How to grow peas

I think my favorite vegetable to grow is peas! They are also one of the easiest vegetables to grow and generally produce well from spring into the hot parts of summer. One vine will produce dozens of pea pods! Plus since they grow up not out, they don't take up a lot of ground space.

I grow sugar snap peas, snow peas and regular shelling peas. Even though they are different varieties they all pretty much have the same care so this guide will help you with growing all different types of peas! It's crazy how many different types of peas are out there! So lets talk about growing them.

How to read and understand a seed packet

I've been gardening for many years and I still get stumped sometimes when reading seed packets! There is so much information fit onto those tiny little packets, and it ALL matters! To add to the confusion, all seed packets don't have the same information!

It's seriously annoying because sometimes they have all the info you could possibly want, and other times it's like 3 things! *sigh*

Today I want to talk about the different type of information you'll see on the back of a seed packet, what it means and how to use it. From deciphering sun exposure requirements to mastering spacing recommendations, lets go through what everything means!

How to get rid of stink bugs in your home

Are you lucky enough to live in a place that doesn't have infestation of stink bugs every year? Unfortunately we've been dealing with them for quite some time! As I've struggled with keeping them out of the house I have learned quite a few things that work... and a few that don't!

One of the things that helped was getting new siding on the house! No, I don't recommend this for everyone! In our defense the wood siding that was on our house was about 25 years old and badly needed replaced for other reasons! Effective, yes! Practical, no! Only get new siding if you need it.

However by getting new siding we found out that some stink bugs were getting into our house through the attic crawl space so we had to address that.

One of the things I tried that didn't work was sprinkling diatomaceous earth all around the entire outside of the house. Stink bugs don't crawl up to your house and then crawl up the house and get in. They fly and land wherever they want and try to find a crevice to get in. So anything working on the perimeter of the house will not work at all.

I found a mix of keeping them out and getting rid of the ones that were inside the house already was the easiest way to keep the stink bug infestation down to just a random one or two a week. Still annoying, but not so bad!

Lavender sleep sprays DIY

Years back I bought a bedtime spray from Avon and I used to spray it in my bedroom and on my pillow every night before went to sleep. It was lavender and I used it religiously until I could no longer buy it. What do we do when we can't buy something anymore? We make it!

Lavender is well known for its aromatherapy properties. Many people use it to help calm down, or even to go to sleep. One of the great things about using a particular item to help you go to sleep is that you get so used to it happening before you go to sleep, that it becomes a trigger that tells your body to go to sleep.

It's why all the experts recommend bedtime routines for children who can't fall asleep well or even for adults who have trouble falling asleep at bedtime. For me, a spritz of my Lavender Lay Down Spray tells my mind to calm down and get ready to sleep.

Thankfully this sleep spray is one of the easiest and cheapest recipes I make... Because I use it every night, so I go through quite a bit!

You're only going to need three things for each of these recipes. Well, four if you count the spray bottle. Distilled water, witch hazel or micellar water and lavender essential oils.

Uses for fallen leaves

I live in the woods. My house is on a 2-acre clearing smack dab in the center of the woods. When your house is surrounded by acres of trees you have a lot of fallen leaves to pick up every year! 

At first you just rake them into the woods or burn them or even suck them all up with a lawn vacuum type thing and dump them somewhere deep in the woods where they can't blow back out. After a while though you come up with ways to use said leaves, after all leaves could be very useful for a gardener!

There is one school of thought that leaves and dead plants should be left where they fall as certain insects will hide in them over winter and the leaves help them to survive. Unfortunately many common garden pests are on that list and allowing them a space to survive over winter is making more pest problems for yourself next year!

I'm pretty sure that's how my earwig problem got so bad the last 2 years! 

I also didn't till for 2 years because of a new fence, so that certainly didn't help. Tilling does help break up their little buggy homes and disrupts the lifecycle of many garden pests so I can't blame my earwig problem on 1 thing...but I'm sure the 2 changes worked together to make the garden particularly buggy this year. That won't happen again!

30 years gardening and still learning and trying different things. About the leaves though...