Learning about various fungicides in the green bean garden on UK's experimental farm.

Growing a vegetable garden turns into a yearly study of botany at our house. Soil conditions, seed placement, sprouting, growth, care, weed management, safe insect and critter management – there’s A LOT to learn in the garden!

Every year we have the opportunity to discuss how seeds germinate (or tubers, or bulbs) and watch God work his botanic magic as tiny baby plants turn into giant adult plants, all from one little seed. We have the opportunity to discuss the roles of the flowers and pollinators in order for the “fruit” to follow. Every year we have the opportunity to discuss plant parts as we harvest roots, leaves and “fruits” to eat.

Understanding methods of irrigation for large scale gardeners was a fascinating topic.

Yes, we do a yearly study of botany – and my children never have a clue science is in the air. The somewhat “hard labor” of weeding and harvesting gives them a hint that some sort of school might be in session, though!

My favorite session of all was a three-year experiment on planting perrinials in the middle of your garden space to see if they bring an increase to the pollinator population. At the same time, hoping the perrinials don't actually take away from the work the pollinators would do in your garden. I can't wait to see the results of their experiment in a few years!

Once harvested, nature study and practical life skills don’t stop! We “put away” as much of the harvest as possible through canning and freezing. Some people would say, “Whoa, there! I’m happy to do a little gardening in the name of ‘school’, but canning and freezing is way too much work!” And I gladly invite them over to my house to see just how little work it really is.

If you’ve never felt the utter satisfaction you get from growing a vegetable garden, you probably can’t imagine when I say there is even more satisfaction from “putting away” your harvest. God created us to work, and there’s just something about gardening and harvesting that feels more like the work He intended than other types of work. Does anyone else feel that way, too?

Frozen peaches, corn and strawberry jam - yum!

Your local extension office will have FREE detailed (and simple to understand) guides to help you learn how to do everything from making jam to freezing corn to canning green beans. Sometimes, they even offer classes! If not, find a friend who “puts away” food and sit with her one day as she works. Her experience and teaching will be invaluable.

As we (yes, my children are involved) break beans in preparation for canning, or slice corn off the cob in preparation for freezing, or peel the skin from tomatoes in preparation for juicing – the botany discussions don’t cease. And the conversations come from such a natural place that my children never once have rolled their eyes!

Canned tomatoes, green beans, carrots, dill pickles, sweet pickles and salsa take up extra room at first, but the fresh goodness through the winter makes finding space worth it!

Enjoy your children in a fruitful activity that will be so much fun and so much learning that you will hardly believe you can count the hours as “school”. Oh, and if you didn’t grow a garden this year, you can always visit a local orchard, u-pick-it garden or farmer’s market for an abundance of produce on which you can practice your skills of “putting away”.

If you’d like a little help with some of the nature study topics you’ll face in the garden, our Wonderful Wildflowers unit has much teaching and many activities about the parts of a flower and pollination. And our Fruits and Nuts unit teaches about the process of fruits (and vegetables) growing from the flower. (You can find MANY other topics within both units, too!)

For your reference, here’s a list of what we grow that I’m able to “put away” and my preferred methods. Again, you can find easy directions for all of these at your extension office, or online.

• carrots – can in quart jars
• green beans – can in quart jars
• tomatoes, diced – can in quart jars
• tomato juice – can in quart jars
• cucumbers, dill slices – can in quart jars
• cucumbers, sweet slices – can in pint jars
• cucumbers, relish – can in pint jars
• corn – slice from cob and freeze in quart bags
• onions – slice and freeze in quart bags
• green/red peppers – slice and freeze in quart bags
• zucchini – shred and freeze in quart bags
• zucchini – make into breakfast loaves and freeze
• potatoes – place in dark, chilly part of basement
• peaches – slice and freeze in gallon bags
• apples – slice and freeze in gallon bags
• strawberries – slice and freeze in quart bags
• strawberries – make freezer jam in quart or pint jars
• blackberries – make freezer jam in pint jars

Happy gardening!

Related posts:

1. Charlotte Mason Series #8 – Handicrafts and Life Skills
2. An Abundance of Zucchini and Onions
3. Still Freezing

Oh, my goodness!  This was so easy!!  I’ve wanted to make my own laundry detergent for years, but I’ve always been intimidated.  I just knew it would be too much work, too messy and not worth the money.  Boy, was I wrong!  The recipe below will last my family about six months and all the ingredients (including a 5-gallon bucket with lid) cost less than $10.  TEN dollars for six months of detergent!! (And next time around, the whole batch will be about $1.25 because the only thing I’ll need to buy is an additional bar of soap!)

My mother-in-law made her first batch about four months ago and has been very pleased with the results.  She used to be a tried and true Tide user, so her standards are pretty high!

Homemade Laundry Detergent

Need:

1 5-gallon bucket with tight fitting lid  (I found mine in the paint department at Walmart.)

1 bar Fels-Naptha soap  (Kroger and Meijer carry this in my area.)

1 cup Borax  (I can find this at any grocery in my area.)

1 cup Arm and Hammer WASHING Soda  (Not Baking Soda!  I can get this at Kroger and Meijer.)

5 gallons of water

How To:

1.  Grate the entire bar of Fels-Naptha soap using a cheese grater.

2.  Melt the soap in ONE gallon of water that you have warmed on the stove.

3.  Meanwhile, pour one cup of Borax and one cup of Washing Soda in the 5-gallon bucket.

4.  Add FOUR gallons of water to the bucket and stir.

5.  Carefully add the melted soap water to the bucket and stir.

*My bucket was filled to the very brim!!  I used a coffee cup to funnel the first batch into an old laundry bottle.

To Wash:

Simply add 1/2 cup to 1 cup of detergent – depending on your washer and the size of the load.  Voila!

Visit my recipe page for more Homemade Posts.

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2. Shake-n-Bake Mix and Homemade Creamed Soup
3. Homemade Lewis and Clark Journals

I haven’t had much experience putting either of these away, so I did a little internet research.  It seems as if the quickest and easiest way to save these veggies for later use is freezing them raw.  What could be simpler than that?

I grated the zucchini and placed it in freezer bags in two cup portions since most of my normal recipes call for about this much grated zucchini.  So far, I’ve frozen 20 cups!

With the onions, I sliced some and chopped some.  I didn’t worry about measuring since frozen onions come apart with a quick tap on the counter.  One website said to place the onions on cookie sheets and freeze before bagging, but I didn’t have time to fool with that. 

Both of these will need to be used in cooked recipes since they won’t hold their original texture.  For the zucchini, the directions said to add any liquid in the bag (after thawing) to the recipe since it will be the juices that are normally in the zucchini.

Mahayla and Caleb grew carrots this year.  They were able to can 10 quarts – and I only had to supervise!  Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the finished jars.

Looks like green bean canning will be next on the list!  Anybody have a really good idea for saving summer squash?  I have attempted to parboil and freeze, but it turned out way to mushy to use, even in cooked dishes.

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Pretzel and Nut Bark

3 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup thin pretzels broken into small chunks

2/4 cup salted nuts of any kind (I use mixed nuts)

1/3 cup white chocolate chips or almond bark

2 Tablespoons (more or less) of Christmas colored sprinkles (any style)

Line 13×9″ pan with foil so that the foil hangs over the edges.  In a large bowl, microwave the semisweet chocolate chips 1-2 minutes.  (Stir the chips after one minute, microwave in 30 second increments until chips are melted.)  Stir in pretzels and nuts.  Spread in pan.

In a smaller bowl, microwave the white chocolate chips or almond bark for 1 minute or until melted.  Place melted chocolate in a plastic ziptop baggie.  Snip the corner and squeeze the chocolate over the bark in the pan.  Lightly cover with sprinkles.  Chill for about 1 hour (until firm).

Lift the bark out by the foil, then peel the foil away.  Break the bark into pieces.  Keep chilled until ready to eat.

Related posts:

1. The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe Ever!
2. Cream Cheese Cookies
3. Tomatoes, A Recipe

I thought I’d share one of my favorite indulgences this time of year that’s maybe not so ordinary, but very easy.

Cream Cheese Cookies

1/2 pound butter, softened

1 package cream cheese, softened

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup chopped nuts (I prefer pecans)

2 cups flour

Cream butter, cream cheese and sugar.  Stir in vanilla, flour and nuts.  Roll in a damp cloth (or waxed paper) and place in refrigerator for at least a couple of hours.  Slice thin (about 1/4″) and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or just until edges begin to brown.

For what it’s worth, these freeze well and taste just as good frozen as fresh! 

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2. The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe Ever!
3. Making Butter the Old Fashioned Way

We’ve been doing all sorts of hands-on learning during our Colonial History unit and one of the activities I had planned was making butter.  At co-op over the years, the kids have had the opportunity to shake cream in baby food jars to make their own butter, so I didn’t think we needed that experience again.  We don’t own a butter churn, but I had an idea that the Kitchenaid Stand Mixer might give us a modern day look at the butter making process.  And it did!

Easy directions:

• Add heavy cream to your mixer
• Put on the whisk attachment
• Turn it to level 8 or 10 for about five minutes
• Be prepared to cover the bowl with a couple of towels toward the end to keep the liquid from splattering
• When the liquid has separated from the butter fat, take the butter out and squeeze out the rest of the liquid
• You can keep the liquid (buttermilk) for use in other recipes
• Enjoy your fresh butter!  It’s SO yummy!!

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2. Simple YUMMY Supper
3. Playdough for the Holidays

We took a trip last week to the local orchard to stock up on peaches and apples that had been graded out.  (They’re much cheaper that way!)  Again, freezing is easy.  Wash, peel, cut in slices, sprinkle a little sugar over the peaches or dip apples in water with a little lemon juice, place in ziptop bags and freeze.

All of these things can be used in a recipe just as you would use them if they were fresh.  They aren’t great, however, for thawing and eating plain.

I promised a couple of ladies that I would share recipes throughout the year using things I’ve canned or frozen.  Here’s a fried corn dish we had at supper last week.

Ingredients

• fresh or frozen corn cut off the cob
• fresh or frozen green pepper, chopped
• fresh yellow squash, chopped
• fresh or frozen onion, chopped
• butter

Melt butter in a frying pan.  Saute all veggies until crisp-tender.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Yummy!

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2. Simple YUMMY Supper
3. Shake-n-Bake Mix and Homemade Creamed Soup

A sinkful of fresh tomatoes in our house turns into about eleven quarts of diced tomatoes!

And here’s a new recipe I concocted to use up the canned tomatoes.  I had a quart that didn’t seal, plus some corn and peppers that needed to be used.  I didn’t have any ground beef, but I did have some shredded chicken in the freezer.  So I made a *yummy*….

Chicken Chili

• 1 quart diced tomatoes and juice
• 1-2 green peppers, diced
• a cob or two of fresh corn cut off the cob (or a can, drained)
• a can of beans -any type- with juice (I used great northern)
• shredded chicken, about 2 cups
• about 1/2 cup of chili mix
• extra water to suit your taste

Mix all ingredients together and bring to a boil.  Simmer for about 30 minutes.  As you can see, the recipe isn’t a science, but it sure is yummy!

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1. Simple YUMMY Supper
2. The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe Ever!
3. Shake-n-Bake Mix and Homemade Creamed Soup

Both of these recipes came from the cookbook I found at the www.msgmyth.com website.

Shake-n-bake Mix

• 4 1/2 cups dried bread crumbs, finely crushed
• 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp flour
• 6 Tbsp paprika
• 2 Tbsp + 2 tsp salt
• 4 Tbsp sugar
• 2 Tbsp onion powder
• 2 tsp oregano
• 2 tsp thyme
• 2 tsp (or less) red pepper
• 1 tsp sage powder
• 1/2 to 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

Mix well and store in airtight container.

To uses: Dip meat (chicken or pork) in oil, then shake in a cup or two of the mixture that has been placed in a plastic bag.  Bake approximately 1 hour in a 375 degree oven.  Turn halfway through baking.

White Sauce (aka Homemade Creamed Soup)

• 2 Tbsp butter
• 2 Tbsp flour
• 1 cup milk
• salt and pepper to season

Melt butter and add flour.  Cook on low heat, stirring at all times, for 1 minute.  Add milk and whisk smooth.  Cook, stirring until thickened.

Variations:

1. Add 1/2 tsp dry mustard, 1 additional cup milk and 2 cups cheese for cheese sauce to be used with vegetables or mac-n-cheese.
2. Add parsley and minced onion, then add to sliced potatoes for scalloped potatoes.
3. Beat 1 or 2 eggs with 1 cup milk and add to cream sauce, then cook until thickened.  Add to top of casseroles, pasta dishes, cooked vegetables, stuffed peppers or eggplant.  It’s a tasty substitute for cheese.  A tsp of parmesan cheese or nutmeg is a good addition.
4. Add curry, paprika, garlic powder and any favorite herbs.
5. Add 4 large chopped mushrooms to the butter, then saute for 2 minutes before adding the flour.  Thin with water to desired consistency for mushroom soup.

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Even though I shared my MSG story first, I really believe that this story is a more important message.  Why?  I see children every single day that are either out of control and their parents are at their wit’s end OR the parents have already lost hope and have put their children on a brain altering drug like Ritalin only to wonder if there’s a way out.

Let me back up for just a minute and say that I don’t intend to offend anyone who either is going or has gone the Ritalin (or some other medicine) route.  I’m in no way judging you, I promise.  I am only speaking because of the countless parents who have said to me, ” I wish there were a way to get him/her off this medicine.  My baby isn’t the same.”  I’m also not here to say that Ritalin is a bad drug or no one has true ADHD.  I don’t believe either thing for one second.  Again, I’m only telling my story and hoping that it might benefit someone.

First, let me introduce you to Mahayla.

She is truly one of the sweetest young ladies you will ever meet in your life.  She cares deeply for others, will do anything for anyone, can run a household by herself and gladly takes on most tasks set before her.  She is very bright, a wonderful friend, and generally a quiet and calm person.  She is extremely obedient and wants to please her parents.

Not so when she was three.  I found myself in the pediatrician’s office without Mahayla, but with my husband discussing with the doctor our options for my truly wild, loud and uncontrollable child.  Lucky for me, the doctor refused to label her as hyperactive at three.  Even though I could check off a “yes” for every single symptom of a child with ADHD, the doctor said there would be no way to start medicine in a child as young as her and we would have to wait until she were at least five.

Let me stop here and say that medicine is NOT my first choice for any situation.  It certainly wasn’t here either.  We were simply grasping for something, anything that would tame this wild child.

She wasn’t a wild baby.  In fact, she was a wonderful baby – happy, a great sleeper, a good eater.  By two, things started changing.  She was getting louder, harder to get to sit still, less obedient.  You might say, “That’s normal, Cindy!”  Yes, but by three, it wasn’t at all normal.  We would hear her screaming (for the fun of it) from her Sunday School class on a different floor of the church.  We would watch her literally climb walls at out house.  What was most apparent, though, was that she wasn’t ALWAYS like this.  Often, yes.  But always, no.

We would catch glimpses of a “normal” little girl in all her sweetness and then turn around a hour later and her eyes had almost glazed over as she turned into the Tasmanian devil and couldn’t be stopped.

After being sent home by the pediatrician and told we would just have to wait it out, I cried out to the Lord telling Him that I knew she needed some sort of help.  Her parents needed help, too!!  Just like with my MSG story, once I cried out to Him, low and behold, the answer was there almost immediately.

Again, the internet was where I turned.  All of the sudden, every search kept leading me to the same things – artificial food colorings, artificial flavorings, Feingold, artificial preservatives.  I didn’t know exactly where the answer was in the midst of everything I was reading, but I knew it was there.  Her problems didn’t start until she started eating “real people food” which made complete sense with all I was reading.

The word that kept popping out at me the most was RED food coloring.  So that’s where I started.  And, praise the Lord, that turned out to be the culprit.  We got rid of everything red, pink, purple, and orange.  As long as those colors were gone, we had a normal four year old again.  As soon as something “slipped” in, her eyes would glaze over within an hour’s time and she would be w-i-l-d, whiny and uncontrollable again.  The effects would last for hours.

Very few people believed that red food coloring was really the answer.  My family raised their eyebrows (until they saw the proof first hand!)  The pediatrician said she seriously doubted food coloring was the culprit and suggested we see and allergist for food allergy testing.  The allergist gave us some vague food allergies she had, but thought there wasn’t enough research to suggest food coloring allergies were real.  The Sunday School teachers scoffed when I asked them to run all snacks and drinks by me before feeding her.   But we KNEW it was real.  We lived with the proof daily!!  No red food coloring = a sweet little girl.  Red food coloring = someone else.  Someone else in attitude, stature, facial expression and action.  The scariest part was the change in her eyes – this child wasn’t my own.  I’ve heard other moms mention this change in the eyes, too.

As Mahayla’s gotten older, she is actually better able to handle red food coloring.  Mind you, not in large amounts.  If she happens to accidentally ingest a decent amount, she no longer goes wild, but she gets jittery, s-u-p-e-r cranky and v-e-r-y emotional.  And it takes a couple days to wear off completely.  I know you’re asking how an 11 year old accidentally eats or drinks red food coloring.  It’s really very easy.  Just like MSG, red food coloring is hidden in things you would never expect – blueberry muffin mix, prepared brownies, cereal….

I also ought to mention that it took a long time for Mahayla to understand that she had to make the choice to say no to foods and drinks with red food coloring.  I had to be the food police for several years before she was able to recognize the change in herself when she ingested it.  She prefers to stay as far away as possible now because she knows how awful it makes her feel.

Anyway, in trying to wrap this up….WE HAD A NEW CHILD!  A child that was set on the path to Ritalin and a lifetime label of ADHD was “cured”.  Of course, she never really had ADHD, but that’s where her path was headed if we hadn’t found the truth.

I read all I could from the Feingold site and in trying to get rid of red food coloring, we actually attempted to get rid of as much of the artificial colorings, flavorings and preservative as possible.  We’re not fanatical about this, but do our best.  If they (Caleb struggles with red coloring, too) are offered colored things at a church function or a party, I allow it as long as it isn’t red.  We typically don’t buy much with those ingredients at our house, though.

I’m passionate about sharing this info with parents who care to hear.  I’ll be happy to answer questions or tell more detail to our story if anyone is interested.  Just ask.

Here are some websites that might be helpful:

About.com

Allergic Child

All Natural

Nature Moms

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