August Garden Update

Our garden is really coming along.  We've picked two massive cucumbers, some blueberries, mint, and chamomile.  Our chives are also constantly being used! Everything is growing so well.

We've also added lingonberries and "Pink Lemonade" blueberries to the mix!

Project: Plant Bench

Our plants were starting to take over all our chairs on our back porch.  So Zeke built a wonderful bench for them! I'm hoping eventually he'll make another one for sitting!

Kitchen Cafe Curtains

Since we're not planning to move anytime soon, we've started to make little improvements to the house here and there.  Replacing the old (and broken) mini-blinds with cafe curtains was our first step.

We bought a nice warm wood colored curtain rod and some cotton fabric from our favorite fabric store. Admittedly, this project took us two attempts.  The cutting board we have wasn't big enough to easily measure the fabric and we had to do all the cutting on the floor (not the easiest place to measure things well).

We followed some basic instructions on making the 3 different kinds of edges you need for a curtain of this type and learned that ironing folds before sewing them makes such a difference!

Next up, curtains for our big living room window.

From Our Garden

Our Wedding Is In A Magazine!

Screen Capture from Eco-Beautiful Weddings

Our wonderful and awesome photographer Claire submitted our wedding to Eco-Beautiful Weddings, an online & print magazine specializing in green and DIY type weddings!

Check out the Summer 2011 Edition here, we're on page 86-88!

And yes, we know there is a little typo in there...

Our Garden At 1+ Month

Even with not the warmest temperatures ever our garden is trucking along!  We've also added some new plants;

• Artichoke
• English Lavender
• Carving Pumpkin
• Pansies
• BBQ Rosemary
• Sun Sugar Tomatoes
• Jalapeno

Our romaine was being nibbled away by some kind of creature, so we put up a cage around that planter. The arugula, dill, tomato, and tea plants are growing like weeds. And we're getting swiss chard sprouts from the seeds we planted!

Slow Cooker Sundays: Apple Butter

14 small to medium apples (we used a random assortment of pink lady, fuji, gala, and granny smiths)

2 tbsp vanilla extract

3/4 cup dark brown sugar (use more if you like it sweeter, most recipes seem to call for at least 2 cups)
2 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp ground cloves

Peel and core the apples.  We used this handy tool because it also slices the apples up into smaller chunks.
Place the apple slices/chunks into the slow cooker and add the 2 tbsp of vanilla.
Cover and cook on low for 8 hours.
Mash the apples with a potato masher and stir in sugar, cinnamon, and ground cloves.
Cover and cook on low for 6 hours.
Let the mixture cool and then use an immersion blender to smooth out the remaining apple chunks.