Plans and plans..

It's the 21st. Been rather nice the last couple days, and we have been getting in some rain during the night hours, so I haven't had to water and the garden is coming along right fine to boot!

While out gardening the other day, my sister discovered one lonely cucumber growing in amongst all the squash. I'm not sure what it is, I have to trace the vine back. But it's large and lovely. And since it's the only one it's pretty likely it's pure seed. Yay!

Did another round of pruning. This time under the cedars right outside my office. I started out by cutting in the second year round for the chocolate mint and pineapple mint. And then it just kept going on from there, heh. To my delight the toothache plant seems right happy where I planted it so next year I will fill in that area of the bed with more of them.

Been taking pics over the last few days, decided it was time to post a bunch of them up.

This is what the giant collendar looked like a few days ago- made stuffed squash and squash casserole since then. A lot less squash in it now, and a ton more tomatoes.

The pickens from the other day when I cleaned out the potato bags. Every day it's a handful or two of pickings :)

This weirdness is something I cut out of the grapevines while cutting back growth on the north side of the property. Those crazy looking pod things are called galls- usually due to bugs or injury. Who knew, right?

The tomato jungle. Next year, more support considered prior to planting, lol.

The little squash bed. The zukes are putting out just the right amount of squash for the household. And enough that I'm planning on making another batch of ginger citrus zuke marmalade- it's been renamed ginger citrus caviar, lol. The stuff is crazy ass good. The buttercup squashes are finally producing a couple squashes that didn't abort early- must be because of all the good rain. But also means I should be watering more when it isn't raining.

The dog run, all agrown with various veggies and looking great!

The north stall has now been cleaned up of debris and the nasturtiums corralled by buckets of glads. I am pretty sure those are too small this year for blooms :( But once they start blooming they should look great!! At the far end you can almost not see the little histada shield bean.

The center run where the potato bags used to be. For sure need to do potatoes in bins next year. it was a huge mess for what we got out of it. More glad buckets for penning in the nasturtiums.

Got one of the huge spaghetti squashes growing into the center stall and just tucked straw up under it for support. Heaped up all the floor straw into the end for now till it's time to build the next raised bed. Then all that spoilt straw will be lovely to use.

The hops are not doing too well, I think I'm underwatering those too. But in the right corner you can just see yet another huge spaghetti squash being supported on a while bucket. The monster vine on the left is my Long Island Cheese squash- I have three growing and signs of more blooms! Eye of the goat is the vertical grower.

Don't look to bad considering what a lazy gardener I am. Right in the center is one of those Long Island Cheese squashed growing away nicely.

Cleaning out the area outside my office.

Almost looks like it's supposed to be something now- going to be planting in some lilies on this side.

The beds look neater. Chocolate mint on the far right, then pineapple mint. A large grouping of toothache plant in the center, though it's hard to tell. This area will start looking nicely plush next summer. And the mints at least will be in their final growth area, just needing trimming and a little weeding. They are already being very effective at choaking out weeds.

Cutting up like this will help with air flow under the trees. And man, I cut out tons of kudzu, wild grape, and wild raspberry vines.

Cut out a whole heap of branches that are destined for the firepit too.

The keyhole looks neat. But the scrap is building up. Time to get a burn permit!

And the freshly cut out alley on the north line of the property. A good bit of this was super overgrown, but now we just need to keep it mowed open.

So now I'm off to get more things done :) 

Great yard days

the 14th...

It was an absolutely lovely day today.Sunny and cool in the upper 60's. I got out around 11 and mowed up the whole front yard. I offered my sister mowing the rest of the yard. While she was mowing I went around the yard and did a lot of trimming.. a few truckloads worth. All the little tree bits and such that have gotten out of hand over the last season or three and I seriously needed to attend to.
The entire white fenceline is cleaned up except for the compost/bee corner. That's it's own project, lol. 
The wild grapevine choked tree in the front corner is now cleared of vines and pruned a bit back. Opened up and cleaned up around the traffic sign.
The raspberry bed around the utiltiy pole- whew. That was a mess of old canes and unruly new ones. Got all the old canes trimmed out and all the new ones woven in contained behind the mooring lines.
Extra mowed down the arch drive and cut down all that tall stuff around the trunk where the arch drive meets the easement drive. That was a thing- but now the area looks so much better! I think I want to go ahead with some sort of light setup on that stump and plan in a serious bed of nasturtiums in that area starting next year.
A new mowing keyhole down by the pond was made today, as well as a little drive through path on the north side where we dump our non-composting weeds.

Tomorrow we need to walk out around the back 40 and see how truck driveable or not the trek is. I would like to drop todays trimmings in the way back corner. Want to walk out the north fenceline to see what needs to be done to get a footpath in order. I think eventually we will need to figure out a whole pondside path too, lol.

It's the 17th, and man we have been busy as hell out in the yard! Lots of pruning and cutting. Got the veggie beds attended to- to tomatoes now have been cleaned up and re-supported as necessary.
The whole potato aisle of the dog run is cleared out and cleaned out- we even got a couple pounds of potatoes out of those sloppy bags! Enough encouragement to do it again, only using hard sides containers like garbage cans. Those would be mobile and sturdy. Got the whole mess of nasturtiums dealt with in the other bay of the dog run. Picked the very first of my Histada Shield beans and those are shelled and set to cure. There's enough otherwise on the vine that I'm pretty sure I now have a crop batch amount of seed maturing.
Cut in a whole new path on the north side of the yard and combated a grave vine overgrown rose tree to do it. My sister attended to the long overdue lilac, and I think it will be much healthier for the cutback. One of the darker lilies will get planted in there, and will need to attend to the violet patch more between the lilacs and the pine too. And now we have a full mowing lane back there again, discreetly tucked back. That's our general dumping ground for weedy crap that can't go into the compost area. Eventually we will just keep going right down the fenceline entirely I think.
We will end up running a whole walking patch all the way to the back corner- it was widely groomed at one time so a bit of effort should see at least a footpath cut back in again.

Freaking Awesome weekend!

I had a really great weekend! Went and worked at the faire this weekend, and I was a busy bee the whole time :)
Got to hang out with some really great friends. We were there on Friday to help out with the RESCU rally, and I wasn't needed so much, so I got to hang out with a friend at the bakery and sling some dough around. It was good to putter around the kitchen.
On Saturday and Sunday I got to hawk- and it was really fun! Made some sparkley to wear while out there, and it was rather grand. My bellows were probably the loudest unamplified sounds in that section in a while, lol. Every time a show broke up on the stage across from us, I would holler out. It felt rather good to do it too. And I'm happy I quit smoking at the beginning of March.
It was really cool to handle so much pewter out on the street too- I picked up and carried around some really cool pieces! Got to do parade on Saturday, I always enjoy doing that. My face is almost sore from smiling, and arms tired from super-waving, it's great. Like a super happy workout right in the middle of the day. 
Got to make a bunch of new friends too- some of it is a blur I met so many! But a lot of faces and folks I look forward to seeing again :)
I received a pair of absolutely lovely earrings as a late birthday present. They are tiny delicate blue winged hummingbirds made of pulled glass. So absolutely lovely I was stunned at first- then immediately put them in my ears, woot!
I laughed a lot this weekend... A LOT!

I sort of got a commission for some jewelry this weekend. It's sort of an artwork for artwork barter sort of thing. One of the gents I work with is a stunning artist of the drawing kind. I asked him to draw a killer bee for me to hang in my living room. And he said yes, just because he's cool like that. Later on that night, he was able to get a beaded spider he absolutely loved- and I understood his happy because of my happy over beaded spiders. So I offered him to do a beaded pin mount for him in return for him drawing up my bee artwork.

So... on to Grobox Hill....
The whole garden has done wonderfully while I was gone! Apparently we got in a nice couple hour long gentle soaking rain early this morning. I checked all the plants. Radish and dill seed are popping up. Albino beet and Little Gem lettuce are not. Rainbow Lights swiss chard is regrowing back really well. Early Contender bean has most of the seed spots sprouting up really well. The peas not so much.
I have several ball squashes to pick, and a few Roughwood Golden Plum tomatoes.
In general, need to do a lot of picking, picking up, and such to do.

Unfortunately, while I was gone this weekend.. Someone came onto the back 40, and cut down many branches along our back corner. It created a full sized vehicle tunnel in our tree path. Not sure who it was, but we know who it likely is. So tomorrow my sis and I will get back there and stack up the cut down branches in the gate spot, and string up a no trespassing sign. And a sign that the new property is under new ownership, please contact us. I'm hoping that we can have a friendly conversation about it. I'm not too opposed to horses and four wheelers coming through. But full sized vehicle path is a no. And folks cutting down like that on my property without permission is a no as well.

The lawn needs a serious mowing as well. It was lovely to pull in and see all the little yellow flowers, but the yard is looking pretty shaggy as well. The first five hardy hibiscus plants are doing really well in their bigger pots. I'm looking forward to planting them in next spring, and starting new seeds for their plant in. I think I want to plant them in along the easement side of the street line. We still have my sisters lovely purple smoke tree to plant in, and I think I want to cultivate in that front corner quite a bit to go along with that. Depending on what we got going on for lilies in the bins, I would love to plant some of those around the smoke tree. I still haven't planted in the 5 two year lavenders, and those might switch back down to the trimmed cedar again. Set those in with another set of bin lillies.

Another day, another entry :)
It's Tuesday, weather is in the 60's and it's been drizzling on and off all day. A nice watering in sort of day for the plants. It stopped dripping for long enough to get out and pick some veggies that needed picking.

That's a big collendar full of squashes! The littlest ones are the size I'm supposed to pick the ball squash at. But I had a few grow like crazy while I was gone.

The first pickings of the Juane Flamme tomato. They are a lovely orange.

Not much for bean pickings yet- only 4 plants are producing. About a third of this is what I picked before I left for the weekend, the other two thirds I picked today. This batch is now in the fridge in a greenie bag.

I also set up five trays of the dehydrator with all four batches of banana peppers I've picked. I gotta say, I love the greenie bags, they really do store the veggies much longer than they would probably last otherwise.

Last week we smoked a bone in ham, it was about 10 pounds, at $1.29 a pound. I like to make every penny count if I can- and fortuantely I can use up every last scrap of the whole thing. We had a dinner for four the night we smoked the ham, and mom had a ham sandwich with it while I was gone. Today I broke down what was left.

On the left is three pounds of chunked ham. I will package it up in pound bags for later eating. On the right is the ham bone, it's a pound and a half. This will be getting made into pork stock tomorrow. I typically get three pints plus of pork stock out of a good ham bone. I'm glad I got dried celery on the shelf- I will for sure be using it to make stock tomorrow.

The is the fat scraps from two hams. I froze the scraps from the last ham I made, and I figured I had enough with two hams to render a nice batch of fat. This is raw, right at the beginning of cooking. I used about a cup or so of water in the bottom of the crock pot to help prevent sticking or burning till enough fat has rendered out so it self cooks. I started it around 2:00, and should take a few hours.at 5 PM, they were only half rendered down and really starting to burble up.

Made up a batch of chicken stock the other day. Today I peeled off the fat layer and dropped it into the chicken fat bin in the freezer. Ended up with seven 2 cup bags of stock for the freezer, yay! A packet of chicken meat from the roasted chicken ended up in the freezer too- this was after a dinner for four.

Since I had so many ball squash, I decided to try a freezer experiment. Seared summer squash packets. I sliced the balls about 3/4 of an inch thick, seasoned them with Italian herb mix, salt, and pepper, then seared them off in olive oil. Then they got laid on a drip rack to cool off. Sliced up an onion and a handful of banana peppers. Dotted the bottom of the stack with butter. Stacked together six slices, tucked the onion under and on the slices, then laid out the pepper bits on top. A goodly sprinkle of minced garlic on top. then folded up the packets. Now they are labeled and in the freezer, and in a bit we will pull them out and see how they cook up. They are kind of bulky as individual packets- but if they are good I will put them into the camping/cookout file- and then see if I get good results making a solid family sized packet.



Apparently I saved this entry instead of publishing it.. oops.... Publishing now :)

Sure don't feel like summer

July 29....

Sure hasn't been feeling like summer. Been too cool for it. I'm not complaining, but I am, lol. I'm used to the hot bringing on the produce.

Today I canned up two quarts of hot pepper rings. One of the local produce places had the hot banana peppers, and I figured I would do quarts instead of pints because I have a lot of quart jars but I'm short on pints and didn't feel like dinking around with half pint jars. Don't it figure, no matter what jars I got, always seems like I need the jars I'm short on, lol.

Got a fourth batch of nasturtium leaves dehydrated today. Just a couple more, and I will have a super stuffed jar to add peppery herbal goodness do dishes all through the winter. Hmmm, maybe I should create a spice blend that features them. Actually collecting enough seed to please me, and there's a lot more on the plants that are ripening for picking.

Picked more peppers today and more summer squash. Getting to the point where I need to figure out some preserving on the squash. Debating on trying a squash jam recipe- we still have so many jams on the shelf and cramming the fridge I'm not sure if I want to or not, but it sure would be something different. Also debating on trying some pickled too.

Today was a big deal too- we signed off on the back 40. For the next couple years, we will be paying down on it while the neighbors are wrapping up business. Then after that it's whatever we want to do. But for the moment, it means we get to clean up the chicken coop enclosure to get it ready for chicks next spring, hooray! The whole thing makes me a bit nervous- I'm a worrywart about big things. But overall, I'm ecstatic about it.

July 30...

Another putter around kind of day. Did a ton of well overdue weeding in the herb garden and solarium side- couple barrows full of just crappy stuff that needed to be dumped out back. But now I can actually see the garden, lol. Found a couple huge chippy holes and stomped them in. Damn chippies. A couple of my corsican mints haven't fared too well, but some of them seem to be thriving, yay! Cut down a big chunk of the tarragon bush- and I have no idea what to do with it all there is so much of it. But now the winter savory is visible and apparently needs a goodly trim too.
Got a batch of broccoli on the dehydrator today- some stuff I picked up on clearance. Next up is to shred a bunch of squash since apparently I don't have any on the shelf. Thought I did, but I was mistaken.

Repotted the four hardy hibiscus- I'm hoping they overwinter well in pots and next year should be big enough to plant into the yard. And next spring I will start another set of hibiscus too.
Clipped the last of the dill heads for seed- had a couple wimpy plants, but those got pulled up with all the dead stuff. And I seeded in three new buckets of dill. Still early enough in the season that I will hopefully get a goodly batch of dill for the fall.

Cleaned up all my bags of seed, and ya know what? I got a fuckton of seed. I have so much seed I am not sure if I even have a wish list anymore. Ok, yeah, I still have a wishlist, but by golly it's much much shorter than it ever has been, and my outgoing trade list is much much longer. I still have to go through and catalog what seed I got because I did blow out a couple dozen kinds of seed this spring. On the nice side, I have more flower seed than I thought I did. On the down side, so much bean and tomato seed it's going to be a serious decision next year on what to grow.

Pulled out some other seed for fall garden. Alaska peas, Early Contender beans, Albino beets, Purple carrots, and lettuce mix. I still might pull some other greens too. Hopeful that I might be able to get some fall harvest in.

While out in the yard today I realized I still don't have enough blooms year round for bees. Sigh, hearbreaking sigh. I really wanted to start with bees next year. But till I have a lot of blooms to keep em fed, I just can't do it. Fortunately, I do have a lot of flower seed still to put out into the yard. A surprising amount really, I didn't use up nearly as much as I thought I did this spring. So more patches for the sanctuary, more to go around in other places in the yard. I even have more nasturtium seed than I thought! Will still probably need to get more milkmaid, but that's ok.

The tomatoes are plush as hell, full of fruits- and still green green green. Just hasn't been hot enough to prompt them to turn color. I swear, it feels like it's summer winding down instead of smack int he middle of the hottest part of it.

July 31...

Finally, it felt like summer today! Nice and warm, actually a relief to get into the shade kind of day. Started out first thing by shredding up all those ball squash and getting them onto the dehydrator- jucy little things, I had to squeeze the shred before laying the stuff out on jelly trays.
Finished up the weeding of the herb garden- super PITA pulling weeds when the ground is all dry from no rain. But that's ok, we will be getting rain in soon enough.

Got some seeding done today for some hopeful fall harvest. Planted in a round of Alaska peas and Early Contender bush beans out by the dog run- hopefully those will take, and no frigging critters will snip them. Planted in the rest of my Albino beets and some Icicle radish under the kitchen window, and all my Little Gem lettuce in the herb garden. Cut down all my Bright Lights swiss chard, yummy! Chard is a cut and come again plant, so I'm hopeful to get another crop off of it yet this season- maybe if I'm careful and protect it well, it might give me another crop after the snow flies!

And super exciting, I think we may have spotted an endangered species- Regal Fritillary Butterfly. Saw it this morning in the garden, and when I described it to my sister because I wanted to hunt it and get some pics, she said she had seen it too on the back 40! Eeep, of course he didn't come out when we both went back there, but he did come out for her later, so I'm hopeful that we will actually get some pics of this guy and confirm if we do or don't have a special critter here.  I have confirmed about a half dozen Monarchs in the yard, very pleased about that- the milkweeds are paying off. And some swallowtails, which are lovely.
But despite not getting the pics of the specific butterfly I was looking for, I did get a nice handful of pics of other lovlies- dragonflies and butterflies.

Haven't the foggiest what any of these are, but I thought them all rather lovely.

Makin Kraut

Had to go out and about today... Got a glorious head of cabbage at the fruit exchange for $1.95. So guess what? It's kraut making time :)

Kraut is a lacto-fermentation. Remember those yummy ass carrots? Same thing, veggie, salt, and mother natures preservation. And by luck, I happen to have a crock I can ferment in- thanks sis!

So....

Here's the crock, weight plate, and that lovely head of cabbage.

Most folks only see a cleaned head of cabbage- just the head with all those wonderful outer leaves stripped off. I stripped off the outer leaves too, and bagged those up for some stewing greens. That left me with a 5 pound head to shred up. You want to use 1/4 cup of kosher salt per pound of cabbage, so it's important to weigh the head before you start shredding.

And right off the bat, you need to sanitize your crock and weight plate. Simple, some white vinegar and water, bring to a boil, and fill your crock up with the plate sitting on the bottom. Let it sit till it's needed. But sanitizing is necessary, to kill off anything that might be around- just like when you do canning, you sanitize the jars, even if they are freshly washed.

I used my serrated bread knife to shred the cabbage. Just a bit easier than using great-grandmas mandolin, though I wanted to use that instead. The bread knife is long and sharp, perfect for making those super thin slices. You want to stay within a quarter to dime thickness- over a quarter thick is just too darn thick, thinner is better. I halved, then quartered, then cut the quarters into eighths before cutting off the core section and shredding. The cabbage was rather big, so eighths made for easier shredding and better final shred lengths. 

Big ass bowl full of 5 pounds of shredded cabbage. Why use a bowl, and not just right into the crock? It's easier to mix the salt in this way instead of having to sprinkle in layers, and gives you a better idea on what your liquid yield is after wilting. And the cabbage all fluffy crunchy won't want to pack down into the crock, but after salt wilting it packs up right fine. I used 1 1/4 cups salt for the 5 pounds, keeping in the 1/4 cup per pound ratio. I placed a clean floursack dishtowel over the bowl during wilting to help keep out any bugs or nosy kitties. Gotta keep it clean!

So here's what it looks like after an hours wilting. I went for a stroll to check out the blackberries to kill time during this so I quit peeking at it. It's noticeably less fluffy, and pressing it there is no more crunch to it. If it had still been crunchy, I would have let it wilt longer.

Here all those 5 pounds are packed down into the crock. Packing is important, get the air out. Now, if I had layered and salted, this thing would have been super full and harder to manage and pack, harder to tell if the bottom was crunchy or not. So I took a couple handfuls at a time, packed them down, and repeat. And hell yes, you make sure you pour all the rendered cabbage juice into that crock too- that's vital. You can't really see it, but the juice is just barely up to the cabbage top. With the weight plate and a bit more break down, the cabbage will be fully submerged. Shouldn't need any saltwater addition.

Now for the weight plate. It's not the weight itself, but makes sure to evenly press all the cabbage down.

This is the weight- a quart bag full of saltwater. Just a couple tablespoons of salt and hot water. Why saltwater? Just in case the bag leaks, you are adding brine instead of water. And after an hour of the crock sitting like this, the liquid was well over the cabbage.

Then cover the crock with the floursack dishtowel to keep dust, bugs, nosy kitties out. Since we are having a rather cool spell right now, it can sit on the counter. If it turns hot, it will need to be taken down to the cellar. This fermenting does better under cool conditions- makes for a far tastier fermentation.

How do you know when the stuff is fermented? Well, during fermentation, there are bubbles, and once the bubbles stop, fermenting is done. This can take a couple weeks, but by keeping it cool and letting it ferment longer, you get a tastier kraut. I've seen some folks say it can be done in days, but slow and low is better as far as I'm concerned. So this will probably sit for a goodly month before I do anything else with it. Some folks just leave their kraut in the crocks till eating time, but alas, I only have one crock right now. So when it's time to take it out, I will either vacuum pack it for the fridge, or more likely, can the stuff in a hot water bath to make it shelf stable. That is, if there is any left over to store once we chow down on it :)