Monday, September 19, 2011

What's Hopping?


Things have been very busy around this lil homestead for about eight weeks.



The garden has been generous this summer and I've spent many hours this week canning and dehydrating.  



I've made two more batches of tomato sauce and 19 jars of mild salsa utilizing Laurie of Common Sense Homesteading's recipe.  



I tweak it a bit, I add more garlic, cilantro, and cumin, but the rest is her recipe.  It tastes better than any other canned salsa recipe I have found.  YUM!

I am back in school, FARM SCHOOL that is.  Last Friday was Farm lab day.  We planted 11,000 seedlings at the school farm.  We planted half of the field organic, and half of it conventional.  Throughout the semester we will treat the organic field using only organic methods and the conventional field will get commercial conventional methods.  I will report lessons learned


 My son's wedding took place a week ago and I am now the proud Mama of Jon and his lovely bride Samantha.  I've always wanted a daughter, now I have one. Yippee.


I've been reworking my raised garden beds as plants peter out.  So far, I have vine beans, lima beans, snow peas, arugula, garlic, carrots, daikon, romaine, green and red leaf lettuce, broccoli, and cabbage in.  Still have lots to do, but so many summer plants are still putting out acceptable levels of veggies so I hate to remove them.  I have 16 tomato plants that are giving me lots of tomatoes to can every three or four days.  I have lima, fava, and red runner beans giving me dried beans for next season.  I have eggplants, jalapeno, cucumbers, yellow squash, huckleberry, and zucchini still blossoming and fruiting. 

I learn something important this week.  Always research and confirm species before trying any wild plant.  I found what looked to be a volunteer huckleberry inside my greenhouse.  Safety conscious me, I did my research and discovered that it was black nightshade, poisonous vegetation and green berries.  I also discovered that another volunteer near the front door is more poisonous pokeberry.  Moral to the story- check everything out BEFORE trying it.  

 Black Nightshade

Chickalita Huckleberry

Next job- picking, juicing, and canning golden concord grapes and black currants.  Have a great week everybody.

8 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your son's marriage. The bride looks lovely. I'm coming to the end of the harvest here. Still have some more tomatoes to can and green beans to freeze when I get home from work today.

    kateri @ http://dandelionhaven.blogspot.com/

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  2. Hi Kateri:

    I'd love to know how you freeze your green beans. I hope to do that soon too. Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day.

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  3. Just a test...as I don't think my comments today are working.

    Okay...I think my comment headed into a different direction. Will re-type LOL.

    Thank you for stopping by my blog and leaving such an encouraging comment.

    I look forward to getting to know you better....you have a precious blog....and congratulations on your sons wedding...they are a lovely couple.

    Blessings
    Connie

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  4. More folks are getting into canning now, and im not sure if its because of the bad economy!. Richard

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  5. Great pic of your son and his bride and oh the tomatoes look great too!

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  6. Thanks for the kind comments lilsuburbanhomestead!

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  7. WOW> you have been super busy! My head is spinning from reading all your concerted efforts. Congrats on now being a mother-in-love, I will soon be putting this name on too. Congrats too on that amazing harvest! Way to go!

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  8. Thanks Lynnie for stopping by and Congrats to you too. Have a great weekend.

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My email address is whitewolfsummitfarmgirl@gmail.com.