Barbie's Hair Gel

Wild Violets

With the Global Pandemic upon us, many people are trying new things since shopping, eating out and many forms of entertainment are not an option anymore.  One way that I am coping is to work outside more. I began using my reel type mower to cut my lawn.  Because of this, I was able to notice more of what was going on. I never knew I had so many violets before.

Bunches of violets

I am trying to use more of the resources I have so I wanted to see what I could do with them. One of my favorite gardening podcasts/radio shows, You Bet Your Garden, mentioned violets on one of it's episodes. The host Mark McGrath said that violets can be used to help with circulatory issues like spider veins and to help reduce blood pressure. 

After researching on the Internet and asking some friends on Facebook, I discovered several interesting ideas. One article I came across was this one for uses for violets. It contains a link to a recipe for Violet Jelly that you can download.  It sounded so interesting so I decided to give it a try.  Some people said that they wanted to see what it was like so here is what happened.

Violet Jelly

First I collected all the violets I could.  If you aren't going to use them right away, you might might to put them in the refrigerator to keep them from drying out too much.

several cups of violets

I then added the boiling water to let them steep for about 10 minutes and watched the water turn a dark purple.

Violet "tea"

Following the directions in the recipe, I added some lemon juice and stirred while the liquid turned a bright pink. 

lemon juice

Next, the violets were strained through some cheesecloth.  Several cups of sugar were added to the resulting mixture and put on the oven to boil. 

Straining through cheesecloth

After boiling, the recipe called for adding the pectin of your choice and boil another minute. 

Follow directions carefully

To make sure the jelly is clean and safe, I sterilized several pint jars.   Add the jelly mixture and process in a water bath to seal for preservation.

Nice and clean and ready to go

You can see why my friend said it looks like Barbie's hair gel.  The recipe made a little over 5 pints jars of the jelly. 

Barbie's gel

It  really doesn't take like much of anything. Just basically plain sweetness.  That being said, they say you need to do something at least 5 times to get it correct. The jelly is so pink and pretty. It would be the perfect addition to an Easter basket or some type of decoration. Maybe a girly tea party would work as well.  Would I imake it again? Yes, definitely but just for fun, not as  a pantry staple.

Bit by BIt I am restarting my garden

Well today I dug around in a little patch of my garden and decided to plant some potatoes that had already sprouted in the kitchen.

Beginning

Here is what the "site" looked like when I started.  As you can see I had worked in the raised bed area earlier and will blog about that soon.

It was just simple digging however, while I was digging I found many friends to help me. 

My Friend

I used to think that my spirit animal was a dolphin. However, I absolutely love it when I see these sweet little things pop up. It means that the soil is improving.  Yeah!

I also found this cute little thing when I was cleaning out the area.  I transplanted it to another part of the garden and hope it takes.  It is amazing that it just came up from something I planted in the fall..

Buttercrunch is my favorite

This week in my garden: July 12th

This is a post inspired by Amanda Soule and her blog Soulemama.  My garden is "not looking good" right now. I have decided(har har) to have cool weather garden. So right now this is day one of the garden (again).

The blackberry bush is growing well. You can't even really see the borders of where the grass ends and the "garden" begins.

 





My favorite thing about this picture is that you can see the fireworks that neighbors are setting off.  It isn't the 4th of July but the house is outside city limits.

 

That grey little thing in the right corner is my cat. 

 

One of the reasons I have kept a blog is to see the progress of my garden. Right now it is not well, but through the blog, I can see what is was like when I kept it up.

 

It is hard to tell but under all that grass is really good soil. When I was moving stuff aside to walk, I could glimpse the soil. It looked rich and dark brown. Hopefully since this is the ultimate in "no till" right now, the dirt is doing well.

Effing dammit. The one picture that shows what little I had done to clean up the garden got deleted when I went back to compare pictures. Well shit.

In the middle of the picture I hope you can make out a corner. That corner is my hope right now.  Last year I set out some ceramic border in the garden.  That corner is a piece of one of the ceramic titles.  That is my starting point. So I cling tight to the song "Inch by inch" that Peter, Paul and Mary sang.  It helps to to not give up. Mother Nature does some amazing things with a little helping hand.

 





 

 





Time waits for no (wo)man

The weather here has been crazy- hot one day and the frost warning another day. Welcome to spring in TN :-)

With all the other spring activities (TCAPs, Field Trips, Overdue notices) i really haven't been in the garden.  Fortunately though, nature carries on without me. 

I finally have 2 asparagus shoots and maybe some carrots.

 

My first asparagus :-)



Carrots maybe?

 

Ahead of the game

Not really but some things that I planted in the summer are still growing. It has taken a bit of uncovering but some things are found.  It gives me a little hope.

 



Uncovered Asparagus

Another head

Two green places are the asparagus




Besides uncovering some lettuce, I also found the catnip that survived.

My kitties favorite

I also moved the German thyme from the front to the garden as well.



After the removal

 

The grass clippings to help hold moisture

It begins....again

Tonight is the night that I started digging in the dirt again :-)
The day was beautiful and a balmy 79 degrees.  We had a great time, my kitties and I, pulling and planning the upcoming seasons.

 

This is what the begining of the season looks like at my house.
Fortunately the ceramic tiles appear to be doing their job and have kept the outline of where the garden was last summer.

 

I think I have learned a little from last year. I remember that when I took out all the green from where I dug, it soil got so compacted that nothing would grow.

After 1 1/2 hours

I am so glad a started this last year.



YIKES!!!

The garden is so overrun right now.  I haven't been to work on it in probably 2 or 3 weeks.  It was either way to hot or it rained everyday.  This is not complaining or excusing, just stating a fact.  This is what was ready today.

July 19th

There is a beet, cucumber, zucchini, and two tomatoes.  Yikes. The old adage 'If you don't use it, you lose it" seems quite appropriate here. Cabbage bugs (or beetles) are everywhere as well.  Some cleaning and weeding is what is going to be going on for the next couple of days.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate.

The herbs are doing well though. Basil aplenty, tarragon galore, and more oregano that I need.

Not Kansas

Well, I now have seen something corny :-)

I first noticed this on my corn stalk and had no idea what it was.  Is this what makes the ear of corn?  I thought it was cool. These must be the kernels before they get pollinated or something.

It has been so hot here thought that I have slept late and hadn't been in the garden for a while.  When I finally returned, here is what I saw.

It had turned into that antenna thing that I always see at the top of corn.  I do have an ear of corn forming with the silks and everything. WooHoo!

Here is the other stalk.  As you can tell, it isn't as high as an elephant's eye but hey, I will take what I can get right now.

Try, Try, Again

I have had some "learning experiences" with my garden this year. My Dad didin't call them failures, just learning experiences.

1) Eggshell containers- You need to make sure you Carefully wash out the contents before storing. I didn't get a couple of radished to sprout but being so little they dried out rapidly

2) Strawberry plant- I think you need two different types of plants for them to flourish.  I have one left over from last year. It has done really well, but the strawberries weren't as plump as I thought they would be.

3) Make sure to cover plants even if it is close to freezing weather. Weather people are often wrong.

So... here is my latest.  You know how they have those watering globe things for plants.  I have some old bottles so I am going to try that and see how it works are far as watering goes.

Don't worry it is lemonade

Strawberry bottle for strawberries :-)

Potato Patch

I was watching a video called Homestead Blessings by the West Ladies.  This particular one is about gardening.

They showed how to make an easy potato patch. So I have decided to try it.
You just put down some newspaper to keep down the weeds.
Throw some potatoes on the newspaper.

Extra! Extra!Potatoes are coming!!

Then cover it with 6-8 inches of covering. When the covering (hay, mulch, compost, etc) goes down, just add some more.

Just make sure no light gets through

Bad Weather Blessings

There was a really bad storm on Thursday night. Nothing major in my neighborhood was effected, as far as I know. However, my onions did get knocked over. But look at these blessings.

no crying here

These were the first things that I planted this year.  I am so pleased with how they turned out.

At Easter

This is what they looked like at Easter. The lettuce is right behind them.

Other onions

These were planted at the same time as the others so the size is the same. Yeah!

Ghetto Gardening??

I think maybe I should rename this blog to "Ghetto Gardening" because of my methods. Here are some examples:

notice the packing tape?

For the pea vine(?) I had to add another stick because it was growing so tall.  I used packing tape to tape the two sticks together.  Then, I used some leftover yarn from my tomato "cages" to tie it to the old grill leg for more support. Yikes!

not bad huh?

This is one of my homemade tomato cages.  I used sticks and some rose branches that I had trimmed earlier.  These are the supports and the yarn is some that I had leftover from my knitting.  For right now they appear to be doing well.  I have other cages but they look horrible.  This is the best of the lot.

Hope you have a great Memorial Weekend.

It is beginning

I am so excited that I am finally seeing some things that look like vegetables :-)
Besided the leafy variety which is kind of hard to judge when it is ready.
The first was some Easter Egg radishes.  I don't like radishes that much but they are pretty easy to grow and grow quickly.

They look like turnips but I promise they are radishes

My favorite pictures is this one of the broccoli. I am really proud of it (the picture,not the broccoli) I can't take credit for making the broccoli.  I will say it seems to have taken FOREVER for it to finally like like broccoli instead of just big leaves.

Pretty enough to eat. (almost)

I had totally forgotten about the asparagus.  It came up about 1 week and 1/2 ago.   I was so surprised. Now it has turned into that ferny thing.  I don't think I am suppose to do anything with it but i will read up and double check.

Sometimes it is best to leave things alone.

The watermelon is already past this stage and in the ground.  However, I love it when the plant has sprouted but you can still see the seed attached to the plant.

The black part is the seed it came from

My strawberry plant is getting in some nice looking berries.  I am learning that things happen on their own schedule. Everyone else was making strawberry jam and such so I was a little jealous.  Now, mine are coming in and all is better.

My favorite plant in the garden :-)

Lastly, are the sugar peas. I finally have a pea pod.  I am so excited.  I learned that the flower is what turns into the pod.  It is rather quickly from flower to pod.

Hope everyone has a great weekend and summer.