oh
hey there!
I’m Andrea and love to garden here in Kansas…zone 6b. I’ve always enjoyed growing tomatoes and flowers in the summer, and even worked at our local garden center during the summer in high school.
Once married we had an elderly neighbor who had always gardened a decent area in her backyard. She had come to the realization that she couldn’t work her garden herself anymore, and I couldn’t dig up our backyard (we were renting and had a sprinkler system). So we struck a deal where she paid someone to come till up the ground and I put in the work to plant, care for and harvest the produce. Then we both shared in the bounty. (Which honestly wasn’t a ton)
That was my first time working that much area by myself and I learned a lot. We went through different times of moving in the summer and not being able to have a garden over the last few years.
We moved into this place in July of 2019 and I dug into the ground in the spring of 2020. Seeing empty grocery store shelves really drove home the fact that we need to be less dependent on the grocery store to feed us.
I’ve been trying to grow more and more ever since and preserve most of the harvest by freezing, but have also started diving into canning and dehydrating to extend my harvest. 🙂
Here’s me with a big spaghetti squash I grew in 2020, and a few of my kiddos helping in the garden (gotta get a pic when it happens, right?). 😉
I live here with my 3 kids and high school sweetheart in a tiny town in Kansas…population almost 1,000! Woo! 😉
If you’re on Instagram, come on over and say hi! I’m *somewhat* active there and love to hang out and make new friends there. 🙂
Check out some of my blog posts here:
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10 Mother’s day gift ideas for gardeners
If your mom or wife likes to garden and you just don’t know what to get her for Mother’s Day, I want to help you out. 🙂 So I thought I’d make up a list of 10 mother’s day gift ideas for gardeners! I have most of the things I’m recommending and would love to…
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Starting seeds inside {with no grow lights}
In case my situation sounds similar to yours, I wanted to shared how i start seeds inside without any grow lights. Maybe it can give you an idea or spark some inspiration for your own seed starting.
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How to make calendula salve
Calendula has many healing benefits for your skin. Here is an article showing how to make a skin soothing salve out of calendula infused jojoba oil, lavender oil and beeswax.
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4 Seed companies I love + a pepper plant company!
You can get seeds almost anywhere – from big box stores to online stores selling unique, heirloom varieties. If you want food to grow, any place will do really. But if you want some special varieties that you can’t go buy at the grocery store this summer, I’d recommend you check out these seed companies…
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Winter sowing in water jugs
When I started thinking about starting seeds inside, I tried to think of and research all the ways it could be done without spending hundreds of dollars. Which lead me to find out about winter sowing in water jugs.
