Dead Cucumbers are Dead

Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that my peas are doing great and I'm harvesting them now:

The bad news is that the frost got the cucumbers literally the night I decided to put them out. They're dead. The flowering cucumbers that I was so excited about are dead. So I replanted them and like 2 nights later another frost came and now those seeds are dead too. I HATE Wisconsin's weather sometimes, I really do. Today is the first decent day we've had pretty much all month, it's been either cold, rainy, windy, or a combination of all three.

I did at least get the tomatoes out onto the porch permanently. Two are tall and doing very well, one is shorter but still seems pretty healthy, and the 4th might end up going because it's spindly and doesn't have many leaves. I probably don't have room for 4 tomato plants anyhow so if I have to cull the last one I won't shed any tears over it. I need to buy some dirt so I can plant my pole beans and I'm going to replant my cucumbers for a third time soon as well.

Since my grow lights on top of the fridge are now unused I'm considering getting another rubbermaid container and starting an herb garden up there just to see what I can accomplish. I'm going to buy a basil plant and put that outside so it won't take over, I'm not sure what I'll plant inside. I'll come to a decision by time I go to the store for dirt.

In other news, I made a kickass pizza the other day with half of a double batch of bread dough (in retrospect it was too much). In the dough I used 2 eggs that my dad brought up from Kentucky. He gets them from a guy from church who pastures his hens and holy cow are these eggs amazing. The yolks from 2 eggs were such a dark, rich orange that they made my double batch of dough yellow instead of the light tan color it usually is. It was delicious. Here's the pizza:

Go ahead and drool, you know you want to. And yes, it was pretty darn good. Next time I'll use less because the rising crust pushed all the toppings into the middle, which made it a mess to eat. It was still delicious though. :)

I'll try to update more often, we've been very busy though between wedding planning, opposite shifts at work, and being somewhat social. Hopefully my schedule will improve soon. Cheers!

Flowers!

It's been dreary, cold, and rainy for a while but today it's sunny and somewhat warm. Since the tomatoes and cucumbers need to be hardened off so they can go out permanently soon I decided to put them out today despite the slight chill. When I went to take them down, I  noticed this:

I really hope it warms up and stays warm soon, now that there are flowers on my cucumbers they really need to stay outside. I'll probably start training them up a trellis soon. Here are a few more pics:

Note the tiny pea pod down at the bottom there.

 I'm going to need new stakes for the tomatoes. I'll probably pick some up when I get more dirt to transplant them.

 I wish this spinach would hurry up and grow already because I want to eat it. It's probably a bit crowded in here, next time I plant it I'll probably do it in rows.

In other news, I baked an awesome loaf of bread today. It's a shame I'm not off work so I could enjoy the rest of this quite beautiful day. Trevor is going to a Bucks game tonight and Thursday after work we're going to Illinois to visit friends and go to a Porcupine Tree concert. My parents might also be visiting soon. Oh! And I ordered my wedding dress. There's still so much to do for the wedding and it's creeping up on us. August really isn't too far away, and then I'll be a married woman. :) Until next time.

Progress!

Well I was going to update this last week but something was up with the site and I was unable to post. I took some pictures:

Those are the cucumbers, spinach, older peas, new peas, and compost bucket. Those were like a week or so ago. Here's what's cool (Apologies for blurry images, cell phone cam wasn't focusing well):

Those were taken just now. The peas are budding, the spinach sprouts have their first true leaves, the cucumbers appear to be budding (!) and the new peas and tomato plants are growing pretty darn well. Can't wait until those pea flowers bloom. I should have my first produce of the year in a few weeks if all goes well. Once it's warm enough I'll be planting more pole beans out there too. It's a shame that tree blocks all the sunlight; there are leaves already on it and as soon as they're big I won't be getting nearly this much sun. If those cucumbers are actually starting to get flower buds on them I don't even know what to think. They might just be side-shoots though, in which case I'm going to have to get my prune on pretty soon.

Oh yes, how about some recommended reading while I'm at it? Do you like pork? Bacon? Ham? I bet you do. Do you buy the cheap commercial pork at the grocery store instead of off a small family farm? I bet you do (so did I until now). Read Righteous Porkchop and I bet you won't any longer, unless you like the idea of Smithfield confining mother pigs in a cage they can't even turn around in with metal bars separating them from their own piglets or manure lagoons which are kept from spilling over (sometimes) by using what basically amounts to a shit-cannon to rocket untreated, liquefied pig manure into local waterways. Yeah, it really is that bad. I'm not done with the book yet but it's such a fantastic read and will open your eyes the same way Food, Inc. did (you did see Food, Inc. right?) So please, find this book and read it:

Transplanting Time

Alright, the news on the seedlings is: Tomatoes are great, cucumbers are great, peas are already permanently outdoors save for hard frost nights, spinach has croaked. Apparently starting spinach seedlings indoors just doesn't work. I scattered some into my rubbermaid bin outside today so they should be sprouting within the week.

Today I'm considering finally transplanting the tomatoes and cucumbers; a task that I've been putting off due to lack of space. I picked out five tomato plants which each have to go into their own container and I'm not sure how I'll fit them all on top of the fridge. The cucumbers I'm going to put into two large containers I think. Again, I have no idea how to get them all under the lights. Looks like I might have jumped the gun on the summer veggies. Probably should have waited until this week to start them. Oh well. Maybe I'll try to see if I can't put the tomatoes into smaller pots first before putting them into their huge outdoor pots when it's warm enough. Oh yeah, I'm also going to start pole beans once the last frost date is past. That's sometime around the end of April I think.

The weather certainly has been beautiful lately, save for a few foggy/rainy days. Right now the door to the balcony is wide open, the birds are singing their little heads off, and a nice breeze is blowing in. I have bread proofing on the counter for tonight's dinner (Vegetable soup) and Trev brought home The Princess and the Frog on Blu-Ray for us to watch tonight. I'm going to try to talk him into a walk when he gets home. Wedding planning is going alright, we still have a lot to do and have to go to Theresa in order to do it but we'll get it done.

That's pretty much it for now. Pretty soon I'll start getting pictures of the seedlings and I'll probably round up some of the recipes I've been perfecting to post. I'm also planning on making a carrot cake soon, we'll see how that turns out. Until next time.

Aaaaaaaaaand we already have a problem.

I am really not very good at growing things from seeds. I just haven't had enough experience, I suppose, which will change with practice, but that doesn't help me much now.

My pea and cucumber seeds have sprouted. The others have not. Not only that, but the cucumber seedlings are already a couple of inches tall (!) and I need to start raising the lights. That's going to make the tiny little peas (not to mention the other species once they emerge) really leggy; which is a problem that has plagued pretty much every seed I ever planted.

So what I'm probably going to have to do is get a separate light setup going for the little cucumbers so I can keep the light fixture right on top of the other seedlings so they don't stretch out. It'll take a bit of figuring out but I can do it. It's really too bad I didn't throw myself into gardening with as much gusto as I did cooking when I moved out, perhaps if I had I'd be really good at this by now. But that's alright. We won't have a place with a yard for a while now so I have plenty of time to get this right. And if my seedlings all turn out leggy again this year, I can always just order some healthy ones from the internet and transplant them. I'm not going to buy them from Lowe's this year, not just due to funneling money to Monsanto either. Last year my strawberries from there succumbed to soil disease and my peppers came with a hoard of aphids which proceeded to spread to all my other plants and resist my every effort to kill them off. These are problems you are not supposed to have to deal with when container gardening. I'll get quality seedlings from an organic non-Monsanto owned grower, thank you very much.

With tomorrow being the first day of March, Spring is closer and closer. Here's hoping my little garden gets off to a good start. :)

Interview: Joel Salatin | Life and style | The Observer

Interview: Joel Salatin | Life and style | The Observer

This is a wonderful article about Joel Salatin, the owner of Polyface Farms in Virginia. Great guy, great farm. I'd love to visit some day.

It's about time I started this little blog back up again, since it's getting to be planting time here in Wisconsin. I ordered San Marzano Tomatoes and Smart Pickle cucumbers from Seedsofchange.org and they came in the mail today. A quick trip to Lowe's and 20 minutes cleaning off the top of the fridge and replacing the bulb in the grow light setup my mom gave to me and they're sitting pretty waiting to sprout. Should see some action by next week. I planted the tomatoes and cucumbers plus peas and spinach. I'll do pole beans later I think. I was going to wait on the tomatoes and cukes too but I figured since I've never grown them from seed before I'd better get started now so if I encounter any surprises I can easily start over and change my tactics. Since I have even lighting this year, I should have no problems with legginess.

Might as well mention my diet changes too: After watching Food, Inc. and getting started on several books (including Real Food by Nina Planck and The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan) I've simply stopped eating a ton of stuff I thought I'd never do without. No more boxes of mac and cheese or cans of Chef Boyardee. No more McDonalds, Burger King, or Taco Bell. Store bought cookies, donuts, and other snacks are out too. I don't even consider this stuff food at all any more, no more than a clod of dirt is food. And after learning about industrial beef filler being treated with ammonia to cut down on E. coli I feel nothing but revulsion at the very idea of eating another McDonald's burger. I've even stopped drinking factory-farmed milk! I've been buying organic unhomogenized whole milk at Sendik's and basically only drinking milk at work save for what goes on my cereal and into my coffee (still the cheap stuff since Trev still drinks it and I don't bring my organic stuff home). And I used to drink a lot of milk, almost a gallon every other day or so. So it's more cooking, more water and tea, and better choices at the store for me! I'll take my grass-fed beef and fresh veggies, thank you very much. And if I can get my hands on some raw milk at some point so much the better. Should be another interesting year ahead.

Edit to add: Oh yeah, I did get the closet cleaned out. But it's so much easier to have my stuff on top of the fridge so if I can keep the cats off of there that's where it'll stay until I move them outside in April.

The Long Winter Ahead

Welp. It's the 26th of December, Christmas is over, and now it's time to settle in for Winter. I don't know where the time has gone and neither does anyone else it seems. Lately I've had many people comment on how they "can't believe it's Christmas already!" It's true, the time has just flown. Seems like it was just yesterday that I was watering tomatoes and picking pole beans. Now there's snow on the ground and my frost-hardy kale has finally kicked it and flopped over.

This next week we will be chilling out and recovering from the hectic holiday season and on New Year's Eve my fiancee and I will be enjoying some Tallgrass steaks. Yes, fiancee. He proposed on the 4th of December. We're planning on having our wedding August 22nd 2010 if all goes according to plan, so I'll likely be posting wedding updates here as well for a while. :)

January will be a month of preparation and planning. I've got to get that bedroom closet cleaned out first of all and make room for a grow-light setup. I then have to get some light housing and wire it since apparently hardware stores don't sell housing for 2 foot bulbs that actually have plugs on them. Also on the agenda is a timetable for when to start my seeds and get them outside. My seed catalogs should be arriving shortly. I plan on doing spinach, lettuce, and maybe some peas during the cold spring months, and then Roma tomatoes (for sauce!) and pickling cucumbers (for pickles!) during the hot part of the year. Since I love fresh pole beans so much I'll likely grow those too. I was considering doing 2 varieties of pickling cucumbers so I can decide which I like the best but I might not have room on the porch for that due to limited sunlight. Strawberries are out, they take up too much room for too little produce. I intend to make jam but I'll buy the berries at the farmer's market or go to a U-pick orchard. There's gonna be a lot of canning going on next summer. :)

Hopefully I'll have enough to keep myself occupied and the Winter blues won't affect me too much this year. I always have such a hard time during Winter. Perhaps this year will be different. I have some bread proofing right now so I'd better go attend to it. I'll likely be whining about that horrible closet in my next update. :)

Glorious Weather!

The weather has been fantastic recently; it's like those first glorious days of good Spring weather where you throw open all the windows, air out the house, and try to squeeze in both work and play before it inevitably turns back into freezing cold Spring weather. The leaves are all off the trees here in Wisconsin by now, but despite everything being gray the sun still cheers me up immensely.

I refilled all the birdfeeders and need to work on keeping them full. The birds need all they can get so they can prepare for the lean winter months. They're going to be my entertainment this winter so I need to keep them around. The plastic is up on the bedroom window (of course since it's been 70 degrees it's way too hot in there now) and the balcony has been cleared of all garden remains save for the empty pots and my winter greens and swept clean. It's hard to think that by the end of the month we'll probably have snow, but it's a near certainty. Time to start preparing for the holidays!

I'm making Jambalaya this week; here's the recipe I'm using (from Allrecipes):

Ingredients

• 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 pound andouille sausage, sliced
• 1 (28 ounce) can diced tomatoes with juice
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 large green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 cup chopped celery
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons dried parsley
• 2 teaspoons Cajun seasoning
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 pound frozen cooked shrimp without tails

Directions

1. In a slow cooker, mix the chicken, sausage, tomatoes with juice, onion, green bell pepper, celery, and broth. Season with oregano, parsley, Cajun seasoning, cayenne pepper, and thyme.
2. Cover, and cook 7 to 8 hours on Low, or 3 to 4 hours on High. Stir in the shrimp during the last 30 minutes of cook time.

We'll see how it turns out. If it's good, it'll go into regular rotation. I have to get ready to leave for work now, so I'm gonna cut this short. Farewell!

Tomato soup, and changes to our eating habits

I've been reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Which is today's recommended reading, by the way) and the more I read the more I want to change the way we eat. Not only because I don't want to financially support the terrible food industry in America any more than I have to, but also because I think eating local, in-season produce comes only second to actually growing all your own food as far as making you truly appreciate what's on your plate come mealtime. For example, you really start to appreciate summer's bounty when you're on a strict local-only diet and you've been eating potatoes, carrots, turnips, meat, and whatever you managed to preserve for 6 or 8 weeks and winter's only half-over. It's going to be a slow process, but I'm trying to reduce how much meat we eat while expanding our horizons as far as vegetables go. So far, I've eaten mushrooms (meaning I got over my aversion to consuming any sort of fungus whatsoever simply because it's fungus), asparagus, turnips, and acorn squash. Those are all things I either never liked before or simply hadn't had. I don't necessarily love them yet, but I have a feeling I will eventually. Still, this little project isn't without it's obstacles, the biggest one being my stupidly high metabolism and hypoglycemic tendencies. I need a lot of calories and protein and I cannot get through an 8 hour shift at work on nothing but salad and fruit. On top of that, I have lazy days where I don't feel like cooking and opening a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli sounds really good. I also have days where I get distracted and forget that I need to eat until it's too late to cook something before I have to leave for work, and due to the aforementioned hypoglycemia issues not eating before work is not an option for me. But I'm working on it. I'd like to eventually get to the point where we can just stock our freezer with free-range meat from local farmers once a year and get by on that. The only way that will be affordable is to reduce how much we eat. Same with milk. I drink way too much milk and if I want to buy all organic pastured stuff I'm going to have to cut my consumption. Getting Trevor on board with that idea is also something I'm working on.

To change topics for a minute, I pulled up the garden several weeks ago, but due to the rather mild summer I had more green tomatoes than red on the vine when I went to compost the plant. I couldn't bear to just toss them, so I decided to put them in one of my cloth shopping bags and see what happened. Then I forgot about them.

Well, a day or so ago I suddenly remembered they were in there while I was at work, and a pang of guilt hit me. Surely they'd be rotten by now, and they'd all go to waste. Owing to my wonderful ADD, I again forgot about them until today. I'd skipped breakfast (coffee doesn't count) and for lunch I had a salad, some cheese and crackers, and a handful of apple wedges. Seemed I'd hit a vegetarian streak, and I decided to continue it. We went to Half-Price books, and then Target, and the whole while my stomach growled and I tried to figure out what I could have for dinner that'd still be vegetarian. Then I remembered the tomatoes.

I looked into the bag when we got home and wouldn't you know it, they were just about all perfectly ripe. I inspected them and found one that was going bad, and while chopping them up I had to toss maybe two more smaller ones that were too bruised and mushy. The rest of them went into a pot with some minced garlic sauteed in butter and are now gently simmering along with some spices, salt, and pepper. I'm going to add some rice, lentils, and barley too and it'll make a hearty meal. I only wish I had some dough I could pull out of the freezer like I did earlier in the week with my roast. Perhaps tomorrow I'll do some batches of bread and dinner roll dough so I can have hot crusty bread anytime I want.

Oh yeah, speaking of that wonderful roast: I put it on the table and sat down to eat and it hit me... this meal was entirely homemade. There wasn't a single pre-packaged thing in it save for the milk and block of cheese I served with it, and I told Trevor that if we had a cow those would have been homemade too. I was proud of myself then and I'm proud of myself now. Maybe this whole "Eat more vegetables, less meat, and try to stay in-season" thing won't be so hard after all.

Here's how I made my soup, by the way: (EDIT: So as not to surprise anyone who decides to make this, this is not traditional smooth tomato soup. It's chock full of the barley, lentils and rice with a little bit of broth left over. Rich, hearty, and delicious.)

1 large clove of garlic (or 2 smaller ones)
2 tablespoons of butter (what I had on hand, you could probably use less)
2-3 lbs of fresh tomatoes
onion powder, salt, pepper, oregano, basil, cloves, bay leaf, sugar
half-cup or so each of rice, lentils, and barley and some frozen corn if you want

Heat the butter in your pot, mince the garlic. Sautee the garlic in the butter and take off the heat while you chop your tomatoes. Now, I had a food mill so I just chopped them, added 2 cups of water to the pot with the garlic, and threw in the pieces. Without a food mill you're going to have to blanch the tomatoes and remove the skins and seeds. (Hint: Get a food mill.) Added the herbs and spices and let it all simmer 20-25 minutes. Ran the lot through the food mill, added sugar to taste, and then put it back on the heat to bring it to a boil. I put in the rice and lentils and waited a couple of minutes before adding the barley and corn since it cooks quicker. After that, I let it simmer for 12-15 minutes and stand uncovered. It went from thin and watery to thick and rich. I served it with garlic bread. :)

No more leaves

The news is saying that the Fall colors are just about at their peak, and when we get away from the apartment, they are. Right outside, though, the trees are already bare. We're getting a lot of sunlight in the apartment and on the balcony now, which is good for my mood and great for the little rubbermaid full of leafy greens. Those are probably going to be history by next week, because now that they've been exposed to a couple of frosts they should taste really good. It's a shame I never managed to get any spinach or peas planted.

Now that we're settling into the cold part of the year, I'm going to have to find other things to do with my time. I'm currently crocheting a blanket which will probably end up being a baby blanket for our first kid whenever he comes (surely I'll have it done by then. Right? ... Right?) I'll probably bake a lot more now that the extra heat is a good thing, and I certainly need to work on my pie crusts. I'm also trying to cut down on buying food at work because there are other things I want that I can spend all that money on. I've been taking a lunchbox full of stuff to munch on throughout the day, though it's hard to find time when you work in a busy deli to take off your gloves, go in back where the customers can't see you, grab a handful of trail mix, come back, put more gloves on, and then keep going. Repeat that process enough times in one shift and you can't get your routine done. I'll be glad when I don't have to worry about finding time to manage my blood sugar while working.

I'm also trying to be more dedicated to cooking good food and eliminating some of the processed stuff we eat because we're too lazy to slap something together for lunch or dinner. Trying to cut down on our meat consumption has been a huge challenge, and it's going to have to be a long term goal because we need to broaden our vegetarian horizons and find out what we like before we can start cooking more vegetarian meals.

This is just a quick update, I actually need to hurry up and eat so I can finish the dishes and get ready for work. For now, I'm out.

Always the Summers are slipping away

Well folks, the sun has set on the last day of Summer. Normally I'm in full squirrel-mode by this point (Well okay I still am even this year, more on this later), and pretty leaves and pumpkins are the only things on my mind. This summer, however, has been a very special one for me, and I'm sad to see it go.

I've learned a lot this past season. Not only about gardening, but also about myself. I've grown to care about things such as agricultural sustainability, homesteading, and the value of knowing how to just do things yourself. I've realized that I'm really, really good at picking up new skills on my own just by looking up a how-to page on the internet. I feel like I will one day be able to do a lot of things that most people would balk at. Hell, I already know how to bake bread all by myself without using a machine of any sort. Just the other day someone was surprised when I told them I baked bread often, but don't own a bread machine. Sometime in the near future I'll be doing my own electrical wiring (actually this coming spring I'll have to rig up some lighting for seed starting!) and minor home repairs, just because I want to prove to myself that I can. I'd fix the broken switch on the washing machine so we don't have to lift the lid to get the basket to spin, but that involves buying a replacement switch and Trevor won't let me because that's the management's responsibility. I agree with him there, so I think I'll just have the repairman show me how when he does it.

Before I go too far off on that tangent, I'd like to go ahead and go back to that whole squirrel-mode thing. I don't know what it is, but every single year around Autumn I get the urge to hoard food. And this isn't a recent thing, I did this as a very young child. I specifically remember making a list for a winter cache and raiding the kitchen so I could store stuff in my room. My mother was none too pleased to find a bunch of cereal and other foodstuffs stashed in my own cupboards instead of the kitchen's. This year, I have a canner. This year, I bought an entire bushel of apples. And this year, I have garden veggies to freeze and raided the Madison farmer's market for enough jam and honey to last through the coming winter. I still have a few apples to can, but let's just say I won't be hurting for applesauce or apple pie anytime soon.

This year, my ridiculous squirrel instincts have been (mostly) satisfied. It's... well, satisfying. The only thing that would make me happier is if I had an actual cellar with a huge wall of shelves full of jars. Maybe in a few years. I can't wait to see how bad this urge gets when I have children to care for, because my maternal instincts make me even more irrational than my squirrel instincts. Trevor will probably refuse to talk about it.

Oh yes, the garden! The last few pole beans are slowly coming in. I have several pods that I just left to completely ripen and dry out so I can save the seeds for next year. Got some good tomatoes (finally). Those went into vegetable soup. The anaheim peppers have blossom-end rot, so they're going to be a total loss unfortunately. Very frustrating, but at least now that my chili pepper is going wild with blossoms I can give it some milk so they don't end up like the first batch of tomatoes and the anaheims. I bought a string of peppers for drying at the farmer's market, so I won't go without. One little strawberry plant is hanging on like a champ, but I know I'm going to lose it to the same wilt that got the others so I'll probably yank it and use the pot for cold-weather crops. My basil is going nuts again, I'll probably trim it back soon.

As far as cold-weather stuff, I've already got kale, lettuce, and swiss chard planted. They're all leggy as hell since I started them from seeds and only have one puny light in there. I put them outside in the sun before any more damage could be done and picked the strongest ones when I thinned them, but they're still floppy. Ah well, they're still growing well. I plan to plant some spinach if I can just find some seeds. I may have to order some, since apparently none of the stores around here have heard of fall planting. I think I'm gonna do some garlic too, and when it gets too frosty for anything to grow I'll fire up the old Aerogarden.

The summer was a cool one, but it was still kind to me. I learned a lot of lessons and will have a bigger, better garden next year. Signing off for now. Fare thee well, Summer! Until next year.

Applesauce!

I bought a quarter peck of Lodi apples at the farmer's market yesterday, and since they're not that great for eating and seem too soft to put into a pie, I decided to make applesauce. I have two small jars in the canner right now, and just got done licking the bowl. I put maybe 3/4 cup sugar in there since they were tart apples, and a few shakes of cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. It took on a reddish tint when I stirred it all up, and it's absolutely delicious. Can't wait until my dad gets here so we can do some more canning. I did learn one lesson today, though: Water bath canners take forever to boil, and even longer if you have an electric stove with small elements (the single large one on my stove doesn't work.) Next time I'll put the water on long before I start anything else.

I think I'll go ahead and bake some bread today too, since I'm already messing up my kitchen and doing heaps of dishes (I've probably done 3 sinkfuls already and will have 2 or 3 more by the time I'm done). The weather is rather mild today, so I won't be roasting here in the apartment.

Another Job

I found out yesterday that I'm being hired back at Sendik's, which is a higher-end grocery store here in the Milwaukee area. I'll be making $9 an hour, 4o hours a week. Yeah, big load off my mind. I've been watching our savings steadily decline while waitressing and was really starting to get worried. Crisis averted!

Anyhoo, I did my fall seed-starting. Well, some of it anyway. I found seeds for kale, lettuce, and swiss chard. I still need peas and spinach, plus some new containers and dirt (I didn't plan that out very well.) Here's hoping that we'll have some lovely fresh greens right up until the frost gets bad enough to kill them all off! In other news, my pole beans are flourishing. Every couple of days I go out there and pull off a good handful of deliciously snappy beans. I've been mostly eating them raw rather than cooking them. They're good in salads.

The tomatoes have been struck with blossom-end rot, unfortunately. I'll still have a few decent ones but all the biggest ones are rotting. This is another lesson learned: Forget relying on commercial feed. I've been using Miracle-Gro for them, but apparently they don't put enough (or any) calcium in it, which has led to a calcium deficiency in my plants which causes blossom-end rot. Next year I'm going to do some composting out on the porch and ditch the Miracle-Gro (it's owned by Monsanto anyway and they're not getting another dime of my money if I can help it.)

Not sure what's up with my big pepper, either. It's not getting any bigger and I assumed it just needed to ripen, so far it's still green but it's shriveling in the middle. Dunno if that's normal or not, I'll keep an eye on it. There are more tiny peppers starting to develop on there too, and still plenty of flower buds to open yet.

My strawberries... well, I think they're a bust too. They seem to have Verticillium Wilt. I've already lost two plants, and the others are showing signs of having it, even the little baby runners. I mowed the big ones down to ground level to interrupt the disease cycle, we'll see if they last much longer. Either way I think I might go ahead and yank them and dispose of the soil and bleach the hell out of the containers. At least then I can reuse them for my lettuce and stuff. I'm thinking strawberries might take up too much space for so little yield anyhow. I might ditch them in next year's garden and wait until I can put a big patch in the ground to grow them. Next year when it comes down to jam-making time I'll probably just hit up a U-pick farm.

I bought some new books, including one called "Almost Vegetarian". We're trying to cut back on the amount of red meat we eat, so the books I bought should help towards that goal. Tomorrow I'll go to the Farmer's Market and stock up, today I think I'll take whatever scraps I have left and make pork or chicken fried rice using this method. Maybe even shrimp, although I don't much care for shrimp.

Oh look, it's 10 AM! I Love Lucy is on. Toodles!

Stock!

I will be making a small batch of chicken stock today. I've got leftover chicken bones from our dinner the other night and I saved the giblets too (heart, liver, gizzard, no neck unfortunately). There is a wonderful tutorial on stock-making at http://www.goonswithspoons.com/Chicken_Stock. Trev has also requested a batch of banana bread, so I guess I'd better get on that. It's oppressively hot in Wisconsin today, up to 90 degrees and humid. Windy too, otherwise I'd go take some pictures of the garden to upload. When it calms down I'll try and get some. In other news, I had a job interview the other day. If I get it I'll be making over $10 per hour. The hours are random and that will suck, but I'll at least be able to start putting back money again. Oh yeah, it rained really hard yesterday morning so we had to put off the fair until Wednesday :(

Recommended reading today is the 1969 edition of Betty Crocker's Cookbook. I bought one off Amazon for my dad and have been looking through it, and there are so many good recipes in there it's not even funny. If you come across one, I'd suggest trying to get ahold of it. Right now they cost anywhere between $45 and $100 on Amazon.

Alright, I need to get my stock going and I'm gonna have to do some cleaning today, too. I hate to turn on the oven, but Trev wants his bread so I suppose he's going to get that as well. Toodles.

Bread!

Today I got up early so I could get a loaf of bread in the oven before it gets too hot. Nothing beats the smell and taste of fresh bread, and since I still have some strawberry jam left I'm in for a treat later today. I might stop by work later since I've promised my banana bread recipe (I actually got it from Trevor's mom), some green tomatoes, and whatever bread I made next to various co-workers.

I like to be generous at work. It seems like so many people are astounded by the fact that I like to cook and bake, and even more astounded when I tell them how simple it is. I try not to bore them with details about my garden and the finer points of bread-baking (mostly because once I get going it's hard to shut me up), but I do bring in some of my stuff to share. Generosity seems to have gone by the wayside with many folks today. Even Trevor sometimes snarls at me when I'm heading toward the door with half a batch of scones packed up for people at work. "Don't take those to work! They cost money to make! Let them get their own!" I try to gently remind him that we are blessed to have what we do have, and that brightening another person's day with something delicious to eat is never a waste. I fully believe that there is a reason that things tend to work out for us, and that if we ever start acting selfish and greedy that things will go sour. Besides, we're both constantly spending far more money on video games, books, and music than ever goes into what I bake. If we were really hurting for money, those luxuries ought to be first to go, not the occasional treat for friends and neighbors.

Having said that, it's looking like late summer will be a time of plenty as far as beans, peppers, and tomatoes go. I've been keeping an eye on those beans the past couple of days, and they've gone from no flowers at all to too many for me to count. I'm so glad that I didn't decide to prune them back. The tomatoes are still growing extremely well, although I did lose one to a nasty split (I overwatered. Whoops.) New flowers burst open on the anaheim every day. The weather has taken a turn for the warm as well, with it being in the 80's all week and the 90's for the weekend. It'll be miserably hot at the state fair but I don't care. We'll still have a blast.

I need to go check on my bread dough, it should be just about done with the first proof pretty soon. It'll be going into a pan for half an hour after that for the second proof, and then into the oven for half an hour. Then it's going into my mouth. Here's the recipe, for those interested:

Farmhouse White Bread

1 Package Active Dry Yeast
1 Cup Lukewarm Water
1 Tablespoon Sugar
2 3/4 to 3 Cups Bread Flour
2 Tbsp. Unsalted Butter, room temp
1 Tsp. Salt

1. Dissolve yeast in lukewarm water, add sugar, wait for bubbles.
2. Add 1 cup flour, butter, and salt, mix well. Then add the rest of the flour.
3. Turn the dough out and knead 10 minutes.
4. Put dough in bowl, cover, let rise for 45 minutes.
5. Preheat oven, oil bread pan.
6. Punch dough down, put in pan, cover. Let rise another 30 minutes.
7. Bake about 30 minutes.
8. Remove from oven, cool on wire rack.

Enjoy!

Edit to add: My but the birds are out today! American Goldfinches, mourning doves, chickadees, downy woodpeckers... all have been to my feeders this morning. I never get tired of hearing the birds flitting around the tree outside, chirping and singing between raids on my feeders.

An update!

Well now, it's been a while hasn't it? To be honest, nothing much has gone on, though there has been a little progress with the garden.

The tomatoes, for one, have exploded. I hung the basket up from the roof to catch the sun for a few days, and just left it alone, wondering when the tomatoes would start really developing. Well, a storm rolled in and I took it down out of the wind, and there were suddenly like 20 or 30 little tomatoes between the two plants! It's taking a lot of water to keep them from wilting now. I snipped the baby strawberry runner from the mother plant, we'll see how it fares. My anaheim has a lovely little pepper growing and new blossoms opening every day, and the chili plant has sprung back nicely even if there are no flowers yet. The beans, unfortunately, seem to have stopped producing. They're growing nicely, but after I picked those first beans no more blossoms have appeared. Next year I really need to watch how I fertilize my plants, because dumping fertilizer on nitrogen-fixing crops means lots of foliage but no produce. Lesson learned, I suppose.

I practiced my pie making the other day. I'm terrible, and need a lot of practice. I think most of it will be reserved for the winter, though, because even with though this has been a fairly cool summer so far with us being on the third floor and having poor airflow it gets unbearably hot in here sometimes with the oven on. That's alright, it'll give me something to do while I'm pining for the spring to come.

Oh yeah, Trev said we're going to the State Fair next Saturday. Can't wait! I'll be sure to take lots of pictures. It'll be good exercise stomping all over the fairgrounds for hours. Speaking of exercise, I'm trying to walk on our treadmill every day for a mile. I feel so much better when I do, I think a distinct lack of aerobic exercise might be part of why I feel so tired all the time and have low blood pressure. I'm so out of shape it's not even funny. Eventually I'd like to increase my endurance so I can flat-out run a mile. Right now, it takes forever to reach a mile even walking really fast and it's so boring I can hardly stand it. I try to read while walking but even so. I tried watching TV, too, but the stupid machine is too loud to hear the TV over. Today it's nice and cool again with a lovely breeze, so at least I won't roast half to death.

Oh! Before I forget, it's recommended reading time! We go to Half-Price Books a lot, and last time we went I found a book by John Seymour called The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It. It's a wealth of knowledge, and I'd suggest it to anyone who's interested in homesteading. If only I had the means to really put that knowledge to use! I don't think Trev will ever go for it, though. I also found The Gallery of Regrettable Food, which is a hilarious look at the terrible stuff they served back in the 50's and 60's. Hot dogs and beets in jello molds? You bet! My other good find was a book on preserving, which will come in quite handy this fall when we raid the apple orchards.

I'm going to head out now, I need to make the bed up, do some dishes, and get my walking and showering done. Toodles!

Harvest time!

Some of those beans are ready for harvest today. and my Anaheim finally had a single blossom burst open. The others should follow suit soon.

I made a blueberry crumble the other day. I was going to make a cobbler but I didn't feel like messing with pie pastry, so I just whipped up a crumble topping with a cup of flour, 6 tablespoons of butter, half a cup of brown sugar, and a few handfuls of granola and rolled oats. Tossed the thawed blueberries with some flour and more brown sugar and into the buttered baking dish they went, followed by the topping. I don't remember how long I had to bake it, I just checked it after a while and it was bubbling. Turned out to be quite delicious. I think I need to work on my pie pastry, so maybe tomorrow that's what I'll do since Saturday we'll be busy.

I'm off today, so we might go see Harry Potter sometime after Trev gets home from work. I think I'm going to make vegetable soup tonight, so I'll need to get a bag of my beef stock out of the freezer (I usually make this soup totally vegetarian by using vegetable stock, but there was none at the store. Only chicken and beef.) and should probably go throw together a loaf of bread and get it proofing. I don't think we have any block cheese, which is unfortunate because I always serve soup or stew with crusty bread and cheese for dipping. Blah, maybe we'll just have Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes with the green beans on the side, and I can whip up a bowl of salad. We'll see. :)

A garden update and the Moosecat

Before anything else I'd like to spare a word for my dearly departed kitty, who passed away a year ago yesterday from renal failure. Moose, you are and always will be missed. Hope there's always a patch of warm sunlight up there for you to roll in.

That said, I've got an update on the garden, and this time there are better pics. Those beans are even bigger now (I had no time to upload everything the day I took these and have been lazy since), as a matter of fact the biggest is already longer than my middle finger (which is my longest finger). Amazing how those things can develop in just one week. Bunch of ripe tomatoes on the vine too, and the basket strawberries have put out a runner. I'll probably go ahead and keep it to replace the one that died. Here are some pictures:

Zoo Pictures!

We don't know what's up with the sticker in the last pic, but we sure did laugh at it.

Well that was fast.

I just went outside to look at the plants, I try to go out once or twice a day and pick off aphids and see if any of them need water just yet. Also a good opportunity to see if any progress has been made as far as produce goes. Today is a productive day! My bean blossoms have already dropped, revealing a tiny half-inch bean pod within each. My dad said it'd only be maybe 2 or 3 weeks and I'd have me some 9 inch Kentucky Wonder beans to eat. Victory!

Speaking of eating. Right this very moment I have toast spread with butter and strawberry preserves on my plate. We went to the Dane County Farmers Market in Madison this past Saturday and I cannot begin to tell you how good the haul was. We came back with carrots, potatoes, some 6 year white cheddar, 16 ounce jars of strawberry and peach preserves, a quart of strawberries,2 sirloin steaks, and a 23 ounce jar of raw honey (ought to fuel my addiction for a while, eh?) plus some more that my dad took to my mom. The potatoes, half the carrots and strawberries, and the steaks are already gone and I'm hoping the strawberry preserves and honey lasts me until September, when my dad and I are planning another trip to stock back up and get a bunch of apples to can. It was really enjoyable having my dad up for a visit. He likes to do a lot of the stuff I like to do. We went to Half-Price Books on Sunday before Trevor got home and both of us found books to buy. I was especially happy to find a book detailing how to make delicious and intricately decorated pie crusts, not to mention a nice recipe binder. He found an old book on the Honeymooners and picked up a gardening book for my mom. He's back home now, having left yesterday morning.

Today is going to have to be a cleaning sort of day since we're having company tomorrow after we come home from the zoo. I have a sink full of dishes to do as well as several loads of laundry, and I also need to vacuum. I probably ought to get my butt up early tomorrow and bake some scones or something too, since putting these preserves on store-bought bread isn't as good and I'd almost consider it a waste considering how amazing the preserves are. The last batch of scones I baked (plain ones) didn't even last a day between me, my dad, Trevor, and the mounds of preserves and honey we smeared them with. We feasted like kings Sunday, let me tell you.

Well, chores are calling, so I'm out. :)