Tag Archives: garden

Good Stewardship – Cheap Thrills

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On this page, we invite our readers to share their thrifty ideas with us and other readers.  It behooves the truly born-again Christian, to make proper use of whatever God gives.  I always like to think, that the more frugal I am, the more I will have to support missions, ministries, and to give to worthy causes – like the crisis pregnancy center.  Wastefulness has no place in the family of God, especially when we consider that every breath we draw is a gift from Him. 

John 6:12

 When they were filled, He said unto His disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.

Proverbs 18:9

He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster.

I’ll get it started with some of my major thrifty stuff.  Please feel free to share your frugal fun with us in the comment section – and if I deem any of them to be superior – they will be edited into the post.

Cut down old flannel sheets, shirts, and anything else that is 100% cotton, into handkerchiefs.  Serge or overcast the edges, or pink if no sewing machine is available.  Wash with bleach or borax and hot water for sanitation, since it doesn’t matter what color they are as long as they are clean.  A good size is 10 x 10.  

Use plastic lids that have a deep lip as plant saucers to catch water run off.  For example – the lid to large Nesquick canisters are ample saucers for a 5″ pot. 

Use large clear “pretzel barrels” as mini cloches/greenhouses for your early tomato and  pepper plants.  They are the perfect size, and will protect tender plants from late frosts and torrential downpours.  A lot of snack foods  come in these barrels now.   And you can use the lids as plant saucers! 

Empty yogurt containers make ideal seed starting pots, with holes poked in the bottom for drainage.  Filled with cheap soilless planting media you can save oodles of money by starting your own plants from seeds.  Especially if you save seeds! 

  • 4-6 parts Sphagnum Peat Moss or Coir
    1 part Perlite
    1 part Vermiculite

Cat Mahm:

Keep the heat in at Christmas-time by lining the windows with “fake snow”. This could be cotton fluff from the inside of an old pillow, or I even sometimes use white dish clothes.

Keeping heat in can reduce the heating bill, so I line everything with towels or insulating materials. It especially helps around the bases of the windows!

Cat Mahm:

Yes it does.

Need to kill the weeds in the driveway? Don’t buy all of that expensive weed killer.

During the spring/summer/fall months, I get a tea kettle to boil. Shortly after it has boiled, I pour it on the dandelions or persistent grass growing up through concrete. I go out the next morning and the weeds have completely withered and are easy to pull up. My driveway is weed free all year long.

Cat Mahm:

I never go out to eat. I never do take out. It’s never healthier, it’s addictive, and it’s way more expensive.

I buy my ground beef in bulk and chop it up into individual pounds, and store them in the freezer. You can do this with so many things. I would love to get a chest freezer someday. Buy everything on sale, freeze it. So many things can go in a chest freezer.

Please share your thrifty secrets with us!

sage

Plants Without Nervous System can Smell!

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Most people are aware of the central nervous system, and its role in interpreting information that our senses come in contact with, through sight, touch and smell. Evolutionists have argued that these complex funtions only occur in the “higher life forms.”

Plant Sniffs Out Prey

Psalm 104:14

“He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth….”

The dodder is a very unusual plant and is known as one of the ten worst weeds found in the United States. A newly sprouted dodder seed does not bother to grow roots. Rather, it sprouts a tendril that grows out, looking for other plants. It has, at most, a week to find a plant from which to steal water and nutrients.

Cuscuta europaea (dodder) in flower

The dodder is a parasite and while it does not kill its victims, it will take enough water and nutrition to stunt their growth. The dodder actually costs California tomato growers $4,000,000 a year in losses. Researchers found that the species of dodder that causes most trouble to tomato plants actually “sniffs out” its victims. Scientists knew that plants emit pheromones or scents unique to each species. The researchers gave a sprouting dodder seed a choice of targets to grow toward, including a tomato plant. When the dodder seed sprouted, it immediately sent a tendril out to the tomato. In a more rigorous test, researchers connected possible targets in separate enclosures to the sprouting dodder with curved tubes. The dodder still found the tomato plant.

The dodder has no nervous system, and scientists marvel at what it can do. Rather, they should be marveling at what our Creator can do in providing for the needs of all living things.

http://www.creationmoments.com/radio/transcripts/plant-sniffs-out-prey

https://player.pbs.org/viralplayer/2341198769/

While scientists are thrilled at the performance of the Dodder plant – they offer no evidence on how such a capability, in such a “simple life form,” could possible have developed through random mutations.