White Garden in June The Prudent Homemaker 

I deadheaded all of the sunburnt roses last week. The photo above is what it looked like before I cut them; you can see some already quite brown from the sun. You can see my bolted lettuce there, too; I picked some seeds from those last week and I will pick more this week as they are ready.

My week is, as usual, full to the brim and then some, but I’ll do my best to accomplish what I can.

I received a wedding invitation last Friday for my nephew’s wedding this week, so I am adding some items on my list for that.

 

Garden:

It will be 111º most days this week, so my garden work will be done early in the morning before sunrise, when it’s in the 80ºs, or after sunset when it is around 105º ( but no chance of getting sunburnt!) I work for smaller amounts of time in the garden in the summer than I do when it is cooler.

1. Collect lettuce seeds

2. Collect green onion seeds

3. Collect Swiss chard (silverbeet) seeds

4. Pick apples

5. Continue to watch peaches and pick any that are ready. The birds are already on them and they are almost ripe. This is a bit early; they are usually ripe in July.

6. Watch grapes for ripeness

7. Pick hot peppers

8. Pick hibiscus flowers

9. Add manure and fertilizer to the center circle in the backyard, which is now empty

10. Plant flower seeds in the backyard circle

11. Plant more red noodle beans seeds to replace seedings that were eaten/didn’t come up

12. Plant seeds in two black urns

13. Water potted plants every day with water collected indoors from showers and sinks

 

Cooking/Canning:

1. Can plum sauce

2. Can applesauce

3. Make French bread

4. Try a new bread recipe

5. Make popsicles several times

6. Make apple tart

7. Sprout alfalfa seeds (start Monday for Friday)

8. Make pita bread

9. Make dessert for a Relief Society meeting

10. Can peaches

 

Sewing:

1. Sew a table runner

2. Cut and sew kitchen towels

3. Embroider a monogram on kitchen towel as part of a wedding gift

4. Modify dress I bought a couple weeks ago at the thrift shop

 

Shopping/Errands:

1. Trip to Bed Bath and Beyond to buy wedding gift off registry

2. Trip to Sam’s Club (my list is here, plus I am going to look for a great deal on sparklers like I found two years ago)

3. Trip to library

4. Trip to Target (probably combined with trip #1 above)

 

Organization:

I’m going to use the timer to motivate myself at these tasks.

1. Spend at least 15 minutes each day organizing the sewing room

2. Spend at least 5 minutes each day organizing the bedroom

 

Website and blog:

1. Put up new recipe

2. Write two blog posts

 

Other:

1. Prepare talk for church

2. Attend wedding and reception

3. Go visiting teaching

4. Attend a Relief Society meeting 

5. Attend Cyrus’ Court of Honor for Boy Scouts

Flourish 1

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29 Comments

  1. hot bananas, 111 degrees!

    Our goals:) we might have accomplished this one as we had an offer but have not heard back) to sell our iMac. We don’t need it at this time. I have to make blueberry crumble, bake biscotti and cupcakes. I have things to list on facebook’s garage sale page, so I need to wash them and take pictures. I have to continue decluttering. I need to cover the berries with netting, they are close to ripe. I need to thin the carrots. I need to find a new vanity for our bathroom. The bowl is cracked and looks terrible. We are listing the house so it needs to be replaced. I’ve been looking and looking trying to find one that is narrow, fits our 1940’s bathroom, and maybe has a longer incorporated ledge so it has extra counter space and also fits our teeny budget. NEEDLE. HAYSTACK.

  2. Your vanity is I think on my craigslist free section this week. Check out Southern Maryland DC area maybe we can make arrangements to get it sent to you if you like it.

  3. Brandy, I am curious about the kitchen towels. Could you post about making them and pictures of how they turn out? Also, I just adore your photography. At one time, you said you might offer prints. Are you still planning to do that? You have so many, I probably coun’t decide!!

  4. 1. Start the meat in the crockpots and oven for our daughters grad open house on Sat. (pulled pork and chicken as we have some members of our family who do not eat pork) Pork is in the freezer – chicken I still have to buy – no decent deals lately and now I’m outta time.
    2 Finish deep cleaning the house (which means renting a steam cleaner for my 18 year old carpets to try and make them look presentable)
    3. Find and clean up all of the tables and chairs that are scattered between the yard, garage and house.
    4. Finish painting a bathroom (ran out of paint!!), lay the vinyl (which I bought a year ago at a black friday sale – 10 cents a square foot!) and then put all the fixtures back in before Sat.
    5. Finish picking up the last of the paper products (I just need to fill in – I overbought what I needed for my son’s open house 2 years ago and I saved it all to use for our daughter’s) and shop the thrift store for two more big bowls.
    6. In between I have to keep the garden watered (nothing is ripe yet – pullets got in the garden and ate all the sprouts so it had to be replanted) and the chickens/ducks fed and with clean water. Due to the increased risk of Avian Flu, I am dumping their water more often since there is no way to keep the sparrows from visiting. I always dump the water on my plants since it also has fertilizer in it :/
    6. Instead of just buying veggie and fruit trays ($$$), I will be hitting up the farmer’s market early Friday morning for as much produce as I can get and then cutting the veggies up and putting it into trays that I saved from a school event. The fruit will be cut up into a big fruit salad.
    7. As much as I don’t want to, I will be cooking and making up potato salad to save on cost as well as making up a big batch of crockpot baked beans.
    8. Finish sewing 2 aprons for my niece’s birthday

  5. quite a busy week. i’ve got to get on the ball. lots of sewing to do. tending to the garden. can’t seem to water it enough. it’s been l00 for two weeks. no rain. took a tumble in the garden this week, stumbled over my rosemary bush and kept going. a few scratches and still a little sore from it. the worse part was i broke my arbor that my beans are growing on, but i can fix that. hope you get a lot done and have a good week.

  6. My goals this week are to:

    1. Make yogurt. I bought starter yesterday when I went grocery shopping. I plan to start using yogurt a lot more in my meals and cooking.

    2. Cook a turkey. I’m trying to clean out the freezer.

    3. Weed the garden (it’s at my mom’s house so I have to drive a few miles to get there) and harvest greens. I think we will have some collard greens with our beans this week. I LOVE collard greens! So yay!

    4. Go through all of the kids clothes and get rid of what doesn’t fit, what we don’t use, or what we don’t need any longer.

    5. I may try to can some beans this week as well.

  7. If you live near an Ikea (or try on-line), you could check out their bathroom vanities. They are usually not too expensive and are designed to be compact. They have classic styles that fit with an older look too. Not sure it it is within your budget, but worth a try.

  8. I’m looking forward to this post too! Great gift idea for so many things, including Christmas!

  9. I don’t use them because we have high calcium in our well water and it blocks up any nipple type waterer I have tried (Including rabbit water bottles over time 🙁 ). That also wouldn’t work for the ducks. They [i]must[/i], at least, have water deep enough to douse their whole head in. I use cement mixing tubs and a small landscape pond that are easy for me to dump and they can get their whole bodies in for a good bath 🙂

  10. When I was volunteering at the Habitat for Humanity they had a lot of vanities and sinks from older homes that were being remodeled – that might be an option!

  11. – been saving bread crusts to make croutons – this week is the time.
    – had house guests the past 2 weekends (same guests each time so no bed changes in between) but son and daughter-in law are here for 4th of July so will wash and hang sheets to be ready.
    – received phlox from a freecycler – will plant those tomorrow in the morning when it’s cool.
    – every year we remove the storm door from the screen porch – lots of straining and sweating so left it on this year – just left it open with a table in front – needs to be washed, sanded and painted.
    -donating stock to church and have to get a “medallion stamp” at the bank – need to get this done! Bank open til 6Pm so will get there this week – I promise!!
    -had niece and nephews (10,12, and 13) here for 2 weekends in a row and ate all meals at home – really put a dent in my grocery budget but only bought to feed them. Used the stockpile for our other meals.

  12. Mine are free range within their part of the yard – probably around 1/5th of an acre (more on the off season when I give them free range of the garden) or so completely fenced with 6 foot chainlink on the outside perimeter and then a 4 ft section that keeps them on their side of the yard and off the patio (it also protects them from my naughty dane puppy who thinks they are fun play things – I have a beagle who is completely trustworthy with any of the birds but the puppy – not so much yet). I am [i]extremely[/i] fortunate that I do not have a predator problem where I am located (have had birds here for 15 years now) so my birds are not locked in at night but their coop is under a netted chain link pen that I could lock them into if necessary. There are no wild waterfowl near me but I am close enough to plenty of water (I am in MI after all 🙂 ) that one of the song birds could bring AI in. NO ONE besides household members are allowed in my bird area and we have separate shoes to wear in there as well. No exhibitions of poultry are allowed this year in MI but I had already made the decision that we would not be showing our birds at fair this year.

  13. Thank you, I will look there too. I know they are opening one closer to my home. I cannot believe the Free section on Craigslist. Some of it is very nice, I will be keeping an eye on it to see about things we can stage our home with.

  14. Yogurt-yum!You probably already know that you can just buy yogurt with active cultures to use as a starter instead of special packets of starter. Enjoy. Tandoori chicken (or turkey) is a great way to cook with yogurt, we did that the last time I had to use up a turkey.

  15. I don’t have anything prepared to add to this post, but I did want to congratulate you on all you have accomplished in that front garden since redoing it. Your neighbors must be strolling slowly past all the time, absorbing all the details!

  16. Brandy, your white garden looks beautiful and serene. Do you get to sit on the bench and enjoy throughout the day? On my screen I do not see any browned roses:)

    My only goal this week would be to get through VBS. We will be open for it 5 nights in a row, starting tonight. We can get up to 150-200 children (our church and from general public) a night so it can be very busy. I have the library open…parents often times come and sit and wait or sometimes hide from their not-so-sure-I-want-to-be-left-here child…close by if needed. Husband helps with games. My youngest girl helps in the craft room and the oldest girl and her husband do short skits in the opening and closing. Busy but rewarding week.

  17. The bench is in the sun most of the day, except in winter when it is in shade all day (the house shades it in winter when the sun is lower). When it is 111º, I do not go out there to sit on the bench in the evenings. Last night at 9:45 the concrete is still very hot on bare feet; my husband and I went outside to test out two new flashlights, and I had to go back in quickly because it was too hot on my feet. The concrete and the walls keep the heat and reflect it back, and it is still close to the daytime high after dark. Today is supposed to be cooler–it will be 103º at 8 p.m. 🙂

    The roses look good from a distance, but when you get close you will see them burned to a crisp. This picture was taken the week before last. The ones in the backyard were buds in the morning, and dried by 2:00.

  18. I’m going to try starting my first made-from-scratch garment this week! I have not been successful finding skirts for work that I really like, so I’m just going to make one.

    I’ve never had a garden but I tried growing something in a very small way–I bought scallions and planted the white bulbs in a container. It is so satisfying to see them getting taller! Thanks for the tip!

  19. For fathers day we went to a university’s museum of natural history. The 19th century glass flowers are amazing. State residents get in free on Sundays before 12 noon so we saved $60 off admission. My inlaws are out of state but as seniors they were $10 each so seven people were $20.
    I put together a small present for my husband with a $10 budget. His grill tools are finally biting the dust after 20 years so we gave him a new grill basket, tongs and silicone basting brush for $8.50. Everything was brand new in the package that I had picked up at yard sales the past few months.
    The six year old outgrew her shorts so before I went online to Schoola to get more I checked the bins in the closet- plenty of shorts so spent $0.
    The four year old needed a backpack for camp and kindergarten so I have been trolling sales for a while. When they were 25% off I let her pick from acceptable prints. She is happy and I expect her new backpack to last for years.
    We passed on a giant bag of outgrown clothes to someone who will use them.
    We were given a bunch of clothes for the four year old and passed on what we couldn’t use.
    We were given rhubarb by someone who grows more of it than they can eat so there is a strawberry pie in our near future.

  20. I am trying to get a lot of weeds pulled in the garden after being gone for 2 weeks! Wow, they grew, but thankfully, so did the little shoots/starts.

    I have to take my 14 year old in for her homeschool testing, get her grades calculated as she is in a diploma program, work 3 mornings, and get meals planned and back on track.

    Today, our counters are being torn out, and put back by Thursday, so cooking will be a challenge this week. I plan to have grilled meals mostly.

  21. I just found your blog through someone linking it on the Scientific Seamstress page! I am in awe of all that you have accomplished and plan yet to accomplish! How did you get started on such a lifestyle? Was it something you were raised with doing? Are you in the country, an urban area perhaps, all these things I wonder? I will certainly be back to read more and to read in awe once more! thank you for sharing!

  22. Nancy, hope you are feeling better from your tumble. I know how long those aches and pains can last.

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