More Rain ~ Garden is Flooded ~ Turnips

We can't seem to get a break from the rain right now.  I checked on the garden.  It's flooded.  Like parts of it have 4 inches of standing water. 

Woke up to a chilly 36°F outside.  So cold, I had to turn a heater on, and today I need to order propane (gulp!).  Way too cold for a garden to grow, so I am praying my already planted herbs and flowers survive this dip in temperature.  Wet and cold do not mix well for an abundant garden.  My feverfew seeds did not sprout at all, so I may need to re-buy them if we want a harvest this year.

I have been bringing in about 2-3 asparagus a day lately.  We are at the end of harvest, but we keep getting a few a day.

I'm already utilizing fresh herbs from the garden.  The cilantro seed sprouts are holding up in this colder weather too.  Same with the dill seeds I planted.

About turnips . . .

Turnips are the most under-rated cruciferous vegetable in my opinion.  Probably along the same path with rutabagas.  I don't know anyone personally who even eats either of them, and you won't find them served in any area restaurants (in our area anyway).  You can find turnip greens at some restaurants.

(photo credit my husband)

Although it would be the best world to be able to grow everything we eat (or raise it), some of us cannot.  I have not grown turnips in several years, due to lack of tilled garden space, and lack of raised beds.  

I do buy our turnip greens, and for now, organic peas.  We have been him-hawing on when and how to add more raised beds, so we can grow more of both.

Turnip Greens are not just a healthy side, but high in fiber.  I have been doubling up on our vegetables lately, and mixing up the rotation, so we don't eat the same thing all week long.

I boiled my greens in a mix of organic chicken broth, water, a bit of bacon fat (you could use olive oil), salt and pepper.  At the end of cooking I added 1 minced clove of garlic for added health and flavor.

Greens are a healthy addition to a breakfast, and I add them to ours weekly.

Turnip Au Gratin (a newly tried recipe, and no breadcrumbs).  We love potatoes, but we do eat them in moderation.

I tried this recipe, in hopes to get some turnips in our rotation more often, and to also find a reason to plant them next year.

Funny story, we bought a flat of what we thought (and was told) was cauliflower, and when it all grew it ended up all kohlrabi,  We loved it, but we got so tired of eating so much of it ha ha!

Recipe stated to layer and season, but I tossed the sliced turnips in the seasoning, with 3 cloves of minced fresh garlic.  The thyme is from the herb garden.  I layered these with the cheese mixture, then poured the organic heavy cream over the top as the recipe stated (and covered it).  Oh, and I buttered the baking dish.

Results on the turnip recipe:  

Very good, but there were blips with this recipe.  First, the recipe stated bake covered for 25 minutes (375°F) then broil.  It was not done at that time. By the way, I used my thinnest slicing on the mandolin, so these turnips were very thin too.   I covered it and had to bake it for 1 1/2 hours.  I then researched roasted turnip recipes, and they use 400°F for one hour.  

The recipe is a keeper, but cook time will be higher. We loved this!  Turnip au Gratin (Low Carb Spark).

It was very good in the end, but the time in the oven is off with the temperature on the recipe.  I think more heavy cream was needed, and maybe one more minute of broil time.  Also, the recipe did not say to broil on high or low. 

It re-heats nicely, but it does not have a liquid-y base after that long of cooking.  However, my husband's first bite was "Wow! That's good!"

I'll keep looking for more new turnip recipes.  It was good, but a few flaws in the instructions on this one.  It would be a good side for grilling meats on the outdoor grill, but with a higher temperature to speed that baking process up.

By the way, I have put turnips in the crock pot, but with a mix of root vegetables and a sweet/butter glaze.

More Rain ~ Garden is Flooded ~ Turnips  ©  May 2025 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

More Rain

 We have not had a day without rain.  It rained all day yesterday, and all night and it's raining this morning.  In fact, I went out to pick asparagus yesterday when I saw we got a slight break, but the rain poured down as I walked to the asparagus patch.  Three stalks of asparagus got picked anyway.

The garden tilling was not done as we were planning yesterday.  May is finicky, so I'm not going to guess.  I'll just keep making back up plans and get other "stuff" done around here.  

I have enjoyed the little bit of porch time (most days have been on the chilly side), sitting and listening to the rain.  The flowers are enjoying the rain too, as well as the herb garden.  I'm just glad we have not planted the vegetable garden yet, although seeds would have been a blessing to have gotten in before this rain.  The evenings are still in the low 40's, and too cold for tomato plants or other vegetable plants.

Right now, it's just a saturated muddy mess, so we can't even get into the garden at all.

More Rain ©  May 2025 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

Chive Blossoms ~ Infused Vinegar ~ Dehydrated ~ Chive Blossom Powder

Just when I thought I would have zero blog content to post, my brain zero's in on something new to me.  Dehydrating chive blossoms is not new to me.  However, using them in a new way is new to us.

Of course, you will need a somewhat larger patch of chives in your herb garden to be able to do this.  We allowed our chives to go to seed for several years.  Did you know that one chive blossom can contain up to 120 or so seeds?  

Each of the tiny flowers in the chive blossoms can contain about 1-3 seeds each.

 I have used fresh chive tops to infuse into oil in the past (leave chive tops to dry before infusing), but I have not made infused vinegar or used them for other dishes (have added them to baked egg breakfast dishes).

Most salad dressings we make here, use red wine vinegar, and most recipes to infuse the chive blossoms into vinegar, call for white wine vinegar.  

A new "first" time for us - I am making us an infused white wine vinegar.

I will use it for salad dressings, for cooking greens (like kale,, collards and turnip greens etc.), and for other uses.  I will also try it on marinated boneless chicken, when I do a sheet pan dinner.

Not the best photo, but you can see it's infusing to a beautiful pink color. I'll post a photo later when I have strained the blossoms out of the vinegar. 

Oh, I have also read online that you can infuse the chive blossoms in Apple Cider Vinegar.  I will definitely try that if we get enough blossoms (information on that is online with LearningHerbs).

Next up, for another "first" for us?

(You can dehydrate the chive blossoms whole or pulled apart, depending on your dehydrating vessel {dehydrator, air fryer, oven etc.})

I am dehydrating the chive blossoms for the first year ever, to keep on  hand to top dishes with, mix into butters, cream cheese spreads, grind into powder for sauces/soups/dressings/dips, and the like.

You can eat these fresh.  I have pulled them apart to toss into an egg breakfast casserole, but they are delicious tossed into potato salad or your salads.  They have a delicious garlic/onion flavor.

I ground some of the dehydrated chive blossoms into a powder for the first time.  The color is almost a gray color oddly.   It will be interesting if these are a nice addition to meals.  They contain a lot of goodness and healthy needs for our bodies. 

Lastly, I found out you can make a tincture with the chive blossoms.  I had to look up what it would be administered for - decongestant.  I'm not making a tincture this year, as we have other tinctures, and teas on hand right now, but it is good to learn this "new" information.

By the way, the ground, dehydrated chive blossoms smell amazing!  I bet the ground version would make a delicious salt too.

Chive Blossoms ~ Infused Vinegar ~ Dehydrated ~ Chive Blossom Powder ©  May 2025 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

Long Weekend

 I had another long weekend, but productive.  My husband worked again (2 long 12 hour shifts), so I decided to tackle another big job while I could.  In reality, it was because we got more rain, and it's been raining every single day lately, so garden work was not happening anyway.

I emptied the entire standing cupboard that holds my canning pot, freezer containers (as they empty), extra canning jars, and all things homesteading that don't have place anywhere else.

A shelf had collapsed (it's the cheap wood type put-together-yourself type cabinet, but it works for now).  

I purged the entire thing, cleaned it, then moved it from the wall and cleaned behind it and under it, moved it back, re-organized it and prayed it will hold together a few more years.

I filled a box with items to take to the thrift store.

We have had some cooler weather lately.  Woke up to 42°F this morning. Brrr!  Some evenings are below 50 degrees.  There is rain in the forecast for the next 4 days.  It can all change, but we could use a slight break with the rain.  

Many of my herb plants are starting to flower.  Sage is about to bloom.

A few of our flower bed perennials are starting to bloom as well.

I picked yet some more asparagus.  One good thing about all of this rain.

                                     

I have not made time to open more than one library book.  The recipe above made me laugh.  Do you see it?  It was from a recipe book for foraging.  

Speaking of library books, I do need to get those looked at and returned.  They are all resource type books for foraging, fermenting, and wild cooking.  Not sure what I was thinking ordering so many books at once.

Speaking of books, I have carved out a few minutes to do some fiction reading.  I had to switch up books this time, as I needed a "palate cleanser" (reading refresher) to change things up a bit.  It's a short book, and so far I'm enjoying it.

Update on the Jalapeno Salt I made:

I have used it to season potatoes being prepared for a breakfast scramble.  I will try it on sweet potatoes next. Yum.

I also have been using it to season ground beef for tacos, and I recently used it to season the ground beef for a new recipe we tried - crock pot taco pasta.  So good!  By the way, we liked the recipe for the pasta, but it made more than I expected.  

There are several versions of the recipe online, but I had some leftover beef broth, so I used that up instead of chicken, and I added a rinsed and drained can of black beans.  Oh, I used frozen bell peppers and jalapenos from last years garden, and homemade taco seasoning.

Long Weekend  ©  May 2025 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

31 Weeks Until Christmas ~ Christmas Countdown 2025

 New Sweet Tasty Treat!  New Recipe Tried.

Pomegranate-Vanilla Cashews.

These would be great for simply gifting at Christmas, to take and add to your charcuterie board, a side to go with a cheese appetizer, etc.  They are addicting, so be careful, ha ha!  They would be tasty as an ice cream topper too, if you do a sundae bar for a gathering or for own ice cream treat.

3 cups of raw (unroasted, unsalted) cashews came out to about 1 pound (16 ounces) of cashews.  

One note:  I think I would use a slotted spoon to spoon it all out onto the parchment paper, vs. dump the entire mix onto it.

Here is why.

Where the extra coating puddled, the cashews stuck a lot more to the parchment, and although they are also still on the crunchy side, I felt the pieces that sat and baked in the extra coating came out more soft and sticky.  To get all the pieces nicely crunchy, and come off the parchment much easier, I think eliminating the extra liquid would help.  The recipe stated to just mix, dump and bake.  Anyway, those are my thoughts, but yes, it's a keeper recipe.  

I used a non-gmo pomegranate 100% juice, my homemade vanilla and regular sugar (I did not have cane sugar, but will get some now).

The recipe is online at:  Veggingonthemountain

🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

Just some more Christmas gift giving thoughts to share.

One year I gifted homemade taco seasoning to my family. I saved baby food jars (from someone) and filled them.  I painted the lids, and made a handmade refrigerator magnet to top the lid too.  

                     

Old photo from years ago, but you can see the lids painted gold, and the fridge magnet on the top.  I used bottle caps and crocheted granny rounds with cotton #10 crochet thread, and clued it on the inside of the bottle cap, and glued on a magnet.  I have no idea if anyone ever used the seasoning or used the magnet, but there was apparently a lot of thought (or over thought) to this gift (ha ha!).

I was making a new batch of homemade seasoned salt (linked post for recipe), and remembered, that I gifted some to my Mom one Christmas.  She loved it.  In fact, she loved it more than the seasoning from the store.  I have no idea where I got the recipe from either, as I have had it that long now.  Sharing just another idea to gift, if you need some more ideas.  

               

One year I gifted dried rosemary from the herb garden, and attached recipes.  I even gave one to the kids bus driver at the time.  We had a lot of rosemary that year.  One year I gifted sage, as well as recipes, and a note about medicinal sage tea.  I can't recall if I gifted other herbs, but they make nice gifts too, if you have an abundance of a homegrown herb.

I am hoping I have enough sage growing this year to dry a good amount.  We'll find out come summer and fall.

31 Weeks Until Christmas ~ Christmas Countdown 2025 ©  May 2025 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

Chitter-Chatter

I am almost done weeding all of the flower beds.  I have yet to weed the herb garden, but it's in pretty good shape thankfully.

We came up with a solution to "fence" the other vegetable garden on a budget.  We are seeking out a person to come till the vegetable gardens on a budget.  It seems that the only one we can find so far, is with a large tractor (so glad we removed two sides of the fenced garden).  

We had a coyote in the gardens lately.  We are also hoping it has moved on.

The new coop build is on hold (sigh), but there is nothing I can do about it. When you run a homestead, you run into set backs here and there.  

Our AC units are not in yet, and we are in the 80's.  Again, another job on hold (for now).  

I've started harvesting chive blossoms (more on that later).

I managed to gather yarn scraps to crochet the latest book blanket granny square, but have yet to crochet it.  Progress.

I was asked if I had anymore crocheted water balloons, and the answer was no (of course).  Back in Dec. of 2023 we held our last craft show.  Despite letting everyone know, not one person we knew, nor other people who arrived, bought anything from us.  I had a TON of inventory too.  Something for anyone.  The only lady to show up, was one that wanted knitted dishcloths, and I had already made them, and it was a good place to meet to exchange. We decided that was the very last one to do.  Too much handiwork time, very little sales, and a lot of hard work to pack up and un pack and set up.  Not to mention the cost to rent the space.

Anyway, I had asked a ton of people if they wanted them, and tried to sell the remaining water balloons.  No one wanted them.  I had a LOT leftover, so I took them to the library and they used them for an Easter Egg hunt that following Spring.  That was over a year ago.  Now, I'm being asked for them.  Go figure.   I don't even had the yarn to make them.  

So, I will be doing a double check to make sure I do not have any left, but if you are interested in what I am talking about, the post and photo is on this:  BLOG POST.  Enjoy!

If you have the blessing of a weekend off, and adventures in the mix, enjoy!  

Chitter-Chatter  ©  May 2025 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

More Rain ~ Garden Prep

 I'm posting a bit late this morning.  I am so worn out and tired, and have not even planted the actual vegetable garden yet.  I got parsley planted in the herb garden, and I see my seeds that I planted for everything else are coming up nicely, other than feverfew.

I brought in more asparagus.  The one good thing about all this rain.  The rest of the fencing was pulled, so we can till the garden now.  Our tiller is not working (of course it's not), and my husband's work hours don't give him the time to fix it.  I have no clue what's wrong with it.  All we know is that we need the garden tilled, and the tiller fixed.  We may have to resort to hiring someone this garden season.

There were to be bad storms around midnight last night, so I ran around after garden work, laundry and did storm prep (in case we lose power).  If you have never had a property with a well, you won't know that if the power goes out, your well pump won't pump water (hence why people have hand pumps installed) - no water to water your animals, no water to wash dishes and clothes, no water to flush toilets etc.  I also charged batteries (runs a smaller generator), and any/and all chargeable lamp light bulbs, and lamps.  

I also took down my windmills, so they would not be destroyed by wind.  By the way, the mole chasing windmills do work.  My windmill out by the vegetable garden broke last year, and there were tunnels everywhere inside the garden.  When the windmill was up, there were no tunnels inside the garden (or within an area of where we put it).

The odd thing, is either the storm never came, or it wasn't as bad last night. Or we were both dead tired, ha ha!  Neither of us heard much.  It appears to be somewhat dry out too, and I do not see heavy puddles of water either.  

It got up into the 80's yesterday, with a heavy humidity in the air.  It should be a bit cooler today, but you never know.

In between work outside, I was running inside to fetch laundry to put on the clothesline, and cook a breakfast (had to thaw some sausage).  I am so glad I made my homemade facial toner.  As you can see if removes dirt from your face.  It's a very nice refresher when I come inside, and have to work a bit, then go back out.  If you haven't made it, the post is HERE (Butterfly Pea Flower Skin Toner) on this blog.

More Rain ~ Garden Prep   ©  May 2025 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart