American Honey Home: June 2018

Sunday, June 24, 2018

Enclosed Garden in the Works

I had a vision. I wanted a pretty enclosed garden where I could have a potting bench and all of my flowers and veggies would be protected from squirrels. I also have this amazing husband who listens to my crazy ideas and makes them come to life.

Slowly but surely, it's starting to be built. We have to post holes dug and the posts placed. The door is ready to be set and chicken wire should be going on any day now.

I already have my potting bench in place and have been planting more flowers on the regular. This table came with the house when we bought it and it is the perfect potting bench.

I even have a sink that will be set up with water for washing my hands and watering my flowers.

We've already got the garden planted. In this section, we have raspberries, cilantro, artichoke, strawberries, zucchini, watermelon, onion, 3 kinds of peppers and pumpkin.

This old truck bed has asparagus, raspberries, strawberries and tomatoes. We started with a garden bed this size last year to see if we could actually grow stuff and since we succeeded, we decided to go bigger!

I did a little potting at my bench today and planted some succulents in this old bird cage. I am really looking forward to to this enclosed garden coming to life and planting so many wonderful things in it!

Linking up with:

Dishing It & Digging It

Amaze Me Monday

Cooking & Crafting with J & J

Make It Pretty Monday

Saturday, June 16, 2018

Jam with Ball House Party

Today I got to host some friends at my house for a really fun canning party. I had signed up years ago with House Party to participate in some of their party activities but was never chosen so I sort of forgot about it. This Ball party intrigued me so I signed up and was chosen to be a host!

They sent me all the equipment that I needed to host the jam party. I got an enamel waterbath canner, 12 jars, canning accessory kit, a recipe book, recipe cards and coupons. I bought a jar of pectin and the sugar and my guests brought their favorite berries.

We made 2 batches of mixed berry jam and everyone was so surprised by how easy it was to can our own jam. We mixed the berries, the pectin and the sugar until it was ready to be put in the jars. Then we put the jars in the bath and boiled them for 10 minutes.

Even my friends 10 year old daughter joined in on the fun! She had so much fun and was telling her mom about all the stuff she wants to make now with her new-found canning skills!

After the jars were sealed and had cooled off a little bit, I gave my guests something fun to decorate their jam jars with. I cut some fabric into squares and made a custom tag to describe what we made. We tied it on with twine and everyone got to take home a goodie bag with their jam, recipe and coupons.

Here we all are after our jam was done. I can't wait to see what kind of stuff everyone is going to can now! We made 2 batches in less than 2 hours and I know that everyone will be having homemade mixed berry jam for breakfast tomorrow morning!

If you haven't already signed up to host your own parties, you should! Visit Ripple Street to sign up and you might just be hosting a party of your own soon. At the end of the month, I get to host a Kikkoman Grilling Party and I am really looking forward to it.