March 10, 2015

The outdoor season has started again at our house.  I vowed last year to start working outside as early in March as I could, when the weather is decent instead of waiting until the end and running into the wet chill of April when no one wants to work outside.  My goal is to work outside at least 15 minutes every decent day.  Yesterday was a beautiful 60ish day, and I didn't get out, but today we had 70 degrees and I started in getting rid of old foliage in one of the landscape areas by the shop.

I did start some pepper seeds but since I forgot all about them, they died.  I should try again.

October 16,2014

 Summer is over, all the produce is harvested, and the garden is mowed.  We had a little frost so that the garden stuff died but flowers by the house are still blooming.  We have more potatoes than we will ever use, about ten 5-gallon buckets worth.  We got about 12 butternut squash and two of those aren't ripe.  I wonder if they will.  That isn't nearly enough since I've discovered pumpkin bars and most of my family love them.  The tomatoes didn't do very well, but I have several gallons in the freezer, not nearly enough to drink juice all winter but enough for cooking.   The grapes came from a friend and I put them in the freezer to make juice and jam later.  We aren't ready to start thinking about next year's garden yet.

 Corn in the flower garden.

Yellow Summer Apples

Red Later Summer Apples,

 too bad we don't remember what they are..

Grapes

August 13, 2014

The garden has been beautiful this year.  The spring was cool, the rain early.  We had no rain in July, but watering and cooler weather kept everything producing abundantly.  We had a big storm August 8th with 3.80" of rain and hail.  The wind from that storm flattened our corn that we were ready to put up the next day.  It didn't ruin the corn, it just made it a little more difficult to gather.  Mom and Dad came that day to help with the corn and we put up 10 1/2 doz into 36 pints.  

Before they came Jim brought in these buckets of cucumbers and I made pickles again using the same formula I did last time.  However, after preparing a bunch of big ones for cinnamon pickles I threw out one bucket to the compost pile.  Sadly, in the busyness with the 38 qt. of pickles I did, I did something wrong with the cinnamon pickles and they had to be thrown out.  I'm sorry, because it would have been nice to have them, and because the ingredients are so expensive, and it was all thrown away.  

More bread and butters.

More dills.

It is so hard to keep up with picking squash even when we determine to pick them small.  They get huge SO fast.  The big ones went to the compost pile.  I grated some, chopped some and sliced some for future meals. 

Without this mixer/kitchen center I would not get pickles and other canning done nearly so quickly.  It has a food processor that grates and slices two thicknesses, a grinder, a small processor that chops, and a blender. I have a host of attachments and would need three or four separate appliances to replace it.  It is a standard in my kitchen and I can't do without it.  

I bought the first one soon after we were married.  Since nothing like this is made anymore, when one wears out, I go to eBay and buy another one.  This is the fourth one, and this time I bought the stand and the mixer arm separately and without the extra attachments which was nice for a change. 

Wind damage.

Hail damage.

Ready for the second batch of corn, 36 dozen.

Ready to cook.

The rest.

We got 95 1/2 pints out of that 36 dozen.  

Below is our stats.

I was tired after two days of work, and then Mom decided to stay one more day and do applesauce.  So, we did.  We processed 5 of these buckets into 35 qts. of applesauce, saved 1/2 bucket for eating, and mom took the rest home. We took on one bucket too many and we were ready to be done long before we were.  Mom was sure ready to be heading home and within a half hour of finishing, they were gone.  

We gave five more buckets to some friends of our, (two different ones) after Lynette and friend Anthony picked more after dark on the tractor loader.  

I have a little over a bucket left that was supposed to go to someone else, but I guess they don't really want them.  I need to start preparing them for freezing.  Ugh. I'm tired of it. 

Tuesday, the 12th, I picked cucumbers and made some more bread and butters and dills, I also pulled up 10 of our 12 hills of cucumbers.  I just can't do any more and we don't need them.  My few bean plants are just enough this year, and I put another quart in the freezer and grated a big zucchini.  

It was getting to be sort of a game to see how much I could get put up.  I've filled nearly all my jars and some of mom's.  

I think I'm looking forward to fall.  

The okra is just starting to produce.  

July 25, 2014

Jim brought in another big haul last night and I've been spending most of the day getting it all put up.  We had a 5 gallon bucket of cukes (plus a little bucket more) from too big to finger sized, that I love to make dill pickles from.  I used the smallest for dills, 3 qts; next size for bread and butter's, 3 qts.; next size, chunked for Caddie Pickles, named for a friend of Aunt Inez', 3qts., and I started a batch of cinnamon pickles with the very biggiest ones.  I saved a dozen or more just for eating.  I also put up 4 qts. of beet pickles and had enough for lunch.  My kitchen isn't in nearly as big of a mess as it could be.  I tried to clean up a bit and rest after every batch.  I made lunch in the middle of all this pickling, too.  We had a "homegrown lunch".  We had egg salad with avocado served with tomato on a lettuce leaf, beets, zucchini patties, and cucumber salad. There were three of us.

I have a gallon of beans to snip that I would like to do yet tonight, but I am saving the rest of the squash for tomorrow.
I made 4 qts. of applesauce a couple days ago.  I was making applesauce the way I learned how from my mother.  Wash and quarter the apples taking out any bad spots, worm holes or bug bites, cook them and run them through a sieve.  I poured the sauce back in my dutch oven to sweeten it, when it hit me--I can't taste how sweet it is!!  I could tell the salt I put in made a difference in the tartness, and luckily Lynette was home so I could use her as my tester.
So, for future reference.  I had my dutch oven nearly full of apple sauce, and I put in five 1/4 cup scoops of sugar that were just a bit more than level and a teaspoon of salt.  I should measure more definitely, but sadly, so much depends on the kind of apples that are used.  Sigh.  I guess I will just have to make it when someone else is around to taste it for me.

Our garden is looking pretty good for this time of the year.  You will notice the weedlessness.  Of course, we never take pictures when the weeds are hiding the plants like they have for most of the years we've had a garden.

July 21, 2014

Our garden is beautiful this year.  Everything is green and full.  Jim has been able to keep the weeds under control.  We had rain and cooler weather at the right time in the spring, with no wild storms so nothing was broken.  The only mistake that was made was getting too much 2, 4-D on some of the corn and it isn't quite right.

We got our first beans today.  There are a couple of cups waiting to be eaten in the next couple of days.  I processed a 5-gallon bucket of squash into chunks for soup, slices for scramble, and grated for bread or fried zucchini patties.  I also made 3 qts. of dills today.  I'm going to put as much squash away as I can and the chickens will get what I can't use or give away.  It is so nice to see everything doing so well.  I haven't been able to get a decent crop of cukes for several years.

We've been eating onions right along also.

July 12, 2014

I wasn't going to put this picture on the blog.  I have lots of photos of the flower garden.  But it looked so nice ready for graduation.

We didn't plant much before the graduation except for these deck rail boxes.

Then it was time to get the garden planted. 

These roses are doing really well this year.  They are gorgeous in early June when they are growing and blooming like crazy. 

I planted spinach right outside the front door.  Our first harvest. 

I accidentally cut this clematis way down this spring.  I cut off some green stems, but that didn't seem to hinder it any.  There is more purple in the blossoms this year that usual.  I wonder why.

My lovely oldest daughter gave me these lilies, with the boy's hand-prints on the pot.  After they stopped blooming I planted them in the flower garden to enjoy them next year.

Our garden is beautiful this year. We've had little rains often, and all the damaging winds and hail that have pummeled surrounding areas have missed us.  We shorted the garden by about 40 feet so we have less area to plant, but also less area to weed, so Jim is doing a good job with it.

We are now eating summer squash and I expect we soon will be overrun.  We heard that planting radishes under the squash will keep the squash bugs away, but since we heard that just this week and planted the radishes accordingly, we haven't much hope that they will come up and do their job under the shade of the squash bushes.  

Cucumbers are thriving as well.  My first dill pickles that I have made with my very own hands in two years.

I have discovered that I like certain fruits on my cooked cereal in the morning.  They provide some interest since I can taste nothing sweet.  I've been buying strawberries whenever I can get them under $2 a pint and freezing them.  Blueberries and peaches are also going in the freezer when I can get them cheap-er. I've discovered that rhubarb sauce also works well on my cereal, but I have to depend on other people for that one since rhubarb with not grow on our property. 

I have tried and tried and tried again.  I think I am done trying. 

June 9, 2014

It is a dark, damp day today, the third in a row.  We've had a little rain the last week and a half, with storms threatening and not forming--here.  Some places not far from us had severe damage with hail and strong winds.  We want the rain, but not the damage.

We've had a couple of nice little sprinkles, a couple hundredths each, a half-incher and a whopping good one of 2 1/2".  I am really enjoying the cooler weather.  Every thing is green, green, green, the tomato plants have not been wind whipped or hailed on.  Everything looks good, but it isn't growing very fast, not warm enough.  I guess you can't have it all.

As of now, all the sweet corn is planted, 10 rows in all.  We've done a row that is beans, beets, and okra. The cucumbers are in, about 8 hills, and looking good. About 5 hills of summer squash and a dozen tomatoes complete the garden with the earlier onions and potatoes planted.  We are trying to reduce our work load.