Garden – Page 3 – How I Can Do That

Make A Container You Will Love

More and more people are moving to containers for growing their home gardens. So what do you do when you get sticker shock over the container prices online or in the box stores?

You build one!

Everyone talks about pallet projects. But I want to introduce you to crate raised beds.

My husband works for a company that builds machinery. The crates that are used there are tossed. Being resourceful and having access to free crates to reuse and repurpose, this is the way I build the majority of my container garden. This also has the added bonus of solving my time problem. I have so much on my plate, that building raised beds from scratch isn’t an option.

AND if you know how to use a pair of scissors and a staple gun, you can absolutely make this garden container!

There are so many different crates out there. The ones that I have and use as raised bed were formerly forklift crates. (They originally housed large machinery parts.)

With the crates you source, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

If there is plywood (whether the floor or sides), you will need to remove it and replace with wood that hasn’t been chemically treated.
The crate floor should be solid. This will help contain your soil.
The sides are okay if they have gaps. We’ll line this and the soil will stay in.
Is this going to be a permanent or temporary container for your garden?

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This last question is very important. It will determine if you need to source other materials for your container. You may find that you need screws, power drill, or even other parts if you plan on turning into a cold frame or want to add features like hoops.

The containers that are brought home to me are made out of pine. The boards are stapled together.

The containers that are brought home to me are made out of pine. The boards are stapled together. I know that these crates were not built to last forever. They’re not even sealed for weather. But being limited in time for my garden builds, I opt for leaving my crates as is.

Tip: you can weather protect wood by scorching it with a torch.

If you find that your crate is stapled together, this feature is going to limit how many seasons you will get out of your container.

For example, the boards of my 36″ x 36″ potato crate (above) started to pull away at the start of the third year. The wood is weathered but still as strong as the day the crate came home. This is one crate that I wished I would have reinforced with screws before filling. This crate got place before filling with dirt. And with the exception of this front face, there’s no easy way of coming back in to push the board back in place and screw in. It’s tightly spaced with other structures.

Tip: My hindsight advice is to increase the longevity of your crate container, reinforce the boards with screws, right from the beginning. This will prevent awkward maintenance in a few years.

Let me walk you through how I make my raised beds from crates

I’m using the smallest of my new crates 12″ x 32″ and about 18″ deep. (This one has been sitting for a couple months waiting for me to decide what I wanted to plant in it this season. I was gifted some pepper starts and knew exactly where they were going to go.)

Items you will need:

Wood Crate
Garden Weed Barrier
Scissors
Staple Gun

The first thing I do is fold over the edge of the garden barrier, to make a smooth finished edge, and staple it down across one edge of the crate. It’s not necessary to make a finished edge. I just like this step because sometimes the cut on my roll of barrier is slanted. So by making a new straight edge, this makes it easier to lay the barrier without worrying about it running sideways across the crate.

Note: When I line a crate larger than the width of my garden barrier, I line one side of the crate. Once that first piece is secure, I run a second piece for the opposite side of the crate. The overlapping of the barrier happens in the middle of the crate. There is no need to secure in the center floor of the crate because the weight of the soil will keep the barrier in place.

With this first edge of the crate secure, I drape the garden barrier across the top to make sure I’m laying it in centered and straight. Then I push the barrier down into the crate and make sure that the barrier has enough give to accommodate the full size of the bottom of the crate.

As you can see in the second picture, I trim my garden barrier a little longer than I need to fit inside the crate. One reason is that I usually don’t cut a straight line (obviously seen here). But more importantly, I learned over the last two years that you want more barrier inside the crate than you will think.

The crates I lined the first year, fitting the liner tightly to the inside. The following spring I noticed that these barriers started ripping out at the staples after the first winter of water and freezing. The barrier needed some flex that I did not allow for. So now I give some allowance.

Before I put my garden barrier away (and focus on securing the lining), I cut the width of the short side of the crate. Then I fold this strip of barrier in half and cut. Each half will line the sides of the crate. These side pieces I set aside (or stuffed in my pocket for this crate because of the wind). I set the roll of barrier to a side and go back to folding over the edge of this second crate long side, and staple it down in place.

Once the long sides of the crate are secure, I secure the edges along the short side to hold them in place before securing barrier down the short sides. This keeps them up and out of the way. And if you’re lining a crate while it’s windy out, you will thank me for having the barrier stay in one place so you can move through this project in the least amount of time.

First I take the overlap, from the edge of the crate, and fold this corner down before stapling. This gives a reinforced edge as well and bringing the excess barrier down inside the crate. This doesn’t look pretty, but this is all about telling the barrier where you want it to go and keeping it contained.

Can this excess be trimmed off?

Of course it can. But you will see in just one moment, by keeping the excess length and tacking it up the side, you are creating a barrier that will keep all your soil in your raised bed without having a completely sealed liner. I use the weight of my soil to work for me so I have less steps to take.

For the next step, I pull out one of my side crate pieces of barrier that I just cut and line my first short side. I fold the edge of the barrier down, just like I did with the long side of the crate, and stapled down this top edge and pushed the rest of the length of this side down over the rough edges that were tacked down from the longer side. This flap is great because not only does it cover the edges of where dirt could go down and over time wash out of the bottom of the crate, but it also redirects any of this soil movement back toward the center of the crate.

So if you have the choice of having a generous flap (like seen here in picture two) or trimming it down, make an educated decision in favor of what’s going to help you maintain your soil. After all one of the problems with container growing of any kind is the loss of soil, mostly through drainage at the bottom of your container.

Once you secure the second short side of the crate, you will see here in picture 3 that you have a fully lined crate.

The first time I lined a crate, with no one telling me how to do it, I must have taken an hour to do this. Even with taking pictures, this only took me about 15 minutes. The larger crates don’t take any additional steps. So it really is time efficient to take a fully made wood crate and line it to make your own raised bed.

If you did not line your crate where you want it’s forever home to be, make sure that you move it now. Even with this smaller crate, the weight of it filled is more than I can move on its own. Even with a hand cart, I still wouldn’t want to move it because I could just see myself knocking it over and spilling all my soil all across my yard. For my sanity (and your own), I just make sure I place my crate raised beds before I fill them.

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How I fill my raised beds

I’ll start by saying that I don’t fill my raised beds like everyone else.

One reason is that I don’t have the gardening budget to buy as much soil as I would need to fill all my crates, especially the large ones.

Another reason is that I’ve talked with many people about different types of gardening are available for each of us to choose from.

The drawback to container growing (even raised beds) is that there comes a time where there will be a depletion of nutrients in soil. So even though I do top off my crates with raised bed potting soil, I choose to think long term with my raised beds.

Hugelkultur and Mound gardening have beautiful foresight in them. Both of these forms of gardening is that they put long term “food” into their structure building. Both contain wood (usually in the form of branches and limbs of trees, logs in larger structures) which is slow release nutrients that takes many years to decompose and incorporate nutrients back into the soil. If fact, this is the best way of getting the micronutrients into the soil that standard commercial fertilizers do not ever put back into your containers.

For this reason, I went back to my yard waste and compost. I grabbed some pine branches that we recently trimmed off of our trees, and a couple of handfuls of grass clippings. Especially with the large crates, these fillers are going to be amazing.

In the bottom of my crates I put the largest branches. Normally I put in camp fire sized pieces of wood in the bottom. This small crate doesn’t have depth for that. So I started off with what I consider my second layer, thin branches. Ever green boughs are perfect, not just because of the thicker needles (which take longer to break down than leaf waste) but also because they take up space.

Next I put down green grass clippings. One, they take up space and leave nice medium for plants to spread out their roots. Two, the grass fills in the branch gaps and holes perfectly.

Think of that science experiment where you’ve seen rocks added into a jar first. Then it’s followed by pebbles, then sand, and then water. It’s a perfect example of maximizing the fill of a contained space with an incondensable material like rock.

I pack my raised beds with as much long term nutrients as I can. And this method of packing with larger material first, working your way down to the smallest, is the best way of packing your container box.

From here, I went back and grabbed a couple of pitchforks worth of raw compost (complete with some of my worm residents) and the last of my current supply of raised bed potting mix.

Of course it was the moment that my kiddos saw me grab the compost that they came rushing at me. My youngest dove in and tried to rescue the worms from being placed in this crate. He was acting like I was kicking them to the curb and evicting them. It took me a moment to tell him that he didn’t need to take them back to the in ground garden, I need them here.

And that’s one thing that I haven’t heard anyone talk about. We all know that worms are great for our garden. In fact we don’t give them a second thought in our in ground garden. So why aren’t we talking about them in our container gardening?

Worms are very much needed for a good growing biome. They help break down materials. And since I put in some large materials, I could let them do their own thing, or I can see if I have some worms who want to take advantage of this new home. (And this is another reason why I don’t fully seal off my lining in the crates. The worms are free to come and go as they move their way through any loose openings that take place over time. (And these openings do happen, but they’re more controlled.)

Anyway, I chased my youngest down and got my worms back in my compost. Then I quickly dumped the potting soil down on top to keep him from digging them back out. (I swear that child loves worms!)

I finish off with the raised bed potting soil because that is ready to go and host my pepper starts.

The down side to this layered nutrients in a raised bed

You may want to choose to do straight soil. Especially if you’re planting starts that will shortly need to have structures to assist in their growth. Just like these peppers will need some structure.

This layering, especially in this smaller size of crate, makes it impossible to add bamboo stakes for my peppers. They were just falling over. Fortunately, I have some carbon fiber cold frame hoops. I haven’t added them yet to this crate, but I’ll put in a hoop over each row to drop lines for the peppers to grow up.

I mention all of this, because if you choose to layer and expect it to hold up a stake or tomato cage, this first year just doesn’t give it the soil density to hold up a structure. So be prepared to come up with an alternate plan.

Another disadvantage to this layering is that as you can see in these pictures, I filled my crate up to the top. Over the course of this growing season, and especially over winter (when the rain helps to draw all the smaller soil material to settle into the branches in the bottom, I will see that this crate will only be half full next spring.

In the spring, I’ll add more compost and soil into this crate. At this point I can add mulch on top and the volume of the crate will not go down any further.

Again, this isn’t a horrible down side. It’s just one to be aware of and plan for. But this crate is now set up for many years of container growing. It will be sustainably nutrient rich, especially when I add the mulch and keep that going every season.

How do you like to container grow?

Here are a couple items I find useful in my garden.

This post contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commissions on products purchased through these links, but at no extra cost to you. These items listed here are from Amazon but may be purchased at local markets.

10 ft. x 16.5 ft Plant Covers Freeze Protection with 6 sets of Greenhouse Hoops

3 ft x 180 ft Premium Garden Weed Barrier Landscape Fabric

One response to “Make A Container You Will Love”

Clove One Clove All – How I Can Do That

October 28, 2023

[…] Make a Container You Will Love is how I start off all my new boxes. This time I reused one of my existing boxes. My onions didn’t do so well in it this past grow season, so I’m changing it up to see how my garlic will do here. […]

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Make Your Own Bullion

With the growing list of food ingredients that people become sensitive to, it’s easy for families to kind of go numb reading ingredient lists. Not only is it difficult to read the chemical name of some of the ingredients (let alone answer the questions, “Why is this in here?”), but some families are now asking, “What isn’t listed?”

For example, natural flavoring is listed as a single ingredient but can actually incorporate up to 200 different ingredients. It’s a shady practice, because it could be something as simple as a proprietary blend of herbs. Although it’s more likely the summation of chemicals used for extractions of certain elements for flavoring. But how is a family to know what chemicals or processes were used and make the educated decision if this is something that is harming the health of a loved one?

So whether you’re looking to cut some corners in your grocery budget, trying to eliminate ingredients in your diet, or simply wanting to eat more simply (knowing exactly what you’re cooking with, able to say the ingredients, and other reasons) you can make basic kitchen ingredients from scratch. Bullion is one of those ingredients that you can make in advance and have it in your pantry waiting for you to use!

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First Make Your Stock

I’m going to move forward here with making chicken stock and turning it into chicken bouillon. However you can do this by making your own beef stock or vegetable stock. (And I just want to say that when you make your own vegetable stock, it actually has more flavor and tastes a thousand times better than what you will buy in your local grocery store!)

There are also a few different ways that you can cook your stock. You can make stock on stovetop, in a slow cooker in your oven, in a crock pot, or a pressure cooker. The only difference is going to be the amount of time you commit to. With the exception of the pressure cooker, you will want to cook low and slow to release all the nutritional benefits of your ingredients. A lot of influencers, bloggers and You Tubers will encourage you to make a stock in a short amount of time. Of course it is possible, but I want to encourage you to take the time and cook your stock ingredients out.

If you’re making a bone broth, cook it so that you extract the marrow from the bones. If you’re cooking vegetables, don’t assume that because you’re not extracting marrow that you can get by with less time. Check out my post A Touch Bitter? where I specifically talk about vegetable stock.

You know that you have a good and flavorful stock when it has rich and dark colors. The color comes from all the nutrients that you cook out from your original ingredients.

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My Chicken Stock

I’m going to be honest with you here, daddy taught me how to cook by following a recipe. But I inherited a wild cooking hair from mom, where we improvise. I cook by smell, then by flavor, all over what a recipe says. I’m working hard to make notes on my recipes to find a strong base that is pretty average for how my recipes go. Just know that when I have chicken bones to use, I literally use the ingredients that I have on hand. And just like your kitchen, there are ingredients that I run out of. I don’t go to the store for missing ingredients. I run with what I have.

Here’s what I have standard in my kitchen:

onion skins (kept in a vegetable food scrap bag in the freezer)
garlic skins (vegetable food scrap bag)
stems of herbs that dehydrate to make my own dried herbs (vegetable food scrap bag)
dehydrated herbs from my garden (oregano, basil, lemon balm, sage, parsley, chives and others)
dehydrated herbs that I have yet to successfully produce in my garden (ginger, tumeric and others)

General Recipe

In my 8 quart instant pot I add:

the bones of one whole chicken fryer
if the chicken came with gizzards, I cook the gizzards here in my stock.
the vegetable food scraps from my freezer (ideally I aim for the skins of about 4 onions, the skins of 2-4 garlic heads, half a bunch of leafy herbs)
herbs from my seasoning shelves (including salt and pepper)
filtered water that fills my pot up to it’s Max line.

The herbs are generally where I run out of supply and have to improvise. If I have everything the herbs that I like to add are:

Ginger
Bay leaves
Lemon balm (fresh will give you more of a lemon flavor, dehydrated will have more of a green tea lemon flavor, use according to which type you’re using. I like going heavier on the fresh lemon balm)
Rosemary
Oregano

These herbs I go heavy on. If I’m out of any of these, I improvise using other herbs. Sage I use sparingly because it’s such a potent herb. Cilantro I use sparingly because I have family members who dislike the flavor of this herb. So I keep this one low in quantity to still get the nutritional value, but the flavor is not prominent at all. Fresh cracked pepper I use in varying levels depending on what my stock is currently at. Salt, I try to remember to add, but half the time I forget. Because the flavor of salt is not extracted, like herbs, I have no problem seasoning with salt once my pressure cooking is done.

I set my instant pot to pressure cooking, on high, for 3 hours. (No matter which stock type I’m making, I don’t ever go less than 3 hours.) This is what gives you full extraction.

Making Bullion

Once your broth has finished processing, you strain out all the ingredients. With a vegetable stock, I go ahead and compost the vegetable bits that I strain out. With bone stock I strain out all the bones and vegetables and they are thrown out.

If you’re making vegetable bullion, you can cool your stock down to room temperature and then move forward with the next step. If you make a bone broth (chick, beef, venison, goat, sheep, etc.) you will need to cool your broth off over night in your refrigerator. The exception is if you have a fat skimmer that can separate the fat out from hot broth. I do not. So I refrigerate my stock over night.

Once the fat layer has formed on your chilled broth, you skim the fat off of the broth.

You have to skim off of the fat, because when you make bullion you want to have a long shelf life. Fat is the limiting factor in shelf stable food. It will go rancid before anything else goes bad. So by removing the fat, you ensure that you have a long shelf life for your bullion.

When my chicken broth is been skimmed from fat, I grab my jelly roll trays for my dehydrator and set my dehydrator up where it’s going to process the broth. The reason why I set my dehydrator up in location and fill the jelly roll trays on the stacked racks is because the broth is going to run to lowest point. There is not going to be an even layer of broth. So I fill in place and pour the stock until I reach the lip at one point on my tray. This will maximize the amount of broth I can process at a single time.

Dehydrating liquid hack: before placing your liquid on the jelly roll trays put it in a sauce pan and reduce the stock. By evaporating the liquid down, you will cut down on your dehydrating time and save space in your dehydrator.

I run my dehydration temperature at 140-145°F until the broth is crispy like this. Dehydration time is going to vary depending on if you reduced your broth first, the temperature you dehydrate out, and most importantly the thickness of where your broth pools. The thicker sections will be gummy to touch until it’s properly dehydrated. The thinner bits you can leave as is. Or when you check on your progress, you can used a silicone spatula to push the thinner bits in closer to the thicker bits (this makes it easier to remove the thinner sections when you’re finished dehydrating).

In the center of my jelly roll try, you’ll see that I put my coffee/herb grinder in the center. It makes it easy to brush the chunks and bullion dust into the grinder. When the container reaches its limit I remove the tray, cap the grinder and run it for about 10 seconds. Just long enough for the broth to turn into a powder. The bullion powder I put directly into my mason jar that I’m going to store it in.

Just so you won’t be alarmed, what you see in this 1/2 pint size jar is what my 8 quart size instant pot produces. My first time making my own bullion, I was disappointed that it didn’t make more. But that disappointment disappeared when I tasted the bullion. You will not be disappointed with the intense flavor!

This is perfectly save to keep in your pantry or in your spice cupboard.

Personally I have a tiny kitchen, so I keep my bullion on the top shelf of my fridge. The bullion usually doesn’t last my family a year. Although there was a time where I needed to free up some jars and use my canned chicken stock, so I had one batch of bullion powder in my fridge for about 2 years. It was still fresh and flavorful when I went back to finish this bullion off.

Comment below and tell me how you like this space saving flavorful bullion.

How does it compare to what you’ve previous bought from the store?

If you don’t have a current dehydrator and are looking for one, I have been very pleased with this dehydrator. This was an upgrade from my very first dehydrator, but still on a budget. If you’re in a tight financial place, with today’s economy, this is the one that I highly recommend. Not only was it a great price, but it also included jelly roll trays for each rack (something that can’t be said with other budget units)

Nesco FD-1018A Gardenmaster Pro Food Dehydrator

Herb Grinder Elictric has been great for keeping all the ground herbs/boullion contained in the grinding bowl.

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End of Season Green

I considered waiting to share this post until the fall, but then I thought why not now. This is the perfect idea to share now while you’re still deciding what you are putting into the ground or containers for this growing season.

If you have some tomatoes planted and wondering if you should plant more, the answer is a resounding yes!

I’ve mentioned before that last year, the growing season here in the Pacific Northwest was horrible. Nothing really took off until the end of June and the beginning of July. And I was concerned with my tomatoes. If fact, the above picture was the last of the tomatoes that I took off the vine at the beginning of October!

As you can see, there were so many green tomatoes that I still had, but my plants were dying off. So instead of all these beauties, I brought them inside and found a recipe that has now entered my MUST make every year when I bring the tomatoes in.

But I wanted to share this recipe with you now, because this is worth planting the extra tomato plants that you’re debating about adding to your garden.

If you’re like our families, you grow enough tomatoes to make your tomato sauce, pizza sauce, tomato soup, salsa or other tomato product you store for the winter. (This year I’m going to add making our out ketchup and tomato paste.) You definitely want to add Green Tomato Relish to your list!

I tried this last year not just because I had a plethora of green tomatoes, but also because my husband loves relish and I hate pickles. So I gave this a test drive to see if I could make something that is on his list of condiments and yet is something that I will eat as well. And I tell you that this hit the spot for everyone!

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OurHalfAcreHomestead Green Tomato Relish

Mrs. Volfie posted her Green Tomato Relish here, but for your convenience I’m leaving the directions she walks through below. Please note, that if for your first time you don’t have the celery seed in your cupboard you are still going to have an amazing relish without it. I now have celery seed in my kitchen so I can’t wait to see how much better it turns out.

This is the vegetable ratio that Mrs. Volfie talks about in her recipe. You can mutiply it according to how many green tomatoes that you have.

2 C Green Tomatoes, minced
2 C Onions, minced
1 C Sweet Peppers, minced

The Base for this recipe is 5 Cups of produce.

As you can see here, I used red onions instead of the yellow onions that Mrs. Volfie used. They are just my personal favorite onion, but please feel free to use the onions that you have on hand. I also want to mention that I was about a half cup short of the minced peppers and I still instantly fell in love with this recipe. Just remember that if you’re light in one vegetable, you should try to make up for it with one of the other vegetables.

I didn’t and I ended up with a slightly wetter finished product than I would have liked. But that is okay. Having run this recipe and knowing what the outcome is and what my personal expectations were, I know that this next batch that I make, I’ll make sure to keep that 5 Cups Base ratio and I’ll go a little lighter on the liquid, but I’m ahead of myself.

Let’s move forward.

This is a 2 day project. On first day, you’re going to mince your vegetables and let it sit over night. The next day you’re going to cook and bottle or jar your relish. And as a busy mom, I sure do love recipes that I can break up into steps like this and not have to take an entire day to run a canner.

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Day One

Mince your vegetables to make up your Base Unit. (In the video Mrs. Volfie made a triple batch, which is a total of 15 Cups of produce.) I didn’t have the chopping tool that Mrs. Volfie used, so I minced by hand.
Combine your vegetables and add 2 Tbsp of Pickling Salt. If you are running less or more of a Base Batch, you may need to adjust the amount of salt used accordingly. (The purpose of the salt is to soften the vegetables but also reduce some of the water content.)
Put the raw relish in your refrigerator overnight.

Day Two

Strain and rinse off your relish.
Put back into the pot and add the following. (This is for a triple batch, so please adjust these ingredients according to the Base Batch of recipe that you’re running.)
- 2 C Sugar (Mrs. Volfie mentions that she prefers brown sugar. I just used cane so can’t comment on the difference in flavors.)
- 2 C Organic Apple Cider Vinegar
- 2 tsp. Salt
- 1 tsp. Celery Seed
- Fresh Cracked Black Pepper
Bring to a boil on your stovetop.
Fill hot jars or bottles with the relish with 1″ headspace and de-bubble.
Hot Water Bath the relish for 15-20 minutes.

For Christmas, my husband and I gifted this relish to friends and loved ones. And everyone came back raving about it. Not only that, but have talked with their loved ones who are also interested in this relish.

You won’t hear this in the video, but I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you that this relish makes the BEST tartar sauce just by mixing in your favorite mayonnaise. Everyone I’ve told that to in person just gave me the humored head nod that said, “so you say. I might give it a try.” Everyone did try and they came back with fireworks in their eyes.

Living in the Pacific Northwest, we are spoiled with fresh seafood. So of course when anyone talks about tartar sauce, people get a little snobby. But please, please, please, give this a try. Because I have yet to have someone come back to me and tell me that it did not hit the spot.

And if you are planning a special event, are a caterer, and seafood is on the menu I am telling you that this one condiment is the way to wow your customers and come back with glowing revues!

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Other recipes that may interest you…

I have not yet tried these recipes, but these are on the top of my to try list.

Ketchup

The ingredients on this recipe from Self Sufficient Me sounds about right for what I look for in a ketchup. The written recipe is found here.

There is one glaring issue that I have with this recipe by watching the video is that it is too thin and liquid based for the type of ketchup my family likes. The culprit for this being so runny is that he runs his tomatoes through a food processor at the very beginning.

I was teaching a small class on how to make tomato sauce and we found out the hard way that when you process tomatoes like this you just can’t ever get that sauce to thicken up! The reason for this is because there is a chemical in the skin of tomatoes that when you release (by blitzing the tomatoes) it counteracts the pectin that is naturally in the tomatoes. You end up with tomato juice.

So to prevent the thinning of your tomato product, you really do not want to cut the tomato more than you have to. Small tomatoes cut in half. Large tomatoes cut into quarters. The pectin inside the tomatoes will thicken your sauce and minimize your time in front of a hot stove.

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Tomato Paste

While I do have a few Italian Nona’s that I love watching on YouTube for inspiration, I want to try this Turkish recipe for making a tomato paste. With Turkish Food Travel, you can watch her video here or written recipe here.

A quick walking away point from this is that you notice that the pectin inside the tomatoes are at work in making this a thick sauce to start with. Then you keep the pan on the heat much longer than you would for a chunky tomato/pasta sauce. So if you’re making your own pasta sauce already, to make a paste you keep cooking the sauce down until you cook the vast majority of the liquid out.

I like how this recipe uses salt to reduce the tomato liquid even before you start cooking. This has inspired me to prep the tomatoes the night before I want to cook the paste, so the salt can maximize its extraction time.

At the end of the video you will hear about the method of making tomato paste by cooking it in the sun. Even though there was not enough description here, it sounds very similar to what I’ve heard is done in Italy. There are wooden tables that are used to make the paste. From what I understand, the sauce is first made and then spread across the wooden table. The sun dehydrates the tomatoes for you to make the paste. The only thing you do during this process is to use a scraper or a bench knife and mix the sauce/paste so that everything dehydrates/dries in the sun at an even rate.

If you are Italian, Turkish, or any nationality that makes a tomato paste using the sun, please comment below on the process that you use. Because I want to know how you do it. Making tomato paste by sun is on my cooking bucket list (I want to try this at least one time during my life).

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Too Busy? Here’s some quick condiments that can fit in your busy life.

I just came across Becoming A Farm Girl and I’m excited to see what she has in store to share with the world. Here is her video on 7 Quick Condements. I love listening to Cassandra. Her approach for making mayonnaise is the easiest method that I’ve seen to date. And she’s made me super excited to make this the next time I run out of mayo. We’ve been meaning to make our own because of a couple of ingredients that have made their way onto the ingredient labels of commercial mayo.

To get her print out recipes you will need to sign up to Cassandra’s email list. The link to that is in the details of the video linked above. I did sign up to get this recipe book and it is beyond what I’ve received from others. So, if you’re picky about who you sign up for, I absolutely did not regret signing up for this one.

Looking for a tool to make your food prep easier?

This is an affiliate link to mentioned product. We may receive a commission on this product, purchased through this link, but at no extra cost to you. This item is from Amazon but may be purchased at local markets.

Vidalia Chop Wizard Pro Max

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Meaningful Gifts

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms who are celebrating today with their children, the moms who are missing their children, the moms who have lost their babies far too early, those who shared an all too brief moment with their babies, the mothers who are in the middle of a season of making the dream of motherhood a reality, and those who love on the children from other mothers who lean on you to be the loving assurance in this season of their life. No matter what motherhood looks like to you, Happy Mother’s Day!

Depending on who you talk to, some people feel that holidays are too commercialized. Others find it difficult to find the perfect gift. And others find it difficult to gift a loved one while feeling the financial pressures of this season of world history. No matter where you personally find yourself on this spectrum, I want to help you find inspiration on how you can find a meaningful gift for someone. Whether it’s a belated mother’s day present, a birthday, anniversary, father’s day, grandparents’ day, teacher appreciation, graduation, or any other occasion, know that you can gift in a meaningful way.

I’m going to use the example of the mother’s day gift that I gave one of the mothers in my life. While this may not apply to the person in your life, the same principle can be applied in finding what you can gift that special person in your life.

This mom loves talking about her memories. For many years she’s shared her precious memories of when she operated a daycare. And one of those fond memories is when she grew gardens with the children under her care.

One thing about moms, it seems pretty universal that sharing memories usually isn’t about the memory. It’s about reliving a moment in life that brought pleasure to them.

From this understanding, I knew that building a garden for this mom was a gift that would fill her love tank. Not only is it an opportunity for her to relive precious memories in the here and now, it also opened the opportunity to add more memories in association with these older memories. By building a garden and scheduling time to upkeep and tend to the garden, it was also guaranteeing visits and making time for her to spend time together.

For this mom, she has two love languages. Her primary love language is gift giving. Her receiving love language is quality time.

Making a deposit of part of this season’s garden was not just a simple arrive, dig holes, put in start, say good bye, and move on with the day.

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For this Mother’s Day gift, it took in the appearance of leaving all the gardening supplies in the car and starting off with a sit down chat and getting caught up with all the news, even if it was only a day since we last saw each other. Then, I was able to go prepare the garden beds for this first plant installment.

Even before I could bring out the plants, this mom was already so filled with love that she wanted to spend some more talking. As much as I wanted to stay task driven (my personality is to knuckle down and get a project done quickly so I can move on to the next task), this day was all about showing love to this mom.

Pallet boxes for narrow spaces and hanging baskets on cyclone fence

So we had another chat session.

When I could find a polite moment to get back to the task of putting the starts back into the ground, I made that move. And with the final post plant watering, I went back and gave this mom one last extension to the gift I was giving her.

Remember, I said that this mom shows love to others by giving to them. So while I was building this garden for this mom, I know that the one thing that would bring her even more pleasure is by telling her upfront that the goal of this garden is primarily to meet her primary produce needs, I’m planting more than she will personally need so that she can give from the garden to others.

I wish I could share with you the look on her face, because she was bursting with love. Knowing that she was having a garden this year was more than enough to help her feel love, she felt seen and more loved because the gift was enabling her to show love to others without need to be reserved or anything else. It was a gift that was freely given so that she could freely give to others.

Growing herbs in repurposed gutters hung on a cyclone fence.

I know that this story may or may not show you specifically what you can give the hard to shop for person, but there is a valuable lesson here.

A good gift is designed to make a person feel loved because it speaks to how they most readily feel loved.

If you don’t know this love language, ask your person how they most feel loved. They will gladly tell you. It could be a tangible object or food that makes them feel loved. Or it can be a non-tangible activity, expression, or display.

A great gift is one that fills their love tank, but also doubles as a tool to enable them to share their love with others.

Container growing garden with DIY budget friendly or recycled components. Chicken wire trellis threaded through upright supports.

Maybe your loved one is not like this mother. Maybe they don’t show love to others by giving them things. Maybe they show love through acts of service. However their schedule is busy. By gifting them your time to do tasks for them or help them create time, this can free up time where they can show love to others by spending time with another person.

My encouragement to you today is to be inspired with a gift idea that doesn’t come from the shelf of a store. Yes, there are many store bought items that are amazing and meaningful. I want to strike the inspirational fire to give a gift out of love and seeing the other person at a core level. And also enable them to pass on love to others.

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Right now we live in an interesting moment in history. It is an uncertain time for many families. But it is also a prime moment to celebrate others by giving to them in a way that shows them that you remember past conversations. Where you have heard and remembered things that could have easily been passed off as trivial information in the moment.

Let’s show our loved ones that we see them. And we celebrate them for who they are.

Again, Happy Mother’s Day!

This post contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commissions on products purchased through these links, but at no extra cost to you. This item link is to Amazon but may be purchased at local markets, and found at your local library.

If you are unfamiliar with Love languages, here is the book that started it all.

The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman

Originally this was written for understanding your mate. There are several other editions available to meet other relationship needs such as children, being single, and in relationship of a military service member.

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Getting Buzzy For Spring

There’s one skill that I’ve wanted to learn from a friend of mine, incorporating mason bees into my garden.

Here in North America, mason bees are the indigenous bee. They pollinate 45 times more than honey bees. And if you have young children, you don’t have to worry about there being an altercation and your child (or pet) from being stung. (We’ve been teaching our kiddos about bees because one day I want to have honey bees for honey production. So they already know what’s expected of them when it comes to our pollinating friends.)

I can’t even begin how excited I was when I received an email from a family locally owned hardware store that they were doing a craft for Earth Day, which involved making a home for mason bees.

Today I’m sharing with you the process that my kiddos went through to make a home for mason bees.

We were instructed to bring a soup can or cardboard milk container. The hardware store supplied the craft materials to decorate and make the bee home.

All my milk cartons still had milk in them and I haven’t bout soup in a can for well over a year now. What I did have available was an empty ten pound can. So if you don’t have a small can, know that it’s possible to make a home with a larger can.

Things you will need:

(Feel free to modify with the materials that you have on hand.)

Milk carton or soup can
Construction paper (printer paper, non-toxic colored paper, recycled paper, whatever you have on hand)
Tape
Straws
Cardboard tubes: toilet paper or paper towel (optional)
Corrugated cardboard (optional)
Scissors
Glue
Stickers (optional)
Twine
Pens, crayons, or other decorating medium (optional)

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If this is a kid’s project you’re setting up for, cut all rolled paper and straws to the length that fits from the back of the soup can to the front.

You can even prep other materials for your bee house. If you have scrap blocks of wood, you can several holes through the block.

I don’t know what you have in surplus in your craft room. But I have many wine corks that have been waiting for just the right project. When I get a free afternoon, I’ll make an adult version with rolled cardboard, drilled scrap wood blocks, and my collection of wine corks that will also be drilled.

Here are some additional bits of information about mason bees, if you are unfamiliar with them.

Here is another resource to get you started on your path for creating a home for mason bees. If you want to buy mason bees to start your bee colony, I found this site which is still selling until May 22, 2023. They have a bee info page that can instruct you in how to care for mason bees to make sure that they remain healthy and happy.

If you’ve watched the movie The Pollinators (2020), then you understand the need to help support our local pollinating community. If you haven’t seen this documentary yet, it’s worth the time to understand what it going on with the bee population in the United States. And if it’s happening here, it’s very likely happening in other places.

Last year (2022) was a bad growing season in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). To this day I still believe with my whole heart that the bees were what made my garden successful, when others in my local community found only hardship. So for my gratitude, I already planned on adding more flowers to my garden as well as being a more hospitable home for my pollinators. With that being said, I will leave you with the pictures of my family. And once the weather clears, I’m going to examine closely where our best place of hanging this mason bee home is going to go.

Happy Earth Day!

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