Wagon Wheel Herb Garden

This weekend we were fortunate enough to be able to attend the Spring Planting Festival at Baker Creek Seed Co. in Mansfield, MO. There were so many booths with fragrant herbs and tons of varieties of tomatoes and peppers. Not to even mention the flowers! It was difficult to decide what exactly it was we needed to bring home! Luckily I had a good idea of what I was wanting for my veggie and herb garden.

After looking online at herbs that would grow well here in Arkansas, I decided that I wanted to put in a perennial herb garden. There are several kinds of herbs that will overwinter here and can be enjoyed year after year.

I decided on four kinds of herbs that I use the most:

1. Lavender
2. Sage
3. Oregano
4. Rosemary (a specially hardy variety - Hill Hardy)

In the other two spokes, I transplanted some dill and lemon basil that I had started from seed earlier this year.  They aren't perennial, but I didn't want to leave the two spokes empty!

One of the problems with herbs, especially ones that are perennial, is that they can become invasive. So where to put them? Not in my butterfly garden or vegetable garden or in the middle of my yard! Also, they dont really like to be watered much or put in rich soil or fertilized. They need full sun and need to be planted in the ground because the soil in containers wouldn't be insulating enough for the plant's roots in the winter. So we decided on making another raised bed just for the herbs. This one we did not use railroad ties, though, we bought an old iron wagon wheel from a local flea market for cheap!

Thus the wagon wheel satisfied our needs; good drainage, not-so-great soil, room to spread without restraint, plus it has the added bonus of looking pretty cool in the yard!

Mulberry Wine

Our first adventure into the world of wine making starts with the discovery of a large Mulberry tree in the front yard of the house we purchased just last year.  Of course, last year we were so busy moving in and painting and cleaning that we did not even notice the tree...until this year when it literally began raining mulberries on my husband while he was mowing the lawn.

Here is the first chapter in our adventure.

April 2012:

Finding the tree, harvesting the berries (it is a fruit not a berry, in fact) and trying to figure out how to begin wine making from scratch.

After some research, (God bless eHow) we found that to make about 1 gallon of wine using the siphon-hose and bucket method, we would need about 5-6 pounds of ripe fruit per gallon of wine.  Well, there goes our vineyard idea, we would need many, many more mature trees than we have!  So we will begin by doing a bit of experimenting.

We placed a plastic sheet underneath the (very tall) tree to begin catching the berries as they dropped to the ground.  After a day or so we had about half of a 5 gallon bucket full.  Ok so we won't have to pick these by hand and we can use not-so-perfect berries...sweet.  We though that was good enough to work with, so we got online and began looking for a reasonably priced complete wine-making kit to get us started.

We decided on the One Gallon Wine Making Kit from http://www.letsdowine.com/1gaeqkit1.html

The kit will be in after a few days and we can begin the second leg of our journey!

Hot Pepper Jelly

We are big fans of hot pepper jelly.  You know, the kind you spread out over cream cheese and eat on crackers, especially around the holidays.  We also like to use it marinade pork tenderloin, we put on our toast with butter and we also use it as a dipping sauce for pork steaks.

This year one of my goals is make some hot pepper jelly from the fresh peppers grown in my own home garden. 

My mom loves the stuff and I thought it would be good to do a trial run with some store bought peppers and give her a couple of jars for Mother's Day. 

This was my first attempt and it turned out pretty well!

To make this recipe you will need:

• 4 twelve ounce or 6 eight ounce glass jelly jars
• water bath canner (or just a tall chilli pot would work for such a small number of jars)
• pectin (in the canning aisle), use 2 three ounce packs of the liquid or one pack of the powder
• about 8 medium sized jalepenos about 1/3 cup when chopped
• two sweet bell peppers (any color) about 2/3 cup when chopped
• 2 and 1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
• food coloring (optional)
• 6 cups of sugar
• canning funnel

Begin by chopping up all of the peppers very finely using a blender or food chopper. 

At this time start your water bath or large pot on high heat so the water will be almost boiling by the time you are ready to put in your jelly jars.

Combine the peppers, 6 cups of sugar and apple cider vinegar in a large pot, stir constantly until a rolling boil.

Decrease the heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Strain the mixture out into a colander. 

Save about two tablespoonsful of the peppers to add back to the mixture, discard the rest.

Bring mixture to a boil, add pectin and food coloring and boil for 1 minute.

I used just a few drops of red food coloring, but you can also use green, or any color you want for that matter!

Funnel into the jelly jars, leaving about 1/2 inch of headroom.

Put the lids on the jars "fingertip tight".

Place in the boiling water bath.  Boil for 10 minutes, or longer if you can tell the lids still havent "popped" and sealed shut.

Remove the jars from the bath, turn upside down and let cool overnight.

They next day you can put them in the cupboard for storing or put in the fridge for immediate use!

How to Dress up Your Front Door

April showers bring May flowers!
Containers can add beautiful colors and interest to your outdoor area.
Here are my four planters that I used to add life to my front porch and back deck.
The trick is to combine three types of flowers and plants:

• Spiller
• Filler
• Thriller

Having the spiller cascading down the planter will make you container look lush and elegant. The filler will keep you from being able to see most of the dirt in the planter. And the thriller should be a tall, attention grabbing plant or flower. The more showy the better!

On the front porch, in my larger containers, for my "spiller" I used a combination of lime green and purple sweet potato vines. You can stick with just one color, but I really like them used together. My "filler" is yellow-blossom Million Bells aka. callibrachoa. It is related to the spreading petunia, but has smaller blooms. The spreading petunia would also make a good filler but doesn't have generally have as many blooms. For my "thriller" I went for fuschia colored geraniums.
This is three sweet potato vines, two Million Bells, and one large geranium in a planter with a volume of about 5 gallons.

On the back deck in my smaller planters I used one sweet potato vine, two white allysom for the "filler" and one tall, spiky Dracena grass for my "thriller". These containers are probably only about one gallon volume.

How to get Chicks (the Poultry kind)

I have just received my second round of chicks. They are two Polish Crested, two Brown Leghorns, and two Rhode Island Reds. Since my first round of 12 chicks all lived, I'm batting 100% so far! Here is my set-up. Large rubbermaid bin (used to house Christmas decor), a heat light from Orschelns, a bag of pine mulch, a chick feeder and waterer, medicated chick feed (contains anti-protozoan medication), and a bungee cord to keep the water up off the ground. This is optional, but it really helps to keep them from pooing in the water dish!

Line the bin with pine mulch about one inch thick. It helps to keep smells at bay and you can dump it on your garden as it gets dirty. Weed control plus built in fertilizer, we call that a "two-fer", as in, "you get two good things fer one!". Keep them in a place where they will be safe and there is electricity so you can keep the heat light on them AT ALL TIMES until they are about 4 weeks old. Chicks must be kept at 100*F their 1st week of life. You may decrease their heat requirement by 5*F every week until they are about 5 weeks old. At this time they have "feathered out" enough to be able to be moved outside. While they are being kept under the lamp you can take them outside a couple of days a week while you clean out their cage. They must be watched over while outside and must ALWAYS be offered a constant source of food and water. Make sure they are not huddling up together, which can mean they are too cold, and be sure to put them in a spot where you can easily catch them like a corner. They are faster than they look!

You can get all of these supplies from a farm supply store, including the chicks! However, I got my first brood from a local seller I found on Craigslist. These were much cheaper and I would always prefer to buy used and local products when possible! You may even make a new friend who will give you some free heirloom tomato seeds! I just love how we can become inspired by the most unlikely people and live in a community that is so interconnected.

The set-up

Heat lamp that requires a special bulb

The feeder and waterer

Their feed with antibiotics

The chickadees!

Heirloom Tomatoes

This year I was introduced to heirloom tomatoes. A friend had purchased a few seed packets from Baker Creek (www.rareseeds.com) and after planting all that he wanted he passed the remainder of the seeds on to me. Of course I started them in seed pods as quickly as possible and was eager to learn all I could about what he called "heritage tomatoes". He told me about the Purple Cherokee tomato that turns purple when ripe and how it had been grown in Arkansas by Native Americans for hundreds of years.
First, they are called heirloom because they are not genetically engineered like most seeds that you buy in stores. Those seeds come from companies that genetically alter their seeds, called Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), to produce more resilient plants that can stand up to harsh pesticides. But in our home garden we don't use pesticides so they are not necessary. Also, GMOs produce plants with sterile offspring. Meaning you can't replant the seeds from those tomatoes and expect much of anything to grow! So the heirloom variety comes from the fact that these tomatoes have seeds that can be reproduced year after year and saved for use the next year. This is the way our ancestors did it for hundreds of years. These specific types were chosen because they did better in our climate and produced fertile fruit. Also these fertile plants can cross pollinate with other tomato species, so you could possibly end up creating your own unique tomato variety! Here are the four varieties that I chose to grow.

• Cherokee Purple
• Brandywine
• Rutgers
• Beefsteak

I started out with 36 seed pods growing 4 different varieties. 31 made it to true "leafing out". Of course I don't need 31 tomato plants, so I decided to pay it forward. Since my goal is to encourage other people to plant veggies gardens as well, I gave 4 plants to my dad and 4 plants to one of my coworkers. From one mans heirloom seed packs he was able to stock his garden, my garden and two people he doesn't even know with fresh tomatoes all summer long. I just love the idea! So now I'm down to 23 plants, still a lot, but I know I can always make the surplus tomatoes into salsa and can it for the winter!

Welcome!

A friend of mine suggested that I begin a blog about my home garden, decorating, and raising chickens.  I have shared these ideas with my friends on Facebook who wanted to know more information about my projects, but I have finally decided that they do need to be shared with the blogosphere.  So here I go!  My hope is that I can share some of my ideas and inspire you to create your own modern homestead.