Time to Plant

Like many people around the country, I am home right now due to the Coronavirus. School is out (at this time) until April 13th, and I do not plan on leaving my farm at all.  I hope everyone out there is staying safe and keeping away from everyone.  Since I’m here, I figure I can put my time to good use.  It’s been several years since I started my own plants for the garden.

I still had some peat starters.

I still had plenty of seeds (and I did pick a few things up the last day I worked).

I do think the peat pots that you had to hydrate to use were a bit messy, but I guess we’ll see how they work.

I also decided to use my stacking planters to try some other things.  I am thinking of removing the porch from the south side of my house and replacing it with a conservatory, so we’ll call this a trial run.  Or something like that.

I even planted some garlic in window boxes.  We’ll see how it does.

Anyhow, I spent most of my day planting seeds. That seems like a good thing to do on the first day of spring!

Vintage or Everyday Use

The garden has been quite productive.  Last weekend (the 6th and 7th) I worked hard to can the tomatoes I picked on Labor Day.  I’ve been canning so much that I had to clean my pantry to make more room.

I’ve been canning tomatoes for a long time.  My mom canned before me, and her mom canned before her.  I have in my possession a lovely vintage food mill.  It is a Foley food mill.  I’m not sure how old it is for sure.  They began making them in 1926, and I’m guessing this one is from the 1940’s or 50’s.

I did find one at an antique store that I bought for myself, but the hooked leg was bent.  I went back to using the one from my mom, and eventually used the spring from the one I bought to replace the hand-me-down.

salsa and roasted tomato sauce in progress

Now that spring is starting to wear out, so I decided to try for a new one, even though I’ve finished most of my canning for the year.

Well, this one doesn’t work.  I couldn’t use it.  At all.

working on tomato juice after the sauce and salsa

I had to go back to the vintage one.  Sigh… If it really dies, I don’t know what I’ll do.  But that might be a problem for next year.  Last weekend I picked about eight five-gallon buckets.

I gave them away! So far this year I’ve canned 64 pints and 3 half-pints of tomato sauce; 17 1/2 pints of salsa; 8 quarts and 5 pints of tomato juice (with 2 1/2 gallon bags in the freezer to still can); and 5 quarts and 34 pints of cold-pack tomatoes.  I do still want to do a batch of relish and maybe more tomatoes if I get caught up with everything else.  We’ll see…

And someone asked me about a butter dish behind Sky in one photo (I didn’t forget–just busy).

Sky

Well, this is also passed down from my mother’s mother.  It was her favorite butter dish, and I remember her using it when I was little.

I do not use this one.  I’m pretty sure I’d break it because it’s glass.  It just gets to look pretty.

Cookie and the Zucchini

I’ve been getting a lot of zucchini from the garden.  That’s not a surprise, but I noticed my mini-pumpkin was looking bad.

Then it moved to the cucumbers.

And now the zucchini are starting to look like they are wilting.  I hate squash vine borers.

You might recall that was half the reason I moved my garden up north.  Sky was the other half.

Sky

I am going to have to figure out the pesticide way to get rid of those things.  In the meantime, I’m using zucchini and I had a couple that I was going to bring in from the soap room when I remembered I hadn’t given Fionn his breakfast.

Fionn–he is doing much better.

I set the zucchini down on the barnyard side of the fence because Sky was on the other side.

I ran and got his food and gave it to him and turned around to see Cookie at the zucchini.

Cookie napping with her girls(Chiffon above and Marge in front).

By the time I got there, she had liberally sampled both of them.  This girl. It’s a good thing she’s cute and sweet.

I decided it wasn’t a big deal; although, it would have been nice if she had stuck with one and not just random bites all over them.  I cut the bites out and grated it to make bread for the people helping bale hay.  A double batch makes three loaves, and that would be perfect.

Half way through my recipe, it just didn’t seem right, so I looked at the top of the page and discovered I was making a double batch of zucchini brownies.

Well, that’s a lot of brownies, but I can’t complain because they are delicious.