Fall Herb Garden

Processing Pumpkins

We got exactly one pumpkin out of the two patches we planted, thanks to the squash bugs. We were pretty on top of it until our trip to Kansas, and they took those four days to complete the destruction. Our buddy Stubby saved the day by bringing over two sugar pie pumpkins from his garden. I processed them this morning and they are in the freezer, waiting to become yummy pumpkin pie next month!

 Cut each pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds. I kept about one half of one pumpkin worth of seeds for next year...and will hopefully not lose those pumpkins to squash bugs too.

 I roasted them for 45 minutes, cut sides down, at 400 degrees. This made the flesh soft enough that it fell right out of the skins, and got a little nice caramelization on the bottoms.

 I threw it all in the food processor, added two tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice, one for each pumpkin, and pureed it all up.

 The Hubs helped me bag it up, and it's all ready for me on Thanksgiving!

Potato Harvest

I spent a good chunk of the afternoon clearing out the garden today, and that included harvesting the purple potatoes I got from the neighbors in the spring.

 We got between 5-10 pounds, after I took out the little ones for seed potatoes. Not too bad since I got them totally free and pretty much threw them on the ground in the garden box, right on top of the grass, and pretty much ignored them till yesterday. I started to dig them up yesterday, but was interrupted by two stray dogs that the neighbor corralled in her back yard and I helped her get on leashes, then kept them in the grooming shop till the Humane officer and their owner came to get them back. So, I finished up today, actually got the grass and weeds out of the box, then reseeded it and moved my hoop house setup over that box. 

I am going to try to get/find/barter/buy some more Visqueen so I can hoop another box and try another March planting next year. If I can get it this week, I might even try for one more round of peas/lettuce/spinach under a hoop for the season. For now, the boxes are cleaned out, the composter is overflowing, and I am looking forward to purple mashed potatoes!

Minty Peas

I said last year we should plant more peas...but forgot and still only planted four. I just cleaned out the peas in our box and we got about one cup of peas. Not to be discouraged, the girls and I shelled them and cooked them up for the Hubs, who loves peas and has been known to open a can of them and eat them directly out, cold. So our measly little cup 'o peas became Minty Peas with Onions!

Here is the recipe for a normal amount of peas.

2 cups fresh or frozen peas

2 Tbl butter

1/2 medium onion, diced

1/2 tsp mint

(if using frozen peas, thaw or blanch first)

melt butter in a saucepan over low heat, toss in onions and peas

saute over low heat until onions begin to soften, about 5 minutes

toss in mint and cook an additional minute, serve.

These are a big hit at our place, the Hubs only got about half of them before the girls jacked them, and they have become an official Thanksgiving side dish.

In other news, I finally pulled the radishes which had bolted like mutants. Again, a meager harvest, but I am still feeling out what we will actually EAT out of the garden with what I would like to grow.

The lettuce is still grooving along, but the spinach bolted and will probably be pulled up this week. I need to get going on what to plant in the new empty spots!

H.W.

May Garden Round-Up

OMG! I decide to blog again, and I can't log into Blogger for a few days! That, paired with the fact my Mom and her new husband (who is SUPER-AWESOME) were here the last week has put me off my blogging "restart". Oh well, onward and upward. Here's the May Garden Update.

It rained all week, so the garden is doing GREAT and Ladybug has eaten a few strawberries from the garden, she even shared with Mojo! We have the 2nd phase of the garden in full swing. 

We had a few herbs come back up, and added a few. I have had to cut back the peppermint and chives to keep them from taking over.

The Hoop Box we put up last Spring was planted back in March and we have had lettuce and spinach. There are radishes, carrots, kale, peas, and finally beans starting up.

The squirrels have been stealing the beans we plant, but the last batch came up and I will be planting another round in another box this week. 

We have 5 Square Foot boxes, including the kids box, 3 trough boxes, 2 of which have squash and zucchini, (1 waiting till next year for corn, I didn't get it filled early enough) and a pumpkin box. Notice the White Trash toilet flower planter...I couldn't help myself! 

You can see in this pic the pumpkin box, and in the back by the composter the remains of the chicken coop. I am heartbroken to report we were misinformed about the ordinance for chickens in city limits and we had to give them up last summer. We are going to try to turn it into a mini-greenhouse for seedlings after our success with the Hoop Box. I will keep you posted when we tackle that in the fall.

Our neighbor gave us some starts of purple potatoes, I can't wait to make purple mashed potatoes!!!!!

We planted some boarders around the property line on 2 sides and the part behind the garden has 2 raspberry that hopefully will fruit next year. 

We had just gotten the garden rolling last year when I went back to work, and it fell to the wayside after that, so this year I hope I can stay on it. Mojo is old enough to come out and "help" so it's super-fun out there with the girls!

Hopefully it gets a little bigger, and a little better every year, since I am just stumbling along and learning as we go. Any tips and tricks?
H.W.

Best. Weekend. Ever!

It's done, our long journey to building our chicken coop is finished, and this weekend we moved the birds in.  They LOVE it, and have all been waiting at the pop out door to be let out into the run each morning.  We still have to round them up at night and put them in the coop, but I have read that in about a week they will learn to go in at night where it's warm.  It is still getting a little chilly at night, so we have the heat light hung in there, but they all just snuggle up in the nest boxes anyway!  I made a little flower bed and planted some marigolds, since it has gone from 'tractor' to 'coop' and will be stationary.  I think it makes it look super-cute!  The ducks are still being kinda jerky, mostly the Rouen, Guinness.  The Khaki Campbell, Coco, is pretty chill with the chicks, until Guinness starts some trouble.  I think Guinness will be dinner soon.

  It seems official that we have 3 hens, 3 roos, so about the 2nd week in July our flock will lose the fellas.  I go back and forth on whether to get more chicks then or wait till next year.  It will probably depend on where we get more chicks from.  The farm where our current chicks came from has a 10 chick minimum order, and so we will only do that if we split with the neighbors again.  If not, be may try to get some Golden Comets, but we will have to drive a ways to get them.  We will see how it goes, I guess.

I really like the Barred Rocks, though, because they are dual purpose, and we so intend to butcher every year or every other year and replace with new chicks so we have optimum, young layers.  It might be best to just leave it to 3 hens and a duck this first year while we are adjusting, but we are really hooked on having chickens now and want more.  Square foot wise, we have room for 6-7 birds.

We had the greatest time working, playing, eating and just hanging out in the yard with the neighbors this weekend.  There was even a game of 'slips' (nighttime hide-and-seek) that the Hubs and one of the neighbor Dads joined in on Saturday night.  Sunday I was going to make bird feeders (thanks Pooka Pages!) with the girls, and since we had a few extra kids we grabbed a few extra coffee cans and they made some too!

In other garden news, here are a few progress pics of the garden boxes and yard.  Like I said, we got a lot done, and I just want to stand out there and look at the yard!

  

The Hubs is very proud that he got both the fountains cleaned out and running for the season, and I missed the sounds of the water over the winter.  We have one in front, one in back so we can listen to the relaxing water from most of the yard.

Back fountain

Front fountain

We also broke in the new 'beehive' fireplace by cooking dinner Saturday night on it.  Sausage and potatoes...YUM!

I know the cat that has adopted us was glad we ate every meal this weekend outside on the patio, the kids  and the Hubs 'dropped' a lot for her.

I am tired, sunburned, and sore...but I am sad the weekend is over.

H.W.

Chilly in the garden

Here in Central Indiana it has dipped back to chilly, bordering on cold.  I am really glad we put the hoops on the square foot box!  We just went out this morning, whipped the plastic over the hoops, weighted it down with rocks and clamped one end then bam, cuddly warm seedlings!  Jilly's box has no hoops, but we covered her sunflower seedlings with the top of a 2liter bottle to keep it warm.  We planted some seeds in there the other day, but if the cold snap stunts them we have plenty more seeds, so crisis averted.

Also, while I was out there I took some pics of the coop, now moved into it's permanent position (the chicken tractor plan has been abandoned...it's too heavy. The Hubs and I almost killed ourselves moving it out there. They will just have to be happy with free range time.) and painted a nice grey/blue we got free at the recycling center.  I was going to tile it the other day, but the tiles were warped, so they are stacked in their under some heavy ceramic tiles till they are flat and it stops raining.  Beyond that, a door and the chicken wire over the yard and we are in business!  So far, we have begged, borrowed, or gotten free all the materials and tools except the chicken wire and the plumbers tape to attach the hoops.  We have only spent about $25 on the coop.  The birds have been moved into bigger brooders in the shed, with the heat lamp still, and are anxiously awaiting moving day.

  

We also drilled holes in 5 gallon buckets for feeder and a waterer.  Very high tech, I know, but I don't see a reason to get tricky if  simple works, and we have several buckets lying around.  I plan to just put a big rock in each to keep them from getting knocked over.  If they are fail, we have back-up plans to make auto-feeder/waterer still using buckets.  They are actually kinda cool, we just really need to wrap up the coop projects and move on to other projects.  Check them out HERE if you are interested in making a cool feeder..

So now, we will snuggle in and work on school inside where it is warm and dry!

H.W.

Garden Update 4/5/10

We are exhausted around here from working all day in the yard and garden.  We got a ton of work done on the coop, and it's almost done! It primed the front, sides, and inside, and all that it needs now is the door, the chicken wire, tiles down on the coop floor, and a coat of paint.  I even made a swell sign for it...

 I did some weeding, rocked in the altar area for beds and it's ready for some plants (roses maybe) and Jilly and I got some planting done in our square foot boxes.  Jilly was very excited to plant the sunflowers that grew in the peat pots she planted at the Children's Museum water program.

Then we had chicken/duck play time with both our and the neighbors flocks.  The big chickens in the pic are the neighbors chickens from last year.  They are "mutts" from the hardware store and they did not get a single egg from them.  That is why we went in of the Plymouth Barred Rock chicks this year.  There is really starting to be a difference in the hens and roos, and I think now we have 3 of each.  We just have to decide if we want to replace the roosters we will butcher in July with new chicks this year or next.  Square foot wise the coop and run are big enough for 6-8 birds, and I don't think the ducks are going to be staying unless the stop being so cranky to us and the chicks.  They may go when we butcher the roosters.

I told the Hubs today, we may be crawling there, but I feel like we are heading to where we want to go as far as the yard, garden, and general homestead goals.  The coop I am especially proud of, because we have all worked on it as a family, Mojo out there with us in her stroller, and that really means so much to me.  It seems like in the past years when I have been working on the garden, it was just me with some help when I had something specific I needed a hand with, but this year I have everyone on board and pitching in with both physical work and ideas.  Hopefully we will get that last little bit on the coop done this week and get it moved our from the carport into the yard.  We moved the chicks and ducks out into the shed, into bigger crates, and put the heat lamp in there last weekend.  The ducks especially were getting stinky and it is hard to groom dogs who are obsessed with trying to eat the tasty chickens across the room.  More soon, as things develop!

P.S. Time is running out, enter my give away for the Spencer Lapidary prize pack!!!!!!

H.W

One of those...

A while back, I was changing Mojo in a restaurant bathroom and a friend of mine who works there offered to take the diaper and throw it away for me.  When I pointed out it was cloth and stuck it in my very fancy and expensive wet bag (a plastic grocery bag lol) she said "Oh, you're one of those."  It really made me smile, and I will tell you why.  I have always been a bit of a weird-o.  If you are reading this and know me personally, I am sure a story of my uniqueness has sprung to mind.  I see this as a good thing.  The one constant thing about my weirdness has been that it adheres to my own Hippie-Witch logic.  I am never really trying to be weird, I am just doing my thing and always seem to end up there.  My weirdness tends to also be very buffet style.  I will not protest something for the sake of protesting, I have to really feel it is wrong and that I can make a difference.  I will not wear my faith on my shoulder, daring someone to comment on it so that I can "defend myself", but I will wear my pentacle proudly because it means so much to me and I will graciously explain to anyone who asks what is means.  I will also not jump on every granola parenting trend just because I say it on a parenting forum, and beat it into the ground to anyone who might have (gasp) chosen not to do the same thing.  I do cloth diaper. The biggest reason for that is that I got a little obsessed about it when I was on bed rest and had only the internet to entertain me, and I needed a project.  I have stuck with it because I had no idea it was so easy and because we have saved SO much money at a time we don't have a lot of money to spare.  I breastfed both kids, Jiji for only 4 months due to illness and circumstance, and Mojo for nearly 10 now.  I am weaning Mo onto formula now because my grooming business is starting to get busy, pumping is a disaster for me,and because, frankly, she is starting to bite...hard.  We are getting serious about gardening and urban homesteading because I have always wanted a big garden or farm, and it makes me happy.  Having more and more veggies to eat, can, and freeze, along with fresh eggs will also help our tight budget.  We compost because buying compost is expensive, and it really helps the garden.  We home school because we felt it was the best choice for our family and our situation, and because we are in a position where even when I am working, I am home with the kids 80%-95% of the time.  We are Pagan, and raising our kids Pagan because both my husband and I found the Pagan faith and our hearts felt they had come home, and want to teach our values and beliefs to our kids.  They may not chose to follow our faith, and we expose them to other religions, but for now we are raising little Witchlings.  Don't want to cloth diaper?  Cool, I have a few packs of disposables I was given and never used, help yourself.  Don't, or didn't breastfeed?  Awesome, I promise not to tell the boobie Mafia who thinks it should be a crime to not breastfeed, if you promise not to tell them I quit early on both kids.  Think all good veggies and eggs live at the store?  Right on, can you pick me up a gallon of milk when you're there?  The point is, I make my choices, and they tend to be a little outside of the norm. (Like maybe choosing to be such an openly weird, Pagan, Hippie in a very small, rural, Mid-Western town...) and I believe you have to make yours for yourself and your family.  The weirdest part is...I don't even expect you to explain to me why.  I will take it for granted you did what works for you.  I am a grown-ass woman and assume you are a grown-ass person yourself, and I think we all left any obligation to report in on our conduct to the "cool kids" behind a long time ago, at least I did and if you are a reasonably happy and well adjusted person I suspect you did too!  And if you are one of the "cool kids", please remember the person you are condemning because they made different choices than you is a real, live person with a brain, and you might simmer down long enough to ask them about their choices.  People who yell the loudest are not the winners, and you don't have to convince someone else they are wrong in order to be right. So three cheers for being one of those, which ever one of those you happen to be, cause someone is always the weird-o so it might as well be us.

H.W.

Wordless Wednesday

Poultry Edition!