I have a wonderful set of plans for building a three-bin composter. The plans call for purchasing various sizes of cedar, chicken wire and various hinges to make a very nice compost bin. The plans even call for purchasing a sheet of clear corrugated fiberglass to make a cover for the whole thing. The directions must be pretty old as they claim the total price would only be $130! We like to make things with what we can find for free! Luckily close to our home is a source of free pallets. The pallets are left in a certain spot and they are free for the taking. Recently we noticed a huge pile and decided to bring a few (12) home and make our own compost bin!
Free Pallets
First we located a level spot not too far from the garden or the chicken coop. The pallets were laid in place and wired together to give us idea of the size and space needed.
Sides wired together
The ground was them leveled in a few spots and one of the pallets was taken apart to provide scraps of wood to actually attach the sides together.
Using scraps to attach the sides together.
Once the sides were attached together we were ready to begin composting! If you are wondering why we like to compost go back and read my post called Why Compost? I would ask why not!
As you can see Riley approved of the final project! As the bins fill up with compost we have extra pallets on hand to make a gate across the front to hold the compost in.
It’s never too early to think ahead to the holiday season! If you celebrate the holidays with the usual things: exchanging cards, gifts and holiday baking it can be very expensive. With a little planning you can enjoy a stress-free holiday without having to pay for it during the following year.
I have a Christmas notebook where I keep track of the gifts we’ve given others and the gifts received. Nothing fancy, just a spiral bound notebook that I use year-to-year.
Christmas Notebook
I make notes as to what worked and what didn’t. I also make lists of possible homemade gifts to give. During the year I can glance at my notebook and be thinking of possible gift ideas. Keep a Christmas gift list in your wallet to track what you’ve purchased and for whom.
Here we are just six months before Christmas. This is a good time to take stock of what you have on hand and think about possible gifts ideas for the holidays. Summer is the time for garage sales and yard sales, watch for “new” gifts like small appliances still in their boxes or nice items of clothing with their sales tags still intact. It’s amazing what you can find when you keep your eyes open. Collect stocking stuffers: cosmetic and perfume samples, freebies that come in the mail or any other novelties that come your way.
June is also a great time to find deals for Dads and men in general. Check out razors, aftershave and cologne, grilling tools, golfing and fishing gear. Many of these things will be on sale after Father’s Day. In July you can often find deals on kids’ outdoor games and items such as picnic coolers and recreational gear.
I don’t know about you but I love to give homemade gifts. Here are a few ideas.
Gifts from the Kitchen:Homemade Vanilla This is very easy and actually takes six months before it is ready to give. By making it now it will be ready for the holiday season. A perfect gift for the bakers you know!
Homemade Vanilla Extract in the works.
Homemade Jams, jellies and Salsas make a perfect gift, especially for those family members who don’t have a garden of their own.
Strawberry Fig Jam
One year we gave gift baskets with our own homemade salsa and my husband designed a wonderful label for the salsa.
Salsa Label
Homemade granola is also another great idea, one year I packaged up my granola in plastic bags and then put it in a brown paper bag with a decorative label on the outside.
Store granola in an airtight container.
Dog Treats: Don’t forget your doggy friends, I’m sure they would love a gift ofdog treats!
Finished dog biscuits
Handmade note cards: These can be printed off your own printers or find a source online. Put your favorite photo on the cover or use some artwork from your children. I realize not many people write letters anymore but a little notecard is always handy to have.
Handmade note cards
As we get closer to the holiday season I will share more ideas. Perhaps this will help you to think ahead. In addition to keeping your holidays calm and cost effective, buying presents during the year helps you to be more thoughtful of others. You can find gifts that your family and friends will truly enjoy and use.
One special item we inherited from my husband’s grandmother was her Recipe Box. There are many fond memories of meals enjoyed around Gram’s table. I spent several months going through the recipes so that I could create a cookbook for all the extended family members. In going over the various recipes I came upon this Better Than Sex Cake recipe, I have to say the name caught my eye! Could it really be better? – I had to try the recipe. Luckily the various ingredients were on hand and we had a potluck party to attend. I knew exactly what I would bring!
Better Than Sex Cake
Ingredients:
1 box of yellow cake mix (without pudding)
½ cup oil
1 cup water
4 eggs
1 20 oz can crushed pineapple
1 cup sugar
Coconut
1 pkg of instant vanilla pudding (small box)
Nuts
Whipped Cream or Cool Whip
Directions:
Combine the cake mix, oil, water and eggs in a large bowl and beat for two minutes.
Pour the mixture into a greased and floured 13 x 9 pan and bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until done.
Poke holes in the warm cake.
Heat the 20 oz can of crushed pineapple with the 1-cup of sugar, stir until the sugar melts. Pour over the cake.
Sprinkle the cake with a layer of coconut.
Prepare the pudding according to the box directions and pour over the coconut. Prepare the pudding while the cake is baking so the cake is warm when topped with the pudding.
When cool frost with Whipped Cream and sprinkle with nuts.
I mentioned the cake to a friend of mine and her first response was “does it have chocolate?” After a little online searching I found that there are actually two versions of this recipe and one does indeed have chocolate. However this is the version that was in Gram’s Recipe Box and it has pineapple not chocolate. The name also varies, some people call it “Better Than Sex? Cake” while others call it “Almost Better Than Sex Cake.” I’ll let you decide which name suits this cake best for you. Regardless, it was delicious!
My strawberries are coming in abundantly this year! They may be small but they are bursting with flavor. One of my favorite jams is this delicious strawberry fig jam.
I wasn’t going to make any more jam but this recipe caught my eye. It’s another one from the book Small Batch Preserving. They said, “This jam is so good it disappears from the shelf. The fresh figs lend an amazing texture and taste to the strawberries. Be sure to make as much of it as jar and cupboard space allow whenever you can get your hands on fresh figs.”
Fresh Fig and Strawberry Jam
Ingredients:
1 lb fresh green figs, stemmed and cut into small pieces
2 cups quartered strawberries
2 cups sugar
3 Tbsp lemon juice
Directions:
Place figs, strawberries, sugar and lemon juice in a medium stainless steel saucepan. Cover and let stand for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.
Bring to a boil over high heat, reduce heat to medium and boil rapidly, uncovered until the mixture forms a gel, about 15 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from heat.
Ladle into sterilized jars and process in a water bath canner for 5 minutes.
As far as I know we can’t grow figs here in Vermont but my local Farmers Market had some so I decided to give this recipe a try. Am I ever glad I did, this jam is to die for! I doubled the recipe and canned it in small jars, perfect for gift giving and enjoying!
I love to garden and I love my gardening tools! I have a few favorite tools that make the job of weeding so much easier! I thought I would share my favorites with you!
Wheelbarrow
My garden is a walk from the house and the wheelbarrow is the perfect “tool” to carry everything in! I love the small size of this wheelbarrow, when it is full of rocks from the garden I can actually empty it without any problem. It seems I am always pulling rocks from the garden here in Vermont, even after working the soil for ten years!
Trusty wheelbarrow
White Bucket
This bucket has so many uses; I use it to carry all my tools in. I can also turn it over and sit on it when I am weeding.
White Bucket
Or I can fill it with weeds to feed to the chickens! The chickens are so used to getting goodies out of the white bucket, when they see me coming they all come running!
Curious Chickens!Small gardening hand tools.
Weeding Tools
These weeding tools are the tools I use all the time! I have an abundance of weeds and these tools are invaluable! One website called the narrow one on the left a Cape Cod Weeder. It works well for edging a garden bed as well. The wider one on the right is perfect for those really suborn weeds. It is called a Korean Weeder. It was a gift from my aunt and uncle and I think of them every time I use it. The third tool in the middle is a small cultivator, in fact I think it was actually a tool my mother passed along to me. It’s perfect for cultivating the soil around your plants. I have a long handled version as well, which is perfect for those days when you just don’t feel like getting down on your hands and knees!
Long handled Gardening Tools.
Hoe
Every gardener needs a hoe! It has so many uses from cultivating the soil to planting. I often use the edge of it to make rows to plant my seeds.
Kneeling pad
Kneeling Pad
As I get older I appreciate having a kneeling pad more and more! It gives my knees a little break and makes the hard ground just a little more comfortable! It has also been used for various other projects such as sanding the deck! this one came from Gardener’s Supply and I’ve had it forever!
Gloves
I don’t mind working in the dirt without gloves but when I wear gloves I have two favorites. One pair is made of leather and is from the company WomansWork, they are designed for women’s hands and last for ever!
Woman’s Work Gloves
They are heavy duty so they are perfect for projects that are a little harder on my gloves, like stacking wood!
Chopped wood
My other pair of gloves I picked up at the hardware store, nothing fancy but leather on one side and breathable fabric on the other. I usually wear out my gloves and have to pick up a new pair each year. This pair seems to be working really well plus I love the color!
Gardening Gloves
I have other tools hanging in our garage but these are my favorite! They help to make my time in the garden just a bit more productive!
It’s been some time since I made a batch of homemade dog biscuits. With only one dog, Riley, in the house now we’re just not going through the dog biscuits as quickly. However Riley does enjoy her evening treat and we were getting down to the last few biscuits so I decided to try another recipe. This recipe is from the website Bullwinkle.com. They have a large assortment of recipes and I decided to try the homemade dog treat recipe for “Good Dog” cookies. Riley was very interested as I was mixing up the dough.
The dough was a lot stickier than my previous recipe I used. I did alter the recipe just a s bit as I wasn’t sure what “Baby Food Meat” was! I used two small jars of Baby Turkey Dinner. The recipe also didn’t make as many as my previous recipe so I’ll be making more soon. However judging from Riley’s reaction they were a hit!
Homemade Dog Treat Recipe “Good Dog” Cookies
Ingredients:
1 egg, well beaten
2 ½ cups flour
½ tsp garlic salt
1 ½ tsp brown sugar
½ cup water
6 Tbsp gravy
Baby Food Meat
Directions:
Mix all ingredients well. Roll out on a floured board about ½” thick. Cut out cookies shapes with floured cutters.
Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.
Cool the dog biscuits, maybe leaving them in the oven to dry. Cookies should be hard.
This Quinoa Pilaf with Sweet Chili Glazed Chicken recipe was adapted from a Weight Watchers recipe I found several years ago. It is delicious and good as leftovers the next day.
Quinoa Pilaf with Sweet Chili Glazed Chicken
Ingredients:
¼ cup sweet chili sauce
2 tsp grated lime zest 1 tsp lime juice 2 tsp olive oil
2 scallions, thinly sliced 1 garlic clove, minced ½ tsp ground cumin
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup quinoa, rinsed
2 Tbsp dried currants
1 lb boneless chicken breasts, thinly sliced
½ tsp salt
Directions:
To make the glaze combine the chili sauce, lime zest and line juice in a small bowl.
To make the pilaf, heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium high heat. Add the scallions, garlic and cumin. Cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add stock, quinoa and currants; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer covered, until quinoa is tender and liquid is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and keep warm.
Meanwhile, sprinkle chicken with salt. Spray a large nonstick skillet with nonstick spay and set over medium high heat. Add chicken and cook, turning frequently and basting with glaze, until chicken is cooked through, about 6 minutes.
Our regular strawberries are just beginning to ripen. I love having an abundance of fresh fruit. I’ve made some whole strawberries in vanilla syrup but this Strawberry Jam with Triple Sec Liqueur is amazing. The triple sec liqueur gives just a hint of orange to this jam. It tastes especially good on fresh homemade bread.
I love this time of year when I can just walk out to the garden and pick fresh fruit. Quite often we will have ripe strawberries and blueberries at the same time, what a treat!
This recipe is adapted from another one of my favorite canning books. Well Preserved by Joan Hassol.
This small paperback book is not only filled with wonderful recipes but it is a wonderful reading book as well. Joan talks about searching for beach plums, journeying through raspberry patches and eventually ending up on Cape Cod where she has a Bed & Breakfast. Just a delightful book, a “vibrant celebration of nature’s rich bounty, as much about the soul as cooking.”
Strawberry Jam with Triple Sec Liqueur
Ingredients:
4 cups of chopped, fresh strawberries
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 ½ packages of powdered pectin
8 cups of sugar
½ cup triple sec liqueur
Directions:
Put the strawberries and lemon juice in a large nonreactive pot.
Bring to a boil. Add the pectin and return to a boil.
Add the sugar slowly stirring constantly. Bring to a boil again and boil for one minute or until the jam sheets off the spoon,. When it’s ready, add the triple sec and bring to a boil once more. Pour into hot, sterilized jars.
Cover with new, clean, hot lids and process in your water bath canner for ten minutes. Store in a cool place.
It’s always hard to give up a chunk of time to go do something during the summer when there is so much to be done at home. This past weekend was my second Seed Saving Class and I have to say it was well worth the time!
The gardens were so beautiful and it was amazing to see the difference in just a month.
Sylvia’s Gardens
So much was covered in the two hours I actually took six pages of notes! Sylvia has her various plants that she is collecting seed from well spaced out. She has several small plots of wheat and barley.
Maturing Wheat
These are heirloom varieties and not the more modern wheat, which is often not as tall. How pretty are the heads of wheat as they are maturing!
wheat
I have never grown sweet potatoes but I am going to have to give it a try. Sylvia has four varieties that she grows each year; Georgia Jet, Beauregard, Red Yam and Carolina Ruby. We spent some time going over the different way to create slips, which is what you use to plant sweet potatoes. Quite different from regular potatoes where you plant sections of the tubers.
Sweet potato slips
There was also information on knowing when to harvest your seeds. For example tomatoes and melon seeds are ready when you eat the fruit unlike peppers, eggplants and cucumber where you have to let the vegetables over ripen before the seeds are ready to save.
Spacing was another topic that was covered, some plants need extra space if you are going to let them go to seed for example parsnips. Onion and leeks don’t require as much space.
Leeks gone to seed
The number of plants to plant also varies. To collect a good sample of seeds from corn you need more than 100 plants to have a good gene pool to work from.
Spacing of Escarole
I also learned that you can grow rice in Vermont! There are some varieties that do not require that they be grown in rice paddies. It will be interesting to follow this rice crop through the season.
Rice plants
I really enjoy spending time with fellow gardeners. Especially when they are facing many of the same challenges you are. Here in Vermont we face a very short growing season with frosts as early as Labor Day and you really can’t start putting things in the ground until the end of May! Learning what other people are doing to extend their growing season is invaluable. Learning that by saving your own seeds you can actually develop seeds that have a better tolerance for the cold. Your seed viability also increases; Sylvia says she has seeds that are still 100% viable after five years!
Another View of Sylvia’s Gardens
It was another wonderful class, I look forward to going back in July!
Several months ago I spent a weekend at the Prudent Living booth at the Hanover Home Show.
Hanover, NH Home Show
It was a great weekend with many opportunities to interact with local people and find out what they thought about “Prudent Living”. During my time at the booth I asked people if they would be willing to share a frugal tip. I was amazed at the variety of answers, everything from “what’s a frugal tip?” to folks that should be writing a book! I managed to collect over 35 different frugal tips. I’d like to share a few with you today.
Frugal & Prudent Living Tips From the Home show
1. Grow your own vegetables.
vegetables from the garden
2. Recycle to have less garbage.
3. Buy in bulk.
4. Cook from scratch.
5. Instead of buying egg replacer substitute a banana! (Used what was on hand)
6. Use coupons every week.
Coupons
7. Get all your Christmas presents from recycling.
8. Shut off lights when not in use.
9. Turn down your heat when not at home.
thermostat
10. Buy chicken bones from the local co-op to make stock.
11. Re-use your plastic bags.
Re-use your plastic bags!
12. Use refillable water bottles instead of buying disposable bottles.
13. Hang your clothes outside.
Laundry
14. Raise your own chickens for meat and eggs.
Fresh Eggs
15. The funniest reply I got was a man who said he leaves his wife home when shopping!
Nancy on the Home Front 