Garden Quilts

Now that the weather is turning cooler and things are slowing down in the garden, my mind wanders to other pursuits. I want to start a garden quilt. I have lots of fabric just waiting to be turned into something beautiful. How about you? Do you like to quilt? Have you ever made a quilt? You don't have to start out big. You can start with a mini quilt or a wall hanging.

I've included some quilting ideas for motivation. 

 You can piece together things you'd find in a garden. Be creative and make your own design or find a pattern that you like and add your special touch.

One year I took a class on how to make a crayola quilt. Coloring is relaxing and coloring on a quilt is fun! You could find some coloring pages of veggies, fruit and/or flowers and make your own unique crayola quilt .

 This is a flower garden pattern with a Log Cabin flair. I love the look of the Log Cabin quilt with the red square in the middle. That is the heart of the home. You can pick some really pretty floral fabric or veggie fabric and make "garden" rows.

Check out this link to learn more about making a log cabin flower quilt .Here's a little more history on the log cabin pattern.

 This is another example of a flower garden quilt. Lots of little patches that can either be floral or vegetable prints. Quilting is like cooking for me. I can take a basic pattern or recipe and add my favorite things to make it personal for me. I love reds, greens and golds, so I like to use those in my quilts. What are your favorite colors?

Here's a cute fall mini quilt . Imagine this being your garden layout with all of the brilliant oranges,  golds,greens and browns of fall.

 Follow this pinterest link to see simple projects like Christmas mug rugs for that warm cup of hot cocoa.

 Here's a mini quilt version with appliques. I love to add appliques to my quilts. I prefer hand work to machine sewing. There's something so personal about sewing by hand. I like to machine sew the basic design and then embellish with my own touch.

Mini quilts are fun to make, especially if you are a first time quilter.  

This is Grandmother's Flower Garden. It's a hexagon pattern and possibly at bit more difficult than just sewing patches together, but still fun and rewarding.

Click on the link to read more about the history of Grandmother's Flower Garden and other quilt patterns.

Here's a picture of a wall hanging a made a few years ago. I found the basic pattern in a magazine and then added one panel of some favorite words to a hymn that I like. I chose my favorite colors and got to work. The tree was original, too. Hearts and kind words just seem to go together.

Take the time this season to make a garden quilt. It is something that will last long after the garden has gone to seed.

Sprouts

Have you ever grown your own sprouts? They are packed with nutrition and are very good for you. You can have a constant supply of fresh sprouts right in your kitchen no matter what time of year or weather conditions.

I want to share with you my favorite way to grow sprouts. This is a video from Handy Pantry that shows different methods. I used to grow sprouts in jars, but prefer using trays now. This video is about 14 minutes long. If you want to watch it all, it's very informative, but if you want to skip to the part about the Sprout Garden Trays, it starts at about 9:20 into the video.

how to grow sprouts

The sprout trays are really nice. You get three stackable trays in a package. You can grow three different kinds of sprouts at once, or start seeds daily so that you'll have a constant supply of sprouts available.  You can also buy more trays and have a sprout tower.  I like to grow alfalfa sprouts, but there are so many other seeds to choose from. Right now, I've got a 5 bean salad growing. This is a combination of alfalfa, broccoli, radish, mung bean and green lentils. Crunchy, delicious and nutrient packed. Add to a salad, sandwich or smoothie or eat it all by itself with a spritz of lemon juice if desired.

There are several companies that sell sprout seeds. Sprout House or Sprout People are two places that I'm familiar with. Handy Pantry is a company that I've used for years. They have a variety of organic seeds. I buy my seeds in bulk in cans to store them for the long term. You can also find seeds and growing supplies at your local health food store.

Consider adding sprouting to your indoor garden. You will reap the healthy rewards.

Brown Rice Vinegar-Can BRV Help Your Plants to Thrive?

I was at the acupuncturist the other day while Larry was under the needles for his Bell's Palsy. I was talking with Master Kim's wife about her beautiful plants all around the reception area. She said that she adds one cup of brown rice vinegar to ten cups of water and uses that to water her plants. She said that her family in Korea uses brown rice vinegar also when gardening.

So, I did some research. I know that ACV has health benefits, but did not know anything about BRV. I found one article on Brown Rice Vinegar, but hoped to find some scientific research on how beneficial BRV is to vegetables growth. I did not find much.  I suppose that I will have to do my own research.

The article suggests using Kyushu vinegar. It is pretty expensive. It would be good to use in cooking or as a health tonic like ACV, but I'm not sure about your plants. Master Kim's wife showed me the bottle that she uses. You can get it in a Korean market. It's in a gallon jug and is not very expensive.

You could also make your own Brown Rice Vinegar. That might be a fun experiment. One great thing about Garden Anywhere Box is that it is open to experimentation. We know how to make the boxes and the watering system. We put fertilizer and dolomite into the potting mix each season, put the plastic cover on and plant the plants. After that, there is room for experimentation, just as you might experiment in a traditional garden.

Depending on how much BRV you add, the pH may be on the acidic side. That could be a good thing. Here is an article about which plants actually prefer a bit of an acidic environment. 

What would happen if you added a cup of BRV to the water reservoir? Or two cups? You don't want to overdo and kill your plants, so maybe try experimenting on some "test subjects" first. I'd love to hear from you about what works and what does not work when trying new amendments to the Garden Anywhere Box. Let's learn from each other.

Becoming Independent and a Mindset Change

For most of our 30 years of marriage, my husband and I have tried to have a garden. Each summer we'd plan and till, weed and rake, weed and rake some more, plant our seeds, water the garden and wait. Sometimes we were successful and things would grow. Sometimes we were not so successful. It would rain...a lot...and wash away our garden. Or it would be so hot that everything would burn up no matter how much we watered and we'd give up until the next year. Sound familiar?

If you've been following my blog, you know the story of how Garden Anywhere Box was born. If not, here's my very first blog post explaining how it all began. A Lazy Gardener

One reason that we wanted to have a garden was to grow at least some of our own food. I think that is why we kept trying all of those years instead of just giving up. Growing your own food is an important skill to have. Right now, we are blessed to be able to go to the store and buy what we need to sustain life. We are very blessed!

But... what if that were to change? Is it changing already? Maybe not for you, but it has changed for some people. Fresh vegetables are expensive. Add to that the cost of organic and you are talking major dollars each time you go to the store. What about genetically modified foods? ( GMO's)  If you have not read about GMO's or "Frankenfood" as some people call it, then you should educate yourself. What are you really getting at the store?

Because of the growing unrest and uncertainty in the world, it seems more important than ever to have a garden. The time is now to begin to grow at least some of what you eat and to teach your children how to garden. Growing a garden in a Garden Anywhere Box makes gardening so easy. Believe me. We've tried just about everything. Traditional garden, raised beds, square foot, containers...They all came with their own particular headaches. I'd just about given up on having a garden that produced anything but weeds until I discovered Earth box. It is a container garden with a twist. A cover over the top to keep weeds out and moisture in and a water reservoir in the bottom. You don't over water or underwater. We had good luck the first year growing tomatoes in our Earthbox.

That would have been just fine, except my husband decided to try to make his own boxes and eventually a watering system that watered all of the boxes at once. The watering system is what makes Garden Anywhere Box different than Earthbox and different than any other gardening method out there. We have had great success using this method of gardening. By using our boxes, I believe that gardening can be successful for you, too.

It is important to have the freedom that gardening provides. I have always been into preparedness. I plan for "what if" and "someday". I don't live in fear and I don't hoard food, but I believe that if we are prepared for what may come, we have no need to fear. That is a good feeling.

Garden Anywhere Box can give you peace of mind and help you be prepared for "what if". You can change your mindset from, "I can't garden" or "I have a brown thumb" or " I kill everything" to  "I can grow my own food" and "I can grow something year 'round". It is definitely a change in your mindset of how you see gardening, especially, if you've tried over the years and have not had success. With Garden Anywhere box, I believe you will experience the success that we've had. We are a family-owned company. We are here for the long haul. We want you to succeed and will help you to be successful.

Made in America

We have been talking for a while now at Garden Anywhere Box about the possibility (and necessity) of having our boxes manufactured. We have checked with different companies, but with no success. The prices are $$$ just to manufacture the mold, let alone manufacture the the volume of boxes that we would need to be able to be in stores like Lowe's or Home Depot. The saying that it takes money to make money is so true...

So, what to do? In the meantime, we do the best we can. Our family makes Garden Anywhere Box by hand. We cut out the parts and put them together. We put together the packets of fertilizer, dolomite and connector tubes that go with each box sold. We can truly say that we are not only "Made in America" but we are "Made in Oklahoma". We'd like to keep it that way.

We've looked into going overseas to manufacture our boxes. It would be less expensive because they don't have the regulations that the USA does. They also don't have child labor laws in place apparently. We don't like the feel of going overseas anyway. It might lower the cost of our boxes, but we would lose the right to call ourselves, "Made in America". Imho, it would not be worth it. Some day we'll be able to get our boxes manufactured here. Until then, you are witnessing a business beginning (literally) from the ground up. With faith and hard work, we will make our business grow.

Lessons Learned in the Garden-2013

As I reflect back on the summer of 2013, I'd like to share
what I've learned.

One thing I learned this summer is that I really do love to garden. I have not always felt this way. I have tolerated gardening, but I have not loved it. This year I had so much fun taking pictures of what I was growing. I looked forward to going out each morning to see what was ready to pick, finding just the right spot to photograph my basket and then sharing it on my FB page. I hoped that by sharing pics of what I was growing, it would motivate others to know that they could grow a garden, too. If I can do it, anyone can do it.

Another thing that I learned is that there will still always be bugs in the garden. I think that I get a little wiser each year and learn some tricks to help keep the bugs at bay. Companion planting is one of those things. There are lots of books out there about companion planting, but the one that I like is "Carrots Love Tomatoes" by Louise Riotte. She grew up in Oklahoma and wrote many books about gardening. Her books are well worth adding to your library.

I learned that planting dill with squash seems to help keep the squash bugs at bay. There are other herbs and flowers that are beneficial to plant among tomatoes and other veggies. The beauty of a Garden Anywhere box is that you can plant two tomato plants on the back side of the fertilizer strip and add some basil to the front of the box. Basil wards off bugs and improves growth and flavor. Learn what you can about companion planting and be ready when it's time to plant next year.

I learned that juicing cucumbers and freezing the juice to use in smoothies is a good thing. I had a bumper crop of cucumbers this summer. I'm not a big fan of canning or pickles, so I didn't want to use the cucumbers that way. My family does like smoothies, though, and frozen cucumber cubes are perfect added to a smoothie.

I did enjoy making "Cowgirl Candy" out of some of the cucumbers. The recipe is really called "Cowboy Candy". It uses lots of jalapenos. I tried it and it was way too hot for me. It could get milder the longer it sits, but I didn't want to take any chances. The syrup is really good. I didn't want to let that go to waste, so I fished out the jalapenos and added some cucumber slices. I called it Cowgirl Candy. It has a little kick, but not as much as straight on jalapenos. I added a bit of sliced red onion and ONE sliver of a habanero pepper to each jar. Yum!

I asked Larry what he learned this summer. He said that he learned (again)  was reminded not to over-plant the boxes. Even when those two tomato plants look TINY in the box, they will GROW. You can still add a few herbs to the box. Like I mentioned above, a couple of basil plants in the front of the box would be good. I planted oregano and cilantro in a couple of boxes along with tomatoes. They worked perfectly.

Another thing that Larry learned is to plant vining crops like gourds or squash where they can cascade down to the dirt. We did this with some of our vining plants (on accident). Some cucumbers and squash sprawled out on the deck, but we have boxes on a lower deck, too. We also planted sqaush and gourds down there. They sprawled out and began rooting in the grass. The roots and beginning of the plants were still in boxes, so no weeding. We still watered from the box, so there was water conservation. But by rooting again in the ground, the plants are taking off again. I love the boxes and don't ever want to garden the traditional way again, but if a plant wants to grow in the ground and I don't have to weed or water (much) I'm all for it.

Here's a picture of a gourd that I just harvested along with some of the last of the summers tomatoes, assorted peppers and chard. I still have a few more gourds to harvest. We'll see how they do with the colder weather.

 

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Chicken Tortilla Soup

 

I wanted to share my favorite recipe for Chicken Tortilla Soup. The recipe is from "The Pioneer Woman". http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/01/chicken-tortilla-soup/  The only change that I made was to not add the cornmeal. I also buy tortilla strips instead of making my own. I use peppers, onions and tomatoes from the garden to give it that extra hominess and love. I also make my own chicken stock to add to soups and other recipe creations. You can add extra spice by adding jalapenos or habaneros...if you dare!
Ingredients

2 whole Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts*

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

1-1/2 teaspoon Cumin

1 teaspoon Chili Powder

1/2 teaspoon Garlic Powder

1/2 teaspoon Salt

1 Tablespoon Olive Oil

1 cup Diced Onion

1/4 cup Diced Green Bell Pepper

1/4 cup Red Bell Pepper

3 cloves Garlic, Minced

1 can (10 Oz. Can) Rotel Tomatoes And Green Chilies

 

32 ounces, fluid Low Sodium Chicken Stock

3 Tablespoons Tomato Paste

4 cups Hot Water

2 cans (15 Oz. Can) Black Beans, Drained and rinsed

_____

FOR THE GARNISHES:

Sour Cream, Diced Avocado, Diced Red Onion, Salsa Or Pico De Gallo

Grated Cheese, Cilantro, Tortilla strips

 

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix cumin, chili pepper, garlic powder, and salt. Drizzle 1 tablespoon olive oil on chicken breasts, then sprinkle a small amount of spice mix on both sides. Set aside the rest of the spice mix.

Place chicken breasts on a baking sheet. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until chicken is done. Use two forks to shred chicken. Set aside.

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a pot over medium high heat. Add onions, red pepper, green pepper, and minced garlic. Stir and begin cooking, then add the rest of the spice mix. Stir to combine, then add shredded chicken and stir.

Pour in Rotel, chicken stock, tomato paste, water, and black beans. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Simmer for 45 minutes, uncovered.

Check seasonings, adding more if needed---add more chili powder if it needs more spice. Add salt to taste. Turn off heat and allow to sit for 15 to 20 minutes before serving.

Ladle into bowls, then top with your choice of sour cream, diced red onion, diced avocado, pico de gallo, grated cheese and tortilla strips. (The garnishes really make the soup delicious.

* I usually cook more chicken than I need so that I'll have some left for other recipes like Chicken Potato Burritos or White Chicken Chili. aPosted by Ree on January 8 2011

One More Harvest from our Summer Garden

 Happy Fall! This is my favorite time of year and October is my favorite month. Add to that the cool weather that came to visit last night and I'm in heaven. I've got the windows up and my cookbooks open.

I added some pictures that I've taken recently. The first is the Garden Anywhere Box Facebook page Cover Photo. I like to change things up every once in a while. The first picture is of a pumpkin that we grew. The middle picture is of our cat, Radio. If you've been with us through the summer, you will recognize my helper. He likes to accompany me when I got out to check the garden. He takes his job as
bodyguard very seriously. The third picture is of some
persimmons off of one of our trees. They are such a pretty
color and represent fall very well, imho.

The middle picture to the right is one of my last garden harvests from our summer garden. This brings to a close
four months of almost daily pictures of what we've harvested from our garden. That does not include what I harvested in the spring before I was obsessively documenting our harvests in pictures... :D.  There are still a few tomatoes on the vines. We have had a steady harvest of bell peppers, jalapeno, banana and habanero peppers this summer. I've loved adding these to my recipes. I even dehydrated some peppers because we had so many. I made Cowboy Candy with some of the peppers. It was a bit too hot for me, so the next batch I added cucumbers to the syrup and just a few jalapenos. It was really good.

I also harvested some chard that has perked up again 
in the garden as the weather has cooled. My chard, kale, beans  are doing better in the cooler weather. I bought some onions, herbs and broccoli plants at Lowe's to add to my fall garden. I am coming to believe that the broccoli was mislabeled because these plants are starting to look an awful lot like cabbage. Hmmm...

The gourd in the picture is one of several still growing. I harvested this one because a few weeks ago, some bugs attacked it and left little pock marks in the skin. I got rid of the bugs, cleaned the gourd and tried to let it get a little bigger, but decided because of the marks to go ahead and harvest it. There are still 5-6 good sized gourds growing.

The last picture is a collage of the pictures I've taken recently of our garden harvests. I love Halloween and since my decorations were up (barely) before October, I thought they would make a nice backdrop.

I take these pictures not only to have a record of what I'm growing, but also to share with you. I want to show that if I can have a successful garden even into October, you can, too.  I'm already excited to start our garden next year. Believe me, I've never felt that way before, but Garden Anywhere Box makes gardening easy. 

Strawberry Corn

I wanted to try to grow something different this past summer, so I decided to grow Strawberry Corn. I saw it in the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Catalog. http://www.rareseeds.com/

Their catalog is almost as fun as reading a good cookbook.

We planted 12 kernels in our Garden Anywhere Boxes and got about 17 ears of corn. The corn is not as big as regular sized corn. It's only about 4-5 inches long. It's also red. We decided to pop some today and see what would happen. I don't own a microwave and haven't for years, but that is another topic for another day. We have an air-popper for popping corn. It does an excellent job and I know exactly what is on my popcorn. Just butter and salt.

Anyway...I put about a tablespoon full of kernels in the popper. I just wanted to see if it would pop. Well...it popped alright. It popped right out of the popper onto the counter. I guess the kernels were not weighty enough to stay in the air popper.

After I corralled the kernels, I tried the stove version. Just a tiny bit of coconut oil, the corn and a small pot with a see-through lid to allow me to watch the corn pop. It popped really quickly, too. It was so fun watching the corn that we grew turn into popcorn. Next year we will plant more than one box of Strawberry corn.

A Major Award

 

We were surprised and grateful to receive a major award from the fair. Garden Anywhere Box won an award for the "Most Unique Product" at the fair. To the right is a picture of Larry with his major award and a basket of veggies that I picked that morning. He's wearing a Steampunk monicle. He developed Bell's Palsy and it has yet to clear up. Our oldest son got him the monicle so he would be cool while protecting his eye during this trial. Larry loves his monicle, but says, "I don't want to be a Pirate!" 

We were also featured on a local television station during our days at the fair. Channel 43, "Rise and Shine" asked to do an interview with us. We had to get up at dark-thirty to be at the fair extra early for our "close-up." It was a lot of fun. One of our Garden Anywhere Box slogans is, "You can garden in a box. You can garden in your socks. You can garden here or there. You can Garden Anywhere.

I do a drawing for FREE Socklady socks on our FB page when we reach 50 likes and a FREE Garden Anywhere Box for every 100 likes. I brought along a pair of socks just for fun. Ashley, our interviewer thought it would be cool to wear them for the segment. Here is the link, to our moment of fame if you want to watch.
http://freedom43tv.com/2013/09/18/adventures-with-ashley-more-state-fair-fun/

Great time at the Great State Fair of Oklahoma

Garden Anywhere Box had a booth at the Oklahoma State Fair this year. We were located in the Oklahoma Expo Building along with other Made in Oklahoma items. Here's a picture of us and some of the other businesses around us. We were lucky to be
located down from Head Country BBQ and across from Okarche Cinnamon Rolls. Not a bad place to be. :)

The fair lasted 10 days. Larry, Lane, Caroline, Laura and I took turns manning the booth.
We worked long, but fun days. We got to talk to so many nice people. One of the best things about our business is talking to people about actually being successful at gardening. We see their faces light up when they realize that they, too, can actually grow vegetables. It is so worth the long hours each day.

Because our boxes are portable, we were able to move one of our big jalapeno pepper plants to the fair to show that the boxes actually do work...lol.  This started out as a small six pack of peppers from Lowe's. It grew about 5 ft tall and was covered with peppers.

Every day, before we would leave for the fair, I'd go out and do a daily garden harvest to bring with us. Some people could not believe that we actually grew all of the veggies let alone picked them every morning to bring. Someone asked Lane if he went to Walmart to buy the veggies and bring to the fair. Lane said, "No. I didn't have to."

What Makes Garden Anywhere Box Truly Unique?

 

The thing that makes our boxes unique compared to other container gardens is our Garden Anywhere Box Watering System. We even won a major award
for our boxes and watering system at the Great State Fair of Oklahoma -2013. It was our first year at the fair, too. Pretty exciting!

All of our boxes are connected by tubing and hooked up to the watering system. This allows your garden to be watered for you. Truly self-watering, and not your self. We also have our PerPETual Pet Dish that hooks into the system and offers fresh water to your outside pets.  Our cats love their PerPETual Pet Dish.