Hearts at Home

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Comment by Michael J. Masley on May 11, 2008 at 6:26pm

Care is basically the same, and many plants are successfully grown in pots. I have been doing it for 10 years now that way.

Best of luck, and sorry about the okra and the car!

Mike

Comment by Jeanette Kuhl Ozee on April 30, 2008 at 8:59pm

Nice to meet you, Kezia. I can relate to so much of what you've said about cost and all.

Can someone explain how a potted garden works? Do the plants take different care than those planted in the ground? I remember growing some okra once in a pot, but it only produced enough okra to make a person starve. Last year my beautiful ground garden got sucked away in a tornado and what was left was destroyed by hail. In fact, my car was totaled last week in a hail storm and I am driving around with a car that is missing the back windshield and the front windshield is so spider-webbed the reflecting light from all the cracks makes it very hard to see out of! :'( My car looks like a golf ball on wheels! You know, a potted garden could be moved for safety :o)

Any hints?

Comment by Kezia Johnson on April 30, 2008 at 6:07pm

Thank you, Kim, for starting this group. We are in the same "boat" when it comes to running to the store so frequently. We are a family of eight, and my grocery bill has nearly doubled in the past two years just due to prices.

We will be planting a garden this year and relying on it much more than in the past. We have chickens, and they are starting to lay again, so that is nice. We are also reducing our meat consumption, and trying to eat organic-- but it is so much more expensive!

I would like to know if anyone has any ideas on how to eat better and begin storage on a budget that makes it almost impossible to go organic. :)

Comment by Jeanette Kuhl Ozee on April 29, 2008 at 2:50pm

Oh, I have no idea what the name of the book is. I will have to ask my mom. Hey, she is a new member of JGI...her name is Helen Sims. I've sent her an email to join groups so, maybe we'll see her here. This is right up her alley.

Comment by annette on April 29, 2008 at 12:57pm

yah! a group I can get Ideas from...I have a hard time thinking of them on my own..this weekend my sister-in-law asked me what I do w/my rhubarb leaves and gave me a great idea..make bird baths out of them, perfect depth for the wee ones..a pile of sand.. used plastic ie bags seran etc. over sand..leaf face side down..kwick crete on back of leaf..dry/peel and was of leaf and walla..can be placed in gardens or make a stand, they are beautiful she already made three!

Comment by Kim on April 29, 2008 at 12:16pm

Thank you Bryce! I have a passion for bringing people closer to home. I hate how far apart we all are, both physically and emotionally.

Jeanette, I would love to know the name of that book! I'm heading over to your blog. I hope I'm doing this right. I sent an email to everyone in the group, then saw the "add comment" box. I'll figure it out. :) I have a book similar to that one, Jeanette, it's called Homemade by Reader's Digest and it has recipes for hundreds of things that you can make at home, including ketchup and soap, too. Your birdhouses sound wonderful! Do you have pictures of any of them anywhere?

Kim

Comment by Jeanette Kuhl Ozee on April 29, 2008 at 11:08am

Hi everyone. I am very much into making homelife happy. I found this group through Kim whom I linked through from my mother's page. In fact, my mom recently bought a really cool book that has great ideas for self-sustained living. It has recipes for everything from soap to ketchup and tips for people interested in using their own means to create products for homelife.

I started a blog, though I really do not know how they work, lol. In the last entry, I posted ways we can reuse things and how it can be a family affair. Every year my family buys, makes and decorates birdhouses as a family project. Family projects like that reinforces the bonds each member has with one another and supports healthy communication and more.

I really appreciate the idea behind this group.

It is nice meeting you - Jeanette

Comment by Bryce on April 28, 2008 at 2:16pm

Hi Kim.
This is a great idea for a group - and does speak to a place where family mean something and neighbors are important again.

Comment by Kim on April 28, 2008 at 1:37pm

Welcome to Hearts at Home! My dream is to bring families home. The way things are going, it's no longer feasible to run to Wal*Mart three times a week and buy a bunch of processed food. We need to think about ways to keep our families home more, to refocus our hearts on our homes. We can grow our own food in containers in very little space. Some of us can keep chickens, goats, even cows. We can buy at the local market, focusing on food grown locally to support our neighbors and our local economy. We can create ways to play at home, to entertain ourselves and each other, to keep from running out to town to shop or eat out. We can talk about canning, pressure cooking, stocking up to prepare for emergencies. How can we use less packaging? Buy "greener" things? Eliminate a lot of our waste?

This group is about making the family home work a great place to be so we aren't so anxious to go elsewhere. We'll even get to know each other better and maybe the kids will stay close when they grow up. And if the worst should happen? We'll be prepared right in our own homes and won't need to worry about rushing out to find what we need to survive.