ERICA AND WESLEY ARE HUSBAND AND WIFE \(^.^)/ WHOOT WHOOT
I'm going to be in another show in August so I'm pretty sure my life will be taken over by my sewing machine once more pretty soon. (Its a good kind of takeover, though.) I want to do a show each quarter. My spring show was Indie Trunk Show. My summer show will be (appropriately titled) The Summer Show in Yukon. I applied to be in Earlywine YMCA's Arts and Crafts Fair in south OKC for my fall show and The Santa Market in Edmond for my winter show. I also plan to apply for a show at the Cleveland County Fairgrounds (also for fall) but that hasn't happened, yet. I don't even remember what it's called so I can't shamelessly promote. LOL No word on my official acceptance into these shows but I feel pretty good about it. They were all referrals from vendors I met at the Indie Trunk Show who all had good things to say about RagsReborn. They are also smaller shows so they'll be a much better fit for me.
But before craft show insanity sets in, I want to blog about my wonderful domestic life with my husband. <3 I usually don't do mushy barf stuff but I figured I should at least once since I am married now. Wes and I are trying to get a little garden together on our balcony. We have a couple plants from last year and two new crops I started a few months ago. Look, progress!
I took some really awesome pictures in the daytime and got some action shots of Wes pruning the pepper plants but then I accidentally deleted them off my phone. So now we have "oh shit, I deleted the good pictures so here are some make up ones" pictures.
One thing Wes & I always do together is cook and eat our meals. No matter how busy our individual schedules get, we try our darnedest to have dinner. Over the last year or so, I've gotten into the organic farm to market movement. Last summer I decided that we should just grow our own herbs and some vegetables. (It's cheaper than shopping at Whole Foods!) We started with some mint sprigs a friend of ours gave us. Then we got some seeds for peppers. This year I got some more seeds and now, we have mint, basil (actually no real basil, yet, they're just tiny little sprouts now), green beans and banana peppers.
The basil has sprouts... even if you can't see them in this picture.
I can't say I'm an expert but there have been lessons learned from our two summers of gardening that I would like to share. This was actually Wes' idea. He goes, "You should blog about our plants since they're doing so well." I guess he wants me to diversify... crafts, recipes, infertility, shows... what don't I do?!?! LOL Anyway, back to this week's topic. Top three tips for home gardening:
1. Don't let the soil stay moist!
Last year we experienced gnat-mageddon. It was TERRIBLE! I didn't even water the plants that much. But it was just enough to get a few gnats and then those suckers laid eggs and then we could not get rid of them for months. I think we had gnats from March until November. The apartment supposedly came out and sprayed and we had fly strips all over and around the plants but nothing helped.
So there we were with our little baby plants and an army of gnats... AND moldy soil. Since we let the soil get too moist, fuzzy patches of mold started showing up. We ended up having to stop watering the plants completely and then we pretty much re-potted the plants with new dry soil. We use a spray bottle for watering now. I spritz the indoor plants about every other day.
2. Take them outside.
I didn't want to bring the plants out this spring because of all the rain we've been getting. I was afraid that our plants would all just drown. And all the seed packets say to start your plants indoors for x number of weeks. Wes pushed for them being taken outside so I finally gave in. They looked like they weren't going to make it after the first few storms. But then, our mint grew a lot fuller and our banana pepper grew into a really hardy stalk. We had the spindliest banana pepper plant last summer and it barely had any buds on it. Took it outside for a month and it has improved tenfold. The only thing we still have indoors is our baby basil.
Our luscious mint.
3. Get multiple small pots.
Last year, we got two large pots and I crammed all our seeds into them. I had a packet of basil seeds, a packet of pepper seeds and the sprigs of mint from Kristin. At first they all grew... then they all died. The mint took over everything and the basil never made it. Our peppers were looking more and more weak. I finally let the mint have their own pot and separated the peppers into two pots with one stalk each. This year, I got four Jiffy Strips. Two for basil and two for green beans. We only put one green bean seed in each and a few basil seeds in each. The beans are sprouting up a storm and the basil is starting to grow, too.
I want to grow other vegetables but I think planting season is over. I think we'll add to our garden each year. Maybe two new crops a year since that's what we've been doing. We are going to have tons of banana peppers this summer. Wes suggested pickling them. I've never pickled anything before and Wes made it sound like a difficult ordeal. Has anyone out there pickled peppers? And can you give us tips?
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