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Archive for the ‘Vegetable Garden’ Category

Happy New Year!

Since today is the first day of the new year, I thought that something to lift body and your spirit was in order.  With a few veggies and a few natural ingredients that you probably have on hand, you can give yourself a treat and help yourself put your best foot forward in the new year. Whether for olive oil soap to other natural and homemade beauty products, you’ll be surprised how easy it is to make your own homemade and natural beauty products!  Have some fun with it.

As you know, nature is the newest trend in skin and hair care. For years, we’ve been putting chemicals and preservatives into our bodies that build up and over time, make us feel tired and sick, regardless of whether we eat them or apply them to our bodies. People are finally catching on that natural is better way to treat ourselves.

Whether you find your beauty products at the Department Stores or in the discount stores, practically everyone carries lines of “natural” beauty products. Unfortunately, they often come with a big price tag attached too. Often times many of these products are not actually “natural” so it does pay to do your homework to ensure you are getting what you pay for.

Another aspect of these “natural” beauty products that most of us don’t even consider is the packaging.  Today most of the packaging used by cosmetic companies is not biodegradable and perhaps even not recyclable.  Do mother nature, yourself and your pocketbook a favor and try making some of the products you use yourself at home with ingredients from your own garden.  Your fruits and veggies don’t have ANY packaging!

Making most of the beauty products you need yourself isn’t too difficult. So if you want beauty products that you know are natural and are also inexpensive, just make them yourself. Here are 5 quick and easy recipes you can make at yourself.

To get you started, I found these simple recipes with just a few ingredients each.
Olive Oil Soap

• 80% olive Oil
• 20% coconut Oil

Or, to make about 4.5 lbs of soap, you would use:

• 40 oz. olive oil
• 10 oz. coconut oil
• 16 oz. water
• 6.9 oz. lye
• Between 1.5 and 2.2 oz of fragrance or essential oil, according to your preference.  You can find basic soap making instructions and other olive oil soap recipes here.

Face Mask

Eating good food helps give you the right nutrients you need to look good.  You can get more of these vitamins and minerals by putting the good stuff right on the skin.

Combining a mashed carrot, mashed avocado, and a beaten egg with a half cup a few tablespoons of honey creates a great face mask that provides vitamins, and improves the tone and texture of your skin. Just stir well, apply, let sit for about 15 minutes, and then wash off with cool water.

After you’re washed and nourished your skin, you can use grated cucumber or diluted lemon juice as a toner to help tighten your skin and close up your pores to close your pores and keep your skin looking great.

Hair Conditioner

Many people pay a lot of money for a conditioner that actually makes your hair look and feel good. Here’s a great natural recipe to save you money and help your hair.

Just mix an egg yolk with a tablespoon of castor oil and apply to hair. Let sit for about ten minutes and rinse out. You can use this every so often as a conditioning treatment for healthy shiny hair. If you like being experimental, you can try mixing other kitchen items, herbs, and natural items with eggs for healthy, shiny hair.

Hand and Foot Cream

A quick face mask will help make you look great in not a lot of time, but hands and feet require extra care.

Use ½ cup of olive oil mixed with natural sea salt and massage into your hands and feet. Leave a few minutes to soak and then rinse off with warm water.

When it comes to natural beauty products, these recipes are just the start.  You can find hundreds of different combinations in natural beauty books, magazines, and on the internet. Or you can go to your kitchen cabinet and make your own special creations.

A new year and a new decade.  Many opportunities await!  I am optimistic that the new decade holds many new opportunities for us all.  May you enjoy happiness, health, and prosperity in the coming year.

I can hardly believe that Thanksgiving is next week!  Where has the year gone?

Carl Wilson, of Colorado State University’s Horticulture Cooperative extension, offers some good advice on end of season vegetable gardening.  Here’s my summary of his article.

In Charleston South Carolina, where a I live, gardening season hasn’t come to an end but it is certainly slowing down.  While gardeners in all other areas, have put away the gardening tools for the year, others are still thinking about putting their vegetable gardens to bed.  Still others, are planning to harvest through the end of November, and some others are planting winter crops right now.  It all depends on which part of the world you live in.

Mr. Wilson, writes “it all depends on what you like to eat”

If you grow tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and other warm season vegetables, the first hard frost means an ending for you.  In fact, tomatoes actually are best harvested and taken indoors to ripen once night- time temperatures drop to 40°Fahrenheit.

For gardeners who like cool season crops, life is just getting interesting.  Kale, planted in mid-summer is just coming into maturity.  Some believe the crops flavor improves after a few frosts.  Plants will continue to grow and produce leaves for harvest until at least this time of year.  The red Russian variety seems especially resistant to freezes.

Collards are another leafy green that seems to laugh at the cold.  They will survive temperatures down to 15° F.  Again, cold tends to improve the flavor.

Cabbage is best stored in the garden until there is room in the refrigerator or until severe winter temperatures threaten.  On heads grown almost to bursting, gardeners in the know twist plants ¼ turn to partially sever their root.  This will prevent further growth and allows for storage in the garden until you are ready to use it.

Root vegetables also will store for months in garden soil.  Once the soil has cooled, many gardeners will apply a dried grass or hey mulch to prevent carrots, beets, turnips and other underground vegetables from freezing solid.  Dig them up as needed for fresh vegetables up to the Christmas/ New Year holidays.

As for warm season vegetables, promptly harvest the debris struck down by frosts.  A thorough clearing of vegetation from the garden will help prevent the carryover of diseases into the next season.  Garden debris nicely complements dry tree leaves in the compost bin and will produce a welcome soil amendment by next spring.

Once garden space is cleared of warm season vegetables, consider one of two options to improve your garden soil for next year.  If your soil is heavy clay, turn  over all of the soil and leave a large clods on the surface.  Winter freezing and thawing will tend to break these down saving you work.

On both sandy and clay soils, Mr. Wilson recommends a second option.  “Seed a crop of winter rye”.  The seed will require several waterings to germinate and get going.  The plants will grow through the winter and attain a height of 12 to 15 inches by spring.  Their deep roots break up clay soil.  Turning under the Rye in early spring will add valuable organic matter to your garden.

Other crops to seed for winter are lettuce and spinach.  By using mulch or in old window supported around its sides by mountain soil, you can grow salad greens for the winter.  Both lettuce and spinach germinate at temperatures as low as 40° F.  Cast lettuce seed on top of the soil and keep moist.  The seed requires light to germinate.

Interested in dill for next year?  Many gardeners swear that seed is best started by broadcasting it over the soil in fall.  Germination often is more successful than spring seeding.

For some vegetable gardeners, the first frost is in ending.  For others it’s just a beginning.

As for me, I’ll be working through the winter getting my garden store ship-shape for the spring.  I’m in the process of adding lots of new categories, new manufacturers, and new products.

In the meantime, inspired by local nurseries, I’ve added a holiday shop to my store.  Check out the Holiday Shop page and the Gifts page for some inspiration on what to give the gardener this holiday season.

From my family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving.

Info from an older edition of Cooking Pleasures Magazine.

Fresh greens from your garden are a welcome addition to summer meals.  Choose seasonings and food pairings that complement rather than mask the flavor of the greens.  Here are some suggestions:

• Bitter Greens:  Chicory, dandelion, radicchio, escarole, and endive.  Season with garlic, olive oil, and bold vinegars.  Pair with citrus fruit, hard boiled eggs, aged hard cheeses, and sweet, salty, or smoky meats, fish, and cheeses.

• Sweet Lettuces and Greens:  Pea shoots, sunflower shoots, red and green butterhead, red and green romaine, red and green looseleaf lettuce, oak leaf, and mache.  Season with fresh herbs, light oils, and sweet and light vinegars.  Pair with mild cheeses, shallots, and fruit.

• Spicy Greens:  Mustard, cress, sorrel, turnip greens.  Season with bold oils, garlic, curry powder, minty herbs and bold spices such as cumin, rosemary, basil, and chile.  Pair with cooked onions and smoky meats, fish, and cheeses.

• Sturdy Greens:  Arugula, spinach, beet greens chard, kale, baby bok choy.  Season with garlic, chile, herbs, and bold oils.  Pair with butter, cream sauces, cheese, citrus fruits, and smoky meats and fish.