Spring Updates

Spring is here in Central California!  The temperatures are warming and the winter hoodies have been packed away.  Flip flops and Vibrams are back in action!!

We are nearing our last few weeks of formal school.  Just six weeks to go!

We're harvesting lots of lettuce and Swiss chard from the garden. Lemons and oranges are in abundance. Lemonade is often being enjoyed and Creamsicle Jelly is back in the cupboards.  Carrots, green beans and radishes are planted, with tomatoes to follow soon.

I found an amazing deal on Craig's List!!  I was able to purchase a Squeezo Strainer and an All American 915 for a very nice price.  I will be able to put up tomato sauce this year!  Woohoo!

Lillie's FSP is climbing little by little.  Her parents are working as fast as they can to get through the paperwork and get her home.  Her mommy has a really neat store set up. She handcrafts amazing Montessori toys.  Every penny of each purchase is tax-deductible and is used exclusively for Lillie's adoption costs.  Think of Easter baskets filled with useful toys rather than candy, or birthday gifts that will endure the years! My Little Sunshine Montessori Boutique is the place to go.

So, how is life for you on this first day of Spring? What projects are you undertaking? What are your goals for this season?

Dilly Carrots and Beans

We harvested the remaining carrots from our garden last week.  Troubles had a great time pulling them. He was so excited each time he got a big one!  We got one that looked like a person walking that made him laugh and one that we called The Octopus Carrot because of it's many small points.  I forgot to take pictures of them, though.

We can't eat all these carrots before they go soft, of course, so we saved a big bag of them for crunching raw, and set about preserving the rest.  We topped, washed and cut them up and made Dilly Carrots!  I haven't had them before, but I am hoping that they will be a tasty snack for the kids a couple of months from now.

I purchased some green beans to try Dilly Beans, too.  I can't wait for green bean season!  We still have some of last years but I'm not sure if we'll have enough to make it until late summer.  I made 68 quarts last year, figuring that over 1 quart a week would be enough but we enjoy them SO much! I often use 2 quarts for a meal.

You can always find more canning ideas at my recipe blog: Feeding the Crew, and there's lots of other recipes, too.  Here's hoping that all of your harvests are going well and that your summer garden is growing well, too.

This post is linked at the current Carnival of Home Preserving.

2011 Fall Gardening

The weather is cooling and so it's time to plant winter crops. I've not been all that happy with my western garden bed for winter growing because it gets little sun and so the green grow slowly. I've been planning a new bed for a couple of years and this was the year we did it! Isn't it beautiful?

Below is my older bed. I shoveled much of the dirt from this one into the new bed, since it will be more in use during the winter. At some point we will buy a truckful or two of topsoil and compost to fill it back up. For the winter, I have seeded it with carrots, lettuce and other greens and since I have the eastern garden now, I don't care how slowly they grow. These are just so I have plenty to share with friends and neighbors.

Here's a view of both beds, taken from the north side. The above pictures are from the south side.

I have planted roamine, butterleaf, salad bowl, Swiss Chard, carrots and spinach. I already have cute little sprouts peeking out from my first sowing! Every Monday or Tuesday I plant another couple of feet, so I should be able to have freshly mature greens all winter long.

Making the Food Money Last

The Headmistress and the other Three Moms are blogging about food budgets this week. Even though HM mentioned most of my favorite ideas, I thought I'd share some tips anyway.

I blogged about the discovery of my favorite tip of all here. Go to farmer's market at the very end and offer to buy the perishables that will not make it to the next market day. You can often get lots of goodies. Be prepared to fix, freeze, can, share or otherwise prepare your bounty THAT day. Ripe food turns fast. I also ask different vendors for canning specials. Often they have bins of blemished fruit that they will sell inexpensively.

Learn to can! It is not inexpensive to begin, by any means, but Craig's List, garage sales and word of mouth can get you jars for little to nothing. Ask for canning supplies for your birthday, anniversary or Christmas presents. For water bath canning, all that's needed is a large pot and the basic canning tools. A pressure canner is more expensive, but priceless for making meals in a jar that will save many dollars when you need a dinner and you need it fast. I like my harvest yellow Presto canner. The new ones that you can get are flimsy and won't stand the test of time.

Put out the word that you will pick fruit trees. I have a list of folks whose trees I pick yearly. We get the surplus fruit to eat, can or bake with, they get a clean yard and don't have to watch the fruit moldering. I take canned goods to them as a thank you.

Buy meat that is marked down at the grocery store. I would love to buy organic, but I simply can't afford it. I watch for 25% and 50% off stickers and buy up as much as I can. Most goes into the freezer, some is eaten for dinner that night or the next and some shared with others. Use whole chickens rather than parts. Make your own broth. Use the bones from the meat you buy for beef stock. Collect vegetable trimmings in a freezer bag and use that for stock making rather than fresh produce.

Buy very little packaged "food". Meat, eggs, veggies, fruit. This is all we need to be healthy.

Grow a garden. It doesn't have to be more than some buckets alongside the garage. Lettuce is very easy to grow and will grow all year round in many places. Tomatoes grow like weeds in the summer. One zucchini plant supplies my entire family for most of the summer.

Make condiments from scratch. You can save SO much money, they taste ever-so-much better and have no mystery ingredients. I have many recipes here and here.

Cook your meals from scratch. Make the ingredients for your from scratch meals from scratch! For example, prepare dried beans rather than using canned (unless you canned them yourself), chop veggies rather than using frozen, cut stew meat out of an inexpensive roast rather than buying it pre-cut. You can think of many other purchased boxes and cans you can eliminate by making basic ingredients yourself.

Have a crockpot of beans prepared at all times to feed your hollow-legged teenagers. This has saved me tons of food dollars as my boys go through growing spurts.

One More Batch

This is my last planting of Swiss Chard. Five little plants that are giving me tender greens for breakfast eggs and smoothies. I will sure miss my chard when it finally gets too warm for it!

A Good Breakfast

This is all from my garden. I harvested it this morning, after outside chores.

The chard joined two eggs, some bacon and cheese for this delightful dish, and the rest went into a green smoothie that we enjoyed mid-morning. I love having a garden!

Someone Got Bit...

...by the gardening bug! GirlofGod is preparing an area for a flowerbed. My Honey and I bought Alyssum today to get her started. I promise there will be pictures when she is finished!

Carrots, Tomatoes and Corn, Oh My!

My carrots are getting nearly big enough to eat. Volunteer tomatoes are popping up all over the place and the corn my daughter planted in the fall suddenly decided to come to life. Things are getting crowded in the Crew's garden.

Monster Chard!

One of my daughters snapped this pic, without my preparing myself for a photo, I must say. I used just two Swiss chard leaves in our dinner salad. See why I only needed two? I'm so glad chard doesn't go bitter when they get enormous!

Garden Bounty

Here's the basket of greens that I brought to church Sunday. I have copious amounts of Swiss chard and several kinds of lettuce. My second and third sowings are coming up, so it's time to share!

Hard Working Boy

Nothing makes my heart so glad as seeing my boys working like men. Today was the first mow of the season and the thick backyard grass wasn't all that dry. Vic sure enjoys making the yard neat and clean. I'm glad he takes such pride in his work...

...even if he wears hippie-shoes to do it.

A Primal Breakfast

Two farm-fresh eggs, cooked in butter, with three heaping tablespoons of finely chopped swiss chard/spinach/tomatoes (greens from my garden!) and a tablespoon of bacon included, seasoned with kosher salt, freshly cracked black pepper, garlic and onion powder, topped off with Tillamook Cheese.

Too Many!

I'm rebooting my kombucha right now and realized that my 'extras' jar is stuffed full! Time to blend these babies up and make some kombucha slurry. It can be used in many different ways, including adding it to smoothies and to the garden, as fertilizer.

Tomato Starts

This is my little eggshell tray of germinating tomato seeds. At least I hope they are germinating. I guess I'll know sooner than later...and there's always Lowe's if needed.

Little Beauties

These are our cute, little pea-flowers. Hopefully we will see pea pods soon!

Harvest Time

The fall-planted greens are ready to begin gracing our table. We planted more varieties of lettuce, spinach and chard today, along with carrots for a spring harvest.

Fall Garden

Fall was in the air, the last few weeks. Not so much this week, I have to say! I planted peas, three types of lettuce, and spinach two weeks ago. I have been seeing pea-sprouting goodness the last few days! The lettuce should peek up soon.



Aren't they cute?



These are "Dwarf Gray Sugar Peas". I bought them from Azure Standard.



The package claims that they date back to before 1773. They are 24"-30" high and produce beautiful purple blossoms. They then turn into pale green pods that are stringless and fiber-free. NO STAKING REQUIRED! Plant 1" apart. They are ready to harvest in 59-65 days.

Don't they sound like the best? However, I did find this post about them...

Our tomatoes are going strong still, too.

We've got plenty of 'maters still, which is so nice for salads. We have 100's of green ones ripening, too. They make me happy!

I will be planting more lettuce and spinach, and maybe some radishes and green beans in the next few days. I am looking forward to freshly harvested greens again soon!