The Anti-Mosquito Post

YAY!!!  It's finally warming up.   We have been getting the garden and yard ready. While we have been spending more time outside we saw our first mosquito of the year.   Pesty little things.     Do they even have a purpose?   Anyway, I thought it's the perfect time to write a post about what you can do to keep the skeeters away.


We have developed a wonderful line of all natural products made with Neem Oil and extract along with essential oils that have been used through time to keep the buggers away.   We also have an oil that can be rolled on bites when they do get to you.     You can find our products here. 






There's other great things you can do though besides bug salves and sprays.

-Run a fan in the area you a sitting.  The mosquitoes can fly in the wind so they don't come around.

-Make a mosquito trap. You can find the directions here.

-Plant plants that deter mosquitoes.   Citronella and lemongrass are nice big plants that are actually grasses.   They a beautiful and should come back each year.  Ageratum is a lovely low lying plant with pretty purple flowers.  They look nice in pots.  Marigold and Catnip are other plants that repel mosquitoes. 

 
-Build and hang a bat house!   Bats eat mosquitoes. 

Homemade Pasta Sauce

Sorry for the lack of photos but I really wanted to get this recipe up.  I promised my friend and congo mate for this about a month ago.   Ooooops.

I don't measure anything when I make my sauce so this is approximates.  You can add or subtract to taste.

Ingredients:

- tomatoes..In the summer I use my own paste tomatoes.    I take about 15 and throw them in my Vitamix whole.  If it's not summer I buy a 16 oz can of organic whole tomatoes. and mash them with a potato masher.

-2 chopped shallots

-3 cloves of garlic chopped

-4 tbsp olive oil

-1/4 cup honey

-6 basil leaves chopped

-1/4 tsp Cheyenne pepper (in the summer I throw 1 jalapeno in the Vitamix along with the tomatoes)

salt, pepper, oregano, thyme,rosemary to taste

In sauce pan heat up oil.   Throw in a piece of onion, if it sizzles it's ready.   Throw in the rest of onion and garlic.  Saute until onions are softened up.   Add your tomatoes until boil.   Add honey, basil, cheyenne.   Bring to a simmer.    Add the rest of the ingredients.   You can serve it like that or you can cook it down.   I usually simmer mine on the lowest heat for 3 hours.  The longer you simmer the thicker and sweeter it gets.  It's so yummy.   

You can use it for everything.  We use it for pasta, pizza, lasagna and I freeze it.

Here's my Lasagna featuring my yummy sauce. There's a layer of eggplant (from my garden) in the Lasagna.

Garden 2011

 I really love having a garden.  It's been such a learning experience and once I figure one thing out there seems to be a new mystery to solve.   I think my next post will be about what I learned about tomatoes.

Here's my spaghetti squash plant.  I thought I would try that in a pot.   So far only one fruit on it.  I'm thinking it's getting to much shade.   I did hand pollinate and still just this one squash.

 Here is a mix of goodies.  Marigolds, Lemon Balm, Parsley and a Cantaloupe.

 Watermelons are doing fantastic.  This is my first year that they have done this well.   So far I have 3 bowling ball size fruits and about 10 golf ball sized fruits.  I also have one eggplant in the same box.

 My only surviving pumpkin plant.  I had a white pumpkin, sugar pumpkins and Cinderella pumpkins.  They were doing fantastic, until the vine borers DESTROYED them.   I seemed to be able to save this one though.  I just noticed another baby growing so maybe I'll get two jack o lantern pumpkins for the kids!

 My favorite fruit ever is cantaloupe, which is a good thing because I thought this was a honeydew plant. As you can see it's not so I have 4 cantaloupe plants that are producing LOTS of fruit.   If you have any ideas of what I can do with cantaloupe let me know!

 Butternut squash are doing great also.  I planted to many of those too, however that I will freeze to use in mac and cheese through the winter and in other dishes.
Isn't she pretty.   I'm hoping to get some Echinacea tattoos soon.

 Tomato plants.....I can't even look at them.  So depressing.   That will be another post.

So besides the pumpkin thing and my tomato saga (which will hopefully end on a good note) I would call my garden another success.   I can't wait to start again next year.  In the meantime I'm going to try some cold weather crops this month and talk DH into a hydroponic tower for lettuce.

Cool weather planting has begun!

I'm planting a cool weather garden for the first time this year.  I'm excited to see how it grows....if it grows.  If all grows well we will have garden fresh lettuce(two varites), Endive, Spinach, three different color Cauliflower, Brocolli, Cabbage, Sweet Peas and Brussel Sprouts.   I'm most excited about the Brussel Sprouts.   

My daughter also joined it the fun and planted a rock.  She said she hopes it grows peppers. 

I'll be sharing pictures so we can all see what happens!

Peace be with you,

Heather

Been awhile, enjoy some garden pictures

Things have been beyond busy since school ended.   I think we are finally getting into a groove.   I plan to get back to at least a weekly blogging next week sometime.   Until then here are the latest garden pictures.

5 peas in a pod

How appropriate that the first pod I picked had 5 peas in it!!!   I'm so excited to have our first yield.   It's so rewarding!

Garden 2 weeks later

Garden update

These were taken 2 weeks ago, I'll need to update again because everything has really taken off.

Garden update

I wanted to take a break from my busy Friday to share some garden pictures.

It was a beautiful weekend!

We had a beautiful weekend here in the Philadelphia area. We spent the whole weekend planting our cool weather crops, grilling  and going for a hike at Tyler State Park.   Tyler is such a beautiful park.

Saturday started with a bang.  Not only was it beautiful but my wheat grass sprout and sprouted big time.  It's the first time I planted it.   This stuff is fast!!!  This picture is at 4 days, 2 days later it's twice as tall.   It tastes good too.    It reminds me of tomatoes.  The kids and DH think celery.

Then I planted Calendula and Feverfew. I planned on transplanting the Roman Chamomile that I have started inside but I forgot.

Calendula will be harvested in the fall and used to make my Calendula oil and other herbal remedies.

Feverfew will also be harvested and used in my herbal remedies.

There's something special about growing the herbs you use, I feel much more connected then when they are bought.

This photo is what will happen to the Calendula.   These oils are ready for me to use now.   They will be used as carrier oils, in my rash cream, hand salves, teething remedies, and more.

Until next time with Peace and Love,
Heather

Rain Rain Go Away

This weekend we are having rain.  A LOT of rain.    My plan was to plant Calendula and Feverfew along with some more peas and my spinach.    I'll need to put that on hold until the rain stops.    They say if this was snow we'd get 50 inches!!!!!!!!!!!!   I've had enough snow to last me a life time this year so I'm glad we are getting the rain.
Here are photos of my garden.   We are square foot gardening.  The tall bed is for lettuce and spinach.  There will also be containers that will house the melons. We are going to fill in the empty space with rocks.  DH is happy about that, less lawn for him to mow.  

This is C3 next to his peas.   C3 is really into farming.   He plans on being a farmer when he grows up.   He told me I need to get him a puppy to put in his farm.    Sorry C3,  one puppy is enough.

All wood the we used for our gardens is re-purposed.  It's nice that DH is in the trades.   He always finds good stuff that people are throwing out.