How to Build an Island Bed with Retaining Wall Bricks

Every Gardener should know what an island bed is, just in case it comes up in conversation...

Island bed? What is that? No, it isn’t a bed with palm trees. An island bed is a bed not connected to anything, such as your foundation or property line. It exists as an island, alone in a sea of grass. This blog post will be about how to make a raised one with retaining wall bricks. Why build it up as a raised bed? Well, in additional to looking better, giving you the opportunity to improve the soil, and improving drainage. You also have to bust up less sod, which is my least favorite gardening task, and I’m sure your’s as well.
Step 1: Draw your shape...
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Putting the P back in Fertilizer

Ok folks, we no longer have an excuse NOT to pee on our gardens...

So we have come to this, you’ve heard of the “golden rule” but this is perhaps the “golden question” can you use pee to fertilize your garden?

The answer is yes. Not only have you been wasting a perfectly good nitrogen source down your toilet, you’ve also been using water unnecessarily too. My city bills me for water usage, and I figure every time I pee outside I’m saving a nickle while providing free fertilizer to my garden.

For those who do not know, pee is sterile, yes, it is. Unless you have a UTI, it is sterile. Pee is filtered from the blood, not from your colon. Once it gets into the air it can be colonized by bacteria and whatnot, but as it leaves the body, its sterile, you aren’t spreading anything, except good fertilizer. That doesn’t mean, necessarily, that you could drink your pee like an idiot. Urinating is how your body filters your blood, adding the stuff right back in is not healthy. If you’re ever in a survival situation, don’t drink your pee. Just don’t do it. Make a simple solar still, it isn’t hard, you can purify it easily enough, don’t be lazy like Bear Grylls.
Urine is mostly water, with added urea (which is basically nitrogen), some salt, and trace other compounds, nothing dangerous to your garden. It can be acidic though, so you don’t want to actually pee on your plants. Also, just personally, I don’t pee on my vegetable garden. It isn’t dangerous, but that doesn’t mean I want to risk splashing on my food. I’ll grow vegetables in well composted cow manure, which is definitely more gross, and plenty of people will do the deed in the veggie patch, but I won’t. I will pee into my compost and then later use that compost in the vegetable garden, but I let it all compost for awhile of course.
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Pumpkin Butter Recipe is Great for Home Canning

Great Pumpkin Butter Recipe, save this one for the fall and beyond, it's great for home canning!

3 1/2 cups cooked or canned pumpkin
1 1/2 tablespoons pumpkin pie spice
1 package liquid fruit pectin
4  cups sugar
1/4 cup of water (if needed)

I mixed everything but the pectin in a large pot and brought to a boil.
I cooked several minutes and added most of the water.   I then added the pouch of
pectin and stirred.  The was thick but not too thick, it poured.
I ladeled into pint jars and the PRESSURE CANNED the jars at 11 PSI for 15 minutes.
I also took extra time bringing the canner up to heat and vented just a bit longer than I usually do.  I keep reading how unsafe is to BWB. 

I did this weeks ago and just opened a jar and it is great.  The pressure canning did not affect the taste.  It is thick.  It was not thick when I took it out of the canner.  Time thickened it.

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Sausage Patties

Does anyone still have a great recipe for canning Sausage Patties? It's such a lost art! If you do please share, until then this perfectly fine recipe will do...

I am going to have my grandkids off and on all summer. I had seen in the yahoo boards a method to can sausage and decided to try it. I got a roll of Jimmy Dean sausage (on sale) and cut into patties using a canning lid as my guide, lightly fried the patties on med-high until brown on both sides (they shrink a bit), but not cooked through. I then packed into the jars with the small amount of grease left
in the pan and pressure cooked for 75 minutes (pints) at 11 lbs pressure. I opened and they are good. I am now going to do more, lightly stir frying some for sausage crumbles and making more patties. I used a wide mouth jar for this. I will wait for a huge sale before doing in bulk.

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Turkey Cassoulet Soup by the Jar

What could be better than Turkey Cassoulet Soup - unless it's Turkey Cassoulet Soup with bacon and sausage!

Per jar...

1 cup chopped cooked turkey
1/2 cup dry white beans (rinsed)
1/2 cup sliced sausage (any kind)
2 slices bacon (cooked and crumbled)
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 tsp garlic chopped or powdered or to taste
1 tablespoon tomato paste
salt pepper to taste

add chicken broth to the fill line and cook 90 minutes quarts at 11 lbs pressure or for your altitude.

I love this soup, I did not use sausage because I was out of it and did not want to go to the store. My Mom took me to Sweet Tomatoes and I had this soup, came home and tried to recreate it. Next time I will add the sausage and a bit more dry beans. I love the texture of the beans, not soggy and fully cooked. A great way to use leftovers, which is why I did this recipe by the jar.

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Buzzed

How sweet they’ve been, the first days of Spring. Though March played with our sense of seasonal order, growling out like a temperamental lion, we harvested twenty pounds of honey this week; a sap of sweet, slow, amber translucence.

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Beautiful Vegetables and Fruits

Luscious Red Tommy Tomatoes

Vegetables and Fruits can be seen as works of art. Not in an Andy Warhol way but as examples of nature's bounty and craftsmanship. There is nothing like a kitchen full of summer's harvest. The reds of  tomatoes, the yellows of squash, the purple of grapes, the greens of peppers. All the different colors of vegetables and fruits make a wonderful and inspiring palate.

No wonder vegetables and fruits have been the inspiration of so many artists throughout the centuries.

Yellow and Red Peppers

Here are some bright red and yellow peppers.






















Corn comes in abundant colors. It is used as decoration and is often the subject, or medium, of art.

Multi-colored Corn!

Strawberries at the market

Squash in all shapes and colors

Squash has many varieties, it's hard to believe they are all in the same plant family.

Colorful Veggies

Vegetables come in so many different shapes and colors. One can practically see all the vitamins and anti-oxidants jumping out from this picture.

Vegetables at the produce section

Check out all the different hues of green in these peppers:

Assorted Green, but Hot! peppers

Eggplants are a type of squash...  with many purple hues.

Purple eggplants

Next time you're eating vegetables, take a moment to enjoy their beauty... bon appetit!

Vegetable cornucopia