This & That

The Season

There are still a few things that need to be taken care off before the weather gets too cold.

I was a little late getting the porch decked out for the season, but I love the variety I was able to pick up at the farm stand. I wish I had the room to grow all these. We have a big garden, but not that big.

We harvested the pumpkins and butternut squash. For the past several years, I've grown a variety called Sugar Baby that I've baked and used for the pumpkin puree I've frozen. Last year I was really disappointed in how thin the walls of the pumpkins were. I had to bake numerous pumpkins to get any quantity of pulp to freeze. I was watching a YouTube video and this new-to-me variety was suggested, so it's what I grew this year. This kind is called Long Island Cheese and I'm pretty sure it will give me a lot more pulp. Each of these pumpkins are about 12-14 inches across and heavy. I haven't baked any up yet, but I'm optimistic.

On the last day of warm-ish weather, I also got the garlic planted. Kind of the same thing going on with it this year. The bulbs I got were very small. I'm not sure if that's due to me saving garlic bulbs from the same batch year in and year out, or whether I just got it planted too late last fall and the ground was too cold and it didn't get settled in right. So this fall, I'm starting over with new seed and I put it in one of the 2 raised beds we have. I'm hoping for a bumper crop this next year, so keep your fingers crossed for me.

On one end of the bed, I planted several giant cloves of elephant garlic.

And when I say giant, I really do mean GIANT. That's one, single clove there. I'll be a really happy camper if this works out.

The Garden Giveth

We keeping going out and finding buckets of things growing in the garden.

That in and of itself isn't surprising. What I've mentioned before and what continues to amaze me, is that a good share of what keeps coming was started from seeds I put under grow lights in my back hall. I can see you saying, "Well, what did you expect, Catherine/Mom?" It's just that back in the day, I never pictured myself doing things like that, so every time I go out and pull fresh tomatoes, peppers, or whatever off the plant, I'm almost a little shocked. I picked my first Sugar Rush peppers yesterday, and those Super Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes really are super sweet.

I took some of those cherry tomatoes and seasoned them up with a little salt, pepper and Italian seasoning and put them in my dehydrator. I haven't used my dehydrator much since I got the freeze dryer, but I gave these a try because my husband likes them.

I got them a little too desiccated, but I put them in a jar on the counter, and my husband will choke one down every once in a while.

I've started processing the peppers I picked several days ago. The jalapeño mustard was first on the list. This is just amazingly good and a great way to use prolific garden peppers. 

 

In the Garden

So this is how the garden looks. 

It's still pretty tidy, and just on the verge of becoming a jungle.

We've started to harvest the first things. 

I had a moment here looking at the rows of vegetables, many of which I started from seed under grow lights,

and I thought, "Holy cow.....the city girl did it." The one who never had an experience in a garden until she was an adult,

is actually growing food for the family."

Yep, I may have had a moment.

Walking the Yard

Walking around the yard recently, things are very literally unfolding. The Hostas seem to open more almost by the minute.

My bank of lilacs are in full swing and you can smell them from the driveway several yards away. 

I have some pink ones that bloom later, but I do love the massive wall of blooms that show up in May.

My first peony has tarted to to bust out.

Life Under the Grow Lights

While we were traveling, the baby seedlings just percolated right along.

This was early in March, when things were just beginning.

They continued to grow, and I held my breath.

On March 20, I started some broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and even some Brussels sprouts. They germinated even faster than the onions.

Here it is 3 weeks later, and they are more than ready to be transplanted into bigger pots before going out into he garden in a couple of weeks.

My first seedlings at about 2 weeks....

....and now. My celery is ready to transplant,

....as are my peppers. It'll be a while before the peppers can go out into the garden, but they sure seem happy so far. Aaaahhhhhh, life under the grow lights.....

Why Does My House Smell Like an Italian Restaurant?

I'll tell you why. 

Because I spent a day processing  sprouty garlic, that's why. When I grow this in the garden (and I planted a bumper crop last fall for this year's harvest), I hate to see it go to waste. I watched a Youtube video on preserving garlic and tried a new idea. Last year I dehydrated it and turned it into powder, which worked great.

This year, I peeled all the cloves, which definitely took some time but....Netflix. I processed it with some neutral oil in my food processor until it was kind of a paste. Then I took a small cookie scoop and put little dollops on a cookie sheet, and put it in the freezer. I'll double bag them so the whole freezer won't smell like an Italian restaurant, then when I need garlic, I'll just drop one into whatever I'm cooking. Should work great, I hope.

Seeds, and What Will Happen?

Another experiment is happening this year.

This is the start of my garden seed starting. It didn’t look like much when I pulled it out of the box,

And I got a little stuck on the way when one of the parts was the wrong size.

But with Elise and my husband’s help, we conquered it in the end.

My husband and I tried this a couple of decades ago. It was very much a DIY project with a couple of fluorescent lights, but the technology has definitely evolved a lot since then.

I put the seeds into the soil and hoped for the best.

The first go-round, I started the onions and peppers. I even tried a few celery seeds. We’ve never tried growing celery, but I was feeling optimistic.

And before long, I had little sprouts poking up. The onions were the first to emerge. I'm pretty excited about the prospect of being able to take this process from seeds all the way through to preservation.

Late Summer

A little later this week is the first day of fall. You all know how I feel about this. From the first day of summer, I'm looking forward to fall. Yes, everything happens in a continual round....to everything there is a season, and if that song by The Byrds is stuck in your head now, you're welcome. If it isn't, YouTube won't let me post it here, so you'll have to look it up.

I can recognize there are good things about summer. They're few and far between, but I know they're there. The flowers, and these miniature sunflowers have been so happy in my back flower bed.

Open window sleeping, garden tomato sandwiches, and can I just get an Amen for central AC?? Things are starting to wind down now, though.

I got only this one, lonely zinnia out of all the seeds I planted. I'm not sure why, but that was it.

The sunflowers in the garden are making me happy, especially since the garden is a scary jungle right now.

I'm almost afraid to go in for fear I'll get eaten by something and never be seen again. If I suddenly disappear....check the garden.

Something, probably squash bugs, really took it to the pumpkin vines. I have several sugar pumpkins, but not very many jack-o-lantern ones. Will I miss tomato sandwiches? Yes. And the flowers, too. My windows are open at night until nearly Thanksgiving, so I've got some time there, but will I miss the hot? No. No. And No.

Weeds and Harvests

I almost always wander the yard early in the morning, mostly because it gets too hot later in the day for me to set foot outside.

I love the garden at this stage, when everything is all neat and orderly,  and it isn't a jungle you need a machete to get through yet.

This particular morning I was after lettuce.

I cut a good bowl full and it was delicious....tender, sweet and it made such nice salads.

I found this right out in the middle of the gravel where the horse trailer is kept. I think it's a sunflower, so we'll see if it survives.

I found a few strawberries in my little patch and I sent this picture to my family members.

It prompted a picture from Jan of the berries she picked that morning,

...and then a picture came in from Rachelle. 

Then Bryce sent this one, which made us all laugh.

I washed up the lettuce for storage in the fridge and we ate off it all week. I've had another cutting this week. There are more earwigs in that one than the first one. I'm blaming it on summer. 

I planted mostly herbs in the pots this year. I don't know why, It's just what I felt like doing. I've got oregano that overwintered, Italian parsley, thyme, and basil in this one.

And nothing but basil in this one.

Checked out the fruit trees in our little orchard. The Red Delicious tree is loaded. I know Red Delicious apples get a bad rap for not tasting as good as the more exotic, modern varieties, but a Red Delicious, cold, right off the tree is as good as any trendy type you can find.

The Golden Delicious tree also has lots of baby apples on it. That makes me happy, since they're my favorites.

This is a baby peach. The #savethepeaches project wasn't entirely successful, it appears. There are branches that are naked and have withered blossoms on them, and others that are loaded. We'll have to see what kind of yield we get.

Pretty excited about these baby Elephant Heart plums. I can hardly wait to cut one open and see PURPLE inside.

The hostas have unfurled their dinner-plate-sized leaves. It makes me happy to see them....like old friends coming back to say hi.

I planted some flower seeds in the back bed, in some of the blank spots. I planted money plant seeds, miniature sunflowers, zinnias, and cosmos. There are seedlings popping up, but I should have drawn a diagram of what I planted, where, because I have no clue what's what. It will be a grand revelation to see what blooms. I had to stop weeding that area until the seeds came up to make sure I wasn't plucking out baby flowers.

There's a rose show going on in the back yard as well. Dead-heading is going to become a full-time job.

Along with peonies blooming.

Some of them are starts I planted a couple of years ago from my husband's grandmother's plants.

Others were some I bought and planted all over the back flower bed. 

I've lived in this house for almost 30 years and have spent a lot of time developing the flower beds. 

I've planted things and ripped things out and planted different things. It always seems to be a work in progress.

But I sure like some of the results I get.

Eric's wife, Elisa, sent this picture of her beautiful peonies. I think I need the name of this variety. I can probably find a place to put it.

This was the year's first bouquet of roses.

I have probably mentioned this before, but I don't cultivate red roses. It's the only color I don't have in my yard, and that's by my choice. They're not my favorite. Give me all the other colors. So there's early summer around the place. 

Roaming

Let's take a wander around the yard, shall we?

I finally put the spring-is-here pansies in a couple of weeks ago. I have to have some pansies to start spring off.

The rhubarb is coming right along. I should be able to start pulling some next week.

My main plant that I got as a start from a friend, has sent out a couple of other starter hills. I didn't know rhubarb did that, but the newer ones seem a little more red.

If the number of blossoms the apple trees have is any indication, it should be a bumper year.

Bleeding hearts are out.

And my little strawberry patch is going nuts. 

I have a new addition to my dinosaur herd. Collin's family sent this for Mother's Day and it just makes me smile. This ankylosaur joins the T-Rex in the back patio pots.

I went around spraying some weed killer on the pavers, but couldn't quite bring myself to kill this one. It's not growing where it's supposed to, but it seems to me there's a life lesson here about blooming amid the struggles, or blooming where you're planted.