Welcome to week 41 of the Hippie Dabble Digest. To view past Hippie Dabble Digests or to get the Hippie Dabble Digest delivered to your inbox each week, visit us at Substack at https://hippiedabble.substack.com/.
This week’s just for fun link lets you build the perfect cat. Choose from body shape, head, ears, eyes, color, markings, etc. Once you have your perfect cat, you can download your kitty, share your kitty, or buy goods with your kitty’s image and name. Creating is free, buying goods is optional. Check it out here: https://uchinoko-maker.jp/.
5 Must-Grow Perennial Vegetables: Harvest Year After Year
I love perennial vegetables since you only have to plant once and get food every year. Here’s a video that features five excellent options.
Where to Buy
Every time I find a place to buy seeds and plants, I like to share it with you. This one is Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds: https://www.rareseeds.com/.
Native Seeds
Native Seeds is an organization whose mission is to “find, protect and preserve the seeds of the people of the Greater Southwest so that these arid adapted crops may benefit all peoples and nourish a changing world.” They have programs involving the preservation and distribution of seeds, but you can buy seeds, gifts, and various types of food on the website too. https://www.nativeseeds.org/
Grow Your Own Loofahs
I received my 2023 Old Farmer’s Almanac bundle in the mail yesterday. I was looking through one of the magazines that came with it and saw an article on growing loofahs. I decided to look up more information online and of course fell down a rabbit hole. Loofahs that are used for sponges actually come from a plant called the luffa plant. The luffa plant is an annual vine that grows gourds. The gourds are edible when young but will eventually dry out and turn into the sponges we call loofahs. Here’s a site that gives some information on growing them: https://afewshortcuts.com/loofahs-garden/. My problem, though, is always that I live in a cold environment with a short growing season that limits what I can grow. The writer at Shifting Roots has the same problem and figured out how to grow the luffa plant in an even colder environment. Check out how you can too here: https://www.shiftingroots.com/how-to-grow-luffa-sponge-in-cold-climates-even-zone-3/.
Obviously I got curious as to where to get luffa plant seeds, and here are a few places I found (2 of which are sites featured above):
https://www.gurneys.com/product/gourd-luffa
https://parkseed.com/luffa-gourd-seeds/p/00900-PK-P1/
https://www.rareseeds.com/dishcloth-or-luffa-gourd
https://www.nativeseeds.org/collections/luffa
On the Website
My daughter came to visit last week (yay!), so I haven’t gotten anything updated on the website yet. I do have more pictures taken. I just need to get them put up in the shop. I will also be working on getting more links put in the Directory. I have been debating what to do with the blog, and decide to start putting up the Hippie Dabble Digests that normally only appear on Substack starting with this one. Substack readers will still get an exclusive coupon code for the shop, so if you’re interested in that visit us at https://hippiedabble.substack.com/. Don’t forget to check out our products in the Hippie Dabble shop at https://hippiedabble.com/shop/. We offer free shipping for all orders to USA addresses.
Quote of the week
Thanks for joining me! See you next Tuesday!