Seed Saving Envelopes!

I've been looking everywhere for some envelopes that are tiny enough for seed saving. I couldn't find any, and I have a lot of seeds with nowhere to go, so I decided to make my own.They're pretty easy, just cut them out, a few folds, and some glue. I have some letter stamps so I labeled each one.

And here's the template I used. I printed them out, cut them out and traced them onto some cheap postal paper I bought a while ago. I would've printed them straight on, but since the paper was from a roll it wouldn't have printed well. And I'd rather trace than fight with my printer. I'm not the best with technology.

templaaaaate. whoo.

Wooden Coasters!

I think it might be black walnut that's not mature?

 I found some beautiful wood at the side of the road a few weeks ago, out for garbage pickup from someone pruning their trees. It's pretty hard to find nice fresh wood that isn't yet riddled with bugs, and still in whole logs and not chopped up like firewood. So with some help I brought a few good-sized ones home. A few days ago I started sawing them into slices, and from one log, I got some good sized coasters! The only thing is I'm scared about them cracking. They're new wood and haven't shrunk yet, and I don't have access to a  drying kiln. Hopefully they wont shrink/crack that much. I also start wood shop in a few days!  I'll finally be able to find out what I should do to prevent cracking!

Squirrels. Grawr.

I haven't been out to water and check on my plants in a day or two because it's been pretty rainy the past few days. I went out today to pick a ripe tomato, and discovered a squirrel(s) has dug huge holes in all my pots.
It wouldn't be the biggest deal if squirrels were digging in my garden (even though it would be terribly annoying), but since I have pots that are quite small, a hole that size cause severely damage the root system of the plant and kill it. Major grr. Maybe I'll just fertilize and hope in some way that will help the plants not die. And they even dug in the hot pepper plants! I thought they'd at least stay away from those.

Anyhoo, I picked a bit today. The peppers and tomatoes seem to have tons more growing and ripening. I've noticed that some of the bell peppers are getting their leaves eaten up so I'll have to spray with dish soap and water. Earlier in the season my Italian eggplant was completely covered in aphids and was dying. I know I could've bought ladybugs I've heard they're pretty effective, but putting dish soap and water in to a spray bottle and rinsing the plant off with water after sounds a lot easier and cheaper. All the aphids were gone after doing the soap spray and rinsing with water for about three days in a row.
The squash and cucumbers seem to have caught more of that horrible powdery mildew that doesn't seem to ever go away (even with constant application of fungicide). I guess I just need to put in more time maintaining the garden for now with all the pests, constant rain, humidity, and lower temperatures. Hopefully the squirrels with stay away from the pots since I sprinkled lots of powdered cayenne in them . It's weird though, they didn't touch any of the veggies/fruit, they just dug. Last year I had the issue with them eating all my tomatoes before they were ripe enough to pick.

So here's some fruit from today!

First strawberry in a while! And also an early girl tomato. Also a very strangely shaped cucumber.