I harvested 1 lb 3 ounces of kale this morning. Actually, I washed and deveined the kale, then weighed it (minutes bowl weight), so we probably got a little more than that.
I’m going to portion it out into 3 ounce bricks, wrap them in plastic wrap, then freeze them. They defrost really quickly and make for an amazing accompaniment to any dinner. Kale + butter + miso paste.
This is our first harvest of cherry tomatoes–or any tomatoes–this year. They are sweet, round, and perfectly ripe. Happy End of July!
Last Thursday I started a single pint of lacto fermented green beans. Just water, salt, green beans, garlic + dill. It’s just sitting on our wire shelf, literally collecting dust. I could make a lot more lacto fermented green beans, but I don’t want to do up a whole bunch until I know that they’ll be good. Tonight I tasted them. They weren’t boozy at all and they weren’t flavorful either. They’re supposed to be done next Thursday. It’s a two week ferment.
In the mean time, we’re still harvesting more green beans, which are great for raw snacking. I also started another jar of lacto fermented green beans without garlic, just to see if the beans can make it on their own without a rock star in the jar.
I have quite a few lacto ferments going on right now. Fun project!
Welcome to our 2020 garden! Let’s take a tour, shall we? I’ll share some of my favorite garden spots.
Today we got 6 ounces of the curly leafed kale and 12 ounces of the dinosaur kale.
I also did some maintenance on the tomatoes and saw four greenish-orange tomatoes, ready to be eaten this week!!
We got our first cherry tomato of the season!
We also got a handful of green beans and a couple pounds (or so) of some variety of beet.
I went and picked more greens because I want to try making green powder. It’s a blend of dehydrated greens that are powdered in a food processor or blender. They can be added to smoothies and…that’s about it.
To preserve the nutritional integrity of the greens, they can be dehydrated on low heat or air dried.
The greens that I’m using are flat leaf Italian parsley, curly parsley, Swiss chard, and kale. I’d love to add more herbs, but my herbs are languishing this year. My fernleaf dill was eaten by slugs, and my sage and oregano aren’t off the ground yet. My chives died, too. Also, my rosemary is struggling with self-worth issues.
I picked 1 pound 12 ounces of greens. By the time they’re dried, they’ll weigh around 2 ounces, I’m guessing.
For the last few weeks Josh has been threatening to pull out the kale if we don’t start using it. The truth is that by the time I’m done making dinner, the last thing I want to do is harvest a fistful of raw ingredient, dirty up another pan and prep a side dish–I’m just mentally ready to sit down and relax. Truly, I LOVE having kale with dinner. When Josh comes in from work with a bouquet of kale and pulls out a pan, I am so grateful.
Late last night as we sat around the table with the kids, Josh started looking up ways to preserve kale. (No way I’m canning it–that’s gross) He suggested freezing it raw or blanching it first then freezing it. Less work is better, so I ran out to the garden in the dark and grabbed some to wash and freeze so we could test it out.
This morning I cooked the frozen kale, which didn’t even need to be defrosted. I put a little water in the pan, threw in the frozen kale, steamed it, then quickly and buttered/salted it. It was PERFECT!
Today I picked, portioned, and processed 2 lbs 12 ounces of kale (both varieties that we have). I froze them in 3 ounce chunks, wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in a freezer bag. I was able to get 9 three ounce pouches of washed, deveined and ready-to-steam kale.
Today we canned 33 trout that we got from Josh’s parents yesterday. The fish fit nicely into 14 pint jars.
It’s my first time canning fish, but not my first time canning meat. I canned beef and chicken last month.
Our pressure canner has gotten more use lately because of odd food restrictions and outages due to Covid-19. We just want to be prepared.
Today I planted tomatoes that I received from a Yamhill County Barter connection. Someone was looking for two truckloads of wood chips for their garden paths. I offered to give them some in exchange for anything “farmy” (like plant starts, fencing, cages, chickens, etc.)
Anyway, the woman I bartered with had a ton of heirloom veggie starts–so I asked her to pick out ten tomato plants. Here’s the selection she picked for us:
2 German Pink Tomatoes
1 Green Giant
2 Vintage Wine
4 San Marzano
1 Sunshine Cherry Tomato
…aaaaaand, one PURPLE TOMATILLO!!! I’ve never grown tomatillos before, much less a purple one! I’m super excited and I cannot type this without gratuitous exclamatory punctuation!!!!
One of my goals this summer is to grow enough tomatoes to supply our family’s tomato needs for an entire year. We probably won’t quite make it, but we’ll be closer than we were last year. This fall I’ll put more focus into preserving our tomatoes–most likely in the form of sun dried tomatoes, so that I can turn it into tomato powder, which is endlessly useful.
I’m fascinated by soil health. It’s not only a foundational component of growing crops and pasture, but is a crucial concept for responsible stewards of this earth to understand.
There is life under your feet. And many common farming practices work against Mother Nature, causing long term harm to our soil.
A few months ago Josh read a book where he learned that rototilling may not be the best practice for long term soil health. It’s incredibly disruptive to the complex and rich “underworld” of fungi, beneficial insects, burrowing animals, bacteria and other things that make soil more than just clay, silt and sand.
Of course, when we look on top of the soil we see a beautiful connection of plants, animals, fungi, and water. But life goes much deeper than that below the surface. I believe the richness of life under our feet may just rival the richness of life that springs from it.
Five peas from my garden! Josh spotted them! 🙂
Our original sheep are white St. Croix hair sheep. (In some ways they’re more like goats in their feel and appearance.) But our newest sheep are Shetland/Gotland blend sheep, and their wool is luxurious, smooshy, soft and so, so curly. It’s exceptionally curly when it gets wet. This video shows some of the curly goodness!
One of the tricky things about caring for the health needs of sheep is that they can’t talk. They can’t say “It hurts here,” or “I have a headache,” or “Something’s not right with my digestion.” I can observe some health symptoms, such as lowered head, hunched back, lethargy, limping, diarrhea, or pain indicators in the face. However, other health issues may be asymptomatic, eventually leading to what appears to be an illness with quick onset.
Josh discovered a website that maps all the different soil types in the United States. He looked up our address and found out that we have Aloha (pronounced uh-LO-uh) Silt Loam.
Technically I got my first radish a couple weeks ago. I picked it, put it in my jacket pocket and forgot about it. Today, though, I was able to harvest my first fistfull of radishes! Yay!I’m not a huge fan of radishes, but they’re great because they can be started in early spring and harvested a month or so later! They’re also incredibly easy to grow. An idiot-proof veggie.
The radishes that I sowed in the ground last week just sprouted today!
Today I planted outside! Josh is stuck inside doing taxes, so I feel kind of guilty. I know he’d rather be outside with me. If he has time today after taxes, I’ll go outside and help with his projects.
I got the radish seeds in the ground. I also planted the pea seedlings that I started indoors back on February 22, 2019.
For the radishes, I took a 2×2 square of ground, turned it over a few times, mixed in some wood chips, scattered the seeds, and lightly tilled them under.
The pea seedlings went into the
