I've been gardening for most of my life and have been a devoted fan of organic gardening the whole time. It just makes so much more sense to work in harmony with Mother Nature than to fight her. Besides which it is better for the planet and better for our bodies. Here you can see what I'm planting and harvesting, with gardening hints and resources thrown in for good measure.
Welcome to Harvest Monday, kindly hosted by Dave over at Happy Acres I was just checking out his lovely pepper harvests and hot sauce making! Around here vegetable harvests have been a bit thin. We've had a lot of days with high UV radiation this summer and once the sun comes over the hill in the morning I just can't stay outside and work. So a lot of things that should have been done didn't happen. So looking forward to cooler weather, although I'm not looking forward to actual winter.
Some peppers but I forgot to weigh them
There are a few peppers here, some cayenne, shishito and the yellow jalapeno Lemon Spice. I did forget to weigh them before stuffing them in a jar.
Fermenting peppers
I am experimenting with a lot of things this year. These fermented peppers I'm doing with Himalayan pink salt, that's why it's pinkish.
About 8 ounces of small tomatoes
Some became lunch
I had a bigger tomato ripening on the counter so it and others became lunch; sour dough toast from a local baker, tomatoes with basil and basalmic vinegar, both with a dry crumbly homemade goat cheese.
Cucuzzi
The cucuzzi were again the biggest harvest this week, 18 pounds and 4 ounces. Eggs continue to be down, with mostly just 6 new pullets laying. This weeks count was 37, not nearly enough to pay their feed bill.
Milk production is way up because Esmarelda's kids are weaning. Esmarelda gave me 8.6 gallons and Bambi gave 5.4 gallons. I've made several batches of cheese, with most of it going into the freezer for the time when I dry Bambi up. I'm planning to breed her this fall and will dry her up about 2 months into her pregnancy. I'm planning to milk Esmarelda until next fall when I'll breed her again. A lot of goat owners don't do extended lactations. I'm not sure if they don't realize it's possible, if they have a good market for selling kids or what. I don't really need to have a bunch of kids, most people near me want cheap or free or do not care about the fact that these girls are purebred, registered Nubians from good, productive bloodlines. So breeding every other year or even two suits me fine.
Thanks again to Dave over at Happy Acres for hosting the Harvest Monday blog hop. I encourage you to stop by and go see all the other harvests from different places in the world.
Can you see the Diamondback? Look for the little black & white striped tail in the circle of light
Yowza; Saturday morning I'm just bopping along, a little earlier than usual because I need to get a bunch of stuff done and get to the Globe-Miami Farmers Market. My headlamp was dimming and I was thinking that I had just replaced the batteries, but it's OK, it's almost full light now. Except in the big chicken house. That doesn't have window space to the rising sun in summer and the other side is covered in 70% shade cloth to cut the heat. So it's still pretty dark in there. I step into a smaller compartment to drop feed in a feed and turn around to go out and it feels like I'm stepping on a chicken. Not an uncommon thing to happen, they are always getting under my feet. So I'm trying to shuffle my feet to get off the "chicken" and get my head tipped down far enough to shine my headlamp on my feet when I see the writhing of the snake.... Snake zoomed one way and I jumped the other. I hoped it was one of the King snakes I saw earlier in the summer but nope, a Diamondback. Fortunately it slipped under the wall and stayed there until I could get away. And after the market I went and bought a new headlamp; 1000 lumens. It's almost as bright as daylight.
Gotcha!
On Sunday I went out a bit later than normal and was extra cautious. The new headlamp helped me spot it's hiding place, which was probably exactly where it had been on Saturday. My new friend Teresa came over and it had moved to another part of the hen house but Teresa was able to spot it and catch it. She relocated it far away.
drowning in milk
I made a batch of cheese on Sunday morning.
The never ending pen mucking.
Monday was pen mucking. Never ending pen mucking.
Dried onions and fermented pickles
I dried some onions and fermented some onion and cucumber pickles
first blue egg
applesauce in the making
Tuesday and Wednesday I salvaged apples that I had bought at the store from the mark down bin as well as some brought to me by a friend. Made apple chips, applesauce, apple cider vinegar.
Stayed up late Thursday getting another batch of cheese into the press
I've been experimenting with cheese making using 'clabber' and sometimes commercial cultured buttermilk. Most have turned out well. A couple have gone to the chickens.
Mocha ice cream on it's way
When I pulled out the milk to make cheese I was able to skim off a little cream from each jar. Plus I had some in the freezer. So I thawed out the frozen cream and this morning experimented with making mocha ice cream. It was very yummy.
Again this week the cucuzzi were the biggest harvest
mixed peppers
There were a few peppers, cayenne, Lemon Spice jalapeno, shishito
I set up to ferment most of them into pickled peppers
I'm working on a video / blog post about making all the apple stuff, hopefully it will be out by next week. Thanks for stopping by. Don't forget to come along for Harvest Monday where I will document this week's harvests.
Welcome to Harvest Monday, a lovely blog hop hosted by Dave over at Happy Acres Thanks Dave! This week's harvest is mighty thin in most areas.
Loads of Cucuzzi
There were some eggplants, a yellow zucchini and a lone tomato.The bulk of this weeks vegetables were the cucuzzi gourds. This is an edible gourd from Italy that I'm growing for the first time. So far I find it tastier than zucchini.
Esmarelda's milk production has exploded
I am not totally sure why Esmarelda's milk production has increased, perhaps slightly cooler weather combined with her kids being 5 months old and not nursing as much.
Monday she was just half a pint short of a gallon
Tuesday night a gallon plus just over a pint
So I made the decision to start milking twice a day, to help keep her more comfortable and ward off possibilities of mastitis. She leaks slightly if she's too full and that increases the risk of mastitis.
fresh eggs
Egg production is still down, mostly the newest layers are giving me 5 a day. However I'm wondering if finding a diamondback in the big hen house has anything to do with no eggs from those girls for a couple weeks now.
Nida's Peach
The peaches I harvested last week were getting soft ripe and delicious. Some of the bird pecked ones were beginning to rot so they went to the chickens. Most of the remainder went to my farmers market customers.
This weeks' totals (not including rots and gardener snacks)
The Cucuzzi is running rampant and putting out gourds like crazy. I've been taking them to the farmers market and have had a few adventerous folks buy. Some have come back for more. Too bad the goats didn't care for them!
Maximillian Sunflower
I don't have nearly the flowers this year that I've had in the past but there are a few. The Maximillian is a periennial sunflower.
egg production is still low
Still not a lot of eggs. I have one pen laying thin shells despite using all the usual remedies. I also suspect an egg eater in that pen.
Pinto Bean doesn't feel good!
Miss Pinto Bean was showing signs of summer or silent pneumonia so I have been having to give her antibiotic shots. I caught it pretty early so hopefully she will kick it quickly.
Esmarelda
Esmarelda's milk production has jumped off the charts. Usually she gives me 2-4 pints milking just in the evening with her triplets with her 24/7. On Monday night she was huge and milked half a pint short of a gallon. On Tuesday night she at just over 9 pints. So I made the decision to start milking twice a day to keep her more comfortable and to help prevent any issues like blown teats or mastitis.
Prickly Pear Icecream
In my ice cream recipe I replaced the 1 1/2 cups of milk with prickly pear juice. It is not as creamy smooth as my regular vanilla but still was very yummy. This video below includes the recipe in the description, you may have to watch it in YouTube.
A tiny baby lizard
faucets need new washers
Both my kitchen faucets have been dripping but the hot water had begun leaking so bad I couldn't even tighten it up enough to get it down to a slow drip. So I had to take them apart and replace the washers. Not hard, really but I did have other things to do.
trial batch of goat milk shampoo bars
early morning visitor
Friday harvest
Most of this weeks harvest was cucuzzi gourds and Japanese eggplant. And a lone yellow zucchini
Nida's peach
The peaches I picked a bit early to save from the squirrel and birds have been sitting in a flat in the living room where they would be cooler than the kitchen. Some of the bird pecked ones started rotting so I rinsed off all the good ones with a little vinegar water and put them in the fridge. They were getting soft ripe.
Never ending dishes when you do your own dairy
Thanks for stopping by. Hope you have a wonderful week. Don't forget to stop by next week for Harvest Monday, where I total up all the things I harvested during the week.
Harvests this week were pretty thin. However the cucuzzi, an edible gourd from Italy is trying to make up for other things. This is the first year I have grown and eaten cucuzzi and it is a bit different from squashes. No one wanted to buy this giant at the farmers market so I cut into it when I got home. Most of the seeds in the top half were still pretty small and soft, getting bigger and harder towards the bottom. The flavor was stronger than the small one I tasted before (although I still can't describe the taste!). Since I was tired and not really in cooking mode I cut it up and took some to the goats. Only one wanted some, but it was my silly girl that eats anything. So I gave the rest to some chickens and they ate it up.
Green Knight eggplant
The eggplants are still coming in pretty good. I mostly ended up with Green Knight, but also have some other colors, having planted several different mixtures of Japanese eggplant.
eggplant harvest
harvest 8/30
Ready for the farmers market
the giant cucuzzi
It has been cooler and dryer this past week and I have had a hard time keeping up on watering, especially things in smaller pots.
One garden with a lot of tomato plants has some dead and dying plants in it. It's possibly from root knot nematodes or perhaps just not enough water. I really need to get out and do some maintenence but it's been really hard when it's hot and the UV is really high. I just can't work in the direct sun, even if it's under 100F.
This weeks harvest totals
cucuzzi 6# 11 oz
Eggplant 2# 4.5 oz
Tomatoes 2# 4 oz
Milk
Bambi 7.5 gallons
Esmarelda 4 gallons, 7 pints
AND she's still feeding triplets
eggs 5 dozen
Thanks for stopping by! I hope all your harvests are wonderful. Thanks to Dave at Happy Acres for hosting the blog hop. So much fun to see what other folks are doing and to 'visit' other gardens and gardeners, even if it isn't in person.
