Digging Day

I woke up disappointed it had not rained like they had said it would.  I have spent so many indoor days cleaning, that I was actually looking forward to the next extreme clean job.  I had very little motivation to walk to the garden.

After him-hawing, eating my bacon/egg scramble with an English muffin toasted and slathered in butter, and making 2 pots of coffee, I finally put on my garden attire and headed out.

I am so far behind at digging up the remaining garlic, and had waited for the rain to soften up the ground, so I started there.  We only got 40 of the 56 Russian Giant that we planted.  We planted 70 of the Moroccan Creole, and I bet we'll get 15 if we are lucky.  Not sure yet on the original variety we were gifted years ago yet.  Although the rain has barreled down, it's so dry out there that I bent my digger.

Note:  speaking of garlic, I'll have a post soon on dehydrating it.  Well, some of it, ha ha!

While others are swimming in cucumbers, we are lucky to get 4 yesterday.  Not one yellow squash at all this year, and the plants are already dying.  Not one zucchini yesterday, and a dinky handful of green beans.  Just a really, really sad year.  I tell ya', if you have an inch left in your pantry or freezer this year, fill it up.  You never know if you'll have a year like we are.

The pumpkins look good but they are again buried in weeds, and the popcorn is buried as well.  I am just running out of mojo to even try to keep up with it. Is it even worth it?

I blanched about 1 1/2 cups of green beans (only green beans to make it to the freezer this year), and had a measly 1 cup of blackberries to freeze (that actually were not sour).

The front room now has a new decor item on the wall.  It contains the new colors in our living room.  I have a few more things to clean and a few more items to buy.

My camping and garden journal are now updated.  It was extremely hot during our camping trip - too hot to hold a pen.  Literally.

Youngest (daughter), started her first day of the driving part of driver's ed.  They drive to our homestead and pick her up and she takes over the driver's seat.  At the end of her time, she picks up the next driver, and they drive her home.  It's a very nice way of doing it, so we don't have to drive her to the location every time as well.

More possible rain today.

Random Tidbits

I haven't been around due to not much going on.  As a self-sufficient gardener, I should be acclimated to a bad harvest year and just get over my pity party.  I'll admit. It stinks, and it stinks worse to not have like minded neighbors.  We rely on garlic and hot peppers for health over winter, and it's gonna cost us, having to buy it this year.

A dozen dinky jalapenos made there way to the freezer.  

A very small amount of zucchini was blanched and went into the freezer.

Tomato harvest has not been good.  The late planting, and bad weather, the paste heirlooms are not much bigger than the cherry or grape.  

Here's what I did with some of those paste tomatoes - homemade Einkorn pizza crust, with home canned sauce, some gifted pulled pork with caramelized onions, garden tomatoes and green onion.  It was delicious. 

The second pizza was topped with my dinky (but very spicy) hot banana peppers, some green peppers, and onion.  Also, very delicious.

I guess, if it's the only thing I can stock up on, it may be freezing what I get, as I get it.  They are so small, I have doubts that I will get to can anything (but you never know).

The chickadee is still nesting in my flower pot, and the other day two chickadees flew up, one crawled in and it appeared to be the male, bringing food.  We may be seeing babies soon.  It's hard to get a close up photo, but I'll be trying.

We continued to get rain this week, so garden work and mucking the chicken coop is on hold.  As far as extreme clean, the book shelf is back in order, and another box is filled for the thrift.  

The kitchen clean up is almost a success (on the hunt for new curtains, possibly new rugs or make them myself).  I purged more recipes (try-it), purged my old articles and writing resources, purged old magazines, filed some recipes, filed some patterns I printed, and put the camping supplies, bedding and linens back in the camper.  Camper curtains are washed and will go back in when we pull it out for the next trip.