Wednesday, June 9, 2021

Tuesday, June 8, 2021

Propagating Tomato Plants from Suckers

Monday, June 7, 2021

Friday, June 4, 2021

Thursday, May 20, 2021

Hummingbird Food Recipe

Hummingbird Food Ratio is 4 parts water to 1 part sugar. Mix well, fill your feeder and place in an outdoor location.

Thursday, May 13, 2021

Diatomaceaous Earth

An organic method of insect control for use in house plants, or any indoor and outdoor gardening. Diatomaceaous Earth can be used to kill bed bugs, cockroaches, crickets, fleas, ticks, spiders and many other pests. According to the NPIC there are thousands of non-pesticide products that contain diatomaceous earth.

What is Diatomaceaous Earth?

Diatomaceaous Earth is made up of fossilized aquatic organisms called diatoms. Diatom's skeletons are made of Silica. Diatoms build up in the sediment of rivers streams, lakes and oceans, where they are then mined to create Diatomaceaous Earth.

Avoid breathing in Diatomaceaous Earth dust, and keep out of reach of children and pets.

Little Lakeview Conservatory LLC uses organic methods when at all possible.

Some other methods used for pest control:

Neem Oil
Companion Gardening, using plants that coexist well together and ward off pests that would normally be attracted to it's companion plant.
Some plants themselves contain natural pesticides. That can be harvested for use.
Maintenance, actively removing seen pests from plants.
Some minerals act as natural pesticides.

To attempt to avoid killing bees in your garden, it is best to use Diatomaceous Earth beneath the blossoms of the plants that you are treating.Little Lakeview Conservatory LLC also provides a "Bee Bath" in our garden, in addition to our natural creek that runs through our property to the Lake. A Bee Bath is a Bird Bath, but with rocks we've gathered to help prevent the Bees from possible drowning. Bee's are our favorite little pollinators!

Additional Resources:

https://www.almanac.com/what-diatomaceous-earth

https://www.farmersalmanac.com/what-is-diatomaceous-earth-27832

http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/degen.html

https://gardenerspath.com/how-to/disease-and-pests/diatomaceous-earth/

https://www.planetnatural.com/diatomaceous-earth-bees/

https://www.beelab.umn.edu/bees/pollination

All DIY projects shown on www.LittleLakeviewConservatory.com are purely "at your own risk". As with any DIY project, unfamiliarity with the tools and process can be dangerous. Posts should be construed as theoretical advice only.
If you are at all uncomfortable or inexperienced working on these projects (especially but not limited to electronics and mechanical), please reconsider doing the job yourself. It is very possible on any DIY project to damage your cottage, void your property insurance, create a hazardous condition or harm or even kill yourself or others.

Little Lakeview Conservatory LLC will not be held responsible for any injury due to any featured DIY project.

Little Lakeview Conservatory, LLC

Little Lakeview Conservatory, LLC was est. in 2019 to provide sustainable plants in NH and to share information to help people create self sustainability in their own homes.

Please feel free to contact us at LittleLakeviewConservatory@gmail.com be added to our email list or with any questions, requests and comments.

Little Lakeview Conservatory, LLC

Grow a little!™

Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Spring Drink Recipes

Fresh Herbs, Flowers, Sunshine! Spring favorites come together with refreshing homemade drinks.

Here are a few of our favorite basic recipes:

Homemade Sweet tea:

Ingredients:

Water
Tea bags with homegrown or store bought tea to taste (4-6 bags)
Sugar to taste (about one cup)
Ice (optional to add in your glass, do not put ice in the brew)

What you will need:

A jar to contain the mixture
A spoon to stir the mixture
A glass to pour the mixture into and drink from

Place all ingredients except for the ice into your jar. Set in sun. Wait a few hours. Stir. Pour the mixture into a glass (optionally with ice). Enjoy!

Kombucha:

Ingredients:

Tea (1 gallon) -See Homemade Sweet Tea recipe for tea with sugar
Sugar (1 cup)
SCOBY
Additional Herbs or Fruit pieces (to taste) optional after the first fermentation

What you will need:

A glass Jar
Cheese cloth or paper towels
A rubber band
A spoon
A glass

"A SCOBY, which stands for “symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast,” is an ingredient used in the fermentation and production of kombucha." -https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/kombucha-scoby

Have a space set up that is dark, warm (70 degrees) and isolated to store your mixture. Combine Tea and Sugar or Sweet Tea with your SCOBY in your glass container of choice. Let sit in dark isolated area for 1-4 weeks. Secondary fermentation for flavor and carbonation. Pour into glass. Enjoy!

Mint Julep:

Ingredients:

Mint leaves (4-6)
Sugar (2 tsp. or to taste) or Simple Syrup (to taste)
Bourbon Whiskey (2 ounce)
Ice

What you will need:

A glass
A muddler
A spoon
A glass

Place most of your mint in your glass. Add sugar. Muddle the mint and sugar mixture. Fill glass with ice. Pour bourbon whiskey over the ice. Use a sprig of your mint to garnish. Enjoy!

Homemade Lemonade:

Ingredients:

Lemons (A dozen) or Lemon Juice (1 cup)
Sugar (1 cup or to taste)
Water (1 gallon)
Ice (to taste)
Fruit (Optional for flavor varieties)

What you will need:

A jug/jar/pitcher for your mixture
A knife and a juicer if you\"re using fresh lemons
A spoon
A glass

Prepare your choice of Lemon. Add lemon juice to your container of choice. Add Sugar. Add water. Mix with spoon. Pour in glass with/without ice. Adding slices of lemons, strawberries or blueberries if you would like. Enjoy!

New York (Sweet and) Sour:

Ingredients:

Bourbon Whiskey (2 ounce)
Homemade Lemonade
Red wine (1/2 ounce)
Ice

What you will need:

A glass
A spoon
A shaker (optional)

Traditionally a New York Sour would include egg whites, lemon juice, sugar and whiskey mixed in a shaker and poured over ice, with Dry red wine floating at the top of the drink. I prefer a sweeter drink. Mix and match ingredients to your own taste.

Pour Bourbon Whiskey into glass. Add Homemade Lemonade. Add ice. Stir. Use spoon upside down to pour the wine gently over drink to float. Enjoy!

Lilac Cordial:

Ingredients:

Lilac Flowers
Water (4 cups)
Sugar (4 cups)
Lemon juice (1 tsp) or citric acid to taste
Blueberries (1 cup optional for color)

What you will need:

Container for mixture, Mason Jars
A large pot (for boiling)
A mesh strainer/mesh sleeve
A spoon
A glass

Rinse off clean, pesticide free, petals from Lilac flowers. Combine water and sugar in a large pot. Boil until the sugar has dissolved, while stirring mixture with a spoon intermittently. Let cool slightly not to crack glass jars. Add in Lemon juice and Pour mixture over lilac flowers (add blueberries for color optionally), in your Mason jars or containers of choice. Seal for a week, shaking once a day. Strain flowers out of mixture at end of that week using mesh strainer/sleeve. Store in clean sealed jars or freeze.

Add mixture to water or various drinks for flavor. Enjoy!

Drink responsibly and legally at your own risk!

All DIY projects shown on www.LittleLakeviewConservatory.com are purely "at your own risk". As with any DIY project, unfamiliarity with the tools and process can be dangerous. Posts should be construed as theoretical advice only.
If you are at all uncomfortable or inexperienced working on these projects (especially but not limited to electronics and mechanical), please reconsider doing the job yourself. It is very possible on any DIY project to damage your cottage, void your property insurance, create a hazardous condition or harm or even kill yourself or others.

Little Lakeview Conservatory LLC will not be held responsible for any injury due to any featured DIY project.

Little Lakeview Conservatory, LLC

Little Lakeview Conservatory, LLC was est. in 2019 to provide sustainable plants in NH and to share information to help people create self sustainability in their own homes.

Please feel free to contact us at LittleLakeviewConservatory@gmail.com be added to our email list or with any questions, requests and comments.

Little Lakeview Conservatory, LLC

Grow a little!™

Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Composting

Composting is a great way to keep down waste while reusing your food scraps and green wastes to create new nutrient rich soil.

Some ways to compost:

Dedicate a shady area outdoors to use as a Composting pile
Rotating compost areas outdoors
Barrel or Container Composting outdoors
Vermicomposter, for breeding worms
Indoor or Kitchen Composting in a container
Keyhole compost gardening, permaculture (permanent agriculture)
Lasagna layering gardening

Little Lakeview Conservatory LLC uses all of these methods to reduce, reuse and recycle our green waste.

Outdoor Composting:

Our outdoor area is located away from our business and family home. Here larger amounts of compost and green waste that we would not otherwise want decomposing closer to used spaces due to possible insects and wildlife animals that are attracted to it, are placed.

Some of the materials included in this mixture:

Coal or charcoal ash
Dairy products and eggs
Some plants
Fats, grease, lard or oils
Meat and Fish Scraps
Farm animal wastes

Semi annually we rotate this composting pile into a more matured pile in a secondary area. This process gives us nutrient rich soil that we can then use the following year for raised gardens and so on.

Barrel or Container Compost:

Avoiding the first list of ingredients that we might otherwise compost in our larger outdoor area we add green materials into a large Barrel container that is regularly rotated located near our raised beds. This makes for quick clean up of garden cuttings.

Outdoor Compost Collection Bucket:

To save time, we use a collection bucket for quick collection that is carried to the larger composting pile.

Also avoided for use in any composting situation:

Animal waste (although some animals, such as our rabbits, are wonderful at making us fertilizer that we can use)
Black Walnut Tree leaves or twigs
Any green waste that may have chemical pesticides on/in it

Vermicomposter:

Vermicomposting is great for breeding worms for gardening or to use as bait for fishing. The EPA has a great link (located in our Additional Resources) with instructions for how to build one of these composting systems for yourself.

Indoor or Kitchen Composting:

If maintained properly, a kitchen composting system for collecting specific items is great for producing compost tea to fertilize your gardens.

Avoid the following materials in this mixture:

Coal, charcoal ash
Dairy products or eggs (although grinding a mix of egg shells up is a great way to add calcium to gardens growing plants that require it, such as tomatoes)
Any diseased plants
Fats, grease, lard or oil
Meat or Fish scraps
Animal waste
Black Walnut Tree leaves or twigs
Any green waste that may have chemical pesticides on/in it

Keyhole Compost Gardening:

If you have a large enough tall raised garden bed, placing a composting box with drainage holes can provide ongoing fertilization for your raised bed garden.

Again avoid the following:

Coal, charcoal ash
Dairy products or eggs (although grinding a mix of egg shells up is a great way to add calcium to gardens growing plants that require it, such as tomatoes)
Any diseased plants
Fats, grease, lard or oil
Meat or Fish scraps
Animal waste
Black Walnut Tree leaves or twigs
Any green waste that may have chemical pesticides on/in it

Lasagna Layering Garden:

We have used this method in our raised Kale and Lettuce gardens. The layers of green wastes helps fill the raised beds and provides fertilizer for the plants as is decomposes beneath the plants.

Layers placed in the Spaghetti Garden within your raised garden frame:

Cardboard
Twigs, Leaves and Yard cuttings
Manure or Compost
Additional Yard cuttings and used coffee grounds
Additional Leaves

Leave these as is if your building this in the fall, to decompose over the winter. Or cover with dirt if you are building this in the spring for your gardening use.

Additional Resources:

https://www.epa.gov/recycle/composting-home

https://www.epa.gov/recycle/how-create-and-maintain-indoor-worm-composting-bin

https://www.farmersalmanac.com/composting-beyond-the-basics-11256

https://www.bobvila.com/articles/keyhole-gardening/

https://www.bbg.org/gardening/article/make_a_lasagna_garden_in_a_raised_bed

https://www.care.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/l4r_learning_brief_1_-_perma-gardening_2020.pdf

All DIY projects shown on LittleLakeviewConservatory.com are purely "at your own risk". As with any DIY project, unfamiliarity with the tools and process can be dangerous. Posts should be construed as theoretical advice only.
If you are at all uncomfortable or inexperienced working on these projects (especially but not limited to electronics and mechanical), please reconsider doing the job yourself. It is very possible on any DIY project to damage your cottage, void your property insurance, create a hazardous condition or harm or even kill yourself or others.

Little Lakeview Conservatory LLC will not be held responsible for any injury due to any featured DIY project.

Little Lakeview Conservatory, LLC

Little Lakeview Conservatory, LLC was est. in 2019 to provide sustainable plants in NH and to share information to help people create self sustainability in their own homes.

Please feel free to contact us at LittleLakeviewConservatory@gmail.com be added to our email list or with any questions, requests and comments.

Little Lakeview Conservatory, LLC

Grow a little!™

Monday, May 10, 2021

Introduction

In·tro·duc·tion

https://www.littlelakeviewconservatory.com

https://www.instagram.com/littlelakeviewconservatory/

Little Lakeview Conservatory, LLC was officially established in 2019 to provide sustainable plants in Southern NH and to share information to help people create sustainable living in their own homes.

Adjusting from City life to being located down a dirt road in New England, the challenges of life differed. Facing changes such as the local availability of the variety of foods, the stores in a reasonable driving distance, the local amenities available, the weather in a less maintained area, there was a lot more that had to be done self-sufficiently. Learning to adapt to this new environment was motivating to adapt an ever increasingly sustainable lifestyle and help others on their journey, through selling plants locally and sharing information that is being learned along the way.

Some ways change is incorporated:

Welcoming any adversity like a Tourist.

Finding local support for additional information and resources.

Listening to and trying out advice.

Trying, sometimes failing, and trying again.

Planning. Deciding which daily activities and traditions to incorporate.

Prioritizing time and energy.

Starting. Doing. Growing. -Grow a little!™

Striving everyday to learn more, do more and become a little more adept in our own environment. As Audrey Hepburn said...

https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/audrey-hepburns-humanitarian-legacy-continues/35889

"To Plant a garden is to believe in the future." Audrey Hepburn.

Goals:

Little Lakeview Conservatory, LLC is growing a variety of plants for sale, creating plant products that promote self-sustainability and will be featuring our website posts with various topics that encompass our mission of sustainability and growth. Please continue to follow our journey on www.LittleLakeviewConservatory.com

https://www.littlelakeviewconservatory.com/2019/11/self-suh-fish-uhnt.html

Little Lakeview Conservatory, LLC

Grow a little!™

Shannon Billodeau, Owner of Little Lakeview Conservatory LLC, Grow a little!™

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Labels: Aquaponic Gardening, Conservation, DIY, Education, Grow your own, Home Gardening, Hydroponic Gardening, Local, Self Sustainability, Self-Sufficient, Wellness

Tuesday, January 12, 2021

Dragon Fruit

Days from Seed to Maturity: 5-7 years from seed to fruit. 1-3 years from propagated cuttings to fruit bearing stage.

Lifespan: Perennial. 20-30 yrs.

Outdoor Planting Zones: 10-11

Pruning: Prune during summer. Clip away any dead or rotting areas of the plant.

Light: Full sun.

Soil: Well drained.

Indoor Planting:

Water: Do not over water. Keep soil well drained.

Food: Feed with a basic Water Soluble All Purpose Plant Food, such as Miracle-Gro, that has a NPK of 24-8-6, or your favorite well balanced fertilizer. Fertilize indoor plants per the directions accompanying your fertilizer of choice.

Potential Companions: More Dragon Fruit

"Fruit trees should be planted in tandem (at least two together), and their best companions are alliums, tansy, comfrey and other nitrogen fixing plants, nasturtiums, marigold, marjoram, lemon balm, mustards, dandelions, daffodils, borage and other flowers."
http://www.medicinegarden.co.za/about/companion-planting/fruit-companion-plants/

Do not plant with: Plants that require high moisture.

Additional information: Dragon fruit is a climbing plant and will require support. Dragon fruit will not continue to ripen after it is harvested, do not pick the fruit until it is ripe.