The sad, sad state of my garden...

My gardens, or lack-there-of, are quite a disappointment this year. I just didn't have the energy to get outside this spring, and haven't had an opportunity to get out there since the little man's been born (who shall henceforth be known as DJ ;) 

 My dad came and did some weed-whacking a few weeks ago and pulled the weeds from in and around these two beds, but that's about all that had been done. We had nothing but rain for the entire month of May, I'm talking rain for all but like 4 days in the month. And then no rain for June. July has had a little, but I think we're still down about 3 inches from average. Everything in pots died.

Joe's work schedule and the crazy hot heat and high humidity have made it difficult to mow even. I think we've mowed three times. Or I should say he has. I haven't done anything. Our yard looks awful!

dead herbs...

more dead herbs...

overgrown beds...

all the strawberries went to waste...

no weeding done. no flowers planted...

out for a walk, assessing the sadness...

herbs I bought at the farmers market to replace the ones I killed. 

Busy Week(end) and a Menu: Harvest Time!

I feel like life is going full-steam-ahead, but my brain wants to nap in a hammock for a few days. And I don't even have a hammock! Oh well.

This week/weekend I did quite a bit of preserving. I've finally, FINALLY got tomatoes ripening, and a few peppers too. The sweet chocolates are coming along nicely. Nothing else pepper-wise seems to be ready yet. I made 3 pints of pizza sauce, a quart and a pint of lacto-fermented salsa from Nourishing Traditions and 2 1/2 pints of freezer peach jam from farmers' market peaches.

Also, I recently won a $60 gift certificate for CSN Stores from the Green Bag Lady and used it to get a dehydrator. I'm so excited :) Despite my desires for an excalibur, I decided to bite the bullet and use this opportunity to get one that's not quite so awesome, but still great. I got a Nesco American Harvest. I decided to splurge and get the square one. At the CSN store, the round one would have been just under my $60 and shipped for free. But, the square one cost me $12.99 with free ground shipping. It wasn't too hard to convince my Hubby to agree on the extra $$. One word: jerky :) I was really excited too when I got an email telling me that they had upgraded my shipping for free and I got it in just a few days! Awesome! I've already got a load of tomatoes dehydrating. And I promise, there will be pictures soon.

This weekend was also the CornFest in my little village. I didn't get to experience it much though. I played in the volleyball tournament, from 9am until 3pm. LONG day. Oh, yeah, and it rained the whole time. I was soaked, completely soaked to the bone. After the first few games, I had to continue to wring my hair and my clothes out. The sand became concrete by the end. It started out fun, but by the end I was just tired and hungry. It did let up finally after I was home and clean and dry, but by that time my feet hurt so bad that the last thing I wanted to do was walk around! I did get to enjoy a funnel cake during a break in the games though, so I got what I wanted ;)

There was also a sad time this weekend. I had to put my sourdough starter in the compost :( I'm not sure if it was completely dead or not, but I neglected it for way too long. It was starting to smell a little funny, and somehow fruit flies were invading. None of these thing are good. However, I've resigned to start a new starter and attempt to keep it in the fridge and only bring it out and feed it when I need it. It will take a little more planning ahead, but I think it will be better in the long run. I think I'll take pictures this time too!

Now, on to the menu! This week is a not-so-busy week schedule wise, but there is a lot I want to get done. Plus, I think we're having a party at our house on Sunday for our fantasy football draft, so I need to get a little cleaning done!

Monday - hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes. I also cooked up extra ground beef for Wednesday and 2 lbs with taco seasoning to make enchiladas for the freezer. 3 lbs were vacuum sealed for the freezer. I cut and packaged a bunch of chicken for the freezer too, including marinating some for Tuesday.
Tuesday - chicken stirfry with pac choi, peas and carrots and a side of couscous. Make enchilada sauce at least, if not enchiladas for the freezer. Make cookies.
Wednesday - spaghetti with meat sauce. Hubby requests no weird stuff like veggies in the sauce, just sauce...? I'm hoping I can use the tomatoes from my garden and simmer the sauce while I run! Cleaning time! Finish enchiladas if I haven't already.
Thursday -  fried chicken nuggets with butternut squash fries. More cleaning.
Friday - beef fajitas? Not sure what we're doing yet.
Saturday - pizza
Sunday - cookout, potluck style!

Menu Monday

Last week didn't go as planned, but I should plan for that any week!

Things I didn't do:

• make granola bars
• make burritos for the freezer
• blanch and freeze carrots
• eat with friends on Friday - we just ate leftovers instead
• cook on Sunday - we went out for wings
• make icecream
• make buns
• make dog treats
• make peanut butter
• replant the peas - though I did rip out the dying ones
• work on the berry patches

Things I did differently:

• made tortellini on Wednesday, not Thursday
• made chicken Enchiladas on Thursday
• spent Saturday in the basement of my shed cleaning it out (more on that later!) since it was supposed to rain...it didnt.
• painted the fence on Sunday instead. But it is done, woohoo!!

Things that went right:

• Monday, Tuesday and Saturday meal plans
• the fence DID get painted, did I mention that yet?
• made a very yummy chocolate zucchini bread. I will definitely be making this again, maybe in a muffin form for portability. It's very good with a little cream cheese, which is what contributed to the next item
• managed to only spend like $7 on groceries (cream cheese for bread, dip for all the carrots, and 2-liter of Diet Dr. Pepper in a moment of weakness!)
• blanched and froze the broccoli, which is good since that won't last like the carrots will
• soaked and dried the oats for the bars
• I won TWO different giveaways on blogland this past week. Which is awesome. I will definitely be writing about them both when I get the goodies!

Anyway, onward and upward. This Week's menu is as follows:

• Monday - beef stew. It was supposed to be in the crockpot already, but since I didn't get up until almost 7:30 this morning, it didn't happen. I will start it on the stove before volleyball tonight, and then eat when I get home!
• Tuesday - Breakfast! Sourdough waffles and bacon. I plan on making extra waffles for the freezer. I also hope to get some beef enchiladas made for the freezer. Hubby really like the chicken ones, but thinks beef will be even better. Better than the burritos.
• Wednesday - Chicken stew in the crockpot. I'm making a large batch, and the leftovers will go to make some pasty-type things for the freezer.
• Thursday - Chicken nuggets with...probably broccoli since we have a bunch. Maybe some corn-on-the-cob if I get to the farm stand! I will finally have some money in the budget for grocery shopping, so this will happen today. I'm pretty excited! We have a local butcher I have yet to get to and I want to go on my lunch break, then the farm stand, and then the grocery store for a few other essentials...like light bulbs!
• Friday - still up in the air again this week. I will plan on grilling out. Burgers and corn. We'll see.
• Saturday - Busy, busy day of cookouts, etc. Nothing planned.
• Sunday - pizza! My to-do list for Sunday consists of everything on the not done list above :)

That's my menu for this week. Check out more menu's at The Organizing Junkie.

Adventures in Veggie Growing

I had a very productive weekend. I got very, very dirty...and sweaty. Saturday, Hubby and I went to breakfast and finished the crossword. Woohoo! Then I got home and got to work. 

I cleaned up the garden beds, harvested and replanted. I harvested and pulled up the rest of the lettuces, pulled up the spinach and harvested the rest of the pak choi. I was going to pull it up, but it hasn't bolted yet and it looks like it's still growing some, so I left it in. I replanted pac choi, lettuce and spinach for a second harvest.

The amaranth, long beans and spaghetti squash I got from Baker Creek this winter was FINALLY found. (Where? Oh yeah, in with the rest of the seeds...) I planted the amaranth and squash, hoping it will still have time to grow. They're both about 90 days, so I hope to just squeak by. If I don't get grain from the amaranth, I can at least eat the leaves for a very colorful salad!

The finding of these seeds can be attributed to my need for organization. Kroger had plastic shoe boxes 10 for $10, and I needed more clothespins (more on that later), so I hopped on my bike and went a got a few to organize my overflowing seeds. During the organization, I found these awesome seeds that I had been searching for the last couple months. Awesome!!

The tomatoes and peppers are actually doing well this year. I already have some fruit! Despite my best efforts, the seedlings got all mixed up though, so I have no idea what varieties are what yet.

baby peppers!

baby tomatoes! I'm guessing these are the amish paste.

I also have some seedlings from the random squash plantings that happened last weekend.

squash seedlings!

The first green beans have now been harvested as well. I got about a pound and they're just in the fridge, waiting to be eaten. I'm finding that I like a lot more vegetables when they come out of my own garden!

green beans!

The peas have been producing like crazy. Every morning while I let Tex out I pick a good handful. They're keeping AMAZINGLY well in the fridge. I keep all my produce in Debbie Meyer Green Bags. (You can usually find them for a few dollars. I get them at Big Lots or Menards for about $1.99. They're reusable and awesome. I also love her bread bags.) I've been picking peas for about a month now and we just ate our first ones last week. They were delicious. I was thinking about freezing some of them though. We have a few pounds and with all the other stuff, I don't think we'll get to them. And how awesome will the be in January!?

snow peas. These are the ones 

I'm letting go to save for next years' seed.

Swiss chard was also up on the chopping block. I pick some HUGE leaves. Literally bigger than my head! This I decided to just blanch for 2 minutes and freeze in smaller quantities for soup. I'm sure I'll have an opportunity to each some fresh. There's plenty more out there. I'm still just a little scared!

swiss chard, pre-harvest

Our farmer's market in our little home town finally had some veggies this week! They've been having it every morning since the beginning of June. And from the beginning there's been the same 4-5 vendors (it's a tiny town, we're still trying folks!). There's a local meat market with pork rinds and landjaggers, baked goods from the kitchen at the senior housing place in town, a jewelry lady and a few other crafters intermittently. Veggies are exciting! I got a zucchini, and yellow summer squash and a couple patty-pans.

This weekends beautiful weather paired with my own eco-guilt and my mothers prompted me to try and figure out how to line dry clothes. I managed to rig a couple of short lines on our upstairs landing outside. That, paired with the drying rack outside and our already-existing inside lines let me dry 4 loads of laundry outside. I did dry Hubbies thermals for work in the dryer. Mostly because I know they'd take a while and my husband is under the impression that anything dried outside is dirty and germ-laden. But he didn't seem to notice with the bath towels or his boxers! Yes, I'm sneaky. But it's only because he doesn't notice.

new clothes line. I later added a second line behind this one.

The adding of more lines meant I needed more clothespins. I was very excited to find, at our local grocery, bamboo clothespins in plastic-free packaging. The poor box was dusty, so I'm sure they've haven't been moving much, but I did buy one of two boxes. It made me smile!

Ooh, and on another shopping note, the meat guy from the farmer's market keeps promising us that they're opening a fresh market in town! The old Super-Value that has been vacant since, from what I can gather, a few years before we moved to town, will now house a fresh market. They will be selling they're meat, custom cuts from their own cattle and swine. He also says they're grass-fred. But around here, that usually still means grain-finished. We'll see. They're also going to have fresh, local produce when available. And not-so-local during the winter months. The opening date keeps getting pushed out, but for the last few weeks he's saying August 1. I'm very excited and will report back soon. :)

Since this is already WAY too long, I'll update on Sunday a little later. Oh, and I have a yummy recipe! For more garden pics, become my friend on facebook!

Monday blues

It's Monday and I'm not happy about it! I didn't get nearly as much done this past weekend as I had hoped. It was gorgeous all weekend and I really didn't have the opportunity to take advantage of it. Hubby and I did an afternoon's worth of yard work in about 2 hours last night and that's about it.

We still need to finish cleaning out the pond and have to get the net over it for the winter, but just about everything else is done. And I do have lettuce growing, albeit very slowly. It made it through the freeze we had the other night, so I'm hopeful for some fresh lettuce soon!

Here's a pic from some of the canning I did earlier this fall. I got a quite a bit put up. And I'm super excited that I am able to can chicken stock. It's so much easier to use and store out of the freezer. I was running out of room in there.

I am still hoping to get some applesauce made this fall. Hopefully this weekend.

Happy Monday everyone!

Adventures in Amish Country

My friend Kira and I left at 6:15 am Saturday morning headed for Berlin, Ohio. The heart of Amish Country in our area (at least the tourist-friendly part). The main purpose for the trip was to stock up on bulk food items and just have a girls day. Both were accomplished!

I left my camera in the car most of the trip because the Amish really don't like to have their picture taken and I didn't want to run the risk of offending anyone. It's a good thing I didn't try, my hands were too full most of the time to have taken a picture anyway!

Alpaca farm on the way there!

Bulk food haul! We also stopped at a Goodwill on the way home and

found the stacking tins you see at the back. After a good washing,

that now houses tea bags, hot chocolate mix and drink mix packets.

Antique store finds: 10" cast iron skillet for...$8!! A $9 meat grinder,

a measuring cup/scoop and a $2 linen tablecloth. It's square and won't

fit my table, but I'm going to make it into napkins :)

Cheese! Both my and Kira's hubby's love cheese. We each got a round of baby swiss.

I got a few other yummy hunks as well. I also found a jar lifter (finally :),

a skinny spatula to replace the cheap one I had and melted and

a stopper for my bottle of cooking wine.

Please pardon the blurry shot. But this is freshly ground peanut butter.

Ingredients: peanuts. We each got a big yogurt tub full that we

ground ourselves from the natural food store.

A 50 lb. bag of wheat flour we got for .39/lb.! How crazy is that!

I'm most likely going to be getting some buckets

so we can split this and store properly.

This is a 20-yd. bolt of brown denim. Pre-washed. I got it for $40!

This was in a remnants and leftovers section at a canvas bag store.

I will be doing our furniture in this as soon as I can :)

I got some "overripe" peaches at a fairly decent price at a stand.

Yesterday I canned them. Some were a little more than overripe, but they worked out.

The pieces I tasted while cleaning the peaches were quite yummy!

My fingernails are also stained orange.

And the "after" shot of my haul from Amish Country. Nicely put in jars and labeled.

This is the fruits of half a day's work. I didn't think it would take that long, but it did!

It took a little maneuvering, but it's now all in my pantry where it belongs.

During our antique store trips, I learned that all these blue jars,

bail jars and old lids I have are worth quite a bit of money!

I will try and get a menu up later today as well. I'm a little discombobulated in the kitchen at the moment and need to get my bearings before I do so. Since we ended up with sloppy joe's Friday instead of Funky Chicken, I'm thinking funky chicken tonight!

Garden Update 8.23.09

Did some harvesting this weekend! But before that, I wanted to give an update to my ginger beer making adventures.

Thursday I finally got around to making the Ginger syrup and putting the starter in it. I had about a gallon of ginger beer brewing. I was mixing it about 3 times a day with a wooden spoon. Last night I got home from spending the evening at my Mom's, starting stirring the brew and the glass broke! It made quite a mess all over the kitchen. Luckily I saved about 1/2 of it, but what I saved is definitely a lot less fizzy that the gallon was before. I'll let it sit for a few more days before I bottle it. We'll see.

I'm not sure why it broke, that's what's bothering me. I wasn't stirring too vigorously, and I was using a wooden spoon! Nevertheless, I busted out a hole the size of a silver dollar right near the bottom of the jar. booh.

But on to the harvest!

Yukon golds and some tendersweet carrot thinnings.

The Yukon Gold tops had all died down, so I harvested these.

This was all I got from 8 pieces. A little disappointing really.

We'll be eating them this week :)

Tested a fingerling carrot. Looks pretty cool, just like a finger!

I let it set out too long, so I threw it in my beef stock this weekend.

It was a little wiggly for eating raw :)

I harvested three of the pumpkins that were ready because

one looked a little juicy. It was already rotting from the mildew.

The other two were okay. I just cut them up and froze them.

Didn't have time to do anything else!

Picked some dried beans too, still not much yet but it's adding up!

I'll probably only get enough for one nice pot of soup,

but that's okay. I'm thinking of doing another bean planting

to put under the cover this fall.

Trimmed some rosemary for drying.

And some green basil too

(this is the basil I took from Kira's garden where the animals

had dispersed them where they shouldn't have belonged).

That's it for now. Hopefully more to share soon!

Adventures With Food Preservation

So this weekend Kira and I were worker bees. Saturday would blanched and froze 5 dozen ears of corn, made 3 gallons of chicken stock and made jam out of 6 quarts of strawberries and 2 pints of blueberries.

5 dozen ears of corn, fresh from the farm stand Saturday morning.

shucking away!

corn mountain!

Cutting it off the cob to freeze.

The weatherman told us it was going to be in the low 90's with 95% humidity and above. Luckily it was rainy and overcast all day and maybe hit 85 later on, maybe. We definitely struck gold that day!

6 quarts of strawberries destined to be jam!

Lots of freezer jam cooling in the fridge!

Chicken Stock!!

And, we finally found a source for some inexpensive 55-gallon food-grade barrels. Rain barrels, here we come! If they would've been set up Saturday, I'm sure I'd have all three of mine full already :)

The pumpkin plants still seem to be alive for the moment, and it appears as if my efforts have done some damage to the powdery mildew. I think it's gone now, I think. After hacking away, I sprayed with a baking soda, water and dish soap solution that is supposed to kill it and keep it away. So far so good.

On a very positive note, I would like to report that Hubby is now back to work! Today is his second day on the job with Molten Metal Products, working as a contractor in a local steel mill. And it's only 13 minutes away!

Adventures in Procrastination

Once again I have disappointed people by not posting for way too long. Sorry. Life has been very...full lately. Not necessarily busy, but the last thing I want to do when I have a free minute is sit at the computer. Sorry. It's nothing personal, but it's what I do all day long. I enjoy a break every once in a while :)

But, I have been thinking about blogging and taking pictures! We'll play a little game of catch-up, enjoy:

More eating from the garden this week. It's still just lettuce, but it is oh-so-yummy! And this week I made my own dressing...kinda. I brought in leftover chicken and asparagus with the sauce I made for the pasta and warmed it all up. I cut the chicken up and poured some of the sauce over my little "salad". It was DELICIOUS! The asparagus was even good reheated, which I was little worried about. Yum!

Some cowardly soul at work apparently thinks collecting coffee grounds is disgusting. They left a sticky note on the this lid the week before telling me so. And this week we get "YUK" actually written on the lid. Luckily I have an extra lid. My boss told me to write on the new one a warning that if it gets tampered with we'll be going to HR, and I did. Seriously, how it more gross to collect coffee grounds in a separate bucket than to put them in the garbage can, of which you actually have to stick you hand in to use? Putting the grounds in the garbage makes the garbage give off heat and moisture, and I think THAT is gross. We are now trying to launch a PR campaign around reducing waste...if I only I had more time!

I built trellis' for my gardens this past weekend! When I have a moment and it's not pouring down rain, I will be tying strings from the poles down and maybe a few across. I need to put stakes in with the other tomatoes (in pots) too. My idea is to use the stakes and combine that with string in between the posts from the boxes and support them. Problem is I'm not completely sure that's where I want to keep the pots...so I haven't done it yet!

I also made a lot of progress on my "garbage hut", as Hubby so affectionately calls it. I still need to secure the tarp on the sides and make a latch for the door. So far it cost me $4 for the hinge and $7 for the sheet of lattice used. The tarp was free after rebate and the rest of the nails/wood were what I had on hand. I would also like to stain it to match the stairs...but Hubby thinks that would be a waste of good stain we could use somewhere else. I'll have to work on that one!

I've also become an outlaw. We decided to share garbage pickup with one of our neighbors. I will not name them to protect them, but we started a couple of weeks ago. We each only have one can a week, and neither are ever really full. So we decided to share! Problem is that on recycle pickup days there are four bins out there!!

And now for veggie updates. The beans and spinach on the left look good. I may be adding spinach leaves to my salads soon! And of course the lettuce is doing wonderfully. The other large plants there are both broccoli.

This is my pepper plant (and a weed on the right). It hasn't grown a centimeter since I transplanted it. I'm hoping it just hasn't been warm enough, but I'm starting to worry a little!

And my carrots are coming along very nicely as well. I'm hoping we get at least a few big ones in the bunch :)

The yukon gold potatoes all finally came up and are coming along nicely.

The white potatoes look like a forest! I didn't give them enough room, and I'm worried I didn't plant them deep enough. I'm thinking about building up the sides of the bed to accommodate more soil on top. I don' t know how much more I can add here without making a real mess of things!

The other SFG is going well too. You can see a tomato plant all the way to the left. They're all doing well. The garlic is still going strong. I'm really hopeful for a fall harvest. And the replanting of beans took, so that's awesome! If you look closely, you can also see some tiny heads of lettuce and carrot tops coming up. Also in this bed, I finally have melons sprouting and nasturtiums coming up! I had to replant both of those a few weeks ago.

The strawberries I don't know where to plant are still alive in their makeshift pot. There are ten plants there. I feel terrible!

And last but not least...is this maybe a grape vine? I'm pretty sure it's not, but I'd be very excited if it was!