Spring Has Sprung

It’s been quite a while since I’ve written. I’ve gone back to work, and teaching leaves little time for anything else. The grass turned green this week, the daffodils starting blooming, and my thoughts turn once again to farming.

We’ve got big plans for our little farm this year.

Our flock of laying hens is doing well, and we’ve increased our egg sales. We replaced our chicken-wire fence with electric netting. It’s easy to move, so we can rotate the hens to new pasture as often as we need to, and it’s much better at keeping the predators from getting our birds. I thought this new fence would completely protect them, but we learned last fall that there are attacks from above to worry about. On occasion, a red-tailed hawk will come by, perch in a nearby tree, and then swoop down to carry off a bird. Fortunately, the crows in the area usually alert the chickens, and our roosters will herd the hens into the roofed area and keep them there until the hawk moves on. We just butchered our roosters yesterday though, so I’m not sure what will happen with the hawks now. We currently have 28 hens, mostly Buff Orpingtons, but a few other breeds from our first flock.

We thought we had lost our hive of honeybees yet again, but earlier this week, when the temperature rose into the 60s, there were bees buzzing about, cleaning up from the winter.

Our two steers, Rib-eye and Sirloin are growing. They fattened nicely on grass well into the fall, as we didn’t get snow until late. They are thrilled to see green grass again! We got a new calf, Hershey, two weeks ago. My husband built a new calf pen that makes it so much easier to feed them. We’ve had a lot of interest in people buying our grass-fed beef, so we’re considering getting a total of four calves this spring.

We finally bought a tractor! We’ve needed one for quite a while. Our neighbor can certainly attest to that, as we’ve imposed on him to help us using his far too often. Now we can clean the stall, move manure, keep the pasture up…the list goes on and on.

I’ve started a list of what I’d like to grow in the garden this year, but I have yet to start any seeds. This year’s list includes: zucchini, summer squash, spinach, kale, peas, beans, tomatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, Swiss chard, lettuce, cucumbers, spaghetti squash, cantaloupe, and butternut squash, so far. I haven’t grown spinach (I did try), kale, or Swiss chard before. We’ve been making green smoothies every day, so we’ve been using a lot of greens. I’d like to be able to supply our own, so we’ll know that haven’t been treated with chemicals and aren’t contaminated with salmonella. According to the seed packages, they can be planted as soon as the ground can be worked. Well, the ground was workable three weeks ago, and I almost planted them, but it’s a good thing I didn’t because we got six inches of snow the next day. I think we’re finished with the snow now. I’m hoping to find some time this weekend to get the greens planted as well as get the tomatoes and squashes started inside. Cantaloupe will be a new crop in our garden this year as well. My baby loves it, so I thought it’d be nice to grow him some that’s chemical free. We’ve never grown sweet potatoes either, but I’d like to give them a try. Since I canned so many pickles last summer, I’m planning on planting cucumbers only for salads this year.

In A Pickle

My cucumber plants have been producing like crazy, and I've been canning pickles like crazy! Last year, I was able to can only one batch of Bread & Butter pickles before the blight hit and killed all my cucumber plants. So far this year, I've canned 13 half-pints of Dill Relish, 39 pints of Hamburger Dills, 17 quarts of Kosher Style Dills, 9 pints of Kosher Style Dills, and 20 pints of Bread & Butter Pickles. At this rate, I don't think I'll need to grow cucumbers for at least the next two years! I'm averaging about 10 pounds of pickling cucumbers a day, but I'm almost out of jars now, and I can't see canning much more when we don't eat that many pickles.When I pick the cucumbers in the morning, I have to be careful not to disturb the bees that are pollinating them. I had been good so far, until last night when I was attempting to pull the vines that were escaping from the garden back in. Apparently, I angered one bee too much and was stung! There's also a garter snake that likes to hide amongst the vines. I saw him yesterday and was surprised by how much he'd grown since the last time I'd seen him (or maybe it's a different one!).

Even when I harvest the cucumbers every day, I find monster cucumbers like the one show below. The cucumber on top is your standard 4-inch 2.6 oz pickling cucumber. The one on the bottom got to be more than 7 inches and 15.10 oz!

Normally, when the cucumbers get that big, they have huge seeds in them, but I'm finding that this year, they haven't had huge seeds, and I've been able to use many of them in salads or on cucumber sandwiches. Any cucumbers that aren't good enough for making pickles or eating fresh get fed to the chickens who love them.


Currently growing:

Asparagus, peas, broccoli, spaghetti squash, zucchini, summer squash, butternut squash, pumpkins?, tomatoes, orange mint, dill, parsley, basil, beets, raspberries, strawberries, beef

Currently harvesting:

peas, green beans, purple string beans, broccoli, spaghetti squash, basil, parsley, orange mint, zucchini, summer squash, eggs

What we're eating:
Breakfast: Zucchini pancakes (made with our eggs and zucchini),
Lunch: cucumber sandwiches (made with our cucumbers) with three bean salad (made with our green and purple string beans) and Caprese salad (made with our tomatoes and basil),
Dinner: tacos (made with our own beef and served with fresh tomatoes from the garden)

A Long-Overdue Update...

I had really hoped to post more frequently than this, but I've been so busy lately, I haven't even been turning the computer on. The garden has been producing, I've been harvesting and canning, I've tried several new recipes, and I've taken lots of pictures!

Above is a photo of the Chicken Marsala (made with our own pastured poultry) and garlic scapes (from my garden). Chicken Marsala is one of my favorite chicken dishes, and I've been working on perfecting my recipe for awhile now.

Next, I tried a new recipe - Thai Summer Rolls with Peanut Sauce. These came out great! They're filled with raw vegetables (so healthy!) and were pretty easy to make. They were also a great dinner for a hot summer night.
The raspberries ripened and I baked two Raspberry Coffee Cakes, in addition to adding them to scones. I thought I'd get enough raspberries at once to can raspberry jam this year, but the dry weather didn't let that happen.

Just as things started to ripen in the garden, we left for a week on a vacation that we had planned a year ago. I harvested a lot of lettuce, some peas, and several zucchini before we left, and hoped everything else would be okay while we were gone. My husband set up automatic waterers and we told our neighbor she was welcome to harvest anything she liked.



I used the zucchini we brought with us to make crab-cake stuffed zucchini - yum!





We returned to a fridge full of zucchini and a garden that had practically doubled in size! I harvested enough cucumbers to can one batch of Bread & Butter Pickles, one batch of Hamburger Dills, and one batch of Dill Relish the day after we got home. I picked the green and purple string beans and made a Bean Salad:
The lettuce bolted due to the hot weather we had while we were gone, so I guess we're finished with fresh salads for awhile. The broccoli has started to produce heads, the spaghetti squash is growing well, and the tomatoes are still green. I harvested the shallots, most of the garlic, and some of the onions.

Blueberries!

On Tuesday, I took the boys blueberry picking. We drove about 45 minutes to the pick-your-own farm, and after we picked about a handful of blueberries each, it started raining. I hoped it'd be a passing shower, but instead it started raining harder. I ended up parking right next to the bushes and picking under the shelter of my umbrella while the boys stayed dry. When I got home, I checked out the best way to store blueberries and found that wet blueberries spoil quickly - ugh! I had planned on freezing some, but I read that even when freezing blueberries, you're not supposed to wash them first because it makes the skins tough. So.... I spent a good part of yesterday baking. I made blueberry pancakes for breakfast, blueberry muffins, and blueberry crumb pie.


I made the blueberry pancakes from scratch. Normally, I use one of those just-add-water pancake mixes. I know that doesn't jive with our avoiding processed foods, but we don't keep milk on hand, and it makes pancakes a quick and easy breakfast. My sister has been trying to get me to make pancakes from scratch like she does, so when I used the last of my store-bought pancake mix, I didn't replace it. I used the recipe my sister recommended (from The Joy of Cooking). It called for sifting the flour before measuring it, adding more ingredients and then SIFTING AGAIN. I hate sifting. So I skipped the sifting. While the end result was tastier pancakes, they were chewy - not tough-to-eat chewy, but doughy chewy - and they were quite time-consuming to make, even without all that sifting. And, nobody asked for seconds.... Normally, my ten-year-old eats at least six pancakes. He ate three and called it quits.


I used to can blueberry jam, but no one seems interested in eating it anymore. My son used to have it on his sandwiches that he took to school, but then he decided he liked just plain peanut butter sandwiches. So, now I'm left with even more baking to do, but that's okay because I have lots of recipes!

As far as the garden goes, yesterday, in addition to all my baking, I also spread grass clippings from my neighbor throughout my garden. I don't use any chemicals to keep the weeds down, so using grass clippings is one way to help me control the weeds (which are already out of control).

This morning, I pulled more weeds, finished spreading grass clippings, cleaned out the cows' water tank and filled it, and hung laundry out to dry - all before 10:30 a.m.


CURRENTLY GROWING:
Garlic, aparagus, shallots, onions, lettuce, broccoli, peas, tomatoes, basil, parsley, dill, cucumbers, zucchini, spaghetti squash, yellow squash (now up!), pumpkins, orange mint, strawberries, raspberries, beef. Planted but not up yet: carrots, spearmint, more dill, beets.

CURRENTLY HARVESTING:
Eggs, basil, lettuce, garlic scapes, strawberries.

WHAT WE'RE EATING:
Blueberry pancakes made with our own eggs.
BLT's made with nitrate-free bacon and lettuce I grew.
Cheeseburgers made with our own grass-fed beef, lettuce I grew, and pickles I canned from cucumbers I grew the year before last.

Finally!

It's the first day of summer already and I just FINALLY finished planting my garden. I started planting the end of May, but it's taken me this long to finish it up. I can't believe we're halfway through June already. I feel as though someone has hit the fast-forward button and I can't find the pause button.

Here's a list of what's growing as well as statuses:

Garlic - bulbs that I missed when harvesting last year, growing well this year, producing scapes now.
Asparagus - planted last year as 2-year-old plants. I probably could have harvested some this year, but was afraid to as the spears that came up kept withering with the heavy late frosts we kept getting.
Shallots - I've never grown these before, but love to cook with them, so I thought I'd give it a shot.
Yellow Onions - I grew these for the first time last year, and they were great! I'm trying a different variety this year that's supposed to store well.
Sweet Onions - My first time growing these, but since they're the kind I usually buy at the market, I thought I'd try growing them myself.
Lettuce - Romaine and mixed greens - harvesting almost daily for fresh salads.
Broccoli - One plant is starting to produce a head already, the rest are just leaves still.
Peas - blossoming.
Tomatoes - blossoming. I have Roma and cherry tomatoes planted as well as some unknowns....
Basil - harvesting for Pizza on the Grill and other dishes already.
Parsley.
Dill - doing well now, will hopefully be good to use when the cucumbers are ready to be made into pickles!
Cucumbers - no blossoms yet.
Zucchini - no blossoms yet.
Spaghetti Squash - no blossoms yet.
Pumpkins - not up yet.
Yellow Squash - not up yet.
Orange Mint - given to me by my mother.
? - 3 yet unidentified plants my mother gave me.
Planted today: carrots, spearmint, more dill, beets.

CURRENTLY GROWING:
In addition to all of the above, strawberries, raspberries, beef.

CURRENTLY HARVESTING:
Eggs, basil, lettuce, garlic scapes, strawberries.