This is for you, Mely!

Recently, my online friend, Mely, asked for pictures of our vegetable garden. :) This time of year is quite embarrassing, but I think the experience is probably almost universal. We blissfully prepare our soil in the spring and plant the seeds with hope and enthusiasm, looking forward to a sure and bountiful harvest. As the season progresses, we cultivate, fertilize, squish unwelcome insects, enjoy the beauty and burgeoning life all around us. And then the harvest begins. We pick, continue to cultivate, and preserve and eat. And then it happens. The weeds take over! That's ok. We've kept them at bay long enough to still get plenty of food.

Here is a view as I approach my weed patch:




Between the rows of flour corn... when I was a child, I loved playing in the corn fields. Looking down a row of tall corn takes me back home to those golden days...



Look at this Cushaw squash! I put my booted foot there so you can see how large it is:



Looking down the tomato row:



The potatoes! (They have died back now, as they should, and all you can see is weeds. My husband will weed-eat the weeds before I dig the potatoes, maybe next month.)



Here is one ear of the flour corn. You can see how wonderfully big it is!



The sweet corn is spent:



Sweet potato vines... still quite happy:



A bell pepper:



And some jalepenos:



The cucumbers are looking rather sad now:



Green bean rows:



Isn't that pretty?



Still waiting for the leek seeds to mature:



Oh no! Wild morning glories! That is one of the worst weeds I ever have to fight, but they are pretty:



And now you can see what I brought in this morning. Peppers:



Tomatoes:



A few green beans:



And here you can see a jack-o-lantern pumpkin:



I do love gardening in all it's varied stages. I know that if we were to do more mulching it would eliminate a lot of the weeds. We just don't do much of that.

Now what do you think, Mely? :)

The best way to peel garlic

This is not my idea, but I have read it in several places on the internet, so am not going to attempt to give credit to all of those writers. It's like this ~ Take a clove of garlic from the garlic head. Lay it on your cutting board and cut it in half, lengthwise. Then, it is very easy to slip the peel off. It works beautifully! Then you can smash and mince or put it through a garlic press or whatever you like, but the peel is off and out of the way. :)

Shopping for Groceries!

I have not shopped for groceries for 3 months now. I do place a modest order with my food co-op each month for such things as wheat berries, oat groats, Sucanat or dried fruit, and of course we buy feed for our goats which provide us with milk, kefir and cheese. Plus, we have a garden and so much of what we eat this time of year we grow for ourselves.

I ordinarily shop once every 2 months, but things were a bit tight financially, so I put it off another month and it went fine. The nice thing about this is that I can more easily see the "holes" in my supplies, so when I do go shopping, I can stock up on the right things!

I reorganized my pantry this past week so I can more easily put away the jars I am currently filling from the vegetable garden. So far this year I've done bread and butter pickles, sweet gherkin pickles, sweet corn, green beans and tomatoes. I am hoping to do pears again this year and maybe some peaches and apples too if I find a good source of supply.

I buy things in bulk, and on sale, and simply keep what I need on hand, in the pantry and in the freezer. I have a dry erase board hung up by the freezer where I keep a current list of its contents. I also keep a list on it for the small kitchen freezer. It has been immensely helpful. I can just look at the list and see what needs to be used and don't forget until food gets wasted.



Instead of eating out of the grocery store, I eat out of our supplies. With fresh milk, fresh vegetables, the food co-op orders and keeping the stock up, I could go quite a long time without entering a food store. It's nice. It saves money and time, and when things get tight (which they inevitably do), I am prepared and at least I don't have to be concerned about what to feed us.

I highly recommend a food storage program for those of you who live in areas where it is legal to do so! Please feel free to ask me questions about this. I would be more than happy to try to help!

This post is linked up with Simple Lives Thursday!

Also linked HERE

Slow Oatmeal

This is a picture of my Grandmother. It is her High School graduation picture! She was born in 1883 in Rockville, Indiana. She was always so kind to me and very interested in everything I had to say. I miss her so very much. She passed away in 1974.

When I was about 14, she gave me a set of 4 books by Louisa May Alcott. One of the books was An Old Fashioned Girl. I loved that book and it really caught my imagination. The main character in the book always ate oatmeal for breakfast. Ever since, oatmeal has been my favorite thing to have for breakfast.

I think Gran would be proud of me. I've taken oatmeal to a whole new level. :)

Here is my new friend, a "grain flaker."



This is used for rolling soft grains, such as oat groats, at home. I don't think it can get any fresher or more delicious than that!

Here are the oat groats:



The hopper is loaded on the Flaker:




Then you simply turn the crank until all of the grain is flaked:




When I make oatmeal now, I make more than we need for one meal and store the extra in the refrigerator and just heat it up to eat on subsequent days. Here is the recipe I use:

SLOW OATMEAL

2 cups flaked oat groats
1/4 cup flax seed, ground (I use a little electric coffee grinder for this)
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup live whey (I use whey left from making kefir cheese, or yogurt cheese, or cheddar cheese.)
1/4 teaspoon unrefined salt
4 cups water

The night before, I combine all of the ingredients in a saucepan with a lid and let it sit overnight. Then in the morning, on medium heat, and stirring constantly, I cook the oatmeal until it is as thick as I like:



And I serve it with butter, maple syrup and fresh goat milk!



Here is the little hopper that goes in the bottom of the Grain Flaker. It has a screen through which the "fines" fall. Those fines, of course, should not be discarded, but you might not want them in your oatmeal. Add to bread and casseroles, etc.



The hopper full of flaked oat groats:



Empty funnel that fits the top of the Grain Flaker:



My little coffee grinder that I use for the flax seed. I keep my flax seed in the freezer and so it is cold and hard when I go to grind it. It only takes 10 seconds to grind.



I suppose this is a lot of trouble to go to for oatmeal. For me, it is worth it, since it's one of my favorite foods!

It's that time of year Again!

I have never dehydrated sweet corn before, but it turned out very well. First, of course, I took the husks and silks off of the cobs, then I blanched them in boiling water for 3 minutes. Next they were plunged into cold water. After that I cut the kernels off the cobs and put them on the sheets that you use for fruit leather, in the dehydrator and dried them until they were thoroughly dry. Then, into the jar! There is more than a quart. Can you believe that is about 1/2 bushel of sweet corn?

And here is a photo of what I brought in today. There are a lot more potatoes out there, but the weather has been so hot and dry that some of them have begun to rot, so I've started digging them up. The tomatoes are really getting into full swing now, and the cucumbers and zucchinis are slowing down.



I am so very grateful for all of this lovely organic produce! I have shared this post HERE.

Omelet suggestion

I did something different this morning when I made our omelet. Along with some grated zucchini squash, that I sauteed in ghee, I also grated in some fresh sweet corn, also grated. Oh, my... it was very good. Try it!

Garlic Harvest!

Today I harvested the garlic. A dear friend sent the seeds to me two years ago from Finland, and when you start with seeds instead of cloves, it takes 2 years:



I hung it up on our front porch to dry:



One of the bulbs was quite large!



And now I have plenty of seeds to share with other friends:



Thank you so very much, Saara!