How to Avoid Tomato Blight

Almost anyone who has attempted to grow tomatoes has experienced tomato blight. Blight is a fungus that causes the leaves to get spots, yellow, and wither. It eventually infects the fruit which will begin to rot. It is spread in wet conditions when rain or irrigation splashes the soil onto the leaves.

Plants that Repel Bugs

I ran into a man at the garden center the other day, his cart full of heirloom plants and organic potting soil. It did my heart good, until I saw him pick up a can of Sevin Dust and put it in his cart too. Why bother with heirlooms and organics if you’re just going to throw a pesticide on top of it?

Rather than spray pesticides, maybe try a more natural approach to repelling the bugs that are bugging you or your vegetables. A large number of plants contain fragrances and oils that serve as a deterrent for certain pests (not just bugs).

Perennial Fruits and Vegetables

My goal for the garden is to have it be as productive and maintenance free as possible. One way to do this is to plant as many perennial varieties as I can, so that I’m not having to start a ton of seeds each year.

Permaculture, Companion Planting, & Plant Guilds

Permaculture is basically a self-sufficient ecosystem. In gardening, it means that you’ve created an environment that allows the plants to grow with little intervention needed on your part. Basically, the garden does most of the work of taking care of itself, and you only need to do minimal maintenance.

The Key to Making Creamier Yogurt

I’ve had hit and miss results making my own yogurt. I’m usually very attentive, making sure the milk doesn’t boil or get too cool before adding in my starter. There have been few times, when the stars aligned just so, that I’ve managed to make creamy, silky, buttery yogurt. I could never really figure out what I did, since all of the steps & ingredients were the same. Come to find out, those times when my yogurt turned out heavenly—I’d actually

Zero Waste Just Got a Little Harder

Let's be honest. I am never going to be completely waste free. I'm not going to have a little jar full of trashy bits that I collected over the course of the year. Mostly because that's bullshit, I mean it's just not realistic. But I've been trying to follow the 5 Rs: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Recycle. I've been working diligently on reducing my consumption, but when it comes down to it, it's the recycling portion that picks up my slack. That is, until now.

Fixing the Leaky Spigot

Fixing the Backyard Spigot

I did it! I crawled under my house, managing to not get too creeped out and fixed one of my leaking spigots. I say one because I couldn't keep the creeps at bay long enough to pull myself, on my belly, to the other side of the crawl space to fix the other spigot. (In fact, I'm already trying to figure out how to open up the brick wall in the front of the house to create a second access panel—rather than attempt to crawl completely under the house.)

But I fixed one of them! And it only took me 35 minutes and cost me $36 to do it!

Why Do We Have to Buy Things to Save Money?

Lately I'm being inundated with ads telling me that if I just buy *this* product, I can save HUNDREDS of dollars, and be one step closer to my fulfilled self. Okay, well, maybe not specifically the latter statement, but it's implied.

Working on Paying Down Our Credit Card Debt

Like most folks in my generation, I've accumulated about $15K in credit card debt. Most of it was big, one time expenditures (like moving) coupled with down turns in employment and illnesses. I've been working the debt snowball for over a year now and have cut the amount on one credit card by 2/3rds. But the interest isn't doing us any favors...

Making a Closet Organizer for $0

A Zero Dollar DIY Closet Organizer

I'm working on finishing up the closet organizer for our small bedroom. You may recall that I had a roof leak back in August, which lead to me *finally* repairing the water damaged wall last month. Everything kind of snowballed from there and I started just re-doing the whole room.

What I didn't tell you was, the whole reason I tackled this project is because we're taking classes and applying for our Foster Care license. Turning the office back into a bedroom is the first of many steps in getting the house ready....

On Being Self-Sufficient

Water Pipes, Spigots, and Sill Cocks (oh my)

Spring is just around the corner and I've been patching the pipes on my outdoor spigots for the last couple of years. I've used plumber's putty and this weird plaster wrap stuff, and while it works for about a season, eventually I have to re-do the stop-gap repair. This year, I thought maybe I'd actually get someone in to replace the sill cocks (spigot pipes) once and for all. I recently did a little research and called a couple of plumbers...

Sometimes it Pays to Shop at Home

I've been fixing up the house as of late, getting it ready for the next thing. Which means that I finally got around to fixing the water damaged wall from the roof leak back in August. And that led to me patching and painting the whole room—which meant I had to move everything out of said room. Which let me clear away the clutter and see some possibilities. Anyway, it became a whole thing and now I'm cleaning and organizing and drawing up plans for closet organizers and desks and all sorts of things.

Freakin' Polar Vortex

Yeah, to say that it's really cold out goes beyond the responsive 'no duh' statement. But to say that it's cold in my house, well, that's just me being whiny. Honestly, it is taking all of my reserves to not bump up the heat an extra few degrees—I've told myself that if it gets to the point that I'm wearing a hat, gloves, and a scarf inside, only then can I inch that thermostat a wee bit closer to the 69 degree mark. (Why did I not move into a house with a working fireplace?)—and for the record, we've only reached scarf level.

All self-criticism aside, I'm trying to keep my mind off the windchills by planning my Spring garden. I got a jump on my seed ordering (for fear that Baker Creek would run out of some of the more interesting varietals), and received my seed order a couple of weeks ago. It has remained, sitting on the counter in the mailer since then. You know how it goes. You get excited about something and then stuff happens, like a crowd that comes along and sweeps you away with hands outstretched as you reach for your now disappearing free time. "But my seeeeeeeeeeds!" you scream, followed by a hollow "my seeds" whisper as you realize you're not gonna' be seeing them for awhile.