Natural Organic Insecticide That Actually Works

**Scroll down to see the recipe for this all natural organic insecticide**

   

    Last year was our families very first garden. I remember being so excited during the Spring, all of our cold weather crops were ready to harvest and we hardly had a single pest to deal with. The weeds were minimal, and in my inexperience I couldn't help but wonder to myself why everyone made such a big deal about gardening - this was easy!

   Fast forward to late June early July, ummmm hello Japanese Beetles (I tore ligaments in my foot avoiding a swarm of them - seriously), Tomato Horn Worms (I thought it was the cutest thing ever until a friend promptly told me to remove it immediately - by the time I got there, it had devoured three quarters of our banana peppers), Spider Mites (resulting in gross looking sickly tomato plants) and aphids - oh the aphids...

   These garden pests knocked me off my proverbial garden stool pedestal faster than I care to admit. I tried a few different natural things, but ended up  succumbing to the idea that we just wouldn't have huge harvests and I would have to do a lot of the bug removal by hand.

   Over the winter I did a lot of research and came across Neem oil.  Neem oil will repel and manage over 200 different types of garden pests - that's a lot! It is also a fungicide and when applied correctly it will help with root rot, black spot and sooty mold. To read up on this more, click here.

   Once the temperatures started to rise and I knew the bugs were on their way, I whipped up this super simple inexpensive Neem oil solution. I have been applying it about once every 5 days or so, very lightly and while there are still some bugs, for the most part, my plants are growing strong without any issues.

   The best part of all, this is safe for both people and animals. Below you will find the recipe I use. If you click on the highlighted items, it will take you to the actual products I use. I make this in a half gallon mason jar and then use a funnel to transfer it to a spray bottle. This just reduces the amount of times I have to remake the solution.

Natural Organic Insecticide

1 Half Gallon Mason Jar

2 Tsp Cold Pressed Organic Neem Oil

2/3 Tsp Organic Castile Soap

Warm water

Long spoon or something to stir the mixture in the mason jar

1) Fill the half gallon mason jar almost to the top with warm water (the warmth helps integrate the oil and soap).

2) Add the soap to the water first (this matters - otherwise you will end up with a clumpy mess) and mix.

3) Put the long spoon into the water and start stirring, while stirring quickly, add the oil and mix well. After this you can put the lid on the jar and give it a few more vigorous shakes.

4) Using a funnel, add the solution to the spray bottle and then you are good to go.

You will need to shake it up a bit before spaying quite a few times, but it's really easy. As a precaution, it is recommended to test out a section of each plant before applying to everything. In some rare cases, the solution may interact negatively with the plant. I have not had that happen yet, but it's always better to be safe.

** I have recently become an affiliate with Amazon. So if you purchase an item from a link you find here, I will receive a very small percentage of the sale - with no extra charge to you. **

Homesteading update

 It has been soooo long since my last update, so please bear with me - this will be a long post and full of photos.

Over the last year, we have been working diligently to get our little homestead up and running. I hesitate to call it a homestead at this point, because we still have a very long way to go until we are self-sufficient. That is however, the ultimate goal, and we have to start somewhere, right?  I feel like we've made large strides over the last year, so here is a very condensed update.

We started near the end of Winter by placing a tarp over the area of the garden we wanted to expand.  We let it sit until all the grass underneath had died off. With the grass dead, we tilled the area and then picked out the rocks. I'm not talking pebbles either - look at my little self-professed "Rock Queen" below...

In the future, we now know we should be tilling and adding the soil amendments in the Fall so it has time to decompose. We learn something new all the time - that's part of what I love about gardening. I couldn't keep a plant alive to save my life three years ago, so this is HUGE for me.

We added organic mulch and peat moss to the soil and then raked it all in, doing our best not to trample the freshly tilled soil.

(I love my helpers so much)

A few days after mixing the soil, I went out and made rows of hills and transplanted all 80 (yes I'm hoping to spend days canning away this summer) of our tomato and bell pepper plants. They were started from seeds we had left over from last year. We put red onions, spinach, carrots, beets, basil, peas and string beans out at this point as well. I started late this year and could have had the cold weather crops out sooner - hopefully I stay on the ball next year. We again moved the tarp to kill off more grass.

 Shortly after this, our less than a year old dryer broke (of course it did) and we had to wait a month and a half for the parts and service. Buuuut, hello silver lining (there's always a bright side), this was the exact encouragement my husband needed to build a clothesline. I had been begging since we moved in - so I'm super excited about this.

The plan is to paint it white so it matches the other things we've built (just a little bit of Type A going on in this house).

 Speaking of other things we've my husband has built, here's my older daughter's rabbit hutch. I love it, and so does her rabbit. The free DIY plan came from Rouge Engineer - you can view the original here.

Caramel the rabbit resting in the shade. Don't worry, she gets out on adventures around our house and has a never ending supply of fresh veggies and hay.

Our ladies a.k.a. the chickens, have been laying consistently for months now and bring in about 8 multi-colored eggs a day. They're the goofiest little things to watch and thankfully, so far, have stayed out of the garden.

 They did like to lay in between the garlic plants over the Winter and Spring, but thankfully all the garlic survived and we had a pretty good harvest.

Fresh garlic tastes amazing and is so incredibly easy to grow. You need to try it, I promise you won't be disappointed. We have the garlic curing on a wire shelf in our house right now.

Last week we expanded on our fruit orchard. There are a total of 20 plants - 10 raspberry (multiple varieties) and 10 blueberry (multiple varieties).  Behind the berry patch are 4 pear trees and 5 apple trees - again, in multiple varieties in an effort to increase fruit yields. We only have one single pear out there though. I know I didn't prune them correctly over the winter, so I have some studying to do.

The kids and I were giddy when we found ripe blueberries already attached to the young bushes.

We also added three plum trees, these are next to peach trees we put in last year.

Back to the ever expanding garden. My favorite place here.

We will definitely be using a different layout next year. We want long straight rows and plan to use irrigation tape to keep the soil evenly watered. Right now it's a bit of a hodge-podge of vegetables.

 

I'm super sad about our strawberry bed. I let it go and it's so crowded out, we only ended up with a small handful of berries. The plan is to drastically thin it out and hope for a better turn out next year.

We will likely add a few more raised beds next year as well.

As far as future projects this year, a chicken tractor is in the works and likely to be finished in a day or so. We plan on raising meat birds this summer. We will hopefully have some sort of hoop house or row covers too.

We have a lot going on, and interesting things to share. I started working out of the house this Winter and haven't had much time to write. I have the summer's off though and plan to update regularly and share recipes and homemade remedies. Please come back and see what our little family has been up to.

One last photo of an amazing sunset.

There is never a shortage of beauty here in the Ozarks, I love it.

Balsamic Roasted Radishes - Recipe

Oh my yum! Really! I'm not much of a radish fan, but when my daughter asked to plant them this year I couldn't say no. Especially because I know they are super easy to grow and it would be so exciting for her to watch her hard work and effort pay off.

She planted the entire package.

Pretty sure every single radish grew.

You can see the small seedlings coming up here. The second bed wasn't even filled yet and we had sprouts of radishes.

This is our second harvest. The first she ate right at the garden bed after spraying them down with the hose. There's no way I would tell my kid not to eat a vegetable, even if it still had some dirt on it. If you look below the radish bunch to the right, you can see our spinach almost ready to go. It really is so exciting!

 Just for fun, here's my youngest doing her garden work. She's such a trooper. Always wanting to help and do whatever her momma is doing. I love having the help too!

Ok, on to the actual recipe...

Balsamic Roasted Radishes

1 Bunch of Fresh Radishes

1 tsp Coconut Oil

3 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar

Salt & Pepper to taste

1) Set oven to 450. If using a cast iron skillet, grease it with the coconut oil and place in the oven to warm up.

2) Cut off the root tips and discard (or feed it to your chickens like we did). Cut off the tops and set aside for later.

3) Halve or quarter each radish and put in a large bowl. Add balsamic vinegar to the bowl along with a few dashes of salt and pepper.

4) Mix everything together until the radishes have all been coated with balsamic. Place in a cast iron skillet or roasting pan and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

5) After 10 minutes, add the radish tops to the skillet or pan and continue to roast for another 5 minutes, making sure to move them around at least once during that time.

Remove from the oven and enjoy!

The Best Blueberry Lemonade Recipe

At least once a week, I find myself in the kitchen mixing up something new. It usually involves soon to expire something or another. I'll be honest, most of my kitchen experimentation turns out to be a flop. My family is so good about it though and continues to try my "new recipes" in hopes the next one will actually taste good. Really, it makes me love them even more.

So, that being said, my youngest took the first taste test and declared it amazing and then asked to eat the mushed up blueberries. Ha! Fair enough. When my older two came home from school, they were all over it and insisted I needed to patent the recipe. Wow, huh? So even though lemonade is pretty hard to mess up, I'll take this one as a win in my book and go out on a limb and call it the best blueberry lemonade recipe. It's super easy to make, only takes a couple minutes, tastes amazing and in our case is almost completely organic.

Try it out and let me know what you think!

What you need:

Quart size mason jar (or other container of that size)

Small Pot

Fork or Spoon

Mesh Strainer

1/4 Cup Sugar (sub Honey and cut amount in half - or use stevia to taste to make it sugar free)

1/2 Cup Lemon Juice

1/2 Cup Frozen Blueberries

1 Cup Warm Filtered Water

1 3/4 Cold Filtered Water

1. Warm up your 1 cup of water in the pot on the stove. Dissolve sugar completely in the warm water.

2. Once the sugar has dissolved, add the lemon juice, stir, then add the cold water and stir again. Taste test at this point to see if it is tart enough to your liking or the sweetness needs to be adjusted.

3. Add frozen blueberries to your mixture and allow to sit for a few minutes until they thaw completely.

4. Using spoon or fork, mash the blueberries up against the side of the pot. Once the have all been smashed, stir again and let sit for at least 10 minutes in the fridge to let the flavors blend.

5. Place the mesh strainer on top of the quart sized container and pour the liquid from the pot into the container. All of the blueberry pieces should be caught in the strainer. Discard (or eat - they taste good).

That's it! It's sounds more complicated than it really is.

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Take care!

Lisa

DIY Chicken Coop

(Ignore this weird box... not sure what happened, lol)

Ack!!! We finally got our chickens :) We've been waiting for this moment for years, so naturally, it was the first project we took on. It's also the very first woodworking project we ever even tried. Sooo, while I know the construction probably isn't perfect, I could totally care less. It functions just the way it should and it's cute. I love this little coop we made and I'm proud too :) I've included the link to the free plans we used below.

 First, can I just say - look at those cute little baby chicks! We brought home 10 of these little stinkers. They were cute little balls of fluff for about 30 seconds. Seriously, there's a reason everyone who owns chickens tells you to have the coop finished before you buy the chicks. They didn't last long in our bathtub (yes you read that right). We were in a mad dash to finish up building before these little cutie pies outgrew their home. Which they did. Multiple times. Thankfully we were able to improvise enough along the way so they were always comfortable and had enough space until it was warm enough to move them outside.

Below are a few progress pictures of our coop.

All framed and ready for walls...

Walls up and ready for paint and trim.

 We have the cutest little helper, with shoes on the wrong feet and still in pj's at 2pm...

Framing out the run.

 We modified the run by making it a little 5.5 feet tall - high enough for me to walk in without having to hunch over. We wanted the birds to have plenty of room to stretch their wings too. We let them free range while supervised, but otherwise they need to stay in their run because of predators.

We cut out a door with a latch for the chickens to get from their coop to their run. We also made little inserts to put in the windows for potential nasty storms.

The kids love to be with the chickens. They are an endless stream of entertainment for us, those goofy little birds.

Up close with Flight

Here's the link to the plans we followed, with some improvising along the way to suit our needs.

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to sign up with your email you never miss a post.

- Lisa

5 Minute Dairy Free Ice Cream

This quick treat is perfect for when you're craving ice cream or something sweet, but don't want to stray from your clean eating habits. It has endless possibilities too!

The base of this dessert is frozen bananas. That's it! The only prep work involved is freezing the bananas. We always end up with an over-ripe lone banana in my house that no one ever wants to eat. So I just peel those, toss them in a Ziploc bag and store them in the freezer for smoothies, and this "ice cream". 

You can make this recipe with just bananas, or you can get adventurous and create your own flavors. Some favorites in my house include peanut butter and chocolate (I use cocoa powder for this), pumpkin pie (add pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice and honey), blueberry peach, and strawberry.



What you need:
Blender or Food Processor
Frozen bananas (1 banana per serving)
1/4 C water, nut milk or coconut milk (optional)
Whatever add-ins you'd like

1). Place everything but the water into a food processor or blender and pulse until your bananas have a creamy smooth texture. You made need to add some water in order to do this, but add it a little bit at a time so you don't end up with a smoothie.

That's it!

If you find a combination that you fall in love with, please share it with us in the comment section below.

Have a great day!
-Lisa :)

Easy Way To Start Seeds Indoors

 

Last summer a close friend of mine saved a TON of eggshells to start her seedlings in. She had a pretty cool setup going on and her seedlings thrived. She ended up with more tomato plants than she knew what to do with and passed some along to me. We were still in a townhouse at that time, so I could only take a few and placed them in pots. Wow, did those grow an amazing amount of tomatoes! Seriously - I vowed once I had a yard, I would do the same. 

 

So here we are...

 

 

First, I think it's important that I state right now - I have never grown a full sized garden on my own. Nope, never.

 

This year will be my first. When we were in the townhouse, Chris built a raised bed that was 1' x 10' behind the retaining wall near the back of our "yard" that I used to grow herbs, lettuce and radishes in. This worked a little bit, but it was kind of ridiculous. I had to climb up a small ladder to reach even the dirt (I might have fallen off said ladder a time or two...don't worry, it was a short one) so weeding was a major pain and the wooded lot behind us would get so overgrown, that unless we went back there with a chainsaw (remember - this wasn't technically ours - but we did do this once - shhhh!) the plants would not get enough sunlight. I still tried though - when there's a will, there's a way, right??

 

I'm always up for trying. I figure I don't have much to lose. We want to grow a massive amount of fruits and vegetables, enough so we can pass along or donate what our family doesn't need. I also want to do that as inexpensively as possible. This pretty much requires I start everything from seeds.

 

After researching this method, I've decided it's most definitely worth a try.

Even better - you can plant the whole thing - eggshell and all, right into the ground! 

 



The first thing we did was save every eggshell we could, rinsed them out and left them to dry on the counter.

 

I poked drainage holes in the bottom of each eggshell to prevent over watering. Looking back, it might have been better to use a darning needle, or at least something thinner than my digital thermometer. I broke a couple doing this.

 

Using organic seed starter soil, I filled each egg with a large spoon.

 



 

Different seeds need to be planted at varying depths, so for the more shallow seeds (usually the small seeds), I used my smaller shells and for the deeper ones, the larger shells. I also made sure to label and date each section. Plus I can really only focus on cold weather crops at this point. I plan on doing succession planting, so I need to know the dates.. That's not something my brain can handle on it's own. I can hardly remember what I did an hour ago.

Based off of the planting depth, I used an unsharpened pencil to make mini holes to place the seeds.

 

 

 



 

 

We set up an extra pantry rack we had in the garage next to our kitchen window. This way they will get plenty of sunlight. It also keeps them off of the kitchen table. I haven't even hit the tip of the iceberg yet as far as planting is concerned. We need to eat more eggs and get more shells going. I also picked up this cool little gadget that will make square blocks to start seeds in without needing a pot of any kind. I want to use that for the larger plants, but those won't go in until next month.

 

I'm not sure which container will work better - the plastic because the soil can later absorb excess water from the bottom, or the cardboard because it will absorb the excess water. I have been misting them with a spray bottle, so they are not getting saturated. I'll have to post an update once things start growing.

 

 So far it seems to be working. I did come home to an egg casualty tonight and a pile of dirt on my kitchen floor. Courtesy of Jackson the cat. Darn cat.

We Did It!!

 

We finally did it!

We picked up and moved our family to a new state out in the country.

 

 

I stopped blogging a while back for various reasons.

 

However, we are here now. My kids are older and I think I have a better handle on my time now that I'm older too - stinks how those two things go hand in hand.

 

The calling to write has been with me since childhood - it's about time I started listening.

Hello, hello, hello! If you have been a reader since the beginning, you will know just how amazing and incredible this is for our family. We are here, in the country and ready to live our dreams. I am going to go ahead and skip over the last two years of absence - so much changed, and I can't even begin to try and summarize it for you right now. Maybe another day....

I do think I can manage to catch you up with our current situation...

We moved into our new house the day after Thanksgiving in 2015. We are just now, over two months later, starting to get settled in. We were not exactly the most organized and ended up making multiple trips back and forth across states to get fully moved in. Whoops!

The first picture in this post (see above) is in our back yard. Swoon!! I'm in love with it here. Below are a few more...

 

My oldest daughter has been so captivated by the sunrises and sunsets here. She ran out that morning yelling "Momma! catch me with the sun!" - seriously - heart melting

 

The big family Christmas gift was a trampoline that has been seeing plenty of use. Both the littles and the adults find themselves out there almost daily...

 

Our front porch view...

 

We welcomed a new family member. I would like to introduce you to Spikette, my oldest child's dream since the age of three. She's molting here - it makes my skin crawl - but he loves her and I love him...

 

And me and the Goobs hanging out on the front porch together listening to the birds. It's our routine we share before the rest of the house wakes up. I was super excited we got to bring it outside in January.

 

We have so much planned - it's hard to not try and do it all. I've read so many times though that it's better to focus on two big things each year, and then move on from there. For us, that's a huge garden (we are starting our indoor seeds tomorrow - eeek!) and chickens. I have pages of DIY projects lined up for us in between that I will be sharing. As well as lots of crafts.

 

Talk to me here...

Leave me some comments or send an email - what do you want to see in the blog this year?

I'm super excited to be back!!

 

More posts to come soon!

Take care!!