... greetings

Hello everybody,

I am sorry to have been absent for so long. Alas, I have been in hospital having surgery and will not be blogging for a few weeks while I recover.

I appreciate your understanding and I will be back at it as soon as possible.

On a more cheerful note, I do hope that you all had a wonderful holiday season and for those of you who celebrate it, I hope you had a very Merry Christmas.

2016 will be upon us before we know it and may it be a happy and healthy New Year for us all, one full of exciting challenges and adventures.

Thank you for visiting. Cheers.

... root crop harvest

Hello everybody,

We have enjoyed an unusually mild autumn this year in eastern Ontario. So much so that I was actually able to leave all our root crops, namely carrots, parsnips and beets, in the ground until now. The weather has become seasonably chilly so it was time to haul them out.

I had filled one 3 foot by 15 foot bed with the aforementioned veggies. They all did quite well and we have been eating from the bed all during the autumn. What ever was remaining needed to be pulled and stored.

Now, I wish I could say that I have some sort of wonderful root cellar to keep them in, but alas, I do not. I do have a plan in the back of my mind for next year but the question remained of what to do with them this year.

I decided to dig them up, leave the soil attached to them, put them into a large Rubbermaid Rough Tote and leave them in our boot room, or mud room if you prefer to call it that. It is the coolest room in the house. There is no heat in there and it is on the north wall. Average winter temperature is about 50F. Not ideal, but the best I can do right now.

We weighed the tote full of the veg and it came to an impressive 86.6 pounds. Pretty good from one bed.

I have tucked the tote in beside our freezer and all the squash and pumpkins are piled up around it. 

I will be keeping a close eye on it to see if any of the veg begins to rot and of course moving some of it to the refrigerator for weekly meals.

Another job done and now time for a well deserved cup of tea. Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Cheers.

... how to never waste bacon

Good evening everybody,

How often have you purchased a package of bacon, used up some of it and then forgotten all about it only to find the last few slices have turned into something truly horrible in the back of your refrigerator.

That used to happen to us as we do not really eat a lot of bacon, much as we both love it.

In an effort to stop the madness we now deal with the bacon in a different way. 

As soon as we open the package we take out the amount that we need for that first meal and then all the rest of it gets laid out on a piece of wax paper on a cookie sheet and goes into the freezer. As soon as it is frozen, the wax paper is wrapped around the bacon and it goes into a zip top bag, appropriately labelled "Bacon", and back into the freezer it goes.

Whenever you want one slice or six slices simply remove what you want from the bag and cook it from frozen. It will defrost in the pan almost immediately.

No more wasted bacon and if you happen to need to slice it for a recipe it is much easier to slice frozen bacon than fresh.

Well that is all from me for tonight. Have a great evening. Cheers.

... meal planning

Greetings everybody,

If you have read my blog for any length of time you already know how I feel about wasting food!

I really believe that the more organized that you can be in your kitchen, the less food you will waste. I also think that you need to eat down your pantry and your freezer to use what you have already purchased and not just keep on buying more and more food.

I have a system to do just that.

To start with, I have a freezer log. I will make that the subject of a separate post but for today, it is enough to know that I have one.

I also have this nifty little pad that I purchased at Michaels craft stores years ago. It is divided up by days and each sheet shows one full week and I believe the pad contains 52 sheets, so enough for a full year. The best part was it was a whopping $1.50! There is also room on the side to note things like groceries needed, etc. This pad lives on the front of my refrigerator. Now, this is a personal thing, but I am not a fan of having a fridge covered in stuff. I know that most people put all sorts of things on their fridge doors but it is just not for me. I have two things on the door .... my menu pad and a magnet I recently purchased at a wonderful little store in a town close to me. Again, for myself, I am not a fan of fridge magnets but I do keep one of them there to hold my grocery list since I add to it throughout the week before I shop. When I saw this one, I simply could not resist. :)

Now, back to the menu pad. It really does not matter if you use a menu pad or a simple piece of paper, the principle is the same.

If you keep a freezer log, have a look at it to see what you have in there. If you do not, then just open up the door and look inside. Then decide what you are going to have each day. I really enjoy this particular task because I absolutely love to cook. I make up my menus on Sundays for the coming week. Once you have decided on the protein part (chicken, fish, etc.), then go into your larder or pantry and refrigerator and have a good look at what you have in there. Is there veg that needs eating up? Do you have a bag of potatoes on the verge of sprouting? You get the idea.

I make a note on each day of what the recipe is that I am using and where to find it. I read through the recipe carefully and look to see if I have everything needed and make a note on the grocery list for any missing ingredients. I very often will substitute ingredients if I have something on hand that I want to use up.

When I have finished with the weeks menus I will also have a start of the grocery list for the week. That gets stuck on the fridge under my one cutie magnet. :)   As the week progresses, I will add things to the list as needed. My aim is to only have to shop once during the week as I live almost a half hour from a grocery store. The last thing I do before shopping is to have a look at the grocery store flyer to see if I want anything else that is hopefully on sale.  :)

The huge benefit of making up your weekly menus is in the morning I simply have a quick glance at the list and take out of the freezer whatever is called for on that day. There is never the "oh my, what are we going to eat for dinner tonight?" panic that can often occur. This is especially true for those whose job has them getting home late and then they still have to scramble to get dinner on the table. 

Give it a go and let me know how you get on. Thanks a lot for visiting today. Cheers.

... planting garlic

Greetings everybody,

It is that time of year again. Autumn. And that means it is time to plant garlic.

We only plant Hardneck garlic and the variety we plant is called "Music". Hardneck garlic has a good keeping quality and it has the bonus of getting those wonderful garlic scapes which we love as they are so delicious.

Here is my method for planting garlic. It is really very simple.

You need to start with a bed that is completely free of weeds. Garlic absolutely hates to grow with any weed competition so this is a very important step. We are planting into brand new raised beds but I still filled them and let them sit for a while so I could clean off any weeds that did germinate. Rake the bed nice and smooth.

I plant my garlic in rows which are 10" apart. I find that this allows me to get in there with a hoe to get at whatever weeds appear. I simply mark those rows down the length of the bed making sure the spacing remains correct. I use a piece of an old shovel handle that had broken off to quickly push through the soil to make the shallow furrow but of course you can use whatever you have handy.

Next is to separate all the cloves from the heads. I purchase certified garlic from a grower that I trust. In my case that happens to be Vesey's from P.E.I. 
I have never been disappointed with my purchases from them and they absolutely stand behind their products.

I plant the cloves 6" apart and simply use an old yardstick to measure and keep them the correct distance. 

Once they are all sitting in the correct spots, I simply poke them down into the soil. They should be approximately 2" down. Do not plant them too deeply.

After they are all planted and the surface soil is smoothed again I cover the entire bed with straw for winter protection. The soil in your beds should not be left uncovered to be exposed to the elements over the winter. You can choose any number of things to cover them but I often use straw.

So there you have it. Your garlic is all tucked away in the garden ready to burst into growth in the spring. I planted 3 pounds of garlic which translated into 210 individual cloves. With the correct spacing, that required 2 1/3 of my raised beds. Although the garlic will stay in these beds for a large part of the growing season I will still be able to get a quick crop in there after they are harvested.

That is all from me for today. Thanks so much for stopping by. Enjoy your day. Cheers.

... autumn broccoli

Hello there everybody,

After all the excitement of the weekend I spent a good part of the day yesterday in the garden.

A while ago I had cleaned out the bed that had previously grown such a wonderful crop of beans and replanted it with some autumn broccoli, kohlrabi and some lettuce.

We have been eating the lettuce and the kohlrabi and I decided it was time to get in whatever broccoli had managed to grow. We have had a couple nights with a hard frost and although the broccoli is somewhat cold tolerant there was no point in leaving it there.

A couple of the plants only managed to produce a small head but a few of them did grow out a really decent size head of broccoli. 

I have cut them all and after sorting them, we will get three nice meals from this lovely little pile I have here.

When you are gardening in a climate such as ours where it is not a very long growing season you need to take advantage of succession planting. We only had in about 10 plants but at least they managed to produce a small crop. Of course next year will be different as the beds are already constructed so the plants will go in earlier and that will make a big difference.

Thanks for stopping by. Next discussion will be on planting garlic. Cheers.

... the dangers of the country

Good morning,

Today is Thanksgiving Day here in Canada. Frank and I have a lot to be thankful for. 

We celebrated and had a wonderful dinner with family and friends yesterday at Frank's sisters house. They live about a 1 1/2 hour drive from us. 

I was driving home. The roads are all very dark and some of them are quite twisty. As I do not really care for driving dark twisty roads I was driving a bit below the speed limit.

It all happened in less than a second. 

A large deer ran right into the drivers side corner/side panel of the car.

I saw it for a fleeting second, barely felt anything and then it was gone.

Frank was on his cell phone trying to get the score of the Blue Jays baseball game. He saw and felt nothing.

I said "a deer just ran into us". 

That made him look up. We had both our dogs in the car and they had not reacted either.

I pulled over to the side of the road and we could see that there was a great deal of damage and the car was leaking fluid.

We called the police and a tow truck. The driver of the truck walked up the road with a flashlight to find the deer. He said is was a massive big doe. He said he had no doubt that she would have died almost instantly. I am thankful for that as I find it very troubling to know that it is dead. Not because of me as she ran into the car. Nevertheless, it is still troubling.

The truck driver looked at the damage and said that if she had run into the road one second sooner I would have hit her full on and she would likely have come through the windscreen and we both could easily have been killed.

Our guardian angels were definitely sitting on our shoulders last night as we walked away without a scratch.

It is hard to believe that there could be this much damage and we did not even feel it. We had been told when we bought our car, a Honda Civic Hybrid, that they are excellent in front end crashes. All that they said was true. 

I think I am still somewhat shell shocked by the whole incident. I told Frank when our good friend and neighbour got out of his bed and drove 45 minutes to come and get us and when we can walk away from this sort of thing completely unharmed that we do indeed have a great deal to be thankful for.

Thanks for visiting. I think I will go out and do some work in the garden to clear my head. Have a great day.

... purging some of my stash of books

Hello everybody,

In addition to all the other activities that have been going on around here I have also had a chance to go through my large collection of what I call "homesteading" books. 

I am selling off quite a few of them either because I have read them and will not read them over again or in a couple of cases because I have duplicate copies for some reason.

All of the books are in excellent condition and I have a very low price on all of them. I will take a photo of each of them and post that shortly. If any of you are interested, please leave a comment so I can get in touch with you.

Please note that all of these books are written in English (for all you wonderful people from countries where English is not your native tongue).

We finally finished painting the house yesterday and we are both exhausted today after 10 days of priming and painting. Today is a day off from everything as we both really do need the rest.

Thanks for visiting. Cheers.

... how to can tomato sauce

Greetings everyone,

I know that I have been MIA for a while and I do apologize for that. This is a very busy time of year for us. We have been gathering the harvest from the garden for storage. Fantastic crop of squash this year and lots of tomatoes. The everbearing strawberries are still producing quite a few berries although we had a hard frost last night so I expect that will be the end of them.
In addition to all of that we are painting the outside of our house. Huge job.

One of the things that we have been doing is making tomato sauce. I have done a blog post on that before but I did not talk about safely canning the sauce. 

At present I use a hot water bath canner, the same one that I have used for the last 20+ years without any problems.

Here is my step by step process of canning tomatoes.

Naturally, first of all you need to make the tomato sauce. I will leave that up to you to use whatever recipe and method you choose. I wash the tomatoes, cut them up, run them through our grinding machine to separate seeds and skin from flesh and juice and then cook them down for a few hours.

When we are ready to can them we fill up the canner with hot water and set it up outside on a propane heater and bring the water to a boil.

The next step is to collect the jars and rings and give them a really good wash in hot soapy water. Rinse well.

I them put the wet jars on a cookie sheet and into a COLD oven. I heat the oven to 225 F and when it has reached temperature I set the timer for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile I put the rings and lids into a pot and bring to a rapid simmer after which I turn off the heat and let them sit until needed. I have heard that there are new lids out there that do not require warming up but I have yet to find them in my stores.

The tomato sauce is brought to a boil. Sorry the picture is so misty but there was a lot of steam coming off the pot.  :)

We get all our materials ready. The canning funnel and the ladle are sterilized under boiling water and we get out a bottle of lemon juice.

We do not know the exact acidity level of the tomatoes so we do not take a chance when canning them. We simply add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to each jar of sauce. We have never had a problem doing this. Better safe than sorry.

After filling the jars, (and be sure to leave the correct head space indicated by your recipe),  wiping the rims and putting on the lids and rings, they go into the rack and get lowered into the canner. The jars must be at least 1" below the water level. We put on the lid and wait for it to return to a full boil at which point I set the timer for 45 minutes which is the time indicated in my canning book. 

I am sorry that I do not have photos of filling up the jars but we cannot waste time when doing that. The jars are scalding hot as is the sauce and it needs to be done quickly.

When the time is up we remove them carefully and set them on a towel in a draft free place to allow them to cool completely. I just love to hear the sound of all the lids pinging as they seal up. Music to my ears!

After they are all cool I wipe down the jars, either label them or write the date on the lid and store them away in the larder for later use. I just love knowing that I have that wonderful store of food available for our winter suppers.

That is all from me for today. If you are Canadian I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving as this is the weekend that we celebrate here in Canada.

Thanks so much for stopping by. See you back soon. Cheers.

...tomato sauce .. but wait! It's GREEN!

Hi there everybody,

I noted in a previous post that a couple of the tomato varieties we are growing this year are green ones, namely Green Zebra and Green Sausage.

Because the Green Sausage is a paste variety we decided to try to make some tomato sauce from them with a few of the Green Zebra thrown in. 

They all get washed then cut into quarters and then we put them through our trusty, hand crank tomato press. 

I am sure it has a proper name but I do not know what it is. We bought it about 20 years ago and it still works a treat. It separates the skin and seeds from all the flesh and juice.

I sauteed up an onion with a couple cloves of garlic in some olive oil and added the tomato pulp and cooked it down for a couple of hours. It looks a lovely shade of green and I am sure it will make a fantastic pasta sauce with that wonderful unusual colour!

In this case because there was not all that much sauce I simply put it into containers and froze it. Normally when we make a large batch I process it in mason jars in a hot water bath.

We are in the process of making sauce from all the red paste tomatoes we have collected but that is for another day.

The weekend is upon us so. I hope everybody has a great weekend and thanks so much for stopping by to visit with me. Cheers.

... when life gives you zucchini...

Greetings everybody,

Anyone who has ever grown zucchini or courgettes knows that they are prolific little beggars. That is probably an understatement. 

For some reason that I simply cannot fathom, I actually planted 9 plants this year. I had started the seed in pots and then just separated them and planted out everything that had germinated. Absolute madness, I tell you!

So, as was to be expected, we have been overrun with zucchini. We have been giving them away to anyone who is willing to take them. We try to keep up with the production, honest, we really do!

But every once in a while I find it, just lying there, hiding under the leaves. A whopper as big as my arm. And sometimes even bigger.

Now if you have read my blog for a while you know how I feel about wasting food. Even the unending zucchini.

Thankfully there is something that can be done with these bigguns.

I make zucchini bread.

I grate up all the big zukes I have on hand and then measure it all out. 

If I am going to turn on my oven, I like to get maximum use from it so I bake as many at the same time as I can. 

My recipe makes one loaf and calls for one cup of grated zucchini. So yesterday when I made the bread, I had enough for 5 loaves which just so happens to be the number of bread pans that I have.  :)

Here is my recipe for those of you who find yourselves besieged with zukes. I have tried quite a few different recipes and finally adapted one to suit my purposes. I often find that they have more oil than I would like to use and then they are greasy afterwards. This recipe uses less but it is still moist and delicious.

Zucchini Bread

1 beaten egg
1 cup of grated washed and unpeeled zucchini or summer squash
1/4 cup of oil (I use canola)

1 1/2 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/4 teaspoon of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg
A good handful of chopped walnuts or pecans, about 1/2 a cup of so. You can 
   leave out the nuts if you have allergies or just prefer not to use them

Grease a 8x4 loaf pan. I use one of those baking sprays but use whatever you would normally use.

Mix together well the beaten egg, the zucchini and the oil.

In a separate bowl stir together all the dry ingredients except the nuts.

Add the moist ingredients to the dry all at once and stir until just moistened. Remember the laws of quick breads - DO NOT OVER MIX.

Stir in the nuts briefly just to combine.

Pour into the loaf pan and smooth the top.

Bake at 350F degrees until done, which is about an hour. That means that a cake tester stuck in the middle comes out clean. Times can vary so I start to check just before the hour. I find that it also seems to change the time depending on the number of loaves that are in there. When I baked the 5 loaves it took one hour and five minutes. They should be lovely and golden when they come out.

Cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes and then remove from the pan and leave on the rack until completely cool. 

I put one of them into a tin to eat right away and the remaining ones I wrap in aluminium foil, label them, and into the freezer they go. In the dark bleak days of February, they will be a delicious reminder of hot summer days and my mental breakdown for planting so many!  :)

Enjoy!

Thanks for visiting with me today. See you back here soon. Cheers.

... heirloom tomatoes

A very good day to you all,

It would appear that the heat wave has finally broken here. We now have all the windows wide open and some cooling air is finally coming into the house.
Just as well, as you will see shortly.

We have been out collecting the heirloom tomatoes from the garden. Pretty much all of them have wonderful flavour but not all as I will note later. The one thing we have noticed from a great many of them is the size which can be absolutely HUGE!

Just take a look at this one. It clocked in at over 2 pounds! The problem though is that there is so much waste what with having to cut off all the icky bits. This one and this second picture of a much more reasonable looking tomato are called Dr. Wyche's Yellow and the taste is superb.

This next photo shows the following varieties, left to right:
Green Zebra, Black Icicle, Green Sausage, Purple Bumblebee and Black Cherry. They are all delicious. We are thinking that next year we may plant out more of the Black Icicle and make a batch of tomato sauce with them. I am sure it would be wonderful as it is one of the best tasting tomatoes we have grown this year.

We gathered all of the tomatoes that were ripe, both the paste variety which is mostly San Marzano and all of the other ones and made a batch of tomato sauce. The larger tomatoes were somewhat watery so we added a couple cans of tomato paste to bulk up the sauce. This small batch is not enough to haul out the canning jars and the kettle so I will just freeze it for now.

One comment I do wish to make on one of the tomato varieties, namely Chadwick Cherry, is that I found it to be very bland and lacking in that zing of tomato flavour that you expect from an heirloom. We will not grow it again.

Well that is all from me for today. With the arrival of the cooler weather I will be back out in the garden getting in those new veggie beds and a few other projects before the weather turns cold. I have seen some maple trees turning colour already so the autumn season is fast approaching. It is absolutely my favourite season of the year. I love the crisp temperatures meaning I need a sweater and the stunning autumnal colours.

Hope you all have a terrific week. Will be back soon to report on the squash harvest. Thanks for stopping by. Cheers.

... the autumn harvest

Hello there everyone,

The title of the post may be "the autumn harvest" but the weather here in eastern Ontario could not be less like autumn. We are once again in the middle of a horrific heat wave with the humidex up into the 40s.

Despite the heat we have been out in the garden gathering produce when it is ready. We planted quite a lot of squash this year and one of the varieties was Green Hubbard. We peeked into the mass of squash leaves and saw this beauty lying there just growing away happily. 

We will let it sit outside on the porch for a couple of weeks to allow the skin to harden and then bring it in and store it in the larder. When it comes time to use it I will cut it all up, steam the cubes of squash flesh and pop them into the freezer. They will make great soups and casseroles in the winter time.

Of course we are still getting lots of courgettes daily. I have been freezing them and we give lots away. The fall planting of lettuces are doing well and I hope they will not all bolt in this heat. The Day Neutral strawberries are exceptional. Huge and delicious. We are also getting some fall fruiting raspberries and a few blackberries every day and they too are wonderful.

I have just received another delivery of wood and we will be putting in 8 more raised beds this autumn so they are all ready for spring planting. The more work we can do now the easier things will be in the spring when sowing and transplanting make construction of new beds a challenge as we just do not have the time.

Well that is it for me for today. I am hiding out in the house trying to stay cool until this heat wave breaks. Thanks for visiting. Cheers.

... let's talk Pork

Hello everybody,

We have a wonderful neighbour who owns a farm just around the corner from us. He has a wonderful friend who raises his own pigs. He treats them like gold and when the time comes for them to fulfill their destiny and turn into chops and roasts, he does the deed himself quickly and efficiently. After which he butchers them and packages up the meat.

We were asked last autumn if we would like to buy some of his meat. We decided to buy 1/2 a pig. Our share turned out to be 56 pounds of meat. We got one large ham (unsmoked), several packages of bacon, lots of chops and roasts and then there are the "odd bits" that people often do not know what to do with.

We have used up almost all the meat except the ham and we had two packages of "hocks" left.

Now to be perfectly honest, I had not cooked pork hocks before but I assure you that did not deter me. I looked them up in a couple cookbooks and found a wonderful recipe. So we had them for dinner tonight.

The recipe is simplicity itself. Saute an onion in some olive oil in an oven proof casserole. Add a jar of sauerkraut, a bit of pepper and a couple of bay leaves and sit the pork hocks on top. Cover and into a 325F degree oven for a couple of hours. The house began to smell wonderful and let me tell you, the meat was tender and delicious. I do not think this photo really does it justice.

There is absolutely nothing at all to be scared of by the "other" cuts of meat. I think that if we are going to eat meat then it would be truly sinful to waste any of it since an animal had to die for us to eat it. Climbing down off soap box now!  :)

I believe that part of the problem is when we go to the supermarket we only see the standard cuts of meat. You know, the pork chops, hams, bacon, etc. For some reason we rarely ever see all the other bits and bobs. I have no idea what they do with them. There is the difference when you get your meat directly from the source. This chap who raises the pigs does his own butchering so he makes sure that you are getting ALL of the meat, not just the common bits. After he took such care to raise these animals, it is now my job to do it justice when I cook it. Try getting your meat directly from the source if you have the chance, whether it is pork, poultry or beef.

That is it for me for tonight. Thanks for visiting. Cheers.

... courgettes or if you prefer, zucchini

Hello everybody,

The garden is a wonderful thing right now. The plants are all doing well and we have been harvesting veg and fruit daily. We have pulled some beautiful golf ball sized beets, lovely long carrots and my oh my, the courgettes are coming fast and furious. We have been offering them to everyone we know.  :)

I happened upon a blog recently that stated that you can freeze zucchini. I have tried to do that in the past but it ended up a yucky watery mess.

This stated to cut it up into cubes, blanch it for only one minute, chill in ice water and then spread it out on a wax paper lined cookie sheet and into the freezer. So basically, exactly the same way I have been dealing with the beans but just less time blanching. I have decided to have a go with about a dozen or so. I reckon that I can use them in soups or stews as they will definitely be soft when they are defrosted. At least it is a good way to deal with the over abundance as we can only eat so many of them at one time.

Short and sweet for this post. I will let you all know how the courgettes turn out as I plan to let them freeze solid, give them a couple of weeks and then defrost some to try them out before I freeze any more.

Have a great evening, thanks for stopping by. Cheers.

... the heat wave

Hello everyone,

As I mentioned in my last post, we are in yet another heat wave here in Eastern Ontario.

It is horrific to say the least both because of the temperature and the killer humidity but also because it has lasted so long. We are into about 8 days I believe of this heat.

I must confess that I have done absolutely nothing at all in the garden. Frank has been out there a couple of times to give the beds a good watering and to pick the never ending harvest of courgettes but that is about it. I simply cannot cope with this kind of heat and humidity. It actually makes me physically ill.

I have been checking the weather almost hourly to see when it is to break and we still have a ways to go yet. Tomorrow will be another hot and stinky day but the humidity should be leaving us some time Friday night. It is actually 1:00 in the morning as I write this as it is too hot in the house for me to sleep. We can usually hold out for 3-4 days with the heat but this long and it finally gets into the house and we cannot get it out again as the temperatures do not cool off enough at night. The house has been getting steadily hotter and hotter every day.

So hopefully the next time I post we will be back to normal temperatures and I will have something of interest to relay rather than just whining about the heat.  :)

Thanks for stopping by. Try to stay cool if you live in my neck of the woods. Cheers.

... the total bean crop

Good evening everybody,

I went out to the garden today and pulled out all the bean plants from the raised bed. I stripped off all the beans that were left on the plants and today's total was 12.8 pounds of green and yellow beans. 

I have been picking beans from these plants for several weeks now and I have kept track of what sort of harvest we got from this one bed.

I am happy to note that the total bean harvest is 40.2 pounds from one 3 x 15

foot raised bed. Once I had cleared the bean plants I did note that there were very very few weeds in the bed.

That bed has now been planted up with a crop of fall broccoli, some kohlrabi a few kale plants and I have interplanted with lettuce. I also put in two cabbage plants, one green and one red that my neighbour gave me for plant sitting for her while she was away on holiday. 

I know that it is late in the season but the plants are all about 8 weeks old at least and have a very established root system. I am hoping that they will take off and grow like crazy over the next 6 weeks or so. All of them are somewhat cold tolerant, except the lettuce, so they can hopefully take a light frost if necessary in the autumn. 

We are at the start of yet another heat wave here in Ontario so I will need to get out there very early in the morning if I have any hope of getting any work done. I am looking forward to the crisp cool days of autumn so I can get the last of these beds done.

That is it for me for tonight. I will not be posting for a short while as we have family coming to visit. Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend. Cheers.

... a few updates

Hello everybody,

I have had a very short break and got away for a couple of days to visit a very dear friend but now it is back at it.

The strawberries are growing like mad and sending out runners in every direction. They are very determined to send out their little daughters to make new plants and I am equally determined that they shall not!

You can see from this photo that some of them are VERY determined. I have been around several times and cut them all off. 

In the process of doing that, just take a look at what I found.

Are they not beautiful? I think so and I can tell you they were delicious. The Day Neutral berries are flowering now and quite a few are setting fruit so we should get a few berries by the autumn.

I have been continuing to work on pathways around the perimeter of the veggie area and just got another delivery of tiny pea gravel. 10 tons of it. That works out to 20,000 pounds of stone to shovel up and lug into the garden in a wheelbarrow. No wonder I have lost weight this summer. 

More wood has been ordered to put in 8 more raised beds in the vegetable area. I will order the Triple Mix when the wood arrives. They will not be planted out this year but will be filled and covered over all ready to plant out in the spring. The more work like that you can do at this time of year the farther ahead you will be next spring when there is tons of work to do.

Well I think that is it for me for today. Thanks for visiting. See you soon. Cheers.

... rogue courgette

Hello there everyone,

I did a blog post a while ago to compare the growth of the courgettes planted in the raised beds to those planted in the open ground.

All plants are doing well. Those in the raised beds are still considerably larger and are producing courgettes like madness! It is now that I ask myself why on earth I planted out 9 of them!

I planted out two varieties this year, a green one simply called "Dark Green Zucchini" and also a yellow one called "Golden Delight". Both varieties are growing very strongly and both are very productive.

For the first time since I have been growing courgettes, I have a rogue or mutant variety.

The seed all came from the "Golden Delight" package and all the plants are growing true to type except one. It is a mixture of a very dark green splotched on top of the bright yellow as you can see from this photo. All the courgettes from this plant are the same, not just the odd one here and there.

They taste exactly the same as the regular ones but they are certainly striking to look at. This is a hybrid variety of courgette but I am tempted to save a few seeds just to see what would happen next year if I try to grow it.  :)

That is all for me for today. Hope you are enjoying your weekend and your long weekend if you live here in Ontario. Cheers.

... lilies

Good evening everybody,

A lot of my blog posts are about homesteading, gardening, preserving the harvest and, my personal favourite, trying not to have any food go to waste.

I take all of those things very seriously and working in my garden and trying to get the best from it is something I do every day.

However, in addition to growing vegetables I simply could not live without flowers. As we have been here such a short time I have not yet had the time to start on any flower gardens. When we moved here I brought a few plants with me which I have tucked into spots here and there as well as making a section of garden a designated "nursery border". That is where I park the plants for now until they eventually have a permanent home in a bed or border.

One of my absolute favourite plants are members of the lily family. I have a special fondness for Daylilies. I have several growing here now in the nursery border and they are now in bloom. Of course each blossom only lasts for one day but they all have such beauty while it lasts.

Here are some photos I took today to show you how lovely they can be. This first picture is a brand new one I bought this year. 
It is called "Adorable Tiger". Unfortunately I do not remember the names of all the others.

 These last couple pictures are not Daylilies as you can see. I planted these out last fall and was stunned at how beautiful they are now that they are starting to open. And the fragrance is just heavenly.

I know that it is very important to grow wonderful organic fruit and vegetables to nourish the body but in truth I do believe that flowers nourish the soul.

Thanks for visiting. Hope you are all having a terrific weekend. Cheers.