Garden Updates Aug 27th

So the weather's been up and down, it felt like Fall was coming last week, then the weekend, it got really hot again. I'm betting that we'll have a hot Indian Summer, so I planted more seeds. I planted 6 Brandywine tomato seeds...we'll see if they sprout. Things to do:I've GOT to get a net to protect my Nappa Cabbages from the birds! The yellow finches(i think) are eating them all up along with the tattered Sunflower leaves. I'm hoping the corn produce at least one little husk full of corn...hehe Oranges are at peak right now, the tangerines have small green fruits that are about 1.5" across. The persimmons are coming along nicely, some seem to have a slight tinge of yellow, a sign that it's ripening. I should take pics of those. The Sunflower is not being appreciative of the me... it's faced the other way. I guess that's where the sun rises. Next time I know to plant it where I can fully enjoy it's heady bloom.

 

 

 

 

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Harvest Updates Aug 11th to Aug 27th

Well, we're well into August and the harvest has begun to dwindle, but I did plant more Zukes, cukes, and a few mystery volunteer Curcurbits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Garden Updates week of Aug 11

One of the many lizards that eat our bugs 

Okra bloom

 

Violets in full bloom

 

Ollas in place

 

Cucumber, Melon and Zucchini seedlings

 

Orange tree full of ripe fruits

 

Okra,Broccoli and Amaranth(in back)

 

Gerberas full of Sunshine, in front of the Cannas

 

Harvest Updates Aug 11th~Aug 17th

This week we have less pictures since we went out of town. Unfortunately, our Plant-sitter didn't have transportation on one day, and our cucumbers died, our newly planted nappa cabbages wilted, and our small pepper plants were quite wilted. The potted seedlings didn't make it. It's sad to see them die when they were doing so well. Next time, "Stay-cation" might be the trick.

 

 

That's a LOT of Oil

“If every U.S. citizen ate just one meal a week (any meal) composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country’s oil consumption by over 1.1 million barrels of oil every week. That’s not gallons, but barrels.”

*From Oily Food, by Steven Hopp

http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/Steven%20Excerpt.html

Harvest Update Aug 2nd to Aug 10th

The Tomatoes are coming IN!!!!






 

 

Preserving the Harvest:Blackberry/Strawberry Jam

Here's the collection of blackberries and strawberries harvested over the week. The reason why we don't eat the blackberries fresh is because we pick them early to beat the birds, so they are quite tart.

Here's the finished Jam! mmmm

Slow Food: Ratatouille

Here are all the Veggie Ingredients that go into the Recipe. The Peppers are from the Farmer's Market, the eggplant and crooked neck squash are cropswapped,the rest of the ingredients are homegrown.

Here's the dish before it goes into the oven for 2 hours.

The finished Dish.

MMMMmmmm, this dish was VERY labor intensive, but Caleb liked it a lot (it helped to see the movie)and he wants us to make this more often...(oooh boy). Total cooking time approx 4 hours. From the time we planted seeds for zukes and tomatoes, 3 months.

Slow Food to da Max...Pumpkin Pie Day

This is the smaller Pumpkin we harvested earlier. We think it got hybridized with the zucchini that is right next to it since the inside looked like a cross between the 2 types of squash. As it turns out, we toasted the pumpkin seeds in the sun oven later, and tried to eat them as pepinos, but there was nothing inside the seed shells! The hybrid was a mule!

This is HALF of the pumpkin. We slow cooked it in the Sun Oven, in 2 separate batches (2 days)

Here it is all cooked, it was sweet all on it's own with out the Maple Syrup, which the recipe calls for

We're putting the pumpkin through the hand cranked Food Mill.

Here we are turning the handle (no electricity useage here!)

Making the pie crust from scratch

Hand pinched ridges

pouring the pumpkin mix into the slightly baked crust

The finished product! If you include the time it took to grow this pumpkin, I'd say this pumpkin pie took 4 months to make!