Garlic Harvest Day

Today I harvested all the garlic from my high tunnel greenhouse.  It was a very hot day and especially hot in the greenhouse.   By the time I was finished I was dripping wet!   But after a couple weeks of drying, we will be able to sell quite a bit of the garlic at our market booth.   Fresh garlic sells extremely well.  If I had a half acre of garlic planted, I could still sell it.  Much of the garlic that is found in supermarkets comes from China, and I certainly would not want to eat that!   It's anyone's guess what Chinese garlic is grown in and what is used to water it.   I am glad that the harvest of garlic coordinates nicely with the advent of my pickling cucumbers!  This weekend I will be making Polish dill pickles with my fresh garlic and fresh dill from the garden.

Here I am digging out the garlic bulbs.  You can't just pull the bulbs - they must be dug.  The garlic stems are easily broken from the bulb.

I pull away excess dirt from the bulb.   This is a dirty job, but my gardener's soap takes care of filthy hands!  My favorite soap for cleaning dirty garden hands is from Perfectly Posh called a "snarky bar".  This is a gritty soap with sugar crystals in it instead of pumice.   It doesn't clog the sink with pumice, and leaves hands nice and smooth and clean. 

I put the bulbs in a large bucket until I can take them inside and dry them on the special garlic rack we have.

By the time garlic is ready to harvest, there are lots of weeds in the patch.  I never disturb these weeds about a month before harvest so as not to accidentally pull up a garlic bulb that isn't ready yet.

There are lots of different sizes to the bulbs.  I plant both large (elephant) garlic, and commercial sized garlic.   When the bulbs are dry and ready to sell, I cut off the dry foliage, and take a soft old toothbrush to brush off dirt from the roots.   Then I trim the roots to about 1/4 inch. 

I ended up with 3 buckets full of bulbs, plus about 8 bulbs extra to use right away for pickles.

This is called a garlic scape.  It appears as a sort of blossom coming from the stem of garlic that is almost mature.   Usually these are snipped off to encourage larger bulb growth.  There were a couple that I missed.  Some cooks use these scapes in cooking, as they do taste like garlic, but not quite as tangy.   I have tried them in cooking, but did not care for the mild taste or texture of them.   I have heard of some cooks pickling them to use in various recipes.  To my taste, scapes taste almost "grassy" instead of like real garlic.

It always amazes me that I plant garlic bulbs in the high tunnel in late October and they make it through the winter, and come up in the spring to be harvested in July.   We had a very long and very cold winter and I didn't think anything would survive in the high tunnel.   This winter damaged so many of the fruit trees around here.   Our apple tree has apples, but the tree looks sick, and the leaves are small and curled.   Everyone's trees look like that.   The chokecherry trees also took a big hit this year.    So that's why I am happy that the garlic survived the long tough winter.   It must be hardy stuff!

Canning Season 2019 Begins Today With Cherries

Yesterday Harold and I picked cherries at a friend's farm.  They have many cherry trees and they graciously allow us to pick what we want.  We also got some small cherry trees from them to plant in our own yard, which we did this spring.  Hopefully someday we will have our own cherries to pick (hopefully in my lifetime!).  Meanwhile today I worked with those cherries and began the canning season by canning up 13 jars of my favorite ice cream topping.   The rest of the cherries will be used for a Cherry Crisp for today's lunch dessert and I will freeze plenty for future use in sauces for angel food cake and sponge cake and future crisps. 
     After many years of canning I finally invested in a sturdy, thick bottom, stainless steel canning pot.   Those black and white speckled ones with the corrugated bottom that they usually sell in the stores for canning don't work well on an electric stove, and I usually burn out the bottoms of them in one canning season.   I got tired of always buying new canning pots, so when I found stainless steel ones I was thrilled.   I bought two of them.   I also bought a special canning coil for my electric stove, as I was tired of burning out those thin coils that come with today's electric stoves.   It sits up higher than most coils, and can take the extra weight of a jar-filled canning pot.

The sturdy, thick bottomed, flat bottomed stainless steel canning pot I invested in.  This one has been through 2 years of use already with no signs of wear.  It sits on an extra heavy electric canning coil on the stove that I also bought for canning purposes.  This pot also has a clear lid, so you can easily see what the water and jars are doing during the boiling process.

One of the buckets of cherries we picked yesterday.   Aren't they gorgeous?

After following my recipe for cherry ice cream topping, the cherries look like this.

I got 13 jelly jars of topping from a double recipe!  That's enough for one a month, plus one to spare!

Here is a jar from last year, looking pretty alongside some of my calendula flowers in a bud vase.

Next up on the canning schedule is peaches.   Next week the boxes of canning peaches - Mrs. Smittcamp's Canning Peaches - will be arriving at my local grocery store.  I'll can up 3 or 4 boxes of those.    After that, it will be green beans.  
     If you are interested in the recipe for making cherry ice cream topping, I wrote a blog post about this in July of 2016 called Cherry Time.  You can find it in the blog archives. 

Honeybee Heaven

Two years ago we planted two acres of sweet clover for our bees.  It takes two years for this kind of clover to grow.   Our hard efforts paid off, as just about every bee we have has been to the clover field!  The sweet clover field is just buzzing with bees!   The plot of land is humming like a well oiled machine.   We also planted some crimson clover in there, too, and it is up and growing, but the bees prefer the sweet clover.  Clover makes the very best honey, so we anticipate an excellent tasting honey crop this year.  Bees humming in a sweet clover field is music to a beekeeper's ears! Do I also dare say it is the sound of "honey money"?  Besides the sweet clover, the bees are going for natural plantings now, too.  There are birdsfoot trefoil, dandelions, wild daisies, wild mustard and garden blossoms.  It is a regular smorgasbord for them.   Very soon there will be basswood blossoms and the bees really love that, too.
     Here are some photos of our clover field and some happy bees:

Two acres of sweet clover.   Our bees go crazy for this!

A close up of the sweet clover.  Most of it is about 4 feet high.

One of our bees working the clover blossoms.

Here are TWO bees working a clover blossom!

This is crimson clover.  When the bees are done with the sweet clover they will work on this type of clover.

Besides the clover, there is birdsfoot trefoil for the bees. This is the path going to the pasture where we have the sweet clover planted.  The whole path is lined with trefoil flowers.   This flower is their second favorite plant, and makes excellent honey.

Meanwhile, back at the hives, the bees are lined up at the hive entrance waiting to unload the nectar into the hive.  Note that we have a live trap set to catch skunks.  We've had problems with them lately eating our bees.

Busy Summer Days

The last couple weeks have been so busy.    Harold and I have spent many hours doing garden and yard chores and preparing for a family visit.  Both of my sons came with their children to visit.  One son came on the train from Massachusetts and the other one from the Twin Cities.   I enjoyed time with 4 of my 5 grandsons, and it had been several years since my sons were able to get together.   I was also happy to meet my son Jerry's new girlfriend who also came to visit.    I think the grandkids all enjoyed doing "grandma things" here on the farm, but the biggest draw was, of course, the  new kittens! After the initial shock of all the kids, the cats settled down and were quite friendly and the 10 new kittens got plenty of handling and socializing.

My grandson Jeffrey is feeding the Mama cats leftover pancakes, eggs,  and hash brown potatoes.   My cats will eat anything!

The kids enjoyed lining up some of the older kittens on the porch to play.

Harold gave Jeffrey a ride on the 'big tractor', a real thrill for a young boy!

We had more turtles come into the yard, too.   In fact every day we had a couple of them digging in the garden or yard.   Not only did the grandkids get a kick out of the turtles, but the cats are getting very curious, too!  Here is one of my tomcats taking a risk by putting his nose close to a snapping turtle!

Better watch out, kitty!   Those snapping turtles can bite!

We also have a deer that comes into the yard every evening to eat grass and flowers.   She is quite tame, so we talk to her and call her Clover.

Our tame deer that we call Clover likes to eat wild mustard flowers.   They grow just outside the kitchen window.

My sons enjoy cooking, and both of them claim to have found the "perfect pizza recipe".   So one night we had a pizza bake-off competition!  Jerry made his specialty and Kelly made his special recipe.   Everyone got a chance to judge the final results.  In the end, we all agreed that both pizzas were absolutely delicious and couldn't decide which was better! I like to cook and bake also, so I'm glad my sons took after me in that respect!

Kelly prepares the sausage balls for his pizza

Jerry chops green pepper and mushroom for his pizza.

The final results!  Jerry's deep dish whole wheat crust green pepper and mushroom pizza is in the iron skillet.  Kelly's thin crust Jalapeno, pepperoni and sausage pizza is in the pizza pan.  Both boys made their own crust from scratch, and told me it was nice to work in Mom's kitchen with quality equipment and ingredients.  These pizzas were very delicious!

I haven't had a "cute kitten photo" for a while, so here goes:

Here are all the new kittens sleeping in a pile in their cat house.   The little white long haired cutie out front was named Luna by Jerry's family.   They would have taken her home if they had not come by train.

After all the company left, Harold and I spent the next day or two working in the garden and greenhouse to get things back in shape after several days neglect.  We had a few days of rain and cold, which did not help the weeding cause.  But my flowers are beautiful this year.  I tried my hand at growing double ruffled petunias.  They almost look like carnations and are so pretty.

Look at this beautiful purple and white double ruffled petunia!  They are very large, too, measuring a good 4 inches across.

I also grew pink and white double ruffled petunias.  Aren't they pretty?

The greenhouse is full of everything now.  The snow peas in the back are almost to the ceiling, the garlic is nearly ready to harvest, and lettuce is growing like crazy.

Our summer has kicked into high gear now with heat and humidity and rains every other day, so garden work is multiplied a lot.  We are also busy with the farmer's market, and our bees are working like crazy.   The 2 acres of sweet clover we planted last year is in bloom and the bees are loving that!  It promises to be a good honey year if all goes well.

Our Annual Yard Visitor

Every year about this time we see large snapping turtles in the yard.   They lay eggs in the soft dirt somewhere around the gardens, then crawl back into the ponds on the property.   They can be quite aggressive, so I steer clear of them.   But they are a great source of curiosity for our farm cats! Here is one I took a photo of just about half an hour ago.

This old girl has a lot of moss growing on her back. 

My cat CB (short for 'crybaby') was very curious about this intruder roaming in HER yard!! She managed to get the turtle moving at a pretty good pace, at least for a large turtle.

We have been so very busy lately with gardening, the start of the Farmer's Market season, yard work, weeding and mowing.   The other day while cutting grass, I nearly ran into one of these turtles as I came around a bend in the yard.  That turtle ran quicker than I have ever seen one move at the sound of the riding mower!!

Finally! Planting Weather!

Today it was sunny and warm and the soil had dried up enough to till up and get things planted.   Harold and I spent about 5 hours outside planting various things.   It was enough for today.   I think we are a little sunburned.  Tomorrow and the next day will be even warmer, so by the end of the week we should have all 3 of our gardens planted.  Today we planted green beans, 4 kinds of dry beans, carrots, and sweet onion plants.   I was also able to put out my flowers and hanging planters.  The cats were busy catching mice, we discovered a batch of 4 healthy new kittens, and the trumpeter swans were having a big territorial fight on the lake.   Life is good again!

Here I am planting Walla Walla sweet onions that I started from seed in February.  Look at all that "bee food" in the back yard!  But I am going to mow it tonight.

Harold prepares another row for planting onions.  Besides the Walla Walla sweet onions, I planted Candy sweet onions.   Sweet onions sell extremely well at our market booth, so we planted about 175 onions.  We also planted red onions, white onions, and yellow onions. 

Our bees were just buzzing today, not only on the dandelions, but also on our wild plum trees. 

Three of our wild plum trees.  They produce lots of plums, but we have to fight the bears and the deer for the fruit!  These plums are about the size of Italian prune plums, and are good not only for eating, but for sauces and jelly.

One of our bees working a plum blossom.  The plum blossoms are full of nectar, so this is a honey flow right now.

We stopped working to come inside and have a lunch of steak and potatoes for Harold, pasta for me, and a salad.   We enjoyed a salad from our greenhouse lettuce and spinach.  It is SO nice to have fresh salad greens again!

A batch of freshly picked Romaine, Buttercrunch lettuce and spinach.  I added some chopped hard boiled egg, grated cheese, and tossed with homemade sweet onion dressing.   It was a yummy salad!

Tomorrow we will plant cabbage plants, cucumbers, yellow beans, and winter squash.   It is so nice to be out in the warm sun again.  Makes a person feel human!

A Beekeeper's Yard

Beekeepers never really have grassy lawns - we have weeds and wildflowers!  All of this is "bee food"! To many folks in the urban areas, a lawn full of dandelions is considered bad and hundreds of dollars are spent on weed killer and many hours spent digging out the weeds.  I realize that in some neighborhoods there are city ordinances regarding dandelions.  But out here in the country we don't worry about that, and our bees are grateful for the food and pollen!  Right now our yard is buzzing so loud with thousands of bees, all working the dandelions, woodland flowers and wild plum blossoms.  When we walk out the front door the 'roar of the bees' can be almost deafening!  But that is the sound of honey making (and later on, money making!).  We are so thankful that we can live in the country where we don't have ordinances about weeds and wildflowers.

  I took a few photos of various areas of our yard.   There are many areas all over the place in everyone's yard that our bees are working now.   Bees will go up to 3 miles for food and pollen, although most of our bees only have to stick around our yard.   I can hardly walk around without almost stepping on bees working the dandelions.  I do have to mow the yard this week, but I mow in the morning before they get out of the hive, or in the early evening when the bees are back into the hives, and I only mow a section a day so as to leave plenty of areas for the bees to work.   Soon the dandelions will be gone, and other flowers such as birdsfoot trefoil, basswood flowers, and wild asters and clovers will be their food of choice.

What a buffet of dandelions for the bees!

Another area of "bee food" - you can see what a paradise this is for our bees!

Some of these dandelions are 6 inches tall and 2 inches in diameter - really big ones for bee food!

A couple of our hard working forage bees on the dandelions.

The bees are lined up in front of the hives to bring in the nectar and pollen.  All 8 of our hives are busy now with active bees.

Repairing Some Wind Damage

A few days ago we had some very gusty winds all day long that took off big chunks of our roof shingles.   We watched in horror as section after section flew off and landed on the ground.   Today it is sunny and not windy or rainy, so Harold is up on the roof repairing what he can.   We hope to finish putting on a metal roof this summer, which will be a permanent fix to our roof problem.   We have part of the back of the house done already with metal roofing, but we need to do the front of the house very soon.   We gathered what we could for shingle sections, and Harold used his trusty tractor/loader to carry them to the roof.   He went up on a ladder.   I took a few pictures, in between worrying about Harold falling!

Harold nails shingles back on after the wind damage.

The sections came off in random pieces, so it is like a puzzle to figure out where the pieces go.   Harold studies where the next piece goes.

Just about done.   A brave guy to be standing up on the roof like that!

We find so many uses for this tractor.  How wonderful that Harold can do repairs like this.

Now that he is finished I can quit worrying!