New Flower Garden

John tilled a 28 inch wide strip for me out front this is where my new, well new to me I salvaged a double loop wire fence on city trash day, fence will go. There I will transplant my peonies, that are languishing along side our garage in a very unihabitable location, all rocks and the neighbors obnoxious climbing vine. On the south side of the fence I will put my hostas, which will be transplanted, and divided, from the back yard. If I ever make it to the potting table today I have a bunch of fox glove and other plants to get started, as plugs, that will go out in the front garden. My ultimate goal is to turn my entire yard, save the spot for the sheltie, into a cottage garden.

And as you can see from the text and such I am having problems with my wacom tablet today.

Ready to Go!!!

My poor neglected garlic patch, I have two of them actually. Hopefully next week I'll be able to dig the patch up and seperate it out so they will actually produce sizable bulbs this year. Leeks and onion seeds are going in next week as well, again if we don't end up with a nasty blizzard tomorrow.

Now that John is finished doing his thing, tilling, I can put up the fence again this will help to keep the rabbits away from my grape vine which they tend to ravage and very quickly. Picture below YES that really is a tree growing in the middle of my garden. I could opt to remove it but it provides a LOT of shade on my house hence reducing the need for central air in the summer. It's a crab apple, I've been working on guilds to plant around the tree it would appear that there are a lot of plants, including vegetables that love apple trees.

North Garden below East Garden above, Native Prairie Garden to the right of the sidewalk.

My garden spots have been tilled, just 2 inches to break the large clumps of horse manure apart and to mix it in with the leaves, and are ready to go! Now barring any major blizzards which we may or may not get next week I'll plant my potatoes, peas, kale, chard, mustard greens, and rhutabegas.

Canned Cole Slaw Recipe

Coleslaw to can or freeze

1 medium head cabbage
1 large carrot1 green pepper
1 small onion1 teaspoon salt SYRUP
1 cup vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 cups sugar (we used ¾ cup for better results)
1 teaspoon celery seeds (we liked less seeds use ¼ tsp)
1 teaspoon mustard seeds (we liked less seeds use ¼ tsp)

Shred together vegetables. Add the salt. Let stand 1 hour. Drainwater from vegetables.

Boil syrup ingredients together for 1minute, cool. Add syrup to vegetables.

Pack into quart jars andprocess in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes, or put into freezercontainers and freeze. Leftovers may be frozen. This slaw may bedrained before use and mayonnaise added, or used as is.

Dede’s notes: 4/19/08 used 6 one pound bags of coleslaw mix with carrots. Added one large red bell pepper, diced, and one medium sweet onion, diced. Triple the syrup, but double may have been enough. Got 9 pints. GOOD STUFF.

NOTE: Dede gave me permission to share her recipe with the world, this is very easy slaw to can we haven't tired freezing it yet as we always can it instead.

Chicken Paea

I have no idea if I spelled the name right or not it's a spanish recipe and it was delicious! I love simple one pot cooking meals!!! ;-)

Horse Manure

We picked up a load of aged horse manure last night to put on the east garden. First we put down a layer of chipped leaves and compost, then a layer of garden lime, then the manure, then another layer of lime. By the time we were done tilling up the remaining sod in the side yard, to make one continious garden space, it was too dark and too late to chip the remaining leaves to put on top of the manure! This is my first year lasanga gardening.

New Garden Space

South looking north, about 45 feet, maybe more, for veggies, herbs, and flowers.

I grew rather tired of the rabbits destroying my grapevines, like the local thief wasn't bad enough, so the grape arbor is now inside of the fenced area.

The fence runs along the sidewalk which will soon have thyme and other herbs growing to fill in the space.

Above - looking north towards the garden shed. Below - looking south towards the front porch and the street.

We enlarged the east garden combining it with the south garden beside the front porch. Dh will build a raised bed, octagon shaped, to go around the crab apple tree under which we will plant currants and goose berries.

No more fence hopping for me, John's also building a gate for the garden as well. One of the blessings of no longer having a large dog means I don't have to have a large yard for the large dog and it also means less mowing!!! Now to finish planning the guilds to go around the trees .

Trouble in a Tree

Trouble, our attic squirrel - well it is her fifth year or so of living in our attic not our choice mind you - eating crabapples competing with the robins and cedar waxwings.

Cabbage Seedlings

Oregano, Cilantrao, Basil (sweet basil)

Roma Tomatoes

Purple Cabbages (above) and Green Cabbages (below)

I'm hoping they will all make it if so I'll have a bountiful garden this year!

Snow

It's snowing today, hmmm after several days of above 60F weather, it's supposed to be 8F tonight and my peonies and lilies have decided to make an appearance. I hope they survive this experience. The snowflakes are huge the size of half dollars!!!

Tomatos

I started 36 tomato plants tonight - since they are heirloom seeds that are older I planted extra to see if any actually would germinate. I have a couple of weeks yet before it's too late to start seeds. These are large roma variety that has been handed down from my grandfathers the fruit are about the size of grapefruits, a little larger actually, and occassionaly I get yellow romas instead of red. I'll know more in a week.

Silky 1998-2009

This was the last picture I took of Silky today - we took her to the vet around 5ish and sent her over the rainbow bridge. She just didn't have the energy to pull through this one.

Silky Update

Silky is back from the vet, well until Monday that is we will take her back then for her final visit - for the rainbow bridge, and that's if she makes it until Monday. She can't stand on her own anymore, the vet said her blood cells are destroying one another. The vet also told us that 11 is old for a weimeraner most don't make it to 10 even.

Carla Emery"s Old Fashioned Recipe Book

Carla Emery"s Old Fashioned Recipe Book an Encyclopedia of Country Living copyright 1977. Carla rewrote her book right before her death several years ago.

I get a lot of emails asking me where I learned what I know, most of it is from helping my parents when I was growing up. We always had a very large garden, canned, dehydrated foods, etc., and we raised rabbits and chickens for food. I've supplemented what I knew with books such as these (this book was in with a lot of books I purchased at a sale).

Silky

Silky is not doing so well, fading and very quitely but not doing well. She's 11 now, 13 if you count the borrowed year for having survived cancer the first tiem around.

Olive Oil

John repacked the olive oil, which came in a rather large bottle, into smaller glass pint jars this afternoon. This increases the shelf life by about three months as we will now move the OO to the basement pantry where it stays a balmy 55-60F year round.

Sweet Potato, Sausage, and Kale Soup

This is what we had for dinner and it was delcious. I substituted out Italian flavored Pork Sausage for the turkey sausage and yams for the sweet potatoes which were outrageously over priced ($4.97 a pound~!) The Kale was exceptional in this recipe, it reminds me of a soup I've eaten before down south.

You can find the recipe here http://ourkitchensink.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/on-mirrored-elevators-and-hearty-lunches/

Homemade Dog Food

Yep you read it right I'm making my own dog food! Believe me it was NOT my intention to do this but we lost most of the upright freezer contents in August, once the new chest freezer finally showed up, and I kept some marginal stuff for the pets to eat. You know like the sirloin tip steaks and the ground beef that was partially frozen.

Tomorrow I'll put it through the food processor with the correct proportions of carrots, pumpkin, peas, rice, and some greens. And yes I'll take pictures when I do this! After that it'll get packaged into freezer bags and go into the new chest freezer. And now begins the journey of making dog food, sigh.

Nite all!

Economic Perspective

Watch the video at this link which compares borrowing from 1919-1969 and then that of the last three years http://www.garynorth.com/public/4527.cfm

Orange Marmalade

Ok after an agonizing hour of boiling it all down I forgot, yes I forgot, to photograph the final result before we put it in the jars. Trust me when I say it was much darker than the photos below and looked like orange Marmalade!

Orange Marmalade