Monster radishes!

Two years ago my daughter came and helped me make a hugelkultur in the vegetable garden. You can read about that here:  

http://simplyhomemaking60.blogspot.com/2017/10/hugelkultur.html

This morning I went out to check on some radishes that I had planted in the hugelkultur in March and neglected to pull up.  Here is what I found!

Surprisingly, they are good flavored and not stringy.  In fact, they are very good!  So, I cut them up and have started a ferment.  :)

Then I cleaned and blanched the greens and ended up with 4 nice little packages for the freezer.

The Sweet Potatoes did MUCH better than I expected!

My husband and I dug up the sweet potatoes this afternoon.  With the overall dismal results from this year's garden, I was very surprised at what a good harvest we got - and very grateful! Here they all are in our wheelbarrow.

Look at this one!

I can't help but wonder just how that happened!

When you harvest sweet potatoes, you need to let them "cure" for at least a month.  If you eat them right away, they are rather bland.

After we did all this and got them into the house, I cooked one of the two that I had left from last year and made a sweet potato pie!  We'll have that for lunch tomorrow.  I make my crust with whole wheat pastry flour, NON -hydrogenated lard, salt and milk.  The pie filling is sweetened with just 1/2 cup of honey.  It makes a very nice, wholesome pie.

Sweet potatoes don't like being cold.  I just store them in baskets in my kitchen, and they last for a long long time.  

Forgive me, I had written "hydrogenated lard" yesterday.  I've corrected that now!  Yikes!!!

A very nice surprise!

As I've mentioned, this gardening year has been a disaster because of the extremely wet spring.  I was thrilled, though, this morning when I went out there and found that the kale is recovering from disastrous insect damage.  I'm very grateful!  Now we'll have kale all winter to enjoy.

And here's one of the pier at Juno Beach.

I took a short vacation...

I was able to visit our son and his family in Florida the last few days.  He and I went out to Juno Beach two mornings ago to watch the sunrise.  Here is a picture I took out there.

Couldn't help myself...

I also made a new dress for the 1 year old granddaughter's birthday.  :) I had the fabric and supplies on hand.  This fabric is cotton/polyester and very smooth and soft at the same time being a little crisp.  Perfect.  I bought it, a few years ago, from www.gehmanscountryfabrics.com

A friend for the new dollie....

I made the doll for a little granddaughter.  Her brother is having a birthday very close to hers.  I made this bear from some white terry cloth that I dyed with RIT dye.  I'm very happy with it.  Here is a link to the pattern I used.  It is free.  I was pleasantly surprised how nicely this turned out. His eyes and nose are "safety" so they are not a choking hazard, except to maybe the family dog.

http://www.eldrbarry.net/im/meg/simpbear.pdf