... 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.