Getting my seeds organized for gardening

Last fall after I put my garden to bed for the year, I decided to organize my seeds. I have lots of seeds, some I bought and many others that I saved from my own plants. I am always getting confused as to what I have vs. what I need, so I really needed to straighten this mess out! 

Garden seeds separated in separate squares of a dish

Especially since I love to try new varieties each year, and sometimes I will find I already bought the new seeds I wanted...but forgot because everything is a jumbled mess! *sigh*

My usual method had the seed packets in small individual bins. I always separated them into 3 categories: flowers, herbs and edibles. I've always used a 'seed wallet' when I go out into the garden to plant. While this worked when I had a small garden, with my recent expansions...I needed more organization. 

I bought one of those photo boxes from the craft store, which works really well for seed packets. It holds a lot of store bought packets! They sell them at craft stores like Michael's and come in lots of pretty colors and patterns. I do like when my storage looks good, don't you?

I decided to try the photo album idea that was so popular last spring. Now I have 2 types of organization going on and I think it's going to work better than ever!

Yummy peanut butter hot chocolate

Baby, it's cold outside! Winter is the perfect time to experiment with hot drinks. I decided to make a hot treat for the kids when they came inside from doing chores today. Since they love hot chocolate and peanut butter I decided to see if I could use the new Reese's spreads to make them a gourmet hot chocolate drink. It worked out wonderfully, and they loved it! It was super easy. Head into the kitchen and I'll show you how.


easy peanut butter hot chocolate recipe

Can I get a ladybug? What to do about Aphids on houseplants

I have never wanted to find a lady bug as much as I do right now! My miniature pepper plant has aphids...INSIDE the house! Ugh! To make matters worse, as soon as it starts to warm up outside a bazillion ladybugs will suddenly appear inside my house as if they materialized from thin air. It's like magic...and I would do just about anything to see a few like, NOW!

Getting rid of aphids on houseplants

I guess it's my own fault. The aphids had gotten onto my container plants on the patio during summer. I controlled them pretty well but they did keep coming back. They were mostly on the Chamomile, but I was growing some ornamental peppers nearby. I never saw them on the peppers though. 

When fall got too cold and I brought some plants inside, I checked carefully for any bugs or foliage damage. I saw none, so I brought them inside and they took up residence in my living room windows. Now I know that I need to Debug and clean plants before I bring them indoors for winter. I didn't when this story started though, which brings us to the aphids!

Then the horrible day came (3 months later) when I noticed the aphids on the house plants. I noticed them on the pepper plants first. They were also on the pansy next to them so I made the decision to sacrifice both plants for the health of the rest and outside they went. 

They were the only 2 plants in that window but I checked the other plants anyway and they were all clear. Flash forward a few weeks and I see the little sap suckers again! Really?

Top posts of 2014

So now that 2014 has officially ended I've had time to sit down and look back at the past year of blogging. I've taken a look at which posts were widely viewed, pinned and shared. So without much preamble....here they are (in order) my top 5 posts of 2014.

best blog posts 2014