Pumpkin Seeds

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After Halloween I brought home large pumpkins for 50 cents each. I took one look at those cast-offs and said, "Whoa! That's food for a week!"





So I am roasting one of them right now. I can hear the coconut oil I brushed over the quartered chunks sizzling on the baking sheet right now, and I can't wait for the aroma of roasted pumpkin to fill the house.

And I thought I'd give another try at roasting the seeds. I have not tried it in a very long time. Many years ago I tried a couple of times, only to have them come out rather unpleasantly. Sort of like mulch.

I would love to collect some pumpkin seed recipes, tips and techniques if you've got some you love.

Meanwhile, I'm housecleaning and sewing. I repaired Michael's frock coat for our annual Civil War Christmas Ball this weekend. I also did some work on my cape. I was just getting ready to put it all away when Michael requested repairs to the down jacket I found for him at the thrift store a couple of weeks ago.

Picking up feathers and watching the snow come down,

~Faith

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False Starts and Overseeding.

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The rain was coming in yesterday, so we switched our schedule to working outside in the morning and doing school in the afternoon.

We were going to dig out this French drain above the pool, but decided to wait until we get some rigid pipe. That will be necessary where the pipe extends into the lawn where we'll have to mow over it.





Instead we decided to overseed some grass into the horse pasture. Last year, with all the change in weather back to a more typical amount of rainfull for this area, our native grasses came back full force. It was thick and lush all summer long. We rejoiced at the carpet of bounty.

It looked like this in the horse pasture all spring and summer,





But by October 21, it had already gone into hibernation.





What we thought was going to be ample feed for the horses all winter turned out to be a greater loss than ever.

So I bought a huge bag of Kentucky 31 grass seed for the horse pasture, hoping to grow feed for the horses. We walked out and realized that there was no way seed would take on that ground, even with rain coming, without somehow scratching it up.

Michael came up with a great idea and began working on it.





He always looks forward to riding his bike around the place, from chore to chore, when the weather warms up.





I captured some shots of late winter flowers in the lawn.









And here is the nearly finished product. A small, simple, home made harrow.





Nails every inch, protruding about 1/2 inch out. And eye hooks for rope attachments.





Running rope through.





Yawn...





Ready to go!





We took off and, though the first few feet worked perfectly...





We soon discovered weaknesses in our plan. In our test area, it tended to rake debris and lift the nails too high, so that no scratching of the surface took place. Also, the rocks bent the little nails.





We decided to finish the testing down in the actual place we'd be using it. It worked better here, but the nails were obviously going to fail very rapidly.





It had already begun to rain and we'd gotten nothing done outside, for all our work and delaying of school.

We decided to at least get some grass in somewhere, until we could decide if we were going to build a harrow that would be much stronger and better suited for the job. So Michael mowed the lawn around the house very closely





while I began spreading seed in the hope of having a thicker, healthier lawn this year.





I've never been enamored with this spreader and, as usual, gave up on it and began spreading seed by hand. In the wind. In the rain. I love a challenge! We got half the lawn done before the rain was so bad we were dripping and seed was sticking to us all over.

This week has been exceptionally busy and we are losing two days at a Hunter Safety course, so we were really hoping to accomplish more by this time.

We did school and took off for Michael's men's group. We ladies stayed at another place and watched The Last Sin Eater, knitted, snacked and chatted. I really needed caffeine as I resembled more of a lump on the sofa than a perky conversationalist. Fell in bed last night after midnight again.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz...

~Faith

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Swiss Chard Harvest, Greenhouse Construction, Movie Night

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We never did get to those tomatoes, and it won't be today either. Yikes!

The day began with finding out that the reason I've not heard anything about my divorce for several months is that my lawyer never sent the papers off to be served after the judge signed them.

I was a little frustrated by this. As far as I know, once he has been served and the papers signed my support is supposed to kick in. That means two months of support have vanished into thin air, while we try to scrape by on what little he feels like sending and we work nights and weekends trying to support ourselves and make ends meet.

However, all things are in God's timing, so I'm not really worried. Mostly curious as to how this will all pan out.

So Michael did more mowing yesterday morning while I began weeding the garden. I wish I'd taken pics AFTER weeding instead of before. LOL

Mowing around the garden itself was needed as you can see in this photo. The Three Sisters area of the garden is finally showing visible signs of some success.





The whole problem with this has been the corn. We planted it three times and each time was a significant failure. I suspect it is bugs. Ants, possibly, chewing up the roots. They must get them when they are sprouts, and if they manage to get any higher, they chew through the stalks and they just fall over.

So the pole beans and the winter squash kept getting put off for a long time.

The other half of the garden, where I will be doing some weeding.





Seed saving is something I hope to do a lot of. I hope to buy very little seed next year, so I bought 98% of my seed as open-pollinated. Here are the pods to the sugar snap peas, drying nicely.





The next huge project in the garden, getting those tomatoes back up. I planted them too thickly, and the rains and lack of wire held us back from adding wires above the first and second ones. Now it's a mess.





Peppers are finally growing.





Swiss chard, which we decided needed to be harvested. And in there are the sweet potatoes.





Scallions, onions, leeks. Only showing leeks here, I think.





Artichokes.





More peppers.





Summer squash.





Something is wrong with this and one other summer squash.





The rain washing through the garden disturbed a lot of the melon hills.





Our biggest competition giant pumpkin vine.





Cukes that we just lifted and tied up the day before.





Broom corn and peanuts. You are supposed to hill peanuts like potatoes. If I get a spare minute, I'll do that.





Okra. Neither of us like it. But when we were aiming for a market garden we chose to plant some. No market after all, but we need to learn about it's quirks in tandem with our garden quirks, so we planted some anyway.





With the Three Sisters planting being so difficult, I decided to make an experiment plot. I simply planted all three - corn, beans, and a cucurbit all at the same time. I believe I put in small warted mix gourds. I will keep you updated.





Thinning the squash, gourd, pumpkin plantings at every other hill of corn and beans.





Then my mom and dad came by to help with the greenhouse construction project. We had been planning on digging out one of the hoops and burying in a new hoop post holder. But dad made this nifty thing.









First, drive the new, straight hoop post into the ground in the proper spot. This was ingenious. Dad got a metal rod, put body building weight clamps on it, and used it to insert into the pipe and pound it down.













Then put this crane above the old pipe.





It has an eye hook at the top.





Put on a winch.





Add a chain.





Drop chain down into the pipe.





Secure chain with a bolt.





Begin winching pipe out of ground.









Fill old hole with sand, slowly, so you don't accidentally get a pocket.





Awesome! Thanks, Dad! That really saved us a lot of work!

Michael wanted to save this volunteer, but it also has a wild rose bush there, so it got mowed down.





Bad Japanese Beetles. Scourge of the garden.





The field competition giant pumpkin. The ants got this too. We are down to one in this spot, and I'm wondering if it will survive.





Always looks so much better around here when it's mowed.





Harvesting Swiss Chard.





I left more leaves on some than others, to see how they do. I learned a lot about them yesterday. For ourselves, we don't think we need this much, but it will make a great summer substitute for salad greens, growing so much more easily then than lettuce.





Rinsing the Swiss chard leaves and hanging them to dry on a ball return net. We did not want to blanch and freeze, so we're going to dry them for use this winter in soups.





We left to visit friends and help with projects, but they were all done. So they graciously fed us dinner.

We enjoyed the progress of their lasagna style garden.









Visited their new horses, who had been rescue horses about 4 years ago. The mare has never been able to put on weight. I suspect she has organ damage and can't metabolize all she needs.









And then we all took off and enjoyed Night at the Museum 2 at the theaters. It was really good. We enjoyed it.

We stopped by my folks to pick up some lavender clippings, borrow canning books, and visit until 10:30, so we didn't get home in time to bring in the swiss chard leaves. I'll have pics on those and the lavender cuttings tomorrow.

Taking off to go pick up a used pool!

~Faith

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