Kinda funny....

Remember the snow peas form this weeks harvest? I made a small stir fry with some beef and broccoli (from freezer stash) and those peas were a great addition. But, what I forgot to tell you is that apparently I managed to plant a PEA like garden peas, non-edible pods.... in with the snow peas. Imagine my surprise while eating and suddenly realizing that I'm still chewing and nothing is happening to the pod in my mouth.... yeah. looking back it was funny but before I realized what happened I was thoroughly confused. It wasn't an over sized pod because maybe if the Snow pea had been left growing when I was on vacation it could have toughened up, right? It had more peas inside of it then my snow peas are known for and that is what has led me to believe that. That and the fact that my little bits helped me plant that area. LOL. They ARE known to plant additional seeds or to play with the seeds before I can get them into the ground.

Ah, well I'll have to remember that next stir fry. ;-)

Harvest - Monday? 11.29.10

Ah, yes this harvest Monday is late, too. Sorry - was trying to catch up on work and all.
There is something new about this harvest Monday. Can you guess what it is?

I'm older. Yup. That is the change. But the real change is that getting a little older managed to get me a new gizmo for my kitchen. Let me introduce you to my newest kitchen pet. I'll have to come up with a name for it, but that could take a little time. Here it is at work:

:-) It makes me happy. I'm trying to get into the habit of weighing my harvests now. I figure I'll write the weights but not tally until January. I'll start fresh with the new year.
Yes, that's right I am STILL harvesting a ton of these little Tabasco peppers. This batch is destined to make some vinegar with. A present for a relative or two that uses it on greens. *cringe* I do find it odd that I like spinach and such but can't stand greens.I brought in 2oz of snow peas (just enough for a stir fry) I harvested 12.9oz of tomatoes:

 

1oz of jalapeno - small but tasty!

6.2oz of assorted green beans

3oz of Limas

11.4oz of okra. All this totaled just over 2.5 pounds of produce. Not bad considering it was completely neglected for a full week.

Let's see - what else? Ah, yes I used my Galeuse d'eysine

It was oh so tasty. I put 4 cups of puree in the freezer, ate 2 cups while I was preparing the puree and used another 4 cups for assorted things. A side dish and a pumpkin log mainly. It was a little stringy and a bit more watery than I prefer but the taste was really good. Next up is that beautiful Jarrahdale that has been waiting for me for so long. I think this weekend it will meet it's final match. Besides with no other storage for then the squash have all been decorating my house. Now that Christmas is near it's time for them to disappear to make way for reindeer!

So that left me with my final seed saving for the Bumpkin. I've got about 50 seeds I'm willing to trade. I'll have some more from the Jarrahdale as well next week.

So I was nervous about leaving my garden. It would seem that I was nervous for naught, but it isn't true. I came back and my squash plants were GONE> Not diseased, not wilted or withering. Nope. Just gone. Disintegrated. It's the strangest thing. Unfortunately it left my last pumpkins that were waiting to mature bare to the sun. I'm not at all happy about this. I didn't save the last pie pumpkin as I had at minimum one good one that should have matured nicely. Boy was I wrong. Now it's heading for the compost pile and I'm going to have to use my jarrahdale for my Christmas pies and muffins. Not what I planned but it's good that I still can use a fresh pumpkin I suppose. Most of my other plants made it through just fine without me. My blueberries are brown and withered as well as the pomegranate. Should have told the sitter to water them because the times sprinkler wont reach them. I think they should recover well enough. I sure hope so!

Linking in to Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions. Come on over and see what's on the menu being harvested or how people are using their harvests!

Black Friday!

Ah, Black Friday. The rush - the thrill of the hunt.

Wanna know what I found?

SEEDS! Wonderful seeds for 10 CENTS a pack! I'm shocked that I was able to refrain from buying every seed pack there, but the things I don't eat I couldn't see buying. Too bad there wasn't more to be had in the first place but SO not complaining. I'm celebrating this find! I also got a 3 cup measuring bowl for a buck. LOL Ah, the things that set my heart a pitter patter. :-D

Harvest Monday 11.22.10

A wee bit late- actually a week  but I figure I'd put it here for posterity sake. I know next year I'll be thinking oh, what was it I harvested this month last year - and here it will be. :-)

Excuse the pics, and the lateness. I didn't really harvest much at all. I took a large amount of beans and other plants out over last weekend so it's a light harvest. A handful of green beans and a handful of snow peas is about it.

Oh yeah - and LIMAS! YUMMO!

Certainly leaves a bit to be desired but this is November after all. 

EEEK!

What?! You thought I left already, didn't you? Guess again! I am leaving soon though. I must be tortured for yet another business day.
But today the coconut telegraph is wired - the bird is the word, man! Word is coming down that our property is holding an impressively large herd this year. Top that with a record number of piglets born to the wild sows and you got - well you got 5 people REALLY excited about putting in a alot of work and a lot of long hours in the stands.

Last year this large record holding old old buck was living with the herd on our land:

Yes, that IS a record holding buck - we are talking ALABAMA here - not Kansas, sheesh!
Anywho - Some unknwon (not local land owning) hunter (read:TOURIST) took my buck. He was dubbed 50 cent - you know 'cuz it's a picture of only 1/2 a buck... *snicker* yeah well dry as it may be it's MY sense of humor. Check out that gnarly notch out of his ear. kewl... I'm really hopin' and a prayin' that this bucks obviously wonderful genes now live in the new years generation. I'm anxious to see this seasons yearlings to see if any of them have picked up the traits he carried. He was massively muscled, extremely fit and we could use a few racks like that around our place. Are we hunters? To a degree but when it comes to deer we are herd managers. We pick and choose very carefully what till stay and what will be taken. Barren 2 and 3 year old does must go to make way for the furtile.

It's hard to sit at work knowing full well that there is so much to be done.

Harvest Monday - 11/15/10

Linking in with Daphne for Harvest Monday!!! Head on over and check it out people are still harvesting and lots of people are using there summer harvests!
Apparently I fell down on the job a little this weekend. I'm missing 2 harvests. Nothing major though. Here is what I did take pictures of, including my first pea of the year. Last year my peas petered out long before I could harvest. So far I am standing at a whopping 21 peas. WHOOT - go me. HAHAH!

Poblanos, lemon hot peppers, snow peas, and snap beans in the first - the first miracle pea of the season in the second picture. 

I also harvested the last of the black beans. (Not shown) I pulled those plants as I harvested. Some of the older grean beans (trofeo and contender) were pulled. They are only giving these teeny tiny beans -nothing was growing any more than 2 inches or so. They were put out of their misery accordingly. I figure after 2 weeks if the pods dont grow the plant is too far gone to produce further. The blank area you see in the bed is where the plants stood. I did replant only 1 small patch of cut and come again lettuce you can see there. This bed is destined to be raised another 4 inches by the end of the year.

I'm still getting okra in just fine, but they did get cut back quite drastically this weekend as well. The harvest will be much smaller now. I've actually stopped blanching and freezing it out of sheer laziness so hopefully this will allow me to eat it fresh as it comes in.

I raised one of the beds this weekend. The main garden consists of 6 beds, and it was the smallest of the ones to be raised. Chances are I wont be able to complete the second bed this week - but I'm hopeful. It's always so much easier to break these large tasks into smaller sections to be completed. It keeps the whole operation running smoothly and it doesn't seem so much like the back breaking work that it can be.

I wont see you next Monday - I'll be on a short hiatus. But, I'll be back-  I guarantee!

'Till next time!

Barbie~

Green Machine

Well today should be interesting. This is what today will bring:

A SHINY NEW TOY!!!!!



Oddly enough I'm all kinds of excited about it. It will make it easier for a lot of chores that need done. It has a towing capacity of 1100 pounds so to tow bush hog will be easier to use, plus the little trailer we have will make is super easy to haul the hog food out to the back of the property. No more having to have a second person ride in the back to keep things stacked up and hanging on. LOL. Most of all - it is MINE all mine. No financing, no bank to answer to, no asking to borrow someone elses UTV to get things done. WHOOT! Now ask me if I still feel this way next week after hauling it 8 hours up to the property in Alabama. heheh. Oh there is another perk. No TV, no internet, no phone service so this really will be a TOY there! Something to do, fun to be had. Service vehicle yes but  toy for sure!

Darkness.

And then it dawns on me. I’m crouched down with a flashlight in hand and it’s flickering on and off as the batteries are fading. I’ve smacked it around and jiggled it but like it or not it won’t work much longer. See, green beans were requested as a side dish on the way home from work. And as I stumble over the hose laying like a snake in waiting to strike as I pass - it dawns on me….THIS is why I don’t usually garden in the fall. Because I leave in total darkness and I return in total darkness.

Nevertheless I WILL prevail this year. At least for a little bit longer. I’ll have to formulate a plan that will allow me to only tend my garden weekly but as temps steadily decline the plants will need less intervention. The plants will not set as much nor as often and the weeds shouldn’t go insane in just 5 days, right? I feel incredibly guilty leaving what is ready  to be harvested hanging on the plants for that long, I really do. Actually it feels somewhat like dropping the kids off at the grandma’s for a week when I am not leaving town. I am hoping that this goes well if nothing else for a learning experience that will leave me better educated for next fall’s gardens.

So for now I’m trying to rush home at least one day a week to beat the sunset and be able to tend my veggies, and doing most of the work on Saturday or Sunday. Mr. Garden fairy- please don’t let the caterpillars go rampant on my ‘maters. I only have 4 bushes left!

This weekend it’s me and the dirt. Well, actually it’s a wedding and loading a trailer and picking up the newest toy PLUS 10 bags of humus and that isn’t nearly enough but it will get part of my project under way. I’m thrilled I will have dirt under my nails again soon, it just feels right.

 

‘Till next time!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday! 11/8/10

Guess what today is? It's HARVEST MONDAY!!!! (This akin to none other than PIGS IN SPACE!!!!) 

Anywho.....This week brought plenty but the weather has changed dramatically. We've had record low temps all week and some areas near us got frost. My bell peppers got hit really hard and the last of those peppers shriveled before they could be saved. :-( Some of the beans have also commited suicide. It looks like only a couple more weeks before things dwindle down. I left the tabasco peppers on the plant this week. I didn't want to deal with finding them a home or finding a way to use them. Maybe it will encourage the plant to quit producing quite so many peppers!? I hope anyway. I love the little peppers but they are too hot to use in any large quantities. Heck 6 little drops of my homemade sauce is enough for a whole batch of salsa! LOL. The lemon peppers and such are more my speed. Their heat is more like a small Jalepeno.

LOOK! New for the week - a SNOW PEA! Well total of about 6 but this one actually made it inside to have it's picture taken for you. :-)

Also new to the table this week are my black beans. They had a really rough start this season. The cut worms destroyed about 80 plants. Left me with only a dozen. I'm pulling 5-10 beans each trip out to the garden so in a week I'll have enough to have a meal for all five of us. LOL

The Okra and lemons, beans and radishes continue to dribble in.

My trunk is currently stuffed with 10 bags of humus. The garden is due to be raised and lack of a pick'emup truck leaves me wishing for one. We've always had one until the twinkers came along. Too hard to fit a teenager and two little in the back seat when I can't pick them up to put them in. Now that they are older we are considering our options. Instead of a new sedan being our next vehicle (to cut down on commuting costs and footprint) it may be a big ole truck like we're accustomed to. Then after it's paid off we'll get the Eco-friendly smaller sedan. Besides that will be right about the time Troy will be driving. Perfect excuse to hand over the keys to our 1997 car that we can only use when we have 2 or fewer children with us. LOL.

So, the coming weekend will bring us a fancy smancy wedding to attend and a full days worth of work in the garden. We'll also be packin gup for a long trip. More on that later of course, but suffice to say we are looking to fill the freezer for the year! ;-)

OHOH! And before I forget linking into Daphne's our wonderful hostess for Harvest Monday - come on over and join the fun. See what others are harvesting or how they are using their havests!

'Till next time!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday! 11/1/10

Oh My Goodness. This year is not just flying by it's like - supersonic! We took a look at the family calendar yesterday and can I tell you that there is not one week wtihout some type of appointment for one of us, and not one single weekend when there isn't SOMETHING planned. Most weekends both days are planned. It means I'm out in the garden less right now. THat is good and bad in it's own ways. Less obsessing over the spots that need filled, the work that can't be done until the first frost and More enjoying of the harvest and harder work when I do get out there.

Here's my harvest for the week! THanks to Daphne for hosting Harvest Mondays - get over there and check out all the harvest from all over!

This is my harvest on Halloween! THe pumpkin vine died completely. I left the pumpkin for 1 additional day and then took my baby in and cleaned up the yard. It was actually harvested on 10/30 rather than 10/31 but that was my girls birthday party day so I was glad to get the dead vines out of the playground and reclaim the space. It also meant that it held over for it's picture with the 10/31 harvest. :-D It did at least start turning orange and will make a nice decoration for a few weeks before I cut it open to see if all that effort trying to keep it alive was worth it.
A couple people have asked what type of pumpkin it is and I'm going to tell you! Yes I am! Its....Iduuno. THAT's RIGHT! Iduuno! This pumpkin either hitched a ride in with my Jarrahdales. pie pumpkins or wtih my Jack O lanterns! It has characteristics of none of them. Definately without a doubt not even related to a Jarrahdale, possibly a crossed Jack O Lantern or Pie but certainly not what I thought I'd planted. Oddly enough I don't even care. Much like the 'determinate' tomato that is towering well over 6' and still growing as long as it gives me something - it's all good!

So adding to the harvest this week- Lemon hot peppers, Jalepenos, a sickly tiny butternut squash(the only one!) some black beans and not pictured yet again the lemons and limes used right off the tree.

I'm more than thrilled with this weeks harvest. The beans are delectable and the family is requesting more and more. The garden I am happy to report is glad to oblige. ;-)

'Till next time
Barbie~