My new machine!

As previously mentioned, I have decided to take up sewing in the winter months.  I am just a beginner, so please bear with me!  I am in no way perfect, as you already know..keep that in mind!  To start, I'll go over the tools I've collected...

I know, it's been a while

My sincerest apologies, reader(s)!  It has been a busy summer and I have been lax in my blogging duties.  Since my last post, I was able to gather a few more petite peppers, before Hurricane Superstorm Sandy hit.  I do have to say that the scallions grew fairly nicely and it looked like the garlic was well on its way until the storm.  Unfortunately, the beets didn't have a chance to develop fully.  My lettuce mix grew quite well, but were promptly eaten up, probably by bunnies.  The broccoli was looking really good until Sandy came and destroyed it.  I also think I should have planted it earlier in the season (well, duh, I was starting the garden in July!).

Harvest time!

So you've seen the gigantic summer squash that I was able to pluck from my garden.  The vine that traveled across the garden and over the fence of the opposite side was actually pumpkin!  I discovered this when I was cleaning up and decided (stupidly) to cut up the vine running through the middle of the garden.  I was cutting off dead/decaying vines and got a little shear-happy...and really should not have cut this little baby off :(

Pickling Radishes and Peppers

We just got lots of radishes from our organic farm share and I really didn't know what to do with them.  So I thought I'd try my hand at a very quick and simple radish pickling recipe from Bon Appétit.  I've never canned or pickled, so I had to go with an old spaghetti sauce jar for this one.  The 2 cups of vinegar didn't fit in the jar, so it was about 1 and 7/8 c of vinegar.  We also got some HUGE cloves of garlic from the farm share so we only put 7 of those in instead of 10 (the recipe said '10 cup garlic cloves' but I think that was a mistake).  I also stuck a couple petite bell peppers in there that I picked from my garden for fun :)

So excited! Will let you know how they are in 3 days...

Closing out the summer with a little smoke

Recently J bought a smoker. I will post a little more on the modifications he did to it in a later post, but I just wanted to say in the past month we have really enjoyed using this little baby!

So far we've done two pork butts, two chickens, and a nice hunk of salmon. Wow there is nothing like smoking your own salmon! And all I have to say is brining is awesome. Especially for the chicken and salmon that we did.

A few teaser pics :)

Whoa!

Guess what I picked in the garden yesterday! Stay tuned...

Finding Humor in My Plants

It's been a while since I've written, but boy have things changed!  I was traveling for a few weeks and didn't have much time for my plants.  Well it seems like a certain few squash plants decided to take over my garden.  Besides the squash, the following are still growing: beets, lettuce mix, scallion (which we transplanted), and peppers. 

I can see squash and I can see peppers, can you?

Finished Composter

I cannot believe we were able to finish building the composter today.  Well, I shouldn't really say 'we' so much as 'my husband' haha.  We threw our first few scraps in there this afternoon :D  So it starts!

Nothing but vegetables (and a few herbs!)

"A vegetable garden in the beginning looks so promising and then after all little by little it grows nothing but vegetables, nothing, nothing but vegetables." Gertrude Stein

 
I find that quote so hilarious.  Oh my do I have an update for you!

First up: Basil Cutting
I didn't really believe that this little experiment would work, but I've been changing the basil water every day or two and am seeing roots forming (gasp) right where they should be!  In the next few days I'll get these babies into the ground.  Actually, strike that, I'm thinking of taking the thyme in my SFG, basil that you see here, and some mint my dad just gave me and planting them in the rectangular terracotta flowerpot(s) J bought me.  This way I can bring them inside during the winter and have fresh herbs throughout the winter!  Wouldn't that be delightful? 

Update on our composter...

WOW this composter is hard to put together.  So far J has put two hours into it and it's still not done.  The composter arrives flat-packed, which means nothing is assembled.  In addition, none of the holes are pre-drilled so you have to do it yourself.  So to make thing a little easier, we put the barrel together with bungee cords and drilled the holes and then took it apart, attached the pieces to the frame, and then started screwing them together.  What stinks is that the pieces don't fit perfectly together and there are gaps between the pieces.