Home Life

http://tipnut.com/35-reusable-grocery-bags-totes-free-patterns/

Grocery bags, all purpose carry bags, produce bags…  My favorite are #1 and #2 so far.

One fo my favorite resources is www.pathtofreedom.com It’s a journal, blog, information archive, etc. of a city homestead and all of these great things they do to help and teach others that they can homestead no matter where they live.  A lot of their information is coming in handy now that we live in the city - though our property is much smaller than theirs, I’d like to think we can follow many of the same ideas.  I started getting my garden plot together (better late than never, right?  Hey - at least I started a lot of my plants early this year and have been eating fresh green beans and peas for a few months now from my container plants).

Anyway, this ‘100 foot diet challenge’ is a challenge to all households, starting once a week, to eat a meal prepared from totally home-grown and home-made ingredients.  I try to prepare every meal for my family in this way, however not having any livestock it’s really hard to provide home grown meat

http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/2008/01/06/100-foot-diet-challenge-launch/ is your information page. 

Who will be joining this challenge with me?  We need to band together and fight what this world is coming to.  one household at a time, we can make a difference together.

For many, a garden of any size is practical.  If you live in an apartment, container gardens (indoors or out) is an option.  For those with homes, an in-ground garden (and/or container gardens) are an option.  For most of us, however, growing our own meats, dairy and eggs can be a bit of a challenge.  I’ll venture to say that most in an apartment setting probably can’t do this.  Buy local if you can, to support those who are able to raise meat locally for other locals to eat.  If you have a backyard then you have more options - goats for milk, chickens for meat and eggs, rabbits for meat - all are great small space livestock.  I’m entertaining the idea of each of those for our city backyard but I really, really have to do some thinking.  I know they won’t take up too much space but I do have to share my backyard with my kids, our boat, another vehicle when we get one, and my garden!

I was thumbing through one of my favorite country living books, Storey’s Basic Country Skills, and came across some great curtains for the country home.  These are great because they are #1 functional, #2 cute, and #3 Very easy to make.  I’m going to start on mine tomorrow I think - I need curtains on one of my windows and am just sick and tired of making simple straight curtains!  By the way, if you want really easy directions for making curtains I’ll include them here (how I did them, anyway).

To see tab curtains in action and how to make them, visit Here and Here.  If you shop at wal-mart, the one in Monroe has $1/yd fabric and I love their selection. 

To make basic, simple no-frills curtains you need to start off with your window measurements from the rod to the bottom of the window (or a few inches below it) and from side to middle (or a couple inches wider)

Cut your fabric according to those directions (you’ll need two peices), but be sure to add extra length and width for hemming.  If you plan to use these curtains from one room to another and mix them around a bit, make them long enough to fit your longest window, and just hem it up if you move it to a shorter window.  For a super wide window moving to a narrow window this idea may not work so well though, so keep width in mind.  Fold and press the edges, and fold and press again to hide the raw edge.  Sew the edges.  Then for the top you want to create your opening for the curtain rod by folding the top down a couple of inches and sewing again.  You can line the edges of your curtains with a color or pattern that compliments the main curtain color if you wish.  I did this by measuring my edges before folding the top down for the curtain rod, figuring out how wide I needed this strip of fabric including width to fold in the raw edge and press to keep it in place.  Then I lined the strip of fabric up with the edge of my curtain and sewed it on.

Boy it seems all I’m doing these days is posting links instead of explaining things myself.  But I’m finding so many great links I am hoping you’re all enjoying them.

I came across a neat site with gardening projects for kids, and also easy instructions to make your own newspaper pots. http://www.global-garden.com.au/gardenkids.htm is the link, which gives you a bunch of great educational activities AND projects to make useful stuff.   Want to make a barometer?  Garden pond?  What about a scarecrow?  Autumn leaf wrapping paper?  I’m going to have a fun time planning some activities for the kids from this site!  We homeschool and I bet you can figure out what our main focus is this time of the year! 

If you enjoy gardening in the summer and harvesting fresh vegetables, you can also enjoy fresh vegetables in the off season from an indoor container garden.

 I’ve already begun my green beans and peas indoors for a early harvest, and will continue to grow them starting indoors again in summer and will continue year-round.  I’m considering taking out two shelves in my greenhouse to keep a few tomato plants over the winter

You’ll need to be sure you have proper lighting, adequate watering, proper containers, and know how to pollinate by hand, if necessary.  Some plants like beans, peas and tomatoes are self pollinating meaning you don’d need to do anything to help the process.  Others you will need to do by hand, with a paint brush, cotton swab, or other small object to transfer pollen from the male flowers to the female flowers.  When properly done, you should only have to do this once.  

Here are step by step instructions

More information on growing vegetables indoors year round

Information on Pollination

A list of veggies and how they’re pollinated and saving seed.  List is on 2nd page.

From my site, Heart & Soul Homestead 

This article is focused on vegetable and herb gardens - I don’t do flowers except to line my garden with marigolds which supposedly keep wildlife away.  I haven’t had too many problems!

If this is your first year of gardening, the best time to plan is during the winter because some varieties of vegetables (like tomatoes and lettuce) must be started early spring.  I believe in most areas of the US, if not all, you can garden year-round (different crops for different temperatures - some vegetables must go through a winter before they germinate in the spring, and others fair well in cold temperatures).  You’ll need to decide (use a calendar!) what to start when (and if it’ll be started in a container or cold frame or directly into the ground), when to transplant them outside.  You can also do succession planting - planting your vegetables several times through the season so that you can harvest more fresh and ripe vegetables through the season rather than more or less all at once.  This will require a lot of planning and preparing though, so keep good notes and a well marked calendar so you get everything planted on time.

The first thing I do when I plan my garden is to decide what I want to grow, how much and figure out if I have enough space.  You don’t want to overcrowd your garden!  My goal is to grow a garden plentiful enough to provide vegetables for my family year round (freeze, dry, or can the excess for the winter).  In order to decide how much I need to grow, I take a look at the past months meal planning to decide what we need a lot of.  Then I decide if I have enough space or if I need to turn over a new plot.

You also need to consider how tall your garden varieties will grow and plan wisely to prevent some vegetables from shading others out.  I made the mistake of growing my sunflowers on the west side of my garden and my tomatoes on the north side of my garden - the sunflowers became so tall and leafy that my tomatoes didn’t get the sun they needed and as a result were very, very slow to produce and ripen.  Next year my sunflowers will go on the north end of my garden, then my tomatoes, then the next smallest vegetable, etc. 

Also take into consideration if your plants need full sun or partial shade.  Study your garden area for a few days to decide what areas get full sun through the day and what other areas become shady and how soon they become shady.  Take note and match these spots up with the plants that need ‘em.  You learn a lot by trial and error though - my first year I paid no attention to how much sun something needed (until my tomatoes were lacking!).  You can also create your garden in a way that provides partial shade for some plants by mid-day and plant these plants next to taller plants that will offer them the shade they need.

Consider how WIDE your vegetables will get.  Squash, while not tall, spread all over the place.  You either need to contain them with stakes, or plan a plot just for them.  I’ll be doing this in 2008 - the squash I’ll grow will NOT be in my main garden! 

How will you manage weed control?  Weeds were overtaking my garden until I spread mulch over everything - that really helped keep the weeds at bay!  There are other options you can try also.

Now it’s time to go shopping!  Decide where you want to buy your seeds and order.  Typically, one packet of seeds is more than enough for a home garden.

I’ve been talking about it for a while now, and now it’s time to act.

I am going to start a homesteading/homemaking support group.  I’m looking at it being at a library.

What days and times work best for those of you who might attend?  You can post a comment or e-mail me at sarah@motherhoodnaturally.com  I want to be sure to plan it for a day/time that as many people can attend.

If you have experience on something related to homesteading and homemaking and would like to lead a discussion or teach us something please let me know! 

The goal of the group will be to promote a back to basics and frugal living style, and I know we ALL have something we can share with others so there will be a chance for lots of discussion where we can talk about any topic related to the theme of the group.  I’ll help plan meetings but I am depending on the community to participate, share your skills, and help all of us save some money, become more self reliant, and learn lots of new things.

And please remember - ANYONE is welcome to attend these - not just those living ‘in the country’ or who ‘have a farm’ because I believe ‘homesteading’ can be done in any home, anywhere.  It’s a mind set, and there is something we all can do to become more self sufficient and work with what we have.

I’ll post a date and time when I schedule it - but I’ll wait a few days to hear from you to see what days and times work best.

I thought I’d share some of our recent and upcoming projects!  I know I’ve been pretty pathetic at blogging lately, so here are some projects to keep you busy until my next post

Homemade Peanut Butter

Make ‘Puffed Rice’ and What you can do with puffed rice

How to make essential oils & Another technique that most of us can use at home

Make Yogurt in a crockpot, Buttermilk, Cottage Cheese, Cream Cheese

Yummy oatmeal recipes

Instead of chilling a warm meal in your fridge, or using your freezer to actually FREEZE something, use your porch when the temps are right.  You can give your fridge and freezer a break by adding already chilled or frozen items to it.  When we had the nice cold weather I cooked up a bunch of meals for my freezer.  I made 1.5 gallons of chicken stock today which is currently chilling on my back porch (I’ll end up canning/freezing it tomorrow depending on how I divide it up).  Tomorrow I’ll be making about the same in turkey and rabbit stock.

It’s live!  Finally!  I’ve gotten around to creating a resource website on the things my family and I do to ‘work with the land’ and save money.  It’s no where near done - I have a ton of articles I am still working on but felt I had enough content to put the site up.

http://www.motherhoodnaturally.com/homestead/home.htm is the link.  Bookmark it and check back often.  As I go through my day I keep getting reminded of things that might be helpful to add to there, so I add it to my list and when I have a few minutes to write it up, I will!

Let me know what you think!