Checking Another Item Off The To-Learn List. Woot!

I'm so geeked out!  I did make bread and butter pickles this year, but that wasn't really what I had in mind when I added fermenting foods onto my To-Learn List for this year.  Today Riverview Farms sent me an e-mail announcing that Slow Food Atlanta is having Sandor Katz teach a fermenting class here in town on the 24th!  I had to think that over for, oh, about 1/16th of a second before I was on the brown paper ticket website ordering my ticket.  

Isn't it funny the things we get worked up about?  I'm so excited I can hardly stand it!

Losing Pip, a Preserving List, and a Little Garden Clarity

I haven't been blogging because I am depressed, devastated, bereft, and forlorn.  I lost my partner in crime, my travel companion, my sweet little doggie, Pip.  My angel went peacefully to sleep in my arms over two months ago.  I didn't sleep for 9 days.  I want my dog back.

Let's move on, shall we?

Here is a list of what I have put up so far this year:

Canning:
 Mandarin oranges in Spiced Syrup - (6) 1/2 pints (These are bitter and horrible!)
Peaches - 7 qts.
Pinto Beans - 14 qts.
Strawberry Preserves - (11) 12 oz. jars
Strawberry/Fig Jam (so good!) - (9) 1/2 pints
Bread and Butter pickles - 6 pints  (I grew the cukes!)
Beef/Vegetable soup - 7 qts.


I'm forgetting something, I think.

Not really canning but I did 2 jars of fridge pickles, also with cukes I grew.

Frozen:
2 gallons whole strawberries
1/2 gallon sliced strawberries in sugar
6 c peas (Almost my entire harvest. Need to put in way more peas next time.)
1/2 gallon peaches in sugar
3 cups tomatoes (The first of the Romas)
1 pint of tomato juice

 Harvest:

From the garden and patio, I have harvested peas, lots of cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes, and carrots.  A lot of the garden in South Carolina just up and died. The weirdest thing is that the red cabbage I  planted in February is just now making heads!  That's just wrong, right?

I learned a lot about gardening this year.  Most notably, I learned that you cannot successfully have a garden in another state.  Life intrudes, and it became impossible to get there, sometimes for a month or longer.  I plan to go exploring in that jungle soon to see if I can find my onions in all that mess.   Fortunately, we had to cut a big tree down in our front yard at home in Atlanta, and suddenly my greedy gardener's eye sees potential for a garden in right in my own front yard.  Raised beds are about to be built for the fall garden. Hopefully I won't be the next Julie Bass. Hey, if a garden in the yard is ok at the White House...

 The best surprise for me this year was to find that we have a prolific pear tree in our yard in South Carolina. That  thing is huge and so laden with pears some of the branches have broken.  I plan to do a lot of canning with those pears.  Fruit cocktail, salted caramel pear butter, pear sauce, canned pear crisp filling, just pears in syrup, oh my!  We also have a fig tree I didn't know about.  FROG Jam and more Strawberry/Fig Jam coming up as soon as they are ready!

I want to put up a lot more soup, more veggies, lots more meat (I did pork last year and it was wonderful!), more beans because the pinto beans are so delicious and easy to make something from.  I want to do some kidneys, limas, and white beans, at least.  I still haven't done my tomato canning for this year.  My tomatoes are not producing so well, so I'm going to have to buy them, but I need to have tomatoes in my pantry, especially my mom's recipe for stewed tomatoes. I need to remember to get a new gasket for my pressure canner!

How goes your gardening and preserving this year?






  

For Mikey

 I made this Peanut Butter Pie because recently widowed Jennifer from In Jennie's Kitchen asked her readers and fellow food bloggers to make her husband's favorite pie today in remembrance of him.  She regrets putting off making his pie, which touched me deeply.  Mikey's death was very sudden and unexpected.  Like mine and yours and everyone's, Jennie's life was busy and filled with a million things that get in the way of seemilngly unimportant things like pie. 

I can only imagine, thank goodness, the shock of suddenly having one's world shattered like that.  All their plans for the future, gone.  Their daughters will now grow up without their dad.  Jennie has lost the husband she loved so much.  Everything was changed in an instant.

This could have happened to any of us.  Thank you, Jennie, for taking the time to remind us all to make the moments count.  I am so grateful to have Bren and I love her so much, I want to make sure that I never have regrets about what I didn't do for her.  That will be an ongoing project, but for today, I made her favorite pie, too. 

I

Rest in peace, Mikey.

Overboard in the Garden

Please, somebody stop me!

Do you think 54 tomato plants night be just a tad more than 2 people will need?

Why do I keep overdoing this even though I am killing myself in this garden? Honestly, I'm beginning to resent the garden for the work and the travel and the stuff I miss out on when I'm there.  My nephew was the hero of his baseball game Saturday, for instance, when, thanks largely to him, his team beat their seemingly unstoppable, and heretofore unbeaten, rivals.  I miss too much going from state to state for this garden. I miss my wife!  So does that slow me down when buying and planting seeds and tranplants?  No.

What is holding me back is that my physical limitations are much worse than I had thought.  Some of it I can overcome if I will just get into better shape.  Arthritis, advancing years, and my many illnesses will always make me weak and sore, but it doesn't have to be this bad!  This weekend reminded me that losing a bunch of weight does not mean that you are any stronger or have more stamina than before.  It took all day and a whole lot of breaks to get those tomatoes in (and the cantaloupe, peppers, watermelon, and green beans.)  I finally just couldn't do anymore and I ended up bringing the zucchini, yellow squash, and picking cucumbers home to try to plant on my patio and in my front yard.  I'll figure it out.

I am excited, however, about some heritage tomatoes the local nursery had in stock.  I have always wanted to try Mortgage Lifter and Cherokee Purple and now I can!  I also planted a whole lot of Roma type tomatoes, a first for me, as I hope to make a lot of sauce and paste for myself this year.

I harvested a few peas, enough for a nice side dish one night, but most just weren't ready. It looks likely to be a bumper crop when they are ready, though.  Awesome!

The cabbages are most unhappy and it's getting so hot now I suspect they will bolt without making heads.  They've been in since February and are just now starting to get some size.  That's the red cabbage, the green cabbages all died right off. 

Lots of lettuce almost ready for picking.  The beets, swiss chard, and carrots are coming along nicely.  Unfortunately many of my garden markers washed away in the storms and, as I have no experience with most of what I'm growing this year, I have no idea what is what.  Hopefully I'll come across the sketch I did of what is where.  Note to self - a designated notebook with all the notes, lists, sketches, and comments would be most useful and a better idea than the bunch of scribbled sheets on different sizes of paper scattered randomly throughout my 2 houses, my office, and my car.  A sorry state of affairs.

I really need to become friends with my new elliptical machine, because this weekend about killed me!

 

Garden Crazy

Reading the blogs of gardeners from other areas of the country and the world, I am becoming aware of just how blessed we are to live in a climate suitable for growing something most of the year.  In appreciation of this, I've just joined The Growing Challenge to have a four season garden this year.  You can find them at: http://1greengeneration.elementsintime.com/?p=2570

I had made up a planting schedule for the whole year ahead of time this year with some help from Clemson University's website.  They had South Carolina divided up into specific regions, and gave great advice that has probably saved me time, money, and aggravation.  For instance, I was going to plant Collards with my early crops, but Clemson suggests waiting for a Fall crop.  They would grow fine, it seems, as an early season crop.  They would also be bitter and awful without that Fall frost required to make them worth eating.  Bless them for sparing me that disappointment!

I'm off to my SC garden tomorrow night and I'll be red-faced, sweaty and sore Saturday morning.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

Ahhhhh, Ranger

Ranger has been growing - and eating - and eating - and committing crimes.


Crime #1.  Dumpster diving.

Ranger has developed the charming habit of excavating things from the recycling bin, chewing them to shreds, swallowing some of it and evenly distributing the rest all over the house.  One of these days I expect to have my vet tell me we'll have to surgically remove something from his gut.  I'll think about it.

Why don't we just move the recycling you ask?  Because his obsession with the recyclables means he isn't eating as many shoes, purses, hats, couches, etc.  That's why.

Crime #2.  Excavation #1

Our neighbors on the other side of the fence have a herd of dogs that makes ours look small.  One of those dogs is a vicious, dog killing, beautiful, intact blue Pit Bull.  Did I mention he's unusually large for a Pit?  He has killed some of their other dogs, including Snoopy, my favorite.  I don't like that damned dog and I'm always scared he will get into my yard and hurt my babies.  Ranger decided, for whatever reason, to dig under the fence and under the neighbor's shed.  He made a cave big enough to turn his 87 lb.self around in.  There can only be a few inches of dirt left between him and the evil dog over there.  Did I mention the killer dog's name is Danger?  Bren and I countered with this:

He uses these giant mitts to move all that dirt.

Crime #3.  Excavation #2

Ranger is the reason why I will never have any compost for my garden.  He digs under the compost bin, knocks the side door off, and eats every nasty, disgusting bit of rotting vegetation I put in there.  The few things he won't actually eat, like leek tops, he carries around the yard as trophies and toys.  Damn it.

 

Crime #4.  The front and back doors.

This is what he does when I'm out and he's in.  Or when I'm in and he's out.  Buy some stock in vinegar production, folks, 'cause I'm going to be doing a lot of windows.

Crime #5.  Beating his Mama up.

He didn't mean to.  He just forgets how big he is.  So while I was looking out the front door at the rain, a clap of thunder startled everyone.  I heard him coming down the hall like a thundering herd of wildebeest.  I turned just in time to catch 87 lbs. of terrified dog right in the gut.  I think he was attempting to jump into my arms.  I fell backward, striking the back of my head on the edge of the open door.  As I fell with my hip hitting the metal edge of the landing, Ranger fell with me, his front feet driving all of the breath from my body. Oof!  I was just down for the count for a minute there.  My ancient, terribly ill rat terrier Pip is very protective of his mama.  He was beside himself, so he decided the right thing to do was to launch himself at poor Ranger, who was scared and scrambling to regain his footing (still on my stomach, God help me.) Just picture it, if you will.  The hysterical small dog attacking the big, frightened dog and me trying to move so I could separate them before someone got hurt.  Ah, the joys of motherhood!

Why would we keep such a pain in the tuchas, you ask?

Well....he is really sweet.  And really, really lovey.  And it's almost cute when he forgets how big he is and sits on someone's lap.  But mostly we put up with his doofiness because we rescued him as a companion for Chewie and they are great together.

He makes Chewie happy and that makes us happy.

The Garden is Growing!

I've been spending a lot of time at the country house in South Carolina so I could get the garden started.  It is at my brother-in-law's house just down the road.  Here are some pics after he had plowed it.

Three weeks and some torrential rain later, it looks like this:

In the foreground are the peas and their trellising. Off to the far left you can just glimpse the end of the long line of cabbages. In between are beets, carrots, 3 kinds of lettuce, mustard, onions, turnips, and I can't remember what else.  The storms have washed little areas of seed out of the rows and into pools of mystery veggies.  Isn't gardening exciting?

I'm so geeked out about the garden, I should be embarrassed.  Really, though, I'm just excited and can't wait to get warm weather stuff in.  I have an extensive and perhaps unrealistic list.  One thing I will certainly be growing a lot of this year is tomatoes.  I'm fed up with tired of the stuff in cans at the store.  My own tastes so much better and I don't have to wonder what is in it.

This is my new favorite t-shirt I got from Tractor Supply Company:

Gotta love tractor humor.

My little, old, sick, beloved Rat Terrier goes with me most trips.  Although the three hour ride each way is hard on his old, achy bones, (Mine, too!) Pip loves his time in the country.  Here he is basking in the sun and then, well, you know how dogs are about squirrels right?

All in all, Pip and I are having a great time on our weekend trips to the sticks!