Summers Past Farms

March Classes

By Summers Past Farms | March 6, 2008

Here are the classes for March:

Plant & Soil Sale - March 7th,8th & 9th

Fairy Landscape - March 8th
Sowing Edible Seeds - March 15th
Soap Making - March 16th
Spring Garden Wreath - March 29th

**Closed Easter Sunday***

Upcoming Events:
Garden Talk - April 5th
Sweet Pea Day - April 12th
Craft Fair - April 19th
Rose Talk - April 26th
Mother’s Day Dessert - May 11th
Fairy Festival - June 7th
Lavender Day - June 21st

Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Upcoming Classes

By Summers Past Farms | February 6, 2008

February is full of exciting classes!

Blend Your Own Herbal Bath- Feb. 9 10-12
Blend Your Own Herbal Tea- Feb 16 10-12
Spring Twig Wreath- Feb. 23
Soap Making- Feb. 24
Please call to pre-register (619) 390-1523 or sign up online.

Topics: Summers Past Farms | No Comments »

Rose Talk with Jack Shoultz

By Summers Past Farms | January 11, 2008

Saturday, January 19, 2008. 1:00pm FREE!

Jack Shoultz is an award winning exhibitor, award winning arrangement exhibitor and a consulting rosarian for the American Rose Society. Come and enjoy our garden setting and learn all you can about these beautiful flowers that we all love to grow.

Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Blog About Summers Past

By Summers Past Farms | December 19, 2007

We have changed our soap making blog to a blog about Summers Past Farms in general. Please leave comments about your experiences and memories out here! Hope to hear from you soon!

Topics: Summers Past Farms | 1 Comment »

Holiday Ideas

By Summers Past Farms | November 18, 2006

This is the time to get your holiday soaps made! You have a couple more weeks! Some of our favorites are Cinnamon & Spice, Gingerbread and Apple Vanilla. For an 8 pound batch we recommend you put:

Gingerbread: 1 1/2 oz. gingerbread fragrance oil

~marbling optional with cinnamon powder (from your kitchen cupboard)

Cinnamon & Spice: 1 1/2 oz. Cinnamon & Spice Fragrance Oil

Apple Vanilla: 1 oz Apple Jack Frangrance & 1/2 oz. French Vanilla Fragrance

After your cut soap is cured for three weeks it’s time to start wrapping….

1. You can clean and bevel your soaps like we do with a vegetable peeler. Buff lightly with a papertowel.

2. Show your personality in the creative ways you can wrap your soap.

Ideas:

Paper Band your soaps, it is a classic way to wrap handmade soaps, secure with double stick tape! (This is easy to do on your computer)

*Make sure to add ingredience to your lable so friends and family will know how special it is

Cello Bags are another way to wrap your soap. Just tie it off with some holiday ribbon. Perfect for two soaps.

Topics: Uncategorized | 3 Comments »

The Origin of Soap

By Summers Past Farms | October 4, 2006

A tale out of ancient Rome tells us how soap was invented. The story is as follows:

A woman was bent over a river washing clothes at the bottom of Sapo Hill. Above her was an area where animals were ritually sacraficed. She began to notice that every time she did her laundry at this spot, they ended up much cleaner than her friends’ clothes who used other areas to wash their clothes. The point where she knelt down to wash happened to be where the residual sludge from the sacrafice area mixed with the river water. She perceived correctly that a very strong cleansing agent was produced as the fat from the sacraficed animals merged with the wood ashes and finally the river water.

In the past, people would save ashes from their fires for months. When they had enough fat left over from butchering or olive oil production, they would make soap. Filling a barrel with ashes, with a layer of straw at the bottom to filter, they would pour water through the ashes and catch it in a bucket at the bottom. The “lye water” solution was considered strong enough to make soap when they could get an egg float on the surface of the solution. The fat was then rendered and mixed with the lye solution to make a hard “lye soap.”

Topics: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Stick Blender

By Summers Past Farms | August 25, 2006

Here is a picture of what a stick blender looks like.

Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »

Strawberries & Cream Soap

By Summers Past Farms | July 1, 2006

We just made one of our favorite summer soap, “Strawberries & Cream”. We added red dye to half the batch, the other half we left white and swirrled the two together. We finished it off with some poppy seeds and the soap looks great!

Topics: Uncategorized | 4 Comments »