Twilight Color Palette

I've been inspired lately when walking through the garden, or standing under the oak tree, in those last moments before night truly sets in. The air, the trees, everything takes on an ethereal quality. The world turns blue in that last moment of dusk. Have you ever noticed how, as the sun sets, and dusk settles, there are stages of twilight?

The sunset blazes, the world is orange, yellow, purple and pink.

The sun sinks just behind the horizon, the sky is still ablaze, but the ground is colored with muted violet.

Then, in that last breath between night and day, the sun's light has faded from the sky, but misty blues and greens mixed with deep shadows and accents of moonlit white seem to spring up from the earth itself. Even your skin takes on a bluish cast. If magic exists, it happens in this moment.

 

I've created this fabric color palette for the Dreaming at Dusk mosaic contest at Stitched in Color. Head over to create your own palette and view the other gorgeous palettes and inspiration.

 

To all the gross chairs

To Jenna at ColdAntler Farm,

This post resounds with me. I too, have hand-me-down overly used furniture. My furniture tells a different tale. The giant, once nice, but not my style, burgundy sectional sofa was a castoff from a family who probably has more money than sense. It was, however, generously offered and graciously received. There were a few small tears in the back, but not bad. After nearly two years in the the TLC of my three young boys, I found myself today thelling them to put giant wads of stuffing back into the couch and that it was not to be used as pretend snow for their blanket igloos.

My choices are reflected in that sofa too. I chose to be a stay at home, homeschooling, kinda crunchy (mostly from necessity), mom of 4 incredible kiddos. My husband works so hard to keep this dream a reality. It's not easy. Some days I dream of time alone, time for hobbies, for other adults to talk to, to get to go to the grocery store without reminding my rambunctious offspring not to climb and jump off the palates of flour or hide in the store refrigerators. I digress.

I am thankful for secondhand furniture because even though my burgundy faux leather and olive drab canvas sofas don't match, I can relax and laugh when my 7yr old practices jumping and flipping off them, or when the two year old uses the couch cushions like a slide, when my five yr old builds a fort with the cushions that ends in a dog pile from his brothers. I don't have to frantically run for upholstery cleaners to protect my investment when my baby girl spits up or a diaper change goes awry. These messes get cleaned up after my kiddos have been cared for and when it's convenient.

A wise woman once said, “You CAN have it all, but you can't have it all at the same time.” These choices have also added up to a dream I have held dear since I was a small girl. Other girls dreamed of wedding dresses and Prince Charming. I dreamed of Cowboys, adventure and owning my own farm and the Black Stallion. These dreams gave way before a dream I didn't even know I wanted, being a mom and wife. But I have nurtured my lifelong dream all this time through gardening, making my own food from real ingredients, and any small hobby that reminds me of the old way of doing things. I also live vicariously, through YOU and others like you. And after Eight long years of ugly sofas and carpet that needed replacing six years ago, I am This. Close. to maybe, just maybe purchasing that land, to build that barn, plow a new garden with a cow and have a whole mess of chickens, and be able to turn my kids loose on acres of land where they can run and scream and be as loud as they want without disturbing the neighbors while my husband and I look on while holding hands on the front porch.

So here's to you, Jenna, and all the falling-apart furniture that represents so much more.

~Erin

 

Garden Update May 2016

Nasturtium = Best filler plant ever.

My two Amish Pie pumpkins beginning to take off. Proof positive for melon pits. Thanks David the Good!

Peaches, Pole Beans, Black Krim Tomato

Florida Highbush Eggplant, Purslane, Pumpkin

My original garden doing quite well with (clockwise) tomatoes, collards, sunflower, broccoli, nasturtium, tomato, pepper, strawberry, blueberry, tomato, cucumber and my beans in the pot on the right.

The whole shebang.

Giant pumpkin leaves.

My newest garden box, double dug, partially trench composted, and currently planted with bio-accumulators: BOS Sunflowers, Burgundy Amaranth, and a Porterweed (not shown). Because I had them, I planted zinnias and eggplant here also as well as papaya, and sweet potato. Once the sunflowers and amaranth get bigger, I'll plant some bush acre peas also.

A tiny mulberry, oh so tasty.

Beautiful Broccoli, a giant, but fully edible plant. The hearts of the stalks are delicious!

Come on baby pumpkin!

The pumpkins are going nuts.

My seed grown Valencia Orange. Healthy, happy, and Citrus Greening free as of now.

Moringa

All 25ft of pumpkin plants.

My Floridaprince Peach loaded with its first crop of nearly ripe peaches.

Rattlesnake Pole Beans. These five beans should give me more than enough seeds for next planting.

 

Happy May All!

 

Fish Tank Greenhouse

I've been using my little homemade greenhouse for about a month, and I must say…holy cow, it's amazing. I used aluminum foil on the outside of the fish tank, a box with hardware cloth to set the soil block pots on to keep the seedlings close to the lights, and the regular aquarium hood outfitted with cheap compact fluorescent daylight bulbs. It's interesting to see how even though the eggplants and tomatoes all sprouted at different times, they all grew to the same height (distance from the light) and then leafed out. I really wished I still had my fluorescent T5 aquarium hoods from back in my freshwater aquarium days, but the cfl bulbs are doing quite well.

I started eggplants with the most success I've ever had and the tomatoes are short and bushy. Even direct sowing in the garden doesn't yield such excellent results!

I transplanted my eggplant and the four groups of zinnias outside to harden off in the shade two days ago. So far, so good.

You can see how the eggplant roots have really filled out nicely and seem to have been “air pruned” as the people that swear by soil blocking pots claim. I can definitely say transplanting them was a breeze.

The zinnias roots, not so much. They had three inch tap roots coming out of the bottoms of their pots. They didn't seem to mind growing into air at all. So, it may be related to the type of plants you grow. The tomatoes are “air pruned” and we shall see on my other types of plants how it works.

Sadly, I had a zero percent germination rate on my gifted pepper seeds. I know they spent about a week in the hot trunk of a car, and I'm not sure where they were stored before that, but my guess is the viability was destroyed on all the packets I was gifted. Oh well.

I tried my old corn seed next, but the corn didn't sprout either. So I've replanted with squashes, onions, and burgundy amaranth. The bunching onions and amaranth are already sprouting.

I'm loving this little seed starting chamber and would call it a giant success!

 

A bit more progress

This is what I was left with after the water drained, then I added Black Kow and a bit of peat moss and planted the first orange tree. I moved the sand back in place and carted the rest of the sand off to backfill the hole the boys dug under their swingset.

I dug another large hole and filled it. With some cardboard and the entire contents of my white compost bin including the unfortunate vermin family living in it. Gross.
I planted my next orange tree and laid black landscape fabric and then mulched.

I will espalier these orange trees to a trellis and plant squash in front of them and probably sweet potatoes in front of the glass.
And tomorrow I’ll be adding pickets to the sections of 2x4s. It was a good couple days progress.

Adding Material to the Melon Pit

I dug my Melon Pit composting hole. It was a good size about 2 x 2 x 3ft deep. In the pit went:

• Lots of cardboard boxes of all kinds
• Dry brush and weeds
• More cardboard
• 3 small charred partly burnt logs
• A ratty torn up pair of cotton jeans
• A dead squirrel
• Paper
• Baby wipes
• A little manure
• All the food scraps for the last two weeks
• Top soil with a little peat moss mixed in from a previous planting project

And this is how full the pit is now. To really get the decomposition started I ran the hose for several minutes and filled the pit full of water. It drained out pretty quickly, but now the cardboard will hold on to that water and give earthworms a nice place to live.

Since I don't want to wait to plant a little orange tree for espaliering and my cucurbits seeds, I'm going to finish up the rest of the pit with a bag of Black Kow then top it with weed blocker and leftover mulch from the garden. The sandy dirt I removed will go to backfilling under the boys swing set…again. They are unstoppable with a shovel.

And because you should see something pretty, check out the peach tree. I can't get enough.

Miss Norah naps in a shady spot the garden while we work. I believe in “airing out” the baby. Get that vitamin D! And don't worry, while it is winter every where else in the continental U.S., it's a balmy 83 degrees here, so lightweight summer garb was in order. Norah G. is quite sizable for being 10 weeks old. So squishy!

 

 

Melon Pits

In his book Compost Everything, David the Good teaches how to create melon pits as an easy way of getting rid of large amounts of compostable materials while adding some nutrients and water retention power to the soil. Well, I'm ready to give it a try. Some areas of my yard are sandy loam, tending more towards sand, but anywhere near the foundation of the house is sand.

 

It's a no-plants-land where only hardy draught tolerant natives survive. I had made a little pollinator garden of fire bush, porter weed, horse mint and milkweed to grow along here last year, but I wanted something more polished and that would allow me to use the space for food production. I'm hoping to eventually espalier my orange trees along this west facing wall, but first I need to fix the area up a bit. I pulled out two of the firebushes, the horsemint and porter weed to make room for the oranges. But this area needs some serious amending with something that's got some staying power. You see the rainwater runs off the roof all along the edge right about where the 4 x 4's are. This keeps the garden watered decently through the summer but washes all the nutrients and compost away like it was never there.

Enter melon pits. I believe that the melon pits would be a good way to fix up the soil because there would be things in there slow to decompose like wood and chunks of cardboard and some faster things like food scraps and paper. Anytime I trench compost, earthworms move in and hang around after the scraps are gone, so hopefully a big melon pit will really help fix up the soil more permanently.

I've been collecting a pile of brush and all the cardboard and food scraps to go in here. I'm also gonna add whatever partially broken down material is in my compost bin. I'm hoping to gather a nice heap of stuff before too long so I can start filling.

 

Sweet Things

Just a couple things I can’t get enough of: peach tree blossoms and sweet kids.
Happy Tuesday Friends!

Seed Starting Inspiration

This post is meant more as an inspiration than a how-to. It is unlikely that you would have the exact same spare materials lying around, but I would encourage you to look at what you do have, and get growing!

I converted a 10 gal fish tank and light hood to be my seed starting chamber. I lined the outside of the tank with aluminum foil and in the light housing also. Aluminum foil is not a mirror and not perfectly reflective. But I does reflect some and some is better than none, so I put it on. It also blocks out light to allow the seeds to germinate in a dark environment which some seeds require.

I covered it with a cut ziplock bag (because I was out of plastic cling wrap) to create a humid environment and conserve moisture and to keep out bugs. In the bottom of the tank is about half an inch of water to help with the humidity too.

I put a shoe box size plastic storage box in the bottom to raise the seedlings closer to the light source to (hopefully) prevent leggy growth. To create a larger surface for growing, on top of the box I put the 1/2″ hardware cloth that had been a divider in my worm bin. On the hardware cloth went my homemade “soil blocks” which are supposed to be the greatest thing to happen to seed starting since seed starting mix. I like trying out different ways of doing things so I’m giving them a try with my own homemade soil blocker.

This soil mix is about 60% Jiffy Organic seed starting mix and 40% peat moss with a healthy dose of Jobe’s slow release 4-4-4 organic fertilizer mixed in (it smells like hot death; it’s the junk.) I’ve been dithering on what to plant in my garden box because the RKNs have gotten so out of hand that I can’t have a non resistant plant there for two months before the plant’s roots are completely covered in galls. In spite of that, my Ancho Poblano peppers are flourishing and have given me at least a dozen A-mazing peppers. I had planned on ordering more peppers and RKN resistant seed varieties but I recently came into a windfall of pepper seeds of many varieties.

My husband’s Aunt brought me her school’s student garden leftovers from 2011, and I was quite happy to receive them. The are seeds from the company “Renee’s Garden” who I have heard of but haven’t used before. So far I’m very impressed with their products. The seed packets have detailed starting, cultivating and harvesting info as well as an additional flap on the packet about the specific variety.

And, yes, the seeds are unusual because they are dyed with food dye to indicate different colors or varieties within the packet which is something home gardeners will find very useful. Most of the pepper seed packets had more than one color or variety in the packet, something that could save you from having to buy multiple packets to get different varieties. I wrote out a list of what is planted where so I don’t forget.

Since the seeds were from 2011, I planted three seeds per pot instead of my usual one; seed viability usually decreases over time from the initial 98% viability at the time of purchase.

I’m keeping the peppers in my utility closet which stays quite warm and has proven effective at sprouting peppers before. Fingers crossed I’ll be planting out a bunch of pepper plants in the next month!

Contoured Changing Pad Cover

While shopping for necessities for our new little boy Wyatt, I discovered that target only offered one style of contoured changing pad cover. The colors were limited to blue or green and it was made of fleece. I had my heart set on something in terrycloth because it is so much more absorbent and easier to keep clean. Not only was I disappointed, at not getting what I wanted, the fleece cover cost around $10. With all the other necessities, this was more than I wanted to spend. So, I decided to make one instead.

And here’s the result!!!

Not too bad! It was a naptime length project, and very easy.

Here’s How I made it:
I started out with a remnant of tan and green checked homespun* fabric (about 50 cent) and a pre-washed white towel ($2.50 from walmart). I also used 60″ of 1/4″ or 1/2″ elastic to keep the cover in place (use whatever you have on hand).

For the Terry Cloth top:
To use the dimensions of your own changing pad, measure the length of the top of the changing pad, and the width folowing the contours of the top. Add a 1″ to each measurement to allow for the seams. My measurements came out to 18″ x 32″ including the seam allowance. Cut a rectangle with those measurements out of the center of your towel. This will be your terry cloth top.

For the Fabric Sides:
You will need 2 long sides and 2 contoured sides.
For the Long sides use the length measurement from the terry cloth pad (including seam allowance) and measure the height of the changing pad. (Measurements were 4″ x 32″) To the height measurement, add 4″ so that the sides wrap under the changing pad and you have enough room to make a casing for the elastic (see 3rd picture). So, I cut two 8″ x 32″ of my cotton fabric.
For the Contoured sides: I grabbed a roll of wrapping paper (my preferred pattern making paper), stood the changing pad up on one of its contoured ends and traced the outline onto the wrapping paper. I then sketched 1/2″ seam allowance around the height sides and contoured sides and added 4″ to the bottom side as I did for the long side above. Cut out the pattern, and use it to cut out two of the contoured sides from your fabric.
Now you’re ready for Assembly!

There are a couple of ways to do this, so I’ll tell you what I did, but go with what seams easiest for you.
With a long straight stitch and the 1/2″ seam allowance, sew the long fabric sides (right sides facing each other) to the long sides of the terry cloth top.
Next (in the same way), take the contoured sides and sew them to the terry cloth. You can either free hand this adjusting and following the contoured edge as you go, or you can pin the terry cloth to the contoured edge, being careful to follow the curve of the fabric edge. I prefer to free hand it.
All four sides should now be attached to edges of your terry cloth top.

Now, make it square by sewing the fabric height edges together. I started from the terry cloth corner and sewed down. Use your 1/2″ seam allowance and a straight stitch. Do this for all four corners.

You should now have everything sewn together and just need to finish your edges.and make the casing for the elastic.
Set your sewing machine to a zig zag stitch and sew along all your unfinished edges (including the bottom edge where the elastic will go. Overcast the edges of the fabric a bit to make a finished edge or you can use a serger.
To make the casing, fold the bottom edge under (wrong sides together) a 1/2″ if you’re using 1/4″ elastic, or fold it under 3/4″ if you’re using 1/2″ elastic. Using a long straight stitch, sew close to your unfinished edge all the way around the bottom. Do not overlap your stitches when you get to back to your starting spot, but leave a 1″ to 2″ opening to insert your elastic. Insert the elastic through the whole casing then overlap the edges and sew together. Sew the 1″ casing opening closed.

And you’re all done!