10th ave. soapworks

Thus would my former supervisor cheerily call out to me during our busiest, most frantic season.  Or to put it more simply, "Try to try."  And some days, what more can you do?  I've noticed a definite pattern: the quieter my blog, the busier my "real life." I'm not sure if the answer is better time management or a slower-paced life--either would come in handy. As it has been April since I last posted, you can be assured that things are been moving at warp speed around here.  But such exciting stuff!  Here are a couple items on the business side of things: I was contacted by Milwaukee Public Television this spring and asked to recommend an outstanding vendor from the farmer's market I manage for a segment on an upcoming show on my town, Monroe, Wisconsin.  I immediately named a favorite produce vendor but because of scheduling and produce availability conflicts, the next day I found myself and my soap business on the interview roster.  Eeep. Sho...

If you've followed my blog for a long time, you've already seen a post on one of my favorite things to grow--loofah, but I think it's time for another one.  People are often surprised when they learn that loofahs are grown.  No, a loofah isn't a sea sponge, but the mature "skeleton" of a zucchini-like plant.  Everyone knows they are good for the bath but they also make great natural pan scrubbers in the kitchen.  They are so popular that I have to remember to tuck away any that I want to keep myself. I raise three or four plants every year.  Like a zucchini or a cucumber, it likes to spread out with little regard to another plant's personal space.  Here is last year's crop. Early in the summer, the loofahs remained neatly on the trellis: But then they wandered over to the basil: Cozied among the tomatillos: And hung out with the butternut squash: Harvest time was a regular treasure hunt.  But I ended up with about 20 loofahs fr...

Last spring, I had the idea of creating a soap that represented some of the variety in my town's farmer's market.  The more I looked around, the more overwhelming the possible combinations--herbs, vegetables, dairy, fruits, even fats.  I could come up with a new combination every week as I looked around.  Maybe it was because my choices kept changing that I never settled on a set of ingredients and just did it. Dehydrated ground pumpkin--it makes a wonderful addition to angel food cake I recently narrowed down some of the abundance into my first version.  It may be March, but with the snow of the last two days (and still falling as I write), fresh vegetables are just a dream of the future.  So I used honey, dehydrated pumpkin and egg--all from the market--and dried kale.  (I used my own kale in this batch, not because it wasn't available in abundance at the market last summer, but I really couldn't justify buying anyone else's with a dozen fru...

My first summer vending at my local farmer's market ended a couple of weeks ago.  And it was an adventure!  Besides being fun, and profitable, it was also educational: While I've thought the recent encouragement of "shopping locally" was a good and even obvious concept, being immersed in it over the summer gave me a new perspective and appreciation for a very old tradition...a practice that should never have changed.  Through the market, I was introduced to another locally-owned business--a really lovely store-- Wild Flower Collectibles , who asked to carry my soaps.  I love supporting people, not businesses, if that makes sense. At a farmer's market, I can talk to the people from my own community that make and/or grow what they sell.  They have a knowledge and passion for their work that is non-existant in a retail store. And I learned so much besides this. I swapped recipes, gardening tips, heirloom bean...

I'm completely out of my herbal balms and I miss them!  Right now I'm infusing oils for more batches.  Arnica is the most recent herbal infusion I have brewing.  I know it's fabulously good for bruises and such, but the dried herb is rather expensive so I've never tried it before.  But recently I was wandering around my local Mexican grocery store to get one of the staples of life, corn tortillas (the real ones), and a little bag of dried arnica caught my eye.  I had never noticed the shop carried it before, probably because I'm so focused on my beloved tortillas, but it got me pretty excited.  (Really, I ask you, who else goes to a Mexican market and comes out with bath and body ingredients?) I am using the slow method of infusion, letting time and sunlight do its thing on the arnica.  I've heated infusions up on occasion, but it often leads to deep-fried calendula petals...

In the words of the good old doctor (Seuss)--"That is not all. Oh, no. That is not all."  This, my bloggy friends, is my afternoon, ahem,"diversion" today. This picture represents the one mere 24-hour period of garden abundance that I could lug home in the bowls I took to the garden.  (I'm no dummy; I left the bushel baskets in the garage for a reason.)  This, of course, does not include the pots of tomato sauce currently on the stove.  And this, dear readers, is what happens when you look at your garden plot in the spring and say "Let's put tomatoes in this general area" as you sweep your arm in a wide circle and then after filling the "general area" you count 50 tomato plants. This is why I have no new soap pictures to share with you, although I've been madly soaping during those moments when I pretend I don't have tomatoes ripening hourly.  And this is why there are little tomato jui...

I have this one toddlerish tendency, and no, it’s not the daily naps (unfortunately), but rather my insistence on doing things myself.   If I can make it, cook it, or experiment myself, that’s what I’ll do.   It’s partly independence, but mostly not wanting to be ignorant and robotically dependent on some faceless entity for my every need. It didn’t take me long to start incorporating my own products into soaps and bath products.   Although I can’t put this much of “me” in most of my soaps, here is a bar of cucumber-mint soap to illustrate.   It contains my own garden’s cucumber, pureed and frozen for winter soaping, yogurt I made, and inside is a slice of loofah that I also grew.   (For the record, it’s not my own mint sprinkled atop this particular batch.   My harvest wasn’t big enough to last the winter.) Is the finished product superior to other soaps?   Of course! ;-) So maybe no one lathers up and says, “Was this cucumber hand pi...

Yes, another blog post about my loofahs!!! I thought I'd show you a picture of just one of the enormous loofahs in my garden this year. If you can believe it, I was afraid that I wouldn't get any loofahs at all this summer. The plants I sprouted and transplanted to the garden both died, so I replanted in late spring. As you can see below, the vines grew like crazy, taking over grapevines, pole beans, and cucumbers, and even now in late September, there are new yellow blossoms all the time. It wasn't until late summer that I found some little loofahs had finally begun growing, but they are already much, much bigger than last year's crop. In case you wondered, I'll use many of my loofahs to make a foot scrub soap. ....And after this harvest, I probably won't have to grow any more loofah for a year or two!

This is the loofah right after I peeled off the hard rind. I then rinsed them out in the sink. Some had a lot of flesh inside (like a cucumber's) and it took awhile to clean them out. These are my loofah drying. Once they were completely dry, I was able to shake out the remaining stubborn seeds. I then soaked them in a very mild bleach solution to lighten and even out the color. I had been wanting to try growing these for years! I was so excited that it worked!