Sewing, Mowing, Canning!

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Today was our Civil War sewing meeting. On our way past the neighbors' house, we dropped off a quart of blackberry pie filling and a dozen eggs from our chickens. The eggs are getting a little dirty, as the hens have decided to forgo the roosts and sleep in the nests. So we've changed out the straw and locked up the nest boxes at night again. Looking forward to sparkly eggs tomorrow. :)

I have almost finished my replacement corset, but got stalled due to the bones I had ordered not fitting.





Gladly, we were able to use them for a dear friend of mine, Elaine. So I spent the whole morning being able to help others.

I must be getting better at sewing, because last week I pulled up some fabric, and spent an hour whipping up an extra corset for Elaine. I amazed myself. My first corset took 4 weeks and 4 people to help me. :-P

After the meeting I made a trip to the hardware store for bones. Yes, extra long and strong zip-ties, or tie-wraps.





I should be able to get those in, then put in the grommets for the lacing next week.

We came home and attempted to get mowing done but, once again, the storms have come and watered us out. The grass is a good 8 inches high and going to seed, so I want to be really careful where that seed goes when we are mowing next to crops and beds.





Yesterday we had managed to mow at least around the house and greenhouse, but had to rake up all the cut grass. Very time consuming.









By this evening we had two of these trailer loads of cut grass. Some went to the compost pile, but I think I will use a lot of it as mulch to cut down on weeding time in the herb and flower beds.





We've still got the crop areas to do and, frankly, it scares me.

Michael began yesterday morning by picking produce again. It's become a daily ritual the last week or so; Michael picks, and I work to do something with it in the kitchen.

So I began working on a blackberry pie filling recipe.









And, in trying to juggle freezer contents, put an old, frozen, half-price pot roast in the crock pot...





With a variety of found veggies, carrots, celery, onion, potatoes, and green beans from the garden, along with one of my favorite seasonings - mesquite.





We've been eating on this now for two days. :)

Here are the peppers from the morning. I would love to can some, but I don't quite have enough of them to justify running the canner, so I'm being more creative.





The summer squash, which has finally slowed down, went into the dehydrator again, and the cucumbers went into my first effort at canned pickle relish.





Michael also tried his hand at first time melon picking. Always an art form, we figure he might as well begin learning now how to pick them. He hit the jackpot with this first one, I believe it is a Prescott Fond Blanc.













Not so well with his first watermelon. He'll get better quickly.





My first inclination was to dice the veggies for the pickle relish. I soon tired of that; after about one cucumber, as a matter of fact.





So the 3 quarts of cucumbers, 3 onions, and 6 bell peppers went into the food processor, and then were to be soaked in 2 quarts of ice water and 3/4 cups of pickling salt for 4 hours.





When that 4 hours was up, I drained and resoaked them in plain ice water for an hour, drained them and then poured 6 cups of boiling apple cider vinegar with a mixture of 2 cups of sugar, 4 tsp celery seed, 4 tsp mustard seed, 2 tsp ground allspice, and 2 tsp turmeric over them. That whole mixture is in the fridge now, marinating and waiting for me to can it tomorrow morning.

It tastes like pickle relish, so it must be right.

Meanwhile, for a mid-morning snack we eliminated the jalapenos by stuffing them with cream cheese, diced jack cheese and powdered garlic and onion.





They were delicious. But we discovered that, though the smooth green ones are perfect, the older jalapenos, with the cracked skins are hotter than we appreciate.





Another picking, is an unripe spaghetti squash. The best way to learn is to make mistakes, so I know Michael is learning much more quickly by bringing his hard work up, and cutting into it. He's doing great! :)





Adding in freshly picked green beans to the stew...





And back to working on the blackberry pie filling. I got out all our frozen blackberries and there were not quite enough, so I filled in the rest of the berry need with raspberries and blueberries from the freezer as well.





This was my first use of Clear Jell. I got this at the Mennonite market for a good price.





And while I mixed that with sugar and spices...





I went to wave to Michael and see how he was doing.





Stirring the water into the Clear Jell mixture and bringing it to a low boil to thicken it.





And here is the pickle relish, ready to marinate for 36 hours in the fridge. I did not have any red peppers, so it looks a little bland, but the flavor is great.





Putting by a large garden's worth of produce is new to me. I am looking forward to when I can do these things without having to think so hard about them and am much quicker.

By this time it was nearly dark, Michael came in for shower and we enjoyed stew together as we relaxed.

I'll let you know how the relish turns out tomorrow!

~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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