Cranberry Heaven

Sugared Cranberries and
Cranberry Spice Syrup
Makes 3 cups cranberries

Sweet and tangy sugared cranberries make a surprising addition to candy bowls, your favorite apple pie recipe, cheesecake,baked brie, pancake or ice cream topping.

Ingredients
3 cups sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
6 whole cloves
3 cups water
3 cups fresh cranberries, rinsed
1 cup superfine sugar

Mix sugar, cinnamon sticks and cloves with water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Simmer for 1 minute, stirring until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and pour into a bowl. Stir in cranberries. Cover and refrigerate for about 8 hours. Drain cranberries. Reserve liquid, strain out cinnamon sticks and cloves and use as a simple syrup to add a holiday touch.

Place superfine sugar in a bowl and gently toss in cranberries, coating evenly. Place cranberries on a baking sheet to dry, about 1 to 2 hours.

Store in an airtight container.

To Can Syrup

Fill jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace and boil in water bath canner for 20 minutes. When serving, if you'd like a thicker syrup, simply add a little cornstarch before heating it up.

~~~

We sprinkled sugared cranberries and poured the cranberry spice syrup on top of our pancake dinner last night. It was absolutely delightful! And if you will be coming to Sunday family dinner this week, these will be featured in our pancake bar. I mean, who doesn't love breakfast for dinner? Especially with something as sinfully delicious as these?

Thanks Whole Foods and USU Extension services
for helping me out on this one!

Dear Santa,

{Crowing Rooster by Hans Droog}

I have been a good girl this year. I'd really like an eglu chicken coop and some cute little hens to lay eggs for me. I asked my cute primary kids at church to tell my husband thats what I wanted for my birthday, but he didn't get me one, so now I'm asking you.

Just a cute chicken coop and two hens. The hens only make soft clucking noises so they won't wake up the neighbors at the break of dawn, and they would be so cute wandering about the yard and ever so useful with their fresh eggs and all. Oh and I wouldn't mind the above painting either. That's all I'm asking. Pretty, pretty please?

Signed,

Becca

My Patio Stairs

Originally I wanted something like this surrounding my patio stairs:

{click to enlarge}

But I found out this past summer that my tall house keeps this area in the shade until it receives afternoon sun starting around 2:00. But then the neighbors trees start giving me late afternoon shade, so they really don't get a ton of direct sunlight. So obviously my sun loving vegetables didn't do very well in this spot.

But it doesn't mean I can't grow edibles there! A quick google search told me I just need to plant different ones this coming year like any of these that do well with less sun and/or shade:

Arugula, cabbage, kale, lettuce, mustard greens, pak choi, parsley, sorrel, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, beets, brussel sprouts, radishes, swiss chard, collards, chives, garlic chives, onions, cardamom, mints, sage, dill, oregano, borage, chamomile, several kinds of thyme, bush beans, blackberry, currants, gooseberry, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, several kinds of pears, hardy kiwi, filbert, hazelnut, and yellowhorn.

Now, which ones do I want to try? Which ones will do best in pots? Hmm, decisions, decisions!

The Salad Garden

Care to go lounge in the garden, soak up the sun and pick your own salad while you're there? I think its a fun idea and I think I have a spot for it too!

{via Country Living UK}

This could be really cute with oh say, a red or yellow {or even teal!} adirondack chair. Or even better, a luxurious chaise? I mean, why not romance the salad garden?

Now my chairs aren't quite so loungey because they belong to my patio set but they are frequently moved around the yard to the west fence to take advantage of afternoon shade, or to the firepit for roasting marshmallows. But I think they might take up a more permanent residence by the west fence and instead of taking out the lawn, I might just do a salad box or two on tables inbetween the chairs instead.

The Basement Grocery Store

It all started with Blast From The Past. The scene where the mom is shopping in the bomb shelter with a grocery cart, like 30 years later! How cool is that? Yeah, I want my own grocery store too!

So I was trying to find some peach crates for my root cellar and came a cross a whole bunch of fun produce department products to make my own little grocery store even cuter!

Washable baskets

Cute deep baskets

Even a real produce stand!

Cute hanging baskets to put on the walls.

Even something like this would be cool!

Or these if you don't have shelf space anymore.

Just put these out nearby on the floor.

Or a real decorative produce cart if you have room!

Or even stands built to hold lots of baskets!

Yeah, there are a lot of products out there to help me design my own cute lil' grocery store!

{via avisbag and Hubert}

Garden Tomatoes in December

Santa Cow wants to show you our tomatoes!

Remember my big box of green tomatoes? Well, we're still eating them! But we're down to the very last ones to ripen. They've kept quite nicely in the garage all this time!

The Possibilities Are Everywhere

This summer I ran across the book Success With Small Food Gardening by Louise Riotte that really opened my eyes about edible landscaping. I now literally see possibilities everywhere!

The book is very inspirational. It illustrates a few plans for several different types of situations including places like mobile homes that I bet most people wouldn't think they could really grow much food at.

Copies of the book are hard to find, but it really is a gem in my library!

Thanksgiving Week Stock Up!

Things you should take advantage of for your food storage this week since they're on sale for the holiday:

• Pumpkins--canned or fresh


• Sweet potatoes/Yams--fresh from the farmer stand if possible for the root cellar, or canned


• Potatoes--fresh from the farmer stand if possible for the root cellar


• Turkey--grab extras if you have room in your freezer, or if you have a pressure canner


• Baking supplies--flour, sugar, chocolate, etc


• Cranberries--fresh to dry them for trail mixes, to throw in salads, and for baked goodies


• Other root veggies like parnsips, turnips, rutabagas etc--fresh from the farmer stand if possible

So if you're just learning what to do with some of these and want to put them in your food storage, then hurry and gather up some recipes online to try out, because heaven forbid we don't want any of you to get bored by eating it the same ol' way each time.

The Root Cellar

{via Mary Jane's Farm}

I have grown up my whole life knowing that I should have a year's supply of food because that's what my church encourages. But I like to eat naturally and for years the basics of food storage stumped me on how to store natural foods. I just kept envisioning shelves lined with green jello and processed junk which I knew I didn't want.

So about four years ago I ran across Root Cellaring and a lightbulb went off! I didn't realize you could store fresh food this way. I mean, it made sense, how else did people eat for centuries during the long hard winter months? I just never thought about it before!

You can store whole grains, beans, rice and even fresh vegetables in a root cellar and eat a natural healthy diet! It is soo cool!

How Soon I Forget

I know I officially declared my canning season over with the last grape juice fiasco, but I looked out my window this weekend and noticed all the leaves had fallen off the grapevine but there were still lots of grape clusters hanging on.

So I trudged out and lo and behold, they were still good grapes! So I picked a box, brought them in and canned more juice!

This time everthing went ok {mostly}--no burnt pan or burnt stove top. This time only a burnt finger which I iced for six hours before going to bed then put a frozen gel pack wrapped around it while I slept and worried if I was going to wake up to a frostbitten finger.

What was I thinking??? Did I mention how awesome I am at canning? Oh how soon I forget!

Food Storage Design

Growing up, my mother-in-law tells about her single, widowed mom who had a goal every year to can at least 200 bottles of each crop she had access to. And she knew if she had 200 bottles of peaches, 200 bottles of applesauce and so on, that she would have enough to feed her family through the winter.

That's a lot of bottles! I don't even think I have 200 bottles period! And that would be for only one of my crops and there is definately more than one crop! I don't even think I have shelf space or room for 200+ bottles. At least not currently. That's where I really need to figure out and plan for shelves and space to put them all.

In this NYTimes piece, Elizabeth Cromley, a professor of architectural history at Northeastern University, said that at one time, “just about every house had special facilities for preserving food.”

"She said that understanding food preservation is not a frivolous pursuit. More than 400 books instructed 19th-century Americans on how to plan a functional house, with a practical larder, basement and outbuildings."

Wow! That's a lot of books on it! Where can I find some of these? They might be really helpful as I try to figure out the design of my food storage.

Apple Storage

I mentioned the apple rack my hubby said he could help me build a while ago but realized I never showed it to you. So voila! Here it is!

{via Country Living UK, Nov 2003}

You can purchase an apple rack like that at R. K. Alliston from the UK but hubby says if you're handy it really doesn't look that hard to build.

Or this Gorm clip-on basket {only $4!} could also work in some instances.

Apples need to be stored in shallow layers so that they don't bruise each other plus it makes it easier to check on them this way. That's why I like the above two options, but half bushel baskets and slatted crates work well too.

They like nice cold temperatures, as low as 32 degrees, but can also be kept a little warmer, they just won't last quite as long. So depending on the temperature they're kept at you could possibly have fresh apples clear til spring. Wouldn't that be lovely?

But if they become softer than you'd like for fresh eating you can always serve them as baked apples or applesauce. Mmmm!

Aaahhh! Autumn!

I did end up taking a vacation. And it was refreshing. But now I need to get back into the swing of things. Just because we are getting deeper into autumn doesn't mean that gardening and preserving is over yet.

I still have beds to clean out, leaves to rake, and hopefully I can still get my fruit trees in, then I still have shelves to build in the root cellar and containers to get for some of my food. Then comes the planning for next year and the managing of this years food.

But the brisk autumn air feels exhilirating so I don't mind squirreling around, cleaning and cozying up the place.

Independence Days: End of Season Wrap Up

Sometimes I wonder if I'm really cut out for this. My husband keeps telling me for all my time and effort {and stress} that it would just be easier to go buy the food from the grocery store. But it really makes me sad to see fruit trees go unpicked, or garden produce going to waste. Especially since Mother Earth is so generous.

But then I take a good hard look at myself and I've let produce go to waste before I could get it preserved somehow, and I've burnt the lid of the dehydrator {long story, don't ask!}, and I've let the water burn out of the juicer not once but three times, ruined the pan and have probably poisoned the juice with burnt pan chemicals that will poison my family with botulism or something worse! {I should probably throw those bottles down the drain!}

The kitchen carnage of that poor ol' juice pan is what has me throwing in the towel of surrender this year. I'm officially declaring my canning season over!

But then I also realize it has been a HUGE experimental year filled with learning all sorts of new things.

I have finally figured out how to manage lots of hot bottles for the canner. I've learned that juicing is easy if you pay attention to the water level in the steamer section. Making sauces {like apple or pear sauce} is easy also. So is dehydration. I can handle those.

I've also learned that prep work is time consuming as is the actual processing time and that it requires my full attention. I can't be trying to do three or four things at once which ends up ruining a perfectly good juicer pan. I've also learned that if I'm not careful it can overtake my life while other important things are ignored or forgotten.

I've learned a lot about gardening too. I learned a ton about my property and its quirks and where the sun hits. I've learned about soils, compost and pruning.

So in the end, I'm grateful for the Independence Days challenge, it taught me a lot, but I did have a lot of troubles along the way. Someone please tell me it will get easier someday and that all my problems will be but distant memories come next year when we're ready to try this again!

And now, I need a good vacation!

Independence Days: Snowfall Edition

Yes, the snow really did fall this weekend. Good thing I got the tomatoes in. There is still a lot to be done around here though so it's also a good thing the weather is supposed to warm back up again into the 60's and 70's. Gotta love crazy transitional weather!

I've been busy dehydrating apples and banana chips but they're disappearing about as fast as I can make them. The toddler LOVES them! We've also been busy picking and making grape juice. Yum! Yum!

Still need to do:

• Get and plant new fruit trees {and decide final locations}
• Clean out the rest of the beds
• Fortify the raised planters so that dirt and water don't escape next year through the cracks
• Clean out cold storage room
• Put in new shelves for root cellar
• Get baskets or containers for root cellar and buckets for food storage
• Pick the rosehips and dry them for winter vitamin C drinks
• Order seeds for next year
• Figure out how to make my basement not smell like onions and potatoes from the root cellar

I'm sure there's more, but thats what I could think of for now!

End of Season

Snow flurries are in the forecast this weekend so I picked the remaining green tomatoes. Look how pretty they are! I was going to hang them up but then I read Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables by Mike and Nancy Bubel and it said they didn't need to be hung necessarily, so I just went ahead a picked a whole box.

We're working on getting our "root cellar" set up this weekend. I bought 100 pounds of potatoes, 50 pounds of onions and some pumpkins from my local farmer. Plus I have a bunch of apples that need a home down there too. It's very exciting!

More Ideas For the Fruit Trees

Well it's no secret that I love espaliered fruit trees.

Unfortunately, I don't think anything like this will work on my property either. What a shame!

Maybe I'll just have to plant a regular ol' peach tree in a regular ol' kind of spot. Nah, there's got to be some exciting landscaping I can do with it!

{top image via English Garden, 2003; bottom image via English Home, 2003}

Fruit Trees

I went to the nursery today to buy my peach tree. I was going to plant it where my other tree died. But while I was at the nursery I saw other fruit trees that I'd love to have too~~like an apricot and a plum! So then I started thinking about the restoration garden again and creating my own sort of courtyard with a bunch of fruit trees.

It was overcast today so I went out to try and get a better shot of the restoration garden without the shadows in the way. You can see the design a little better now.

Here is a picture of my house where I was thinking about creating a courtyard sort of effect to plant more fruit trees.


Problems I see are:

1. My space isn't as large as the restoration garden.
2. I would have to convince my neighbor to create a courtyard on their property too so that it would be balanced.
3. They just planted a tree, a nut tree of some sort, that I have a feeling will grow humungo.
4. There are tons of electrical wires that run to the house in this area.
5. I'm sure there are other things I'm not thinking about

So I don't really know if this is feasible but it would be fun if it were. Maybe I should just keep thinking of other places to plant my fruit trees. Which then made me think of some other fun ideas I've run across . . . .

. . . . so stay tuned for the next installment in my fruit tree dilemma!

Scones Are On!

I decided to pull out some of the cherries I dried this summer to make scones. And wouldn't you know it, the one piece I decide to photograph doesn't even show any of the cherries! Oops!

Cherry Scones

2 cups flour

1/4 cup packed browno sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/3 cup chilled butter, cut into small pieces

1/2 cup dried cherries (or other fruit)

1/2 cup milk

3 tbsp maple syrup

Preheat oven to 400. Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl; cut in butter with pastry blender until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add cherries; toss well. Combine milk and syrup; add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and need 4-5 times. Pat dough into 8 inch circle on coated baking sheet. Cut into wedges, cutting into but not all the way through the dough. Bake at 400 for 17 minutes. Serve warm. Sprinkle with powdered sugar if desired.

Enjoy!

Independence Days: What We've Been Up To

Lately I've been helping my brother get some of his food storage all set up. His is looking better than mine! They completely cleaned out their storage room just for food storage. My storage room has to share with other things still. But I'm proud of what they've gotten done in a short amount of time! Good job guys!

Meanwhile, over here I have been canning some peaches, apples and pears. I was going to pick grapes to make juice this weekend but it has been too rainy. So I guess I will get to that during the week instead.

I'm also getting ready to bring in the rest of the tomatoes. There are still tons of green ones but we're getting real close to our usual frost date so I need to get them taken care of soon. I've never brought tomatoes in before and I'm not real sure how to hang them up, so if anyone has ideas, hints or whatever, let me know!

I'm hoping to go pick up a peach tree from the nursery this week to plant now that the trees are going on clearance. I also need to prune my espaliers too {I think} but I need to research it a bit more. I don't want to prune them the wrong way and kill them off or something.

I'm pretty sure the Idaho potatoes are ready to pickup somewhere and I also saw the local onion farmers trucking off huge truckloads recently so I know it is time to get some for the root cellar.

Speaking of my root cellar, I found a cool apple rack in one of my old british decorating magazines {that I love to read whenever it rains for some reason} that my cute hubby said he could help me build. I'm so excited! I will try to post pictures of that soon!

So that's what has been going on over here!

Garden Goodness

I've decided it is helpful

{and cute at the same time}

to pick produce with a basket.

A Restoration Garden

Look what I found driving down the street the other day!

A beautifully thought out fruit tree arrangement on a historical restoration project!

Love the symmetry and the pathways.

Gave me an idea for a similar idea at my house in the side yard by the wrap around porch. It could make such a delightful courtyard sort of effect between our two houses. Will have to work around the neighbors nut tree they just planted {not sure how big it will get}. I wonder if I could get them on board, but if not, I could probably figure out how to make it work just on my own side {though I think it would look better if we both did it}.

Hmmm.... this could be do-able. I will have to think about it some more.

The Windfall

Not necessarily the prettiest of apples with all the bruises and all, but man! It made some pretty tasty applesauce!

Independence Days: Windfall Edition

The wind blew a bunch of apples off our tree at the duplex. Since our renters don't seem to want the fruit off the trees, we went and picked them up.

Luckily for us, the old yucky apples on the ground had just been cleaned up {seriously, about 30 minutes before the wind!} so all that was left for us were the freshly fallen and somewhat bruised apples.

After a slight freakout session but with support from my food storage group, I ended up canning 24 pints of apple juice and 16 quarts of apple sauce. And it tastes YUMMY!

It doesn't sound like too much, but I figure one quart of applesauce a week will last us about four months. And 2 pints of apple juice a week will last us about three months. But I probably should do more still. I mean, there are still plenty of apples left. It just takes a lot of time.

Now I'm gearing up to do pie filling with apples off my moms tree. And soon my grandpa's other peach tree will be ready to pick {hopefully he will remember to call us when they're ripe}, and last night he gave us a few pears to eat too. YUM! YUM! And once we hit the first frost the grapes will be ready to juice! Can't wait!

Salsa

I was about to give up on this whole canning business after I made this salsa, but that's a looooong story that basically boils down to inexperience, not enough tomatoes, no food chopper to make it quicker and way too much time involved.

BUT!

Even though I went through all that just for a quart and a half of salsa, it was THE BEST SALSA I have ever tasted! No going back to store brands ever after that! Not even the store bought fresh pico de gallo salsas!


Zesty Salsa

10 cups chopped, seeded, peeled, cored tomatoes (about 6 pounds)
5 cups chopped and seeded Anaheim peppers (about 2 pounds)
5 cups chopped onions (about 1 1/2 pounds)
2 1/2 cups chopped and seeded jalapeno peppers (about 1 pound)
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons cilantro, minced
3 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 cups cider vinegar

Combine all ingredients in a large saucepot. Bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes. Ladle into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Adjust two piece caps. Process 15 minutes in a boiling water canner.

Wear rubber gloves when cutting or seeding hot peppers to prevent hands from being burned.

Makes about 6 pints

Sing This During Apple Season!

More dehydrating madness!

Zuke Chips

Thinly slice zucchini. Then sprinkle with a little garlic salt and dehydrate about a day to a day and a half. Enjoy!

They are ultra-light and tasty! Satisfies my need for something crunchy like potato chips. I'm still playing around with the seasoning a bit. My sprinkle method results in some chips ultra salty and others hardly at all. So if anyone has any other seasoning flavor ideas or methods, I'm willing to try.

Btw, thats not a zucchini from my own backyard. Still! It's so depressing! I might try this with summer squash though, at least those are growing a little bit.

Banana Chips

Well, since I haven't been able to eat anything out of my own garden yet I've turned my attention to other things. Like trying my hand at dehydrating things. These are my banana chips.

What? You've never seen red bananas before? C'mon, when I was in Brazil I learned there were more than 20 different banana varieties and these happen to be the Strawberry Kiwi Banana variety! Sort of.

I don't think an actual strawberry kiwi banana exists {though there was a banana maca which means apple banana variety in Brazil}, I made this one into a strawberry kiwi banana by dipping the slices in strawberry-kiwi jello powder before dehydrating them.

Other upcoming flavors we intend to try out include:

Cinnamon Sugar banana chips
Honey glazed banana chips
Regular plain ol' banana chips
Maybe other jello flavors

Mmmm! Tasty snacks!

The State of My Garden

Wow, I haven't had an Independence Days update in quite a while. I'd like to say it is because I have been so busy in the throes of preserving from my bounteous garden. But really its because my garden hasn't been doing much. Literally.

I mean, I don't even have any zucchini for heaven's sake! Zucchini!! That grow like weeds!!! It's been making me very sad.

I haven't been able to harvest anything from my own yard yet. Everything I've done has come from someone else's garden~~my cherries were from my mom's house, as were the apricots I just picked yesterday. But my yard? Well, I have ONE yellow squash that is growing, ONE honeydew, a bunch of peppers {they're the ones doing the best out of everything!} and my tomatoes so far all turned out like the above. I don't know whats wrong with them. But I must figure it out to try and save the rest of my crop.

~Sigh~ What's a girl supposed to do?

Cherry Business

Through the course of all this cherry business, my cute husband passed through the kitchen and asked me, "Is it worth it?". With my hands hurting from the cherry pitting business, my feet and back aching from all the standing, I almost wanted to say no.

But really, it hasn't been so bad. I've developed a strategy. Not sure if it is a good one, but it has helped me make it through the mountains of cherries. First I dumped all the cherries to soak in the sink and get rinsed off. From there I just have to take out handfuls at a time to work with.

Then comes the pitting work. I tell you, a cherry pitter makes the job sooo much easier!

Then the cherries get divided into the blender in the correct portions for jam and fruit leathers and put in ziplock baggies for the freezer with notes on how much sugar, pectin and whatever I need to know as far as the recipe goes to finish them off later.

Some go whole {but pitless of course} into ziplock baggies for the freezer for either smoothies later on, or to pull out and dehydrate at a later time.

So pretty much, I haven't canned any of them yet. I've just been preparing them. But freezing them this way has put a lot less stress on me to try and make it through them before they go bad.

And now that they're all prepped and waiting for me whenever I'm ready, I feel like baking some bread. Go figure!

Of Course I Can!

I may be up to my eyeballs in cherries right now, but I can do this!

I think I can,

I think I can,

I think I can . . . .

"Mother Nature never tolerates bare ground.
If you don't plant something, she will!
And what she plants are weeds!"

~~Duane Hatch~~

Random Thoughts

Homegrown goodness from Grandma's yard

So I've been thinking a lot lately about this whole eating in season thing. It's definitely a different way of eating than just running off to the store whenever you want, to get whatever you need, no matter if its the right season or not.

I mean it requires a lot of effort, to monitor whats growing, needs to be harvested {or preserved} and a lot of creativity sometimes to figure out what to make out of it. It's like free-form cooking, or cooking without recipes!

And I always seem to have little bits leftover that are adding up in the fridge waiting to be eaten or dealt with because it seems there is always more coming right behind it.

So I think we either eat less than I thought, or are blessed with way more abundance than I ever realized. I'm going to go with the last thought. I think we're blessed.

I'm Honored...

Verde at Justice Desserts was so kind to award me with the prestigious Arte y Pico award.

.

So here's the deal:

.

1. Pick five (5) blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

4. Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
.

So while I agree this is a bit silly, I would like to sincerely nominate:

.

Michael at Wisdom From The 42nd Page -- because I love to read about all the interesting books he posts

.

Jen at In The Image -- because she is one of my best friends from high school and I love that we're back in touch through this whole blogging business again! I love you girl!

.

And my following neighbors because not only do they make living around here fun, but it is exciting for me to find them online: Nancy at Welcome to Pooh's Corner, Maren at AKA Maureena, and Rachel at Brent and Rachel's Family.

Espalier Update

They're growing!

I was a little worried when they first arrived that they might go into shock after the shipping and transplantation. Now I'm worried about learning how to prune them. I don't want to do it wrong and kill them or something! I'm sure once I learn the proper technique it will be ok though.

A Victory Garden At Its Best!

This project by Slow Food Nation at San Francisco's City Hall Building is brilliant! The food grown there will be donated to those with limited access to healthy, organic produce through a partnership with local food banks and meal programs.

I think it is a great, practical model for any city to follow.

Dollar Store Pots

Found these cute little pots at the dollar store for a dollar each {imagine that!}. They came in a variety of bright and happy colors and would easily lend themselves to something like those inspirational pots I posted about a while ago.

If you don't want to hang them over a fence, then simply take that part off and screw them into your wall with the appropriate fastener for your wall type.

I plan on planting mine with a few herbs, but you could also plant some edible flowers.

Then label them right on the pot with some of that cute vinyl lettering you can get these days. Or heck, if you have pretty handwriting, take a permanent marker to them!

Have fun with them and if you do this project, please send me a picture and I will post it right here!

Independence Days Update

• Plant Something: nothing this week
  
• Harvest Something: the green onions are going crazy! Tomatoes look like they're about to burst into production as well as the zucchini!
  
• Preserve Something: nothing this week
  
• Prep Something: got some new pots to plant some herbs, and some wire fencing to create tomato cages of sorts
  
• Cook Something: was gone most of the week so I didn't really do much of this
  
• Manage Your Reserves: working on cleaning out my cold storage room so that I can organize my food storage better
  
• Work on Local Food Systems: I didn't work on this very much either since I was gone
  

Edible Water Garden Idea

{image via Gardening in Containers by Ortho Books,
page 19 of 1984 edition}

This looks like it could be a fun project to enhance your garden with a beautiful {and edible} water feature. Here are a few of the basics mentioned in the book:

A 25-gallon container will yield approximately the following crops:

Lotus~~plant in April, it will produce 5-6 edible roots when harvested during October or November of the second year during its dormant season. Roots of lotus can be french fried like potatoes.

Chinese water chestnuts~~ plant 30-40 of these will grow numerous sedgelike, hollow stems to 2 feet or more from bulbs in the first year. Then when dormant you can harvest about a hundered chestnuts. Save a few to plant the next year.

Violet-stemmed taro~~ Only the tubers are edible. Plant in April 5-6 of these. They grow 5-7 inch leaves on violet stems about 2 feet high that go dormant about six months later. Harvest during dormancy and you can get enough for about two dishes of poi.

Watercress~~practically an instant crop. Pinch off leaves and tips but leave enough stems, roots and leaves that they will continue to grow rapidly.

The book suggests an ecosystem for this type of container garden that keeps everything in harmony. It includes:

1. Oxygenating plants~~to replenish the oxygen. Choose from various species of Elodea (sometimes called Anacharis) which are best for most containers.

2. Water lilies~~the pads provide surface coverage that prevents loss of oxygen and helps keep the water cool.

3. Snails~~they eat algae, fish waste and decaying matter to discourage algae growth

4. Fish~~they eat pests such as aphids, flies, mosquito larvae and other insects. But don't overfeed with commercial fish food as it will change the water balance too much.

[Picture insert] For each square yard of surface area your water garden should contain:

Oxygenating plants: 2 bunches of 6 stems each
Water lily: 1 medium to large plant
Snails: 12 ramshorn or trapdoor water snails
Fish: 2 fish, each 4-5 inches long

And as always, please be careful with children and pets around water.

Informal Independence Days Update

I'm currently out of town but had a quick moment to pop online so here's a quick little update.

Before I left town, my tomatoes were getting big. Headed off to find tomato cages and all the stores are out. My Can-Do-Girl was making her own and I think they're adorable with all their little imperfections--like little alien space creatures--I will have to get pics and probably will have to make my own when I get back.

While here on vacay, I've helped my MIL plant her green onion ends, learned more about food storage at her church and done a lot more research on pruning my espaliers {thanks for lending me your library card--and the new St George library is absolutely gorgeous!}

I will be home for one day then off again for a fun family camping trip to test our survival skills in the wild! Thanks to everyone at home who are keeping an eye on the house, mail and watering my plants!

A Reason For Cool Weather Crops

I love gleaning bits of information from here and there. While this article in the LA Times talks about a California garden climate (you lucky year round gardeners!), the principles of crop rotation and alternate growing seasons can work anywhere:

Lyons recommends changing out plants "en masse" twice a year; he plants summer vegetables in April or May ("I'll add more tomatoes in July so they'll go right through into winter," he notes) and winter vegetables in October or November. Every six weeks, he puts in interval crops, like pole beans, haricots verts, green onions, beets and carrots.

"When you alternate full growing seasons," he says, "you can rotate crops very easily. You put in your tomatoes in the summer, then you put in something else in the winter, and then you can do tomatoes in the same spot the following summer."

Good enough reason for me! Correct me if I'm wrong, that means all I have to figure out is the cool season crops and then my summer season crops can stay in the same place that I've already figured out--and I won't have to re-figure out either season year after year!

Independence Days Update

• Plant Something: rhubarb, pumpkin
  
• Harvest Something: more strawberries
  
• Preserve Something: baked a bunch of banana bread loaves using our ripe bananas, then sliced and froze them for breakfasts later on
  
• Prep Something: bought a compost bin from a yard sale
• Cook Something: baked four loaves of homemade bread
  
• Manage Your Reserves:
  
• Work on Local Food Systems: considering starting a "garden club" or "country club" with some of my neighbors as way to covertly make it fun and useful at the same time, which I think will be key to getting some people going around here. Also, thinking of suggesting some classes to my church's womens group about food storage and emergency preparedness {which means I'll probably be the one who ends up teaching it and learning as we go along, but I think it would be fun!}
  

Flickr Find

{image via Flickr}

I am absolutely loving these brightly painted cans on the wall! Is there any sort of food-safe spray paint out there that could be used so that you could actually grow some edibles or herbs in something like this? I really want to know and my initial google search for food safe spray paint hasn't turned up much, so if anyone knows anything, please, please, please tell me!

Click here for more details on how she painted and hung these lil' cuties up!

A Bird's Eye View

Here is a lovely bird on the rooftop singing the most beautiful song I've ever heard!