SUN.... available as a limited time offer!

Hurry before this sun offer expires! 

Seriously, we are going on something like day 14 of rain.  This past weekend we saw the sun for a few hours each morning before the showers started, enough to get the lawn mowed, and (drumroll, please) I finally got my garden cleaned up of all traces of summer's dead stuff!

Ta-Da! 

Now I'm ready to get some lettuces and garlic in there, just as soon as it stops raining again :).  

One really nice thing happened on Friday night, we had a big wind/rainstorm sweep in and we dropped a good 20º in the span of an hour and we are now really enjoying fall temps, for real this time.  We went from highs in the mid 80's all last week to highs in the mid 60's this weekend, very welcome, as my electric bill really NEEDS a month off. 

Below are the very last of the peppers, I promise this time!  I know this because I actually pulled every single plant out there, so there is actually no veggies of any kind out there right now except some green onions and chives.  I should have been better about getting some fall stuff in earlier but with putting the house on the market I just had my hands full and stress high already.  I have plenty to keep me busy today with chopping and freezing these, and hopefully canning the big basket of Poblanos on the left as roasted Ancho Chiles tomorrow.  I still also have some Butternut Squash that needs to be cubed and pressure canned, as I don't think it will keep for the winter well in our climate with no basement.

Finn took advantage of the few hours of sun to have the neighborhood ladies line up for a little bike maintenance :)

Today, wow - it's still 48º at noon and the dark clouds have rolled back in, so I'll be doing this....

Oh, grid rulers, fabric and math, how I've missed you!

The writing is on the wall...

How easily it all can turn.  I had some stunning seedlings this year, some of the best ever, actually.  I really felt this was going to be the best year ever for tomatoes.  I had more growth than I'd ever seen, strong stems, was religious about trimming them and supporting them, and I'd never seen so much fruit set before.  

Today I actually cried.  At first I just picked up my shears (always disinfected nowadays) and started trimming off the blight exactly where I stopped yesterday, and the day before.  The spray is having no effect, and it's spreading.  As I watched the leaves pile up in the trash I just sat down on the raised bed and cried.  I've never cried over the garden before, I feel like a crazy lady!  

Of course the truth is I could go to the Farmer's Market to buy tomatoes, but my job is to grow food for my family.  I pride myself on my ability to grow, preserve and serve as much of my hard work as possible and even though I know it happens to everyone sooner or later, I feel like a failure!  There's no way I could ever afford to buy farmer's market tomatoes for canning (can you imagine purchasing a few hundred pounds?!) and I really wouldn't even want to, even those sit around for awhile and aren't as fresh as mine, and damnit, it's just not the same!  So what do I do, give up for the year?

Here's the update:

The entire Amish Paste bed looks as if it will be ripped out this weekend.  Definitely 2 of the 3 Red Zebra will have to go.  I found 2 branches on the bottom of a Hillbilly plant, and even found signs on the Brandywines tonight that weren't there at 2 pm today.

Above, 4 total Amish Paste have now been removed.  Below, just hoping some of these will ripen before I yank the rest of the bed.  There are loads of fruit on these, but every hour it seems there are more branches yellow and dead.

The Brandywines look amazing in the below photo taken today about 1 pm, but this evening I pulled 2 lower branches on the back side and sprayed the remaining drops of copper fungicide I had.  I will probably go out and buy some more to try and save these, the Amish Paste were too far gone by the time I sprayed them.  I can't really afford to do this, though, at what point do I call "time"?!

I've been kind of a zombie all afternoon and evening, my poor kids know something is up - I'm short tempered and on the verge of tears every time I look out the back door.  How crazy is that?  To be crying over some tomato plants?  I even tried to look at the bright side, it obviously means that this type of life and eating is the norm here, the food I grow is the only source of vegetables, I haven't been to the produce section of a grocery store for veggies in over 2 years except onions and potatoes.  I think this is why I'm affected so badly, I pride myself on having good things stashed away for winter and it looks like I may have nothing to show for my efforts this year.  I've also noticed 2 leaves on my pepper plants that look the same tonight.  But at what point am I just seeing blight everywhere I look, no matter if it's real or not LOL?

Should I attempt to grow more seedlings from a resistant variety?  Should I buy resistant "big box" varieties of unknown origin (yikes)?  Do I give up on tomatoes this year?  I will definitely have to grow resistant hybrids for the next couple of years probably until it's out of the soil, unless we get some consistent 20 degree weather this winter, that's unlikely.  At least I have time before next year to find resistant varieties that come from a responsible source.  

Since I felt particularly unlucky today, hubby and Finn planted my gourd and zucchini seedlings for me :)

Finn hugged me and told me he was sad for my tomatoes too, and that he named his plant, it's an Ornamental Gourd he called "Mental Gourds" and the zucchini is "Pythorius Redonculus"... which means absolutely nothing but is so cute I had to laugh.

As a sidenote:  Sometimes I feel like the family doesn't notice or appreciate all the hard work that goes into what arrives on their plates and fills the cupboards and freezer.  I often feel like tapping the mike..."hey, is this thing on??"  Then Loch came home with a letter he had written that his teacher had sent home today, this darn near made me a sobbing mess, but it's why I do what I do, and wow... the kid notices!

  

Thanks in advance for your kind words, I know they are headed my way and that's the reason I had to vent this evening!  I never feel in competition with any of my blogger family and feel utterly comfortable in sharing my failures, I know we all have them sooner than later, but it sure does seem many of us are having more than our share in 2011.  Honestly, when I was trimming blight I thought of how fun it would be for everyone to bring their blight, bugs, downed trees and drowned seedlings to a group bonfire, we could all pass a bottle while throwing our stuff to the fire and having a little chit chat with Mother Nature!

p.s.  don't worry, I'm sure the big girl panties will show up soon and I will put them on and brush myself off and come up with a plan!  :)

Here's another kicker:  I'm hosting a garden party Saturday night for a local group of gardeners, looks like they'll be able to get a better visual of disease symptoms than they can get from textbook photos!

Finally!

SALAD!

It's about d@mn time!  I've been picking a few spinach leaves here and there, just enough for a pizza occasionally, but feared taking too much too soon!  I have one bed with several varieties now and they are big enough for 3-4 of these salads a week now.  I just have to remember to get out there next week and plant more so we can continue to have enough.

I picked Mizuna, Olympia Spinach, Deer Tongue, Mache, and some random spring greens and lettuce mixes, as well as some leeks and scallions.

Of course now we are anxiously awaiting some real tomatoes, peppers, broccoli & peas to top the lettuce instead of relying on cheese and "fake" hothouse tomatoes (ever notice how those store bought "hothouse" heirlooms have lots of color and absolutely NO flavor?!)

Yesterday Finn surprised me by announcing that he wanted to have dirty hands that day.  I took him outside and he helped me plant all the peppers and eggplants.  Here he is putting a "dog catcher" around one of the eggplants.

I didn't get much of anything done outside today.  I admit I have been feeling a bit down lately, not sure why, maybe just overwhelmed.  I would feel bad if it didn't look like at least something happened while hubby was off working hard, so I decided to make my first loaf of bread the real way.  I'm ready to use the bread machine for bb gun practice in the backyard, I hate that thing!  It takes 3 hours to mix a dough and then it's only halfway mixed LOL.

I followed instructions from the book "BREAD" (go figure)

Here's me the first time mixing by hand... I don't even watch hubby when he makes pizza dough so it's all new to me at this point.

I won't show the kneading process since I got so messy and glue-y that I didn't dare start walking around looking for the camera at that point.  I think I added a couple of tbsp too much water since it didn't rise like I had hoped.  The good news is that although it was kind of flat, it tasted good and I finally got that chewy crust I like.  I used the spray bottle of water on the oven walls method.

Here's Finn smelling it... he must have sat there for an hour picking at the hot loaf burning his fingers, waiting impatiently for dinner :)

Below you can see what I mean about the loaf coming out "flat".  But it was much easier that I expected and I think I can fix it for next time and bonus:  no stupid bread machine or kitchen aid to clean up!

Off to go have 'Family Reading Time' and then lounge the rest of the night away, hoping my energy and attitude improves very soon.

Oh! - I also made my first sourdough starter today which promptly overflowed it's container all over a wood cabinet hubby built... ooops!

Look ma, * TWO * hands!

And then one day it clicked...!  Finn has started playing piano with both hands, it was an exciting night to be a mom :)

(he wasn't too happy about me wanting to record him, but I'll take it!)


Stock has been strained and put into freezer containers, throughout the whole event I had bystanders...

Marley is so intent here it appears she has no ears!  This is the herding look she gets when going in for an ankle bite LOL.


They know a special plate is just for them:

Not to be eaten in one session of course!  I used to work in a veterinary hospital so I've seen what can happen there!  I already know that marrow is too rich for Marley's stomach, so I separate that from the actual meat bits and carrots and plain soup bones, which are very safe for them to chew on.  They will have a little topping of meaty bits and carrots with dinner each night this weekend, and I'll pop the bones right back into the freezer to be issued to "good dogs" at a later date.  We try to use everything about the lovely animal we bought our beef share from, right to the very end literally, since this was the last of our share until the next one is finished out on pasture this spring.  (There is no forced timetable for pastured meat, they get to butcher weight in their own sweet time unlike their factory farmed friends forced to eat corn, huge amounts and quickly... oh sorry, there's the rant again!)

Of course, we had to have a "good dog" moment right away tonight!

It's a good house to be a dog in!

1st Salsa of 2010!

Still heatstroke-hot out there, but I got a few things accomplished today. Wednesday we are supposed to have a cool front come through that will bring our temps back down to norms of mid-80's, so I expect I won't get much real outside work done until then. We are all bored, but honestly, what can we do with heat indexes in the triple digits? This morning, both my kids told me I was "lazy". I guess because they can't go outside to play until evenings and are bored and saw me reading a book that means I am lazy. I know I shouldn't let that get to me since they are little kids, but it bothered me a bit since that is the #1 pet peeve of mine: laziness! Never mind that I did dishes, swept, did laundry, brushed the dogs.... I'm lazy!

Not wanting myself to spiral down into self-hatred because of that little remark (hey, it doesn't take much with our heat induced low morales), I decided to go ahead and do something with the harvest that has been accumulating.

Today's Harvest:

Raspberries are always eaten fresh right away, but these blackberries were combined with the ones from yesterday and juiced. I ended up with 2 more pints of pure blackberry juice for the freezer and a little extra for an adult beverage tonight for the lazy mom! I am actually thinking of making blackberry wine I have so much coming in this year. A few years ago I would have turned my nose up at the thought of such a sweet wine, but now that I grow my own the wonderful redneck-ness of the idea has got me wanting to try it!

By now I was feeling a bit more energetic so I decided to move on to the tomatoes that have been staged on my counter from the past couple of days. This is an odd time for tomatoes, a bit much to eat fresh right away, but not yet the saucing & canning days of late summer...

Salsa Time!

Back out to the garden to get some jalapenos and a couple of immature mini-stuffing bell peppers, fish peppers and cilantro. I combined this with one of the onions still hanging, and the very last of 2009's garlic and shallot.

After mixing it all and adding a bit of lime juice and vinegar, it is now "chilling out" in the fridge to be enjoyed as a meal for me! Loch won't eat it and it's a bit much to expect them to eat this as a meal in itself, but I will thoroughly enjoy it! I think Finn will have a bit with some chips, though... see the video below for a huge step in the vegetable/kid combo!

The video below just blows me away....!

Honestly, I really want to get back to being "lazy" - I am reading a lovely trashy romance/murder novel set in the hot and humid Louisiana swamps... I have been reading so much non-fiction and biography type stuff I forgot how wonderful it is to get lost in a good fiction novel! This is the perfect book for me in the lawn chair tonight watching the kids play while I'm sweating and swatting skeeters off of me, I can pretend I'm right there in the swamps!

kinderGARDENS Week 11 Update

Week 11 is a total bust for us, we will be lucky if the "green roof" doesn't completely die on us!

Actual air temp at 5 pm today! The heat index was 117... we are actively keeping kids OUT of the garden this week!

The Amaranthus heads are draping nicely now over the rooftop garden box and we should see some color soon, but almost everything else has curled up and been burned at the stake. The heat has been like this for over a week straight now. Even the squash, which I thought would survive, cannot take the container box. We still have a little hope in the form of Malabar Spinach, while still small, it is laughing off the heat like a champ.

Although it is too hot for the kids to play outside, they have been finding things to do that do not include tv or video games.

Remember these?! Everyone beware of the dreaded potholders at Christmastime - I'll make sure they get the most hideous colors I can find!

Other things keeping the kids busy are swimming lessons. If it wasn't for getting out of the house to lessons, I think they would have gone stir crazy. Posting video for hubby, he doesn't seem to be able to load any video via email on the ship, but he can get the blog! Notice Finn's teacher doesn't let Finn get away with the "I don't know how" routine anymore!

Loch is getting better every day, he finally seems to have found a sport he is better at than the other kids his age, and I know it is a big confidence booster for him.

Finn just being "Finn"... just the past 2 weeks he has decided he doesn't know how to swim anymore, I think it's because they moved him up a class and now he is the youngest and in the deep end the whole time. He was doing well with the younger group so I might move him back next session, I want him to enjoy this!

Hoping the weather breaks soon and we can get back out there and garden again!

As usual, check out The Inadvertent Farmer for links to other kinderGARDEN participants!