Heather's Homemaking

They have a rough life

2011-10-26T10:58:00.000-04:00

I love my chickens. They are by no means pets, but they are quite spoiled nonetheless. When we had just the Buff Orpingtons, they roamed the yard in their chicken tractor. This past summer, we added some Rhode Island Reds to the mix. As a result, the girls got a much larger coop and yard.

They don't move around on the grass anymore, but they still get great treats. The garden is finishing up and we're about to get our first frost and possible snow. They always get weeds and yucky produce, but lately, it's been even more. Today it's worm eaten chard, an over- ripe watermelon and some small, under-developed eggplants. They get so excited when they see me. They don't always get treats, but it's often enough. The alarm goes out and all 7 pair of feet come running.

We own half a duplex and the other half is empty and for sale. I've seen several people look at my chickens and make faces. The other day I got to talk to one of the real estate agents. She tells me that the first time someone said that the chickens were bad, she told them to go and look at the chickens close up. "Look", she said, "They have fresh fruits and vegetables. They eat better than we do. Plus, they don't smell. Someone takes very good care of these chickens."

Today, they also got a layer of plastic over the run. Chickens don't mind the rain, but snow does not make them particularly happy. Their poor little toes get cold. Since I want my chickens to be outside whenever possible, their run gets covered each year to keep the snow to a minimum. Snow still gets in there, but not nearly as much. These girls are valuable, hard working members of our little homestead. They deserve to be treated well.

My latest obsession

2011-10-22T10:22:00.000-04:00

When my friend Kerry emailed me about a soap class a few years ago, I was excited. I thought it would be neat. It seemed like something cool to learn how to do, but I wasn't sure, given my lack of interest in cosmetic things, if it would be something I would love. The idea of making my own cheese seemed a bit more my speed. The class was lots of fun and the soap turned out to be the best soap I had ever used. My sensitive skin loved it. My additive loathing self loved it.

So, Kerry and I made plans to make some more. Last year we got together and made a whole bunch of soap for gifts and ourselves. We ended up with a bunch of soap for gifts and personal use. I'll admit to being a bit stingy with it, it's good stuff!

I still hadn't made any soap by myself. We were getting low on soap and I didn't want to use the store bought stuff again. It makes my skin feel funny. The only solution was to bit the bullet and make it all by myself. There is a surprising amount of stuff you need to make soap. There are different oils, pots, blenders, additives if you like, and of course, the dreaded lye. I got it all and even decided to get the fancy wooden mold.

It turned out to be even more fun when I got to pick out scents and additives. My daughter and I picked out some neat scents and I was off. We even got the supplies to make other nifty things like lip balm. There are several batches curing in the kitchen right now. The smell in my house is amazing.

The only problem now is that I'm running out of racks to put all the soap on!

Today's Harvest

2011-08-21T11:20:00.001-04:00

It's been a busy summer. The garden has been neglected slightly more than usual, but it seems to be holding it's own. I have lots on the agenda for the garden in the coming weeks.

The tomatoes were late to the party, but seem to be rolling in well now. We had a big rain storm last week, so many of them split a bit. Overall, they managed quite nicely. It's that time of year when every day there are many pounds of tomatoes. The canner has been getting a workout and the shelves are quickly filling with lots of yummy things for the winter.

Tomatillos are really coming in now as well. I did one batch of tomatillo salsa last week and will be doing another this week. It's indispensable in a lot of my recipes. The plants produce like mad and as a result, it seems that I don't really need to plant them every year. A good year of harvests can often last for 2 years.

Cucumbers are also doing well. One that isn't pictured, is a monster that I found hanging behind the fence. It was the enormous. Hubby had to try it and was rewarded with a mouthful of very bitter cuke. The chickens thought it was gourmet.

It's been a good year for watermelons. I grew Sugar Babies this year. After last year's disappointing harvest, I was ready to throw in the towel. The kids begged and we gave it another try. We were rewarded with several good sized melons and more to come.

It's also been a huge year for pumpkins and squash. Zucchinis have thankfully, stopped coming in, but it was one of my biggest years for them. The pumpkins did well and there is plenty more winter squash still in the garden. I harvested several acorn squash a week or so ago. And then there is the Hubbard squash. I planted them in a 4x10 bed. There were 2 hills and I planted another hill of another variety that I have since forgotten. It's forgotten because it got over run by hubbards. The vines were threatening world domination. The squash pictured is larger than my food scale can handle, I'll have to get the bathroom scale out. The problem is that there are 4 more (that I've found) out there and this one is far from being the largest. I'm told that the taste is incredible, so we'll be having lots of fun with squash this year. Since there are over 100 lbs of winter squashes yet to be harvested, I don't think we'll be needing to plant many next year. There will be lots in the freezer for a while.

This post will be part of Harvest Monday over at Daphne's Dandelions. Check out all the amazing produce being harvested around the country and even the world.

I'm still here

2011-08-03T21:18:00.000-04:00

A friend just reminded me that I have completely neglected my blog. Since becoming the market manager at my town's Farmer's Market, I've become very involved with that. It's getting to the point that the market doesn't require me to think about it constantly, so I think that an update is in order.

The garden is going well. After a cool, wet spring, we're having a hot summer. This week we're due for a nice break from the heat though. It's forecast for upper 70s all week. After a summer of 90s it's quite welcome.

I overplanted winter squash this year. This is my hubbards plotting world domination. The picture is from several weeks ago and they are growing everywhere. It's made mowing the lawn interesting. Since they sit right next to the shed, even getting the mower out is a chore. In addition to the hubbards, I'm innundated with acorn squash, butternuts, sugar pie pumpkins and of course the zucchini. We'll be living large this winter with the orange veggies.

My tomatoes are on the late side this year, with nothing ripe yet. They were small going in and I got them in the ground about 2 weeks later than I usually do.

I promise to get some updated photos soon and give a better overview of what is going on. Canning season is about to go into full swing, so there will be lots to see and do.

Progress finally

2011-04-03T11:25:00.000-04:00

After getting some snow on Friday, we're finally warming up a bit. It's still far from normal temps, but better nonetheless. I was able to go out and prep about half of the beds and got the peas planted.

It still looks so barren and depressing, but it won't be long. Most of that fence will hopefully be coming down in the next week or so. I'll be cutting it up and using it as portable trellising for peas and the like. It's hard to see from here, but in the main garden the first 2 beds have peas now planted on the Western edge of the beds.

The brassicas and greens got to spend a few hours sunning themselves today. It's been pretty windy, so they didn't make it very long. If the weather continues to warm up, they'll be planted out next week. Since they're getting a bit leggy, it will be very good for them.

Compared to last year, it seems like we're incredibly behind. In reality, last year was much warmer than normal, so this year's colder than normal feels that much worse. I'd say we're about 2 weeks behind schedule overall, but it will hopefully catch up to where we should be soon. It isn't all that unusual for New England to kind of skip over Spring and go directly from Winter to Summer. If that's the case we'll be all set in a few weeks.

Save your back and a few seeds along the way

2011-03-28T13:29:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy few weeks here. Plans for the Farmer's Market are coming along quite nicely and I'm feeling like it's going to be pretty great.

In between phone calls and helping Hubby with his computer business and being a mom and.... , I've been making seed tapes. You can find tutorials for how to do them everywhere these days. What it comes down to is some kind of flimsy, easily broken down paper, glue of some kind and seeds. I prefer tp, elmers and just about any tiny seed.

You see, I'm not the most patient gardener in the world and I have a bad back. Given the choice of carefully planting seeds or scattering them everywhere, I'll invariably choose the scatter method. The problem is that it wastes a ridiculous number of seeds. Then they have to be thinned and I'm not a big fan of thinning either. It makes me sad to pull out a perfectly good seedling, plus it means I have to get down and pull them. Seed tapes solve all those problems. You can buy them pre made, but I'm also cheap and I like to have a lot of variety.

I'm doing beets today. There will be 3 different varieties this Spring. Chiogga, Cylindra and Detroit Dark Red are my choices this year. The carrots have already been done, there are 3 varieties of those as well. You can't find that at the seed store. Seed tapes are good for lettuce, parsnips and really any small seed that gets planted in quantity. I thought about cabbage and broccoli, but that just seemed a bit much.

When they dry, just roll them up and store them away until planting time.

It's been unseasonably cold this March, so nothing much has been happening in the garden. I'm really hoping that it warms up a bit soon, there are far too many seedlings in the basement. The cabbage, broccoli, chard, kale and asian greens are all ready to go out. Since I have no desire to pot them up, I'm hoping it will warm up instead.

Update

2011-03-11T09:22:00.000-05:00

Some of you may remember that I had a few things up in the air. Well one has become official. I am now the manager of the Bridgewater Farmers Market. I'm very excited and overwhelmed all at the same time. There is a ton to get done between now and our opening on June 18th. We'll be operating from 10-2 on Saturdays. Since the market manager fell through last year, the market ended after only a few weeks. We've changed a lot, including the day, time and location. That means I'm really starting from scratch in many respects. It's very exciting.

If you want to find us on Facebook, we're listed as the Bridgewater Mass Farmers Market. There is also a webpage, but it is in desperate need of a facelift, so I'll wait on giving out that one. If you're local, come on by!

Fruit leathers

2011-03-10T09:29:00.000-05:00

Hubby got me an Excalibur dehydrator a few years ago. He's good like that. I must admit though, that it has been grossly underused. So, the other day I was going through my freezers and canned goods and realized I had a lot of strawberries in the freezer and peaches that I had canned. Not wanting them to go to waste, I decided to make fruit leathers.

The kids love them. Lets face it, they taste like candy. They're also amazingly easy to make. For the strawberry, I just defrosted them and pureed them in the food processor. You could add more sugar if your strawberries aren't very sweet, or if you just like them that way, but ours were very sweet as is. The peaches were dumped into a strainer and then pureed.

The dehydrator has special sheets for the leathers, but I'm sure you could get away with parchment paper if you had to.

Pour the mixture onto the trays and swirl around to a good thickness of about 1/8 to 1/4 inch. Just set them at 135 degrees and walk away. These took about 8 hours to finish. Your times may vary, depending on humidity, fruit and thickness of the puree.

Then try not to do what I did. I couldn't help myself. It was so yummy. If you can get through this without eating it all, just pull them off the mat and roll up. I usually then cut them into serving sizes of 2-3 inch rolls. The kids adore these and since they're pure fruit, I'm not so unhappy about serving them.

I've heard that you can also do this in your oven at the lowest setting, but I have no experience with that. My oven doesn't go below 200 and that would just cook them.

This post is part of Simple Lives Thursday.

Carrots!

2011-03-07T06:53:00.000-05:00

We've had some amazingly warm weather over the weekend. Both days reached to 60 or so. By Sunday morning, so much had melted that all my beds were uncovered and even defrosted. I was so excited to check the carrot beds. They hadn't gotten covered properly and I was anxious to see how they did.

Some had gotten soft from all the freezing, but many of the carrots had made it through unscathed. It was like digging for buried treasure. Overall, about half of the carrots made it. After our hard, cold, snowy winter, they were a welcome sight.

I got them cleaned up and ended up with a good little crop. The 2 on the left are huge. There were quite a few that had forked. That was surprising. These beds are raised and have loam and compost in them. There are really no rocks. I'm not really sure why they forked.

The strawberry plants were also starting to peak out. I started to pull the shredded leaves away from them, but they were just too wet to get very much done. It was nice to see that they had made it through quite nicely though. What a mood booster to be able to spend a few hours outside and in the garden. There is still a little bit of snow at the top of the driveway from the plow guy, but it should be gone very soon. The weather is predicting highs in the 40s and lows in the 20s all week. That's pretty typical March weather for us and its nice to see the progression in the temperatures. Spring is almost here!

This post is part of Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions. I'm so excited to have a post finally! Head on over and see what else is being harvested and what everyone is using from last year's harvests.

The remains of the day

2011-03-05T18:02:00.000-05:00

The snow is melting very quickly now. At one point there were 8 muddy children and 2 muddy dogs in my yard.

Ready for the weekend

2011-03-04T10:46:00.000-05:00

We must have plenty of time to play when the kids get home from school.

The Garden Notebook

2011-03-03T09:02:00.001-05:00

Gardening is something that I don't think you can ever truly master. There are so many variables. The seeds, heat, rain, sunlight and soil, just to name a few.

One thing I find very helpful to keep track of my gardening from year to year is my Garden Notebook. It starts with the seeds.

I document what was planted, how many and when. Then I document when they started to sprout.

After that, I write down when they were planted out and how they did. You can see by last year's notes that the lettuce was a bust. I had planted them too early and they just didn't take well to being planted out.

Another biggie, is knowing where you planted everything. It's good to know so that you can rotate your crops effectively. I find that I can always draw up a beautiful plan, but rarely stick to it. The solution for me was to draw up a final plan.

This shows me where things got planted in reality. I can show what got rotated in during the summer as well. At the end of the summer, I make a list of things to change for the next year. What went well, what didn't.

Separately, I keep a tally of what got canned and preserved. This lets me know if I need to grow more or less of an item depending on our usage. For instance, we're not big green bean eaters. I have 20 more qts of frozen beans in the freezer. I'll only plant a few for fresh eating this summer. Also, last year was an amazing summer for tomatoes. I canned up so many that we'll be good for a while. Now, I won't cut back on those. They're temperamental and a big part of what we eat. What I will do, is experiment a bit on what I'll do with them. But that's a post for another day.

Do you keep a notebook? What do you keep track of?

This post is part of Simple Lives Thursday.

Thawing

2011-03-02T16:52:00.000-05:00

We've had some warmth off and on for the last few weeks. The snow seems to be taking forever to melt. We got so much this year without any melting in between. There appears to be a layer of ice under it all preventing the melting.

As you can see, there has been quite a bit of progress. The area pictured was under over 2 feet of snow for almost a month. I was able to move the chickens to a better location. They had been tearing up my front flower/herb bed. It was supposed to be a temporary place to house them, but turned into a 2 month stint due to our horrible winter. They dug up some of my irises and we'll see what else got destroyed. I'm thinking I may have lost my chives and sage. At least whatever gets planted there now will be very well fertilized.

Today I started the broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, Asian greens, lettuces, kale, chard etc. Despite the snow currently on the ground, I'm still hoping to get the peas planted in a few more weeks.

My plans for the garden this year are numerous, as usual. The now useless fence will be mostly removed. I'll leave the back portion to keep the dogs and kids from tearing through it. There will probably be raised beds made for the main part of the garden. I'm just finding the raised beds easier to deal with overall than the sloped beds. I just can't wait for the soil to thaw so that I can get out into the dirt. There just isn't anything better for a gardener's soul. Planting seeds is wonderful, but just not the same as getting into the dirt.

Out of control

2011-02-28T14:07:00.000-05:00

Hi, my name is Heather and I have a seed problem.

Does anyone else have a box like this? It started out innocently enough. I had a few seed packets. They got organized a bit into groups. It looked neat for a while.

Then I kept ordering seeds. They're an addiction I think. There is always something new and wonderful to try. I really should go through my seeds each year and see what I truly need, but I don't. Some of the seeds in there are quite a few years old. Who knows if they will even sprout. There are multiples of certain seeds, where I forgot that I had more left and went ahead and ordered more. I can't bring myself to throw any away. I also can't seem to bring myself to stop buying seeds. Help!

Snow cure

2011-02-27T10:15:00.000-05:00

It may be snowing outside, but it's Spring in my office.

White Wine Vinegar

2011-02-23T09:38:00.001-05:00

I'm not a big drinker. If there is an event happening, I may have a glass of something, but otherwise, I'm just not a big drinker. As a result, there was a rather large bottle of white wine sitting on my counter for almost a year. It had been opened at some point to use a small amount for a recipe, but it still just sat there.

Then I had an idea. Why not make vinegar? Vinegar can be expensive. Good vinegar can be really expensive. It seems a bit silly to spend that much money for something spoiled. That is what I do though. Until now. I had an old bottle of real apple cider vinegar with the mother. You can actually see that repurposed bottle in the background. The mother, with a small amount of acv was poured into the bottle of wine. Then I ignored it. It sat on the counter for a few weeks. Every so often I would taste it. It still tasted like wine, so it sat some more.

Then the other day, it tasted like vinegar. It tasted like really good vinegar! I now had close to 2 quarts of live white wine vinegar. Time invested in this, was under 5 minutes total. Most of that was taking the pictures and writing the blog post. It will probably go into a wonderful white wine vinaigrette for dinner tonight. The rest can sit and wait to be used. Simply wonderful!

This post is part of Simple Lives Thursday. Head on over and see what everyone is up to.

Can you Trademark a lifestyle?

2011-02-21T08:35:00.000-05:00

If you are in any way connected to the gardening or green community, you've assuredly heard of the mess that the Dervaeses have caused. They decided to trademark Urban Homesteading and multiple other common, everyday phrases. Their reasoning was that it was to protect the wording from the big, bad agribusiness people. If that had been their sole action, it wouldn't have been an issue. What they instead did, was to send letters to bloggers, authors, libraries, coops and Facebook.

These letters informed people that they now had no legal rights to continue calling themselves Urban Homesteaders. If they did, they would need to give the Dervaeses full credit for the wording. This is of course ridiculous. The end result has been a massive backlash from the community that they count on to support them.

There is an ever growing community on Facebook, that is bringing people together. It seems to be the one good thing that has come out of this whole mess. Everybody is coming together like they never had before.

Those of us who are Urban Homesteaders tend to be non conformists anyway. We tend to be the neighbors that get talked about. We also tend to be the ones who are so passionate about what we do, we can't help telling everyone.

Since I am that neighbor, I can tell you that it's exciting for people to see what we do in our little yard. It also seems to spread rather quickly. More and more neighbors and friends are gardening in their own yards. They're asking questions about what it is that I do. It's exciting to see Urban Homesteading grow.

So, I'm am declaring that I am an Urban Homesteader. Are you?

First plantings

2011-02-18T08:58:00.000-05:00

It's been a wretched winter throughout much of the US this year. New England has been no exception. It seems that every winter I get a bit of seasonal affective disorder. This year was a bit worse. With my driveway a lost cause and everything becoming an effort as a result of the snow, I got a bit down. Hence, the lack of writing on the blog.

The past few days we've had a warm up. A sneak peak to Spring. Yesterday reached 55 and today is supposed to get to 60. It's wonderful. The snow isn't melting fast enough, but it is melting. There are peaks of mud under trees and bushes, while the vast majority of the ground remains covered. Even so, the weather has improved my mood.

In a fit of optimism and downright defiance, I planted my first seeds.

There are Quadrato d'Asti Rosso peppers, Anaheims, Red Hot Cherry peppers, French Thyme and Large Leaf Basil along with some Black Beauty Eggplants. They all take such a long time to sprout, I tend to plant these every year around Valentine's day. If we have a typical summer, most won't fruit until the last part of August. If we have a summer like last year, I'll have peppers in late June. What a difference that heat makes.

Now I need to go spend some time catching up on everybody's blogs. The gardening season has begun!

My happy place

2011-01-28T10:19:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I just have to sit back and realize that it's all going to be just fine. I have to go to that happy place. The happy place changes from day to day and season to season. Right now, it's the excitement of the coming gardening year.

For all of us gardeners, the next garden is perfect. The weather will be ideal, weeds will be minimal and timing will leave nothing to be desired. The seeds will have excellent germination and I will of course document every little thing that happens, in order to keep a good record of the year. In reality, of course, there will be weeds, crops will do poorly, there will be too little or too much rain, there will be weeds. In short nothing will be perfect. Except, it will be in many ways. There will always be that one crop that did amazing. There will be thing that keeps us all going.

Seeds hold so much promise. They hold the promise of joy and wonder. These tiny little powerhouses will burst forth and amaze us yet again.

We will again be reminded of why we do something so crazy as growing our own food. The more I see on the news about our food, the more I am glad that I am able to grow even a small portion of what we eat. I can be a part of the history of our world, by growing and eating foods that have been nurtured for thousands of years.

I know many who read my blog are gardeners. Some are very experienced and I learn from them and some are new to this. Every year it seems that there are more and more gardeners. Some are here to be 'green', some because they want to save money, some are just doing it for the love of food. Whatever your reason, the joy of seeds is a universal one of hope. They don't have to be neatly cataloged, they don't need to be from the fancy garden catalogs, they just need to be. Enjoy your seeds. Dream of the perfect garden.

Can I call Uncle?

2011-01-27T09:25:00.000-05:00

I'm sure you're sick of coming to my blog and seeing pictures of snow. I'm sick of looking at it too. We got another 14 inches or so last night, so there are lots of new pictures. This was a particularly pretty snow. It is laying on the branches perfectly.

The back, lower part of the yard.

The shed and part of the garden. My carrots are buried under the snow there. You can't even tell there is a bed anymore, nevermind carrots.

More of the garden.

The kids won't be using these any time soon.

The chickens are hiding out in their house. Their run is, of course covered in a small amount of snow, despite being covered largely by plastic.

The kids are out playing in the snow now. My little one is having a hard time walking in it at this point. The side yard where they play, is the worst with drifting.

I wish I could start a few seeds, but its still way too early. At this rate we won't thaw until May. As was mentioned in the comments, snow is great for the garden. The old timers used to call it 'poor man's fertilizer'. If that's the case, it should be a great garden next summer.

Boston usually gets about 48 inches of snow in a season. In the past month alone they've gotten over 60 inches. We're just south of Boston, between Boston and Cape Cod. We've gotten more than that, but I'm not sure of the exact total. I'd say we're closer to 70 inches in about 30 days. That's why I want to call Uncle!

Weighing my options

2011-01-26T15:54:00.000-05:00

I got an email today from the director of the new community gardens in my town. They have 20x20 plots for $20. The co-op will plow and till, as well as having water available. It's really tempting to have some additional space to grow some of those big space hogs.

I got another email from the same guy, who also heads up the farmer's market in my town. He is a professor at the University in my town and a big proponent of the slow/local food movement. The Farmer's Market started 2 years ago with a big success to start, followed by some major slowing. That would be expected in my mind. However, this same man became overwhelmed when the original market manager quit and there were significant issues with follow up managers. Last year, in it's second season, the market had few vendors and even fewer customers. He got fed up and cancelled it after a few weeks. I know that overwhelmed feeling well.

So, here I sit. I now have more time than I've ever had to devote to the things that I love. If you hadn't noticed, I'm a bit passionate about food. Particularly local, organic, sustainable food. It's been a few months since I put the kids into school and I'm starting to get a bit antsy. Granted, I'll be knee deep in gardening in a few months, but will still have lots more time to devote to something. I'm really wanting to get involved in the market. I would love to see it become successful. I would love to see more people have an interest in where their food comes from.

My plan is to go to the meeting in 2 weeks and offer my help. I'm really excited to see what will need doing. It's so exciting to know that I can now become more active in my interests. The future is a wonderful thing full of promise. It is also full of work to be done. Lets get to work!

You know it's cold when...

2011-01-24T08:48:00.000-05:00

It's been a bit cold this winter. This morning was the coldest it's been in 6 years. I want my money back. They said we were supposed to have a mild winter. They lied.

The chickens have been my biggest worry. They're taking it all in stride though. Their water is on a warming unit. However, this morning, there was ice in the water anyway.

How do people in the colder regions do it?

I'm compensating by poring over garden books and seed catalogs. All the seeds have been ordered and the plans have been made for the garden. I'm just dreaming now. Dreaming of a Spring that will eventually get here. It does every year. It just feels like it will never happen.

Canning potatoes

2011-01-17T09:45:00.001-05:00

Some of my storage potatoes are starting to sprout. Since they aren't stored in an ideal location, I'm not surprised. These were the Kennebecs, which was a little surprising though. They are supposed to be excellent keepers.

When I started going through the potatoes, I realized that many of the sprouts were coming from the smaller potatoes. There were a few larger potatoes sprouting, but not as many. I did not want to lose these wonderful potatoes, so something had to be done. We're flying through them, but couldn't eat them quite fast enough.

Pressure canning potatoes is very easy. Pick your own has a lovely little tutorial on it. I must say that I simplified it a bit as I don't really see the point to pre-cooking them. That's just me though.

I canned up 7 quarts, but there are tons more potatoes. The plan is to continue to use the fresh as long as possible and can up whatever looks like it won't make it.

Canned potatoes are one of those things I never knew how to use until recently. Hubby grew up with a mother who used commercially canned potatoes in many of her dishes. I never liked the taste or texture, so I wasn't too excited to try it. Then last year my sister in law grew too many potatoes and wanted to can them up. I taught her how and she gave me a jar to say thank you. It sat on the shelf for quite a while, until I worked up the nerve to use them. To my surprise, they were actually quite good. The potatoes stay quite firm, you could never use them for mashed potatoes, but they're great for soups, stews and braises. I will still continue to use fresh potatoes whenever possible, but the canned aren't a terrible thing to have on hand.

This post is part of Daphne's Dandelion's Harvest Monday.

Thoughts about home

2011-01-14T09:39:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking quite a bit about the perfect home for my family. Our present house is a duplex. We bought is 8 years ago while housing was still rising, thinking we would be here for 4 or 5 years at most.

Then the housing crisis hit. We were lucky, we never went upside down on our mortgage, but we have several neighbors who bought after us, who are. Prices had risen so quickly, that in the course of a year the value of our home had risen by almost a third. It then dropped by as much the following year. Hubby and I sat in our home and thanked our lucky stars that we still had equity, a job and an affordable mortgage. We started to look at our home as a more permanent place to live. I still continued to dream of more land and a single family house, but was content where we were.

About a year ago we started to talk about moving again. We've always had a quiet little neighborhood, but in the past year we've had several police incidents on our street. We have several friends on the police department and they all encouraged us to look elsewhere. When our adjacent neighbors announced their move out of state, we couldn't justify staying any longer.

So, where to move? I've always wanted a woodstove. Last year we stayed at a friend's cabin with a woodstove and the rest of the family fell in love as well. During Wednesday's blizzard we lost power for 10 hours. All I could think, was that if we had the stove we'd be warm and I could cook. Instead we just put on more layers and ate PB&J.

Hubby and I have a few differing opinions on homes, but overall are in agreement. While I love older homes, they just wouldn't be practical for us. We are certainly not the fixer upper types. Hubby is good at a lot of things, home improvement is not one of them.

So a newer home. Not a McMansion thank you. Our current house is relatively small and I'm not looking to get a much bigger house. The fireplace is a must, so that we can get the woodstove. Hubby wants central air, I couldn't care less about that, but will look for it.

Lastly is land. We currently have about 1/3 an acre, with much of that shared. Since a large portion is also unusable as a result of a septic tank, that doesn't leave too much. I do all the outside work myself, so it has to be manageable for little old me. A bigger garden is of course something on the wishlist. I'd also like more chickens, with meat birds added to the mix as well. Beyond that, I'm not sure. Goats would be lovely, but I'm not real confident of my ability to care for them properly. We'll have to see.

All of this is just in the thinking stage. We aren't in a perfect position to sell for another year. In that time, my thinking could change drastically. For now, I'm clearing out excess and trying not to think about dismantling my garden and packing up the 300+ canning jars in the basement.

Blizzard # 2

2011-01-13T11:38:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was blizzard # 2 for our area. It's only Jan 13th, so that isn't a great sign. The garden is completely buried. It's so deep that you can hardly see the difference between the raised beds and the ground. Behind the garden, our bushes are in bad shape under all the snow. They bounced back from the last storm, but I'm not sure how much more they can take.

The kids are loving it. They've been making tunnels in snow banks today. I'm sure the sledding will resume shortly.

They're very proud of their work. My Noah is the very silly one at the top.

The chickens are doing well, considering how little the like the snow. They're currently under my front window. It isn't ideal, but was very necessary. My neighbors that we were sharing the chickens with are moving. They couldn't have the chickens there while selling the house, so here they are. The tractor was moved between snow storms, so the girls couldn't be in a better place. I would have had to lift the tractor over a snow bank. It's working out well, they hardly got any snow in the run and are quite close to the electrical outlet.

Toby is in heaven. He loves this weather and has been playing in the snow quite a bit. Here he's waiting for me to stop taking pictures and kick the ball for him. How could I possibly resist that face?

It really is gorgeous out there today. I'm not a big fan of snow, but it keeps the kids happy and active and the photos are great.

Winter projects: fingerless gloves

2011-01-10T16:17:00.000-05:00

Tis the season for knitting. The seeds for the garden have been ordered. The garden has been planned. It's still too early to start seeds, so what is a girl to do? Make fingerless gloves, of course.

I've been seeing these everywhere this year. That must mean that I'm not the only one sitting in a chilly home all winter. I was at a friend's a few weeks ago, watching her finish up a pair similar to these. What was even better, was that they used sock yarn. There is an absurd stash of sock yarn in my basement currently. A few years ago, I went on a sock knitting bender. When Knit Picks had a nice little sale on sock yarn, I went a little nuts. Then I stopped knitting socks. Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this. So, now there is a large stash of sock yarn with no purpose. In steps the fingerless glove.

One of the wonderful things about the internet, is the vast array of free patterns. As a member of Ravelry, a knitting and crocheting community, I was able to access hundreds of patterns almost immediately. (my name is nandmsmom on the site, but I'm rarely on) Now, don't get me wrong, I'll happily pay for things, but to get my feet wet, there isn't anything like a free pattern.

I whipped up this pair pretty quickly. When I posted a pic on Facebook, my niece, who just joined the military, promptly asked for a pair. Since there are lots of birthdays coming up soon, guess what's on the agenda? By the time Spring rolls around, I should be plenty tired of making these. The stash of yarn should be nicely emptied as well. That should be less to pack next year.

It never gets old

2011-01-07T14:33:00.000-05:00

I still get a thrill every time the girls lay eggs. We've had them for a year and a half and they've been laying for well over a year. It still makes me so happy to collect eggs. There is something so satisfying about having chickens. They're always happy to see me, especially if I have leftovers for them. This time of year they are extra grateful for those treats since they aren't on pasture.

My plan had been to get some more layers in the spring. That has been put off with the move. The hens we have now will be with us until the fall and then they'll likely be butchered. We'll get more hens when we get our new house. I'll really miss those wonderful eggs, along with the hens that laid them.

If you have the ability to have chickens, I would encourage you to do so. They are so easy to care for. Personally, I think they're easier than the dog. He is cuter and snugglier though.

Getting my groove back

2011-01-04T12:19:00.000-05:00

Vacation is over for the kids. They went back to school yesterday. After over a week of getting nothing at all accomplished, I'm trying to get back into my groove.

It's always amazing to me how busy Christmas is. Making gifts, shopping, wrapping, socializing and lots of cooking make for a very busy month. When you add to that Hubby's computer business going into overdrive just before the holidays, it's quite exhausting. This week is all about taking back my life. There are still plenty of computers to be repaired, but not to the point that I can't get other things done.

To that end I'm putting quick meals in the freezer and getting the house cleaned and organized. I'm not the best housekeeper in the world, but I appreciate a nice neat house as much as the next gal. I hate clutter and disorganization, so that is my usual incentive to clean. We're purging lots of crud that has built up over the years. It makes me so happy to see these things leave my house.

While I purge, I think about what it would be like to pack up my house. It's not a big house, but there are lots of things we've accumulated. We're contemplating moving from our beloved neighborhood in the next year or so. Who knows whether we'll actually do it, but getting rid of excess is never a bad thing in my book.

Now it's time to move on with the never ending to-do list.

Wordless Wednesday New Seeds

2010-12-29T09:03:00.000-05:00

Christmas Dinner

2010-12-28T11:18:00.000-05:00

As I wrote in my last post, Christmas was not what we had originally intended. Dinner was wonderful nonetheless. I was excited to be bringing an entire feast of foods that I had grown and made to the table.

I almost forgot to photograph it, but did get a snapshot just as we started to eat.

It's not the best, but you'll get the idea. The prime rib was of course from DenBesten farms. The carrots and green beans were from the garden. I'm really hoping that all of this snow will melt and I'll be able to harvest the last of my carrots. The potatoes were Yukon Golds that I grew. We've almost used all of the yukon golds, but since they're starting to sprout, that is just as well. They also had bacon that I made earlier in them and some Cabot cheese.

Dinner was delicious, but would have been better if my parents could have been there. I was able to get another meal from the prime rib and made stock from the bones for later meals. Nothing goes to waste here. Toby even got the carrots and last of the meat from the bones after the stock was made.

This was the 4th meal for the Dark Days Challenge at the (not so) Urban Hennery.

The weather outside is frightful

2010-12-26T12:28:00.001-05:00

It's snowing again. We have a couple inches on the ground from last week and we're predicted to get about 20 more inches today and tomorrow. So, have I run to the store? Nah. I'm sitting here with bread in the oven, the bones from yesterdays roast in the pot for stock and happiness in my heart.

Yesterday was not what I had expected, but wonderful nonetheless. We got a call from my parents yesterday morning at about 9:30. I was thinking it was just to tell us they were on their way. Instead it was my father calling to say my mother was nauseated and having chest pain. I'm a cardiac nurse (I haven't worked since Morgan was born) and Hubby is a paramedic. We're the ones who get called whenever there is a problem. We told them to call 911 and met them at the hospital. Thankfully all seems to be ok. Mom is having a stress test as I write this, but it looks like the whole thing was just some anxiety and stress.

We made the best of it and went home to eat our meal. My parent's will come over sometime this week for Christmas. The kids will be thrilled to have the holiday last a little longer and have another day of presents. We're just happy that Mom is alright.

Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I hope you had a wonderful day. Now is the time to reflect over the year and get ready for the new one.

Peace to all.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T07:55:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas to all. I hope your day is as wonderful as ours.

First snow of the season

2010-12-21T09:34:00.000-05:00

We are having our first snow. It started yesterday and was predicted to be nothing. They lied. Cape Cod is buried and we have about 4 inches with it still coming down. I'm really not a fan of snow. My friend Kiwi loves it and wants me to appreciate it too. While I love having 4 distinct seasons, I am not a big fan of winter and the snow. Apparently, I need to move. I will say that it is pretty.

The tomato frames against the garden.

The broccoli giving some texture to the garden in the snow.

Every year I think it would be nice to decorate this with lights. We've lived here for 9 years and it hasn't happened yet. Outside decoration doesn't really happen here.

I'm obsessing about the chickens again. They are really well protected this year, but still have a coating of snow in their run. They're refusing to go out. I forced a few to go out, and even put some goodies in their run, but they won't budge. I wouldn't care, but their food and water is in the run out of necessity. I'm sure they'll go out eventually, but I worry anyway. Yes, I'm probably nuts.

Meal #3 lot of stored veggies from the garden.

2010-12-20T09:30:00.000-05:00

I woke this morning to a dusting of snow. The kids were excited to see even the coating that we got. The week is supposed to bring flurries most days this week, with no meaningful accumulation. Right now, I'm really happy with pretty, but not inconvenient. Tomorrow is the solstice and I'm planning to plant some things to celebrate. For now, we still have lots of stored veggies from the garden.

Last night we ate some more of those veggies. I decided to make a roast in the rotisserie oven. You will remember the infomercials from 8 or 10 years ago. Hubby bought me one long ago and it is in sad shape. The plastic arms that hold the door on have broken. Hubby had taken it into the fire station once and we're now missing parts as well. It still works though, and I refuse to throw it away until it completely dies.

As you can see, the roast was a perfect medium rare. I never make roasts and when we order our half cow from Den Besten farms, I always account for that. There are always a few that I allow, but generally even those get turned into jerky. The sides are the Rio Grande russets from the garden with raw milk from a local farm. The sugar snap peas were frozen from the garden, along with the beets that were harvested in July.

It's amusing to set a plate in front of my family and have them ask for more veggies before they even eat. The garden veggies have that effect on us. Somehow the store veggies just don't taste quite the same. These will run out eventually, so I'm planning a trip to the Providence farmers market with some good friends in January. It will be nice to see all the other lovely things they have as well. Dark Days meals aren't so tough when your pantry and freezers already hold so many wonderful local things. You would be hard pressed to find a meal we eat that doesn't have at least something from one of the local farms.

This post is part of Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions and The Dark Days Challenge at The (not so) Urban Hennery.

Potatoes year in review

2010-12-17T10:09:00.000-05:00

This is the first year that I made an effort to grow potatoes for the year. In the past I've planted grocery store potatoes in pots (failure) and 2 years ago there were seed potatoes bought on a whim (failure). This year I decided to go all out. The year started with me buying a ridiculous amount of seed potatoes. When I realized my error, most of them were given away to other gardening friends. This is what I ended up with.

All seed potatoes were purchased from Fedco's Moose Tubers. These were the Rio Grande Russets. We are big russet lovers at our house and I had high hopes for the potatoes. I planted 5 pounds and got approximately 40 pounds of potatoes when all was said and done. The groundhogs did a number on them, so I'm sure I would have gotten significantly more otherwise. The taste was nice, but not spectacular. They've also been keeping quite nicely in my 50 degree basement. My biggest issue with this variety was the size of the potatoes. Most were quite small. Since we like our russets baked, that poses a bit of a problem. There were only a handful big enough to bake. I'll be looking for another variety next year.

Next up were the Yukon Golds. These are delicious potatoes. I planted 2.5 pounds and ended up with about 20 pounds at the end of the summer. They produced nice sized potatoes with a couple real whoppers. Being an early potato, they aren't keeping as well as I would like. Many are starting to sprout, so we've been eating them faster than the others. I will certainly do these again next year. Despite being the potato with the smallest yield, they are worth it for the taste. Hopefully I'll be able to get enough to last until seed planting.

All Blues were the next variety I planted. I planted 2.5 pounds and ended up with 40 pounds of spuds. That's a pretty amazing yield. The tubers were a decent size for the most part, but are longer and knobbier than the rest. I thought the kids would love the blue color, but it freaked my 6 year old out instead. The flavor is quite earthy and not really what we enjoy. Since they really need to be peeled in order to make them slightly less earthy, the knobbiness is a bit of an issue. In the end, they won't be planted again.

Lastly were the Kennebecs. This is THE Maine potato. I planted 5 pounds and got over 50 pounds in return. The size was all over the place, from tiny to huge. I've never been a huge fan of the waxy, all purpose potato and was prepared to dislike this one. Instead, it's one of my favorites. The flavor is wonderful and truly taste the way I want a potato to taste. It's keeping pretty well in the basement. A few have started to sprout in a half hearted way, but I think they'll last the winter.

A few notes on planting and storage. All of these potatoes were planted on April 21st. I planted them in beds amended with aged chicken manure and nothing else. They were planted about 3 inches deep and then hilled once up to a depth of about 8 inches. All were harvested in September despite many of them dying back significantly earlier. A few had been snuck out for us to eat throughout the summer. They are being stored in cardboard boxes in my basement. The temp is currently 50 degrees with 60 percent humidity right now. We are loving having all these potatoes for meals.

2010-12-17T09:44:00.001-05:00

Pressure canning beans

2010-12-15T13:44:00.002-05:00

Last Wednesday I posted a picture of some beans that I had just canned. Leigh had requested that I post how I did them. They are so easy it's ridiculous, so here you go. I use this method for all my dried beans because I can never remember to have them ready when I need them. It also works for all those beans that have been in your pantry for longer than you want to admit, and are hard as little rocks. I have way too many of them.

You start by rinsing and sorting your beans the way you would for any cooking. Next add 1 slightly rounded 1/2 cup of beans to each pint jar. Fill with warm (not hot) water and let them sit overnight.

Next you take a picture of your six year old because she's way too cute and wants to be in the post.

In the morning simmer your lids, start your pressure canner heating and boil a few quarts of water. Next, drain the soaking water from the beans. You can rinse them more if you're worried about the cleanliness of your beans. This is also the point where you can add any seasonings that you think might taste good. These are pintos and I added 1/4 t granulated garlic and a few turns of black pepper. Fill the jars with boiling water, wipe and cap. Then pressure can at 11lbs pressure for 60 minutes. If you want to do quarts, you would do 1 cup of beans and cook for 75 minutes.

Voila! You have convenience food. Since it's freezing out here, I tend to do this in the winter. All of my beans are depleted, so next on the agenda are red kidney beans. In my pantry I keep jars of red kidney, white, pinto, black and garbanzo (chick peas) beans.

I'll be linking this post to Simple Lives Thursday.

Dark Days meal #2 Dinner with the kids

2010-12-14T09:54:00.000-05:00

Tis the season for craziness. I had started this challenge ready to take on the world. Then daily I would think "Oh this meal would be good, but there are 2 items that don't count.". So, last night I decided to just bite the bullet and make sure that the meal was done and taken care of.

It's been interesting to define what SOLE means to this challenge. I'm trying very hard not to bend the rules. Everybody seems to have different ideas of what exactly will count. There was a great discussion in the email list last week about this. To define what I'm doing I'll say that since I am so close to the coast, I'm going to include all of Southern New England and the lower half of New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont. I'm sure this will have some tweaks throughout the year. For instance, when we were on vacation in Virginia, we bought a cured Virginia ham from a tiny little farm. It isn't local to me at home, but was certainly bought in the spirit of the challenge. When we eat that, it will probably be included.

So on to the meal. Last night Hubby was working at the fire station and it was just the kids and I. They, being kids wanted something that didn't have too much going on as far as complexity. My kids will eat a lot of things that other children won't, but they do have their limits. Last night was all about them.

The components of the meal are:

-Hamburger sans bun from Den Besten farms in Raynham Ma topped with raw milk blue cheese from Great Hill dairy in Marion Ma The kids did not have the blue cheese.

-Bread and butter pickles that I made from my garden last summer It was a particularly good year for pickles and we're running out of them quickly.

-Home fries made from the All Blue potatoes that I grew in my garden. They were fried up in the lard I rendered from the pig we got at Den Besten.

-Cascadia sugar snap peas from my garden.

It was a yummy, but simple meal. The burger with the blue cheese and pickles was really amazing. Hubby is going to be very sad that we ate some of his favorite sugar snaps without him.

This post is part of the Dark Days Challenge at the (not so) Urban Hennery. The meals from around the country are really neat. Head on over and check out what's cooking.

Making Soap

2010-12-13T11:28:00.000-05:00

Last Spring I went to a great class on soapmaking. It was a fabulous time and my friend Kerry and I decided we needed to do it again. Kerry has a fabulous candle business and is into all the crazy crunchy things that I am. We did all of this at her house with a few other friends. Since Kerry is thinking about teaching and/or selling soaps, she bought a large amount of the tools we needed.

Things got set up. We were making a soap with oatmeal and honey along with some nice scents that she had.

This is Stephanie getting ready to make some soap.

Everything ready to go.

Starting to show trace.

Pouring soap into some of our makeshift molds.

These were some that I made with orange oil. I don't do well with scents and actually ended up having a mild allergic reaction to something there. I'm relatively sure it was one of the other scents we were paying with before we got started.

They all need to sit and harden now.

The soap we made used coconut oil, organic palm oil, soy oil and olive oil. The additives for mine were oatmeal and honey and one batch with orange oil added for some scent. They were done using cold process. I'm anxious to delve into soap more now. This summer will be fun as I'm planning to use some of my veggies in place of the water for some of the soaps. How cool would it be to have soap with some of my cucumbers, melon, tomatoes or carrots? I can't wait to try it.

Brrr

2010-12-10T06:49:00.000-05:00

Not only is it 5 degrees out, it's only 57 in my kitchen. No wonder I'm cold!

Wordless Wednesday Beans

2010-12-08T11:28:00.000-05:00

Harvest Monday Dec 6, 2010

2010-12-06T08:58:00.000-05:00

This week I went and pulled enough carrots to get us through a few weeks. The fall harvest has been gorgeous. It's really getting cold here lately and the ground is starting to freeze. I have a feeling this will be my last harvest for quite a while. There are still some odds and ends in the ground, but I will most likely leave them there until the next thaw. I love looking at all the greens that everyone is harvesting and we have a few in the garden. Unfortunately, my family only eats greens under protest. It's all about babysteps.

The rest of the garden has been put to bed for a few weeks, so nothing to report there. I'm starting to plan for next year and will be adding another raised bed in the last space I have in my side yard. There is a free planner on the Mother Earth News site that is very easy to use, so I've been playing with that. The seed catalogs are dribbling in. I've gotten 2 so far, one from Pinetree and the other from Totally Tomatoes.

This post is part of Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions. Head on over and see all the wonderful harvests.

Gingersnap Cookies

2010-12-03T11:30:00.000-05:00

So, you may have noticed that I'm doing a lot of cooking lately. It does seem to be that time of year. Today I'm going to lunch at t friend's house and we'll be having a cookie swap as well. This year I decided to make Gingersnap Cookies. These are also one of those cookies that I discovered later in life. My love of all things chocolate has made me miss out on some truly yummy treats. Because it's a dark cookie, I use at least half whole wheat flour in my dough. It certainly can take it!

Gingersnap cookies

2 cups flour (white, whole wheat or a combo)
1 T ground ginger ( or more if you like em spicy)
2 t baking soda
1 t ground cinnamon
1/2 t salt
3/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
cinnamon sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the flour and spices in a bowl. Beat butter and sugar well, add egg and molasses and beat until light. Slowly add the flour mixture until just blended. Form into 1 inch balls and roll in cinnamon sugar.

Bake for 10 minutes.

I can't wait to see all the yummy cookies at today's swap. It's good to have friends that are good cooks as well!

This post will also be a part of the Christmas Cookie Recipe Swap at Farmer's Daughter.

The first night of Hannukah

2010-12-02T09:20:00.000-05:00

Last night was the first night of Hannukah. Since Hubby is Jewish and I'm a Christian, we celebrate a lot of holidays. The kids love it and really enjoy the fact that they get to celebrate two religions. This year our Hannukah was even better because the meal came in large part from our own garden.

We had latkes made from potatoes that I grew and eggs from our chickens. The applesauce was made from apples we picked at the farm down the road from us. I made the brisket from the half cow we got this summer from a local farm and it was simmered with carrots and onions from our garden. I had even made beef stock from the bones when we got the cow this summer and canned it up. The best part was that it was delicious. There are even leftovers for tonight.

This post is part of the Dark Days Challenge at the (not so) Urban Hennery and Simple Lives Thursday.

Snickerdoodles

2010-11-30T10:30:00.001-05:00

I came to snickerdoodles late in life. I used to always go for the flashier cookies and tended toward anything chocolate. One day it came to me that I had never tried them, so I set out to find a recipe. Strangely, most of the recipes I came across used shortening in them. Shortening does not come to my house. I decided to modify a few recipes and came up with this one. They're all butter, sugar and white flour, but man are they good.

Snickerdoodles

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 cup flour
1 t baking soda
2 t cream of tartar
1 t salt
1 t vanilla
2 T sugar
2 t cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 and grease cookie sheets

Cream together the butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Stir together the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt and mix until just combined.

Mix remaining sugar and cinnamon in small bowl. Form dough into small balls and roll in cinnamon sugar. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until lightly brown at the edges.

This recipe is being added to the Christmas Cookie Recipe Swap at Farmer's Daughter. Check out all the yummy recipes added. It is also being added to the Retro Housewife Goes Green: Green Holiday Blog Carnival.

Harvest Monday Nov 29, 2010

2010-11-29T08:17:00.000-05:00

It's really cold outside! My garden has a heavy layer of frost on it, but I still have a harvest for the week. Last Tuesday I decided to harvest the rest of the broccoli. I'm leaving the stalks in the ground just so I have something to look at, but they're done for the year.

We've done lots of eating from our garden this week though. The canned tomatoes and sauces have made an appearance in many dishes. Potatoes and carrots have also been big this week. I made my Vegetable Beef Soup this week so all of the above was used, along with some frozen green beans from the garden.

The remainder of the garden will stay in. There is still some cabbage, although the heads never got very big. The carrots are gorgeous and will be pulled whenever I can get them out. The beets didn't get very big and will also be harvested when the ground thaws a bit.

Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions to see what everyone is harvesting this week. It's amazing to see what people are getting in this cold weather.

Winterizing the chickens and lessons learned

2010-11-28T12:45:00.000-05:00

We've had a warmer than normal fall so far. Last year the girls were wintered up in the first week of November. This year, we've had some cold nights, but nothing too bad. The biggest issue is always the water. I've been able to bang the waterer on the ground to break up the ice. This morning was different though. It was 21 degrees when I woke up and their water was a giant block of ice. It was time to get them winterized.

We learned a lot last year. There is a learning curve with everything and chickens are certainly no exception. Last year we had them under J's deck. There were a lot of problems with that though. I had to shovel a huge path out to them, which then turned to slippery ice. If there was an issue in their yard, we had to climb under the deck, which just wasnt' fun. It also didn't give them too much light under there, in addition to limited protection from snow.

We got smarter this year. They're now between the house and shed on J's side of our duplex. It's south facing, so more sun. It's right off the walkway, so snow is easier to deal with. We don't have to climb under the deck either. In order to offer even more protection, we put plastic sheeting over their yard to minimize the snow and wet. Last year I spent hours trying to get snow out of their yard so that they would go out to eat and drink. (Their food is in the yard out of necessity.) I was just a little obsessive about it, actually. Ok, I was a lot obsessive about it. J laughed at me a lot.

They seem pretty happy about the set up. What's even better, is that their food and shavings are kept in the shed. Last year they were in my kitchen. It was messy, a major pain and I ended up with a nasty pantry moth infestation brought in by the feed.

I can't tell you how happy I am with this new set up. Of course I drove J crazy getting it set up today. He calls me his 'Wife without benefits', but is easily placated with peach butter. Men are easy. The girls seem happy, but they need to start laying better! We're only getting 1 to 2 eggs a day. I didn't get the lights going early enough and it's taking a while for them to get back into the groove. There will definitely be more chickens next year.

What I'm reading

2010-11-27T11:52:00.000-05:00

Since the kids have been in school, I've had lots of time to myself. One of the things I'm doing is to catch up on my reading. Currently, I'm enjoying The Resilient Gardener Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times by Carol Deppe.

The book takes a look at some of the history of growing foods along with the challenges that have been dealt with over time. Deppe has Celiac disease which prevents her from eating wheat or anything that has gluten in it. This has shaped how she gardens and cooks, as you might imagine. Instead she focuses on 5 foods that are the basis for a healthy diet. In this case potatoes, corn, beans, squash and eggs.

She and another man garden together on leased land in the Pacific Northwest. They grow almost all their food on this land and store it in their garage. There are chapters on each of the foods that she grows, with great detail on what kinds of seeds she prefers and why. Great detail is given on how they grow, problems that may arise and how to deal with those problems. Storage and recipes are also given plenty of attention.

I'm finding this to be one of those books that makes me want to add more beds to my garden. As seed catalogs start to arrive, I'll be making lots of notes as to what new varieties would be fun to try. Every family has different tastes, but focusing on the basics is wise for any of us that are wanting to grow a large amount of food for our families. I love the idea of also growing many things that require almost no attention to store for the winter. Getting out of the canning kitchen is a wonderful thing in my book.

I'm always looking for more books to read and would love any suggestions you have. So tell me, what books are you reading now?

Happy Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T07:10:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers from the US. We'll be enjoying our day with my family in Plymouth. It's wonderful to know that the turkey came from a small farm in Duxbury and most of the veggies came from either my garden, or my mother's. Of course there is nothing at all local about that delicious Chocolate Pecan Pie, but I wouldn't be without it anyway.

Enjoy your day!

Makin Bacon

2010-11-15T13:37:00.004-05:00

We got our pig back in September with the knowledge that I was going to make our own bacon. This is all brand new to me, so I was a bit apprehensive about the whole thing. It turned out to be so easy!

I started with a 7 pound belly that I cut into 3 hunks. Then made a mixture of 1/3 c kosher salt 1/3 c light brown sugar and 1/3 c maple syrup. This is based on the book Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn. They use quite a bit of 'pink' salt which has nitrates. I wanted to avoid those, so went with the above mixture.

This then got smeared all over the belly and placed in a 2 gallon zip top bag. I placed it into dish and put it into the fridge. There it sat for 7 days, being turned daily, but otherwise ignored.

This morning I lit my new smoker for the first time and placed the bellies in. I used hickory chips and think I'll use apple wood next time, but the smoke was quite nice. The smoker never heated up as much as I wanted, so after about 1 1/2 hours, I pulled the bellies out and put them in a 200 degree oven for about 70 minutes until they got to 150 degrees.

They looked pretty good so I decided to try some, just to see how it turned out.

It was amazing! This piece had virtually no fat, but had that classic bacon taste without any of the chemical taste to go with it. This pig had a good life and I'm happy to make it all that it can be.

Lastly, I cut the slabs into halves and put them in freezer bags and stored away. There is still another belly in the freezer for me to play with. I think I'll try a slightly different brine and wood. This is fun! Next I want to try a ham as well.

Edited to add: When I made this there was a note that I had made with the basic ingredients next to the instructions in the book. I couldn't remember where I had seen them, but after searching blog posts discovered this post of the same name by Annette over at Sustainable Eats. Apparently it stuck with me, but not enough to remember specifics. Thanks Annette!

I'm also linking with Simple Lives Thursday. Head on over and see the wonderful things people are up to.

Yummy breakfast.

2010-11-11T10:33:00.001-05:00

The kids were home today for Veteran's day, so I made a quiche. The recipe is called Refrigerator Pie from Alton Brown. I love it because I can use any old thing I have laying around.

This one was made with bacon, onions and cheddar cheese. The crust is homemade with whole wheat flour and half butter, half home rendered lard. Yummy!

I am linking to Simple Lives Thursday. Click on over and check out what everyone is up to.

String the lights

2010-11-10T18:10:00.000-05:00

Tis the season to light the chickens. The girls have stopped moulting, so it's time for them to lay some eggs for us. The lights have been on for a few days, but this is the first night that they've come out to enjoy their extra hours.

Harvest Monday Nov 8,2010

2010-11-08T08:47:00.000-05:00

I can no longer say that carrots are impossible.

Apparently, the trick is to plant them in July and let them grow in the fall. At least at my house. I'm still in shock that these gorgeous carrots came from MY garden. The really great thing, is that there are still lots more out there. My new plan is to forgo the spring planting(well maybe a small one) and after I harvest the garlic, to plant a whole bed of these beautiful roots.

These were planted by making seed tapes on toilet paper. It took just a few minutes and then they were ready to go. I'm thinking that I'll do the same thing with the beets when I harvest the onions. We don't really eat beets in the summer anyway. It's all about the rotation baby!

This post was part of Harvest Monday. Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions and see what everyone is harvesting this week.

All ready for Winter

2010-11-06T11:37:00.000-04:00

It's getting to look more and more like winter around here. The leaves are almost all off the trees (and on my garden!). The weather is getting colder and they're starting to say things like 'mixed precipitation' on the news. Today was the day to straighten out the shed and put everything away until Spring. All the tools were cleaned and the shed was swept out.

In the process I managed to disturb a cozy little nest of mice. They jumped out at me and scared the pants off of me. Poor Morgan heard me screaming and went and hid. Then she wouldn't go near the shed for a while. It took a bit of explaining that it wasn't that I was afraid of the mice, just that they surprised me. I must admit, I feel very bad for the mice. They had a nice cozy nest for the winter and I destroyed it. The poor things will probably die now. Is it pathetic that I feel bad for the mice?

The shed is all nice and clean now. It will be wonderful to have it ready to go in the Spring.

The garlic bed all planted and mulched. I can now forget about it until next July. What are you doing this weekend?

Leaves

2010-11-04T08:21:00.002-04:00

I continued on my quest to be known as the weird neighbor this week. At the top of the street is the bus stop. The yard is a big corner lot and has been covered in the most gorgeous carpet of leaves for a few weeks. I've been coveting those leaves. I've spent actual time sitting and thinking about how to get them for myself. It's a disease.

Then a miracle happened. The landscapers mowed up those leaves and placed them in 35 large composting bags. I made Hubby stop the car on Tuesday and ask if I could have them. They of course looked at me like I was nuts. Then he said he just needed the bags back. Hubby and I made plans to get the leaves on Thursday. Then yesterday another miracle! The landscaper came down and said he needed the bags sooner than he thought. So, he and his helper hauled them all down in his truck and helped me dump them on the garden! All free! All for me! Yes, I realize I need help. We even made plans to do the same thing next year.

While talking to him, I realized we really weren't all that different. He was working hard to try to buy a place to do the same things. He had rented a place that he thought he would be able to buy. He had chickens, both hens and meat birds. He wants a big garden as well. I felt a kinship to this wonderful man. It also turns out that he's a friend of the homeowner up the street. I now have a leaf dealer! He can feed the need for leaves!

I'm connecting with Simple lives Thursday blog hop. Hop on over and check out how else people are living simply.

Brrr

2010-11-03T08:19:00.000-04:00

Harvest Monday Nov 1, 2010

2010-11-01T09:13:00.001-04:00

Brrr! It is certainly November here in New England. It was 25 degrees when I woke up this morning. The kids were bundled up in winter coats and the heat was turned on. The living room was 58 degrees, so there was no messing around today. As a result, I decided to harvest a few things that I was unsure of. Tonight is supposed to be just as cold.

There was quite a bit of broccoli and a few beets that were big enough to harvest. I left the broccoli in to see how well it does. There are a few more heads started and some side shoots that may develop. Since I've never had anything planted this late, I'm not sure how well they'll do. The beets are not sizing up as well as I would like, so I thinned them and we'll see what happens. I know both broccoli and beets are ok with some cold, but I'm not sure when they'll be destroyed.

The rest of the greens, cabbage and carrots are looking good, so they'll stay in the ground. My Pac Choi has gotten far too big, so the chickens have been enjoying it instead. The cabbage is still forming heads, I'm curious to see what will happen with them. It would be great if the cabbage, beets and carrots would continue to size up, the light is getting scarce though.

This post is part of Daphne's Dandelions, head on over and see what everyone is harvesting this week.

Vegetable beef soup

2010-10-30T12:12:00.000-04:00

I hate to waste anything, so the other night when we had a bone in chuck steak, I vowed not to waste any of it. Today I took the rest of the steak and bones and threw them in a pot with a bunch of veggies, a jar of canned tomatoes and a jar of the beef stock I made when we got the cow. The result is rather delicious.

This is what is left after I took some to Hubby at the Fire Station and the kids and I had some. The recipe was made up, but I'll do my best.

Vegetable beef soup

Leftover bones and meat from a chuck steak, maybe a cup of meat.
1qt tomatoes
1qt beef stock
3 potatoes cut into 1 inch cubes
2-3 carrots cut up
1 qt of beans
1 can of corn
1 small onion diced
1 large clove garlic
water to cover and salt and pepper to taste.

I basically just threw it together and let it simmer. After a while, I pulled the meat out and cut it up into small pieces. It's very yummy and comforting on this cool, fall day.

Potato Onions

2010-10-29T14:43:00.000-04:00

After my unfortunate accident with the scissors last week, I was finally able to get out and plant the garlic. I'm also trying a new thing this year. They're potato onions. Apparently these are what people planted for years. They are a multiplying onion, that appears to work somewhat like shallots.

I got these when we were in Virginia at the Harvest Festival at Monticello. They are simply labeled 'white', I got yellow as well. They were planted just like the garlic. At the moment, they're covered with a small amount of straw, but will get another covering of grass and chopped leaves this weekend.

I'm anxious to see how they do. Years ago, everyone had their own set of onions that they kept planting every year. Similar to how we now do garlic. They are rumored to be great storage onions with a great taste as well. It would be wonderful if that was the case. I hate growing onions from seed. They need to be babied for far too long and seem quite susceptible to fungus and other yucky things. This lazy gardener would love to have something that I planted in the fall and forgot about until July.

Pretty fall day

2010-10-29T11:13:00.000-04:00

The weather here has been quite warm lately. Today was a nice return to the cool, crisp Autumn that we all love here in New England.

Burning bushes next to the shed.

The garden beds with their cozy manure blankets.

Dogwoods turning behind the clothesline.

Broccoli waiting to be harvested.

The chickens are molting and getting ready for winter.

Toby playing with his best friend, Brutus.

I hope you're all out enjoying the beautiful weather.

PSA Don't do this at home

2010-10-19T09:42:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I decided to get off my butt and get my garlic planted. Hubby was home from work sneezing and coughing all over the place and generally driving me crazy. I pulled 2 bunches of garlic down from the basement, grabbed my poultry shears and went out to cut the tops off the garlic. Apparently my finger got in the way. What a dingbat I am. I ended up with a tetanus shot and 6 stitches. No pictures of the stitches, because I'm sure that is not what you want to see. The garlic is going to have to wait awhile now.

On a bright note, the nurse is a big gardener herself. We chatted about gardening and canning while the doctor worked. It was quite pleasant actually, considering what was happening with my hand.

I'm finding it difficult to do much of anything right now. Toby is mad that he didn't get his walk today. It is hard to control a 85lb dog with one hand. He's pretty good, but not that good.

Harvest Monday Oct 18, 2010

2010-10-18T07:31:00.001-04:00

The harvests are slowing down mightily here. It seems as they slow down, I get worse about actually photographing what I get. Most of the time, I end up running outside to grab something out of the garden to make dinner.

This week, the only things I actually harvested were some broccoli and swiss chard. Since my computer won't let me upload the one picture I took, I don't even have that to show you. Is anyone else having issues with the new changes to blogger? I hate the way they have photos set up now.

Edited to add that blogger finally allowed me to post the picture of the swiss chard that I harvested.

Anyway, the broccoli went into a casserole and the chard into the soup, both of which I made in the previous post. This time of year I'm ready for the garden to be done. I'm hoping my teenaged friend will come back one more time to finish spreading the manure. Since I still haven't managed to get the garlic and onions planted, that really needs to get done this week. After that, it's just enjoying the last of my harvests and all the yummy things that I stored. I'm not sure that I'm cut out for year round gardening.

Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions and check out what everyone is harvesting this week.

A Day in the Slow Life

2010-10-17T08:27:00.001-04:00

Last week Laura, at The Modern Victory Garden, participated in a meme about "A day in the slow life" and tagged me to write something as well.

I'm a big believer in growing, cooking and eating nutritious, whole foods. It is a work in progress, but I am attempting to ditch the grocery store and work on making my own traditional whole foods. My kids are newly in school, after homeschooling for many years, so my schedule has opened up quite a bit. This is a typical day for me at this point. In this case, it's Friday.

6AM I'm up and ready to go. My day starts early, since sleeping late is not something my body has ever allowed. Being a morning person allows me to get much of my work done before noon. I start by letting Toby out and getting his breakfast ready. He eats a combination of home cooked food and dry dog food supplemented by garlic and brewers yeast to deter fleas and ticks. We don't use the chemical deterrents here. I then go out to check on the chickens. Their tractor is moved to allow them new areas to scratch and forage, along with weeding and mowing my lawn. What a deal! They also get some weeds and spent plants from the garden along with any foods that either Toby or the family didn't eat.

7AM The kids are up and the race begins to get them fed, lunches made and up to the bus. My kids aren't huge fans of sandwiches. They take things like yogurt, cheese, nuts, dried fruits and anything else they find appealing for that day. I just bought them thermoses to bring hot foods like soups and the like, so they'll have something warm in their tummies next week. Both kids have spelling tests today, so we go over their lists and onto the bus they go.

8:30 AM The last the kid is put on the bus and Toby and I are off for our walk. We were predicted to have quite a rain storm, but it came during the night and now we have gorgeous weather. Our typical walk is about 2 miles. I use this time to organize my day in my head. It is wonderful to start my day with some exercise and fresh air. When I get home, I make breakfast for Hubby and I. Today is eggs from the girls and sausage I made from the pig we just purchased from the local slaughterhouse. This is made into a sandwich with bagels, which makes me realize I need to make more bagels. That will have to be another day.

10 AM I sit down for a minute and check the internet and read a few blogs.

10 :30 It's time to make the Pasta e Fagioli soup.

The ground beef from our half cow.

Veggies, some from the garden and others from the farm.

The canned goods. I like to can my own dried beans. Convenient and I know what's in them.

The soup is ready. I'll add pasta when I serve it.

11:15AM Time to do the dishes. My dishwasher died a few months ago and I'm finding that I really like hand washing them. I don't have to worry about how clean they are and it is rather cathartic.

Next is repairing a shirt that my son ripped the cuff off of on his first day wearing it. Then I finish knitting the ends into some dishrags I made last week.

12:00 I make my lunch of soup without the pasta added, which I eat in front of the computer. Bad, I know. Just as I'm finishing, a good friend calls to see how I'm adjusting to the kids being in school. We have a lovely chat. I bring some more scraps out to the chickens and play with Toby a bit.

1:30 Since it poured last night, there isn't much to be done in the garden. We're also toward the end of the growing season. My helper came and helped me with the manure again yesterday. Since most of the garden is taken care of, I can relax a bit. The kids will be home soon, so I decide to make them brownies. We've been cutting a lot of sugar from our diet, so they will be thrilled to have something sweet when they get home. While they're baking I run up to take a shower and fold some laundry.

3PM The kids are home and have their snack. Since it is the weekend, they have no homework and are off to play outside. We have a wonderful neighborhood, with lots of great kids. It's wonderful to have so many playmates for my kids and great moms for me to talk to as well.

5PM Dinner needs to be made. Hubby is running late, so I am making it later than usual. I have leftovers to make over tonight. There is chicken, rice and some broccoli from the garden. I decide to make up a white sauce, throw some cheese in it and make a bit of a casserole. Recipes are not my strong suit. I tend to make things up as I go along. It isn't bad, especially considering I'm not much of a casserole girl.

7PM Hubby is home and we've had dinner. We relax together with the kids and hear about how school went. I'm knitting a scarf for a Christmas present while we chat.

8PM The kids are in bed and Hubby and I relax with some TV before going off to bed.

As part of the meme, I'm to nominate a few people to carry it on. In that vein, I'll ask Leigh of 5 Acres and a Dream to join in, Daphne of Daphne's Dandelions and Harvest Monday fame, and Thomas from A Growing Tradition to round out the group.

I hope you enjoyed my day in the life. I'd love to see more join in as it's fun to see what people do in a day.

This post is also part of Simple Lives Thursday. Head on over and see what everyone is up to.

He came back!

2010-10-14T13:56:00.000-04:00

I've been wondering if my teen helper was going to come back. Yesterday he showed up for more punishment. He seems to show up for an hour at a time. It's amazing what we can get done in an hour.

The biggest thing is that he can shovel the manure into the wheelbarrow and dump it. I get to spread it around without my back feeling like I'll never walk again. We still have lots of manure to spread. There is a bit of rain in the forecast. Hopefully, we'll get some decent weather next week so that we can get the rest spread. Then maybe he can help me rip the weeds along the edges out. They're really awful! I love having help!

Harvest Monday Oct 11, 2010

2010-10-11T07:42:00.000-04:00

The potatoes are finally all in. The russet bed was the one I was most interested in. They're our favorites. In all, I ended up with close to 200 lbs of potatoes. It sounds and looks like a lot, but they'll be eaten in our house. We love our potatoes.

Unfortunately, so do the groundhogs who dug a hole in my potato bed. They took bites out of around 20 pounds of potatoes that then ended up in the compost. The stinkers built their hole by the back fence where I couldn't see them. Toby couldn't get to them because his electric fence is inches from their hole and he would get shocked. There isn't anything for them to eat now. I'm sure they will disappear until next year.

The week saw the last of the tomatoes and peppers that were pulled. I have to admit, I was so sick of tomatoes that many just got composted. I'll probably regret that next year. Not pictured is broccoli and a few more carrots.

All that is left now are the fall crops. They're doing very well, so they'll be regular players from now on.

This is part of Daphne's Dandelion's Harvest Mondays. Head on over and check it out.

First frost 10-10-10

2010-10-10T08:56:00.000-04:00

Last night was our first frost. It was late this year, which wasn't really all that surprising. After a early, wet spring and a hot dry summer, we weren't looking for an early frost. It has been a wonderful year for gardening here in New England. Just what the doctor ordered after last year's debacle.

I had already ripped out the dying tomatoes on Friday. All that was left in the garden was the cool weather crops who don't care too much about the frost. I'm hoping to get them to continue doing their thing until Thanksgiving or so. We'll see.

There were plans for hoop houses, but after a difficult year in other aspects of my life, I've decided to forgo the overwintering until next year. I'm hoping that next year will be easier on me. This year was wonderful for figuring out when things needed to be planted for the fall garden. What is there will be eaten by us and the chickens, or stored for later use.

Today is 10-10-10 which is a date used by several organizations to highlight the climate crisis. I'm planning to spend today in the garden putting it to bed. The garlic bed needs to be amended and planted. I'll also be looking to plant my potato onions. More about those later.

The tomato bed will be capped with a good layer of cow manure this weekend and then left to sleep for the winter. I still have lots to do in the garden. The last bed of potatoes still needs to be dug. We've had quite a bit of rain, so I'm waiting for it to dry out still. There is an "almost 17" year old up the street who has offered to help. He spent an hour here turning beds over on Friday, but I haven't seen him since. Hopefully I didn't scare him off.

My constant helpers in the garden will be assisting me along the way. They'll get some treats along the way.

Harvest Monday Oct 4, 2010

2010-10-04T07:17:00.000-04:00

We've been getting lots of rain and wind over the past week. As a result, I still haven't been able to harvest the last bed of potatoes. We've been getting plenty of other harvests though.

The tomatoes just keep on coming. Although, the plants themselves are looking awful. Most of them are fully diseased and looking awful, but they're still pumping out plenty of tomatoes. If we get a break in the weather this week, I intend to pull them out. I got a load of fresh cow manure yesterday, so I can put the garden to bed now.

While I was looking at the tomatoes with a neighbor, I decided to take a closer look at the carrots that I had planted in between the rows. They looked far better than I had anticipated. The variety is a shorter type, so many of them are a decent size. I'm not a fan of carrots, but my family had them for dinner last night and said they were incredibly sweet.

The broccoli continues to do well also. In addition to the head pictured, there was also a meal of side shoots that I didn't get a picture of.

Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions to see what else is being harvested this week.

My October garden

2010-10-01T08:44:00.000-04:00

It isn't big or fancy. It is a bit weedy, but I have quite a bit still happening.

The chickens are in the main garden doing their clean up. The fall garden is the jungle in front. I haven't erected any new hoops. That has to be done this week, if I have time. We've been having some warm/hot tropical weather lately, but that will end after today. They aren't saying well get a frost yet, but it can't be far off. It's already rather late for my area. I'm actually now questioning whether I'll put them up, or just throw a cover over a few things.

This is another angle of the bed. At the top is broccoli, then red cabbage, overgrown bok choy, rainbow chard and then at the bottom is carrots.

I'm in awe of the carrots. I've tried so many times to grow decent carrots, without success. These were planted in late July after the garlic was harvested from this bed. So far they seem to be doing amazingly well. In another bed are some beets, planted about the same time. They are both doing very well. My spring plantings generally are pretty pathetic. Since we don't really appreciate the beets in the summer, but love them in the fall, I think I'll stop even doing a spring planting. It seems it would work out perfectly to harvest the garlic, amend the beds and plant my carrots and beets. How cool is that?

The broccoli is also doing remarkably well now. All those plants that had looked beautiful and healthy, but weren't doing a thing, are now pumping out broccoli like crazy. With these, there are a few things I'm thinking. First, they got planted later than they should have. Second we had a very hot summer and the broccoli loves the cool. My plan for next year is to winter sow the coles and greens. I'll then plant a second round in early July and see how that works. We love our broccoli around here, so finding a good way to grow it is imperative.

How is your fall garden doing?

Canning shelves

2010-09-28T10:54:00.001-04:00

The year in canning is slowing tremendously. Here I have my whole tomatoes, salsa, peaches, peach butter and bread and butter pickles. I didn't make any jams or jellies this year. I made so many last year that I still have enough for quite a while. If I can find some grapes at a nearby farm, I may make some grape jelly.

Under the stairs is more of a mish mash of things. There are a few more jars of salsa and whole tomatoes, tomato sauce, beef stock and chicken stock. There are also a few leftovers from last year like applesauce, minestrone soup and the last jar of tomatillo salsa. I love looking at all the pretty jars. It will all be so very yummy in January.

Since there are still tomatoes coming in, a few more jars of things may make their way downstairs. There are still 3 qts of tomato sauce sitting on the kitchen counter, along with more tomatoes waiting to have a place to go. I'm out of pint jars, so everything from here on out will be in quarts.

Giveaway winner

2010-09-28T10:21:00.000-04:00

The winner is Number 6! Pacy, you are the winner of A Nation of Farmers. Please email me at hethrrn@yahoo.com with your mailing address. I'll send it along as soon as I get your address.

Harvest Monday Sept 27th 2010

2010-09-27T07:59:00.000-04:00

It's all about the potatoes this week.

First we dug the rest of the All Blues and the Yukon Golds.

A few russets for dinner.

All of the Kennebecs. We now have over 100 lbs of potatoes and I still have to dig the russet bed. It looks like a ridiculous amount, but I keep reminding myself that these will be our potatoes for the year. I'm hoping that I'll have some to plant in the Spring. It will be interesting to see how much we truly use for the year.

Another butternut, some broccoli side shoots and more tomatoes.

I really can't believe how many tomatoes and peppers I got this year. They just keep coming with no frost in the forecast yet.

Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions to see what else is being harvested this week.

Gardening with the kiddoes

2010-09-26T13:38:00.000-04:00

Today has been gorgeous. True fall weather after some pretty significant heat. What better day to dig potatoes? I have already dug the bed with the All Blues and Yukon Golds. Today was the day for the Kennebecs.

It started out with just me digging. Then the kids realized that they got to play in the dirt. It became a contest to see who could get the bigger potato. Some were huge, with a few at the bottom over a pound each. I ended up with about 50 lbs from the 5 lbs that I started with. Those potatoes sure seemed to like the chicken manure they got. I still have to dig the Rio Grande russets, but they'll have to wait a bit. We're due to get rain this week and I just don't think I can dig anymore today.

When the kids got tired of digging, they started searching for worms, grubs and bugs. It became a game of naming them and then feeding them to the chickens. The chickens were very appreciative. They got moved into the garden a few days ago and have been happily weeding, turning the soil and fertilizing for me.

After the potatoes were dug we moved on to the tomatoes. J's son N started eating them like an apple. When we got to the peppers, they were all excited. D, from up the street said, "I love jalapenos" and proceeded to eat one right in the garden. N, Morgan and Noah decided that sounded like a great idea and did the same. Many glasses of milk later, they decided that it was probably not the best idea.

They were all thoroughly exhausted and napping on the patio. I think I may go do the same thing. Enjoy this wonderful weather!

Toby hanging out

2010-09-25T09:31:00.000-04:00

He thinks this is his couch. If someone is sitting there, or if there is clutter, he will stand there looking anxious until it is cleared. Nope, he isn't spoiled.

Cherry Potatoes

2010-09-23T11:19:00.000-04:00

Morgan has decided that the little potatoes are called Cherry Potatoes. "They're just like Cherry Tomatoes Mama." How can you argue with that?

Our trip to Monticello part two and a giveaway

2010-09-21T10:46:00.000-04:00

When I was researching our trip to Virginia, I went off on multiple rabbit trails of things to do while we were there. Our original plan was to go to only to Williamsburg. While running down rabbit trails, I came across the site for the Monticello Heirloom Harvest Festival. As Thomas had written in one of the comments, 'Monticello is the mecca for gardeners'. How could I pass up going there and seeing the wonderful gardens?

I continued to look at the list of things to do and realized that Sharon Astyk was one of the speakers. Sharon is someone whose blog I started to read several year ago. She's a peak oil writer and when I first started reading, she completely freaked me out. As time went by, what she said started to make more sense to me. Her writing helped me to formulate more of a plan for how my gardens, preserving and many other things would impact my life.

Her talk was on her book A Nation of Farmers that she wrote with Aaron Newton. It is based on many of the teaching of Thomas Jefferson, so was quite apt for a talk at Monticello. The tent was actually in the gardens.

She spoke about how far many of us have come in our food supply, and how far we have to go. She talked quite a bit about the age of farmers and the fact that for the first time ever, we will have our food raised primarily by people who did not grow up on farms. As farmers age and their kids don't take over, newbies are taking over those farms and basically starting from scratch. Instead of having knowledge passed down from generation to generation, we're trying to figure things out for ourselves. Starting from scratch so to speak.

Thomas Jefferson believed that we needed to be a nation of farmers. He felt that if we weren't intimately involved in our food production, that as a nation we would be sick and out of touch.

I wish that I could have gone to her second talk. It was on food preservation and based in part on another of her books called Independence Days: A Guide to Sustainable Food Storage and Preservation. My copy is very well worn.

When we went to Monticello, I brought my Independence Days book with me for Sharon to sign. Somehow, I had forgotten to bring A Nation of Farmers. We caught up with Sharon prior to her talk and she signed my Independence Days book for me. Hubby then watched the kids as I braved the tasting tent to get some seeds. While there, Hubby apparently decided that I needed to have both books signed, so he bought a second copy to have her sign. So, now I have 2.

That brings us to the giveaway.

You see, I now have 2 copies of this wonderful book. I decided that this would be a wonderful opportunity for my to give this copy away. So, to enter the giveaway, please leave a comment telling me what you would love to see most at Monticello. I'll giveaway the book next Tuesday, so please make sure that I have a way to get in touch with you.

Harvest Monday Sept 20, 2010

2010-09-20T08:03:00.000-04:00

We returned from vacation on Friday, so all of my harvests have been in the past 3 days. I didn't post to Harvest Monday the week before we left, but did get the first broccoli then.

When we returned, the tomatoes were looking a little rough. The plants are starting to get diseased and tired. I'll be ripping out the Legends this week. It has been an amazing pepper year for me as well. The ananheims and jalapenos were just crazy. I have so many frozen, I'm not sure I'll plant any next year.

This is just a sampling of the 20 pounds of my All Blue potatoes dug so far. There are still a couple hundred pounds of potatoes to be dug. I'm taking my time. Last night we had blue mashed potatoes with garlic from the garden. My little one didn't like the color, but after some coaching decided the potatoes were ok after all.

This morning's haul. Those tomatoes keep coming and my one and only acorn squash.

This post is part of Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions. Head on over and check out what everyone is harvesting.

Our trip to Monticello part one

2010-09-19T09:34:00.000-04:00

Monticello was amazing. We visited on Sept 11 for their Harvest Festival. It was a gorgeous day up on the mountain. The garden was on a large terrace that they had carved out of the mountainside. On it, there were beds going the width of the terrace with walkways in between. Most of these beds had one type of plant per bed, although there were a few mixed beds.

The tomato supports were built from wood found on the property. They had many different kids of heirlooms growing. One thing that surprised me, was that there were tomatoes in various stages of development. Some were fully grown, but there were several that had clearly been planted fairly recently. I'm not sure of their growing season, but would imagine that in the mountains, they can't be far from frost. I wish I knew why they had grown tomatoes that clearly would never make it to fruit.

The orchard goes down the hillside from the garden. There were multiple kinds of trees, although I'm not sure what varieties.

These bean towers looked like fun. If I was a child, I think I would have liked to hide inside them.

More bean towers, not fully grown.

These squash were huge. Behind them you can see some of the herbs grown on the property. They had many different types of herbs, both culinary and medicinal.

I wish we could get goats. This one was a real sweetie. Do you think Toby would like to play with her?

Home and ready to work

2010-09-18T10:49:00.000-04:00

We got back from vacation last night. It was glorious to sleep in my own bed. It was strangely wonderful to wake up and have a million things to do.

Toby had been dropped off at the house by my parents before we got home, so he and I spent the morning doing our usual routine. We went and checked on and fed the chickens. He sniffed around to see if there was anything good to eat that they had left. Then we went to the garden. I picked the tomatoes and overflowing peppers. The pumpkins are really taking off now and coming back to life, where I thought they were dead. The broccoli is heading up nicely and sending out side shoots where I picked it before vacation.

While I was emptying the car, the neighbors came for a visit. Toby got to play with his best bud, Brutus, a 9 month old boxer. I chatted and caught up while the kids and dogs ran around and played.

Then it was into the house for breakfast. I can't tell you how good it was to have poached eggs on toast with eggs from my chickens and my homemade sourdough bread. Real food is a wonderful thing. You don't realize how wonderful, until you don't have it for a while.

I have so many posts and things to tell you. The picture is of the Monticello gardens. We attended the Harvest Festival and had a wonderful time meeting Sharon Astyk and seeing all the fabulous things they had to see and taste. We went to a farm where they cure hams the old fashioned way, saw how peanuts and cotton grow and just generally had a blast. I'll be giving away a book later in the week as well, so keep your eyes open. Today I need to get things straightened, tomatoes processed, peppers dealt with, pictures looked through and many other things. It's wonderful to be home.

2010-09-09T09:50:00.000-04:00

What a great harvest I had today. The broccoli finally decided to do something. There were 2 heads to harvest this morning and several more on their way. We've had such a hot summer, that my broccoli just didn't do anything. I had beautiful, big, healthy plants, with no heads. Patience prevailed and now I have a bunch to put up. The potatoes went into homefries for breakfast and the tomatoes went into tonight's chili.

I apologize for the lack of blogging lately. With the start of the school year, several weddings to shoot with Hubby and prep for vacation, I haven't had much time. We're headed off to vacation tomorrow, so blogging will probably cease until I get back in a week or so. We'll be going to Monticello for the Harvest Festival and then to Williamsburg for homeschool week. The kids are so excited for Busch Gardens and Water Country. I'm excited for the gardens at Monticello and the fact that I'll get to meet Patti Moreno and Sharon Astyk. They are both amazing women, doing amazing work. I'm sure the gardens and speakers will give me lots of inspiration and ideas for my garden.

See you soon!

Fall garden update

2010-09-01T11:20:00.000-04:00

The fall garden is really starting to come into it's own. The broccoli has finally started to make a head. I was wondering if it would ever behave. The heat this summer is messing with things. I'm hoping that the heat we're having this week won't stop the broccoli progress.

The pac choy is doing extremely well and really needs to be harvested. In the background is some chard sizing up nicely. I think I'll plant some more of the pac choy this week. It grows very quickly and is very yummy as well.

This is some more broccoli that the bugs have been enoying along with some red cabbage. This bed also contains some carrots that seem to be doing well. I'm hoping that they'll put on some good growth in the next few weeks.

In the second bed, the beets are also doing very well. We are big fans of roasted beets in the cooler weather. These won't over winter well, so we'll eat what we can and harvest the rest for storage in a few weeks.

Also in the second bed are my second crop of cabbages and broccoli. Some of the cabbage was harvested last week, the rest needs another week or two.

This is my first year doing a real fall/winter garden, so I'm still figuring out what works and when they need to be planted. The spinach I sowed a few weeks ago didn't do anything because of the heat, so I'll re plant that. I'm thinking of starting the mache as well. We're really looking forward to eating fresh from the garden this year. It seems odd to think about harvesting in the snow. I know it's possible though!

Harvest Monday Aug 30th 2010

2010-08-30T10:05:00.000-04:00

It's not a huge harvest this week. The tomatoes are slowing down and a majority of the rest is done for the season.

The second round of cabbages was enjoyed in cole slaw this week. We also wrapped things up with our corn. The jury is still out on whether we'll do it again next year. The pumpkin may be our one and only this year. All around we didn't have a good pumpkin and squash year.

Tomatoes are still coming in, but at a slower pace. I'm hoping to can up a few more qts this week, but we'll see.

This post is part of Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions. Head on over and see what else has been harvested this week.

After the deluge

2010-08-26T08:10:00.000-04:00

This is what my tomatoes look like after 4 days of pouring rain.

When I picked corn, I found this. The poor pollination makes it look like it has some kind of disease. Random kernels look rather silly.

Then I found this smart aleck grinning at me. He's kind of cute, so I'll let him stay. At least until lunch.

Time to save some seeds

2010-08-25T10:04:00.000-04:00

Every year I try to save more and more of my own seeds. Most are relatively easy to save, especially if you are a lazy gardener like me.

Tomatoes are easy. You get a good, slightly over ripe tomato and cut it across the equator.

Then you stick your finger in and squish out the seeds into a bowl. Leave the bowl on a counter for a few days until it gets good and disgusting. The rot is what you want. Tomato seeds have a protective coating on them that has to be broken down by a bit of rot, so that they are then able to be planted. After a few days, put them in a colander and rinse all the yuck off.

I then put them on a piece of paper to dry with the name of the tomato type on the paper. (It looks like an ink blot test) When they're good and dry I will put them in an envelope to keep. This of course, can only be done with open pollinated seeds. Hybrids will not produce true to their parent plant.

I also have bags of parsnip seeds, lettuce seeds and spinach seeds to be done. These are easier. In the case of the lettuce and spinach, you just let them go to seed and ignore them for a while. I then snip off the seed heads when they are fully mature and stick them in a bag to dry in the house. When dry, I crunch them up to separate the seeds out.

In the case of the parsnips, they need to go through a winter and then go to seed. Carrots are the same way. These parsnips were planted last year. Most were dug this spring for eating, but a few were left in the ground. The picture in my header is of the parsnip seed heads. They are quite pretty and very tall. This way, I have tons of seeds for myself and to share for free.

Harvest Monday Aug 23rd 2010

2010-08-23T07:24:00.000-04:00

The first corn of the year came in this week. It was a mixed bag. There is still a bit to be harvested.

Tomatoes are still ruling the day. This week I harvested about 50 lbs. I'm starting to see a possible end to this, but would like it to go on for at least another 3-5 weeks. Maybe in a slightly smaller capacity though.

It hasn't been a good pumpkin and squash year for us. This is a very small Cinderella pumpkin that ended up getting composted as a result of damage. There is also a very small Waltham butternut. Maybe next year we'll have a good squash year.

The peppers are still coming in very nicely. The egg is of course from my girls.

Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions and see what else is being harvested this week.

Watering

2010-08-22T11:18:00.000-04:00

Watering is something that can make or break a garden. It is also something that new gardeners tend to overdo. I'm asked constantly "Why aren't my veggies ripening?" This is followed by surprise when I tell them to stop watering their gardens.

Now, don't get me wrong, watering can be crucial. I water several times a year. I don't water daily.

It's crucial that seeds and seedlings have a moist environment to start off in. It's also crucial that you make them work a little for the water. They need to be kept moist to stimulate germination and rooting.

After they've rooted nicely, you want to do deep, infrequent watering. I know that your first inclination is to water them daily because it's dry. What the plants want is to be watered every few days deeply. They need that water to penetrate a few inches into the soil. Plant roots go deep searching for food and water. If you water every day, they won't develop those good deep roots that are crucial to a healthy and productive plant.

You also need to be aware of the disease that too much water can bring. Those of us in the Northeast can well remember last year's tomato debacle. Once blight was found, it probably wouldn't have spread so fast if it wasn't for all the rain. In fact, this year there was blight found in a few places, but because of the dry weather, it stayed under control. The same can happen with over watering.
When you water, mud splashes up from the ground onto your plants. The mud can carry spores onto your plants that will cause disease.

This time of year, I tend to stop watering altogether. The fall beds that are just getting started will get a bit of water, but the rest of the garden is done. We'll have frost in a few weeks and I want the fruit that is already formed to ripen. I'm not looking to develop new fruit. If the plant has a little water stress, it's more likely to put all of its energy into ripening existing fruit. That is what we want in August and September.

Lastly, the best way to ensure that watering will be the most effective, is to build your soil. The richer your soil, the more organic matter like compost and manure, the more it will hold onto water in the first place. Mulches such as straw can also be helpful for cooling the soil and retaining water.

I water more frequently in the spring, slow the frequency in the summer while adding mulch and completely stop in late summer to force maturity of fruit.

Corn on the cob

2010-08-20T08:53:00.000-04:00

This is my first year attempting corn. I grew a variety called Incredible from Fedco seeds. These were grown in a 4x12 plot. I added compost at planting time and think that I could have added more. They were fertilized with fish emulsion every 2 weeks after they broke ground. There is such a wide variance in how they did.

I am a bit confused. I had heard that corn did well in large patches, so that they could all pollinate properly. Having seen corn grown in the fields nearby, the edges seem to be smaller. In my case, the edges were producing the largest ears, with very little in the interior of the bed. This is certainly not all the corn to be harvested, but I'm not expecting to get too much more.

They were very tasty. The family was thrilled with the perfect level of sweetness and corn flavor. I'm not very happy with the yield. It seems like a waste of garden space. Should I have been more aggressive with the fertilization? Did I just need a bigger bed? I would love any wisdom from the more experienced corn growers.

Quahogs for the winter

2010-08-19T07:23:00.000-04:00

This post is part of Simple Lives Thursday. Hop on over and check out who else is living simply.

If you're from New England, you know what quahogs are, if not. For those of you from somewhere else, you probably call them clams. We call the little ones clams, but the big ones are quahogs. (pronounced Ko-hogs)

I got these from my sister in law. This picture is of only a few of the many giant quahogs that she gave me. She and her family have a blast out clamming. They gave me what must have been about 30 pounds. Unfortunately, that doesn't end up as much when all is said and done. Since I don't have the time or the inclination to do anything with them these days, I cooked and froze them. Quahogs are usually either stuffed with a spicy sausage stuffing, or made into clam chowder. I decided on the latter.

It was really quite easy. I just brought a pan of water to boil. Then put a large roasting pan in a 400 degree oven and poured the water in. The quahogs were put in, in batches until they opened and were removed. I then just chopped the meat. The clam broth is essential in a good chowder, so that was saved as well. Finally, the clam shells were thrown out back to eventually be crushed and added to the garden to add calcium to the soil. Nothing gets wasted here.

The final product. It doesn't look like much from so many clams, but will make a nice big pot of chowder on a cool fall or winter day. I'm quite excited about it and am hoping that I may get a few more before summer is over.

Tomato Tuesday

2010-08-17T10:47:00.000-04:00

I apologize if you're sick of them. But I'm just ecstatic over the production this year. This is about 30 pounds of tomatoes. Guess what I'm doing today?

Harvest Monday Aug 16th, 2010

2010-08-16T09:24:00.000-04:00

It's tomato time! After 2 really bad tomato years, we're celebrating here in the northeast.

That's not even half of what I harvested this week. They're coming on quite strong and we're loving every minute of it.

I'm also still harvesting potatoes as needed. These are Kennebecs that were used for a potato salad. We had a big birthday party to celebrate the kid's birthdays with family and neighbors. Since they're so close together, we always have one big party for the both of them. It was nice to have all the vegetables come straight from the garden.

This is the second harvest of beets. There are still quite a few more to go.

What isn't pictured are the cucumbers, beans, green peppers, jalapenos and anaheims.

We're finally getting some rain this week, which is wonderful. I'm hoping these harvests keep up. We're well on our way to having a majority of our vegetables come from my garden this year.

This post is part of Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday. Go check out what everyone is harvesting this week.

Halfway there

2010-08-15T13:51:00.000-04:00

We're halfway through August and I'm already halfway to my tomato goal for the year. Today I canned up 7 more quarts of tomatoes and a large batch of Annie's Salsa. It certainly looks like we'll exceed the number of quarts of tomatoes that we need. They'll be put away for a rainy day, or year, as the case may be. A glut of tomatoes is a very good thing.

This is the first year that I've been able to make the salsa entirely from produce that I grew. Usually the peppers are way behind and I have to get them from the market. This year they beat out the tomatoes. I love running out to the garden for green peppers and jalapenos. It's so much more wonderful than getting in my car.

Weird and Wonderful

2010-08-12T11:12:00.002-04:00

We had a good giggle over this one.

Being a squirrel

2010-08-12T08:02:00.000-04:00

I love this time of year. There are fruits and veggies everywhere. My kitchen table and counters are covered in the most beautiful things. I can go to the local farm and get their special baskets of fruits for canning, or pick my own straight from the bush or tree. The smells in my kitchen are intoxicating.

I start to feel like Laura Ingalls Wilder. The imagery in her books of food and food storage is inspiring. I always wanted to play in the attic with the pumpkins and hams, and braids of onions and garlic. It sounds like heaven to me. Increasingly, my summers are about storing things for the long winter. No longer do we run off to the grocery store whenever the mood strikes for raspberries in January. Now I try to plan for those things in August.

This week tomatoes are coming on strong in my garden. Once we got the taste for homegrown, home canned tomatoes, we just couldn't go back. Last year's tomato blight was devastating. We are determined never to eat another industrially canned food again. The beauties above will be enjoyed all year in our house. I can feel fall coming on and it makes me more determined to fill the pantry.

This post is part of Simple Lives Thursday blog hop. Hop on over and check out what everyone is doing.

Harvest Monday Aug 9,2010

2010-08-09T08:04:00.000-04:00

This post is part of Daphne's Dandelions' series for Harvest Monday. Click on over and check out what everyone is harvesting this week.

We're really into the heat of summer here. Some things are starting to give up and others are just coming into their own.

These are the first of the Yukon Golds. I'm only harvesting as I need them. There are tons of potatoes (hopefully!) still awaiting harvest, but the longer I keep them in the ground, the longer they'll keep in the house. Most will probably stay there until October or so. In the meantime, we'll continue to eat fresh potatoes every so often.

A typical harvest for this time of year. The cucumbers are not looking terribly healthy these days. I should get a few more from them though.

Hubby had a hankering for swiss chard in his eggs the other day. It is holding up remarkably well despite the heat. This is actually a volunteer that showed up in the bean patch this year. The beets need to be frozen. They are such a winter veggie in my mind. Can you see my sourdough starter in the background? I'm very proud that I started that little guy myself. It's happily bubbling away. When it gets a bit stronger, I'll post more about it.

These poor green tomatoes are casualties of war. I was desperately trying to tie up my overgrown vines and lost a few tomatoes along the way. They'll ripen up nicely inside and be gobbled up just the same. The green beans are looking to make a comeback with lots of new fruit forming these days. I'm glad I didn't pull them up yet.

Peaches

2010-08-08T11:43:00.000-04:00

Peaches are in season here in New England. I think it's pretty sad that just a few years ago, I didn't know that you could grow them here. I thought they could only be grown in the south, like citrus. That's how far away from our food supply I was. Now of course, I have my own peach trees. They have some small fruit on them this year, but nothing that will actually feed us quite yet.

The local farm, however, does have quite a few peaches. When I went in the other day, they were running a special for canning peaches at a very nice price. I snatched them up and ran right home to use up my bounty.

I also did the tomatoes from the garden at the same time. While I canned, my family happily slurped up the peaches still in the basket. I think I'll be going back tomorrow to see if they have anymore left. We are now firmly in the no industrially processed foods camp here. If I don't get enough tomatoes for the year, I'll go back to the same farm to get big baskets of their canning tomatoes. There just is no comparison.

When I was finished canning, I decided a pie was in order. This is a crumb top peach pie. The recipe was made up, but consisted of a bottom pie crust. The peaches were seasoned with cinnamon, ginger and allspice and thickened with a little cornstarch. The topping was a basic crumble with butter, flour and sugar. It was very yummy.

Bread and Butter Pickles

2010-08-06T13:28:00.000-04:00

Canning season has begun in earnest at my house. Last year I made jams and jellies until they were coming out my ears. This year there is no need. For that reason, I am just now starting to get going on canning. The first was the bread and butter pickles. We had used the last of them the other day and were anxious for more. Among my notes for next year's garden is: plant more cucumbers!

Oh and anyone who was going to ask, I use the recipe from the Ball Blue book for my pickles. We love them!

Harvest Monday Aug 2, 2010

2010-08-02T08:09:00.001-04:00

The tomatoes are coming in now. It's a glorious thing! I didn't get picture of everything, but you certainly get the idea.

This is the basics of what we're getting these days. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and a smattering of beans.

They look about the same, don't they? We're really enjoying the produce. I think I finally have enough cucumbers for pickles. The family is so excited since we just finished the last of the bread and butter pickles from last year.

Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions to see what everyone is harvesting this week.

Pollinating All Blue potatoes

2010-07-31T11:42:00.001-04:00

End of July garden

2010-07-30T09:57:00.000-04:00

After a long hot month, we're having a lovely few days. The cooler temps and lower humidity are so refreshing. It makes me wish for this weather everyday. August is usually slightly cooler here in New England, we'll see if that's the case this year.

The corn is looking like it's almost ready to harvest. I can't wait for the first taste.

The pumpkins are starting to grow into the bushes again. My neighbors joke that whatever pumpkins grow on their side, they get to keep.

The garlic bed is now the fall planting area. This is a red cabbage.

This is from my second planting of cabbage. The bugs have left them alone for the most part, so they look much prettier.

My broccoli steadfastly refuses to produce a head. I'm not quite sure why, but not a single plant has produced a thing. Any help is appreciated. I suspect it's the heat we're having, but there may be something else to blame.

These are the Legend tomatoes. They are certainly prolific. They have produced a large flush of tomatoes on very small plants. They don't seem to want to grow up, but rather sprawl no matter what I do. If I grow them next year, it will be in cages. The other tomatoes love the A frame support, but the Legends don't.

The green beans are giving up, but I'll be leaving them in to see if the cooler weather will prompt them to put on a second flush of fruit. The tomatoes are really coming into their own now. We have too many to eat fresh, but not yet enough to can. I think within the next week or so, I'll be able to get a canner load going. Boy, do we need a good year for putting up tomatoes.

Most of the fall garden has been planted. There will be a few more odds and ends put in in the next week, but it's mostly done. Now I need to go get the supports for the hoops. That can wait a while though.

What do you do with the first tomato?

2010-07-22T12:20:00.000-04:00

I'm being very selfish. I'm eating the first tomato all by myself. I called Hubby and asked if he wanted some, but he didn't want to come down from his workshop. So it's mine!

This is the first year that I have major competition for the tomatoes. Hubby hasn't liked them in the past. Now he does. In years past, I've made them into tuna sandwiches. I've also done greek salads with just tomatoes, cukes, feta and dressing. Of course, all of this is after slicing off a piece, adding sea salt and slurping it up still warm from the garden. This year is hummus, cucumber salad, tomatoes with sea salt and pita bread. I must say, it is absolutely wonderful. There is another tomato not far behind this one, so I don't have too long to wait. Yum!

What do you do with the first tomato?

Mid July garden

2010-07-21T07:53:00.000-04:00

The garden is in full swing now. Usually I say that about 3 weeks or so from now, but I'm taking the early season and running with it!

The tomatoes are huge. They needed extra support, so I wrapped jute around the outside of the supports to corral them in. I'm still loving these A frame supports.

Isn't that the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? I'm resisting picking this, as it is still just slightly under ripe. Probably tomorrow. It's extra exciting this year. Hubby used to hate raw tomatoes, but after years of eating them by myself, I'll have someone to share the tomato goodness with. Next year I have plans for cherry tomatoes since I won't be the only one eating them.

The corn is looking great. The tassels are making the kids want it even more. In a few more weeks we'll be eating lots of corn!

The lettuce has gone to seed. I'm thinking that instead of saving seed this year, I'll just shake the seeds onto the ground. This is in one of the hoop houses, so when it's ready it should come up on it's own.

Speaking of hoop houses, this is some chard that I just transplanted into one. There is still lots to plant, but they're starting to take shape. I'm off to the farm supply for straw today. That should help to insulate them and reduce weeds as well. Usually I'm a straw fanatic, but this year I didn't use much. The last 2 years have been wet and cool and the straw has been more hindrance than help. It figures that this year, when I don't use any, is the year I needed it the most. Better late than never.