Knitting Like Crazy

 After two severe hurricanes, with massive flooding in my county, a damaged car that took forever to get repaired because over 100,000 vehicles were damaged in my county, and two illnesses, plus a torn rotator cuff; I am finally in a place to return to blogging and vlogging.

To stay sane during all of this I have been knitting like crazy or maybe knitting to not be crazy.  I find knitting, crocheting and quilting very relaxing and meditative.  But like most hobbies, it’s not cheap, especially if you prefer yarn made of natural fibers.

Through trial and error I have found two knitting websites that carry quality yarn, made in Europe and with reasonable prices.  I still spend some time and money at my local yarn shop, but when you do a lot of needlework it’s nice to find a place that isn’t overpriced.  Plus both of them have a decent selection of free patterns.

One of the shops is Hobbi which is very user friendly for English speakers and when you pull up one of their patterns they include a list of suggested yarns, amounts and notions for that pattern.  They do have a longer processing and mailing time.

The next shop is Linde Hobby .  They have a quicker delivery time, but you need to be sure to pick the English version of the pattern when you download it.

Sorry for my long absence, but at least I have a nice selection of knitwear to show for it.

God bless,

Pam

Harvesting Onions

 I had a bumper crop of onions this year.  I used them to fill in any spaces between plants and a couple of regular rows.  I ordered the slips from Hoss Tools and they grew beautifully.  I’m impressed by the quality of the seeds and plants I’ve purchased from them.  They are all developed to do well in hot, humid conditions, so perfect for Florida.

You can tell onions are ready for harvest when the green tops fall over.  After harvest I cured them by using some old clothes pins to hang them on my wire fencing.  This works better for me as I don’t need to worry about moisture in the ground causing the onions to rot.

I finished them by weaving a couple of onion braids and decided to dry the rest in my dehydrator.  I sliced them into 1/4 inch pieces and it took about two days for the onions to be completely dried.  Now they are stored away in 1/2 gallon jars.

This may sound strange, but dried onions make a tasty snack.  Onions naturally have a lot of sugar, which concentrates when they are dried.

I hope you enjoy my short video.

God bless,

Pam

The Frugal Garden: Nematodes #2

 Due to my ongoing fascination with fungi, I was thrilled to learn that seeding a garden with Wine Cap or Oyster mushrooms can make your garden plants resistant to root knot nematodes.  Here is a YouTube link to a video from Northspore about growing mushrooms in your garden.

I was advised to keep the Wine Cap mushrooms and Oyster mushrooms separate from each other.  I have two vegetable gardens, so I dedicated each to a separate type of mushroom.

The larger garden (above) is dedicated to the Wine Cap mushrooms.

And the small garden (above) is dedicated to the Oyster mushrooms.

It very easy to do.  First I raked back the mulch, broke up the bags of spawn, scattered the spawn throughout the garden, then recovered the garden with the mulch.

The large garden is usually mulched with pine straw, which works well in Florida, because our soil can be very alkaline.  If your soil isn’t alkaline just use regular straw.  The small garden is mulched with a layer of wood chips, then a layer of pine straw.  It also has decomposing oak roots from some oaks my neighbor had removed.

A couple of weeks after spreading the mushroom spawn I pulled back the mulch in the small garden and was quite happy to see that the Oyster spawn was already spreading.

You can purchase these mushroom spawns from Northspore.  Use the coupon code:  FRUGALMENNONITE  to get a discount.

I’ll keep you updated on the mushroom bed progress.

God bless,

Pam