Garden glory

Because it takes an extra step for me to share photos on this blog versus sharing straight to Facebook, I'd not posted here in a long time. But, since I'm in town with wifi and nothing better to do (a complete lie), I thought I'd share some gardening pictures because even though I haven't posted in a year and a half, we are still mostly small-scale homesteading.

Hubby among the okras.

Our grapes finally did something this year! It's because, for some strange reason, the vermin you call deer haven't mowed it to the ground like they usually do.

Peek-a-book, winter squash!

Some sunny summer squash.

Corn! I get so excited about corn.

The requisite zucchini

We have had really nice potatoes this year so far. No vole or insect damage.

A typical harvest: mostly grown, some scavenged (chanterelles).

Dinner is served!

And where you find zucchinis, you can find zucchini products. This was a particularly tasty muffin recipe. Very moist. I didn't need to smother them with butter like I usually do with muffins (because, IMO, the only good muffin is one that has been thoroughly killed by butter). 

Most things have been growing well for us this summer...except maybe tomatoes...even the peaches, which is the next post.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Children of the corn...and tomatoes, and eggplants, and...

It was a good summer for green beans, even with the deer mowing down an entire bed of it. We froze many, many quart bags, and canned 14 quart jars of it so far. And there are more to come! It's exhausting work, even with four of us, but we'll be so happy to have it in the winter.

Canned green beans and tomato sauce

And if you hadn't guessed yet from the photo above, we're having a good year of tomatoes too, which is kind of surprising since it's been a generally cool summer. Yes, the white lids are Tattler lids. Now that hubby has read the directions and used them properly, they work great and no BPA!

More gratuitous photos of canned tomato sauce

We also had a bumper crop of wild blackberries (not wild black raspberries though). I froze a bunch and made my first ever blackberry jelly using Robin Edmundson's A Simple Jar of Jam e-book!

Beautiful blackberry jelly

Not everything from the garden was processed for future use. We ate a ton of stuff too, mostly summer squash and eggplants.

Scrambled eggs from our chickens to go with the squash-eggplant medley 

I'd forgotten we had a great crop of strawberries too this year, but while adding photos for this post, I found a picture I took in the spring of one of our many harvests.

Red and delcious

How did your garden do this year? Was it a good summer for growing where you live?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

It-that-has-yet-to-be-named

I don't think I mentioned it on this blog, but my friends on Facebook know that we bought a new tractor recently.

For those who were asking for picture of it, here's an action shot:

Stace (Stace's Space) named her Kubota "Tallulah-belle"; I'm thinking we'll just leave it as "it-that-has-yet-to-be-named", or "Voldemort" for short (though, come to think of it, it's more of a Darth Sidious coloration).

Now she's ready for her close-up, with hubby at the wheel:

But it's not all macho-tractor stuff around here.  There's also the other goodies, like this bounty from our garden (except the carrots) that hubby used to make a Thai curry dish for dinner the previous night:

Starting at the top, going clock-wise: kale, eggplant, basil, carrots, patty-pan squash, summer squash, and kohlrabi. Good eats!

Have a great weekend!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Autumn gardening

How did we commemorate the beginning of October? By gardening, of course!

If you're not out there weeding and planting and tending this time of year, you won't have a nice fall/winter crop to harvest. You don't need a fancy greenhouse either, just some row-covers if you plant cold-hardy crops. If you want to go the fancy greenhouse route, check out Eliot Coleman's books to learn more.

Here are the kids, weeding (before harvesting tomatoes and peppers); no, they don't always have goofy grins while weeding, but they don't complain about having to do it either:

So what are we weeding and tending to? Well, there's choi sum:

and lettuce:

and carrots:

and don't forget the cabbage (although that was planted a while ago) :

Another nice fall crop is kale. It's highly cold tolerant.  Hubby grew 2 different varieties this year:

We're also harvesting some end-of-summer crops like potatoes (no pic, sorry) and sweet potatoes:

Sweet potatoes as big as footballs (with the density of bowling balls) -

Here's a more mature choi-sum that hubby's been harvesting already:

Hubby re-planted some summer squash after vine borers killed our squash plants earlier this summer.  We've been getting a really nice harvest from them.  Both the patty-pans:

and the summer squash:

Because we needed room for the new plantings, hubby pulled out a bunch of volunteer dill plants and I hung them up to dry.  Who needs Halloween decorations when you have these?

I hope you're running a nice Autumn garden yourself!  Next up: tomato pie recipes.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Thankful Thursday late, Happy 4th early, and two, count 'em, two giveaways!

I'm thankful for our wild fruits! Remember the wild blackberries and the black raspberries the kids picked? Here they are served in a simple syrup over Alden's Organic Vanilla Ice Cream:I'm also thankful for our regular veggies. Nothing says summer more than fried squash (until the watermelons come on anyway). These are crook neck squash; we'll have the regular summer squash later in the month. Pre-cooked:Cooked:I'd like to wish all my American friends a very happy Fourth of July! For fun, sing the Star Spangled Banner at the top of your lungs in a public place. I just might do that. I love the U.S. national anthem much more than the Canadian national anthem. :)

And to celebrate the momentous occasion of the birth of the country, you might want to enter some cool giveaways:

The first is from Professional SAHM - where you can win a Joy Carpet.

The second giveaway is from Mudpies and Mary Janes where you can win a Wii Sports Active.

What fun plans do you have for the holiday weekend, or regular weekend if you're not in the U.S.?

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

What we have...

currently ~

Eggs - $3/dozen

Patty pan squashes - $3/lb

[caption id="attachment_30" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="patty pan squashes"][/caption]

Summer squashes - $2/lb

Cucumbers - free with any purchase ;) or $1.50/lb