Good Sunday Morning Readers!
Inspiration struck me to write this post “The Functional Creative Garden…Do You Have One?” because I couldn’t believe how many home remedies and functional, versatile, and easy to use products we grow right in our very own backyard!
So the other day as I was helping my hunny The Viking in my life in the garden my light bulb moment just took my breath away for a moment. No our yard would not win “Yard Of The Month” but I don’t feel like I am missing out at all because in place of that we have an eco-friendly yard to what extent we can control and one where our chickens, bees, and other little critters such as our North Carolina lizards and even the praying mantis thrive. It is without a doubt a functional creative garden!
I noticed we have some beautiful loofah growing which I think is such a fun plant to grow I may offer a giveaway on some seeds this year and our “Beauty Berry” looks amazing which we will be making some wine with soon and I have to share the news that scientists have confirmed that our lovely Beauty Berry bush/shrub/tree whatever you want to call it repels mosquitos! It’s a natural mosquito repellent…wow!
Isn’t that what your garden should be a place where you can find your go to home remedies that are all natural and chemical free!
I am so excited about the loofah and I am thinking of making homemade gifts with the loofah this year it grows fairly easily in Coastal North Carolina and we grow it vertically which may help with any type borer bugs which we have tons of when we grow squash.
Fresh Eggs are just such a fun way to provide your family with a high quality protein and even though we pared down our chickens to just three ladies we enjoy gathering their beautiful eggs and of course now we supplement from fresh local eggs at the farmers market however I have to say the time spent on our chickens is much less yet we still get to enjoy them every day!
Beauty Berry is a beautiful plant that not only can you make a beautiful homemade wine with but you can also use it as a natural mosquitto repellent in fact folk lore states that farmers would take switches off beauty berry bushes and place them around their horses to keep horseflies and other pests away from them.
I am sure if I looked around our garden I could have fit many more items in to this post but wanted to share with all of you what my idea of a garden was when I was young and what my idea is now has completely changed and when I look at a garden I want it overflowing and rich with resources so if you have plans to turn your garden into a functional creative edible garden but don’t know where to start take baby steps because for us it didn’t happen over night we slowly added more edibles in every year and continue to do so. We are hoping to add quince bushes this next year and more blueberry bushes as well!
We always have lots going on in fact we are finishing up working on some peach mead and we have some elderberry wine coming up next. Making your own homemade wine has so many advantages and it makes great gifts at the holidays too!
Fondly,
Other Blog Posts About Homemade Wine, Gardening, or Chickens You May Enjoy!
Free Plants and Easy Ways To Save Money On Gardening – Canadian Budget Binder
Meet The Chickens – Old World Garden Farms
Homemade Wine and Why You Should Make Your Own – The Survival Mom
Great post! I would be interested in your peach mead recipe. We’ve got a couple hives and plenty of honey!
Janet I will definitely create a blog post on the mead..now that I know there is interest 🙂 I love posting about our garden I get inspired every year with what is going on out there LOL! Thanks for stopping in!
Hey KarenLynn! Your post today was inspirational & timely! I was just out taking pix of our beautyberry bush last evening! I knew that the leaves were great bug repellants (and snapped the shots to make a post about it even!) but had never heard of wine from their berries! What do they taste like? Anything similar? Have you tried jelly from them? Thanks!
Angelia they are very tart so definitely need to be made into something like wine…we have not made jam with them……but if you do try it please let me know! Thanks for stopping in!