Saturday, July 29, 2017
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
Friday, July 21, 2017
Thursday, July 20, 2017
🌻🍃🍅 No. 9: (Accidental) Tomato Cuttings 🍃🍓🍃 #100GardenHacks
 I am working on a project for the 2017 | growing season to work my way through 100 garden hacks*. (Accidental*) Tomato Cuttings (or for pruned branches) | |
| I broke-off this tomato branch while I was attempting to adjust the stake. |
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Use rooting hormone to accelerate root growth
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| 2 weeks of growth |
🕊, 💌, 🍃 & ⚛
~KF
*101+ Garden Hacks magazine. 2017. Rodale, Inc.
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| I found this copy on a CVS magazine stand :) However, portions of this publication previously appeared at RodaleOrganicLife.com |
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
DIY Shampoo
| Moving rural meant well water, and well water meant even the lightest and most cleansing shampoos no longer cleaned my hair. All the extra ingredients cling to the hair shaft and my hair tarted to look always greasy and matted down. So I went really basic!  |
| Ingredients: baking soda, water (optional: fragrance, color). Most recipes advise a 1:3 ration, baking soda to water. My hair is too fine for that concentration and I had trouble getting the baking soda to the scalp when I tried to use it in the shower. I tried mixing up a 1:2, but it was still too thin so I eventually mixed 1:1. I decided to bring it to a boil to get the baking soda to stay in solution) |
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| Let it cool. I then pour it into a measuring cup because it has a pouring spout. |
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| I use an old shampoo bottle. |
~KF
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
Sunday, July 16, 2017
Indoor Weeding
The weeds have gotten bad again for only the second time this year.
I went through this weekend and spent a few hours just tackling the undersides of the benches. Same list as last year, except much less Canadian thistle - we really nicked all that in the bud with our steady mowing and clearing this year :) In order of population size, starting with the largest populations inside the front growing houses:
I went through this weekend and spent a few hours just tackling the undersides of the benches. Same list as last year, except much less Canadian thistle - we really nicked all that in the bud with our steady mowing and clearing this year :) In order of population size, starting with the largest populations inside the front growing houses:
- chickweed
- purslane
- mulberry weed (hairy crabweed)
- wood sorrel
- Canadian thistle
- horseweed
- sow thistle
I’m wondering about just letting them grow out again to collect the biomass for help retaining/generating heat and moisture at least to help extend the season this year, even we still can’t grow through the winter. The chickweed and wild strawberries in particular cover such big regions, while pulling up very easily, that if we let them go all winter - so what? 
One pass through these benches is usually enough to scrape a clean slate and this space is really difficult to heat so we can use all the help we can get...also it's the less lanor intensive way to be at the end of a growing season when everyone feels worn out, and maybe a nearly literally burned out from the heat and months of solar exposure.
(For this batch I used a few wheelbarrow trips to start a new compost area. The area we used this past year became so overgrown it was difficult to identify or navigate to. And this year we’ve been able to mow and clear much more of the field and our neighbor has been working to eliminate that entire mystery dumping region TruCut used without breaking down or maintaining.)
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Insects of 2017
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| I think this is a Great Golden Digger Wasp - very unaggressive :) |
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| Cocklebur Weevil |
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| Green Shield Bug |
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| Red-spotted Purple Butterfly (Limenitis arthemis astyanax) aka the White Admiral, also interbreeds with the closely-related, congeneric viceroy butterfly, Limenitis archippus (Cramer), both in the laboratory and occasionally in the field (Platt 1975, Platt and Greenfield 1968, Covell 1994, Platt and Maudsley 1994, Platt et al. 2003, Ritland 1990).1 |
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| Red Admiral Vanessa atalanta |
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| Harvestman spider |
References
🕊, 💌, & 🍃
~KF
🌻🍃🍅 No. 8: Garden Tool Handles 🍃🍓🍃 #100GardenHacks
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| I am working on a project for the 2017 growing season to work my way through 100 garden hacks*. |
It's so easy to lose tools in the garden jungle. I'm confident future excavators and/or archaeologists will be finding trowels I've single-handedly left all across the midwest.
Brightly decorate the handles of garden tools using pool noodles, bike handlebar grips, or:
Use materials lying around the house; I find good use for old nail polish this way |
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~KF
*101+ Garden Hacks magazine. 2017. Rodale, Inc.
|
| I found this copy on a CVS magazine stand :) However, portions of this publication previously appeared at RodaleOrganicLife.com |
Monday, July 10, 2017
🌻🍃🍅 No. 7: Seed Winnowing 🍃🍓🍃 #100GardenHacks
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| I am working on a project for the 2017 growing season to work my way through 100 garden hacks*. |
Harvested a few cilantro plants for their seed this past weekend, and I used a garden hack for separating the seeds from the chaff or pieces of stem.
🕊, 💌, & 🍃
~KF
*101+ Garden Hacks magazine. 2017. Rodale, Inc.
|
| I found this copy on a CVS magazine stand :) However, portions of this publication previously appeared at RodaleOrganicLife.com |
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