Natural Treatments for Black Spot (on Roses)

“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, Betsy-Tacy and Tib

One of the first things I did when I moved into this home was purchase several rose bushes to plant in the garden. Now, at the time, I was extremely inexperienced with gardening and had no experience with roses, but just decided to dive right in. The house already had several climbing rose bushes and a few other plants and I figured, what the heck, how hard can it be??

Ha ha ha ha... well, several years later I am still inexperienced but I know enough to know that growing roses can be a bit challenging. In my experience, they prefer morning sun, thrive with plenty of water (soak the ground, not the plant), and do their best in well-drained soil. I formerly selected my roses based on how pretty the blooms looked. But, that transitioned to include fragrance and then finally disease resistance.

Very fragrant, small purple roses after pruning away diseased leaves

Hamburger Skillet (Easy & Flexible)

I have a confession... my husband and son love hamburger helper. LOVE IT. Before I married my husband, it was one of his regular meals. Now, when I am away for work sometimes I will come back and see the boxes in my cabinets. I have a fit. They thinks it's scrumptious.

I have never eaten the stuff. I think it sounds terrible - I mean you can't hardly get much more processed than hamburger helper.

So anyway, all that being said, and with love for my family and a desire for this journey to be easy for them (and a reason to throw away that last box of hamburger helper peeking out from behind jars of pickles) I thought I would try to make something reminiscent of hamburger helper without all the nastiness in the box version.