First frost and freeze

Tonight we should have our first frost and freeze, and tomorrow we should have a hard freeze. I usually subtract 5 degrees from the predicted Calhoun temps for planning. We haven't gone below 45 yet, and suddenly we are looking at 31 or 32 for tonight and 26 or 27 tomorrow. We skipped the low 40's and thirties altogether!

I just came in from picking the last of the beans and tomatoes. I kept about 4 tomato plants alive and kicking until frost, bringing in the first, and last, green tomatoes just now. I got enough Kentucky Wonder pole beans for a meal. Those beans have been producing since the first week of June! A Wonder indeed!

I wish I had a few more weeks for okra as the plants still have flowers and plenty of life even at 7 feet tall. I'll use up the last peppers with tacos and beans tonight, and I might make some fresh salsa with the last tomatoes. It's all good. I finally grew enough beans to freeze and it should last until next summer...I hope. I'm going to leave the remaining butternuts out there for tonight, and bring them in tomorrow. I've never left anything out after frost, so this is a bit scary for me. I usually use squashes and never have any left to leave out, but this year, I have over 30 pounds of squash in storage already, so the remaining 10 pounds or so is an experiment that should be successful since most folks do leave the squashes until after the first frost.

I still have a 32 ft row of peas, half English and half snow peas, but neither is doing well. I've harvested some English peas, but the snow peas are slow. I have some kale to try, and a few plants of collards, cabbage, broccoli, and yes, Brussels sprouts, but nothing is even close to being ready. I may lose most of it after this weekend.

The springs are still running in the garden making it a mucky mess, and a new one made a small sinkhole(about fist sized) less than a foot away from my Mars Seedless grapevine that is 2 years old. Either those grapes will be extra juicy or the vine will be diseased and die. Time will tell. Anyway, I've been moving the carpet strips around just to be able to walk enough to harvest the beans and such. The amount of water we have this year is amazing.

I also stripped the leaves of my Malabar spinach vine, pulled two radishes, and stripped the leaves of a lemon verbena. All the porch and deck plants are in the greenhouse and ready for winter.

I split a fresh load of dry wood this morning, and we currently have the first fire of the season in the woodstove. My daughter and granddaughter are visiting. Life is good.

Late Summer Garden Report

I'm still pulling in 5-10 pounds of tomatoes every other day, but blight or magnesium deficiency is taking a toll here. The tomatoes probably have a few more weeks of life. I've got enough tomatoes, juice, and sauce canned, but I think I still need more pizza sauce. I'm thinking of perhaps trying to make some soup as well.

I'm still picking about 2 quarts of green beans a day, freezing most of it now. The Kentucky Wonder pole beans and the Blue Lake bush beans are going crazy, and I expect to still be in beans a month from now. The red field peas that I planted turned out to be half runner types, and the 10x10 area is now about 20x20 and the runners are taking over like kudzu. They've covered my bush cherries, and are threatening the pole beans. I've picked dry pods as I see them, but 98% of the crop is still on the vine. Interestingly, at least to me, the peas look more like what I would call white acre peas than the red field peas I planted. They are small and white. Odd thing.

Round one of sweetcorn was a disaster, so we replanted a short season sweetcorn in mid-summer. We are about a week from eating corn again, but I don't want to count my ears before they are picked. On this farm, anything can happen to corn, and usually does. The Bloody Butcher corn lodged from a downburst in a thunderstorm, but much of it is still alive, even if it is laying over. I decided to leave it alone as when I tried to stand the stalks upright, they broke. I have no clue as to how this will affect pollination. It was planted June 12, so it has a few more weeks as well. My goal for the BB is to get a few ears for seed, one or two ears to roast, and enough to grind for 1 cup of corn meal. It seems like a lot to ask out of what I have in the garden. Can anyone tell me how much corn-how many ears or pounds, does it take to make a cup of corn meal?

I'm nursing along a watermelon(GA Rattlesnake), but it just isn't growing the way I'd like. It is more round than oblong. Another odd thing. I've got squash everywhere, quite a few butternuts still out there(I already harvested 30# or so) as well as acorn squashes. The squash vines are growing on the deer netting, and it looks funny to see acorn squash hanging 8 feet in the air. A few of the hanging squashes have holes bored into them, as if some kind of wasp or squash borer drilled hole in the fruit. I took a few pictures for the blog. The summer squashes are done and gone. Peppers are still producing, and I've canned or dried as much as possible: Anaheims, serranos, banana peppers, poblano(ancho), etc. I've also made homemade salsa, of course. The okra is just starting to really come in strong. I've pickled a few jars of it, and will pickle more. I have taken a liking to pickled okra. Yum! I have sweet potato vines everywhere and expect to get 30-50 pounds of sweet potatoes next month. I never did harvest my Yukon Golds, but yesterday I went out with that intention and found a bunch of new potatoes, beautiful little yellow golf ball sized things. I decided to leave them as seed.

I had to reorganize the shelves and such to make room for everything I've canned so far. I made grape jelly and elderberry jam, elderberry elixir, horehound cough syrup, blackberry jam, fig preserves, and blueberry jam. We harvested over 50 pounds of apples a bit early to keep the deer from getting them, and I've made applesauce and apple chips. I have discovered that if you dehydrate the peelings and mix them with blackberry leaves, blueberry leaves and dried huckleberries and blueberries, it makes a great tea, so I have made a few jars of that to give as gifts. I froze about 5 gallons of blueberries, and gave that many away. We did not have any peaches, pears, cherries, or plums this year, but I still have peaches in the freezer from last year, which was a banner year.

I've planted lettuce for the Fall, but a rabbit mowed it down in one day, so I will have to replant. All the neighbors have noted that the rabbit population is exploding, so it makes me wonder if folks have killed too many snakes or too many coyotes. I have no idea of how a rabbit got inside my garden fence unless the gate was left open just long enough for him to get in, eat my lettuce and my only honeydew melon, and get out. I've also got a few broccoli plants in the ground, some Osaka Purple mustard, several brussel sprouts in the ground, a small patch of kale(I've never tried it so this is a grand experiment in taste) a couple of 15 ft rows of collards, a few cabbage plants, a 32 ft row of intensively planted snowpeas and English peas(both sides of the panel are planted, 16 ft of English peas and 16 ft of snow peas. I have both turnips and turnip greens, and have yet to plant spinach. I also need to decide where I will plant my garlic next year. I need to get busy with all that. I have also replanted carrots, radishes, and beets in my carrot bed. The carrots I planted in the ground did not germinate, but the board trick worked well in the raised bed and the carrot greens are about 5 inches tall.

The herb garden has been very productive this year, too. I've made several batches of pesto and froze that, too. I've harvested enough kitchen herbs like thyme and oregano to fill several quart jars, and I still have herbs drying in the kitchen. You might be a redneck if you hang your herbs to dry on your antler chandelier in the kitchen. :) Of course, I also use window screens and my truck as a drying oven, as well as two dehydrators, which are running right now(more apple chips today, onions tomorrow) Seriously, I've harvested and dried oregano, marjoram, thyme, sage, tarragon, savory, fennel, dill, lemon balm, chocolate mint, peppermint, 3 kinds of basil, nasturtiums, chives, violets, dandelion flowers, passionflowers, and horehound. I dried all but maybe 15 bulbs of garlic, of which I'm using fresh in canning and cooking. The echinacea did well, so I will be able to harvest that in a few years, too. This year, I planted beans in the herb bed to fill the gaps. Next year, we've decided that the herb bed will support chili peppers quite nicely.

The big plan for this Fall is to plant and grow more asparagus. We have decided to plant a 3x50 ft wide row of asparagus crowns as the little patch I have is 10 years old and just isn't enough now that Skyguy has decided he likes asparagus, too. If will take a lot of ground prep and double digging, as well as mulch to make this happen. Earlier this year, I planted a 8x15 area with Jerusalem artichokes-a gift from Rob(thanks again!)-and they are 9 feet tall and beautiful right now. The blooms are awesome. I'm not sure what the protocol is on digging the chokes, but I figure I will give them a few years, like I would asparagus, before I try to dig anything. I'm super psyched about that.

This year's garden has been the largest garden I've ever planted. I've tried to keep something going all the time. I will continue to do that, but I'm afraid that this might be my last big garden for a while. There is no way that I could have this size garden working full time. It saddens me. It is like giving up a part of myself. I guess I've been spoiled after a year at home. We all have to sacrifice I suppose. This is probably my last extensive garden update before I start working full time. :(

Heal Thyself

I am back from the brink of Viral Hell and I refuse to worship the Porcelain God ever again. :) I am healed.

Last Saturday at lunch, quite suddenly, just after I blogged/bragged about my mullein oil cure in fact, I got a headache and felt nauseous. I went outside to try to throw up, but could not. Thinking that I just needed to eat lunch, I went and got some soup from the pantry, and as I reentered the kitchen with the soup, I passed out cold in the floor. Apparently it was the sudden onset of a gastrointestinal virus and I passed out from a fever spike. It's never happened to me before that I can recall, but I have no idea of why I passed out. I did not even see it coming; it was as if someone clobbered me with a wrench: Lights out. Some time went by, I climbed into bed and just laid there. Late that afternoon when Skyguy came home, he took my temperature and it was 103, which is super high for me since my normal is 96.7(thyroid issues). I was really sick for a while. The GI distress started on Sunday morning with diarrhea, but by this time, my temperature had dropped to 99 and hovered between 99 and 100 all week until last night, when it rose to 101. Yesterday morning I decided to called the doctor to make an appointment. They told me that this GI flu is going around and they have one patient who has been fighting it for 16 days. The nurse I spoke with shared that she personally had this wicked virus for 7 days, but did not feel 'well' for two additional weeks. They just told me to stay hydrated-no visit needed. So there I was on Day 5 of a beastly illness with no end in sight. The headaches, fever, and body aches were relentless, as is typical with the flu. I lost 15 pounds and because of the infection I could not take my RA meds for the second week in a row. It was frustrating because I have so much to do, including two doctors appointments and a formal job offer luncheon to attend. The thought of possibly being sick next week was not only depressing, but I knew that would mean missing a third week of my RA meds, and that is a serious thing. Desperate times call for desperate actions.

What kind of medicine woman would I be if I didn't take my own meds, right? To be honest, I was so sick Saturday through Tuesday that I did not even think about anything, let alone meds. After all, I've been brainwashed that the only drugs for flu are Tamiflu and a perhaps a few others that should be taken in the first 48 hours of illness. So it wasn't until my best friend Ava, in a phone call, reminded me that I had just made an elixir for this very illness and I should take it. Recall my blog post from last week where Ava and I canned all day and made and Elderberry Elixir. It looks red in the picture, but it is purple in reality, so much so that it looks like grape juice. So Wednesday morning, with a fever of 99.8, after I hung up from the doctor, I found an eyedropper and dipped into the elixir. It took some serious guts as you must remember that this Elixir is brandy based, and brandy is not exactly what one thinks of five days into a gastrointestinal virus at ten in the morning on an empty stomach. It was akin to the old 'hair of the dog' cure, but I held it down. Two hours later, my fever rose to 100.3, and I took another dose. I took about half a teaspoon of this Elixir every two hours or so, and throughout the afternoon and evening my temperature crept up, but I actually felt better. I did not feel like I had a fever of 101, I felt almost normal last night. It was very, very odd. This morning was Day 6 of the virus and my temp was 97 degrees when I woke up. I got up, poured a cup of Joe, and kissed that pint jar of Elixir next to the coffee pot. I am cured. All day long I've had no fever and no GI symptoms. My temperature has been hovering between 97 and 98, which is still above normal for me, so I have continued the elixir regime, but I feel great.

The short story is that I, the sickly one, the one with a weakened immune system, the one who usually keeps a 24 hour bug for a week, kicked ass on a wickedly evil 7-16 day GI virus. How did that happen?

It happened because of elderberries and the magic of everyday, easily accessible medicines, knowledgebases that are almost lost, but that thankfully, a few souls like Kiva are preserving. I feel such a kinship with this woman; I should hope to have her knowledge if only in my dreams. She is my new hero. I wrote to thank her as I like giving credit where credit is due.
http://bearmedicineherbals.com/

Canning, Drying, Putting By

This is what my kitchen table looks like recently, well, presently. It is quite the mess, but that is not even half the story. I've got the not quite ripe toms ripening, a pineapple for grilling, some bottled hot pepper oil, a few pimentos and Anaheims, an Avocado for salad, tomato seed saving jars, a chair full of books and jellies for Ava, and a ziplock bag for picking beans and stuff.

My best friend is an morning person. If she were a robin, there would be no more earthworms for the other birds. Ava works the way 75% of the world works, she is on a dawn to dusk schedule. By contrast, I am not a morning person. I've got plenty of reasons/excuses, but suffice it to say that I go to be late and sleep till almost noon. It is hard for me to get to sleep, but it would take a nuclear weapon to wake me up. I can get up, but it is difficult and doesn't feel natural at all. Thank God I have Ava to call me and put a boot to my butt to get me out of bed in the summer, because otherwise I'd be working solely in the heat of the afternoon.

Two days ago, Ava and I, partners in crime, went foraging for elderberries and harvested quite a few. We got a few other things, too, rocks, ornamental grasses and the like, stuff from old homesteads and roadsides. Today, we made jam, jelly, and a special elixir.

I have about 2 quarts of elderberries drying on a large window screen in my spare bedroom. They will be for tea or muffins or bread or whatever I decide to put them in. I took a pint of fresh berries and the first thing we made this morning was an Elixir to be taken as medicine in the event of the flu or swine flu or whatever virus comes down the pike. It was super simple. I mashed some berries with the back of a spoon, put them in my pint jar, squirted the juice of a lemon in there, and made a mixture of 2 parts brandy to one part honey, of which I poured that over the macerated elderberries. I did not seal it or anything. Alcohol and honey keep almost indefinitely. This Elderberry Elixir should be used by the dropperful. I got the recipe and instructions from this article.
http://www.wellsphere.com/complementary-alternative-medicine-article/into-the-forest-exploring-elderberry/373317
Secondly, we cooked down 2 quarts of elderberries using the vinegar recipe in the BBB. I wasn't satisfied with the thinness of the jam, so I decided to add half a pack of pectin. It tastes great, but the jam did not set well, so I think I will rework this batch, adding another box of pectin, OR maybe I will just strain it and make syrup. I dunno.

After the elderberries were done, we started on making grape jelly. This was my first foray into jelly making, but it won't be my last. About 3 years ago, I planted a Catawba grape in my garden, and this year, I got almost 5 pounds of grapes from the vine. I was psyched. I planted this variety specifically for juice and jelly, Concord likes NE, Catawba likes the South. It is very Concord like in appearance and use. Anyway, this turned out wonderful-it was so good, I was licking all the utensils, even the plate I sat the spoon on. I saved a swig of juice for Skyguy to try, and he loved it, so the Catawbas are definitely a valuable crop now. I'd like to get 10 pounds from that vine next year.

After the now purple kitchen was cleaned up, thanks to Ava who gave me a break from washing dishes, we decided to finish another project that I had been working on. Ava was fired up and worked like a dog. She's ten years my junior and worked circles around me today and I actually felt a bit old. In my own defense, I've been dealing with this vertigo like dizziness for a couple of days, along with a low grade fever and an ear ache. Obviously, it is an ear infection, else I have some kind of foreign object or bug inside my ear! During allergy season, I sometimes have ear problems, and if I don't stay on top of it, it just gets worse. Additionally, I've had a lot of stress in my life in recent weeks, and that has caused a psoriasis flare AND and RA flare. Today was the first day my jaw(from TMJ) was back properly aligned....but I digress. The point is, that I feel old and Ava was working circles around me. I had started making hot pepper oil this week and had the oil infusing in a large dutch oven inside of a black gas grill. I usually do the straining with coffee filters, but Ava came up with the idea to use the other jelly bag. What a timesaver! So, that project was finished quickly as I already had the bottles ready to go.

After Ava left-I decided that I needed to toss the elderberry waste and hope that I get a tree or two to come up on my property. Thinking 'full sun-moisture', I walked my property and tossed out seeds and seed heads in certain locations. JohnnyAppleseed reborn as Beverly Elderberry. Behind the house, where our greywater is treated(by canna, jewel weed, privet,elephant ears, and now elderberry), I happened to look back over towards the house to the fig trees and see another tree full of golden and purple figs. Ava and I had just picked them a few days ago and she made fig preserves from them. Since I wasn't up for more canning today, I grabbed a bowl and just started picking figs. I sneered at the nearby cardinal family that were yammering on at me while I picked. I came in, removed the stems, and sliced them in half vertically. They are now on the dehydrator. After a few hours of drying, I lightly sprinkled each fig with confectioner's sugar, like it really needed that, but it sure tastes good! So far so good. I'm hoping that I can substitute these dried figs for dates in my date bread recipe. If anyone knows what kind of fig these might be, I'd like to know. I cut one of these open and made an inset so you can see the inside. The quarter, of course, shows scale of the whole figs. The inset, sliced fig, is the one on the left. Anyway, the trees are 40+ years old. I've cut them down to the ground before, and they came back just as strong. I will be hard pruning them again this year. They are on a slope and the trees are taller than the house and it is difficult to harvest. Harvesting will be easier and safer if the trees are smaller.

So then, I realized that I had not been out to the garden today, so I grabbed a few bags and buckets and headed out there. I moved my mother hen and her chicks(only 2) to the chicken tractor, and cleaned up the mess out there where I had them sequestered. There is always some distraction around here first the figs, then chickens,,,,at any rate, I began picking tomatoes and tomorrow I will be canning tomatoes again. It seems to work out that every third day I can tomatoes. This time, I am drying some, along with the figs, the tomatoes are for pizza and whatnot, and will be making a few more jars of stewed toms. There are quite a few slicers in this batch, so I may end up cooking it into sauce, but we will see.

So while I was out there picking tomatoes, I happened to notice more beans that needed to be picked. I realized it had been a few days, so I started picking beans, too. Another gallon, and they are in a lull of sorts, but the flowers are picking up again, so it won't be long until I have more than I know what to do with.

Speaking of that, I am starting to get more and more okra. Skyguy wants fried okra, but I want to pickle it. I tried it for the first time and OMG, I kept eating it and eating it. Okra is so good for lowering cholesterol, and I know the vinegar is healthy. Thanks to my neighbors, Pat and Crystal for bringing me a jar of this wonderful stuff. I'm now addicted! I traded them a bottle of hot pepper oil...good trade, I think.

So after picking tomatoes and beans, and snacking on pickled okra, I blanched and froze the beans, did some laundry, took a shower, and called it a night. Skyguy cooked THE best dinner tonight. It was a Southwestern style grilled chicken salad with our cherry toms, scallions, avocado, romaine, feta, pine nuts, and the world's best lime and olive oil dressing. This salad was to die for!!

'Tis canning season. Tomorrow, we will be reworking some apple jelly and fig preserves that did not jel well. I should probably take my elderberries down there and rework them, too. We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, I'll be dreaming of pickled okra and stewed tomatoes!

Onward

What to write about....what to say...
I have lots to say about the things going on in the world, but since I can't change any of those things, there is no use in writing about it, except to say that contrary to what Nancy Pelosi says, I am one of the most patriotic people I know, and it is my right and duty to protest what I feel is a misstep in healthcare legislation.

I've been busy the last week or so, mostly gardening and canning, but also house cleaning and running errands. I may go back to work soon, and I feel unprepared with a zillion loose ends here that need tying. I really thought I would have heard something by now, and I really hate waiting.

The stress of it all has sparked an RA flare-up, and every joint in my body hurts and is stiff. I keep going, else I will be like the tin man and become stiff. When my RA flares like this, I end up totally exhausted because I don't want to sit down at all. It is too hard to get up. So, I channel the Energizer Bunny and head to the garden. I'm no speed demon, but I can get things done. Today, I planted English peas, snow peas, carrots, spinach, radishes, lettuce, and onions. I transplanted Brussel sprouts. Tomorrow, I'll finish sowing my brassicas: broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collards, and cabbage. The seedlings of broccoli and cauliflower are not ready for transplanting yet. Skyguy planted more sweet corn a few days ago. It will be a close call on getting it in before the first frost. In the last week, I've also planted more butternut squashes and a few cukes. Those squashes store really well, so if I can put a few in boxes, I won't be too hungry this winter. You just never know what the future holds with the economy teetering on the edge of disaster. One trucker's strike (Hi Trevor!) or a hurricane which disrupts the gasoline flow again, and the stores will be bare within a few weeks. If we all become home-bound due to swine flu, I'll be glad that I can make a nice, velvety butternut soup to comfort me.

About every three days or so, I can small batches of tomatoes. Because my stove doesn't get that hot anymore, and because I am too lazy to fire up the outdoor propane burner just yet, I've been hot water bath canning in my large, flat-bottomed Dutch oven. I can process 4 pints or 3 quart jars, about half as much as the rippled-bottom canning kettle. Because the Dutch oven heats quickly and more efficiently than the ripple bottom kettle, I can process two batches in the same time as one kettle full, so it doesn't slow me down much. I've canned stewed tomatoes, pizza sauce, plain tomato sauce, and tomato juice. The mixture of this year's tomato varieties has resulted in a very tasty sweet sauce, but the pH is right at 4.0, so it is safe to can. Yeah, the chemist tests sauce pH with pH paper strips-what can I say.

I've never grown sweet peppers. I do not like bell peppers, but I just love chili peppers and devote my garden space to the chilis. However, someone gave us a few banana peppers and they are pretty darn good. They smell like the little hot peppers you get with your Papa Johns pizza(I call those pepperoncini), but they are not hot at all. It is the strangest thing because they smell hot but don't taste hot. They are large, some are 6 inches long, and they look waxy like Hungarian Wax Chilis. I'm not quite sure what to do with them. Should I slice them and pickle them as pepper rings, or should I cut them into strips and maybe freeze them for use on pizzas??? Decisions, decisions. I may have to save the seeds from these-they are definitely interesting and not what I am used to eating. I wonder if they are really supposed to be hotter, but due to some soil condition or some other variable, they are super mild? Could that be?

Change of subject...
Snakes are crawling here in valley. Skyguy hit a big timber rattler on the way home from work a few days ago. He drove on home, picked me up, and we went back up the road to get a better look. That puppy had 11 rattles and a button and was as large as my arm. There was another dead snake on the road near here that was almost as large as the one Skyguy hit and killed. There seems to be a lot of snakes this year, but perhaps it is just that the neighbor's logging and tree thinning has stirred them up. The machinery and logging is in an area known for legendary-sized rattlesnakes. Habitat destruction is real and local.

Midsummer Garden Happenings

It's been a few weeks since I gave a garden update, and now I have to subject you to a really long post. I apologize. I'll try to get some pics up soon.

We've been quite busy around here with the garden, canning, dog training, etc. This past weekend, we also kept our granddaughter. I'm trying to take it easy and follow the doctor's orders, but it is hard. The sutures are gone, but I still have to elevate my foot 50% of the time, 30 minutes for every hour I am up. Worse still, I can't wear normal shoes yet and am still in the surgical shoe. The incision is healing nicely; there's a nice, raised, hard ridge at the site. The pain is really minimal, more in my pinky toe itself than in the joint for whatever reason. At least now I can take a shower, swim, etc. I've haven't done any heavy garden work, mostly picking beans and such. Skyguy has been picking veggies, watering, monitoring for bugs, staking tomatoes, etc. He tilled a patch and planted more okra, too. I'm really quite impressed with his gardening.
Anyway, I just want to ride my bike. I've gained back about 12 pounds of what I lost, and I am not happy about it. I really should have dieted, but dang, when you are laid up, you get bored, and boredom leads to eating!

Bed 1 is a hodgepodge of plants. I did not get cages around my tomatoes early, so they, like kudzu, have sprawled over the bed and they are taking over! I have about 3 romas and a serrano pepper, a poblano pepper, butternut squash, two eggplants and probably something else in that bed that is lost under the vines. At the east end of that bed, there are a few blue lake bean seeds that have not germinated. That raised bed is next to the chicken run, and in the foot wide space between the bed and the run I've planted sorghum which is about 12 feet tall and almost mature. I've already bend some of the canes over into the chicken run to feed the chooks on the fly.

Bed 2 just has dill in it right now after I pulled up and harvested all of the cauliflower that was in it previously. It was not a good year for cauliflower, but I did get a few meals out of it. I'll replant soon.

Bed 3 has a couple of toms, a butternut squash, and blue lake bush beans that are just coming up. There is a tomatillo volunteer and two Anaheim peppers.

There is nothing in bed 4. I'm hoping it will be ready to plant in the Spring.

Bed 5 has one very large and sprawling yellow crookneck squash and some Tendercrop green beans that are just starting to flower.

Bed 6 is empty and won't be planted until late 2010

Now, for the in ground plants:
Peanuts: I only had about 20% germination, but I left them alone hoping to at least get enough nuts to roast for a snack. If I am lucky, I might get enough for one jar of peanut butter. I had hoped to get enough for 4 jars, but a vole or mouse or something ate the nuts. They are just now flowering, so it will be a while before I can use that space.

I have another large crookneck squash in the ground, as well as a zucchini, and all of my squashes, both winter and summer, are doing great. I've been diligently killing squash bug eggs and it is paying off. For winter squashes I have planted butternut and acorn squashes inside and outside the garden fence in various places. I'm hoping to fill up at least one laundry basket of each type. For the summer squashes, we grill them fresh, I freeze some, and I make squash
casseroles and freeze those. I also make squash bread from both zukes and yellow squash-no use wasting the big ones, I just grate them up and then make and freeze the bread. It is a banana bread recipe, but I sub 2 cups of grated squash for the bananas. I make loaf pans and muffins that I can freeze and eat later for breakfast and snack food.

We are starting to get some okra(Dwarf Lee is the variety) and we have just planted Clemson Spineless. Since it is Skyguys's first year in the garden, he wanted to grow what everyone else grows, so we have hybrid corn, a hybrid tomato, and the Clemson Spineless....

The strawberries are going like gangbusters, but they are a bit smaller than I would like. I think they need fertilizer and water. Even so, they are tasty and I'm picking a bit more than a pint a day. All 3 grapevines(Remailly seedless, Catawba, Mars seedless) have multiple clusters of grapes, and I've been picking blueberries for a week now. The blackberries are in the freezer already. It looks to be a good apple year, but I don't see but a few pears and no plums. In hills
around the garden, in addition to the winter squashes, I have a few pickling cukes, a couple of Georgia rattlesnake watermelons, and scads of sweet potatoes. I hope to have a laundry basket of sweet potatoes as well.

I planted a 10x12 patch of small, teeny-tiny red field peas the way my friend James suggested. I scuffed up the ground, hand cast the peas, and covered them with waste hay. The peas came up great, and they still look great. It takes about 100 days for these peas, and I am right at Day 85. Next year, I'll grow more peas and black beans this way.

I've got 3 areas of corn. The first group was sweet corn planted just after Easter. This corn really has not produced, tassled at only 2 feet tall. No one around here that planted corn early has any-it was a bad year for early corn-too much rain early on, I think. We got a few stunted ears which were delicious, but we only got a few meals instead of being able to load the freezer. However, as bad as the early corn was, the late corn was good. I had a beautiful stand of Bloody Butcher corn that was 6ft tall or more until late last week when a summer thunderstorm downburst flattened it. I'm crushed. I tried to stand it backup, but the canes just broke. I planted this corn deeper than usual, about 2 inches deep, just to prevent this problem, but to no avail. I'm hoping that there is enough corn left standing to at least regain my seed. Corn plot #3 is another plot of hybrid, Early and Often, that Skyguy planted in a dog kennel out behind the barn to keep the distance from the other corn and to protect it from the deer. It is doing well- about 2 feet tall now. This is not the first time I've lost corn to thunderstorms and lodging. I've planted deeper, I've hilled up around the plants..I've ruled out rootworms. I just don't know what else to do. Obviously, my garden spot, which is just a few hundred feet downwind of a ridge, is where the storms dump their downbursts. The storms are uplifted by the western side of the ridge, but once the storm crosses the ridge line, the mountain starts to break them up and in the process they dump wind in a downburst or straight lines. The ridge protects us from super cell storms, but this is the downside of it. Skyguy wants to try allowing the corn to grow up through cattle panel placed waste high, but I don't know. It seems rather silly-no one else does it, but, really, I'm ready to try odd things to save the corn. Maybe I should grow it in small plots and put posts on the corners and then run string around it and through it to support the stalks. Maybe growing it in hills would be better. At least with a 3 sisters style arrangement in a hill, I would not get the domino effect of toppling corn like I saw in the block. I'm open for suggestions. Help.

Sunday, I pulled up, peeled, blanched and froze carrots. I julienned some for salads and stirfries, and I used the small ends in some pickled jalapenos for color. I'm going to try and replant the tops, too. I need to now amend the 12 foot long bed and add some soil and in a few weeks I will replant more carrots. There are a few chard plants left in that bed, and I'll cut them back, too. In addition to more carrots, I'll plant some radishes and beets. Also next week, I'll move some cattle panels around and resow some snow peas, turnips, and English peas for the Fall.

Also on Sunday I canned some jalapeno peppers with some carrots. Soon, we will make cucumber pickles. I grew up with a certain kosher dill pickle recipe, but Skyguy wants to experiment to see if we can find something more crisp. We bought one of those Mrs. Wages mixes, and I'll make a pint plain, and then mix and match the ingredients to see what he will like and think works best. Some jars will have grape leaves, some will have garlic, some will have dill heads, some will have dill seed and weed, and some will have all of the above. I already know that the jars with everything in it will be my favorites, but he wasn't raised in a canning/gardening family and he is enjoying the experimentation of it all, so since we have plenty of cukes, why not? Some of the best discoveries in the world were accidents. Viagra did not help the angina of Welsh miners, but hey, we all know what is does help!

Beans...I've got a million beans, but because I was trying to get rid of old seeds, I have a little bit of a lot of things. Some were old and had poor germination, some just did not provide enough plants. Long story shorter, I haven't canned or frozen any beans yet, but we are eating good every night. I did give some away, too. We've planted the equivalent of a 100 ft row or more of blue lake bush beans and they are just now breaking ground so two months from now, I should be able to can beans. I'm still getting beans, but that should wane over the next few weeks. The wax beans are in a lull, the Roma II bush beans are waning, the KY wonder pole beans are hitting stride, the yard long beans are starting to flower, and the Royal Burgundy bush beans will be ready to pick within the week. It's a lot of beans.

And now, the tomatoes....finally, I am starting to get some ripe cherry toms. Some of the Romas are ripening, but only one of the slicing toms is getting ripe and that is Skyguy's Better Boy. However, in a week or so, definitely by two weeks, I will be canning and making tomato products. I expect to be doing that for the next month or so. I've started washing mason jars and getting everything ready. I washed and sterilized the Victorio strainer, a device I use to make the paste and sauces. It's a good thing. I don't even know how many tomato plants I have -more than 50- and probably 60% of them are paste types(Roma, Sausage, Oxheart, etc), 10% are cherry(Super Sweet 100 and Husky Red Cherry), and the rest are slicers/sandwich tomatoes (Brandywines, Caspian pinks, Mortgage Lifter, Abraham Lincoln etc.). I'll be making tomato sauce, tomato paste, tomato juice, V8 juice, pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, chili base, and a bit of salsa in addition to stewed toms. I still have some salsa from last year, but I might make a bit if I get overrun with peppers. I'd really rather dry the serranos as I use those in guacamole.
Speaking of guacamole, I've started about 7 or 8 avocado trees. I know I won't get avocados here, but hey, they make nice houseplants and I can always hope for a miracle. Who knows what global warming will do, right? There's got to be an upside to it, and if I could grow avocados, I'd be super happy!

It is time to plant and plan for the Fall crops, and I started that Saturday. I planted the following in those little peat pots to be transplanted later:

72 broccoli plants-Green Goliath-a new variety I am trying
25 cabbage plants-Danish Ballhead-seeds are from 2007-yikes
25 Brussel Sprouts-Catskill-it's the last time I'll try growing Brussel Sprouts..I mean it this time.
22 Red onions, with more to be planted in the ground in mid August

Next week, I'll plant Snow peas, English peas, radishes and carrots. The other big job I need to do is to dig potatoes. I have different varieties in multiple places that would amount to about a thirty foot row. I really hope that the Yukon Gold produced well.

Mid August, I'll plant more carrots collards, kale, beets, salad greens, spinach, turnips(both the root and the greens), Osaka purple mustard, and of course the brassicas and plants I sowed today will go to the ground. Neither of us have ever eaten kale, but I'm hoping it will be a green we can harvest all winter. Skyguy is the one who wants all of these Southern greens...I personally don't care for collards or turnips(the greens are okay though), and I like beet greens better than mustard, but we are trying to find things that we can harvest in the winter that we both like and that would be healthy for us. At some point after that, I will sow some Aquadulce Fava beans as a cover crop in the spot where I'll grow corn next year.

A month or so ago, I planted a seed packet of Artichokes. There were 8 seeds in the pack, and I got 7 plants to transplant size. Unfortunately, between the heat, the puppy, the chicken, and just bad luck, I only have one plant left. I'll be sowing more, I think. I've grown fond of artichoke hearts and perennial vegetables are king!

The other major garden venture that we have in the works is a plan to expand the asparagus bed. Now that Skyguy eats it, we need more, so I'll be tilling and double digging an area near the water line to the barn, along the outside of the garden fence-essentially a 50 foot double row. The water line presents a problem in the initial dig-I'll have to be super careful, but it should not hamper the asparagus' growth and the extra mulch feeding in the fall should help insulate the PVC water line from the cold.

So that's the plan!

Baking Day, Part II

My foot is good and swollen tonight after two days of standing in the kitchen baking. Today, I made 3 more pizza crusts, some cheese breadsticks (see picture), a zucchini nut bread and zucchini pecan muffins. I did not get around to making the saltines. The cream cheese pound cake I made is excellent, but the vanilla one is overcooked. I sliced off the crusts and have saved the guts of the cake. I'll freeze it for a special occasion, then make some type of tort dessert, layers of pound cake, berries, and whipped cream.

At any rate, I like batch cooking, especially batch baking. I find that if I know I have 2 dozen muffins, then I don't crave them. By baking my pizza crusts in advance, I can make pizza in less than 30 minutes for a quick dinner. I made my own pizza sauce, too. The bread machine does all the hard work, and in less than 3 hours, I have 5 crusts ready to load up with good food, a head start on 5 dinners. Other big advantages to batch cooking, in addition to simply saving time and for the convenience on a night when you are too tired to cook, is that you can have a ready meal when you are too sick to cook for yourself. I make and can homemade soups just for this purpose. Also, by baking cakes and making casseroles in advance, you just pull something out of the freezer to take to a neighbor's house in the event there is a death or they need help cooking, etc. It's a good thing.

Skyguy and I miscommunicated on dinner this evening. He was being sweet and brought home KFC, but I had already cooked spaghetti sauce with some grated squash added, not to mention the breadsticks. I suppose we will eat that tomorrow for dinner. I haven't had KFC in a while, mainly because we don't eat out much, and secondly because the local KFC has been closed for remodeling after a fire. It just reopened a few weeks ago. It has probably been a year since I ate KFC fried chicken, and maybe it is just me, but it wasn't good. The extra crispy crust wasn't crispy at all, nor did it have the flavor I expected. I don't know what kind of change they've made, but Harlan Sanders would roll over in his grave if he tasted that. My favorite is Church's Chicken, but there isn't a store near here. Bojangles will have to do, because I certainly don't want KFC again. I probably should just start frying it at home. I did pretty good on the last batch, but I just don't fry that much. I do love fried chicken though, and I know that I can do better than the crap we got from KFC tonight.

Skyguy also picked up a couple seed packets of bush beans since we had low germination on the Blue Lake and Contender beans from 2006. I think we have just enough time to get another batch of beans in before frost. We are getting beans, and this morning I finally picked enough to can, but I think I will freeze them instead. Hopefully, in a few months, we will still be eating beans from the Royal Burgundy and the Asparagus beans so I will be able to can the Blue Lakes I will plant tomorrow. Pressure canning is such a pain for me because my stove doesn't get hot enough and because pressure canners scare me. I usually do this on the propane burner outside, just in case of an explosion. I can do 7 quarts at a time, and canning like that, in the heat, just drags on and on. Blanching and freezing is much faster, and I actually have room in the freezer for a few quarts of beans. But, I've been trying to can more and freeze less, so that I can eliminate one of my freezers and save on the power bill and reduce my demand for energy in general. The other day I came across a list of things you can do to save money and energy, and I'd like to pass them on to you.

1. When you buy gasoline, make your purchase at night. At night, temperatures are cooler and that makes gasoline more dense. Since the pumps measure gas by volume, you will actually get more gas—it will be cheaper overall.

2. On long trips, keep your windows closed at high speeds—drag from open windows reduces a car’s fuel efficiency by 10 percent. If your truck gets 15 miles to the gallon, you could get 16.5 miles to the gallon. Over a year's time, the savings add up.

3. Cleaning 100 pounds of junk from your car will get you up to 2 percent more miles per gallon. That is like getting a free tank of gas over the span of a year.

4. If you are going to be baking at 350 degrees, and the oven is not packed full, wrap and bake some potatoes for quick meals, lunches, and snacks. Or, use stale bread to make and freeze garlic toast for those nights when you just want bread with your pork chops or salad. Just as you should run full loads of laundry and dishes, try to fill the oven as well.

Baking Day, part I

Today was Baking Day, and I made a couple of pound cakes, one vanilla and one cream cheese, two dozen squash and almond breakfast muffins, and a couple of pizza crusts. Tomorrow, I'll make more pizza crusts, breadsticks, and maybe some saltines and tortillas. My pizza crusts are like those Boboli crusts you buy in the store, only better. I developed the recipe myself using garlic and herbs. I make the dough in the bread machine, and then roll it out to the pan shape. Sprinkle additional herbs and cheese on it, and you can make breadsticks from the same dough. EASY. I made the cream cheese pound cake in a Bundt pan, and once it cooled, I divided the cake into three sections. Two will be frozen. By dividing the cake, I spread the desserts out over time so that we don't pig out on cake and gain weight. I'm not going to deny myself, because in my opinion, one of the best things about life is good food, but for me, pound cake necessitates moderation, and the easiest way to do that is to divide the cake. I probably should have quartered the cake, but oh well. What was that I was writing the other day about self indulgence? The two pound cakes used a dozen eggs, and I still have a few more dozen to consume. In the next few days, I may try to make an angel food cake and a devil's food cake. Traditionally, they were made together, as the lighter angel food cake uses the egg whites only, and the heavier devil's food cake uses only the yolks. I can use up about 9 eggs making those two cakes, which can also be frozen. As an alternative, I could just make a couple of angel food cakes and cook the yolks for use later in salads or something...yeah, that would be the healthier choice, I think.

Beans, Beans

Beans.
When I took my seed inventory, I realized that I had a lot of bean seed. some was from 2005(KY Wonder) some from 2007 (Contender, Blue Lake, and some KY Wonder). I had picked up a few packs for this year, but I wanted to use up the old stuff, too, so man have I planted beans!

After Easter, I planted Roma bush beans and all the KY Wonder pole beans and Dow Gauk, AKA Asparagus AKA Yard Long beans. I also planted Dragons Tongue bean. My Dragon Tongue beans claimed to be a pole bean, so I planted them around a teepee, but they are bush beans, as you can see. . It was my first year growing them so I did not know. A few weeks after the first planting, I filled in the gaps of the Romas with some yellow wax beans. You can see the difference in leaf color in the little short rows. So far, we have been eating the Roma and Dragon Tongue, and I like both, but we really like the Dragon Tongue as a green/snap bean. No strings for either variety. As Martha says, it's a good thing.

The KY Wonder and Asparagus beans are still blooming-have topped the 7 foot trellises (The Yard-long asparagus beans are on the A-frame trellis with the bent bamboo top line), and the yellow wax beans are almost ready to pick. I think they will be ready by the weekend. In the last few weeks, I have also planted a pack of Royal Burgundy bush beans(now 8" tall in the ground), several ounces of Contender(2" tall in the raised bed), and today I planted some Blue Lake bush beans. I've got about half a pound more Blue Lake beans to plant over the next month or so. Oh, I also have some scarlet runner beans(on a ladder-ornamental for the hummers) and this year I will plant Aquadulce fava beans over the winter. They supposedly don't keep well, and I have these from 2000. I found them in the bottom of a seed can. I grew them in 2000 and the kids did not like them, so I never planted them again. I have a medium sized ziplock bag full of the beans, and I did a germination test and much to my surprise, more than half of the beans germinated! Speaking of old seed, I had some old red field peas(that are technically beans) that I could no longer find in catalogs. I can't remember where I got them originally, but they were good and I use them in this one specific Cajun recipe. I was low on supply, with only about 2 inches of beans in a Mason jar. On my friend James' advice, I planted them en masse on the ground and covered them with mulch hay. They are doing well as a block of beans. I will be using this same method for growing some other dry beans.

So far, I am only cooking the fresh beans and haven't canned anything, but I did get a new seal and pop off for my pressure canner, so I am ready for the mountains of beans I hope to have. I have a Frencher, and will probably French slice some of the Blue Lakes or Kentucky Wonders. I just haven't decided. I'll slice whichever beans Skyguy likes the least. My family, as you might guess, eats more green beans than any other vegetable. I think I could can 75 quarts and still would run out before the next growing season. Normally, I freeze veggies like beans, but I want to reduce the power bill so I will can them this year. I'll probably make some dilly beans, too.