Gardening

My family has had a garden for the past 4 summers or so. Each year I'm a little more into it. This year, I'm diving in head first and trying to learn everything I can about gardening, and all that comes with it. My dad and I started our seedlings just five days ago, and they've already sprouted, and some are about 3 inches high! It's so neat to watch them grow from tiny little seeds to huge plants. It absolutely fascinates me! A few of the things we'll be growing this year are:

• Green beans
• Tomatoes
• Cucumbers
• Spinach
• Carrots
• Squash
• Green peppers
• Banana peppers
• Asparagus
• Beets

Carrots are my favorite. There's nothing like fresh garden carrots to go with a nice hot meal! Putting fresh raw veggies in my salad is quite a treat too :)

We're also starting to can this year, which I'm pretty excited about! Being able to have our home grown veggies year round would be amazing!

So since i'm fairly new to this whole gardening thing, I definitely welcome any helpful hints or tricks anyone has to offer :)

My latest project

I love throwing things away -- simplifying. In my family, I'm notorious for it. My motto is "if I don't use it, it goes in the trash!" (or, sometimes to Goodwill). It's not so much that I like throwing things away as much as I like simplifying. If I can find a good use for something, I'm glad to keep it. So, I was very excited to find a neat way to use my scrap fabric from sewing. A friend of mine told me save all my scrap fabric just in case! I was so tempted to throw it all away, but I've saved...well....most of it! I'm so glad I did, because the other day I learned how to make these cute flowers with them, and it's actually quite simple!

• Start out by tracing a circle on your scrap fabric. You can use any round household item that's about 5-7 inches in diameter.

• Next, cut the circle and press to get all the wrinkles out. 

• Fold the edge of the circle (about 1/4 inch) under to the wrong side of the fabric and press.

• Double thread a needle with enough thread to sew around the circle, and knot the end. Use a "gathering stitch" to sew around the edge of the circle through both layers of fabric. 

• Gently pull the thread to gather the fabric and close up the center. Sew a few stitches across the center to secure your gathers. Flatten and press. It should look like this when you're done.

You can sew or glue your flowers onto so many things. The possibilities are endless! I decided to sew mine to a stretch headband with a cute little button in the middle :)