an instant pectin that requires no cooking.  This is the kind I used for this - Ball RealFruit Instant Pectin - Flex Batch.  It was super easy and I'm glad I bought four containers.  I need to buy more fruit now, yum!

First I washed the jars and rings (not the center of the lid, just the screw on ring).  I usually wash them by hand, but I just threw them in the dishwasher with the rest of our dishes.

 

 

 My dishwasher has a sterilize setting.  I went ahead and used it.  I don't think it's necessary with cooked jam and long term shelf stable canning since you put the jars in the canner and simmer them until you use them.  Since I was making no cook freezer jam, I went ahead and "sterilized" them.

 

Look at all the strawberries we picked.  These aren't as sweet as the ones we picked at Spencer Farm in Noblesville last year.  These were a different variety and are about twice as big.  Next time we go, I'll call ahead and see if we can pick in the little sweet strawberry patch.

 

 

 I needed to rinse these off.  I filled my sink half full with cold water and added about 1/2 cup of vinegar.

Look at that dirty water!

I put some rags on the counter and let them drip dry in the colander.  I don't need strawberry stains on my counters.

I took the stems and leaves off of about 2 cups of strawberries and instead of mashing them like I have in the past, I used my awesome Ninja blender that Husband got me for Christmas.  I used the pulse button a couple times and it chopped them up really nicely.  It works better for smaller batches.  When I filled it up and tried this, I had to pulse it a lot more to get all the strawberries chopped and ended up pureeing a lot of it so it was not as chunky as I like.  As long as I stayed around 7 cups or less, it worked great.  The strawberries need room to move around.  The model I have can be found here, complete with single serve blending cups.  It's currently marked down!

Nicely chopped and ready to be made into jam.

I put the strawberries in a bowl and added 1/2 cup of honey and 2 tablespoons Ball instant pectin.

 

 

Then I stirred it for 3 minutes.

I poured it into my half pint jars.

 

 

I then let it sit on the counter for 30 minutes to set up.  I turned it gently once about 12-20 minutes into it since the strawberries were all floating near the top so that the strawberries were dispersed throughout the jam.

 

 

 

I was a little concerned this wouldn't set up with honey since it's liquid and sugar isn't, but it actually set up a little thicker than the patch I made with sugar.  This also tastes so much better.  It has more depth to the flavor then the sugar sweetened one.  It was also so fast to make since I didn't need to cook the pectin.

 

No-Cook, Raw Honey Strawberry Jam

makes 2 half pint jars

1 2/3 cups mashed strawberries
2 Tbsp Ball RealFruit Instant Pectin
1/2 cup raw honey
(Do not make more than 6 jars per batch or it may not set up.)

Stir pectin into fruit slowly to avoid clumping.  Add honey.  Stir for 3 minutes.  Spoon or ladle into clean freezer jars.  Let stand at room temp for 30 minutes.  Enjoy now, will keep in fridge for about 3 weeks, or freeze for up to one year to enjoy later.

Plastic freezer jars or glass jars with straight sides are recommended.  Leave 1/2 inch headspace to allow room for expansion during freezing.

compensation disclosure
 

Raw Honey

We love Eisele’s Raw Honey from Westfield, IN.  We were out picking strawberries at Spencer Farm in Noblesville, IN and I went into the store to pay for our berries.  While in there, I walked around looking at all the goodies.  I love all their cookbooks and cute kitchen items.  I did not look at the ice cream.  I couldn't tempt myself because if I saw it I might want to haul Husband and the kids out of the van so we can enjoy some.  While diverting my eyes from the ice cream (and fudge, and who knows what else), I saw honey.  I've been wanted to get some local honey, so I was going to see where this was from.  Then I saw one bottle that said it was raw honey.  I immediately picked it up and decided as long as it was from Indiana, I would buy it.  It was, so off I went to pay for it and the berries before I saw anything else I couldn't leave behind.

I showed it to husband when I got in the van and asked it he had ever had raw honey.  I was curious.  Did I buy something gross that people choke down just for all the benefits?  He said he hadn't.  When we got home, we tried it right away.  It was the best honey I had ever had.  Well, forget the health benefits!  This is just as good as the ice cream I avoided.  This is definitely something I will have to  hide from myself.  I even love the buttery, creamy texture.  It is so different from grocery store honey.  So now I'm hooked on this honey.  I even made 2 jars of raw honey, no cook strawberry jam.  I gave one jar to my father-in-law.  Since this is so good, I had to do research.  Why do people make such a big deal of eating raw versus pasteurized?

What makes raw honey different from regular honey is that raw honey does not get heated or filtered and therefore retains more nutrients.  Raw honey is left in its natural state and contains pollen, enzymes, antioxidants and many other beneficial compounds that we are just now learning about.  It also contains some cancer-fighting phytonutrients, found in propolis, which is what honeybees make to seal their hive and protect it from bacteria. 

Some research supports the theory that local honey can help with seasonal allergies.  There is not a lot of research on this, but many users claim that local honey provides allergy relief.  Allergies are triggered by repeated exposure to the same allergen.  Even if you are not initially allergic to a plant, over time, you can become very allergic to it if you spend a lot of time around that plant.  Honey bees near this allergenic plant will make honey that contains small amounts of pollen from that plant.  This honey will then work as a natural vaccine.  If you start taking a small amount of it everyday, within a few months, you might notice relief from seasonal pollen related allergies.

Raw honey has been used to heal wounds as far back as ancient Egypt and Greece.  Raw honey has anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, and antiseptic properties.  Some researchers believe honey has the ability to kill microbes.  Honey dressings reduce pain and decrease tissue damage associated with dressing changes.  The enzymes in raw honey can help some people digest food more easily.  It may also help treat ulcers and diarrhea.

Raw honey is a great natural source of energy.  It contains both glucose and fructose.  Glucose provides instant energy.  Fructose is more slowly absorbed and provides sustained energy.  Raw honey is also an excellent source for vitamins and minerals.  It contains calcium, copper, iodine, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous, potassium, selenium, sodium and zinc.  Vitamins B2, B3, B5, B6, and C can also be found in raw honey.

One way that we love to use honey here is to treat coughs.  Especially for little kids.  I don't want to give my 2 year old a cough drop (AKA chocking hazard) so I'll give him a little spoonful of honey.  Not only does it tastes good, but it will coat his throat and reduce his coughing.  I have broken this out in the middle of the night several times.  It's so hard for my kids to sleep when they are coughing.  My 6 year old also loves honey for his cough.  He tells everyone who coughs to try some honey.  A 2007 study at Penn State College of Medicine  found that a small dose of buckwheat honey was more effective than an over the counter cough treatment for children.

Absolutely no honey should be given to children under the age of one.  It may contain botulism spores.  Children over age one and healthy adults have the mature digestive systems necessary to prevent botulism spores from thriving.

I Think I'm Addicted...

to gardening.  I really need to do some laundry, and the dishes are piling up, but my mind is stuck on adding a vegetable garden to my house.  I currently garden at Husband's parents house.  They have 2 acres of land and plenty of room for me to add a vegetable garden.  I feel like I am inconveniencing them.  I may not be, but I feel like I am.  Husbands dad tills the soil, waters, adds amendments, and other things to help out.  I really appreciate it, because I can't pack the kids up and head out there everyday like I could if it were at my house.  The plan has always been to add a garden to our new house.  We just bought it a year ago and were going to wait around five years to do so.  Husband wonders why I don't just keep gardening at his parents, but says he's not the one that does it.  Our house backs up to the fence.  According to our HOA, we aren't allowed to claim the back part of our property.  We live on 1/2 an acre, but we really only get 1/4 of an acre.  This means that we have two side yards.  One is huge and fenced down to almost the front of the house.  This is where the kids play. 

The other side is only fenced down about 25 feet.  This part of the yard is not used, so I measured it all out and decided that I could use it for vegetables.  I wasn't sure if Husband would agree.  I also wanted to propose mulching that whole side yard.  I even thought up a case and had tons of pros to me stripping the grass from that whole side and turning it into a garden.

• That side of the yard is currently unused
• I can easily plant, harvest, and weed
• No need to haul the kids to his parents and try to keep an eye on them in a yard that has some dangers (piles of concrete blocks and bricks that the kids try to climb and end up falling and getting hurt, no water filled pools or buckets for the kids to drown in, I'm not sure if there are thorny or poisonous things growing there - it's a big yard, kids won't pull up all their plants, kids try to climb through their doggy door) not super dangerous or anything, but I have to keep a close eye on them which is hard to do when I'm trying to garden
• No need to mow that side of the house
• I can move plants around easily and can always change up where I'm planting

When I brought up using that side, he agreed that as long as it's enough room, that it'd be fine.  I then said, "Now I need to decide if I should try to do beds, flat or raised, or just mulch the whole thing into a garden.  Mulching the whole garden would be so much easier then keeping the rows so you can mow between them."  This is were he interrupted me.  I was so ready to convince him that mulching the whole side yard would be best and he tells me to definitely mulch the whole thing.  He doesn't want to try mowing between beds and if I want to turn the whole side yard into a grassless garden, then he votes for that because it'd be so much easier for both of us.  Whew! That was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Now I just have to figure out how to position my vegetables next year.  I don't usually do this until January, but I'm too excited.  Now I need to get back to it!  I just love gardening!

Here's everything I need to plan.  I have a drawing of the space and I made three copies of it.  I won't use the original in case I need to make more copies.  I have my garden plans from 2011, 2012, and 2014 (2013 was just tomatoes in a row with zucchini since we were in the middle of moving) and I have my garden journal. 

 

 

Healthy Alternative to Key Lime Pie

I love to eat dessert at the end of the day.  I wish I didn't, but it's my weakness.  I try to keep unhealthy snacks out of the house.  I do have a bag of fun size chocolate candy as a good behavior award for my first grader.  It's very hard to stay out of it.  When I buy ice cream for the kids, I eat way too much.  I have found that it helps to have healthy sweets to eat.  Sometimes I just eat prunes, apples with peanut butter, or a peanut butter banana protein shake. 

The other day, at the store while buying yogurt, I saw some greek yogurt with mix ins.  It was on sale and about the same price I pay for plain yogurt, so I bought some to try them out.  We had banana yogurt with dark chocolate and almond pieces to mix in, coconut yogurt with roasted almond pieces and dark chocolate to mix in, and key lime yogurt with white chocolate and crumbled graham crackers to mix in.  Nobody really liked the banana.  The coconut was the right amount of sweet, had slightly salty almonds and the chocolate fit perfectly.  The key lime was ok.  The graham cracker wasn't very tasty. 

We decided to try to make our own key lime pie yogurt.  At first we tried graham crackers and white chocolate chips.  It was ok, we felt like we didn't need to white chocolate chips.  Next we tried just plain graham crackers.  The texture was off.  Then we tried smashing a nature valley granola bar and adding that.  It was so far the best.  We then tried adding sliced almonds or crushed walnuts to make it a little more filling and hopefully improve the taste and texture.  Now that was perfection.  I have eaten it almost every day for a month now, and still love it.  I don't usually enjoy the key lime yogurt, but with these mix ins, it tastes so much like one of my favorite desserts.

Just look at the nutrition facts


Marie Callender Key Lime Pie
Calories: 430
Total Fat: 18g
Total Carbohydrate: 62g
Protein: 5g

Greek Yogurt Key Lime Pie For One
Calories: 345
Total Fat: 16g
Total Carbohydrate: 36g
Total Protein: 17g

You can also enjoy it without the nuts.  I prefer it with the nuts, but they add a quarter of the calories.

Greek Yogurt Key Lime Pie For One (without nuts)
Calories: 245
Total Fat: 6g
Total Carbohydrate: 34g
Total Protein: 14g

 

Greek Yogurt Key Lime Pie For One

1 container Chobani Key Lime Greek Yogurt
1 Oats 'n Honey Nature Valley Granola Bar
1/8 cup or 2 Tablespoons walnut pieces or sliced almonds

Mix them all together and enjoy. 

The add-ins will fit in the yogurt container so no need to dirty a bowl