Good Things No.73: June Garden, Non-Toxic Cutting Board, Clean with Citric Acid, Books & More

A monthly list of good things to see, buy, read and watch.

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Ah, June – there are so many things I love about this month! The weather turns reliably warm (well, by the end of the month some years), the gardens are lush and flowering, and the veggies are starting to grow with gusto.

Also, between my son’s birthday and Father’s Day we have fun family get-togethers to look forward to.

It’s also a nice month to visit places around the pacific northwest we like before the major crowds of July and August (when you’ll get the best weather of the year here).

In fact, this month we are going to one of the least-visited national parks, North Cascades, which is known for being rugged and incredibly beautiful. Brian and I aren’t into “rugged” camping and hiking, but there are smaller hikes and pretty places to see anyway. I’ll be sure to share how it goes next month.

Here are the things for June I’m loving (mostly, except for a few books I just have to tell you about…).

Good Things List

Deer Resistant Garden in Early June

This is what I hoped this area would look like when I first built and planted it – lush growth with at least something blooming each month of the season!

The daffodils started blooming at the end of February and the different varieties bloomed through April. Creeping phlox bloomed from the end of April through May with iris and foxglove popping up throughout May.

Now in June we have chives and pincusion flower in full bloom with lavender, yarrow, and salvia just starting to blossom while the foxgloves finish their blooms.

Soon the black-eyed susan, other salvias, feverfew, and coneflowers will bloom.

While this garden is a mix of herbs and flowers deer tend to leave alone (though my voracious deer eat many things they aren’t supposed to like, like chives!), in the photo above on the right is my culinary herb section. It’s close to the back door when I’d like to snip thyme, rosemary, oregano, and sage.

I fill in areas with annuals like alyssum, zinnia, cosmos, and verbena, which the deer will sometimes bother, but mostly leave alone.

I bought a mix of verbena with calibrachoas this year to try – we’ll see! The small bush next to it is a dwarf spirea – spirea is listed as deer resistant, but guess what they’ve been munching on? The tender new growth – ugh.

Next Garden Project

While I’m sharing these rock wall beds, I thought I’d show this in-process garden project.

After trying grass in the area on the left above, which never grew well and always looked raggedy, we’re killing the grass with black plastic to be covered by gravel that will match the other side. (And I love symmetry so there’s that, too!).

I’ve got a couple smaller birdies beds that will match the color of this new one (that I haven’t planted yet!) and I’m thinking about a cattle panel arch between them to string with solar fairy lights. Won’t that look nice here?

A Plastic Cutting Board Replacement

The more I read about microplastics in our bodies, the more I’m trying to remove as much plastic as possible from eating and food preparation.

(I’m also focusing on buying natural fabrics because the poly and “microfiber” fabrics are the worst of everything at leaching the microplastics every time you wash them – right into our water supply!).

Anyway, I use wood chopping boards for all things except raw meat because I want to be able to put the board through the dishwasher. So my old plastic board had to go – enter this new wood fiber board that’s dishwasher safe, eco-friendly, non-porous and BPA free.

I love it! It’s gone through the dishwasher a number of times already with no issues. It does show knife marks, but this isn’t a big deal. I’m so glad to have a plastic alternative (besides glass, which I just can’t with knives – it’s like fingers on a chalkboard to me!).

There are more expensive brands, but the one I found on Amazon has been great and comes in three sizes (the one above that I bought is the smallest).

Frugal Way To Clean With Citric Acid

I had never dealt with hard water before moving to the farmhouse with a spring-fed well, so it’s taken me awhile to figure how how to deal with all the corrosive affects of it on faucets, hair (ugh, the build-up), and appliances.

The worst was the dishwasher, which looked so gross and dirty with all the white mineral build up. And the glasses never came out clear, no matter how much rinse aid I used.

So I started buying the little packets of cleaner they sell, like Affresh. THEN I read that the packets are just citric acid, so I bought a 2 pound bag for the SAME price as 6 little packets and the dishwasher – and glasses – look better than ever!!

We throw a teaspoon or so of citric acid in the bottom before running the machine and it no longer is covered in white residue.

Is it safe? Yes! Citric acid is non-toxic, environmentally friendly, and safe to use on dishwasher interiors and components.

Appliance manufacturers even suggest using citric acid to clean and descale appliances, but usually in the form of branded, more expensive products. This is way less expensive and you can also use this in electric tea kettles and coffee makers!

So my frugal tip if you need to descale appliances or use it in dishwashers is to skip the expensive little packets and buy a 2-pound bag that will last you months!

May Reads

Last month was a mixed bag of reading adventures – some were terrible and some great, though I don’t see any of these on my best of the year list. However, reading books is always a good thing for me!

You can tell I did a lot of outdoor gardening since I finished 8 books instead of the usual 6 – I love listening to an audiobook while laying mulch and planting!

Making It So: A Memoir, Patrick Stewart. Full disclosure – I only finished 75% of this, but it was LONG, so I feel like I can count it as read, lol. I only know Patrick Stewart from Star Trek so while I found his growing up years, how he got into acting, and his Star Trek years fascinating, his later exploits (including cheating on his wife and eventually marring someone much younger…) didn’t make me want to finish the book, especially after so many hours listening. That said, his youth was amazing – it was the 1940s but in his poor rural England hometown it could’ve been the Victorian era! He had no running water, hardly any heat, and a communal outhouse. There was basically one room that served as kitchen, dining and living with a couple small sleeping rooms up a set of stairs. There are interesting behind-the-scenes of the English stage, with interactions with Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, but most of the English actors he mentions the most were not known to me.

Artemis, Andy Weir. Run – do not walk – away from this book. Believe all the poor reviews you’ve read and don’t be influenced by your husband (a-hem…) to listen to this or you will be sorry for the time wasted. With an annoying first person narrator who is completely unlikable, irritating, and doesn’t change or grow from the beginning to the end (even though things have been destroyed and some people have been killed because of her), it didn’t even matter what the rest of the story was about. Though it wasn’t that interesting, so there’s that. It did have science that was plausible, which Weir is known for, and the moon setting and buildings were interesting to hear about. I honestly can’t believe how bad this is in comparison to his other books that I loved (which both made my best of lists!), The Martian and Hail Mary. I can only think this was some first book, a buried draft he dusted off after the success of The Martian. Ugh.

A Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting, Sophie Irwin. This is a fun closed door regency romance that doesn’t quite follow all the regular regency romance tropes. Our heroine is a desperate genteel rural daughter left with massive debts after her father’s death and four younger sisters. She schemes and plots to marry someone rich enough to save their home and provide for the family – but we see the reasons, the lack of other options, and the callousness disregard of women “fortune hunters” in this era. Thankfully the author is witty and keeps you interested with some twists I didn’t see coming – and keeps the happy ending.

Murderbot Diaries books 1 & 2, Martha Wells. Thankfully, this was a winner series to start after Brian and I finished listening to Artemis. We both LOVED these short books (novellas?) about a semi-sentient robot that has hacked his governor so that he can do what he wants – watch space soap operas in peace. Too funny and very clever, each story follows our “hero” as he’s drawn into helping hapless humans and using his powers for good. We took a break after book 2, but we’ll be listening to more for sure!

Nineteen Steps, Millie Bobby Brown. This was a good story written with more heart than sophistication. It’s Brown’s (a Stranger Things actor) family history and she provided the information, but the book was actually written by a ghost writer, Kathleen McGurl, who’s only listed on the title page. The story itself was interesting and I learned about the true incident in London during the war about the most civilians lost – by being crushed on each other while trying to get into a converted tube station during a raid. The details and aftermath of this was heartbreaking. That said, the writing seemed too simple and didn’t use any techniques to hold our interest or keep us guessing. For me, it felt like I was reading a high schooler’s first novel attempt.

Shark Heart, Emily Habeck. This odd book has gotten some great reviews – I’d seen it mentioned so many times I put a hold on at the library and waited months for it. This story of a man becoming a shark (and a mom turning into a komodo dragon and woman pregnant with twin birds…) was just too weird for me. I couldn’t get past the premise to find anything worthwhile like the commentary on love, grief, aging and illness that many have found. While interesting to think about all the medical things in place for these mutations and how “normal” they are treated, the story didn’t really work for me. I totally think that this may be just me, and if you have had experiences with long term illness and medical diagnoses, this might be for you.

How to Stay Married, Harrison Scott Key. The subtitle is “the most insane love story ever told” which sounds so good, right? Apparently this guy is a comedian of some renown that I didn’t know about and, well, his “humor” isn’t my cup of tea. The book was relentless in it’s sadness – it’s not until the very end that there is any love shown and even that isn’t very clear. I was hoping for an uplifting, hope-affirming story of marriage and why it’s worth fighting for – and this wasn’t it. (Again, this has gotten lots of good reviews – it may be just me again, lol.)

Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour, Morgan Matson. This seemed like a fun YA book to listen to, and while it was, it didn’t have much of a plot and could have been told in a lot less pages (not that it was long). I just didn’t find it very interesting and didn’t really believe that a guy that liked, confident, and put together would go on a goose chase for a girl who dumped him that none of his friends ever liked. Plus, while it’s closed door, the high schooler and the college guy sleep together with no precautions and don’t end up together in the end (it’s basically a one-night stand) – always a turn off for me.

Watching

Fall Guy, theaters. Brian and I loved this fun action-romance movie with Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling.

Unsung Hero, theaters. My mom and I saw this movie based on the family story of Christian musicians Rebecca St. James and the duo For King and Country. Heartwarming and inspiring to see how the family succeeded after seeming to fail.

Unfrosted, Netflix. This comedy from Jerry Seinfeld with the always funny Melissa McCarthy and a bevy of other well known actors was silly, yes, but also had us laughing and enjoying ourselves. And actually kind of a true story – who knew?

Cha Cha Real Smooth, Apple TV+. Brian and I both thought this sweet coming-of-age movie was good – it had some real life themes and the growth of the main character over the course of the movie was realistic and relatable. Plus, we laughed out loud a number of times.

That’s it for another addition of the Good Things List!

If you’d like to see more of what I’m enjoying, you can check out all the Good Things Lists here. I’d love to know what you think – if you’ve tried any of these or what you’d recommend. Leave a comment below with your thoughts!

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