Fridays Scissors and Cream (Potatoes and Halloween Decor!)

For those who are new to our blog I have taken on the challenge to broaden my domestic goddess talents. I will be posting "first attempts" to crafts and recipes each week for your entertainment success or total failure! I call these my Friday's scissor and cream posts. Enjoy...

We got a great crop of potatoes in our garden this year. Last year we put ten potato halves in and got 11 whole potatoes. Sad. This year we can say we got pounds of potatoes from our ten we put in! We have a friend we call mother earth in our ward and she has helped us out ALOT with our garden. I won her generous offer of one free box garden made,planted and tended at a relief society service auction. She was the one who showed me how to grow potatoes in garbage cans. Instead of just posting our pics I thought that some of you may be interested in knowing how it works! I am not one for doing tutorials but know explaining this process can get a bit confusing fast. This is a great way to have a garden and you don't have to have a back yard. All that is needed is a porch with only a little bit of sun. First things first- soil! Our friend convinced us to do a homemade rich soil mixture for our boxes and our cans. We used a equal mix of peet moss, fertilizer and 3 to 1 vermiculite. The vermiculite is a life saver so don't think you can live with out it! It has little light weight flecks that maintain moisture but not too moisture that things will rot. This combination is so light and airy you will NEVER HAVE TO WEED. since you will be constantly adding dirt to your pails and condensing the dirt it is a miracle soil. First you need to pick out buckets. We use a tote that was missing a lid and 2 garbage cans that we bought new at home depot. I have seen planters and 5gl buckets used as well. If you only have a dinky little car still like we do here is a tip. Order from home depot on their free shopping plan and get them delivered to your door. No truck needed! This saved us a lot of hassle. Next you need to drill a ton of holes in the bottom. Then take 5 potatoes with eyes and cut them in pieces. Try to cut them so that each piece has st least 1-2 eyes. Let them sit out on your counter for 2 days so they get a hard crust on the freshly cut sides. Then bury them at the bottom of your container with your soil mix. Once the plants are about 4in high cover them up to just under the leaves with more dirt. Make sure you water consistly daily just like your regular garden. I have been told that potatoes grow the most when the plants are flowering so make sure not to give up at this stage. Harvest time is when the plants have stopped flowing and are beginning to die and turn yellow. When we plant in may we generally harvest the beginning of september or august.

Here is what may happen if you waste time deciding how you are going to fit huge garbage cans in your small Corolla. :/ (Do your kids a favor and order online!)

Here is the bottom of one of our can so you can see how far apart we drilled our holes.

You can see that our ones in the tote are already starting to turn yellow after flowering



Here is all of our white ones



Have you ever seen purple ones! We tried these out just for fun. We made all of these ones into our own magical purple mashed potatoes. yum.

HERE is a recipe close to Daniels famous broiled potatoes he always makes with our BBQ dinners. He originally learned it from a much loved investigator from his mission in England. The key direction for this meal is to boil the cut potatoes before covering them with the oil sauce and broiling them. We usually use a combination of salt, pepper, thyme and rosemary for the seasonings. It is fabulous every time!

Its Halloween time so I have a few super cheap projects brewing in my head. Here is my first one. I made Halloween vintage plaques. I love how easy they are. Most of the mess ups just make it look more vintage. Daniel cut me 4 squares of cedar and I followed a tutorial like I do with all my copy cat crafts. Unfortunately, I can not find the same tutorial I used anywhere! I am not one to do tutorials so, here are my basic steps:

Cut wood to desired shape

Print/cut clip art

Paint wood with basic acrylic paint

Let dry

Paint a thin coat of Mod Podge on the surface of your wood

Place paper clip art (ink side down) onto the wet Mod Podge

Let dry

After all is dry run the whole board under water

Gently rub white paper off with finger or sandpaper

Finally, Go over the whole surface and sides of your board with Mod Podge

*I learned quickly that my finger or finger nail would rub off the paper with caution better then any sand paper. (After doing this I found pre-cut plaques at walmart for only 99cents! bummer).

Her