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Had a booth at the Austin Organic Gardeners 2022 Annual Plant Sale

I participated in the 2022 Austin Organic Gardeners Plant Sale event with some other vendors Saturday 10-2 at the Zilker Botanical Garden building 2220 Barton Springs Rd, Austin, TX 78746

https://facebook.com/events/s/2022-plant-sale-fundraiser/1656753168006495/

Laura Freeman @heylollymusic sang songs of the garden, @centraltexasmycology was there, the Bat guano people were there with bags to purchase, and there were lots of beautiful plants!

@austinorganicgardeners

@nakatsubyjna

@heylollymusic

@rosamilagrosagarden

@ivyleaguebotanyclub

@theartyard

@coulburydesign

@ryandoolittleglass

Wildhearthandhome.com

@willcrochet

@centraltexasmycology

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Getting back to work in 2022

Had a very successful Blue Genie Art Bazaar 2021 and sold pretty well, thanks everyone for your support! Will be adding more stock to the BGAB Online shop as I make it.

Filed my 2021 Taxable Sales and am getting back into the studio to work. It’s cold this morning, thankful for my little space heater. Will wait until later in the day to cut more vinyl because my cutting table is outside. Getting back to my customs queue, and will be building stock up again, and listing stuff in my Etsy shop.

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Trying out some new face sunscreens

Sun Bum Tinted Mineral Face Lotion SPF30, Bare Republic Mineral Face Gel-Lotion SPF30, and Coola Classic Face Sunscreen SPF30

I’ve been trying some new vegan face sunscreens lately and like all of them. I tried Juice Beauty SPF30 Oil-Free Moisturizer but it feels to heavy for my oily acne-prone skin, and I was still having breakouts using the Neutrogena Clear Face SPF55 I used to use before. I’ve been alternating between Sun Bum Mineral SPF30, Bare Republic Mineral Face Gel-Lotion SPF30, and Coola Classic Face Sunscreen SPF30 Cucumber, and really like that they’re quite a bit lighter, a plus in a climate that’s usually on the warm/hot side most of the time. I think Sun Bum and Coola are both available at Target. The cucumber scent of the Coola and Bare Republic is nice, and the lotions feel soothing on my skin. Wish I’d been using sunscreen more regularly years ago, and included the backs of my hands!

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Our first freeze!

It got down to 29• F last night, so we covered the plants and used a string of lights, clip on lights, pvc frames my husband made, plastic sheeting, and bed sheets to protect everything. Great news: Chard, kale, salad greens, ice plant (a succulent), another succulent called burro’s tail (forget its other name), eggplant, avocado tree, Chinese broccoli, green onions, chives, peppermint, rosemary, Brussels sprouts, Kikuna/chrysanthemum, and artichokes look good. Tomatoes, basil and okra got a bit cold zapped, but I expected that. I harvested a lot of green tomatoes last night. So thankful for my handy and quick thinking hubby, and helpful kiddos. Today’s high will be 63, it’s about 58 right now. Cold nights the rest of the week, it will dip into the 30s again Thursday and Friday night, but a few degrees warmer than a freeze. We’ll make more pvc frames so all the beds will have them, and leave those up for the rest of the season so it’s easier to cover them when needed to protect from freeze. Lucky that winter is usually mild in Texas and we get an extra growing season.

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Fall and Winter Gardening

My first time fall/winter gardening! All plants from Lone Star Nursery. Holy basil in the first bed doing well, trimmed it back to make room for the artichokes (2 varieties). Planted kikuna (garland chrysanthemum greens) which I was excited to find, it’s my favorite vegetable! Next to the kikuna is purple Brussels sprouts.

In second bed, rosemary bush needs to be pruned back, some peppermint is coming back, green onions and chives look good, after weeding we can add more plants.

In third bed, the Japanese eggplant has started flowering again (I love the little purple blossoms!) and the okra is sprouting new branches and pods. We planted Chinese broccoli, and my friend Stacey made me a resin Buddha in Kamakura style, looks good among the plants. The yellow pear tomato from spring/summer started producing prolifically again as it’s cooled down from the summer hot, but it did produce all summer and was the one of the most heat resistant tomatoes I planted.

In the fourth bed, we kept a cherry tomato plant rash it started producing again, I planted two kinds of rainbow chard, some mixed salad greens, collards, and blue grilled kale, and purple kale.

These raised beds are probably at least ten years old, built with corrugated metal sheeting and wood, the top wooden sills need to be replaced this year. A few years ago we put in soaker hose irrigation on timers and it’s made all the difference in being able to keep everything alive in the summer when it hits the 100s.

I still need to mulch around the plants, and a tree we just planted (desert willow). We were able to get enough compost from our compost pile/bin, I’m a very lazy composter and usually the big turning of the pile coincides with harvesting the finished compost for planting. Yay gardening!

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Big Batch Orange Ginger Cranberry Sauce

Adjusted my recipe to 10 cups fresh cranberries, 3 TBSP grated ginger, zest from 3 navel oranges, 3 1/3 cup orange juice, and 4 1/6 sugar. Cool until berries all pop and sauce is thick and stays on the back of a spoon, and thickens.

Hubby always requests extra because it freezes really well, and he eats it on turkey and ham sandwiches, puts it over ice cream, eats it straight 🙂 etc.

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Coconut yogurt

I made some non-dairy yogurt using 3 cans of coconut milk and coconut cream, a container of plain coconut yogurt as my starter culture, and a Salton yogurt maker my mom gave me that we used when I was a kiddo (circa 1974?) The white glass cups didn’t survive but 8 ounce Ball jars work great. I shook up the cans of coconut milk and coconut cream and emptied them into a sauce pan, 3 cans worked out to be 5 cups, and heated to 190 degrees fahrenheit, then cooled to about 111 degrees (the temperature fort the missing thermometer tablespoon that came with the yogurtmaker) and then stirred in the starter culture/yogurt. Filled the jars in the yogurt maker and plugged it in, the dairy yogurt mom used to make had a 24 incubation period, I found images of the instruction manual for the yogurt maker here, and read a blog post on making coconut yogurt which specified a 48 hour incubation, but it actually worked out to be closer to 60 hours because at 48 hours it had a nice tang but was still a little liquidy. I put the lids on and put the yogurt in the refrigerator, and it firmed up nicely, next time I will try 48 hours and see if it firms up enough in the fridge. This morning I put it in a bowl and mixed in some grapefruit habenero marmalade a friend made and it was delicious. Will be making granola next.

Attempt #2: 1st attempt with heating the coconut milk/cream and using coconut yogurt as a starter culture, and my Salton yogurt machine worked great. After reading the Minimalist Baker blog post, I decided to try again, without heating the coconut milk, and using probiotic capsules as the starter. I used 3 cans of coconut milk (no coconut cream this time, they didn’t have any at my grocery) and as the MB recipe had 2 capsules of probiotic to a can of coconut milk, I used 6 capsules for 3 cans. Emptied the capsules and whisked in the powder into room temperature coconut milk, and poured it into my jars and set the yogurt maker to incubate. I’ll check it at 48 hours, I don’t expect it to be quite as thick as I got with the coconut milk/cream combo, but we’ll see. If it doesn’t thicken up, I can add some coconut yogurt as starter, mix and pour back into the jars.

After refrigerating, yogurt firmed up nicely. Not quite as tart with the probiotics vs. the yogurt starter, but also delicious. Success!

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Finished masks added to my shop!

I have been making a couple extra masks here and there, when I get an order, so I have some finished masks in stock right now. I have a couple 3-6yo child size, and small, medium, and larges in my shop.

SIzing information is here. If you want something other than what I have in stock, you can look at the fabrics I have, and contact me about making masks to order for you.

Mask up, cases of infection are increasing daily, in Texas and elsewhere. Stay safe and healthy!