praha ruins

zucchini & tomato

 
I'm super excited about my garden update because what was once not long ago weed ridden and infested with squirrel treasures is now an actual veggie garden with fruit!

while watering this morning I noticed my first baby roma tomato and about 10 baby zucchinis ... I've got my recipes all lined up!

what are some of your favorite zucchini and/or tomato recipes that I should try?

organic pesticide

so I've been looking for a good, easy natural pesticide for my veggie/salsa garden and I came across a great looking recipe which I just made ... it should work because my eyes were watering like crazy, and my nostrils were burning ... those buggies don't have a chance.

make it for your own garden:

3 onions
3 hot peppers
1 garlic bulb

puree and mix with water
let it sit overnight
in the morning, strain the water out with a cheesecloth/strainer
add more water to make it a gallon's worth

voila!

spoonflower

spoonflower is an amazing website a friend of mine told me about a couple of years ago where you can design your own custom fabric and have it printed ... awesome, right? well, textiles turned into paper, and long story short, some fabric that I had printed from spoonflower just lay in a drawer. it wasn't perfect, the design needed to be tweaked, but I got a hankering for sewing a couple of days ago and made some cute drawstring lunch/snack bags out of it ... you can never have enough snacks and ziplocs just don't do it for me.

I see gift making in my future ...

by the way, HAPPY EARTH DAY!

earth day event | the local paper

The Local Paper is having an Earth Day Event! For online purchases during the month of April, a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Architecture for Humanity and Charity Water. In honor of Earth Day (April 22) we're giving back to these amazing organizations that help people in need all around the world and preserve the planet in the process. 

Find out more here!

before and afters | part II

so, long story short, I've always really, REALLY wanted a garden of my own. a true, blue, going-out-to-the-yard-to-get-a-jalepeno garden. I had one with my parents, but that was years ago, and now that I live in a house that actually has a yard ... well let's just say the time had come. 

after spring started to show up around here, I decided that I'd take a gander back into said yard (to my credit, this garden area is separted from the house by an enclosed deck and therefore we never venture back there). 

WOW. 

let's just say the weeds were the size of small-medium sized trees and let the pics do the talking.

the first photo is showing the weeds ... and the small chunk of area to the foreground is the dent I made in the weeding the first day (two hours):

this is the second day (the newspapers are to help the killing of the weeds)

third day ... some progress is being made if I say so myself

this is after six days and copious amounts of help ... yay!

this photo doesn't show the enormity of the final pile, but you can see a pile of about a quarter of the weeds

so the seeds have been planted and we're so excited around here ... there'll hopefully be some photos of seedlings soon ...

a new favorite

before and afters | part I

It's spring time and what is more fitting that before and afters? I have a doozy coming up in terms of our back yard/garden...at the expense of a disc in my back nonetheless.

But here is the first one. Maybe you can tell and maybe you can't, but this photo shows these beautiful old folding chairs we acquired via trade (the best!) with years of dust and grime. 

And here they are after a simple wood cleaner. Awesome!

The garden is coming soon ... and be on the lookout for a special offer from The Local Paper in honor of Earth Day ... !!