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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Seed Saving

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Yesterday we tried to collect up as many seeds from our garden as were available. We had so many failed crops that we did not get the seeds I was hoping for, but we got a few.

These are the very last peppers from the garden. It has frosted twice and the plants are now dead.





We also harvested some plantain for drying.













And the last bit of grapes, we are going to keep, since we did no spraying later in the season for this second crop.





Decided to try to dry some chives. No one recommends it, as they seem to lose a lot of flavor, but I buy dried chives at the store, and these would go to waste anyhow.





I can never get enough of the sky.









The fall colors are beginning to be well noticed.









The first thing we did was plant the Jerusalem Artichokes a friend sent me. They arrived with the grains. I've always wanted to try them, and even ordered them once, but they were never planted. So this was a special treat.

You dig a trench about 5 to 7 inches deep.





They say that anything under 2 ounces will not grow. That, in combination with the fact that in the lower 1/3 of the country, they do not thrive as well as the upper 2/3, I went ahead and spaced out the larger ones, and then used the smaller ones as possible filler.





We made two rows, each about 6 or so feet long, and dropped them in.





We shall see what comes up in the spring.





Next we decided to save these marigold seeds. I have no idea if they come up true to form, or if these are hybrids, but I hate letting seed go to waste. There were a lot of seeds on the ground, so I wonder how well these reseed themselves?





Michael is turning into such a man. He gets in there, studies the situation, and comes to me to help me with what he has figured out. I appreciate that so much. Here he's showing me how he found to pull the seeds out more quickly. We saved three colors in three different bags.





We bagged up Cosmos Bright Lights seeds. Again, I have not looked these up to see if they are hybrids. I am guessing they are, so the offspring may be a surprise.





Lovage is a biennial. These should overwinter, flower and seed in the spring. It is the roots that you harvest, for the most part.





The Fernleaf Dill.









Next was the cilantro which has already reseeded somewhat.













And the fennel.





We pulled one, to see about the bulb. But you have to get the bulbs early, as they are above the ground, not below. This one is beginning to grow new stalks, but I suspect it will be killed off before we get new bulbs. Maybe I'll cover the bases of a few and see what happens.





Then the broom corn we'd cut down a few weeks ago. I took most of it for a holiday decor vase, and we saved some seed from the rest.





Basil seed. We'll need to shake these out once they get just a bit drier.





A store-bought pie pumpkin that had not been made into pie yet. I'll save the seeds.





And letting the seeds air dry a bit more in the house as rain is coming again.





I have a craving for scrambled eggs and bacon, biscuits and gravy, fried potatoes with peppers/onion/bacon, sausage, waffles, and a huge glass of orange juice.

Guess I'll go eat an apple. :o)

~Faith

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Tuesday's Twists and Turns

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After getting up at 4 am and spending time researching what was going on with the garden, Michael and I knew our previous plan of going out and watering in some inexpensive fertilizer with urea was a bad idea.

So instead we attacked another needed chore. Blackberry picking again. We got a little less this time. I think we might have another 10 or 20 gallons left on the canes for this year, so we are dwindling.





Just as we were finishing picking my mom and dad dropped by for a surprise visit, which is always nice. We did garden chatting for a little while then, as soon as they left, we rushed to get ready for the Civil War sewing meeting.

We were late, so I only got in an hour of sewing, but since I still don't have my ballgown ready, my friend, Lynn, is loaning me her extra gown. I can nip or tuck as needed and I'll be ready for the ball this weekend. This is the dress here, from our Spring Ball.





I need to spend time this week finishing up my corset. We are having a period dance and etiquette expert arrive for a workshop on Saturday, with a ball afterward. Homeschooling is awesome! :) Great history lessons here, as well as sewing.

Taking care of a necessary evil after sewing, we returned to our dental haunt, but this time for a cleaning for Michael. Upon -

UGH - IT'S RAINING NOW AGAIN LOL

-Upon returning home Michael showed his sparklies on our way down to get that giant pumpkin!





Here is red clover. It's pink in color. This is good for general immune system strengthening. If you ever see clover that blossoms red, it is Crimson clover.





Walking through the garden now. Here are our tomatoes. Many of them are split from so much rain, and you can see how the branches are dying, from what I believe is fusarium wilt.





These melons were hidden last week by a beautiful canopy of leaves, which was why we needed flags to find them.





Heading in for the kill.





The pumpkin is rotted. As we rolled it out, we were concerned it might split before we could measure it, but it came out OK.





It's 53 inches. But I noticed that the tape was not at the widest spot. It might have been 55 inches if it were.





Splitting melons are everywhere.









Rotted melons are everywhere. You can see how wet the ground is. That, combined with hot temps, was what did them in. I was doing more reading and found that melons do not need as much water as most people think. They are from arid regions and send down roots 6 feet deep. Something to think about...









There are a few plant that have not died completely. I am holding a little hope they could ripen fruits, but not counting on it, especially since the rain is falling steadily now, on already sopping ground.





The temps are cooler this week as well. Down in the lower 80's.

OK. Time to do some study in the book of Zechariah, do some housework, and then I think we'll freeze the berries.

Swimming in jam,

~Faith

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Canning Abyss

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Not so many of you are posting these days. I know why, too. You have entered the canning abyss. I am there as well, but doggedly attempting to keep up with sharing what I am doing, so that I can do my part in saving the world. Well, my little part of it anyhow.

I keep meaning to fix this photo, I know it's cut off at the right edge, like all of them, but I will probably never do it and I want to post it anyhow. The sweet peas that are making me envious enough to plant some of my own next year.



>

Yesterday morning, after Bible study and chores and such, more canning meant a sudden trip to town on a mission to obtain more granulated sugar for 'berrious' endeavors. Also, the chickens seemed to be hungry, so we had to pick up some feed.

On the return home I tackled more jam making. When you've got over 4 gallons staring at you because there is no room in the fridge, you've got to do something quick! So small batches at a time, since I learned that the pectin actually breaks down after too much heat, I made three more batches. The first one was just Hot Blackberry Jam, in which you chop up peppers to spice it up.





Michael doesn't like it too hot, so I put in about a 1/2 cup to 10 cups of berries and 6 cups of sugar. It gives it just a little fun zip, without leaving any burning sensation in your mouth.

In the mean time, Michael once again left for the netherworld of the lower garden. He is like me, in that the trudging up and down the hill is tiresome in the heat. Such babies we are. I am very grateful for our home, but my thoughts do occasionally wander to the luxuries of flat land. A large, green and shady yard off the kitchen door, with chairs and tables to sit in and watch the flowers grow, and a hammock swaying gently between a couple of gorgeously perfect trees. The garden gate just at the edge, invitingly beckoning to...

Never mind, back to reality. Michael grabbed several baskets and went down with the camera.

Here is the melon patch with all the marker flags Michael put in the other day. They really help.





Bob? Is that you? (Inside joke for Veggie Tales fans.)





Now here you see our "Three Sisters" garden.
Where is the first sister, the one with the corn rows, you may ask?
She's been pulled down by her bean-pole second sister and choked to death.

The youngest sister, the fat and plump Squashita, is battling Bean-pole, for dominance, and it I think will eventually win.





This is how it looked a couple of weeks ago.





Lessons learned. 1. There is a reason you don't plant so many beans around your corn. Half as many beans, not half as much corn. 2. Need more space. Need much more space!

Michael is chomping at the bit to get his hands on those broom corn stalks. He took the machete down and checked them out.





Oh, and while we're at it, I took this picture of the grass that is now thickly growing over what used to be mere horse pasture dirt and weeds every summer. Cool!





Back to Michael's photos. Here is that giant pumpkin. There's Michael's size 9 foot next to it. Victory is not so sweet since it looks like there may be some bet welching going on...
Hmmmmm......





So we are letting the plant grow more pumpkins. They'll be nice for more holiday decor.





These beans are fun. We planted a variety of pole beans, as well as a bunch of pinto beans from the store, so I have no idea what beans are what.





My mistake on the melon naming the other day. That honeydew was not a Prescott Fond Blanc. This is.









So this melon was perfect, maybe a little past ripe.





This one was a little under ripe, but still good.





And the PFB was completely under ripe. It's supposed to be bright orange and very fragrant. But we did more reading up and Michael is confident he's got more of an idea now.





Here are the ones he missed before flagging.





Boy at play.













Sadly, that one rolled right into the garden. LOL Volunteers next year!





Back inside, I am making two more batches of jam, but these are hotter and with spices.

I added about 2 cups of Jalapenos to 12 cups of berries and 7 cups of sugar, as well a couple of teapoons of ground cloves. Yummy! I've also done this to strawberry jams in the past. The batch was slightly too big, though, and I cheated and added a little liquid pectin to set it.





I made 15 pints of blackberry jam yesterday.





Then still had more berries to use up, so I made another 3 quarts of blackberry pie filling. This time I cut down on the water to half. I was not pleased with the runniness of the first batch, and I also wanted more berries in proportion to the liquid. Here is a comparison of my first batch on the right, with the reduced liquid batch on the left.





Here is a cooling spot out of the work area of the kitchen. The spare room, which is now canning storage. I turn the overhead fan on to cool the bottles a bit before 'storing' them on the floor.





Then I still had tomatoes to do, and trying to get it all done before we had a movie night. So I used the "Italian Tomato Sauce" recipe from the Ball book and made three and a half quarts.





Here is my canning cache so far.









Michael made stuffed jalapenos again, and I made veggie sandwiches, and we turned off the light, lit candles, and watched "City of Embers", all achy and tired on the couch. Then we watched the light of the full moon through the windows and made up limericks for fun before going to bed.

Sleep was sweet.

~Faith