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Calendula has to be one of my favorite flowers to grow on our homestead in North Central Florida.

Here are just a few reasons why:

1. Easy to start from seed and transplant.
2. Beautiful flowers that attract bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
3. Has beneficial medicinal benefits, it’s edible and and can be used as a natural dye!

If you’re new to gardening I think calendula is a great place to start growing something!

Note: I’m talking about Calendula officinalis in this post. While some people call it pot marigold, common marigold or Scotch marigold it is not actually ...

 You have probably noticed I am posting fewer blog posts.  It's gardening season!  :)  When it's gardening season, the only quilting I am doing is usually for customers.  (I do have a sewing project to do that I will post pics of, but it's not your usual project....)

Keeping up with all the social media platforms is time-consuming.  So, I have decided the blog will be for quilting posts mostly.  Gardening posts will be posted on our YouTube channel.  Being able to watch a video is so much more informative for the gardening than just the pics.  You ...

Hubs asked me what I wanted for our anniversary.  I'm not a 'present' kind of gal.  I know we are in the middle of the remodel and I hate to ask him to do anything, but.....

I enjoy our back patio.  There is a huge tree for shade.  I have my porch swing out there.  We have all kinds of furniture out there, and I love having my morning coffee, listening to the birds and having my devotions....all out there.  There is an area I just stare at.  I can't stop thinking about what a mess it ...

When I was younger, I remember strolling through craft fairs and admiring the painted gourds.  I loved how something so simple could be made so beautiful.  The talent that some of those artists could exhibit on something so simple as a birdhouse gourd was awe-inspiring.  Having young kids, it was never really 'in the budget' to be able to buy one.  I've always wanted one, though.  I've seen everything from all natural to painted to artists who have burned patterns into the outside of them.  (Google some pics - you will definitely end up in a rabbit hole!)

While ...

We got hit with a surprise snow.  Mother Nature was up to her usual tricks of trying to put a bump in my road.  Usually if your trees or veggies have put out buds, you will lose them.  It has caused many a farmer concern about how much fruit they will lose.  Not the case in my strawberry bed.  Look at all the blooms!

 I posted this pic on Instagram from Saturday with the caption "I think his tractor's sexy".

I got my love of gardening from my Granny.  I've talked about that a lot.  While I wish I could reach out and ask her how she dealt with pests, fertilization, etc., in her garden, I can't.  She is no longer with us.  So...in my down time I study.  Whether it is winter - a stormy summer day - while I was patiently waiting to move to my little farm - whatever that down time was, I studied and took notes.  (Did you know that writing things down actually increases your memory of those facts?)

I've studied permaculture a ...

 Help me understand why we have all these animals and I am still buying compost - that is the conversation I had with the Hubs.  He moved the compost 'bins' further away from the chicken barn and closer to the garden.  It does create a little more work when I clean out the barn, but I'm thinking I will eventually adjust.  (It's outside the garden fence, so he's not bound to the 'my garden, my rules' commandment.  LOL)  He did make it stronger by using the pallets and recently added the third bin for obvious reasons.  We had ...

I love Saturdays!  Saturdays are work until you drop days for us.  We try to get a weekend worth of work done in one day since we don't work on Sundays.  Morning chatter/planning this weekend started with Hubs telling me that we need to plant a lot more corn this year.  Prodigal Son and Army Son have also said they want us to plant more corn.  As Hubs was telling me what his plans were for the day and I was telling him what my plans were for the day, he brought up the whole 'where can we ...

Spring around a homestead is an exciting time.  As you watch the bulbs start to bloom and the seeds you started peek through the soil, hope and excitement fill your soul.  While trees start to bud out and grass starts to green, birds start building nests and breeding season brings even more life.  

Our first attempt at breeding the rabbits didn't "take".  Olaf had never been in that position before and really didn't know what he was doing.  Sadly we have no baby bunnies, but everything happens for a reason.  As we scrambled to make sure we had ...

 A few years ago I started looking into vermicomposting - growing compost/fertilizer with worms.  I joined a social media group and watched the posts.  We got so busy here that I 'unjoined' and decided that would be a project for later.  Recently Hubs started talking about it, unbeknownst to him that I had already looked into it and put the idea aside for later.  He had read that using rabbit manure was a good way to do it.  Hmmmm

Someone I follow on YT started raising worms and I watched the video.  Hmmmm  One of our grandsons got a worm ...

Remember the chicks Julia raised last fall in the laundry room? Well two of the four turned out to be roosters, Pete and Jack. This was somewhat disappointing as that obviously reduced the number of eggs we thought we would be getting. However they were very handsome birds and we got over our disappointment. Then we went up to Washington to celebrate the girl’s birthdays and those naughty roosters had a party of sorts.

When we left, the roosters were about five months old. We thought this was still young that they wouldn’t be fertilizing eggs yet. Oh ...

I'm in growing zone 6A.  Last year I felt like I was behind everyone else in my seed starting.  Scrolling through the local gardening groups posts and pics of their seedlings all ready to go made me feel somewhat lax in what I was getting done.  I lurked and watched as they all got their seedlings in the ground while mine sat in the high tunnel.  Then 2020 showed just how contrary she could be and sent us that late frost and the rains.  I lost my first round of pumpkins from flooding in an area that doesn't ...

Every year I pick my 'word for the year'.  A lot of people participate in this.  As a wise pastor has said, "you will move in the direction of your focus".  Think about it - if you are driving down the road and start to look at something in your peripheral, all of a sudden you are driving toward it.

My word for 2020 was Embrace.  I wanted to focus on embracing the circumstances and people surrounding me rather than hoping for something else.  Given the current atmosphere, you can only guess how hard that could have been.  Surprisingly, it wasn ...

In early March every year, I head out to the high tunnel to start my seeds.  On more than one occasion, there has been snow or sleet falling from the sky dancing off the plastic as if Mother Nature is saying "let me in".  The bulbs are usually blooming and the whole row dances in the breeze while I am making dirt and planting seeds.  I enjoy the quiet solitude of it all.  If you are a gardener, you 'get it'....there's just something about the renewal of Spring.

The purpose of a high tunnel is to extend the ...

 I do have to admit, as a kid I loved the story Cinderella.  I wonder if that is where my affinity for pumpkins came from.  I doubt it, but I do love me some pumpkins.  I love pumpkin anything - except don't even think about messing up a perfectly good cup of coffee with some flavored creamer.  That's just me.  (Understand that I don't even like for my food to touch on my plate, nor do I like things swirled in with my plain old ice cream, nor do I have any appreciation for my cake to touch ...

Remember Larry Luffa?  He outdid himself this year.  We ended up getting a lot of luffas this year.  A lot of people don't realize that luffas are actually a variation of squash plant you can grow yourself.  Luffas make a great exfoliator for your skin, but did you know they are awesome to use on your pots and pans?  I can't even tell you the last time I have had to buy a scrubby for my pots and pans.  I made a batch of soap once that I really wasn't happy with (had a luffa in it ...

We all thought Chicago was the windy city - that was until Sunday.  High wind GUSTS they said.  Maybe some rain they said....so we did a walkaround our little farm.  We secured the high tunnel doors, made sure there was nothing that would blow away and did all the things you do to make sure you are ready.  Hubs even hooked my swing to the tree with straps.  Yup we were ready!  Or so we thought.

I was going to do some longarming, but it was rainy and windy and I didn't want to go out to the shop ...

I love Saturdays - Hubs and I usually find a project together.  He has worked so very hard this week.  I honestly figured he would be too tired to work on anything.  He (and one of our daughters) moved ALL of the asparagus from the 3 raised beds in the chicken run to the garden.  He de-constructed those raised beds AND the compost bins out there.  He made new compost bins closer to the garden, but still close enough to the chicken barn to make that task easier.  He mowed and weed whipped everything for one last time AND he moved ...

Like a lot of homesteaders, Saturday is a 'get a bunch of work done' day for us.  The weather here was more like a late summer day with warm temps during the day and colder temps at night.  I got up early for a little garden clean-up.  Hubs started putting the finishing touches on the high tunnel.