On my quest to find ways to use all the feed sacks, I came up with bags to grow herbs and greens.

Making them is very similar to sewing the tote bag. The differences are size and no handles.

This is a fairly easy sewing project. My biggest problem, as always, is using the feed sack as fabric. It is slippery and sometimes jams the needle in my sewing machine. Going slow seems to help.

CUTTING THE BAG FOR HEIGHT

Trim the top and bottom of the bag to 12″ high.

CUTTING THE WIDTH OF THE BAG

Using scissors, cut the back of the bag down the middle.

Fold the bag in half(ish), centering the front.

From the center line, measure over 14″ & cut.

ADDING EMBELLISHMENTS

These bags were meant to be placed in my kitchen window and/or front porch, so I wanted to add just a little something for a homey feel. I have quite the lace and ribbon stash, so I chose to use them for the added decor.

It is easiest to add the lace and ribbon while the bag is one flat piece of fabric. I prefer to sew on the pretty stuff prior to sewing the bag back together.

To hold the lace in place while sewing, I first used a bit of fabric glue. It wasn’t totally necessary, but, it did help.

I chose a medium width ribbon, so there was enough to fold over the top of the bag. This created a nice, finished look to the bag.

SEWING THE BAG BACK TOGETHER

Fold the bag in half, inside facing out. Sew along the open edge about 1/2″ in. I sew a double line for extra durability.

Arrange the bag, inside out, so the seam is in the middle of the back. This ensures that the design on the front of your bag is centered.

Sew along the bottom edge.

BOXED CORNERS

The boxed corners are tricky to figure out at first. But, once you figure out how to fold the bag, they’re a cinch.

First, fold/push the bottom of the bag at each side to create a corner. The corner you make lays flat, but don’t expect the rest of the bag to.

I prefer these herb bags to have a wide bottom, so I create a fairly large boxed corner. On each side of the pointy corner, measure and place a mark at 3.5″.

Draw a line connecting the marks.

Sew along the line. Again, I do a double stitch.

Trim off excess fabric.

Repeat on the other side.

Turn the bag so the pretty side is out.

A PEEK INSIDE THE BAG

When done, the inside of the bag should look similar to this:

THE BAG IS COMPLETE

FILLING THE BAG

I put about 2″ of gravel at the bottom of the bag to help with drainage.

Next, I added dirt & compost.

Finally, I added plants. I started plants from seed earlier in the season, so I used those in the bags. Some bags had herbs, some had lettuce & kale.

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• The sunset is lovely this time of year. I took advantage of it with a few garden shots.
• The pumpkins didn’t do so well this year, but I harvested a bunch of gourds.
• The Cream Legbar is about 3 weeks old and lookin’ good.
• I brought home a White Leghorn cockerel from the neighbor’s. They didn’t want him and I’d love to have him. I enjoy leghorns. We already have a few leghorn hens, so hopefully come spring we will have leghorn babies.

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• The pumpkins and squash are growing… slowly. The plants look good, they just aren’t producing much. And for some odd reason, a couple of the seeds just germinated a couple weeks ago.
• Occasionally, particularly in the summer, I like to take photos of the night sky. I didn’t get any wowing pics this time around, but it’s still fun to try.
• Tomatoes growing in a barrel. Love!
• It seems we are having more than usual squirrel and chipmunk type critters visiting us.
• We live on an unmaintained logging road. The only upkeep on the road is after a logging task or when we or the neighbors fix it. New neighbors moved in not too long ago. They fixed the road! Woop, woop! I love them already. As a small token of our thanks we brought them hard cider and apples from our trees.
• The company sent us, at no charge, a new batch of hatching eggs. There was not any better outcome than last time. This time one cream legbar hatched. Also, one of our own olive eggers hatched. Crummy, crummy, crummy. This really messed up my breeding plan. Time to come up with a new plan… without using hatching eggs shipped across the country.

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The summer harvest season is here. All the time and effort is paying off in delicious ways.

MAIN GARDEN AREA

Squash. That pretty much sums up what we’re getting from the main garden right now.

In a separate bed, but still in the main garden, are more squash & pumpkins. I planted these later than the first batch, but I think we’ll still get to harvest them before the first frost.

There is a handful of other things in varying stages in the garden, as well.

Raspberries! At the beginning of July, the raspberries were quite plentiful. A couple times I went to the garden for other tasks and came back with a shirt full of raspberries because I just couldn’t resist. By the end of July, the raspberries are mostly gone, but we are still getting a few.

FRUIT TREES

The plums were green at the beginning of July. But, now almost a month later they are ripe and delicious.

We have one apple tree that is so full of apples the tree can’t support them. I will happily take this problem. Our fruit trees, in general, have not done well over the years. I’m thrilled we will have more than one or two apples to munch on.

AQUAPONICS & GREENHOUSE

The tomatoes, Mexican sour gherkins, and Asian eggplants have gone bonkers in the greenhouse.

HERBS

Much of last year’s sage in the main garden has already grown, flowered, and gone to seed. Farm Kid2 collected some of the seed.

The herb barrels are doing well. The parsley, especially, is growing almost faster than I can harvest and use or preserve. I didn’t tend to the cilantro well enough and much of it has flowered and gone to seed. So, I planted more and will hopefully stay more on top of harvesting it. I also planted more basil, since much of the basil didn’t transplant well.

I have never grown tarragon until now. I’ve decided I’m not a huge fan of the flavor. But, I do love its flowers.

In the herb barrels are also a couple non-herbs – tomatoes and peppers. At this time, the best growing pepper is called Ancho Tiburon.

BOUNTY

Bounty in these pics:
Lavender – Harvested. Hung to dry. And now placed in a jar waiting to become sachets or soap.
Red Tomatoes – Turned into marinara with onions from the garden and herbs from the patio herb barrels.
Yellow Cherry Tomatoes – Just for snacking
Mexican Sour Gherkins – Also, for snacking
Kale – Let’s be honest. I’m not a fan of kale. I fed it to the chickens. In exchange I collected their beautiful, scrumptious eggs.
Raspberries – Devoured
Parsley – This batch was used in potato salad and the rest was frozen in oil to use at another time.
Squash/Zucchini – The majority of the squash has been blanched and frozen. The larger one were given to the chickens. And, some were made into zoodles.
Calendula – Picked. Dried. Now sitting in grape seed oil. Later I will transform the calendula/grape seed oil into a salve.

What fresh items are you harvesting?

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Thankfully, we had a mild spring. So, planting the garden early worked out perfectly. Everything has gotten off to a fabulous start. Some things are even ready to enjoy.

MAIN GARDEN AREA

Well, it’s not our most beautiful garden. Parts of it are horribly overgrown. It needs weeded. But, the majority of the produce is growing well.

Zucchini

In a separate bed, I recently planted rows of squash, pumpkins, and gourds.

Since I started the herbs early in the greenhouse, the cilantro has already flowered… oops. It will need to plant more seed. I love cilantro.

The raspberries are starting to ripen. Yay!

Some of the lettuce and kale could already be cut.

The tomatoes have lovely, yellow flowers. This is the beginning of my impatient waiting for the onset of glorious, red tomatoes.

This was fun to watch. One cedar waxwing shared its red berry with its friend.

FRUIT TREES

Apples and plums are doin’ their growing thing.

AQUAPONICS & GREENHOUSE

In the greenhouse we have tomatoes at varying stages, an Asian eggplant is flowering, lettuce and kale are ready, Mexican sour gherkins are ready to be picked, and a few beans are making an appearance.

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We took a risk last month and planted our summer garden. So far so good. The weather has cooperated and everything is growing well… including the weeds.

THE MAIN GARDEN AREA

Lots of greens, beets, radishes, onions, tomatoes and herbs growing.

HERBS

Over grown sage in the garden.

A variety of herbs growing nicely in the greenhouse.

I put together three herb gardens in old barrels and set them on our patio. Most items transplanted well, but the basil was not impressed with the move. I have intentions of blogging about them later.

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• I moved some herbs from the greenhouse outside. The basil especially wasn’t thrilled with the move.

• The sage in the garden is flowering beautifully.

• Bees are loving our pink escallonia.

• I completed a hodge podge of items to create a cement area in front of our coops. So excited! Hopefully this will cut down on the mud during the rainy season and icy, slippery mud in the winter.

• I’m not a huge rhododendron fan, but I love the purple color of a small plant we have.

• The bottom left photo is an attempt by birds to make a mud nest. They also tried in a couple similar locations with no luck. They finally moved on and found a flat spot to build their home.

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This is about a month earlier than our normal, but we planted the garden. At least, part of it. I had many plants started and ready to be moved outside and the weather seems to be cooperating, so we gave it a whirl. So far, so good.

Even with the pigs being in part of the garden for awhile, it is still a weedy mess.

Farmer John tilled a small section in the garden for our first phase of planting.

Many of my tomato, kale, and herb starts were planted. The kids also planted a few things like radishes, beets, and watermelon.

The good news – 2 weeks in the garden and all my plants are doing well. The bad news – the weeds are doing well, too.

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• I’m fighting with Canadian thistles in all my flowerbeds. They are definitely my least favorite weed and unfortunately are quite prolific around here.

• Meanwhile the garden is battling with a broadleaf weed. They are just as difficult to get rid of as the Canadian thistle. They just aren’t pokey, so they don’t tick me off quite as much.

• Farmer John tilled a section in the garden, so we moved a few of the seedlings I started to that plot. Also planted were onion starts and a few seeds.

• I gave the rye grass fodder to the chickens. They devoured it.

• The ajuga is blooming in my favorite color.

• Bugs are coming out like crazy. The kids & I spotted a bug we haven’t noticed before. I thought it looked similar to a dragonfly, except it looks mean like a wasp.

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2015 has officially ended. Let’s look back at how our farm and gardening endeavors played out this past year. We had a fairly steady year with good food being grown and plenty of animals to keep us busy.

CHICKENS

We dabble in a variety of things related to farming and gardening, but chickens will always be a main stay for us. That being said, this year we did take a slight step back. We didn’t incubate eggs, we didn’t attend any shows or swaps, and Farm Kid2 decided not to continue with poultry in 4H. But, that doesn’t mean we’re short on chickens.

We chose not to incubate eggs this year. We did, though, have 3 broody hens hatch small clutches. Click here to read about the first hatch and click here to read about the second.

The majority of our birds are Rhode Island Reds and Easter Eggers. But, we still have two golden polish hens that are nearly 4 years old. They lay a fairly small egg and are such a great looking bird.

Mo, our Easter Egger rooster, has been demoted. For a number of years he was our top rooster. However, some young, cocky boys have moved up and taken his spot in the pecking order.

Three of our handsome fellas.

We were given this Old English Game bantam. I think he’s beautiful. He’s meant to be a show bird, but at the moment nobody in our family is showing poultry.

This wasn’t an outstanding egg year. One day, though, Farm Girl decided to count how many eggs we had.

We raised 10 birds for meat. Usually we roast the whole chicken, but one night Farmer John made chicken strips. They were delicious!

Four white leghorns, one buff orpington, one barred rock and one black australorp were added to our laying flock this year.

DUCKS

The ducks have given us a bit of excitement by each hen hatching eggs this year. That’s a first for us.

Our two Welsh Harlequin ducks.

Sally, our male Muscovy. The left photos are from January and February of this year. The right was taken in September. His looks changed significantly.

Both ladies sat on eggs this year, which was a fun experience for us. To read about the first hatch click here. And click here to read about the second hatch.

I’ve enjoyed watching how the Welsh Harlequin/Muscovy cross ducklings change as they mature.

Unfortunately, we lost Sally and one of the Welsh Harlequins to predators in the fall.

GOATS

The goats are cute as can be doing goat type things. You can read more about them here.

PIGS

We’ve had two sets of hogs this year. The first round Farm Kid1 raised 2 and sold them to earn money for a computer.

The second round was to fill our freezer, as well as to sell. The pigs were a Hampshire/Berkshire cross.

OLIVER & LOIS

A couple weeks ago we acquired a pot bellied pig named Oliver, and his friend Lois, a pygmy goat. My hope was we could be their forever home and they would live happily ever after with Sven and Olaf. Unfortunately, things aren’t working out as well as I had hoped. So, we are in the process of finding them a new home.

FLOWER BEDS

There wasn’t a lot of action this year in our flower beds. But, the same ol’ trusty trees, shrubs and perennials put on a pretty show mainly in the spring and summer months.

The ducks, unfortunately, are not great for the plants. They step on them. They sleep on them. They poop on them.

The deer also make flower gardening a challenge. Apparently some of our plants are quite tasty.

The only new additions to our flower beds were 10 lavender ‘grosso’ plants. They’re in an area that I’ve struggled with for years. I finally decided lavender was the thing to spruce it up.

PONDS

We have two small ponds that I love. Our farm critters as well as wild critters love them, too.

GARDENING FOR FOOD

Another thing we didn’t spend as much time on as in years past, was the garden. It is incredibly time consuming keeping up with the weeds and by the end of summer it had gotten a bit out of hand. We did harvest some produce, though. We got onions, potatoes, a few eggplant and squash, cherry tomatoes & herbs.

We tried the three sisters method in one area of the garden. Corn, beans and squash all growing together. It worked kind of . Everything grew. But, we tend to have trouble with corn and it didn’t grow fast enough before the beans grew tall. The squash (pumpkins & gourds) grew well, though.

Many of our seeds didn’t germinate this year. I think the birds got to them. Darn it. I should have had a fabulous showing of tall sunflowers mixed with viney cucumbers growing underneath. What I got was one sunflower. One.

This was not a great year for tomatoes. We only picked a handful of big, juicy red ones. It was so hot this summer, I actually think we didn’t water them enough. We did, however, get renegade yellow cherry tomatoes. They reseeded from last year and were a pleasant surprise.

Fruit. My favorite items to pick from the garden is the fruit. Our grape vines are finally producing well, we got a couple apples, lots of plums and lots of raspberries.

NEW PATIO

Our only big project of the year was pouring a much needed back patio. We decided to do stamped concrete, which was a lot of work. But, I’m so happy to finally have a patio. The ducks, too, are quite happy with the patio. It is one of their favorite places to hang out and poop.

AQUAPONICS

This was our first full year experimenting with aquaponics. We have three grow beds, one fish tank and a sump tank.

A good sized pump cycles the water and aquarium heaters keep it warm. Depending on the time of year we keep the water between 70 and 80 degrees.

We have a fan for circulation in the greenhouse.

Grown in the garden beds were/are peppers, Mexican sour gherkins, tomatoes, eggplant, mixed greens and okra. This growing method works very well.

I also started nasturtiums right in the garden bed and overwintered geraniums that loved the greenhouse.

We grow tilapia in the fish tank part of the aquaponics system. The fish aren’t growing as quickly as we thought they would. But, at the beginning of December we did finally catch a couple fish and have them for dinner. I was hoping they’d be good, and they were.

Whew! There were no major plant or animal changes this year. But, just keeping up kept us plenty busy. It’s so much work living this way, but so rewarding. I can’t wait to see what 2016 will bring.

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