Very Cold First Morning of June

The evening temperatures are still cooler than we'd like.  It would be great if we were camping, but we are not. 

Woke up to 38 F degrees this morning.  Way too cold for much of anything in the garden.  I'll be out to check on my tomato plants (there are a lot of them, so I am concerned).

Yesterday, the last day of May, I thought I picked the last asparagus from the garden.

I then found another one while out working on the garden.  I don't see anymore new shoots, so this should be the end of asparagus this year.

On a good note, the garden fence is up.  It's not perfect, but it looks good. The remainder plants will not be planted until these cold nights warm up, and I am even hesitant to drop any seeds just yet.  It's been a very strange May this year.

I planted some chamomile seeds, not realizing we'd have another night of very cold weather.  I also have already planted two types of radish seeds, two types of swiss chard seeds, and a some Russian Red Kale seeds.

My hands are cut up and dry.  I have not acclimated to garden work yet this year.   I can tell you I'm already in a fight with the 200+foot garden hose too.  It has to be pulled back to the house on mowing days, and my luck, the minute I pull that hose all the way out to the garden, I have to turn around and pull it all back.  

Putting in the garden is also a frustrating time with housework, and meals.  It is so hard to find a balance with cooking/making a proper meal, keeping up with everything indoors, and getting the outdoor work done all at the same time.  My house is a hot mess right now.

I am using anything and everything I have for repairing my dry hands, so crochet work is at a halt right now.  I am too tired to do much of anything by evening, but wash my face and crawl into bed.  I have easily forgotten how much energy you need for this amount of garden work (especially with not much help this year).

I sure hope this is the last cold spurt we have, now that it's June 1st.

Very Cold First Morning of June  ©  June 2025 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

This and That

 Any writers here?  Are there any free downloadable programs that are similar to what Word offers?  Other than Google docs and notepad?  Looking for one like Word, in which to use for writing, with options to save to a removeable drive as well as save to the computer.  Font options, italics, underscore, paragraph widths and all the options that Word has. Or an inexpensive program to purchase similar to Word?

Our Word program expired a few years ago, and I do not like notepad at all.  It comes in handy for a recipe, but that's about it.

Thanks to anyone who can give me recommendations.  I think I follow a few that write books, and possibly a few that keep journals (not blogs, but actual personal journals) using their computer/laptap or tablet.  

This tip may be a repeat tip.  Sorry if that is the case.  I started buying 2# bottles of Dawn on sale, and use them to refill our smaller bottle.  Saves us a lot of money, as we can, preserve, cook from scratch, and there are always dishes to wash.

I also save a few of the lids from the bottles.  They come in handy for other containers and they come in handy to replace the existing lids on the bottle we use daily.

Short post today.

Cleavers.  I'm considering making a tincture this year.  Anyone have any experience with Cleavers as a tincture?

This and That  ©  May 2025 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

Garden Season Officially Begins

(although foggy, rain has stayed away for a few days here)

The garden hoses have been pulled out of storage.  It's a task for sure.  We require about 200 feet or so of garden hose to water our garden.

Our very first garden was pretty small.  Our farmhouse had zero water spigots outside.  None.

We hauled water cans, and buckets in a wheeled cart to water it, and the garden flourished.

We have also unpacked the garden tool bags I take out to the garden, watering cans, solar chargeable motion sensor do-hickies that send out a high pitched noise to deter the squirrels etc.  The first year we put them out, we never saw one squirrel until we took them out for the season.  Some stopped working, but most are still solar charging. 

 

The gardens are tilled now, and one garden area fence is back in place.  Fencing has been acquired for the other garden (although it will not keep deer from jumping). 

We have successfully planted all of the tomato plants (about 4 varieties, but mostly San Marzano).  A few are not staked yet, and about 6 may or may not make it.  You never know, as the good ol' mother nature can revive just about any sad looking plant.

(note: it takes about 50 pounds of paste tomatoes to make one full batch of canned tomato sauce).

Paste tomatoes are the type of tomato needed for canning anything "sauce" related.  I'm talking about Tomato soup, tomato sauce, pizza sauce, taco sauce, ketchup, etc.  They are a meatier tomato.  They are the best for also canning stewed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, and for canning tomato paste.  The are the better choice to freeze as well, for chili, stews, or other recipes.

The beef type tomatoes are planted for enjoying fresh mostly.  We enjoy them on salads, sandwiches, just eating alone, topping toasted bread, BLT's, etc.

Cherry type tomatoes are planted for simply enjoying fresh, adding to summer salads, and even dips.  They can be used for focaccia bread and a lot more. If we get an abundance, I can also dehydrate some.

Rain is possible, but the remainder of the garden is being planted, and fenced.  

If you are new to planting a vegetable/fruit garden, hardening the plants is a bit of work.  The plants are moved from indoors to outdoors daily, to adjust to the mother nature (wind, rain, sun, etc.)

The plants go out an hour the first day, then back in.  They go back and forth each day, increasing the time they spend outdoors, and by the time the plants are in the ground, they have acclimated to growing outdoors.

I have planted one new cilantro plant in the herb garden.  My feverfew seeds I planted early, may have been planted too early.  I plan to drop more seeds before the next rainfall.

The sage blooms are looking beautiful right now.

Just when I thought the asparagus harvest was done, the Good Lord gives us more.  

My resident herb garden snake does not look like it's moving on.  It seems to be very interested in staking it's claim to where it's currently located.  Until I have to weed that area, or harvest, we are letting it be (there must be some tasty bugs or rodents it's consuming).

We are praying that the tomato plants were not planted too early. We now see that our evening temperatures could dip to about 44-47°F all weekend.  However, the forecast looks like it will be the end of the cooler evenings, and summer is starting to move in.

Garden Season Officially Begins  ©  May 2025 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

Dehydrated Daikon Radish

Organic Daikon Radishes (a superfood, powerhouse of goodness) are sold in bundles of either 2-3 in our grocery stores, and each one can be up to 15 inches long. 

I only need about a 1/2 cup of the radish, when I make kimchi for ourselves.

It got me thinking.

I could freeze the rest for meals, or I could dehydrate the extra.

I used my handheld spiralizer and spiralized the extra daikon radishes.  I then placed those into they dehydrator (you get a lot, but it will dry up to almost nothing).

I will store the dehydrated daikon radishes until the next time I want to make kimchi, and simply break up the dehydrated radishes, and re-hydrate them.  

Easy, makes the most of our purchase with buying daikon radishes, and we don't have to eat it for days fresh.  However, I did find a recipe that uses daikon radish, that I do want to eventually try.   By the way, diced daikon radish goes well in soups and stews (and can be swapped for potatoes in soups).

I also want to upgrade my spiralizer to something that works a bit more efficient than my itty bitty hand twist one.

Yes, I wanted to plant these radishes in the garden the last few years, but we did not have the space, and you can see they grow very deep roots.

Dehydrated Daikon Radish  ©  May 2025 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

Summer Bean Salads

We tried a new white bean salad, using fresh herb garden parsley and rosemary from my herb garden.  The recipe is a winner for several reasons.  One, it is a small salad, so it's perfect for two people, and perfect for summer fresh herbs.  Two, for the small amount of ingredients, it packs a good flavor.  A few reviews stated to add some diced celery.  I may do that next time.  A keeper recipe.

Recipe is White Bean Salad (online). You can read the recipe, but to print it, the site requires you to sign up to "unlock" the print option. It's easy enough to simply write it on a recipe card.

Second bean salad to try using different beans. . .

Bean Salad

I got this recipe from my Dad years ago (he was into super foods and bought many recipe books pertaining to that focus).  I found it while cleaning out old recipe books and such in my kitchen.  I forgot all about it.  I doubt my Dad ever made this salad, but anyway.....

The salad requires a fresh tomato.  The other option is a can of tomatoes, drained. I found some TN tomatoes at our local produce stand.

We love this salad!  I do like the addition of celery, so I may be adding it to the other bean salad recipe too.  I'm wondering if adding some feta too would add more flavor?  

Here is the recipe on how I prepared this bean salad:

Here is the recipe:

1 can organic black beans, rinsed/drained

1 can organic navy beans, rinsed/drained

1 small red onion, finely diced

1 fresh tomato diced (or if you don't have one, one can of organic diced tomatoes, drained)

2 organic celery stalks, diced

2 Tablespoons, organic red wine vinegar

3 Tablespoons organic extra virgin olive oil

salt/pepper

Mix, and chill for about 2 hours before serving.

I think this would be great with some added diced green onions, chives, parsley or even cilantro from the herb garden.

It's delicious as a light lunch or a side dish and very similar to the other bean salad we tried.

Summer Bean Salads  ©  May 2025 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart
 

This and That

 

I finished the granny square to go with this finished book, for my book blanket.  Gold color is the most difficult to match up with yarn, but so far, the granny squares are looking pretty colorful.

                       

I'm still using the homemade nail oil, but after planting flowers, dropping mulch, and weeding flower beds (and other outdoor work before the rain poured for days), my nails are peeling, cut down to the quick, and look terrible.  I'll keep using it and update later.  Homesteading work at it's best ha ha!

Local area produce haul.  The rhubarb and strawberries are local, and the tomatoes are from TN (too early for them here).

We dug up your rhubarb plants last fall, so they are in grow bags and pretty small harvest this spring.  They'll get a new home in the ground hopefully soon.

This and That  ©  May 2025 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart

Soup Weather ~ Dehydrator Weather

 

There is nothing better than to enjoy some crock pot Italian Soup during a cold spritz in May.  It was a new recipe  (Food.com), but I utilized some tomato sauce I canned last year, and dried herbs from the herb garden.  Not sure what they meant by "brown" onion, but I used a yellow onion, and used fresh minced garlic (not from a jar).  I also used sweet Italian vs. mild sausage (what was in the freezer), and it turned out delicious!

I'm taking advantage of these cooler weather days, and getting dehydrated items re-stocked.

I'm dehydrating ginger for tea making and other uses.  I can also grind it as needed.  I do freeze some as well, which has come in handy several times for homemade ginger-ale and other meals and recipes.

Has anyone, who uses a dehydrator, dehydrated turmeric root?  I just froze us a bunch, but would like to dry some.  How do you dehydrate it without staining your trays?  Will it stain stainless steel if I layer it with parchment?  I know it stains my hands when I go to peel it.  I do use gloves.  Anyone?

Today's reading from the book "A Year of Positive Thinking" by  Cyndie Spiegel.  It's a neat idea, and a great blog prompt if you are in a rut with what to post, or in a "rut" in finding joy in your life perhaps.  I just thought it was worth sharing today.  Perhaps a journal entry if you enjoy journaling?

We had zero rain yesterday and a load of wind.  We are once again setting a date to till the garden.

Soup Weather ~ Dehydrator Weather  ©  May 2025 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart