Garage sale finds save the day

 I had posted a want ad on Craigs  List for a water-bath canner and some canning jars. I received an E-mail from a person about a mile away from my house who was having a garage sale starting today. My luck was with me, they had both sizes of canning jars that I wanted. And they had  lids. Best of all, they had the water-bath pan and rack. Now it was time to make a deal so the homeowner and we agreed on $20.00 for it all. I left there a happy gardener. Friday night, Elaine and I were discussing putting our old gas stove on the porch to use for canning when Elaine had an even better idea. She suggested using a wood fire in the fire pit. With a small fire to keep the water boiling to do the canning. I'd be willing to bet that both of my Grandmothers used a wood fire to can. They used to can meat before they had freezers so I would have to think this canning was done on a wood fire. I know the Amish can this way yet today so I'm sure that I can too. My garden is coming along quite well. The squash and pumpkins are blossoming, I should be picking string beans in a couple of days, and our 1st strawberry to ripen gets picked today. The pole beans have climbed to the top of the sunflowers and are also starting to blossom. I hope soon I will be canning and freezing so we will be able to enjoy these vegetables this winter, that is if we don't enjoy them too much this summer and eat them all like we did the 1st planting of peas. As fast as those peas ripened, I picked them, shucked them, cooked and we ate them. We enjoyed them so much, I just replanted more peas for fall. I planted about 4 times as many as I did the first time so I hope we have some to freeze. But they're just so damn good fresh that we'll just have to wait and see if any make it to the freezer

Time to stop planting

 As it is almost the first of July, I guess it is time to stop planting in my garden. Elaine and I like fresh vegetables for as long as they are available. So I plant smaller plantings of certain vegetables, but plant them several times. Yesterday I planted another small row of string beans. This makes the third planting of beans, each planting about 2 weeks apart. I have also planted peas for a third time, while I've been harvesting my first planting. My summer squash and zucchini are both starting to show fruit, so I planted a few more squash to help extend my squash season. With any luck, and if the first frost doesn't come early, I should be able to have my own fresh vegetables into September and October. Of course, now as my garden ripens, the preservation of these vegetables for the winter begins. Freezing, canning, dehydrating, and just plain old dry storing of the root vegetables. Some times it seems a bit overwhelming, but then I go to the grocery store and see the produce prices. After seeing those prices, the work of having a garden doesn't seem hard at all. And best of all, it tastes better when you grow it yourself.

Pest Problems

 I've been trying to use as few chemicals as possible on my garden, but I fear I'm losing the battle against the critters. I started my melons in the house but lost these plants to cucumber beetles. So I used some dust that I mixed in the soil to kill the beetles and re-planted the melons. My second planting was up, had their second leaves and were growing well. Mission accomplished, or so I thought. Yesterday morning when I went to check the garden after the nights storms, I found my melon patch all dug up. The watermelon plants which were about 6' tall,GONE. The cantaloupe plants which were about 4" tall, Gone. The honeydew plants which are also 4" tall, NEVER TOUCHED. Now I mixed these seeds together when I planted so the plants were mixed in the bed. This critter ate my watermelons and cantaloupe plants after sorting them out in the melon patch. Without ever disturbing the honeydew plants. Must be this thief has particular tastes which don't  include honeydew. So today I started more melons in a hanging basket. I'll let them grow there for awhile until I can put a fence around my melon patch. Even the cayenne pepper doesn't seem to bother this pest. If it wasn't all dug up I would have thought a bird did it. The way it was dug up, I almost think it was a skunk. So since I'm not fond of getting sprayed by a skunk, I'll try to be careful about how I keep it away and keep my garden safe.

The garden keeps getting bigger

 Sometimes I just don't know when to stop. I keep planting more garden. The first crop of peas are ready to pick, the second crop of peas are just starting to climb, and now I'm going to dig up some more lawn to plant a third crop. Maybe I'm going crazy, but I'm sure having fun the trip.
  Hopefully, Elaine and I can eat all year from this garden. Fresh is best when it comes to vegetables, but here in the northeast we freeze and can for winter use. I'm also going to try to dehydrate some veggies for soups and to maybe use in a dip. I've got the time and I feel better than I have in the past few years, so the farmer in me wants to grow something to eat. And besides, I'm having fun doing it.
   I started some plants in these pallets that I have stacked up. Now I'm almost done transplanting these plants and I'm planting herbs in the pallets now. Fresh herbs seem to be a hot ticket at the farmers markets so I will try to grow some for ourselves and maybe I will be able to sell some myself. I would also like to donate some of my extra vegetables, that is if I have any, to our local food bank. The food bank has helped Elaine and I a couple of times in the past few years and we would like to re-pay the favor. Who knows, we may need their help again sometime.

   Yesterday I was looking at the garden, particularly at the greens. The beets that I cut 3 weeks ago were coming back in stages and so was the swiss chard. I also had some turnip greens that needed cutting. So after I cut them, I needed to do something with them. There wasn't a lot of greens so I cooked them up and drained them well, chopped them up, then mixed them with a pint of cottage cheese. I cooked some large shell pasta and then stuffed the shells with the cheese and greens. I added a little sauce and into the oven went supper. One of these days I'm going to hurt my arm patting myself on the back, but supper was good.

Once again, Elaine is right

 When you're wrong, you're wrong and that's all there is to it. For the last few years now, Elaine has wanted to have a yard sale to get rid of some of our "extra stuff". Some how, some way, I've always managed to put it off. It's time to have a yard sale, I surrender, I was wrong. That stuff needs to go. It's upstairs just collecting dust and of no real use to us anymore. Some of it needs a new home. We have stuff left over from when we had a store. That was 10 years ago and the stuff is still in boxes from when we closed. We have clothes that we could only dream of fitting in again and guess what, thanks to time, some are back in style. It's scary to think about how much craft supplies are upstairs. And then there are the boxes and buckets of construction supplies that I had when I was doing Mr.Fix-it type jobs. Change a light fixture today and fix a leaky sink tomorrow. It's amazing how many general supplies I used to carry in my old truck. I never knew what I would need, so I tried to have a good stock of supplies so I could do the job without having to go for parts. Now all this stuff needs to be brought downstairs, cleaned, and sorted. Then we need to pick a date, advertise our sale, and make some of this stuff disappear. Make it go away, take it away, whatever.
  You were right dear, we should have sold this stuff before. But as I have said before, "BETTER LATE THAN NEVER".

Getting ready to harvest some of my crop

 The peas are covered with pods that are starting to fill out. The beans have blossomed so they will be forming pods soon. The strawberries are starting to form berries after the blossom. And now, today, the summer squash has started to bloom. I'm getting excited with the coming of a crop. I can already taste some of these fresh vegetables. Growing up a dairy farmer, I was always excited by planting a crop, watching it grow, and then harvesting what we had grown. It's a good feeling. We work alongside "Mother Nature" to keep the food chain intact by providing for our families and others. We also face a few challenges from Mother Nature along the way. Hard storms, high winds, drought, bugs, and varmints. Squirrels, chipmunks, and rabbits are always helping themselves to a meal so I use cayenne pepper to discourage them. This works well and is organic and non-toxic. The bugs are a little tougher to get rid of. Snails and slugs are deterred by sand but some bugs I can't control well enough without the use of a chemical dust . All in all, things are going quite well. Soooo......LET THE HARVEST BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!!

Middle of June already

 Where does the time go? Blink your eyes and you'll be amazed at how much time has passed. Elaine is doing well with her recovery and it looks like she will have no future problem from this. The garden is also doing fine. The peas have blossomed and are starting to form peas and now the beans and peppers are blossoming. I don't like fresh peas but Elaine can have my share, she loves them. I will pick some more lettuce for supper tonight. I'm having a good time with my garden this year. I seem to be able to handle the heat better than in the last few years. And my garden helps to occupy all this extra time I have since I'm not working, and it makes me feel as if I'm doing something instead of just sitting around. After living a pretty active life before I got sick, I was really quite bored with just sitting around doing nothing. We'll call this my "garden therapy". It keeps me busy and I can eat the results.

Time to make Cheese Puffs

 Elaine is making good progress with her recovery. Yesterday she said she was starting to feel like herself and she had her first good nights sleep since the surgery. Her appetite is coming back and she is much more alert. There is no reason to rush it or push too hard. She just needs time to heal, and I aim to see that she gets the time she needs.
 Yesterday I beat the rain and got my sweet potatoes planted. I have never grown sweet potatoes before so I'm learning as I go. If I do right by the plants, they will do right by me. Everything else is growing fast and fine. Our strawberries are blossoming and if it stops raining long enough for things to get dry, I have greens to pick and lettuce to transplant. I started more herbs and some more flowers in the house today. I also started some asparagus from seed. These will take 2 years too grow before harvest, but it will be fun to try to get them to harvest. I need a little challenge once in a while. The first sunny day, I will take more pictures of the garden and the trellises that I made. I think it all came out looking pretty neat.
 Now it's off to the kitchen to make some cheese puff snacks. We keep these on hand for a quick snack. These are real simple to make. All you do is melt 1/2 stick of butter over low heat, add 1 diced onion and 3-4 cloves of garlic, diced. While the vegetables are cooking, dice a loaf of crusty bread into 1/2 inch cubes, and set aside.After the onions have softened, add 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard and stir. Now add an 8 oz pack of cream cheese and stir until melted. Next add ! and 1/2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese and again, stir until melted. Now add ground black pepper to taste and turn off heat. Fold in 2 beaten egg whites, then dip the bread cubes until coated, and place on a baking sheet. Place the baking sheet in the freezer for about 20 to 30 minutes. Remove the cheese puffs from the baking sheet to a zip-loc bag and put back in freezer. When you want a cheesy snack, place as many as you want on a baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees until brown and bubbly, then just set back and enjoy. I got this recipe from The Pioneer Woman on the Food Network.

OK for now

 Elaine had her surgery on Friday. The doctor feels confident that he removed all the cancer and that she should be fine after recovery. We both took a big sigh of relief when he  told us the news. For now she is a little sore and needs help doing simple things, but that's what I'm here for. It's my turn to help her heal instead of her helping me.
 It has been storming almost everyday now for the past week. Here, we have been getting hard rains and wind. Not far away, they have been getting the wind, hard rain and hail. I can deal with the wind and rain, but that plant striping, garden wrecking hail I want no part of. Man has always complained about the weather and probably always will. It is never just right for very long.
 My sweet potatoe vines came in the mail yesterday, so before it starts to rain again, I'm going to go try to get them planted. Maybe I'll get lucky.