30 days before Christmas

                                                                       Week 48 ( Save $48 )

Splinters

                                                        Week 44 ( Save $44 )
                                                  Week 47 ( Save $47 )

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Those nasty splinters that get embedded into your fingers or hand.  No more picking them with needles or any sharp items. 

Go grab some white glue. Squirt a good covering of glue on your splint finger, hand, etc. 

Allow the glue dry completely until the glue turns clear.

Now, slowly peel the dried glue off. The glue should also remove the wooden splinter. 

If not, try a few times if you still feel that splint. 


Works every time!

Anti- Imflammatory Lemon Ginger Tea

                                                             Week 42 ( Save $42 )
                                                       Week 43 ( Save $43 )


Grate 1 thumb of ginger.  Add the ginger to boiling water.  Boil and then strain.  Add 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric powder.  Add lemon juice to taste ( approx. 1/2 lemon).

                                                                  Feel Better

Giant Cookie

                                                         Week 40 ( Save $40 )
                                         Week 41 ( Save $41 )

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Everyone has their own favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe...why not bake a giant cookie to impress your friends or family!

Mix up your chocolate chip cookie recipe.

On a pizza pan, spread your batter on to a standard  12 " pizza pan. (I had to cover this pan with foil because this pizza pan had ventilated holes.)







Start by making the dough into a one round ball and place the dough on the lightly greased pan.

Start flattening the dough and spread the cookie dough evening to the edge of the pan. Do not spread any dough over the edge of the pan. 

Bake the cookie at 350 F for 22-25 minutes until edge begins to brown. 

Note: the cookie will rise and spread right to the edge of the pan.





Remove the pan and cool completely if you are planning to decorate the cookie. If not, start eating!!

I decorated this cookie with yellow cardboard  off a box. Cut some circles and drew some faces and TADA!!!... A Giant Emoji Cookie!!

I melted 1 chocolate chip per circle to hold emoji's in place. Clear wrapped the cookie and pan. 

What an awesome gift! Two gifts in one!






                                                      ENJOY!

  
 

Havesting flower seeds

                                                                      Week 38 ( Save $38 )
                                                  Week 39 ( Save $40 )

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With Summer officially ending, the foliage of colourful flowers are fading at the close of the season.  Nature has this way with perennials to either self seed if they are not picked. How about trying to harvest the seeds?  Collecting your own seeds is economical and cost efficient. Not only will you be ensuring your garden with new blooms from the seed harvest. You can also share your replants or seeds with friends and family. 

The best time to harvest the seeds should be on a sunny and dry day. Once the dead heads or seed pods have turned brown, you can clip and gather begin collecting your flower seeds. 

Zinnia seeds are located right under the stem.
Just break off the brown petals for the seeds.

I harvest the flower seeds by cutting the seed heads off the same flowers with a sharp scissors. I place the dry seed heads in a shallow box and remove the flower seeds and let the seeds dry for a week at room temperature.



Cone flower seeds are embedded..just shake

Sasha Daisies seeds...just shake

After a week of drying, I store the seeds in an envelope, label with flower type and year. I store the envelopes in a cool dark spot for the winter.


Now they are ready for gifting or for planting next year.






                                    Happy Seed Harvesting!



 

 

 

Fall potatoes

                                                                  Week 36 ( Save $36 )
                                                                  Week 37 ( Save $37 )

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With the fall season upon us soon the colder weather will keep us indoor more and that means less time outdoors in our gardens, which I will truly miss.

Fall means yielding your final vegetation and collecting next years seedlings.  Whether it be the last of the tomatoes, herbs, chili peppers, squashes or potatoes.

 I decided to plant potatoes in the middle of summer.  It was very late in the season because I had a hard time trying to get my potatoes to sprout long enough to plant.  It's ironic when you don't want your potatoes to sprout, they sprout like crazy and when you want them to sprout, they just don't.  I think next year with planning a few months ahead, I will get my potatoes into the soil earlier for longer and larger yield.  I was surprisingly happy with assortment fingerlings in different sizes. I cannot wait to cook them up!

I thought I took pictures with the planting process.  Because I did not, I tried to recreate the process after everything had been dug up. 

Here we go...to begin you will need two large planters.  Make sure one of the planter is a size down from the largest planter.  You want the slightly smaller one to fit into the largest planter.  Makes sure the slightly smaller planter is of a softer material so you able to cut the sides with an x-acto knife.

I made three cut outs on the sides of the slightly smaller planter.  I cut three inches from the top and the bottom of the planter. I call these cuts, windows.  The reasoning behind the cut outs is that once the potatoes are in full growth, you will be able to lift the slightly smaller planter straight out of the larger planter and dig out the potato yields in the windows cuts on the planter. 





Now you are ready to plant.  Place the window cut planter into the larger planter.  Place some rocks on the bottom of the planter for drainage.  Potatoes do not like a lot of water.

On top of the rocks, pour about 3 inches of soil into the planter.  Now place your spouted spuds on top of the soil in each of the window cut outs.  Now cover the potatoes with enough soil to cover up any of the sprouts.









Once the potato sprouts begin to peek through the soil, keep covering the sprouts day after day until the sprouts reach to the top of the planter.  This is a long process but the results are rewarding.

Soon the shoots will turn into green shrubbery.  Keep on watering and make sure the plant gets a lot of sunlight.

After 30 days, you could lift up the window planter and see if there are any fingerling potatoes to pick.  Leave some small potatoes for picking when the green shrubbery starts to die down as the summer turns into fall.
 




This is all I yield this year from two potato.  A variation of different sizes of fingerlings. There is nothing fresher than potatoes grown organically by moi!

P.S. They were delicious! 

Next year, I will start my sprouting potatoes earlier and maybe try to grow them in a larger bin.










                                                                  ENJOY!