Rain, Finally!

Finally some rain...thank Heaven for it. It has been very dry the last month. We only got a few little sprinkles twice since March 8th when we had a deluge for 4 days....so 7 weeks with little or no rain. The garden is smiling today...it's nice to get a bath.
We planted a big garden again this spring. Potatoes, carrots, beets, spinach, broccoli, tomatoes, peppers, green beans, field peas, eggplant, okra, squash, watermelon, cantaloupe and strawberries. Saturday I canned 11 pts of green beans, our first picking, 6 lbs of them. They look so pretty in the jars, makes me feel like I accomplished something. About time to pick the beets, I think. Maybe this weekend.

12 Hours in the kitchen

Yesterday I spent 12 hours in the kitchen. I made and canned tomato sauce, shelled and froze purple hull peas, froze green beans and lima beans, and baked a ham. Husband picked  plenty of banana peppers and I was going to try to pickle them, but I just couldn't muster the strenght and it was already 8:00 p.m. I brought them to work today for my coworkers to enjoy.
The garden has pretty much gone to weeds, we are having a really hot summer, heat indices in the 100s. It rained abundantly from the end of last month through the 1st part of this month. That got the weeds off to a good start, since we couldn't get into the garden and pull them without sinking into the mud. The squash bugs are decimating the tomatoes with their greedy little sucking activities.
We have picked about 10 canatloupe so far and 2 watermelons. I don't think the lima beans are doing very well, but the squash is still producing.
I guess it's time to start \planning our fall and winter garden.

Give Away

I found a neat giveaway on the Vintage Worksite web page. The prize is a wonderful garden seed packet apron, seed packet tote bag, seed packet pillow. All you have to do is leave a comment on their webpage here, about what you are growing in your garden or would grow if you had a garden. I enetered and the deadline is May 16th. Check it out!

Vera's gone

No more Vera....I gave up on the the sourdough bread with no added yeast. The 3rd week I cooked it and it was better, but I still didn't like the taste, so I threw Vera out. No sense wasting time and ingredients on something I don't like anyway. I will concentrate on making some bread in my bread machine and try to perfect that. So here I goooooooooo!

Homemade Bread

I read about starting a sourdough mother for homemade bread on a blog called MaryJanes Farm here. I made my mother 2 weeks ago and named her Vera after my grandmother. The first week I made the bread it didn't rise much, probably too new. This week I tried again...I'll let my video show you how it turned out.


As you can see, I don't know what I am doing!. At least I have a sense of humor and gave yall a good laugh. I'll try again next week.

Rain Finally!

It hasn't rained here in almost a month. Watering the garden is no fun. Dust and pollen are everywhere. My car is normally white, but lately has been yellow from all the pollen and I refuse to wash it....it needs to be rained on. We finally got a thunderstorm last night, but alas, my car was under the carport. Just my luck.

Anyway the garden was lookin good this afternoon. It seems to perk up after a little water from the heavens. The strawberries were happy.

The canatlope are flowering.

There are little green tomatoes on the bushes
The corn got a little windswept, but surely it will straighten back up.

Very glad for the nice rain.

Spring Fever

I've got a bad case of spring fever. I want to preserve and put up anything I can get my hands on. I want to bake bread and I just ordered a pressure canner. The garden is growing well and I just can't wait to try my hand at canning some of our produce.
I received a starter for some Amish Friendship bread a few weeks ago and made my 1st 2 loaves Sunday. They are really good. I think I will keep that going for a while and when I tire of making it I will freeze it for later use.

It's strawberry season here in Louisiana and I just couldn't help buying a flat. I have enough jelly left over from last year, so this year I made some syrup for pancakes and ice cream and maybe even I'll use it on shaved ice for a snowball. The recipe I used was in my ball blue canning book. I only used 5 pints and it made 7 cups.
I had lots of berries left so I decided to freeze them for using during the year. They can be frozen individually on cookie sheets and then transferred to freezer bags. That way you can remove just what you need without having to thaw the whole bag.

What you see on the top left side is what's left of my Amish Friendship bread...it's going fast..

We planted spinach and mustard greens kinda late this year and the mustards are alreay going to seed. So I am picking as much as possible before the really hot weather gets here. Here is some  fresh spinach we just picked.....yummy!!

I think I'll make a spinach and strawberry salad while the gettin is good.