Friday Favorite: Gardener’s Nail Brush
My feet are always dirty, very dirty. I’m a barefoot & flip flop kind of person in the summer, even when I work in the garden. My feet are happiest when free, they do not like being stuffed into shoes, it’s suffocating for them. As a result, my feet are scrubbed nightly because they can get very dirty during the day.
I keep a pumice stone in the shower and use it daily on my feet. That worked well, but some days not nearly well enough. Then I discovered the Gardener’s Nail Brush and my feet have never been cleaner in the summer. I have a few other brushes from Bürstenhaus Redecker and find them to be of great quality. I’ve been using the same wooden bottle brush for 3-4 years now and I use it exclusively to wash all my dishes.
Whenever possible I like to purchase items made from natural materials. Not only do I find that natural materials are less likely to mold, they last much longer as well. If you like to garden in sandals or barefoot I highly recommend one of these brushes. They also work well for getting dirt out from under your nails, something I’m constantly battling as well.
Do you have any recommendations for great products for gardeners?
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Friday Favorite: Old Friends
It’s that time of the year to plan my yearly get together with my college girlfriends. It’s hard to believe that it’s been 20 years now that we’ve known each other, we all met our freshman year of college way back in 1994. We get together each year, sometimes we meet at one of our homes, sometimes we rent a cabin somewhere, often we all meet up back Cincinnati, OH where we went to school. One of our friends lives in Cincy and we all stay at her home. It’s a weekend filled with laughter, tears and lots of catching up.
I’m reading a book by Shauna Niequist right now and came across this quote yesterday – it’s so fitting for this occasion “When we’re together, we do what old friends do: we talk about the past we share and fill each other in on the daily present we no longer share. These women’s faces hold oceans of memories for me, stories no one else would ever believe. They’re like adolescent time capsules, lives lived long ago, and they’re also sounding boards and fellow travelers in similar phases of life.”
We always enjoy lots of good food and do crazy things. We’ve rented surreys to ride on the riverbank, we went on a duck boat tour, we walk, we laugh, and we thoroughly enjoy our time together catching up.
These ladies have been in my life for more than half of it, we have celebrated many weddings and births and cried at the loss of a husband and sickness of children. We have managed to reunite at least once each year for the past twenty years. Some years it’s all six of us, sometimes only four, but it’s always a wonderful weekend. In October I will be heading to Cincinnati to meet up with my friends, it’s good to have the date on the calendar for something to look forward to.
Do you have any old friends that you get together with on a regular basis?
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Friday Favorite: Plant Tags
This past week I visited a local public garden, it’s a small facility, so I was surprised when most of the plants were labeled. I love a place that has plant tags because I always want to know varieties. In my photos you will find both photos of the plant and the tags.
I would love to add tags to my garden but I’m not sure exactly which method I would use. For right now I keep track with photos, but it would definitely be nice to have things labeled since I get a decent number of visitors. Tagging plants is both an investment in time and money though and I’m not sure if I want to dedicate any of my gardening time to that right now. Perhaps that’s a good future project, something to tackle during one of our long Maine winters.
Do you have any plants tagged in your garden?
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Friday Favorite: Patriotic Holidays
For some reason I really love a patriotic holiday, not sure why, it’s just something I’ve always loved. Perhaps it’s because I like see flags so much. I hope if you are here in the US you enjoy a nice celebration whatever that means for you. Mr Chiots is off cooking chicken for the fire department barbecue.
We’ll have good food with good friends and we might even see a few fireworks. Truly the perfect way to celebrate!
What’s your favorite way to celebrate summer holidays?
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Friday Favorite: Strawberry Season
Last night we have our first flush of ripe berries from the garden, they were delicious!
I planted these last year, we have ‘Sparkle’ Junebearing strawberry plants and everbearing ‘Seascape’. I wanted to give overbearing a try to see how they did. Last year they didn’t produce very many berries but it was their first year. We will see how they do this year.
We enjoyed the berries on strawberry shortcake, one of our favorite summer meals. If you’d like the recipe I posted it a few years ago on this post.
Next year we should have even more strawberries, our plants produce lots of runners. I’ll be moving all the ones that come this year to a new spot in the garden. Strawberries do well if they are moved to a new location every 3 years. I plan on adding a new section in the garden before the old one is exhausted so we alway have lots of berries.
What’s your favorite way to enjoy strawberries?
