Christmas coffee cake

Add all ingredients, in order to your bread maker in order given.  I use the 2 pound list to make 3 coffee cakes in 8 or 9 inch cake pans.  Stop at the orange line!  This is where the filling ingredients start with this recipe book.  This is where I stop following directions.  Set bread maker to dough cycle and run.

When dough is finished, turn out onto counter while you assemble the ingredients for the next step.

1 cup of chopped walnuts (or whatever you have)

3/4 C of white sugar

1 generous teaspoon of cinnamon

fresh ground nutmeg if you have it around 1 teaspoon

Mix all this in one flat dish such as a pie pan

1/2 C of melted butter in separate pie pan

Grease or spray 8" or 9" cake pan to coat.

Divide dough into 3 equal parts.  Cut off pieces a little smaller than golf ball size (about 1 1/4") and roll in palms to form a finger sized length of dough.  Dip first in butter to coat and then sugar/nut mix.  I like to use tongs, one for butter, one for sugar to handle dough to keep my hands clean for rolling.

Start in center of pan and keep adding pieces until pan is filled.

Cover with cloth and let rise for an hour or so until dough has doubled.  Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Put coffee cakes in and bake for around 25 minutes or until center is browned and baked.  Rotate pans as needed to bake evenly.

Remove from oven to cool for 5 minutes before turning out of pan to finish cooling on wire rack.  Enjoy alone or with butter.

I make mine up the day before and reheat for 10 minutes on Christmas morning on a cookie sheet so we can enjoy a warm treat.  

My mom made this coffee cake for bake sales and our family.  It is easier than rolling out, filling and cutting dough for traditional cinnamon rolls as well as that it doesn't need frosting to look nice on the table.  They are great for gift giving.  I hope you enjoy them as much as we do! 

Christmas cookies 2013

I tried some new cookies this year and they are wonderful.  Try out the Nut Rolls on page 34 of the 1967 Cooky Book.  I also made the Pumpkin Drop Cookies on page 13 and those are pretty tasty as well.  I made the Soft Molasses Cookies on page 8 of the 1984 cookie book and they are like a soft, ginger cookie.  I substituted Greek yogurt for the sour cream and added 1/2 C flour.  I also made Coconut Crescents on page 35 of the 1964 cookie book.  This one taste like an Almond Joy so I drizzled some chocolate lightly after making them according to recipe and it made it even better.
Enjoy going through the archived cookie books and find a few "new" favorites for your family. For all archived cookie books just follow the link.

Baby, it's cold outside

After so many warm weather autumns, this one has taken us by surprise.  It has been colder than normal and we even have some snow that fell three days ago and is still sticking to the grass.

I had sprayed my shrubs with rabbit repellent for the winter but hadn't put up the fencing around them or wrapped those in burlap that needed winter protection.  I bought three bales of straw and only had one down on the parsnips and carrots to try and keep the ground from freezing.  The potted shrubs just barely got dug in to the garden before the ground got to hard to get a shovel in.  I peeled apart the last two frozen straw bales to finish heeling the shrubs in.  The fence and burlap was a quick job before the snow fell.

There is a slight warm up coming in the next week in which I am hoping to dig up some of the parsnips and all of the carrots.  I also need to cut down my two story high sweet autumn clematis for the winter.  There just aren't enough hours in the day or energy in my system!

Fall vegetables...canning, freezing, or just keeping it cool

I have continued to keep putting up the harvest as long as it keeps coming in.  That includes the harvest that comes in from my local farmers as well.  There are so many crops that continue to produce after the first freeze.  Just because the weather changes at the end of September, it is still too early to write off the weekly farm market visits.  In Milwaukee there are several winter farm markets that have sprung up as well.

There are several crops that are better after the cold hits.  Kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts, late apples, parsnips, turnips, carrots, and several other root vegetables are a few of them.  I also wait for the fall to buy a bushel of potatoes, some storing onions (when I don't have enough of my own), and winter squash.  Many farmers have cold storage areas for items that they can continue to sell well after the last apple is picked and potato is dug.

Some crops require no preparation other than a quick cleaning before storing them in a cool, dark location.  Many of the root crops can be stored in the extra frig if you have it or layered in sand in an area that does not freeze.  Squash can be laid out on shelves or hung in nets to store until they start to lose their storage limits.  The better that the rind is cured in sun and kept dry, the longer it will store later.  Potatoes and onions as well as garlic just need some air circulation and a cool, dark space to keep for months.

Natural fermentation will also keep crops for a much longer time, sauerkraut being one of the most common in a town with a large population of German and Polish heritage.  Fermented foods do not end there.  Check out some of the old and new authors that devote their time to writing about some common and uncommon fermented food.  I had fun with a bag of "wind fall" apples and the cider project.  I made one gallon of some very nice hard cider with apples that my sister salvaged from their fallen tree.  Next year I will make twice as much.  The package of champagne yeast from the wine making store was a very small investment for my project.

You don't have to have a big canning set up or a large freezer to enjoy some of the local produce into the cold, winter months.  

Still gardening even after the first snow.

While the rest of the crew went hunting, my oldest sister and I set out with leaf blowers to clear off their lawn before the first snow.  It is a pretty big yard, so it was nice to do it together.  

My own yard is not such a monumental task, but there are the beds to clean up and all the corners to clean up.  I mulched the healthy leaves into my compost bin.  The tar spot on the maples, apple scab on the crabs, and black walnut leaves all went to the curb.  The weather forecast for this past week was not good.  My goal on Sunday was to get it all to the curb to make the November 15th cut off for city pick up.  I was so sore at the end that I had to push through.  A hot shower followed by ibuprofen and a heating pad were so welcome.

When we got our snow on 11/11, I was glad to have it done.  The rest of the week was pretty cold and windy.  The flowering kale pulled through but it was pretty frosty after the snow.

The leaves droop and sag with the cold, and perk up as the temperatures come above freezing.  It is fun to watch them come back each day as it warms up just enough.  I still have some edible kale in the garden.  This cold should add sweetness to the plants as they produce more sugars as anti-freeze.  There is also parsnips and carrots to dig up.  I need to get the garlic in the ground this weekend as well.  I regret that I did not get my pot washing done this fall.  It is time to put away the garden tools and make room for a car for the winter months.

Wedding flower pictures

Matching ceremony arrangements

The dinner table 

The florist did such an amazing job with the arrangements.  A big thank you goes out to Emily at Belle Fiori for working with us to provide very tasteful and personal arrangements to help frame the day.  It was very special to have our own home grown varieties in the arrangements as this is not something a florist can easily do, not knowing her supplier.  We definitely recommend her services to anyone!

The bride

Salsa Verde, 2013

I made my salsa verde without a tomatillo crop.  Last year they were abundant, but this year I got three marble sized fruits.  I did some research and found that my suspicion was right.  You do need more than one plant to have a crop.  Check out the link which answers most questions you may have about growing them yourself.

I did have a good amount of green tomatoes on hand.  My 4th of July variety is even the same size as most tomatillos, so it worked out well.  I did every thing the same as last year's salsa verde.  I doubled the recipe for 7 half pints and 4 full pints.  I enjoy the roasted, smoky flavors of grilling the ingredients before processing.  Next year, I will put in more than one plant!

Sauerkraut, Chapter 2

I will not go into the how of making sauerkraut again this year but refer you to last year's sauerkraut adventure.  With the sauerkraut cutter restored, I was able to really refine the process into a much smaller time frame.  It took me less time to make my sauerkraut from start to finish than it took the Packers to play a football game.

The combination of a sauerkraut cutter (four blades vs one knife) and a pounder (one large chunk of wood with a long handle vs a wine bottle) made all the difference.  I had a one-woman assembly line going in my kitchen.  The cabbage went from sink, to cutting board (cut in quarters), to cutter, to weighing and salting, and into the bucket to be pounded and juiced.  I was so happy with how it all went.  Six large heads of cabbage are happily fermenting in the corner of my dining room.  I was able to get my husband to pound one round of cabbage during half-time when he popped in for a little coffee.

During the whole process, I was able to spend some time just thinking about how long the cutter has been making cabbage into fine shreds for our family.  It sat dormant for so many years, that seeing it in action again brought a little part of family history to life again, for me.  My dad was the person who ran the cabbage over those same blades.  Instead of a stainless steel bowl, my mother had her large, stoneware crock underneath it to catch the cabbage.  My younger sister and I were positioned underneath on either side throwing into the crock any stray pieces of cabbage as we watched our mother reach under to occasionally add salt to the layers.  As the crock filled, it would be slid out and one of my older sisters would take the pounder and push and pound the cabbage and salt together as it wilted.  The liquid would flow out from its cells to form a brine.  The process would continue until the crock was nearly filled.  It was covered with a large plate and a rock or other weight to keep the cabbage underneath the brine as it fermented.  The crock was pushed to a corner of the dining room until it was ready to be canned.  I remember it also being in the basement which may have been during a storage or fermenting period, but our basement wasn't really all that warm for fermenting. The University of Wisconsin Home Extension has a very good publication for making sauerkraut that explains the process very well.

I felt a connection to my father as I ran the cabbage over the blades.  I remember one time that he cut his finger pretty deeply when he allowed his hand to get too close to the cutting blades.  Adding a new quarter head to the top of the lower one kept my fingers out of harm's way.  I cut up the last portion with a knife to avoid the same fate as my father.  It is amazing to me to think he was younger than I am now when I sat on the floor at his feet picking up stray cabbage.  Parents always seem older until we reach that age ourselves.  

It was good to make that first run on my own to allow myself to swim in those memories a little deeper than I would have if I was distracted by conversation.  Now that I know what I am doing, next year it will have to be a party.  I think perogies should be on the menu...with dandelion wine!

A little bit of gardening in the little bit of light after work

The time has come for cleaning up the yard a bit.  I made my first cuttings of the season so the coleus can make it into next year's garden.  I put a few other plants in the garage so they don't get hit by frost until I can cut them back and take them in.  I always soak them through to make sure I don't bring a mouse family into my house again.

The light is growing short after work so I have to get things done a little bit at a time.  With the remaining light I had after the other jobs I did tonight, I started cleaning out the flower garden.  There are still some everlastings that will take a bit of cold so they get to stay.  The zinnias were still blooming so I cut a large vase of the best flowers.  I have opted to purchase seeds next spring and get just the two varieties I liked the best,  Benary's giant and cactus flowered.  Both are multicolored varieties.  The benefit of pulling out the zinnias and cosmos that have gone to seed is now you can really see the flowering kale that I planted behind all the rest.  The plants have grown up to two feet tall and are really starting to color up with the cooler weather and shorter days.  The wedding flower garden has taken on a whole new look by pulling out the brown and mildewed stems and letting a fall crop take the limelight.  I will have to add a photo when it is light enough to take one!

What's in your canning kettle?

I have been enjoying a little bit of domestic time now that the wedding is done and the flowers are no longer on the top of my list.  I will post pictures, but I promised my daughter that she gets first dibs on posting wedding pics.  She wants to share them with the florist first, who was absolutely terrific in working with us.

I thawed out the eight gallon bags I stowed in the freezer and made my spaghetti sauce this weekend.  When you start from frozen, it takes a bit more time.   Little by little I got them in the electric roaster and cooked them down.  A bit of this and a bit of that and 24 hours later, I had 10 quarts and seven pints of spaghetti sauce and an additional four pints of chili sauce.  I made a modification to the spaghetti sauce and added two tablespoons (minimum) of red wine vinegar to each quart of sauce to raise the acidity.  I water bath canned them instead of pressure canning with the increased acidity.  I have no meat in my sauce when I can it.  All should be good according to my research on the adaptation.  The chili sauce was in the Ball Book.  The smell of this cooking was delicious with all the spices and vinegar cooking down for several hours.

I also had a few pounds of pears from the neighbor.  We ate several fresh, but they start to over-ripen quickly so they are now pear chutney which I made from The Pickled Pantry.   This recipe also smelled so good as it was bubbling on my stove top.

I have windfall apples from my sister chilling in the frig for a new batch of applesauce.  Don't you just love autumn?!

Wedding flowers on the way!

I got up early with my buckets and scissors and headed out to the garden yesterday morning.  I carefully selected and trimmed each flower and tucked them into my buckets.

The best of the best went to Belle Fiori for their addition to the table and church arrangements.  Zinnias were definitely my go to flower for this was my most heavily planted as well as the most seasonally select in my garden.  The hydrangea bush still had a few blooms on it with a nice pink blush so those went in as well.  I had some statice and Mexican torch flowers that added to the bright colors my daughter desires for her fall wedding.  To round out the selection, I tucked in some previously cut and dried hare's tail grass.  Michelle did not like this from the seed catalog description, but I ordered it any way.  When she saw them hanging in the basement, she had to agree that they were going to be sweet additions.  The women in the flower shop were most intrigued by the grass of all the things I brought.

I get to see how things all came together tomorrow morning when we pick them all up.  I can hardly wait!

Fall list to do

1. Make cuttings
2. Wash all pots and flats before storing for winter
3. Submerse all plants before bringing in for winter
4. Cut back all plants and spray down with water
5. Isolate plants and watch for bugs after a summer outside
6. Collect ripened seed for reseeding annuals and store in refrigerator after drying
7. Buy a bale of straw for covering plants when ground freezes.  Use for fall decoration in meantime.
8. Collect soybean seeds for next year crop when dry on vines
9. Dead head the ugly stuff and let the flowering kale give its show for fall.  
10. Place remaining pots of flowering kale in bare spots
11. Rake and dispose of black walnut leaves rather than compost. Do the same with shells the squirrels have left in garden.
12. Enjoy the last beautiful days of the season with a beer in the lawn chair as often as possible.

Cutting flowers, keeping them growing

It has become my challenge to cut and dry the flowers that are ready for the wedding.  It has also been a challenge to keep up with dead heading and keeping the fresh flowers looking fresh.  Taking a week away from the garden made that job a little tougher, but I do not regret a week of camping during the beautiful fall weather.

Some things that have dried nicely so far are statice, hare's tail grass, and straw flowers.  I also dried some bells of Ireland and the dried effect is pretty nice.  I have hung up hydrangeas but the ones kept in water in an upright state seem to look better as they dry.  I cut some of the Autumn Joy sedum tonight in hopes for something interesting.

The zinnia crop is still looking good on the fresh cut end.  Some varieties are getting powdery mildew while others are not as bad.  The cosmos looks pretty good, but it wants to go to seed and keeping up with dead heading is becoming tough.  I would like to have some seed for next year, so it may not be in the flower arrangements.  If we have nothing come through, it really doesn't matter as the florist will just go with what we ordered in the first place.

I have a veil to sew, so I better get to it.

Flower Garden Pictures

This garden has asters, Alysum, larkspur, and cone flowers that reseed themselves

I potted up all the flowering kale and assembled all for easy watering.  My husband commented that he liked it all together.

Three Mandevilla vines grow as one.  These I take in for the winter.  Cut back hard for easier storage.

Half of the Thunbergia vine in my garden is from gathered seeds. The Hydrangea is in glorious bloom even after taking off many for drying.

The wedding flower garden got a bit of a hair cut to make more light for the varieties I am trying to encourage more.  It is still beautiful and the hummingbirds don't seem to mind.

My grandmother's garden before I came along.  I love this picture of my older sisters.

Dried flowers

Some of the flowers I put in are ideal for drying.  I have straw flowers, Statice, Celosia, and hare's tail grass in the annual bed.  I also have a Hydrangea which is in beautiful bloom this year.

My preference for drying is to bind bouquets of the same flowers and colors with rubber bands near the bottom.  I hang them from my clothes line in the basement upside down.  The rubber band is the best fastener as it contracts with the shrinking stems as they dry.  String and wire remain the same size and flowers can start dropping out when the loop loosens up as the stems dry.  I use spring-type clothes pins to fasten the rubber band to the line.

I have also dried flowers in a container filled with borax.  This is good for flowers that are not ideal for drying.  Some flowers will droop and sag.  In borax, they stay flat (like daisies) or round (like roses) as the powder holds them in the original shape they you picked them in minus the water.  You do have to carefully take them out as they are brittle at this point.

One other method for drying flowers is a flower press.  Two boards of the same size, cardboard cut to fit, and paper towel to absorb the moisture.  Bind the boards together with strapping or belts that can be tightened down with a friction type latch that will hold them tightly together.  A heavy weight on top will also do the same thing just not as portable.  A more elaborate set up would be long bolts on each corner with washers and wing nuts to tighten it all down.  You can pull the petals from flowers with a large center to use in cards and pictures.  A bit of clear drying glue or laminate will keep them beautiful for a long time.

Seed catalogs often have a separate category for dried flowers.  If you are a crafty person who likes to garden, this can combine two hobbies into one.  Check out different kinds of plants to see what works and rule out those that aren't your style.  The hare's tail grass was something I had never seen before.  It has been a pretty little addition to the garden and has dried very well.  My hope is to incorporate some of these dried flowers into a floral arrangement at my daughter's wedding.

Salsa for canning

I have been tweaking my recipe for canning every year I make it.  I am very happy with my batch this year.  I have about a third of my tomatoes are paste tomatoes and the rest are a variety of salad and slicing tomatoes.  I do not use cherry tomatoes even if there is a surplus as it is just too many seeds for my liking.  At any rate, here is my latest version of salsa for canning.

Salsa for canning

Ingredients:
Tomatoes, Peppers (Jalapeno and green), onions, garlic, cilantro, salt, pepper, vinegar, limes, and tomato paste.   For every 4 cups of tomatoes use one or two hot peppers depending on how hot they are (jalapenos do change with different weather conditions).  I will sometimes substitute half of my fresh hot peppers with my roasted and dehydrated jalapenos which is about 1 rounded tablespoon for every 2 peppers.  I use about one green pepper for every 8 cups of tomatoes.   One medium onion for every 4 cups tomatoes.   One clove of garlic for every 4 C tomatoes.   One or two sprigs of cilantro for same.   Cilantro usually ripens and seeds before the tomatoes are ready so I chop the leaves up and freeze it in bunches and chop off as I need it estimating for every 4 C of tomatoes.   Salt and pepper to taste.   I use tomato paste to thicken the salsa rather than cook it down.   It taste much better and the salsa doesn't get all mushy from so much cooking.   A splash of vinegar to add acid. Better yet, I zest and juice one lime for every 4-8 cups of tomatoes.   

Directions:
Peel tomatoes by immersing in hot water as you would to can them whole cutting out the core as well.   Dice tomatoes.   Seed and dice hot peppers.   Be sure to use rubber gloves during this process or your hands will be burning for days!   Little food processor works well for dicing all the ingredients other than tomatoes to make them finer.   Tomatoes you want to have chunkier than rest.

Heat the salsa before canning.   I use the pressure canner.   10 pounds of pressure for 25 minutes for pints (or half pints) or 30 min for quarts (which I don't usually do, too much for one use).  I also have started using a water bath when adding sufficient amounts of lime juice and vinegar which is 15 minutes for pints when it returns to a boil.  If your salsa gets too hot add canned tomatoes when you use it.   If it is too mild add hot sauce when you use it.

I was able to successfully can all my salsa outdoors this year.  I really like my new portable stove which is two heavy duty burners with wind shields and a wind apron around the top.  It hooks up to a 20 pound liquid propane tank.  The burners are so much bigger than my stove and heating up the outside air is so much better than my house.

I have also decided that when I cannot get to doing my tomato canning because time is shorter than tomatoes, I am cleaning, coring, and freezing them in gallon bags until I have the time to do my sauce.  I refer to this as deferred canning. I make my jam in the winter with this same method.

I hope you like making your own homemade salsa as much as I do.  I do large amounts as it is my winter time trading commodity.  I got raspberries, homemade maple syrup, and help with canning in exchange for jars of salsa.  The possibilities are endless.

Roasting peppers and sauerkraut cutter restored

I'm all "geeked out" over the fact that I got the sauerkraut cutter cleaned, refinished, and sharpened.  It is in beautiful shape again.  The pounder had some dry cracks in it, but I used the mineral oil/carnuba wax to penetrate and protect.  This is going to make the job of cutting cabbage and pounding it down so much easier than last year.  Take a gander at sauerkraut production 2012 and see how I improvised these tools last year.

As you can see, the cutter is essentially a four foot long mandolin.  The pounder has a nice long handle so I will not have to get inside my bucket so far to press the water from the cabbage.  The other exciting part is that I can use the same tools that were used for years by my own family.  There are lots of memories attached to this baby.  Now I just have to wait for the fall crop of cabbage, preferably after all the wedding plans are done so I can attend to the kraut.

I also got busy with peppers from the garden.  I roasted up a bunch and did some freezing and dehydrating.  I have two good batches of ancho peppers ready for a chili relenos casserole that I am planning on creating.  I also have dehydrated my jalapenos for making a smoky, hot powder that is good in so many thing.  I got some really hot peppers from a friend that I roasted and dehydrated, but he is getting those back as they are too hot for my taste.  

The other thing that I was able to get for a good price was a portable gas stove that I can do my canning on outside.  This will be a nice relief from the usual hot, steamy kitchen that I usually have in fall.  I have set up operations in the garage so I am ready to roll.  Now I just need the time and energy.

Party leftovers and all the produce coming in

We had our party and now there is all the leftovers.  Since we had a salad bar, there are lots of chopped up vegetables and fruit. I sent some things home with my sister's who helped clean up and take everything out of cars when we got home, but there still was lots of containers in my frig.  

We ate salads for a couple days until all the lettuce and spinach was eaten up.  We also wound our way through other veggies that were not going to freeze such as cucumbers.  I started with a few trays, some sheets of waxed paper, and the most time sensitive vegetables first.  I was able to freeze lots of cut up produce to use in future cooking.  Here's a list of things that will freeze well after such a party:

• onions
• mushrooms
• black olives
• carrots
• celery
• peppers, all kinds
• meats, in meal size containers
• kohlrabi
• berries
• watermelon

I now have so many options to grab out and add to dishes for a quick meal.  My peach tree that I just planted also came in with fruit this week.  After the first peach fell, I took off the net and picked the rest.  Ripe peaches will go on you quickly.  After just a day or two, many started getting brown spots.  Tonight I peeled, sliced, and froze those for future smoothies.  I only had about 15 peaches, but they are so delicious and sweet.  I look forward to spreading out their flavor just a little longer.  

Tomatoes are coming in so salsa will be on the schedule for canning soon.  It is a big job cutting everything up, but I do love the taste of summer all winter long.  Homemade salsa is so much better.  I read recently that heat releases lycopene in tomatoes.  Canned salsa is actually more healthy than fresh according to the article.  Who am I to argue.

Cut flowers for the bridal shower

I was up bright and early on Sunday morning.  Partly because I usually am and partly because I was thinking about how much time it was going to take for me to finish all I needed to do for my daughter's shower.  The first job on my list was to cut the flowers for the table decorations and subsequent party favors when it was all done.  It was barely light out when I grabbed my cup of coffee, scissors, and buckets of water.  The weather was perfect for cutting flowers.  There was a little dew and it was still cool, 60's, when I started.

I went through each bed cutting the flowers by type.  Zinnias are the lion's share of the beds.  There is plenty other things that were looking so lovely in the early light of day.  The job became a prayer.  I enjoyed shaking out the docile bees that had taken over night shelter in the blossoms rather than flying home the night before.  I was able to carefully select and cut each stem, thinking of the seeds I planted that became these beautiful plants.  I thought about a loving husband that built a brand new bed in the sunny part of the yard for their roots to take hold.  I thanked God for the sunshine and rain that helped them grow.  The balance of cool and warm temperatures that brought them along with minimal insect and disease problems.  I also said a prayer for each person who would be taking them home to enjoy in their own house.  Most of all, I thought of my daughter who has grown into a beautiful woman ready to start her married life to a wonderful guy who will be our first son.  I thank God every day that they found each other.

I would love to show you how lovely 30 different vases and various containers of flowers look together. Sadly, my day became a rush of activity once we reached the party facility and I was happy to get them arranged and on the tables in under 20 minutes.  It was lovely!  I am happy to share what I have to give a small idea of the outcome.

The bride to be on the right with friends

Mom with the maid of honor

Pesto recipe

This is a really good pesto recipe to use some of the bumper crop of basil you have right now.

Pesto

1# spaghetti or linguine (cooked save a few tablespoons of water)

36 basil leaves (min 6 per person)

3 cloves of garlic

5 oz pine nuts (can also use walnuts, almonds, or pistachios)

4 oz (1 ¼ C) fresh grated mixed pecorino romano & parmesan

7 oz good quality olive oil

Salt & pepper to tast

Wash and dry basil leaves. Place in food processor with garlic. Turn on machine and gradually add nuts, cheeses, and oil.  Add salt and pepper.  Do not cook pesto but do add some of the pasta water to thin it out a bit.  Stir into cooked pasta and enjoy.

Edamame is ripe for the picking

I picked my first large batch of soy beans today a.k.a. edamame.  We are having a wedding shower for my daughter and a salad bar is on the menu.  Some of the items will come from the garden, some from Cedar Grove Cheese.  The beef is courtesy of the Black Angus that we bought last fall from a local farmer.  Not enough lettuce in my patch so that had to be bought in mass quantity.  Tomatoes, cucumbers, and kohlrabi all were grown on the soil we live on.  

The soy beans make it to our table much better now that we have reduce the surplus populations of chipmunks.  Two years ago they stripped the plants clean in less than two days.  Last year I left a few beans on the plants to mature and go to seed for this year's crop.  The seeds all germinated very well.  I think I will try to not buy any seed this year and just rely on the homegrown variety. 

Lots more watering without the rain

We finally got some rain yesterday, it came down in buckets so there was a lot of run-off rather than a good soaking.  I will not complain about it, though, as we had gone a long time without any rain.  The rain barrels are filled up again.  I wish I had a larger storage system so I could use even more.  A cistern with a pump would be sweet.

I can see that the pak choy that I planted just days ago has already germinated.  We had some heat this past week with more on the way next week.  We have a nice cool weekend with mild temperatures in store.  

I am hoping to have enough tomatoes to start canning over the long Labor Day weekend coming up.  I think I am going to have to stick with sauces and salsa as I still have tomatoes from last year in jars.  It was so nice to be able to grab a jar of spaghetti sauce already made for a quick meal.  Homemade is always better.  I ran across a recipe from my grandmother's files for homemade chili sauce.  I also have a ketchup recipe shared by one of my cousins.  So many ways to use tomatoes.

We are celebrating the upcoming wedding with a shower for my daughter this weekend.  I am going to use whatever blooms are ready in the garden to decorate the tables and to share afterwards.  Flowers that are given away are the prettiest in the garden.  I will have to take pictures and share later.

Beans have been rather slow this year.  I think the cooler temps overall have really affected their output.  I hope this run helps put some more on the plants.

I need a computer in my garden for my random thoughts

While I am out working in my garden, there are so many things I want to jot down.  What is growing well, what is not.  I see plants I need to move and wish I had my plant inventories right there so I knew what Hosta variety I am looking at right now (tags don't always make it through the winter).

I have been doing a lot of poking around in the yard.  I set up a hose to water and then start weeding in the area I just finished watering.  Yeah, I get wet, but the weeds pull out really nice.  This is a good time of year to find the seedlings that have sprouted from the past year's fruits and seeds.  Get them while they are small or your work just gets harder.  A black walnut buried next to the house under the ferns required a shovel to extract the root from the ground and it was only a foot tall.

It is dry out there again.  I put in the final seed bed for 2013 last week so now I have to keep it moist while the seedlings germinate.  I learned something interesting about lawn establishment in regards to germination at my last seminar.  Rye grass in the blends comes up in a week so within two weeks most people throttle back on watering new grass.  Kentucky blue (the one you really want for your lawn) takes at least 21 days to germinate.  If you do not keep your area watered consistently for at least a month, you can count on losing the Kentucky bluegrass in your new lawn seed mix. If it's not an inch of rain, it's not watered.

I am enjoying the varieties of zinnias I put in this year.  One variety I will not repeat is Cut and Come Again.  The flowers are less than stunning.  I do love the Benary's Giant which puts out spectacular blooms.  The Cactus Flowered mix that came free is also a stunner.  Aster's are starting to bloom now.  I like them all.  The Sea star mix is quite lovely with the multiple petals (doubles).  One plant which hasn't been much to look at is the Cerinthe.   It was easy to grow with a cold start direct sown into flats outdoors.  The thing that is fun about it is that the bumble bees love it.  The tube-shaped flowers pull them and and the noise that comes from them buzzing their way in is fun to listen to.  I would have never thought of listening to flowers.  It also looks like it will provide plenty of seed to start next year.  It droops so it work well at the edge of the planter.  With this week's anticipated heat, I look forward to a good bloom this week.

I think it is time to move the sprinkler.  So much for today's random thoughts.

Restoring the Sauerkraut Cutter

Growing up in our family meant that in fall we would participate in making sauerkraut.  Dad would get the cutter cleaned and sharpened after having spent a long year in our very dank and dusty basement.  The cutter has not been in that basement for over 20 years, but it was in storage with one of my sisters.  It hadn't been used for longer than that.

It has been my good fortune that the cutter was taken out of storage and given to me along with the very valuable stomper.  I brought it home and hosed it off.  Then I took it apart and cleaned all the pieces, there was even some antique shreds of cabbage in the crevices.  I really scrubbed it down.  Naval jelly had to be used on the metal to take off the rust.  I was able to go to my Ace Hardware and find the right guy to sell me the right products for the wood and metal restoration.  I love Elliott's Ace.  

The wood looks beautiful with it's new finish of mineral oil and carnuba wax.  The metal is steel gray again.  I am going to rub it all down before putting it all back together.  I think my days of hand cutting my cabbage are over.

Harvested the onions

I pulled the onions out of the ground tonight after work.  The tops were dried off so the time was ripe.  I grew the red marble 'Cipolinni' onions and 'Copra' yellow sweet onions. Both are listed as good keepers.  Had I harvested the 30 pounds that I did last year, keeping would be a plus.  I think I have about 3-5 pounds of each.  My week of camping during a 90+ heat wave and the less than careful watering of an 18 year old daughter caused a quick departure from the growing phase of my onions to the curing phase.  

I nipped the bent, dried tops off and a bit of the roots.  They are laid in a single layer in garden trays and in the garage for the night.  Each dry, and hopefully sunny, day this week.  I will put the onions out to cure.  I like to do this for a minimum of three days before they go into cool, dark storage.

Looks like the farm market will be getting my business for salsa making this year.

Tomatoes and other crops

I was so pleasantly surprised to go out to pick a couple tomatoes for supper and came back in with an armload from the 4th of July tomato.  These are cluster type tomatoes, so when I poked into the plant I found two fully ripe clusters of tomatoes.  The rest of my plants are still all green so this was a terrific find.  I had enough to share with co-workers so we could all enjoy the first tomatoes of the year.  The Sungold cherry tomatoes are also putting out a few fruits.

I ran across some soluable 15-30-15 fertilizer which I mixed in my 50 gallon water barrel.  I hand watered all the flower and vegetable gardens with sprinkling cans to spread the fertilizer out.  I am not a very disciplined fertilizer user, so this was one more time fertilizing than I normally do.  I tend to use granular fertilizer if I do anything beyond compost application before planting.

Zucchini are coming in now.  I have the 8 ball variety and missed picking a couple so they were more the size of melons when I got to them.  Still nothing growing on the real melon plant.  Not even a blossom.  Fertilizer was put on this as well. 

I only have one type of cucumbers left.  My lower garden which has not been good for cucumbers is still not good for cucumbers.  The window box also petered out.  My vines that I trellis against the wall behind my tomato plants are still the best crop I have ever produced in my yard.  

Time to start pulling out and drying my onions.  The tops are all over and drying out.  I prefer to sun cure the bulbs during the day and put them in at night to keep them from getting dew on them.  They really store best if you cure them right.

I pulled my garlic out and have that hanging to dry.  The bulbs look nice and full.  I was afraid they weren't going to be very good when the tops were looking a little weak, but they pulled through well.  They will probably be good for planting a couple bulbs in fall.

Flower gardens are on the rise

Picture 1

The flower gardens are really coming into their glory right now.  I have LOTS of zinnias in several varieties and colors this year.  It is so much fun to see all the things that started as seed in my basement become leggy beauties in the flower beds.

The goal of the flowers was to have some additions to the wedding flowers to give it the personal touch.  Some of them will find their way into vases to celebrate the shower that is being given by her sister.  I have also enjoyed some fresh bouquets in the kitchen.  Zinnias have some real staying power in the fresh cut flower arena.

The cactus flowered zinnias are interesting in that they have a much more pointed petal as you can see with the bright pink flower in the lower right corner of this picture.

I have also been pleased to see the mono-colored Polar Bear and Green Envy are quite nice.  You almost can't see the green zinnia in the flower bed but there it is in center frame of the second picture.  I think they will show up more in a bouquet.

Anise hyssop

One of my pleasant surprises was some of the new herbs I added to the garden this year.  The anise hyssop has been blooming for weeks and still looks as beautiful as it did when it first opened.  The bees love it and so do I.  I love to run my hand over the flowers as I pass by (it is right next to my stairs) and enjoy the scent that comes back to me.  I have to do a little more research on this one to see how I will be able to capture that as a dried herb or seed later on.  I also have two of my stand-by plants.  Pineapple sage and lemon verbena are a must if only to crush the leaves and breathe deeply.  I also keep around several citronella scented geraniums for their scent as well as their ability to detract mosquitoes in the yard.  (Yes, they really work especially if you cut up a few leaves and let them lay in the grass around your chair.)   There are also all the regulars which are just as pleasant to touch and smell as all the others.

Now this is a plant most people stop to look at.  I bought a four pack of all eight varieties that Milegar's carried this year.  The smaller one got lost in the pot but the rest are blooming beautifully.  They open with spiraling petals and some are even double.  This is the lisanthus I consider a must buy in the spring.  It is not for the home gardener to start from seed unless you can keep them warm and free of fungus gnats.  The seeds are very small and the plants stay in an almost microscopic state for so long (which is why fungus gnats can take them out so easily).  Purchased as plants in May are a much easier option for me.  I also get a nice variety to try out.

The cosmos are just starting to bloom, so they are pretty green yet.  I also have no Mexican sunflowers (tithonia) yet and the Prairie sun coneflowers are struggling against the slugs.  Lots of rain has kept up the numbers on those.  The cerinthe has grown well and the foliage is beautiful,  The small tube like flowers are not easily seen with their turned down heads.  I am hoping that they make a good bouquet filler.

The dried flowers are doing well.  I have Celosia cristata, statice, and hare's tail grass.  The grass is blooming in the sunny spots and doing well but without flowers where the shading is heavier.  I may have to start cutting and hanging some of the full blooms to dry to keep the plants blooming through fall.  The coral gardens variety is very bright for the Celosia.  The statice is more of a pastel shades.  

I will have to fertilize the beds soon to keep the blooms going as long as possible.  If I want to have flowers in October, I will have to give them everything I can.

Work hard, play hard, garden in between

I feel as if I have been away for a long time.  There is so much going on as we use every hour of our summer as a precious commodity.  Work has kept me busy for more hours than usual.  Play has taken me away from the computer.

Play has been the best part.  My husband and I made a trip out to the western half of Wisconsin and enjoyed some time along the rivers.  Part of our vacation is the quest for dairy products, namely cheese and ice cream.  We had to look pretty hard for this in a zone that was not dotted with dairies on the Wisconsin cheese map.  (Yep, we really have one!)  Nelson Creamery did not disappoint us.  I enjoyed an ice cream on a 90+ degree day and filled up half of our cooler with cheese.  The place had such a charm about it, I had to share a picture from the building even if it isn't related to the usual stuff I write about.  I do love old buildings.  They are talking about replacing the basketball arena in Milwaukee because it is (gasp!) over 20 years old and so outdated.  Give me a break!  

We also took a long weekend away to spend some time on Lake Winnebago with my husband's side of the family.  They have a nice size boat, so they met us on the lake where we were able to camp.  The weather looked like this on Friday with wind and waves and stayed that way the entire weekend.  We never did leave the dock, but still had a nice time anyway.  I wasn't looking for it, but I found a very new and very cool goat dairy in Pipe, WI.  They sell the best cheeses from other dairies, Kelly's Creamery ice cream (butter pecan was soooo good!), and Wisconsin wines, beers and other beverages.  I would like to go back and enjoy some more of everything.

Back home the garden is starting to kick in gear.  The beans are coming in in almost all my plantings now.  It is so fun having 4 foot rows of each variety.  I am enjoying the filet type beans the most.  So slender and tender in all three varieties I have going.  I will have to look them up later to refresh my memory on what I put in.  Cukes are doing well in the tomato patch but struggling elsewhere.  I would like to put in more pickling vines next year, possibly behind my flower bed with a soaker hose running by them.  I have had my first tomatoes from the 4th of July bush.  They are small but satisfying.  The Sun golds are starting to turn yellow.

Most all the squash and pumpkins have set at least one fruit each.  I am still waiting on the Kiwano melon to even flower.  I have nipped the tips and am thinking it will need some fertilizer with less N and more PK to help it along.  

The peach has several fruits on it and some of them are starting to turn yellow from the hard green state they have been in.  I have heard peaches need aggressive pruning so I will have to do some research on that one.  The Honey gold apple set one fruit which is more than I expected for a new tree.  I wonder if I will enjoy it or if the squirrels we be there first.

My third crop of lettuce is coming along nicely considering the heat wave we went through right after planting.  I have pulled a few radishes from my last sowing.  I think the shade cloth and the soaker hose made the difference with this mid summer sowing.  I continue to mound the soil around the stems to help them bulb rather than stretch.  Kohlrabi is growing but not expanding at the waist yet.  The beds with soaker hoses are fairing much better than those without.  I think I will look for end of season deals on some as there are some that are starting to show their age with some cracking.  I would not garden without them.  My daughter did a fantastic job keeping things moist through our absence wherever she was able to let them run on their own.  Quick connects on each one also helped to make the job easier.

Well, it is time to sit back and seriously enjoy the mojito in my hand.  A mojito mint was definitely a good buy! Check out last year's post on making a mojito yourself.

New veggies coming in

Bringing in the first picks of the season is always exciting to me.  The first radishes and lettuce are like manna from heaven.  I enjoy the sweet, little Alpine strawberries each day as they produce just enough to satisfy the taste buds.  The peas are producing and are even starting to show the signs of decline with the warmer weather.  These are my "quick" crops which I can have two or even three rounds of crops before the summer produce starts rolling in.

My 4th of July tomato has only green fruit on it.  The cabbage is not quite full headed.  The green beans have been blooming and are now bearing tiny little beans on my first crop of bush beans (I planted three bush bean varieties two weeks apart from each other to space the crops out for fresh eating).  The 8 ball zucchini are the size of large marbles.  I plucked several pickling cucumbers off the vine for the first real picking this year.  A few warm, sunny days will push many of these to full ripeness.  Of course, I will probably miss them while on a camping trip.  Like a working mother missing her babies first steps, I will enjoy my first beans as the first beans that I get to eat.  I will probably have more than enough zucchini to eat and then some.  The cucumbers will be there, too.  I will miss that first vine ripe tomato, though, as that is like tapping the keg on the new beer of the season.  I shall survive.

My daughter will be my caretaker while I enjoy some much needed time off work.  She has been working in a garden center at a big box hardware store this season.  After years of scooping custard, she was ready for a change.  She has been trained to water and care for plants from a stern teacher, someone other than myself.  It is fun to think that I don't have to rely on the careful eye of experienced gardeners in the neighborhood with my daughter on the job.   

I held off on publishing this post until after vacation for various reasons.  The garden came through great, very few fatalities considering an 18 year old was facing her first time alone and managing mom's garden.  This was compounded by the fact that we had no rain and the temps hit 103 degrees one day.  She has a full-time job working in a garden center (she's a newbie at this), but she came home and took care of business here as well.

I picked the first 4th of July tomato on July 21st.  The rest of the tomatoes were just buds when I left, but the heat and sun have set so much fruit that they didn't look like the same plants.  The onions were mostly fallen over so the tops have all been pushed over as well (see onion harvesting and other).  The beans that I thought would be ready got picked, but there was a whole bunch more ready for picking on my pole beans which became part of a post-camping supper.  

Since there is dill coming in, I may have to do some dilly beans which I posted the recipe for in the same link as onions (above).  I saved some dill before vacation in a jar with white vinegar in the frig.  This technique worked very well last year to preserve the dill until the vegetables were also ready.  My vines of everything else are going everywhere!  I am spending some time to separate and nip the tips to control where some of them are going.  Lots of flowers but no fruit yet. The pickling cukes are also doing well, the window box cukes hated the heat, the ones I nestle against the wall by the tomatoes are also starting to form very nice fruits.  I had to pick and slide the first one out between the wire trellis and the wall.  Any bigger and it wouldn't have made it out.  

This is truly the time of the garden race.  Enjoy the fruits of yours.