Reading Challenge and StoryGraph

 I started a reading challenge that requires the reader to read a book from every state in the country. I got interested in it late last year, when I was looking up reviews of a book on Goodreads. One reviewer said that she was doing a 50 state challenge. This intrigued me. 

I Google searched it, and most of the information was related to some challenge for kids, but I'm there was one on StoryGraph. I ended up joining StoryGraph and downloading the app. Now I do most of my book challenges, reviews and reading lists through that site. I like that it gives you warnings if a book contains things that trigger you, that there are many challenges to choose from, instead of just how many books you plan to read in a year (like Goodreads has), that they compute your streaks, that they record and list all of your 5 star reviews for you to look at any time. I was also able to download everything from my Goodreads account so it kept all my previously read books. You can manipulate your data from your own readings in several way. 

Pondering the Peach Tree

the peach tree

In this post, I was pondering what to do about my peach tree since we are moving. Dave, from Our Happy Acres Blog, had given me the wise advise that moving a large tree would probably kill it. I contacted David The Good from Florida Survival Gardening about the possibility of grafting (since he is a grafting guru) and he said it could only be done when the tree was dormant. That is not good for me, since our house is currently on the market and we hope to sell it before summer ends and certainly before the tree goes dormant again.

So I kept pondering. What to do? What to do? Was there no way to keep a tree that has been so good to me?  And finally I came up with a couple of solutions. They are amazing to me in their simplicity.

The first thing I decided to do was to save several of the seeds and plant them. I had a few drops I had missed, so the seeds were available. Even though it would have been smarter and easier to just carry the seeds and plant them at the new place, I didn't think that far ahead. I planted them in some good garden soil. Impatiently, I dug up one of them to see what was going on. It had tiny rootlets. So maybe. 

The other thing I decided to do was to take cuttings from the tree and try to root them. My grandmother used to root anything and everything. So it seemed worth a try. I bought rooting compound and set out to try.

rooting peach tree cuttings

rooting peach tree cuttings

adding the rooting compound (I tend to be generous with the compound.)

And the finished project.

In case you have never done any rooting before, I will go through the easy steps. Cut a small piece from your plant of choice, going down to the place it forks from the other branch.

Then remove the outer layer of bark, exposing the cambium wood. I use my fingernail so that I won't go too deep. Remove all the lower leaves, leaving just a few (one or two is enough) at the very top.

Dip it in the rooting compound.

Put it in a prepared pot and keep damp.

Maybe I'll be able to get peaches at the new place now.

Peaches This Year

I don't have time for a long post. I took almost the entire week off from my work preparing for our move to deal with our peaches. This week I have to get back on track with the stuff for the move.

Despite that, I did want to update you on the peaches this year. We harvested 57 pounds! What a great tree!

Peach jam cooling on the counter

Since this will be the last home grown peaches I have for awhile, I wanted to make sure I got as much jam as possible. I ended up with 23 pints. I found a recipe for peach peeling and pit jelly and made that with a gallon of the peelings and pits. That gave me 5 pints of jelly. So I feel pretty happy about the harvest.

Linking with Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Mondays. 

Fruitfulness!

First harvest of peaches

Second harvest of peaches

More on the tree

I always love peach season! I have a Feliciano peach tree. This is a very early peach tree that produces well with low chill hours. Last year, I harvested 71 pounds of peaches from this wonderful tree. Last year was much colder and I began harvesting on May 2, 2014.

This year, I began harvesting Friday, April 24, 2015, but those first peaches were eaten immediately by my children and me, so there is no record of those.

I am very excited about the fruitfulness of this tree. The only bittersweet part of this is that my family has decided to sell our home. We are hoping to move to land. That's our goal. It's great to get more land, but leaving this tree is hard for me. It's a huge tree and would need a crane to remove it from the land.

I have a friend who is keeping many of my other plants until we can get settled into our land. She would be willing to plant it and keep it for me, if anyone knew of a way to save the tree for our future use. Thank you in advance for any advice.

I am happily linking with Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday. I really appreciate her long-standing devotion to the community of bloggers on Harvest Mondays through out the years. It has been great to read about gardens, even when I am too busy to do much gardening.

Easy Homemade DIY Flavored Coffee Creamer

I love flavored coffee creamer, but lately I have been on a kick to save money. And I don't like all the unpronounceable things in the flavored coffee creamers you can buy. I went on the Internet and looked up recipes for flavored coffee creamer, but all the ones I could find required that I buy something ELSE.

I wanted a recipe that used items I already have in my cupboards.

I decided to make use of the years of cooking in my history to come up with something that would work for me, with the ingredients I have on hand.

Here's what I came up with.

Homemade Flavored Coffee Creamer

1/2 cup cold water
1 1/3 cups nonfat dry milk powder
3/4 cup sugar
1 pat of butter/margarine/coconut oil   (about the size you would put on a piece of toast) This is for that creamy mouthfeel store bought creamers have.

Use any of the following (or any extract that you fancy)
1 t vanilla extract
1 t almond extract
1 t maple extract

In a saucepan, mix the top 4 ingredients and cook until it steams. (If you cook it too long, it will get really thick. It still tastes good, but has to be spooned into the coffee, instead of poured.) Then add the flavoring of choice. It helps to use an immersion blender to really mix up those powdered milk solids so they will be smooth. Pour into a jar and keep refrigerated for your morning coffee.

I also added a pinch of nutmeg one time. I like that little more complex flavor, as well.

It's a really cheap recipe, so try it out. Mix it up to your tastes.

Free Mulch

For 20 years, our municipality has collected Christmas trees and then mulched them, giving out the mulch for free to residents.

This is the first year that we made a point to participate in this windfall. My son and I went down to the fairgrounds. The nice people loaded it, and smoothed it. We didn't even have to get out of the truck. We were only responsible for the unloading.

It started with more than this, but I forgot to photograph it until we reached this point in the process. 

Filling the wheelbarrow, to put the mulch in our back yard gardens. 

My son and I posing as we put the mulch in the back yard. 

We ended up with enough to go around every tree that lines my property line. Next year, we might come home and drop the load and go back for a second load. The people said that it was fine to do this. We didn't know how much we would need or how long it would take us. We also didn't know how much energy we had to devote to the project. We know for next year!

It was a wonderful blessing to us, saving us somewhere in the area of $400, had we used purchased pine bark mulch for the same area. And it is so good for the environment, re-using what would otherwise go to the landfill, and avoiding all those plastic bags that would have been on the pine bark mulch. Win! Win!

Winter Harvests

I don't always plant a fall/winter garden, but when I do I am always reminded of how nice it is to have a winter garden. The crops are so much easier maintenance than a summer garden. And the flavor of fresh picked broccoli and English peas is divine!

This year I have broccoli, which we are harvesting at least 3 times a week now. We have English peas, which are just starting to produce pods, Then there is Swiss chard, which I love, and am so glad to have in the garden again. I had really missed eating Swiss chard.

I also have 3 cabbages, which look really good.

I tried to grow 2 types of onions from seed. The seeds all sprouted and looked good until I transferred them into the garden. Now I have 2 little sections of about 10 onions in each. I don't know what happened. There were probably 100 of each variety before I transferred them to the garden. Maybe I didn't water enough. I don't know.

I also planted some garlic, which looks great.

I hope to plant some bok choi and Red Flowered Fava beans next week. I may plant more Swiss chard, too.

That's it for me. See what others are harvesting on Daphne's Dandelions. Happy New Year!

Harvest Monday Labor Day Edition

This week, I harvested the last of my tomatoes and pulled the plants. They had wilt in a bad way and I found a tomato hornworm on the plant when I pulled it. (yuck.)

I am starting to harvest more okra than I was. I guess it is coming into its own. The plants look really good and healthy. The okra makes me so happy!

Every day I harvested some okra.  Every day I also harvested Lima beans, Mississippi Cream peas, and Ruth Bible beans.

This week, the local news was talking about sweet potato harvests in town, so I harvested my sweet potatoes. They looked really good. I don't know how many I should have gotten out of the number of slips I planted, but I feel pretty happy with the harvest. That bucket was pretty heavy and the sweet potatoes in the photo with the tomatoes are not the same sweet potatoes. I put them on the picnic table to start curing them. And then I brought them into the garage to finish curing. It was about 24 big sweet potatoes and quite a few more little bitty ones.

I am linking up with Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Mondays. Go on over and see what everybody else is harvesting!

Harvest Monday August 18, 2014

I have only been gardening for 3 years. Here is a picture of my first garden.

Yep. That was it. 3 four by four squares of soil. Wow, how times have changed. Here are a couple of pictures of it now.

I am grateful for all the posts people write for Harvest Mondays. I kept trying because of all those posts. Thank you to every person who has posted a Harvest Monday post. I read your posts and they have inspired me. And to Daphne, thank you for hosting it all these years.

Strawberries on the vine

A representative harvest basket from this week.

okra, green beans, strawberries, and lima beans in the harvest
basket

Linking with Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday July 14, 2014

A big thank you to Daphne from Daphne's Dandelions for hosting Harvest Mondays!

Okra, cherry tomatoes, pears, and cucumbers

crushed tomatoes in their own juices

okra, cucumbers and cherry tomatoes

Pears

Here are some pictures from this week's harvests. The tomatoes are not from my garden. I went to a you pick place and bought enough to can some crushed tomatoes in their own juices.

Blueberry Crunch Recipe

If you have an abundance of blueberries and are looking for a good recipe in which to use them, you might try this recipe. I changed the amount of blueberries to 3 cups and, therefore, used 3 T corn starch and 3 T lemon juice.

Blueberry Crunch

I love it.

A Few Life Hacks for Canning Jars

I was talking to my husband this morning, wondering why anybody would buy these (theoretically affiliate link)

when there are things we regularly purchase that are the size of regular mouth canning jars. He said that he thought most people did not know these things would fit. Well, I thought I would tell you so that you will know from now on.

examples of regularly purchased products that fit canning jars

Canning jars with these lids on them. I am currently storing
dried basil in the one on the left and the 2 on the right contain
my pepper sauce.

The smaller size peanut butter jars fit perfectly on regular mouth canning jars. Most mayonnaise lids do, too, but Bama Mayonnaise does not for some reason.

I haven't yet found a lid that fits perfectly on wide mouth canning jars, but I have something that works really well. I will try to explain it to you.

That jar on the left in the picture is the type of coconut oil I regularly buy. Its lid is just slightly too large for the large mouth canning jars.

Here is what I did to fix that.

Take a large mouth canning ring and the lid you want to use. 

Snap the lid over the top of the canning ring. 

Press hard. It's tight, but the fit is good. 

Here's what it looks like when you have them connected. 

Then you just use it as you would any lid. It fits perfectly! I love finding ways to use everyday things!
It is better for the environment. And it's better for my pocket book.

Harvest Monday July 7, 2014

I am joining Daphne's Dandelions for Harvest Monday today. I want to send a big "thank you" to Daphne for hosting this event. It's fun. You can see what others are harvesting by going to the link.

It has been a pretty good harvest week for me. First up, I will talk about my pears. I gathered 2 baskets full. That's wonderful! I have had trouble with Japanese rust on that tree for the past few years, so it hasn't had fruit on it. There was a little Japanese rust this year, but someone told me that if I put Epsom salts under the tree to the drip line of the leaves every time it was getting ready to rain, it would help. I tried it, and it helped more than this expensive and hard-to-apply organic stuff I bought.

My mother-in-law really loves pear relish, so I made her nine pint jars from the first basket of pears. I have to dole it to her one jar at a time or she will eat so much of it she makes herself sick. I didn't grow up with it and it isn't my favorite, but it makes her happy.

Pear relish to the left and a basket of pears to the right. 

Pears. You can see a little of the Japanese rust on the very top
pear.

Pear relish

 Then, I made 2 quarts of spiced pear sauce.  I added 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and a ground cloves. YUM! I think it is good enough to eat as a dessert. :)

Spiced pear sauce (like apple sauce, but with pears)

I don't have the best luck with corn, but this is better than the first time I grew it. We got four edible sized ears today and have about 8 more in the garden.

corn

The okra is coming in pretty well. It's just getting started, so it should hit its stride pretty soon. We all love it and are happy to be eating it again.

Stewart's Zeebest okra

 My son is in a 4-H Junior Master Gardener program. It's been a great experience for him. He planted 9 hot peppers in the garden, because of the class. We weren't sure that we would get anything off of them, because they looked very poorly for a long time, but they are bouncing back and we got our first hot pepper this week. He has several different types of hot peppers, so I hope he can at least taste all the different ones. Maybe he will become a chili head! He's only nine and really loves spicy, so we will see.

Hot banana pepper

 The cucumbers are providing us with tasty cucumbers every day. I have squash vine borers on the cucumber plant (argh!), so I don't know how long we will be able to get them, but I am going to enjoy every one that we can get. They taste so wonderful!

cucumbers

And last, but not least, the swallow tailed kites are back in town! Out whole family just loves these birds! They are relatively rare birds in much of the country and several states have them listed as endangered and/or threatened. We love to watch them swoop, soar and dive. And as a bonus, they eat a lot of snakes. It is so neat to see them carrying a snake through the sky, holding it by the middle, both ends of the snake flying behind them like a banner. 

swallow tailed kite behind our home

Why I Put Up My Own Salsa

This week I took my kids to the you pick place and bought 2 five gallon buckets of tomatoes, and a bucket of hot and bell peppers. We bought a few onions, but most were spoiled, so we didn't buy many.

I went to the local grocery to supply the rest of the onions and the fresh cilantro.

And I have been chopping, slicing, dicing, peeling and processing ever since.

tomatoes I have left after canning 12 quarts of salsa.

So, after standing on my feet for three days, chopping and canning, I was beginning to wonder....

Quarts of salsa

Why am I doing all this?

Here are my answers.

1. I have control over the ingredients.
2. I can use local ingredients in season.
3. My salsa requires less packaging than store bought.
4. I have less waste than stores would, because I dry the tomato skins.
5. Dried tomato skins equal free tomato paste, so there is even less packaging/shipping waste.
6. I don't have to worry about the BPA found in store bought packages.
7. My packaging (canning jars) are mostly re-usable. 
8. There is less transportation and therefore less gas is used to gather and process them. I did drive an hour to the you pick place, but in a regular processing situation for the stores, the farmer would have had to drive the produce to the processing plant, the processing plant would have to deal with it, then it would be taken to a regional store, then a local store and then I would have to drive to get it.
9. I am sure there are no fake ingredients in my salsa.

And the last on the list, but probably the most important reason:

    10. It tastes better!!

Potatoes in Grow Bags

The potatoes in grow bags, looking  great and healthy.

I was really hopeful about the potatoes. I bought the best seed potatoes I could afford.

I added 4 bags of soil into the grow bags.

I read up on growing potatoes in grow bags through the Kenosha Potato Project.

So, all signs pointed to a nice potato harvest.

I harvested them June 10, 2014, and well....

We harvested 36 potatoes, including the ones smaller
than Dum Dum lollipops.

Yeah, um, 36 potatoes. Not 36 pounds. Fail.

I guess I don't know how to grow potatoes. Sigh.

A Scrap of a Poem

Where

by Wendell Berry

The mind still hungers

for its earth, its bounded

and open space, the term

of its final assent. It keeps

the vision of an independent

modest abundance. It dreams

of cellar and pantry filled,

the source well husbanded.

And yet it learns care

reluctantly, and late.

It suffers plaintively from

its obligations. Long 

attention to detail

is a cross it bears only 

by congratulating itself.

It would like to hurry up 

and get more than it needs

of several pleasant things.

It dreads all the labors

of common decency.

It recalls, with disquieting

sympathy, the motto

of a locally renowned

and long dead kinsman: "Never

set up when you can lay down."

You can read most of the rest of the poem here.

Blueberry Picking -- Some Numbers

Temperature: 93 degrees F.  (34 degrees C)

37 minute drive to the u-pick farm.

One picker. (me)

Three hours picking.

Price paid: $41.

Total picked: 14 gallons.

Swiss Chard

I really love my Swiss chard.

1. I love the way it grows so happily in mostly-shady situations. Some of mine grows where it only gets about 3 hours of sunlight a day.  

   

   Swiss chard growing beside my house. It only gets
   about 3 hours of sunlight, and that in the afternoon.

2. I love the taste of it.
3. I love that in my Southern garden, I can grow it most of the year.
4. I love that Swiss chard is pretty enough to grow in the front yard garden. 

The only time I can't grow Swiss chard is when it is going to seed. Luckily, this year, my son's Junior Master Gardeners group took the Swiss chard they had growing out and I was able to plant this plant to tide me over until the seeds come in and my baby Swiss chard plants are big enough to harvest.

Swiss chard given to our family by the leaders of the Junior Master Gardeners

Swiss chard going to seed. 

Baby Swiss chard in the garden.