WEEKEND HARVEST GARDEN UPDATE

The garden is going so great this season!

Herb bed

The herbs I cut and harvest and then come back the next week and there they are again ready and waiting.  They sit there, perfectly neat little plants saying "harvest me" week after week.  We have basil, flat leaf parsley, oregano, chives, and lemon thyme.

Zucchini in raised bed

This is the zucchini.  It's H-U-G-E!  That's a 4x4 bed and it's almost filled up.  And COVERED in small zucchinis and blossoms.  We're going to have a LOT of zucchini.  I told 2nd Man to get some recipes for zucchini bread and whatever else we can find. 

Tomatoes!!  

We have several nice, large tomatoes, about six on this plant and four on the other.  And so far they are perfect and round.  

The cucumbers...

Have...

Exploded...

I thought I saw all of them last week when I harvested a bunch.

But apparently, I missed a few!  Oops, these are really big ones!  Any suggestions?  I'm sure these won't be the first I miss.  They are like hunting Easter eggs in that vine!

In addition to the large cucumbers on the porch railing in the previous picture, here is the rest of this weekend's harvest basket.  More cukes (normal sized), jalapeños, eggplant and even a few okra.  

 I'm not sure what we did right this year, but I literally stand in the gate of the garden and stare in hopeful wonder.  I just don't have to do much.  The automatic watering is working.  There are no weeds in the straw covered beds (and what few there are are pulled up in just moments).  The weedblock fabric is keeping the ground weed free as well. 

And, this time around at least, no bugs.

After a couple of hit and miss seasons, problems and changes, we finally have something that is working.  If it keeps up like this, we'll open up the other side next year.  OK, maybe too early to think ahead.

I'll catch up comments tonight!

RANDOM FARM WEEKEND UPDATE

We've noticed that the farmhouse has an odd smell when we open it back up on the weekend.  It's always a week at least, sometimes two weeks if it's a monsoon raining weekend and so the house sits sealed up for days.  It has a musty kind of odor.  We always open the windows when it's nice weather and let the house air out but then it's sealed up again for another week or two when we leave and the window units turned up to a high temp so they don't come on often (lower electricity bill, ha).    

DampRid

So when I was at Home Depot yesterday, I picked up a few of these.  Has anyone ever used them?  They pull moisture (humidity) and supposedly odors from the air.  They come in several different scented ones.  I didn't know if we wanted the house smelling of lavender or something like that just yet so I chose fragrance free for now.  We'll see if they make a difference next weekend.

Hose under house

Here was a quick project that made all the difference.  We don't have a faucet on the back of the house.  We'll have one at some point (later this year) but until then we needed a way to get water to the back of the house for the fruit trees mostly, but also for cleaning the house. 

So we got a long hose, I attached it to the faucet on the front of the house and then I crawled under the house from the back side to grab it and then crawled back out pulling it with me.  

Now we have backyard water!

Before Wet and Forget

The siding on the North and shady East side of the house was getting a lot of mildew on it.  I've been putting that off until we had water back there.

Now that I made that happen, we bought a product called "Wet and Forget" (thanks Mike!) and sprayed it on the house.  I let it sit for a bit and then rinsed it off with the hose sprayer.

After Wet and Forget

It worked great!  No scrubbing, just used the hose to spray it all off.  Definitely getting clearer.  Since it was particularly heavy in some spots, I sprayed a second coat to let it sit and do what the name says, wet AND protect.  

Rust-oleum Golden Sunset

While I was at the store, I picked up two cans of spray paint.  Red and yellow.  For what?  Do you remember last year when I found a couple of metal chairs?  CLICK HERE for that post.

Here is what they looked like before...

Yellow chair

And here is one of them after.  I sprayed the first one in the Golden Sunset color and after it dried, we loved it so much, we decided to make both of them yellow (instead of one red and one yellow). Since I used almost a whole can on one chair, I'll have to get another can to do the other one.  Then we'll just have to put them wherever we decide.  Currently I've been using one in the garden when I take a break.  

There was more that got done, so updates on that coming soon.  Hope you had a great weekend!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY 2017

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there...

2nd Man and I lost our Moms far too soon.  We just wish they could both be here now, enjoying time on the farm with us. We know they would have loved it.

Guest Room

 That's one reason we gave our guest room a more feminine feel to it.  We used pieces and favorite things (flowers and colors for example) from both our Moms to decorate it so we always feel them there.  

So to 2nd Man's Mom Edna and my Mom Linda, we wish them, and all of you reading this, a 

Happy Mother's Day!

ANOTHER UPDATE LATER WITH FARM STUFF!

SATURDAY OFF TO THE FARM

Last weekend, 2nd Family gave us some fresh eggs...

Farm eggs

Oh they are always so good.  Someday, we'll have our own but we have the next best thing now...fresh eggs without all the hard work, LOL!

Pancakes, eggs and bacon

So this morning we had homemade pancakes topped with wonderful maple syrup (from a very sweet friend), fresh eggs, and some wonderful all natural fresh bacon we got last weekend at a Farmer's Market.  It was a WONDERFUL way to start the day!

Beautiful weekend ahead.  Can't go to the farm tomorrow though, we have plans, so it's make the most of today.  I'm hoping no mowing today so I can focus on some other things.  Not a lot of rain this past week so the grass probably hasn't grown much.  

Hoping to finish up a couple of outside projects we'll share details of soon and cleaning the back of the house where there is mildew growing.

The breakfast of hardworking champions, LOL!

GALVANIZED TUB TRASH TO TREASURE FIND

Regular readers know that I have a new favorite place to look for bargains...our downstairs trash area!  Our building has trash chutes on every floor and they feed into a separate room, but for boxes and other things that people can't put in the chute, there is an area (indoor) near the loading dock, where people can put the things they don't want.  I've found several cool items so far.

Galvanized tub

And last week, I found this when I checked the area right before heading to the farm.  A great, large, galvanized tub!  It's nice and "worn" giving it that old look but it's still solid and intact.  Now we just have to figure out how we'll end up using it.  

Old galvanized tub

Sure there is the obvious, a planter, but we have raised beds everywhere, flowerbeds around the house and random clay pots in every shape and size. Plus we don't really want to drill holes in it in case we want to use it for something else later that needs to 'hold' the water in.  

We were kind of thinking of saving it for using outside to hold ice with drinks in it, like a cooler.  We also want an outdoor cooking area and this might make a really fun "sink" at some point.  Or a place to rinse veggies in the garden?  

Whatever we end up using it for, it was free and will serve a new purpose in its second life...

FLOWER ISLAND INSPIRATION THURSDAY

Every Thursday we like to post a picture of something we've found online that inspires us to do something similar at the farm.  

Sort of our own blog bulletin board so that we can eventually look back and someday, hopefully anyway, recreate it...enjoy!

Recently, as some of our other outside projects wind down (posts coming soon on that), we turn our eyes to our ginormous front yard (see photo below).  Something like this, maybe even several, is what we are considering. I know there will be edging but I mow it now, if I have less to mow, then I have time to edge.  My only worry is how to deal with our clay soil.  Maybe a bed of native grasses with smaller flowers like we have done in the flowerbeds? 
  

When we bought the property, there were a couple of trees in the front yard. One was a mesquite and then a cluster of tall hackberry trees. The hackberry trees were in danger of falling toward the house if they were ever blown over and the mesquite tree, well it was low growing and covered in thorns.  Planting more trees (at least tall ones) is not practical (there is also a water pipe that runs from the well to the house and it cuts across the yard.  So now we just need to figure out "where" to place something like this in the yard.

Until we do something, I just have more to mow!

Be inspired!

DEWBERRY CAKE RECIPE

Whoa, wait what?  Here is something that is SO wonderfully delicious. Dewberry cake.   

Oh, and guess who made it?

ME!  1st Man made it!

Ingredients for Dewberry Ricotta cake

I always like to get the ingredients all out and ready to go.  This includes a cup of our frozen dewberries, our homemade vanilla and some of the farm eggs from 2nd Family's chickens.  I also lined a 9" cake pan with parchment paper and lightly sprayed the bottom and sides with cooking spray.

This recipe requires two bowls, one for the dry ingredients and one for the wet.  The best part is that it is all done by hand, no mixer required.

Dry bowl and wet bowl

The dry ingredients are put in one bowl; flour, sugar, baking powder, salt.  Stir to combine (whisk or fork, whichever you have). 

The other bowl has the wet ingredients, the ricotta, eggs, and vanilla.  Stir until smooth.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and combine.  Then add the melted butter and fold again until just combined. 

Dewberry cake batter

Add 3/4 cup of the dewberries (you could use any berry at this point, raspberry, blackberry, etc) and set aside the remaining 1/4 cup. GENTLY fold them in.  

Cake batter

No heavy stirring here, you just want them dispersed throughout the batter without breaking them up.  

Dewberries on top

Scrape batter into the prepared cake pan.  Take the remaining 1/4 cup of berries and scatter them around the top.  No stirring this time, you just let them sit on top while it bakes.  

Dewberry Cake

Bake for approximately 50-60 minutes at 350 degrees or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  I set the timer for 50 minutes, checked it and it was a bit damp on the toothpick so I put it back in for 5 more minutes and it was perfect!

Slice of Dewberry Cake

Let it cool for about 20 minutes then turn the cake out of the pan, it should just come right out (be careful and be sure to peel off the parchment if it's still on the bottom of the cake).  Turn it back upright and slice into it when you are ready.  WOW...

Dewberry Cake

I served it to 2nd Man as a surprise (he was out when I made it).  I put the slices on plates, sprinkled with powdered sugar and we dug in.  It was AMAZING.  We both describe this as a cross between a cheesecake and a pound cake.  He talked about it for a couple of days (which was about as long as it lasted).  I guess I did well!  

It was nice paying him back for all of his good meals. 

ENJOY!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp kosher salt

3 large eggs

1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese

3/4 tsp vanilla extract

1 stick (half cup) unsalted butter - melted

1 cup berries - frozen is best

DEWBERRY SEASON 2017

It was an OK year for our dewberry patches but not as good as prior years have been.  We think it's the lack of the "rainy season" this Spring but really, we can't complain too much because the last couple of years were monsoon rains week after week and NOT MUCH got done on the farm.  This year however, we've gotten quite a few outdoor projects done... 

Dewberry vines

This is an example of how dewberries grow. They are in various stages of ripening all at once so it's a progressive gathering method.  You have to check every few days, or in our case, once a week.  Usually though they are much bigger, these are smaller...

Farm fresh dewberries

Every weekend, we were able to gather one or two of these containers full of berries...

It's just a hunting game, keeping your eye open for the black ones and of course, avoiding the thorns...

Here was one weekend haul, we had a few of these...

Washing dewberries

I would wash them to get any grass or leaves off that we might have missed while gathering (or a stray bug I suppose, ha) and then I put them on paper towels to drain...

Freezing dewberries

Next it's on to a freezer paper lined baking sheet in a single layer and popped into the freezer for an hour or two.  This freezes them individually so they aren't in one frozen clump...

Then I just measure them into two cup amounts for each batch.  Most recipes call for two cups of berries so we try to divide them up that way.  If a few extra over the two cups found their way in, well it's not the end of the world.  I mean, "too many berries" in a cobbler?  Yeah, we didn't think so either...

Frozen packaged dewberries

Lastly we use our vacuum sealer to seal them up in relatively flat(ish) layers (for easier storage in the freezer).  We had these four, plus three more.  So I guess that's about 14 cups total.  We've already used a couple (details coming in a future post).

Dewberries

We try our best to use them sparingly so that we can enjoy a dewberry cobbler in the middle of Winter. 

It will be another year before we see these beauties again...

HARVEST MONDAY AND RED BUGS ON NAKED GARDENING DAY

OK, so I took this selfie in the garden Saturday and figured for all those new to the blog here I am!  Pardon the ragged appearance, I was working in the garden (after mowing) on an absolutely beautiful World Naked Gardening Day, but more on that later...

We actually have our first harvest of the season!  

I gathered a bunch of herbs, here I cut oregano, chives and flat leaf parsley.  

Of course there were veggies now. We have our first jalapeños of the season and look, cucumbers!  Those were so fun to harvest, it was like looking for Easter eggs, they are hidden really well!

There were also a few eggplants coming in, they should be ready for harvest this coming weekend.  

But all was not great...these were on the cucumber vines.  Boo!  I picked them all off by hand (a tedious job but I got them all) and dispatched them.  I checked the rest of the garden and didn't see them anywhere else but I'm sure they'll be back.  

What are they and of course any good solutions for taking care of them?

Ah, but I know the question everyone is still wondering after Saturday's post...was I naked on World Naked Gardening Day?

Well it WAS a beautiful day in the middle of country with only cows around...

WORLD NAKED GARDENING DAY 2017

OK, who knew there was a day like this?  Today (and every year on the first Saturday of May) is 

"WORLD NAKED GARDENING DAY".

*you can google it, there is a website for it and there are some NSFW pics there Your own risk of what you want to see or not see, ha!

(not 1st or 2nd Man in a red hat)

Apparently there is a worldwide movement to encourage people to get out, get naked and do some gardening.   

And on top of that, HOUSTON was just voted the best city in the United States for naked gardening at this time of year.  Apparently, it's because of our amazing early May weather, just the right combination of conditions.  I do have to say, this weekend IS amazing, cool, clear, breeze, low humidity, absolutely perfect for being nude outside.

Local news outlets said that if you see your neighbor in the buff, don't be surprised, they are just taking advantage of the best place in the country to do it!

So today it's off to the farm to do some mowing, planting of some things and yes, gardening...

I know, I know, the burning question is will there be nudity during this gardening adventure?

(crickets)