Its all a bit much.

I have had a very hard time keeping up with the farm chores of late. Liam is determined to not be put down at all and will not nap on most days. Pair that with the start of harvest and the sleep I am not getting and it all adds up to a bit to much. Tonight I'm going to go to bed quite early and tomorrow i'll try to get as much done as I can before it gets to hot and I run out of steam.

We are going away for a couple of days at the end of the week on a bit of a holiday. It will be nice to take a brake for a few days but at the same time I know it will all be waiting for me when i get back, but i'm just not going to think about it.

Anyways on a happier note I got to go on a little visit to a farm two hours away from ours last weekend. I went to Half Caper farm to check out her goats and talk about buying a pair of kids from her next spring. They were so cute; running around the barn and fields. I'm sold!

Planning for next spring gives me the time to prepare without putting the horse before the cart (or goat before the barn). As a bounce she raises geese and rabbits which was great to ask questions about.I have been trying to working on some sewing. I made this banner for my boys. There birthdays are coming up in the next month or so: Matt in August, Liam in September. I got the idea from Amanda Blake from Soulemama. I wanted to make something that would become a tradition for special days rather then just gifts or cake.
The first tomatoes are ripening this week in our garden. But these are not the tomatoes I was looking for! The tomatoes I planted are big and beautiful but very green. We have volunteer tomatoes popping up red and yellow everywhere. On the up side its like a little surprise to see what all the plants are producing and i didn't have to care for them at all (besides not pulling them out). The down side is they did smother my small carrot plants when i was not looking. Oh well, When life gives you tomatoes......make pasta sauce!

Long weekend.

We spent our long weekend Sunday working in the yard. The weather was nice for working outside: warm but not to hot and over cast. We got all the stuff on the list done and got to spend some much needed time together.
We picked all the onions out of our garden. Normally we would not pick them until much later but we had such a warm spring that they were all dieing back already. The shed that we were using to keep the meat chicks in is right beside the the onion garden so we fenced in the garden and let the chicken run around and scratch it up. This will hopefully add some nice nitrogen rich manure to the garden for next years crop. Plus they will eat all the slugs that have been at my basil.
My little guy got very muddy while his daddy and I were picking onions. He had a good old time munching on the onion greens, which did not surprise me as he has taking to eating spicy food with us curries and hot mac'n cheese.
I did a big cutting of our basil plants to keep the chickens from digging them up. I plan to pick the leafs, blanch, chop and put them in the freezer to add to our pasta sauce for the winter. I just finished the stuff from our CSA from last year, which i had turned into more of a pesto with ground nuts and garlic. I liked it but it was more work and I didn't find it any better when it came to putting it in tomato sauce, which is what we did most of the time. We were two months behind in putting in our garden this year so our garlic did not bulb. They look more like green onions that last of garlic. I have not come up with a plan of what to do with them yet but i think i will just leave them in the ground until I need some garlic and then chop them up fresh.

Pickles

I started making pickles with cucumbers from our garden on Friday. I have 5 quart jars so far and the plants show no signs of slowing down. I am using a salt and whey only recipe from a cook book of my mothers called Nourishing traditions, by Sally Fallon. They're the kind of pickles I had growing up: they fizz in your mouth when you bit into them (i know that sounds strange but they are very good), like a nice kosher dill pickle. A lot of books say its not safe to to make pickles without vinegar but people have been making them for a very long time and i think you must use your common sense: smell and look at them before eating.

How i made them:

Place clean quart jars in an 200* oven for 20 min. Carefully remove jars from oven and place in each jar:
-2 cloves of Garlic
-1 head of Dill or 1 tbsp Dill seed
-1 tbsp Mustered seed
-1 tbsp pickling Salt
-1/4 cup Whey*
Pack you cucumbers in the jar so they don't float while leaving 1-2 inches head space. Fill the jar with warm water, screw on lid and shake to help dissolve the salt. Store at room temp for 3 days in the dark and then place in the fridge or in cold storage. They are ready to eat as soon as there cold, but i prefer to eat them when they have started to get fizzy, after a month or so.

* I get my whey from draining yogurt in a sieve over a bowl for 12 hours in the frige. It leaves me with a bowl of whey (which will keep in the fridge for a month) and nice thick yogurt which is easier to feed to Liam and makes a nice spread in a sandwich. If you can't or don't want to use whey just add an extra tbsp of salt.

*** All information is intended for your general knowledge only. Use this canning and preserving information at your own risk.

Hope you enjoy the recipe!

Eating it up

We finally had a couple of rainy days this week after a lot of sun. It was not very nice weather to work outside, but it was great in the greenhouse. I had a chance to get down on my hands and knees and take a good look at the plants. I was so surprised to find the plants much further along then I thought. At the end of my time in the greenhouse it was so nice to stand back and look at how nice everything looked after it had been weeded and pruned.
One of my 3 eggplant plants has a baby eggplant growing on it and the other 2 have flowers so hopeful I will be making eggplant parm soon. Its hard to tell from the photo but the fruits almost the size of my thumb.
I had to do a double take when I first saw this cucumber. Its the first one I'v ever grown and the first thing to come from the gardens here at the farm because we are a bit behind this year. I don't know how it got so big so fast. All the other cuc's are itsy bitsy, but this one was a monster. I'm growing them to make pickles mostly so I don't want them to get much bigger then this one did.
Liam and I enjoyed the cucumber for lunch the next day. I had it on toast with yogurt spread and him straight up. I think he enjoyed his first home grown food. I know I enjoyed watching him eat it and I can say it didn't tasted to bad either.

My weekend

The weather was very nice over the weekend. I spent two days in a dressed that I dyed with onion skins. I loved the way muddy boots look with a frilly dress. Just thought I'd share.

I planted two hanging baskets of strawberries over the weekend and they're doing very well. They are sending out a whole handful of runners and I'm hoping to have a nice patch for next year. I also got the rest of the potatoes and the broccoli planted as well as half the green house. I know we are a bit late but I figure better that then never.

I tried a new bread recipe this week. Its No knead whole wheat bread and I have to say that I was sceptical. I love to knead bread and I thought it would not be the same but I really liked it. It makes a really nice bread with large bubbles and an almost gummy textured that dose not crumb easily. I think it would be really toasted on a grill pan with brochette or in an onion soup. I'm going to make it again next week with roasted sausages.

All my little seeds have grown up

Its now time to start moving my seedlings out to their permanent homes in the garden and small greenhouse. I had a lot of success with seeds this year to the point that there are some plants that I have to many to deal with. The only seeds that didn't sprouted were my Stevia plants. So far I have transplanted all my cherry tomato plants into hanging baskets that I plan to move into the small greenhouse with the peppers and the rest of the tomatoes. We purchased the majority of our seeds from Greta's Organic Garden and had about a 99% germination rate. I highly recommend the seeds from Greta's and I think I'm going to get more seeds from them next year.

bookin' it

I'm the spirit of cleaning and packing we brought over 100 books to the used book store and walked out with a few new ones:

Let it Rot!: The Gardener's Guide to Composting



Carrots love tomatos
1,519 All-Natural, All-Amazing Gardening Secrets: Expert Tips for Gardens and Yards of All Sizes


Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & Vegetables