Until Next Year...

My dreams of a warm September ends in this pile of pool shrapnel:-)

You provided many memories for us this summer and I look forward to the day that we meet again:-)

Tackling a Pergola That is Done

It's time for Tackle It Tuesday with 5 Minutes for Mom . That's right! It is finally done and here it is:

Whew! That was a huge undertaking but now, I have to get to work on moving the grapes over:-)

Still Working On It

In between the raindrops, 3 parties and overnight guests....



...we are still working on it:-)

Don't Forget to Save Those Seeds!!!

Remember this post from last year???

"Gardening is a way to say that you believe in tomorrow." If that saying is true, than I believe! And if that is true, I need to save some seeds to have tomatoes tomorrow...or in this case, the spring.

Saving seeds is easy if you follow these steps:

1. Seed a tomato

2. Place said seed into a very fine sieve:

3. Rinse the seeds gently. The goal here is to remove the gelatinous material that the seeds swim in and the thin membrane around each seed. This takes longer than you think because those membranes can be really stubborn. For the really difficult ones, you can gently rub them between two paper towels. This is what it looks like before and after:

4. Dry them on a paper plate. See how many seeds I got from a half of a tomato?

5. Once they are dried, wrap the seeds in a paper towel and place them in a labeled food storage bag.

6. Store them in the refrigorator until them at ready to plant in the spring.

Happy Saving:-)

Tackling a Pergola

It's time for Tackle It Tuesday with 5 Minutes for Mom . This weekend was erected this:

So, it will be the new home to my grapes:-)

Bye Bye Basil

After 12 four-ounce and 2 eight-ounce jars of pesto plus a bunch of frozen basil, that's the last of it that I am drying-) See you next year:-)

Pergola Plans

This week, we worked on plans to erect a pergola in our backyard. Our grape arbor is not only on it's last leg but should have been replaced last year.


We are looking at building a 16X12 foot structure however, my husband thinks it will only be 14X10 inside. Do you think that is enough room to entertain underneath? It doesn't seem big enough to me.