Homesteading: A Woman's Journey

Sewing and gardening

05:32, Monday, July 24, 2006 .. Posted in Sewing Room .. 0 comments .. Link

Another weekend has passed by. My beloved is back in the truck starting a new work week. It felt so good to have him home. He got in early Friday evening, in plenty of time to be able to have time with Abigail before she went to bed.

I am so blessed with my beloved husband. This weekend, he saw me wearing a scarf for the first time and not only liked the way it looks, but it very supportive and encouraging me in my desire to cover. Saturday, we ran errands & did the shopping we needed. While we were out, we went to a fabric store. I needed to get enough fabric to make a large scarf for my head covering. The fabric was less than 1/2 price, so my beloved told me to buy enough for 4 scarves. He even helped choose the fabrics, once he saw the weight of fabric I needed. I then got matching embroidery floss so that I can sew a decorative edge on the hems of the scarves. My beloved suggested that we go back to the store another day to get enough fabric to make some skirts to match the scarves. Since the weather has been so hot, I have used a piece of flannel, wetted down, as a cover for our daughter to help keep her cool. Joe saw her wearing it and thought she looked adorable. I suggested the idea of making little covers for her out of the leftover fabric from my scarves and he thought that would be great. He supports the idea of my having headcovers for her to wear. Once she is older though, we will allow her the freedom to choose whether or not she wants to continue wearing the cover and will support her decision.

We also started talking about next year's garden. We have been very pleasantly surprized by the growth of the gourds I had planted. The 3 plants are huge and producing very well. I am going to keep quite a few of them to make into planters and other items for our use. I am going to save the seeds also for next year. We are planning to plant 3 types of gourds next year. A fairly large amount of each so that I can sell them next fall. There are not many places here in our state that grow gourds and sell them. I would love to give it a try and see if that will earn alittle extra money in the fall. I also will be painting some, maybe doing some carving and also beadwork on some to sell as gift items at local shows or online.
Right now though, I am still sewing and also doing my consultant work, selling scrapbook and stamping supplies for Close To My Heart.

Today, I am going to try dehydrating some cantelope and making some homemade spaghetti sauce to can. My in-laws have given us several cantelopes from their garden. Also some watermelon and tomatoes. I am going to dehydrate the fruit to make snacks for my beloved to take on the truck with him. I found a fairly easy to build solar food dehydrator in the current Mother Earth News magazine. I am thinking of building a couple of them to put in our yard. The designer claims that you can dehydrate most foods in 1 day if you have a full day of direct sunlight. Foods that are full of water, such as fruits, might take 2 days of direct sunlight. The dehydrator is very easy to build and use, so I may go that route with my garden also next year. As things ripen, put the surplus in these solar dehydrators and then just bag up or put into containers the dried harvest.

My last planting of squash and cucumbers are growing well. They are nearly 8 inches tall and seem to be growing quite fast. You can see a difference in their size each day. I should be able to start harvesting off the plants by the end of August. That will give me plently of time to have a good fall harvest season.

With luck, I will be able to get a couple of boxes built for the garden next weekend. I am hoping to be able to get at least 2-4 built and start making them ready for planting the winter garden: broccoli, brussel sprouts, onions, garlic, lettuce, cabbage, etc. With them planted in the boxes, I can easily make covers to form mini green houses to protect the plants when the weather gets cold this winter.

The garden boxes will be about 4' wide by 6' long and about 8"-10" tall. In the bottom of the box, you place some dark plastic such as the large black trash bags. This helps prevent weeds from growing up through the box. You also can place some poultry mesh (a type of fencing that has tiny square openings) to prevent gophers and such from burrowing up from the bottom and eating your veggies. A cheap recycing idea would be to put pieces of old carpeting in the bottom of the boxes. It would allow the excess water to drain out, but would kill any weeds or grass growing under the garden box. If you don't have old carpeting, just check on Freecycle.org to find your local group and ask for the old carpeting. On top of this, you place your soil mix. To help keep weeding at a minimum, you can either put down more black plastic on top of the soil or use a thick layer of mulch.

The mini greenhouse covers are simply lengths of fencing wide wnough that when attached to the boxes, it forms an arch that is tall enough that the plants don't touch it. The easiest way to use them is to cut the long sides of each cover to that you have the wire ends that can be poked into the ground. You then, place them so that the wires are stuck into the soil along the inside edge of the boxes. Next, cover the wire frame with a sheet of clear plastic and attach it with clips or twist ties. This will keep the soil warm enough to protect the plants against frost. In the early spring, if you are wanting to get a head start on the garden, you can cover the soil with the clear plastic or the mini greenhouse covers to help heat up the soil before planting.

God Bless.

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