More Of This and That

When E ordered his garden seed this past spring, a free packet of carrots were included. These were all colors. I didn't even know carrots came in these colors! I planted them and they actually grew! Here is a bowl of them that I pulled. Some tasted good, some were kind of dense and fibery, if that is a word. But they were quite pretty in the bowl.

I planted a short row of these wax beans. Maybe a 4 foot row, but only five plants actually came up. They have been very prolific and I have picked the plants twice now and there are still little baby beans on the plants. I made Pickled Wax Beans with them. They turned out pretty nice. Even taste good.

This is my last bowl of salad greens. Boo hoo! I planted Buttercrunch Lettuce and it did so well. I loved the salads that we made from it. We made a Greek Salad, I think. We made it with grape tomatoes, sliced red onion, Kalamata olives, grilled chicken chunks, Feta cheese, and probably some things I can't remember. I made a homemade dressing with mayo, a bit of sugar and a bit of vinegar. I have had a request for that same salad again. Guess I will have to plant Buttercrunch for sure next spring.

More of This and That

I have been having some trouble with my photo program, so I will have to blog using Picasa. It doesn't work the way I want it to, but it is the best I can do at the moment. It will only upload 4 photos at a time, hence the different blogs today.

My garden has matured and the potato vines all turned yellow along with the onion tops. I dug up the potatoes and was quite surprised at the bounty. After planting a few leftover grocery store 'taters last spring, there were some very nice sized ones under the dirt. Some nice big ones too! I just wish I had a cellar to store my gardens bounty in for eating later!

There were several nice onions. I haven't used any yet so don't know if they are hot or sweet. Time will tell.

I only planted one tomato plant in my small garden. It is a Heritage Tomato called Elberta Peach. It is small, but tasty. I have been making Caprese Salad with them. Oh, so yummy! I don't think we are going to get enough tomatoes from our gardens to be able to make anything. Ours is just now starting to show a bit of color! We should be deep into tomato canning season by now. I wanted to make spaghetti sauce to can. We even planted extra plants to have enough to can, but it looks like we will have to buy tomatoes this year.

Abit of This and That

Missy is slowly progressing. I expect to see her walking in a little while. She sits up and attempts to stand, just can't quite make it yet. Here she is laying on the porch while I vacuumed her rug in the house. The cat is Bart, on of the strays that came last year on July 4th. He loves everybody, even rubbing on the horses legs when I go out to put hay out! He is a real pesty cat!

I went to J.W. Jones (a local horse riding and camping place) and picked wild blackberries, a couple of weeks ago.There are about 4 or 5 quarts of berries in this bowl. I cooked them until they were soft, then strained out the juice and

made some lovely Blackberry jelly! I was going to go back and get more to but lots of stuff got in the way and I haven't been back. It may be too late for berries now. I found a bunch of chiggers too, something we don't seem to have here at home. I think it was worth it though when you put homemade jelly on a freshly toasted and buttered English muffin! Soooo gooood!! Yes, it was worth it!