Blooms everywhere

Sometimes I think that I try to do too many things, does that ever happen to you?  If I had my way I would probably spend most of  my free time sewing and reading.  I spend some time gardening, and probably should spend more, but the there just isn't enough time in the day for everything.  We have had so much rain this spring that our flowers are really pretty.  For the first time our peony, that was given to us several years ago by DH's aunt, is blooming.  I love the big pink flowers.  I probably should have cut some of them before the thunderstorms this morning, oh well.

We have also had some beautiful amaryllis blooms.  Someone always gives me one of these at Christmas time and after it blooms I usually just plant it in one of our flower beds, this year I think everyone that I have ever planted is blooming.  They are so pretty.  Makes me want to spend more time gardening.

Pickles!!

Pickles day 1

This gardening thing is keeping me too busy.  The last few weeks I have spent canning beans, in all 36 quarts, and 5 pints.  I refuse to can anymore beans.  Now it is pickle time, our cucumbers haven't done that well, but I did manage to pick enough to make one batch of pickles.  Most pickles are very time intensive, and I didn't want to do anything that took forever especially since we are leaving on vacation on Sunday.  I found a new recipe to try in the new Pioneer Woman Cookbook.

Pickles Day 2
Cooking away in the pickling spices.

Day 3, 7 pints of sweet pickles, thank you Pioneer Woman for the great recipe.

Gardening Cowgirl, not Quilting

When growing up in Mississippi I swore that when I grew up  I would never spend my summers gardening.  I am eating those words, I have spent most of the last two weeks working in our garden.  It is green bean time.  We have two types in our garden, bush beans and pole beans.  The bush beans came in first, quickly followed by the pole beans.  In the last week I have picked and canned 30 quarts of beans. 

Making sure they are clean

Some of the canned beans.

In addition to canning beans, I also make 8 jars of fig preserves.  I have declared today no gardening day and plan on sewing.  Wish me luck.

Gardening Time Again

Joe and I both grew up in the country, me in Mississippi and Joe in Virginia, so we know how good fresh veggies are.  

For the last few years we have only had a small garden behind our house, usually a few peppers, some tomatoes, lettuce, and herbs. We wanted to do more but just didn't have space for a large garden.  Last year we were lucky in that our neighbor across the street asked if we wanted to take over her garden.  Her husband had passed away and her children weren't interested in gardening or didn't have time for it.  We eagerly said yes that we would love to use her garden space and would gladly share our veggies with her.  We planted corn,  tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, okra, beans, peas,  watermelons, pumpkins, mustard greens, Swiss chard, broccoli, and cantaloupes.  You can see the mustard greens just starting to come up.  (we have since picked them twice)

Last year we had problems with rabbits and squirrels.  I remembered that my parents used to put pie pans out to scare animals.  So far it seems to have worked, we have had very few critter problems. 

Our beans are looking good, they have grown a lot since this photo was taken.  We actually picked a few tonight.  There are lots of small beans, I know what I will be doing on Monday, canning beans.

Our broccoli has been incredible, we have had lots of roasted broccoli this year.  I have never been a huge broccoli fan, but love it roasted with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Cleaning before roasting.

This is our small garden behind our house.  We have a rogue pumpkin that came up that is about to take over.

Swiss chard, love this sauteed with olive oil, red pepper, garlic, salt and pepper.

More gardening news

Saturday was a super busy day, DH and I worked in the garden all morning.  We picked enough beans that I was able to can 11 quarts.  We hope to get about about 20 more quarts, that would give us 30 all together, which would definitley see us through the winter.  

How does my garden grow?

Three weeks ago



Yesterday

 Yes, our garden is growing!!  While growing up we always had a garden, and I swore that I would never ever have one and do all of that work when I grew up, well I am eating those words.  (hopefully, will soon be eating other stuff.)  DH has really gotten into this gardening thing.  I am really glad that he has found something to keep him busy.  The potatoes are blooming, the watermelons and yesterday I picked the collards, and mustard.  Now we just need some rain, for everyting to keep growing.  In addition to all of the veggies, we also have a healthy crop of posion ivy, which I can just look at and break out.

Farming Cowgirl

 I grew up on a farm in Mississippi, and the entire time I swore that I would never, ever work in a garden when I became an adult.  Well I am eating those words, and hopefully some veggies later in the year.  On Saturday, hubby and I started clearning off our new garden venture.  (our neighbor who passed away recently had given us permission to use his garden).  The plot is much bigger than we originally thought, Hubby is really excited.  We plan on planting potatoes, corn, tomoatoes, okra, beans, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, and watermelons. 

It is too early to plant most things, but we did plant two rows of potatoes.  Don't know if they will come up or not but we are giving them a try.  Wish us luck.  

Susie Homemaker

I got up early this morning which really surprised me, hubby is out of town and I went to Thimbles last night and didn't get home until late. I had the best time last night. Kristie, Becky, Teresa, Susan and I took up the back row and boy did we have fun. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. Becky looked like she was crying she was laughing so hard. It was one of those things that you just had to be there for, it wouldn't be funny to anyone else. It was Kristie's birthday and it was great that she spent it with her quilting buds. I really needed the laughs, because last week at school, if it could go wrong it did, but the week is over with and out of my mind. On to today, where I was channeling either Martha Stewart or a pioneer housewife. After getting up early, I did three loads of laundry, canned 16 quarts and 1 pint of tomatoes, dusted, vacuumed, cleaned the bathrooms, gathered three boxes of "stuff" to take to Goodwill. All of this was before lunch. After lunch, I mowed the grass, picked more tomatoes, some bell peppers and some jalapenos. While cutting the grass I happened to notice in our azalea bed a huge and I do mean huge hornet's nest. It was big enough that I came in got my camera and hornet spray. It isn't a great picture, but I didn't want to get too close. I used an entire can of hornet spray on it. That should kill all of those nasty little devils. After battling the hornets it was time for a break and time to clean myself up. I needed to go over to Forsyth Fabrics to get fabric for my new bedroom drapes. After getting the new bed, we need lots of new bedroom stuff. I decided how I wanted the drapes made, and the fabric I wanted just had to go over and pick it up. After that it was off to JoAnn's to buy thread and see what other bargains I could find. While at JoAnn's I did buy three patterns, their Simplicity patterns where on sale for 1.00 that is a great price. Now I just have to find fabric for them and get them made. Oh, well that will be a project for another day. Time for dinner and a glass of wine.

Gardening time

Yesterday when I came home from my staff development, my husband had bought me a present: 10 pounds of bell peppers. Believe it or not, I was actually excited about it. We always plant a small garden behind our house, usually just tomatoes, and different kinds of peppers, sometimes cucumbers. This year we planted both bell peppers and cayenne peppers, the cayenne peppers have done well, but the others are just sitting there. I always freeze them to use later in the year. We had talked about going to the Farmers Market and getting some, we just hadn't gotten around to doing it yet. Joe and to go to Macon yesterday for work and just happened to come back by the Farmer's Market and decided to bring me some peppers. It didn't take too long but they are all in the freezer for later use. After freezing those, I decided to go out and check our garden. I picked our first tomatoes and some more cayenne peppers (boy are they hot). Both Joe and my brother love hot stuff, but I think these peppers were a little to hot for even them. I'm not sure what I will end up doing with them. Any suggestions?

After my kitchen chores were competed, I went into the sewing room and finished the binding on a wall hanging that my mom had hand quilted for me. It is the very first thing that I had ever appliqued, and if I do say so myself it turned out pretty good. I am so happy that my mom was able to hand quilt it for me. She does beautiful work and to her a quilt isn't a quilt unless it is quilted by hand. The pattern is All Things Christmas, by Bunny Hill. It was a BOM from Stitch n' Quilt. Tomorrow is Silver Thimble day, have to go get my sewing stuff together.