A Bountiful Harvest 2013

Last year our garden did fairly well.   We actually had watermelons!  That was the first time I've been able to get them to grow, so I was pretty excited!   The variety we grew was called Desert King.  They are a yellow heirloom watermelon.  They kind of have a mild fruity flavor and pale yellow flesh.  We picked several ripe off of the vine, but the rest we had to pick early because a frost was coming, they did seem to ripen okay in the basement.

A slice of Desert King Watermelon.

Seminole Pumpkin

Seminole Pumpkin from the garden.

We had a ton of these pumpkins!  They grew like crazy!  The vine tried to take over the whole garden!  They had deep orange flesh and very good flavor.  They are small 2-4 lb squash, perfect for when you only want to cook a small amount and not have a bunch left over.  Or as my sister says "Perfect for when you only want to cook one and have no more than one cooked!"   She's not ornery at all........ ;)  She likes to help me with my posts! 

A bunch of carrots, beets and radishes.

We also had carrots grow last year, too!  We usually don't have much luck with carrots, but last year we were able to freeze a few pints for the winter.  They're good for getting out of the freezer and plopping into soups for an easy-to-make meal.  We grew yellow carrots, red carrots, and orange carrots.  In the winter months I like to plan out the garden and take seed inventory.  If we are low on a variety of vegetable I always like to flip through seed catalogs and pick out a new kind to try.  The yellow carrots are Jaune Obtuse du Doubs (don't ask me how the pronounce it!)  and the red carrots are Atomic Red.  I think I preferred the yellow carrots over the red carrots, they had a better flavor, though both were good.  Unfortunately the carrots haven't sprouted yet this year, they probably need re-planted.

What kinds of vegetables do you like to grow?  Do you like to try new varieties each year, or stick to the tried-and-true ones?  Anyone have any tips for getting carrot seed to sprout?

Week 26: Spring Garden

I thought I'd share some pictures of our garden.  This year it was so cold much later than normal, it's still not quite as hot as it usually is.  I'm  fine with that!  Because of this the garden was planted much later than I would have liked.  I still have three more beds to plant!  As far as weeds go, we've done a pretty good job at keeping them down, at least in the beds that are already planted.  Mulch helps a lot!

 

 

Last Fall I mulched half of this garden with leaves and chicken manure.  This Spring I left it like it was and planted  right in it.  At first the mulch hadn't composted much and some of the smaller seeds had a hard time sprouting unless I added a little dirt on top and planted the seeds in there.  Now it seems to have composted more and the seeds sprout better.  It has helped keep the weeds to a minimum. 

 

With the other half of the garden I have put down one layer of newspaper and added a thick layer of grass clippings after I planted the bed.  If you were planting seeds I would wait until they have sprouted and are about 4 or 5 inches tall before adding the mulch.  That way you don't suffocate them.  You want to be sure and mow the yard before anything goes to seed, otherwise you will be planting grass/weeds in your garden by adding the grass clippings.



 

 

This is a bed of onions, one of the first things I planted this year.  I only just got around to putting the newspaper and grass mulch on.

As you can see we have to have the garden fenced to keep the chickens out.  The bed in the middle is a row of cucumbers down the middle with some radishes on the sides.  The bed to the right is peas.  To the left you can see a few kohlrabi and beets.

This is a row of beets growing between two rows of bush beans.  Some of the bush beans have climbing tendrils on them!?  I don't think that's supposed to happen!

 This is a picture of the Oregon Sugar Pod II snow peas I mentioned in the last post.

 

 

Some cilantro that is past it's prime.

This is a close up of the cucumbers in the second picture.  They are Poona Kheera cucumbers from Baker Creek.  I grew these last year.  Boy did they produce!!  I ended up with enough to make two kinds of pickles and also some left over to eat fresh.

These are Purple Plum radishes.  They were planted kind of late and are having to grow in the heat, they seem to be doing ok though.

Another shot of the onions.

Do you like to garden?  Do you have any tips for getting the garden in earlier?

Week 25: Peas in a Pod

It's been a pretty good spring for growing peas.  At first I was afraid it was going to get too hot before our peas bloomed, but then it cooled back down again.  We have had a ton of snow peas!  I have been eating them raw with almost every meal!  I grew the same kind last year and they've done well again this year.  They're called Oregon Sugar Pod II, you can find them here on the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds website.

 

The pictures that I am sharing with you today are shell peas.  They are also from Baker Creek, they're called Lincoln.  They have also grown really well.  Though they produced about a week and a half later than the snow peas, we were still able to get some pickings in before the hot summer heat.  These were a nice addition to some stew I made about a week ago.

They produced about 6-7 peas per pod average, with a few having 9-10 peas per pod!  They were nice sized, too.  I plan on saving seed from these this year and planting them again next season.

 



 

 

I may try to plant some for a fall crop if the seed is ready in time!

 I like this edit!

 

 

 

I couldn't decide which I liked best between these two edits.

I can't wait until the warm season vegetables start producing!  Can anyone say Tomatoes?

Week 23: Strawberry Orange Sorbet

Strawberry Orange Sorbet.  What can I say?  It was awesome!  My younger sister, yes the same one that made these Pink Popsicles, found this recipe on Pinterest and decided to make it.  Well I 'm glad she did, because it was really good!!  Creamy, sweet, and very Strawberry-y (I know that isn't a real word, but how else do I describe this awesome goodness?)

 

The only thing my sister changed was that she didn't cook the strawberries or use an ice cream freezer.  I asked her how she made it, and she didn't even know that the recipe called for it to be cooked!  She just looked at the ingredients and made it!!  It turned out just fine, though.  So if you don't have an ice cream freezer you can still make this.  She also used frozen strawberries which probably took away the need to freeze in an ice cream freezer.  She just blended the recipe in a blender.  If you need a good blender, the Ninja one is what we have and it works better than any I have ever tried.  We really like it.

 

 



 

This recipe is plenty sweet, so in my mind that means you can leave out most, if not all, of the sugar.

Here is our adapted recipe, or maybe I should say accidental adapted recipe:

Strawberry Orange Sorbet



4 C. Frozen Strawberries

1 C. Water

1 C. Orange Juice

1/8 to 1/4 C. Sugar  (or none)

 

Blend all ingredients in a blender.

Transfer to a freezer safe container and freeze for approximately 2 hours.

Enjoy on a hot summer day!



Do you like making homemade ice cream/sorbet?

Week 19: Food Photography

I have been experimenting with food photography now and then.  Sometimes it's a little tricky placing things in the picture and getting the right angle.  Here are some of my most recent attempts.

 

 

These are some biscuits I made the other day when it was cold and snowing.  It helped warm up the house!  Not to mention yummy biscuits!



 

 

It was pretty dark outside because of the snow, so I had a hard time trying to find a sunny spot to take these photos.

 



This is probably my favorite out of the biscuit pictures.

 

 

My sister made some deviled eggs, they were good!

 

My other sister made some lemon cookies.  They were also very good!!

 



Have you tried your hand at food photography?

Week 17: Pink Popsicles

So one day as I was browsing on Pinterest, this seems to happen too frequently, I came across a recipe for Homemade Orange Creamsicles.  Well, I was able to talk my younger sister into making them ;).  We used half n half in place of the heavy cream because that is what we had, we also didn't have the orange extract.  They turned out really good!  They were very creamy and orange-y.  I don't have pictures of those.   But, that recipe gave my sister the idea to make a Strawberry Popsicle.  I did manage to get some pictures of those.

 

The perfect treat on a hot Summer day!!

 

 

Or a cool Spring day!!

Even the little boys like them!!

 

 

 

Strawberry Blast Pops

3/4 C. Orange Juice

1/2 C. Half and Half (or whole milk)

1 C. Frozen Strawberries

1/4 tsp. Sugar if needed

 

Blend all ingredients, pour into popsicle molds or small cups.

Insert popsicle stick and freeze for 4 hours, or until frozen.

To remove the popsicle from the mold, run the outside of the cup

under hot water for a few seconds.  This will melt the outer layer next to the cup

and the popsicles will slide out.

Enjoy!!

 

 



Week 8: It's About Thyme!

It's about thyme for another post!  If you haven't guessed already, week eight's photo is a picture of time.  I mean thyme, not time.  This picture was taken in April of 2011.  I had bought a bunch of herb plants for my flower garden the year before.  Thyme was one that survived the winter and came back strong the following year.  I love thyme!  It smells so good!  I always like to go out to the garden and rub a sprig between my fingers and smell the highly fragrant aroma that results.  Oregano is another one that smells wonderful!

The other day I tried a recipe from Pinterest for Homemade Salad Dressing, it had dried thyme in it.
It was really good!  I've made it twice so far.  It goes really well on a kale/spinach salad with dried cranberries, raisins, and sunflower seeds.  Click here for the recipe.

I've also found that fresh thyme leaves are very good in mashed potatoes.  Just add to the potatoes after they've been mashed.  So good!

Do you like thyme?

Week 7: A Project

This project was for my Grandma who owns and runs a pizza shop.  She was needing a way to advertise the Twisters that she sells.  No, not a tornado, a twister.  A twister made of ice cream.  Now that's my kind of twister!!  She asked me if I could get a picture of some of the Twisters and print it with the flavors listed on it.  I said ok, it sounded like a fun project.

 It was getting close to Valentine's Day and the restaurant was decorated with all kinds of things for the holiday.  I thought the pink and white streamers might make a good background.  During a slow break in the day my sisters and I made three Twisters and lined them up in front of the streamers for a little photoshoot.  I wanted the background blurred as much as possible to make the Twisters really stand out in the photo.  So I turned my camera to f/2.8, or somewhere around there!  I shoot in the P mode, which means I pick the exposure and the camera sets the aperture and the shutter speed.   To set the aperture to f/2.8 or so, I would choose different sets of shutter speeds/aperture ratios till I found the one I wanted.  Sounds confusing, I'm still trying to learn it myself!

After trying different angles, exposures, placement of the Twisters, and redo-ing the whipped cream on top, I finally found what worked.  I thought the end result turned out quite nicely and was worth it.  I have my sisters to thank for helping me get the pictures before the Twisters completely melted.  Not to mention getting them eaten before they melted, also!

What do you think of the end result?  Do you like Twisters?