The Sleepy Hollow Homestead

Homesteading, Homemaking, Homemade: The pursuit of good simple living.

Archives for July 2022

Start a No-Dig Garden fast & cheap!

We took our space from grass to food in just 5 months (although you could do it faster!) And did it for cheap with this no dig garden method! You can watch the video to get a better tour of the garden.

There’s not a lot of space in the potager project garden yet. But the really exciting part of the garden is that just 5 months ago it was all grass.

We’re here in zone 6 and have a lot of time left in our growing season. In the beginning of march I began laying down cardboard and woodchips, and now there’s an abundance of food! We’re harvesting basil and other herbs out of the garden. We’re harvesting cucumbers, and now we’re waiting on the tomatoes to turn colors. But there’s an abundance of them!

The way I plan to design this poteger is four square beds at the front. And eventually that will also be mirrored at the end cap. The sides are two longer rectangular beds. And in the middle, the plan is to make an herb spiral as the centerpiece. Then to have four square beds with the corners cut off surrounding that.

I also intend to to remove all the grass in this space beyond the structured garden. This is to make room for more cottage-style wild gardens all the way around. I don’t want any grass to mow up here at all!

So it’s literally just grass, coardboard, and woodchips. To plant in, all I do is push through the cardboard to plant into the ground beneath. All of the weeds that I have are in my pathways where I did not use cardboard. There I instead opted for weed cloth. I am not a fan of the weed cloth and plan to pull it all up for the next season.

I wanted to save the cardboard and use something more permanent for the pathways, so I opted for weedcloth. My advice is: if you’re considering weed cloth, skip it.

I will say, the wood chips are fantastic for keeping weeds down, but the bind weed is tenacious. It is the bane of my existence, and I’m still pulling that stuff out. But overall, you will have a dramatic reduction in weed pressure unless you don’t overlap your cardboard correctly.

Nobody wants to talk about the sad, scary, and not-so fun parts of life, but I really think you’re doing your family a big disservice if you don’t take the time to learn to grow your own food. You may never actually need the skill, but you’ll be thankful you do know how if you ever need it.

I hope you can see that your garden doesn’t have to be perfect or the most beautiful to give you food. Eventually I want this space to be beautiful, but this is a first year garden, and that takes time.

I’m so thankful you’ve taken the time to watch my video and/or read my blog post! Especially out of all of the videos and posts you could have spent your time on. Now grab your coffee and get to gardening!

I thank you for visiting!

Our first Carrot Harvest! Harvest carrots with us

Hello, hello! Join us as we harvest carrots for the first time ever!

Our carrot bed is very embarrassing and more than a little overgrown with weeds.

The carrot bed was completely overtaken by weeds. It became low priority with everything else, but there are a lot of carrots growing in here!

Please watch our YouTube video showing our journey of harvesting this fun bunch of carrots that we’ll later turn into fermented ginger carrots. Yum!

It’s a small harvest, but it was our first try. I learned we can pack them in closer together to get more when we harvest carrots. We also got a couple of funky ones which was very fun to see. My kids really loved seeing the silly shapes.

Here’s a link to the next video where we turn these carrots into a delicious, crisp, effervescent snack that’s great for our gut health!

In the mean time, I hope you have a great day. Thanks for visiting!

How to make No-Sew Extra Long Drop Cloth Curtains

Today I’m going to be making No-Sew Extra Long Drop Cloth Curtains for these massive windows in the master bedroom. Please watch the video for the full tutorial.

I already had my curtain rods, and all I need in addition to those is:

  • scissors
  • clip rings to match the curtain rods (I used 2 packs of 7 per window)
  • 1 9×12 drop cloth per window

First we have to lay down the 9×12 drop cloth. I washed this with bleach, but I didn’t do the whole bleaching process to lighten them.

There’s a seam down the middle, so the plan is to cut that out to have 2 panels. The edges on either side after cutting the seam out are raw, but the other is hemmed. I cut off the hem to make that raw as well so they look like very rustic curtains.

I left the bottom seam alone so that when I hung the curtains I could cut to the length desired.

So then I’m left with 2 very long 12-ish feet panels. I folded over the top to make a ruffle at the top of the curtain. Then I simply clipped the curtain rings as evenly as possible across the top. I used seven rings per panel, which means I used 14 per window.

Once hung up, I trimmed along the bottom to the desired length, and that’s it! You have some beautiful No-Sew Extra Long Drop Cloth Curtains.

This was a very simple, inexpensive, and cute project that helped add a lot of cottage-farmhouse charm to our 1865 colonial revival farmhouse. Plus it was so much cheaper than it would have cost to install custom curtains to the length I would need for these massive windows!

One thing about drop cloths- many of them have seams going through the middle of the canvas. I would recommend getting the biggest drop cloth you can in order to make allowances for this.

Until next time – Thanks for visiting!

What you need to know when starting a homestead or garden near a highway

the sleepy hollow homestead harvesting

Hello, hello!

Here’s something to consider if you buy property along a state road: you may not be in charge of maintenance on your own property. You also might not be on the No Spray List. You need to find out!

My husband and I bought this farm that is right along a state road. Our small driveway has a guardrail that comes along the side of it. It “Ls” out onto the road that leads to a bridge.

We did have a whole schlew of raspberries growing along the guardrail that had a whole lot of fruit on. I won’t get to enjoy them this year. I didn’t even get to try one. And one lavender plant also got cut down. They were doing weed-eating along the highway where we live, and now they’re gone. Absolute devastation.

We do have some little shoots that are fine, but they shaved the lavender almost completely to the ground.

How to get maintenance of the guardrail

All that is to say, I called INDOT this morning. We live in Indiana, and INDOT (Indiana Department of Transportation) is the entity that maintains our roadways. You will need to find the entity that applies to you. Do not assume that just because it comes onto your property that it is yours to maintain. Because the state has an easement to the highway, they have every right to mow that.

We had lavender at the end of the road, mirrored on both sides of the driveway. We thought it would look really nice, plus it’s lavender so it would smell lovely, too. INDOT did say as long as there’s no visibility hindrance, the maintenance of that guardrail can be negotiated. So she put in all the paperwork on her end to get that into our maintenance.

No Spray List

It was a very nice conversation, and we got to talking about our property. I said, “This leads to the other side of the bridge, and I’m pretty sure there’s poison hemlock there. So feel free to weed-eat over there,” I said. She immediately stopped me. “I’m glad you said that. Even if you maintain the guardrail, if someone calls us and tells us there’s a noxious invasive, they will send someone out to weed-eat and spray.” she responded. She did say there are ways to do no-spray. To which I responded. “I’m glad you said that!” We just got bees and are trying to grow as organically as possible.

She then gave us all of the information we needed to get on the no-spray list through DriftWatch.

Here’s how to sign up for states who use DriftWatch to get on the no spray list.

INDOT and their herbicide application contractors utilize the website called “DriftWatch” when performing herbicide treatments. This site allows crop producers and beekeepers, to report areas of sensitivity, where certain pesticides may negatively impact the environment. This allows their herbicide applicators to work with the community to protect specialty crops and apiaries through use of mapping programs. They also urge that adjacent property owners register on this site those areas of sensitivity, so that they become aware of the locations. Additionally, the signs available through this organization can be used as physical markings that can be used to help the applicators know where these sensitive areas are. To register on DriftWatch, please visit their site at https://in.driftwatch.org/

You have to call your local transportation department to see what you need to do to get onto the no spray list if you live along a state or city maintained roadway.

All’s that to say:

I was naïve to think that nobody would come up to maintain the guardrail on our property. I should have considered that. So don’t let our mistake be your mistake!

The most important thing when you contact the people you need to contact is: be nice. The lady I spoke with didn’t personally come out and hack down my raspberries. It costs zero dollars to be polite. Plus it will get you farther with anyone than being rude and nasty will.

Here’s the video on this very topic!

So I hope that gives you something to think about, and we’ll see you next time.

Thanks for visiting!