Laurie Neverman

How to Make Pear Wine – Easy Homemade Wine Recipe for Ripe Pears

August 15, 2018 by Laurie Neverman 50 Comments

When life gives you too many overripe pears, it's time to learn how to make pear wine. This wine recipe is dry, with a light pear flavor, and is a good use for very ripe and lightly damaged pears.

This recipe is adapted from “How to Make Wine in Your Own Kitchen” by Mettja C. Roate. “How to Make Wine in Your Own Kitchen” is old and hard to find, but if you can find a copy, snatch it up. The recipes use common kitchen ingredients instead of specialized wine making ingredients, which is great for the novice or incidental brewer. I did tweak the recipe a little to include winemaking yeast. You can make homemade wine with wild yeasts, but it's easy to make a mistake and go from homemade wine to homemade vinegar.
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Common Ragweed – Tips to Beat Ragweed Season – Weekly Weeder #7

August 15, 2018 by Laurie Neverman 19 Comments

Today's featured Weekly Weeder plant is common ragweed, Ambrosia artemisiifolia. Common ragweed is also known as ragweed, hayfever weed, bitterweed, bloodweed, crownweed, mayweed and bane of allergy sufferers everywhere. Some other common ragweed species include bur ragweed, giant ragweed and western ragweed.

In this post, we’ll explain what ragweed is, identify prime ragweed season, share some ragweed pictures, and talk about ragweed allergies and control.
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50 Do-It-Yourself Projects for Keeping Chickens – Chicken Coops and More

August 11, 2018 by Laurie Neverman 2 Comments

“50 Do-It-Yourself Projects for Keeping Chickens – Chicken Coops, Brooders, Runs, Swings, Dust Baths, and More!” by Janet Garman of Timber Creek Farm is a pleasure to read. You might think that with so many chicken care books already on the market, there would be limited need for another, but Janet will prove you wrong. This book is chock full of practical tips and projects, photos and step-by-step instructions. It's a great addition to the library of any chicken keeper, large or small.

I had the honor of checking out a review copy before it went to publication. (You can spot my endorsement on the back cover.) Now the book is in print and I can share it with all of you! [Read more…]

4 Reasons Your Tomatoes Are Not Ripening – And What You Can Do To Help

August 9, 2018 by Laurie Neverman 74 Comments

Tomatoes not ripening? Here are the four main reasons why your tomatoes aren't turning red, and what you can do (if anything) to help ripen your tomatoes.

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Pickled Peppers Recipe for Canning – Just Four Ingredients

August 8, 2018 by Laurie Neverman 8 Comments

Now you can enjoy pickled peppers year round with this easy four ingredient canning recipe. For this recipe, you can use jalapeno peppers, banana peppers, or whatever other hot peppers you have available.

Many of our hot peppers go into our homemade salsa (which has gotten hotter as the boys have gotten older), but I like to make up a batch of pickled peppers each year to use in tacos and enchiladas, or even to toss over the top of a roast when we want a little extra heat. Because hot peppers are not acidic, using a vinegar pickle allows them to be processed in boiling water bath canner.

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