Ask Mavis – You Asked, I Answered {Plus, a Knitting Challenge!}

Another round of inbox questions, and another round of answers. First up is one of my favorite emails I’ve ever received from a reader. Sure it’s not exactly a question, but it certainly deserves to be shared!!

Mavis – I want to share with you a challenge I just made to my friends and family on Facebook. I want to challenge all of my friends who craft to knit/crochet/whatever else you do one warm winter hat each month this year and donate it to a homeless shelter in your town.

No matter what winter weather is like where you are, people living on the streets even part of the day need warm hats. And, yes, you can buy them, but having something that another human being made for you warms the heart and the spirit as well as the head. This isn’t a huge investment of either time or materials, so grab your hooks and needles and join me! I’d love it if you were able to share this with your other readers.

~Mary Anna

Oh. My. Gosh. You are my new favorite person! This is the coolest idea ever, and I love that you not only came up with it and are implementing it, but that you are spreading it across the country. I’ll do my part and share away, and challenge my readers to do the same. If you knit, participate; if you don’t, spread the idea. This is one idea that should go viral!

You are my idol!!! I happened to stumble on your website while looking for recipes for quinoa. Here is my question. I noticed that you grow kohlrabi and wheat grass, and I would love to know how you use it. I didn’t see any recipes for either.

~Allison

First, we need to talk about how you choose your idols! Ha. I feel like Mary Anna above would be much better suited for that title! Second, kohlrabi and wheat grass are fun to use. When it comes to kohlrabi, I like to roast it {my family’s favorite!} or add it to soups {it’s delish in any vegetable soup}. I know people who eat it raw or make some type of fritters out of it, but I’ve always just kept it simple.

Wheat grass is a whole different beast, though. The only way I’ve ever used it is to juice it in a juicer and add it to smoothies. It’s a great nutritional booster but if you don’t have a juicer, I wouldn’t recommend growing it!

I was wondering how your strawberries did/do in the gutter year after year and whether the metal gutters get too hot in the summer sun?

~Brian

So this is tricky for me to answer because I didn’t grow my gutter strawberries outdoors, I grew them in my greenhouse. They thrived and grew like mad inside the greenhouse! I’m not sure how they would have done outside all year, but I do know that if you live in climates with extreme weather {super duper hot or super duper cold}, they normally don’t make it. Anyone out there have experience with gutter strawberries?

For some reason I stopped getting your daily blog last spring. I checked your blog online and realized I’ve missed so much from a blog I like a lot. How can I go back and catch up. I don’t see anyway to go to past blog postings? Particularly information on your move and remodel…..and your reasons…your garden. Wow, a lot to catch up on. Anyway to do that? Thanks.

~Paula

There are a few ways you can search the archives. On the right sidebar, you’ll see a lot of category option, from recipes to my Mornings with Mavis posts. If you don’t see what you’re looking for there, you can throw a search term into the search box in the upper right hand corner. Let’s say you are looking for all my posts on my remodel. Just type in “remodel,” hit enter and all the my posts on the remodel will pop up there. You can also find category and tag links at the bottom of each post. Click on the “kitchen remodel” tag for instance, and all the posts about my kitchen remodel will be there. Pretty neat stuff, huh?!