Prepped: We’re still working on garden beds for the fall planting. I filled the compost bin full of dirt in anticipation of dumping it out soon. This time I won’t use beer! (see post below) Cleaned garage.Planted: I’m doing successive plantings of lima beans, hot salsa peppers, sugar snaps, mammoth dill, mammoth sunflowers. While the garden percolates I’m going to turn my attention to herbs.
Harvested: Tons of plantain, basil, green beans, green tomato to use as a side dish.
Managed:
No weeding necessary for the veggies so far, which is an incredible time saver. Not so lucky on the flower beds. We have horse nettle, nutgrass, and Johnson grass. I cleaned out the filter on the 110-gallon capacity water catch. We used control-top panty hose as a top filter on the water barrel and we put a knee-high stocking over the end of the downspout to filter it. After I struggled and sweated to get the permanent downspout to the cache Hub finally had mercy on me and fixed it up. In addition to the aforementioned panty hose, we used the other leg of the filter pair as a kind of gasket between the gutter opening and the downspout.
I have Pokeweed in my front flower bed. In the past I’ve eaten poke salat in early spring but it's h
ighly toxic if you aren't careful. Now that I have grandkids running around I want to dump it, which will be a challenge.We did a layout for the backyard homestead. We’re adding a fence, prepping garden space, planting fruit trees. With all the lumber I’m gathering we should be able to build a chicken coop for next to nothing. I’m planning to build a Dr Seuss type house that looks like a playhouse. No rooster.
Stored:
More water. Canned mandarin oranges. I dried a lot of wild grass for fall décor. I’ve been waiting on a Walton Feed order for eight weeks. That seems nuts.
Reduced, Reused, Recycled:
Handed off a 4 ft. stack of magazines.
Took recycling to the center.
Went to see the construction foreman where the houses are being built near us. He let me go through and keep a massive pile of lumber in all shapes and sizes. I can go back every day to get discards. Not only can we build an arbor on the deck, but we can frame three more garden beds. And now I have giant beanpoles. I was amazed at the total waste of materials on the site.
I hit the Goodwill store this morning determined to find crocks. I found two good ones with lids, and a water-bath canner.
Cooked something new:
I cut back the basil plants so they’d keep putting out. Then I made pesto with basil, sun dried tomatoes, garlic, and Romano cheese. I froze the pesto in little capers jars, olive bottles, etc. Best pesto we ever tasted! Then I made basil vinegar. Next I’ll be making ba sil oil, but I’d don’t know about using oils for eating. They go rancid so fast in the heat.
I made two tinctures. One is Red Clover flowers and citron Vodka. The other concoction is plantain leaves in rum. I put the tinctures in dark brown- glass vitamin bottles. I’ll use the plantain tincture to make salves. I’m using three books for identification, instructions, etc. Since so many plants look alike, I want to be cautious in gathering edibles and h erbs in the wild. In the past we’ve relied on the state park head ranger to confirm the identity of herbs and edibles.
Learned: I’m using three books for identification purposes. I’ve learned how to recognize the wild thangs in my yard.
The Herbal Home Remedy Book by Joyce Wardwell
Wildflowers of Tennessee and the Southern Appalachians (Native Plant Society)
The Complete Medicinal Herbal by Penelope Ody
Local:
Drink Hatcher milk! We eat local produce.
The “Other” Book The Fun Book is a glue-and-scissors project that I use to relieve stress and trigger my imagination. I took a copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise and used it for a collage book. I used Modge Podge to affix handmade paper, tissue paper—all those little bits and scraps I saved—to the pages as background. After the paper dries, I glue “things” on the pages.
There are no photos of family and friends; I use pictures and clippings and do-dads. Each two-page spread makes a statement. The topics deal with what is happenin
g in our culture today—politics, the news media, disaster, icons of North American culture. There is poetry, and pages I sponge painted around the page gutters. I transferred images to scotch tape. That step creates a ghostly slightly transparent picture. When each page is finished, I Modge Podge over the whole thing and let it dry for a few days. That process creates thick pages with texture and weight. It also means I’ll have to cut some pages out of the book so the binding doesn’t burst. I’m experimenting with preserving wild edibles with silica gel or in some form that will kept them from wilting or changing color. I’d like to use them in the fun book.Leave a comment! Take a minute to chat.
Caroline
