Giant Marconi Peppers

This is the first year we have grown these peppers. You can see from the picture how large they are. The bell pepper beside the Marconi is very large in itself.

I plan on throwing together a spanish rice and chicken stuffing for them this evening. I will try to post what I come up with later.

2010 Garden

The year 2010 has not been a year for Virginia gardens. Spring started off beautiful and green.

But alass the drought has made our crops scarce.
I did manage to put up green beans, and we are getting a few tomato and peppers.

The corn is not looking promising and it just makes one realize how blessed we are that we can run to a store for what we need. Makes me really appreciate our ancestors and the hard times they must have lived through “living off the land”.

On a up note we did have some great vacation time this year.

I just hope 2011 is a better year for Virginia gardens.

Homegrown Thanksgiving

I always do my deserts the night before Thanksgiving, so I don’t have as much to do on the big day.

Blackberry Jam Swirl Cheesecake

Pumpkin Pie

I was thinking about how much of our ingredients we grew this year.

The pumpkin for pie, blackberries for cheesecake, green beans, potatoes for mashed potatoes, the chard for wilted greens, the corn for corn salad, all the onion, green pepper, and herbs that will be used.

We didn’t grow the brussel sprouts, yams, flour and yeast ( although I could have used my starter but don’t plan to) or any of the meat, eggs or milk.

My food bill for this Thanksgiving was still out of this world, counting all drinks and the few above items.

Next year I need to try and grow the brussel sprouts and yams. I also might look into some chickens for eggs. I don’t wish to be tied to a milk cow however..lol.

A homegrown Thanksgiving takes a lot more than one can imagine offhand. I appreciate the pilgrims a lot more…

Spring on the Pond- derosa

So glad that spring has sprung here!

We have been harvesting lettuce, chive, onion, mint, thyme, oregano, lemon balm, arugula and radish.

lettuce mixture

lemon balm

chives

thyme

We planted new asparagus but it looks pretty pitiful the first year.

Imagine a 20 foot row of that! Ground needs working!

I so look forward to the growing season and hanging out at our old backyard fishing hole!

Fishing hole painting done with Photoscape! Cool free program!

Come back as the season progresses. We hope to have a lot more wonderful vegetables to show off.

Garden Omelet

We are having some problems with one of our ponds. One flow way has a hole in it and dear hubby is here trying to get it fixed.

The way it all works is the drain way from the upper pond flows into the lower pond through this spillway.

The lower pond spills into the pipe we are having problems with and then runs under our drive and into the creek.

We believe he has it fixed, but we must get some rain to allow the lower pond to fill back up to really see.

What does a working man need to get his day going but a “Garden” omelet with home fries.

Just gather whatever may be in the garden. This one has onions, spinach, some freezer tomatoes (from the garden just delayed a bit), and Mexican tarragon.

Place it all inside a pool of beaten eggs in a greased fry pan.
Fold when it becomes firm. Add some cheese on top.
Fry some potatoes to complete and feed your hungry man before a hard days work.

Now I have a question. This is my first year trying to grow rhubarb. Just look at these leaves.

Why do they have holes? Aren’t rhubarb leaves suppose to be poison, so what would eat holes in them? Do they normally grow that way maybe?

I searched the web and even found insect spray to make from rhubarb leaves, so I wouldn’t think insects would be eating at them. Would they? I hope someone can help me.

Here is an insecticide recipe.

Rhubarb Insecticide: Boil up one pound of rhubarb leaves in a few pints of water for about 20 minutes, allow to cool, and then strain the liquid into a spray bottle. Add some dish detergent (not laundry detergent) and spray on leaves to kill bugs like aphids and spider mites.

The above taken from Insecticide Link

PS note added later- I found my problem..

The first indications of Ascochyta leaf spot are numerous small yellowish-green areas on the upper surface of the leaves. Within a week of initial symptoms, the leaf tissue turns brown and dies resulting in angular spots. These spots have white centers surrounded by red zone and then a grayish-green zone. Often the dead tissue will drop out giving the leaves a shot-hole appearance which may be confused with insect feeding.

A second disease problem that has been common this year is anthracnose stalk rot. First indications of this disease are wilted leaves and large, water-soaked lesions on the stems. The lesions quickly enlarge and turn black. The stems may have a twisted appearance and the whole stem may collapse.

Both of these diseases can be controlled with good sanitation practices. Remove and dispose of infected tissue during the summer and after the first frost. In the case of Ascochyta leaf spot, stems with infected leaves may still be harvested and should be taken first whenever possible. Since both diseases overwinter in infected plant tissue, good sanitation practices should control most of the disease problems.

Found at Link on Rhubarb disease

Upside Down Update

I was so excited to begin my upside down project!

I was wanting a smaller tomato to try but could not find what I wanted so I ended up using Jubilee. I hope they won’t be too heavy which was hubby’s concern. I am trying two this year in hopes of next year filling a whole side of my deck.

As you can see here I have lots of deck space to hang them, and since we always worry about our dogs laying on our plants outside of a fence, I thought it would work great. They couldn’t lay on the plants unless they learned to fly.

My biggest concern is that this side of our deck only gets the evening/afternoon sun.

I will have more updates as they grow and hopefully I won’t have to report they came crashing out as they mature and get heavier.

While I am at it I’ll show my sage blooms just because I can.

Independence Days Challenge

Sharon’s Independence Days Challenge update can be found here. Link

Here are my weeks challenge results, to the best I can remember. I didn’t get much done because my grandkids were sick and couldn’t go to daycare a couple of days. I always keep them when they are sick. Poor little guys.

1. Plant something.
Since we can not grow lemon trees in our area, I planted lemon balm.

Outside of a fence our dogs will trample, lay on, or devour anything around. I had to place tomato cages over the lemon balm plants to ward off the dogs. I also planted more peppers.

I transplanted some cilantro that had sprung up on its own from seed last year.

I have been trying to start cilantro from seed I harvested and they just recently formed their second leaves,

so I am glad some took the notion to jump start and grow itself!
Some flat leaf parsley seems to be doing the same thing (grow itself), and dill.

2. Harvest something.
I harvested some cilantro, oregano, thyme and dill and cooked by using them in recipes this week.

3. Preserve something.
I preserved more dried oregano.

4. Prep something.
I did prep by collecting some lemon balm recipes from the web and got instructions on starting and maintaining a compost bin.

5. Cook something.
I am always cooking something..anything new this week? No.

6. Manage your reserves.
I managed my reserves by inventory of my home canned goods. Did I dread doing that one. I threw out some older I figured we wouldn’t eat in time so the jars would be available for this season. I also used up some stuff, like the last of my canned tomatoes.

Whatever you do, if canning, don’t store the jars with the rims on like I often do. You are supposed to store the cans rimless.

7. Work on local food systems
No local Food work this week, unless you count feeding sick grandchildren to grow into local citizens someday.

I might be scarce the next few weeks. Grandkids birthday for me to work on and I am getting a new computer and high speed.

Hopefully by the time any webbies see me again I will be zipping around cyberspace on my new system.

God Bless!

Independence Days To You!

Sharon is running a Independence Days Challenge Independence Day Challenge
which is very inspiring to me. It entails to each day try to do one of the following

1. Plant something.
2. Harvest something.
3. Preserve something.
4. Prep something.
5. Cook something.
6. Manage your reserves.
7. Work on local food systems.

While I have not officially joined the challenge I feel I may participate as my time allows, since I have been trying to evolve as such anyway.
Her declaration follows -

quote -
United Food Sovereign People of the World. It is so desperately needed that we do declare our independence from the globalizing, totalitarian, destructive, toxic, dangerous agriculture that destroys our future and our power and pays to destroy democracy. And so, when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for people to divorce themselves from a system that has become destructive, and thus:

We the people, in order to form a more perfect union of human and nature, establish justice and ensure food sovreignty, provide for the common nutrition, promote the general welfare and ensure the blessings of liberty, for ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this constitution for the United Food Sovereign People of the World.

So for last week we planted rhubarb and lavender, a few Big Boy tomato and hot banana pepper. ( I don’t want to plant too many tomato or pepper yet because I have a hard time covering in frost events)

I lovingly looked at our smaller salad garden taking off.

That is black seeded simpson lettuce, jersy wakefield cabbage, english breakfast radish, some sort of shorter carrot and some yellow and white onion sets growing. I have some mesclun mix growing in the end of the herb garden because the smaller garden didn’t have the room now. Isn’t it funny that “mesclun ” means mixture? So we are basically saying “mixture mix” when speaking of mesclun mix. Sort of redundant huh?

I also have head lettuce seed but that will have to wait until fall because I am running out of space.

We planted summer squash seed and transplanted some winter squash plants to the larger garden.

To ensure local food systems hubby bought 6 zucchini plants! I thought, my gosh we will have zucchini to feed the town! What was he thinking?

I cook and prep all the time, but I did dry some oregano to preserve. I also harvested green onion and some dandelion greens for salad on Monday and have been using them all week.

To manage my reserves I took a long hike in our woods. I figure I need to manage and reserve my stress levels too.

I ran upon this beautiful wild azalea.

Look at the stark difference between the wild lone azalea in the woods and the tame ones lining my garage.


I also ran upon these tiny yellow daisy looking weed although I have no idea what it is.

Maybe wild daisy?

I feel my Independence Days abounding and look forward to making further updates.
And Independence Days to you too, my child.

Just To Spring Up My Blog

Just to Spring up my blog, here are a few things blooming in my yard and a garden update. Joy, Joy, Joy!

My oregano, thyme and sage are coming back thick, although I don’t have pictures.

Curly parsley is also returning and my rosemary. They are nondescript compared to the flower blooms though.

We have harvested a few green onions and I am picking up more sets today. We have in the ground , carrots, radish, cabbage and lettuce.

My garlic I planted last fall is growing, but it doesn’t seem to be doing so well. I will give it some time and see.

All Is Well

It was one of those mornings.

You get up and perk your coffee and go out on the porch to sip the dark brew in those old rockers.

The cane seating is wearing thin in places in those old rockers. One of them belonged to my husbands mother. His brother had initialed the back of the headrest with something sharp as a kid. We painted over it with black paint when we recieved the chair. The initial gives the rocker character.

This morning the mist was coming up off the ponds and deer stood on the hill and watched as I invaded their territory. They didn’t run. They are so used to us now they won’t dash off until you venture a tad too close.

I was at peace with the world.

I thought that this was the peace of the Lord that passes all understanding.

As I sipped I began to think of all the bustle I used to have to endure with my career. It seems so far off now.

I don’t care much for breakfast and rarely eat it. The years I spent toiling in it burned me a bit.

This morning after the last drop of coffee and the deer went searching for more interesting pasture, I made myself breakfast.

One simple boiled egg in a tarragon white sauce.

All is well with my soul.