#31Days - Herbs & Spices

    

Most of the information out there on companion planting of herbs and spices is geared toward what other plants (fruits, veg) would be benefitted by the specific herbs, etc.

Working list of herbs for 2014 garden:  Basil, Bay leaves, Coriander, Oregano, Rosemary, Thyme;

Working list of spices for 2014 garden: Cinnamon, Cloves, Cumin, Curry Powder, Turmeric

Basil works well with:  tomatoes, peppers, oregano, asparagus; not so with rue or sage.

Bay leaves, in companion planting, seem to work best as a pest repellent.

Coriander comes from the cilantro plant, after it has gone to seed, and works well with:  anise, beans, caraway, dill, peas, potato, spinach.

Oregano works with just about anything, but especially with broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and grapes.

Rosemary works well with:  beans, cabbage, carrots and sage

Thyme works well with:  cabbage, eggplants, potatoes, and tomatoes.

Spices don't appear to figure into companion planting scenarios.  (The above pictures of herbs were obtain from Wikimedia Commons and available under the Creative Commons License.)


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The October Daily Challenge prompt for Saturday, October 11, 2013 is:

"Your day in photos."

I don't think I have enough photos of a typical day to really do this one justice. :/

But I did find a picture of me first thing in the morning:

(This shot has been in my photobucket for y-e-a-r-s.  I no longer remember where I got it.  If it is yours, or you know the source, please let me know?)

#31Days - Plants Need Companions Too

   

  

Having covered a lot of the tools and supplies necessary for gardening most any plant yesterday, I decided to branch out into some other considerations.  One idea that I came across was particularly intriguing to me:  the idea of companion plants - which are plants you can plant by or amongst your 'target plant' that will help increase yield, repel pests and generally be a good plant friend. ;)

Bell Peppers - geraniums and marigolds deter pests, as do onions, garlic and chives; tomatoes, other peppers, marjoram, basil and oregano provide humidity that is good for peppers.

Canteloupe - corn, pumpkin, squash, collards, borage, oregano, radishes, marigolds, petunias and beans.

Jalapeno Peppers - Sweet peppers, basil, onions, carrots, tomatoes, eggplants, okra, marjoram, parsley and oregano

Pumpkins - corn, melon, squash, marigold, nasturtium, oregano, dill

Strawberries - beans, borage, lettuce, onion, spinach, thyme

Tomatoes  - asparagus, basil, bean, carrots, celery, chive, cucumber, garlic, head lettuce, marigold, mint, nasturtium, onion, parsley, pea, pepper, marigold, pot marigold and sow thistle

Watermelon - corn, nasturtium, peas, sunflowers, squash, pumpkin, cucumbers, radishes

It should be noted that there are combinations that have the opposite effect, so there are some plants you should avoid planting in proximity to your 'target plants' (my term)

More information on this topic can be found at:  Golden Harvest Organics, How To Garden Advice, eHow, and Yahoo Voices

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The October Daily Challenge prompt for October 11th is:

"What are the things you love doing on rainy days?"

When it rains outside, I love to stand on the side porch (former carport) and watch the dogs run around playing.  During the last rainstorm I was careful not to venture off the porch under the black walnut tree, because about 50% of the walnuts got pelted to the ground by the storm.  It was plain dangerous!

I also enjoy curling up in my UK ('round these parts that means University of Kentucky) snuggie and reading a good book.

Lastly, a nice siesta by an open window is a great rainy-day activity!

Check out what some other bloggers like to do by using the ODC button above and going to the current day's post.

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Five Fabulous Things that happened to me this last week?

1.  The Behind the Curtain Dessert Challenge at the Lady Behind the Curtain blog.  Lots of wonderful pumpkin and cream cheese and one of my highest comment counts in recent memory!

2.  The two newest verses of the Hiding Ephesians 1 in My Heart group memorization effort at Do Not Depart.  This is going really well.  I haven't done a concerted memorization effort of anything since I did my last play, some 20 years ago ... it must be one of those 'back on the bicycle things'.  Lots of participants, plenty of opportunity to encourage and celebrate; wonderful!

3.  Sneakers' puppies are starting to come out from under the storage shed on their own.  We've been worried about them because mama is spending more and more time inside and it's getting cool at night.  But they are healthy, happy and cute as the dickens!

4.  Well, if I stretch the concept of a week by a day or maybe two, I can include my 52th birthday as a fabulous thing that happened!  We went to Gondolier's restaurant in London (Kentucky), and they had a baklava cheesecake.  Dessert nirvana.  I also asked for (and got) some woodworking tools as I've wanted to make and carve a dining room table for us for a long time ... and it seemed appropriate now that we have our own house.

5.  We have two pickup-loads of chopped wood for our heating stove in a big pile in the backyard, enough to keep us toasty through the winter, especially if we have an ice storm like we did a couple of years back that knocked out some people's power for a couple of weeks.

FABULOUS!

What is a blessing you have received in your life this week?

#31 Days - Pumpkin & Cream Cheese Candy

  
                  

This month's challenge recipe is also an adaptation of something that is one of my husband's favorites, "Potato Candy".

There's a funny story about that.  When my husband and I first met, I was talking to his mother on the phone one day and she gave me a recipe for potato candy, saying that it was one of the few sweet things he enjoyed, and that he would love me forever.  She told me "1/2 c of mashed potato and 1/2 c butter, followed by about 4 c of powdered sugar.

So, I dutifully mixed it up and took it, still in the bowl, to 'present' it.  I made Chris close his eyes and spoon fed him a little bit.  He smiled, opened his eyes, looked up at me and asked, "What is it?"  I replied that I had gotten the recipe for his favorite, Potato Candy, from his mother.  He asked me what happened to the peanut butter.  What peanut butter?  Apparently she left that part out.

When thinking of something different to do for this challenge, that could use something from the garden, I came up with the idea of substituting pumpkin for the potato, and cream cheese for the peanut butter.

The ingredients I used were:

1/2 c. pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1/2 c. butter at room temperature
cinnamon to taste
ground cloves to taste
4+ c. powdered sugar

Cream together the pumpkin, butter and spices.  Add powdered sugar one cup at a time.  The end result should be of a soft, dry-ish fondant consistency, pliable but not sticky.

Line a cookie sheet with plastic wrap.  Spread and press out the mixture onto the plastic wrap into a large rectangle.  (I used plastic wrap wrapped around the fingers of one hand.)

Filling:
8 oz. soft or room-temperature plain cream cheese
nutmeg to taste
1 T. milk (if you use a bar of cream cheese)

Mix together well, and spread over the pumpkin mixture, leaving a little bare pumpkin on the two long sides of the cookie sheet for sealing.  

Lift up the plastic wrap on one side, wrapping the pumpkin mix over the cream cheese, into a jelly roll.  Refrigerate until firm.  Cut into slices.  Enjoy.

The Pumpkin Candy tastes great but is very, very sweet.

My pictures are not the greatest this month.  I think I should have used even more powdered sugar than I did to take away some of the moisture in the pumpkin mix.  And next time I will use the cream cheese that comes in a tub rather than what comes in the bar.  The roll should have held its shape a little better than it did.

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The October Daily Challenge prompt for today (Thursday, 10 October, 2013) is:

Pick 3 random blogs (from the challenge link-up), describe their blog, and tell us what you think of it!  Share a snippet/screen capture of their blog too.

Gypsy Shar (Daily Ramblings from a Free Spirit) - Shar is a lovely young woman with both outer and inner beauty.  She offers great advice to help other people in many facets of life and is refreshingly straight-forward about her beliefs, while honoring the beliefs of others.  (All pictures are copywrighted and there was not enough time to secure her permission to use one of them, but I'd be more than happy to edit this post at a later date and add one.)

Maddie Rose is relatively new to blogging.  She is participating in several blogging challenges at this time and has posted some yummy-looking recipes.  The fact that she would try to go without sugar for a day for the sake of her blog shows a great deal of strength; I don't think I could do it. :O)  (The graphic above is a link to her blog.

The Glamourous Guide - Erica, has a quote on her Facebook page from Audrey Hepburn - "Happy girls are the prettiest," which I absolutely ADORE.  Her blog has a very clean design and she covers a variety of topics.  Quite a bit is fashion related, as she is a Glambassador for Glamour Magazine.  How cool is that?

#31Days - Singin' on the Farm

   

The October Daily Challenge prompt for today is:

"What are 5 songs that elevate your mood?"


1.  Amazing Grace, especially on the bagpipes




2.  Keeper of the Stars by Tracy Byrd




3.  Boondocks by Little Big Town




4.  Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves




5.  What Do You Think About That by Montgomery Gentry



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What are some songs that make you feel good?

#31 Days - Diggin Into the Veggies

 

While knowing what vegetables to plant (from last week's post), is an important first step, much, MUCH more needs to be done.  First, I will reiterate my revised list of vegetables I would like to have in the garden:
asparagus carrots celery corn cucumber lettuce onion potatoes spinach sugar beets
So, what does one need for a garden: 1.  A place to plant:  CHECK. 2.  Seeds.      a.  harvest from veggies we consume this year.      b.  a source of seeds would need to be found.           1.  local stores, gardens, farmers' markets, etc.           2.  online sources
Eden Brothers - Only place in over a day of searching that had sugar beet seeds. Territorial Seed Company - found through a search for heirloom seeds My Patriot Supply - found through a search for non-GMO seeds.
(I have no connection business or otherwise to, nor agreement with, any of the above businesses/sites.)
Now, we've planted seeds bought from local store which have grown and produced fruits and vegetables.  But there is a lot of literature out there about why heirloom and/or non-GMO (genetically modified organism) seeds are better for us and for the earth.  One such article is posted at Care2, a website dedicated to making the world a better place.
3.  Tools

(This photo is in the public domain, but I just wanted to say I found it on Wikimedia Commons.)
Basically, you need something with which to dig, something with which to rake and/or hoe, some clippers wouldn't go astray, some kind of tool to weed as needed.  If your garden is going to be larger than your average plot, looking into machinery is the next step.  
You need to decide where you fall on the granola scale.  On the one end, there are folks who want to use herloom seeds, organic fertilizer and only human or animal power.  On the other end is the type that I have been up till now.  I bought seeds at the dollar store, because it was too late in the season for Walmart to have seeds left on the shelves.  I used tools that had been laying around for decades until they broke, and Chris went to the nearby hardware/garden store.  We used some kind of fertilizer from a bag.  
See, hubby's family has farmed for generations.  Up until this year, I helped out in my mother's garden and I've grown a few things in pots.  So I have a LOT to learn.
This is where knowing what your values are can help you make decisions.  For 2014,  I'm going to see if my husband's great-uncle (a FT farmer) will do the initial plowing for us in exchange for getting hay for his animals from our field.  He has done it before when his sister (our Mamaw) was living.  I would like to transition to a method that uses more human and animal power as opposed to gas-powered machinery.  But that takes more time and physical activity.  That's not a bad thing ... I will have to balance the benefits of such activity with my abilities (and those of the family) as I get older.
This post is part of my 31 Days Challenge series.  For an overview of the posts, and links to each day's post, visit my introductory post here.
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The October Daily challenge prompt for today is:
"Share a blogging/photography tip or tutorial."
Are you ready?
Respond to your comments and blog for the benefit of others.
Go here for links to more tips and/or tutorials.
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#31 Days - Farm Animals all Atwitter

   

Since we are not vegetarian, in order to produce at least half the food we consume, we will have to have some animals on the farm.

Probably the easiest first animal to get would be the chicken.  (OK, ok, with my family - including two teenage boys - we're talking at least 6-12 chickens.  There is already a building on the property that used to be a chicken coop, but it's been used mainly for storage for, oh, 4-5 decades.  It's about six of one, half dozen of another whether it would be better to renovate the one we have or just make an entirely new one.

And if you see the date, this picture of over 7 years old.  The yard suffered some neglect in the ensuing years and things look a little...wilder now.  And there is a little less paint on the coop.  There is also a smokehouse (no picture available)  and a sizeable tobacco barn.

Chickens may be the only animal we begin to raise next year.  Although my father-in-law has expressed interest in possibly running some cattle between his place and ours.  I'd love to add cows (for milk), and sheep (for wool) and then reassess how things are going, homestead-wise.

One of the things we got with the house is a chest-style deep freeze.  It stands on the floor and comes up to my waist, and the freezer is long enough most people could make a bed on top of it and not have their toes hang over the edge.  

We are extremely blessed that we were able to buy this property and have the kind of land needed for a (someday) full-fledged homestead.  After the October challenge is over, I will have a series on how families and people living in cities and 'burbs can use some of the techniques we will employ to raise some of their own food, if they so wish.

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The October Daily challenge prompt for today, October 7th, 2013 is:

"Go without something (e.g. - phone, Twitter) for a day and tell us what it feels like."

That's a tough one for me.  I very seldom talk on the phone and really don't use Twitter all that much to begin with.  People who follow me on Twitter today, though, may disagree.  I was giving folks +K on Klout and had the option to post it to Twitter, which I did in each case.  That's 5 or so tweets today, which is what I've posted in some weeks before.

I can only say that going without something that is a usual practice would probably be like those first three days of quitting smoking cold turkey.  I'd be grouchy and my family would probably want to send me to a cave until I became human again.

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Have you noticed the "NaNoFundMo" button I made in the right sidebar?  I am going to be participating in "NaNoWriMo" (National Novel Writing Month) in November.  The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel (the first draft) in November.  People from all over the world participate.  You can too!

Anyway, the same people run a writing program for schools so that children and young adults who have already been bitten by the writing bug can have an outlet for their creativity.  If you feel so inspired, and are able, I would be honored if you would consider contributing to the money I am trying to raise for this program.  If it's not a possibility at this time, I more than  understand.

#31Days - Memory Garden Daily

      

There is a lot to cover today, so let's get started! :O)

5.  Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

This verse gives me a lot of hope.  God loves everybody.  Even sinners.  Even people we don't particularly like.  Even us, in our 'less shining' moments.  He wanted and wants everyone on Earth to return to him when their life here is over.  But He doesn't control our actions.  He gives us the opportunity, like any loving parent, to make their own choices and mistakes.

6.  To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. 

And then, like a caring parent, gives their children grace, mercy and forgiveness when we make choices that are not in our best interests for growth.  When we sin, we must repent; that is, to show remorse and to redouble our efforts to not make the same bad choice in the future.  And we are so blessed to have His grace, that when we atone for our sin, we are welcomed back with open arms.

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#31 Days

As I go through making my plans for next year's garden, I wanted to 'bring more God' into every phase than I have done previously.  To begin, I found the following Bible verse:

Jeremiah 29:5 - Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them;

I want God to be in the planning, the planting, the tending, and the harvesting of the garden; He should also be on our minds when we prepare meals to nourish ourselves from the 'fruit of the Earth'.  Sure, that's easy to say, but how to do I do it?

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The October Daily prompt for October 6th is:

"Dig out a childhood photo and share something you remembering happening during that the photo was taken.   You can post as many photos and describe as many events as you like." 

Well, all of the photos of my own childhood are in storage with the rest of the things from my mother's house out in Utah.  But I think I can 'dig up' some pictures of my kids as young'uns.

This is my oldest at 7 months of age.  He was a rock star at the photographers.  And as the first grandchild on either side of our family, everybody wanted pictures.  He was born in December of 1996 in a big snowstorm in Utah.  My mother-in-law flew in from San Francisco and rented a car to get to the hospital the day he was born.  No 'little snowstorm' was going to keep her away.  She actually got to see (and hold) 'Sir B' before I did, which made me wistful for years.  My own mother came to the hospital Sunday afternoon after church.  

Close to the time this picture was taken, he was crawling in our apartment living room, and crawled over the phone, which had a long cord so we could carry the phone into any room.  (Remember those days, before cell phones or even cordless phones?)  We hung it up and were playing on the floor with him, when we got a call.  It was Emergency Services asking if there was a problem.  I kid you not.  When our son had crawled over the phone, somehow he dialed "911".  (He's talented that way.  When he was a few months older, he deleted Windows from our computer.)

Here is DS2, also at about 7 months.  He's 15 now.  The late spring and summer of 1998 in Texas was STIFLING.  More 100-degree days of any year there since 1980.  I remember looking at an outdoor thermometer at our duplex at midnight one night and it was 98 degrees.  Thank goodness 'Squire B' decided to show up two weeks early (May)!  He was the only one of my children I got to hold right after he was born.  For most of his life, people have said he is the spitting image of his paternal grandfather at the same age.  His first year was really uneventful.  Again, his paternal grandmother flew in from San Francisco, arriving the day he was born.  

When he was born, his little ankle ID matched my wrist ID, and they both had some kind of chip in them so if either one of us crossed the electronic barrier of the maternity wing, and alarm would go off.  I don't remember anything like that the first time around.  I remember a nurse at the hospital going over hearing tests with me and said his hearing was very sharp, so if it seemed in the future that he had not heard something we said, he was really just ignoring us!  Mamaw used to say, "That boy don't care which way the wind blows!"  He is very laid back.

Here is my miracle baby (at 4 months); today she is 10.  I was 41 when she was born, and had had blood pressure and gestational diabetes with all three pregnancies.  She was born at 32 weeks, weighing 3 lbs .4 oz and was 13.5" long (or is that tall).  I got to see her 1-2 days after she was born.  At 2-3 days old, some elders from my church came in and gave her a blessing.  She was able to come home at 22 days (still 5 weeks from her original due date), and she did not even weigh 4 lbs yet.  But the doctors said she was healthy enough and they needed the space!  

She's the first daughter in several generations in my husband's family.  My mother and brother came down to visit about the time this picture was taken.  Mom was almost 81 and when we brought Tea out to show her off, my mother started crying so much, we had to help her to a chair and bring her a glass of water.  I was working graveyards at the FWPD at the time and my department threw her a wonderful baby shower, which is where the bunny hoodie towel came from.  Her brothers (4 and 6 at the time) adored her.  Both normally very active, they would sit stock still and 'coo' at their sister when it was their turn to hold her.

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So what is your best gardening tip?  This ole novice farmer-wannabe needs all the help she can get!