Homemaking on the Homestead

It is way to early to even think of planting anything in my garden. But it is never to early to dream about this years garden and buy seeds. I was at the hardware store with my hubby and picked up a few packets of seeds. One of those seed packs was cabbage seeds. I now have a my cabbage seeds planted and I'm excited for spring to arrive and get them in ground. I'm having a much smaller garden this year so I only planted a few seeds. We'll see how many come up and how many I end up transplanting. I planted each teeny tiny seed in the my smallest pots... Several years ago my hubby made me a little greenhouse box that is in his shop. It is very simple, 4 sides, a back and plastic that covers the front. Shop lights hang across the box. I put my planted seeds on a larger tray and put them in the box under the lights.. Then I put a plastic greenhouse dome over the top... I cover this with a towel so it is dark (just for the germination pro...

My garden is doing very well. The weeds keep threatening to overtake and lately I think they are winning!! But such is life with a garden. I wanted to give a little update on my Royal Burgandy bush beans. They were fun to plant and grow. They tasted amazing! I picked the first batch right before my daughter Leanne came home and cooked them up for her home coming dinner. Oh yum!! Here is what the looked liked before cooking... And after cooking (yep, they turn green when they are cooked) the beans are on the right (this was the meal I made for Leanne when she came home it was cooked sausages & chicken, mac & cheese and the green beans) ... I cooked them in a some water with a bit of salt and dried onions. When they were done cooking I drained them, added a few strips of cooked and crumbled bacon and a little bit of butter, salted to taste. I honestly have never seen green beans eaten up so quickly by my family! I'll definitely be planting them next y...

Thanks to a lot of hot weather my garden has exploded!! So have the weeds! Ha, ha.. so ignore them in the pics.. :) my daughter Hannah is coming this week to help me get it under control again. The tomatoes are growing like crazy and are loaded and still lots of blossoms.. looks like it will be a bumper crop and earlier than normal due to our dry hot summer...   The summer squashes are full of blossoms. I can't wait for them!!   These are the royal burgundy bush beans.. the blossoms are purple and the beans are purple. The beans are just starting to come on.   Love this time of year!!    

My garden has been growing like crazy.. but so have the weeds!! This evening my hubby and son Jacob helped to get all under control again.. they string trimmed around it and rototilled the areas where I don't have anything planted... and between a few rows.. I still need to do a lot of weeding by hand.. but at least the major part of it all is looking neat and clean again. My son Isaac and I got it all watered.. takes a bit as some of it is still watered by hand. Here are a few pics.. really the sun was totally in the wrong place for pic taking.. but what can I say.. that was when I was down there!                

We've had some beautiful hot summer days and my garden is really taking off. The green beans are up, the squash is up, and many of the flowers are starting to peek through as well. I water my garden with the “ditch irrigation” method. I have a small spring pond that has a pipe that runs underground from the pond to the garden. The elevation is so small that it would be impossible to run sprinklers. The pond has bits of algae and such that end up plugging up soaker hoses. So the best method we came up was to run PVC pipe to each row, make a ditch and let the water run down the ditch. When it gets to the bottom of the row, I put the next pipe on and continue until all the rows are watered. This method has worked great for the many years of gardening I've done. Below are the updated pics....          

Today I was able to get a great start on my garden. My tomato plants were more than ready to be planted. Tobin called them a “forest of tomatoes” when he would see them sitting on my deck. I'm happy to say that they are in the ground. Well 40 of them are. The rest I'm giving away. I also planted seeds: Royal Burgandy Bush Beans. They grow a dark red/burgandy color, which I just thought would be fun. However when you cook them they turn green. I planted radishes, lots of flowers, bush baby summer squash (zucchini type but you harvest them when they are 6 inches long), and some patty pan squash. I still have more to plant but after 3 hours in the garden this afternoon I was done! Ha, ha.. still had housework to do, laundry and dinner to make. Which I accomplished! :) While down at the garden I took a couple more pics. A view looking at the house.. all those bushes/plants going up the hill are blackberries. Should be a huge crop this year!! Actually b...

A little over 2 weeks ago I got my tomato seeds started. I have a little box my hubby made me that has grow lights for my seed starts. They are growing so big!! I was hoping to get them transplanted yesterday.. but instead spent the day in town with hubby.. :) Best choice.. :) Today they are on my to do list! Do any of you start your own plants or buy them? I'd like to do more, but my grow space is limited so I just stick to tomatoes. I mentioned to hubby expanding so I could do more.. he thought that was a possibility.. so maybe next year I'll do some more.

Last year, for several reasons, I decided not to plant a garden. It was a good choice for me. But one thing is for sure, I missed it!! So this year I'm ready for a garden again. Actually my daughter Hannah and I are planting the garden together. She does not have enough sunshine in her back yard for a garden so we thought, why don't we do it together? So that is the plan. I ordered my seeds a few weeks ago. Nothing like an order of seeds to get a person excited at the possibilities!!  Over the weekend I got my tomato seeds planted. They are now warm and germinating. Should be an exciting garden season!!   

Ever had one of those huge zucchini’s in your garden that just seemed to explode in size overnight? Then the question always is, “what to do with it?”. The 2 on the bottom are size they are supposed to be picked at. The one on the top was my project. ~smile~ I decided to try freezing it. I’ve grated it and frozen it for making muffins, but what I found is I just don’t use it up very well that way. So I wanted to try something different. I was given this idea from a friend of mine. You cut it up, sauté it and then flash freeze it for use in stir-fry’s, soups, casseroles, etc.. I’ve not tried it before but it seemes like a great idea… Cut the zucchini in half and scoop out the seeds. Chop the zucchini into small pieces. Heat a frying pan and add a little oil. I used coconut oil. Add zucchini and cook until just done… Lay cooked zucchini on a tray and put in freezer overnight. I lined the tray with parchment paper to make it easier to remove frozen pieces. ...

I had my first picking of green beans (and yellow wax beans) from my garden. Due to various issues this year (which I’ve previously shared) I decided to plant a smaller garden, and I’m thankful for it. So our first picking was not huge (in comparison to years past)…. But it was enough to have to deal with. I used some of them for dinner.. I made garlic roasted green beans .. oh yum!! They were delish and I look forward to the next picking and making this again. As for the rest of the beans… I decided there were not enough to bother canning them. So I decided to freeze them. Freezing green beans is pretty simple. After the beans had been washed and snapped I put on a pot of water to boil. I put my little basket in the pot. This holds the veggies and makes it easy to pull them out of the boiling water. As soon as the water came to a boil I added the beans (not all of them).. I boiled them for 3 minutes. While they were boiling I filled my sink with cold water ...

My garden has been a bit neglected as of late. It is in desperate need of weeding. I went down there this afternoon and did some, but there is so much more to do. Tomorrow my son Jacob is going to rototill it for me and that will take care of a lot of those pesky weeds, at least for now. Then my youngest two kids and I will finish up weeding between the plants and rows. I have a much smaller garden this year than normal. It has been a good thing for me but I do miss the abundance of fresh veggies that normally come this time of year. Perhaps I’ll hit the farmers market soon and see what I can purchase. However, today I did pick a little lettuce and my first little zucchini. I washed it up and put it in the fridge to crisp for tomorrow’s salad. After an afternoon in the garden I really enjoy a nice foot soak. In the summer I live in my flip flops and wear them in the garden or often go barefoot in the garden. So my feet can get dry & cracked pretty quickly. I wa...

It has been a super nice week & weekend. On Monday Tobin & I celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary. We chose not to go out and celebrate but instead stayed home and enjoyed a bbq, camp fire and swimming down by our pond with our two youngest children, Sierra & Isaac. It was the perfect evening for us and we reflected on all of God’s blessings in our life… I’ve also spent a lot of time this last week on my garden. After I planted the garden we had over a week of rain. The weeds just exploded and the garden needed a lot of attention. We’ve now had lots of heat and sun and the garden is growing great! Currently we are waiting patiently for Hannah’s new little one to be born. Her due date is in two days. So we are counting down the days!! Hannah seems to have taken after me and has gone past her due date both times. I was late on several of my pregnancies .. so we are ready for the possibility that this baby could be late as well...