Playing Catch-Up!

I haven't blogged since Thursday, and I am having withdrawl! Things have been swallowing me up whole lately and I have had that whole "garden is a mess this time of year" doldrums! I spent 2 days cleaning and preparing for a Harvest Swap Party I had on Saturday evening. In my head I know my house is just fine for entertaining, but my personality dictates everything must be spotless, even though no one really cares, and the place will be a mess an hour after the party starts, LOL!

I did, however, make it out to the garden Saturday afternoon to harvest jalapenos finally, in hopes of getting rid of them that evening without having to deal with them! Below is what I harvested for the swap: all peppers!

Some great food showed up for the pot-luck that evening, everyone did a great job of cooking up summer harvest dishes. I made the standard Caprese Salad & Potato Salad. These are so awesome because you can make them ahead of time and no cooking required at the party!

Caprese Salad, opted for easy chopped version that evening

Potato Salad w/ Feta, Onion & Vinegarette

Kids got some bitchin' tattoos that evening!

I ended up with some tomatoes and habaneros from the swap. I am drying these cute little tomatoes, not sure what they are but they are smaller than my thumbnail and delicious! Also drying the habaneros and will mix them with some other types of peppers to make a small jar of chile spice.

Yesterday we didn't get any real work done around here, I made a batch of tomato sauce in the crock pot and froze it, managed to get the party debris in the yard cleaned up, and avoided work in general by reading a great novel!

This morning's harvest was yet more jalapenos!

I was able to get a little motivation back today and after the harvest, made 3 jars of spicy pickles and added the few cayennes I got at the swap. These will be the last of the pickles probably since I just used up all the dill that was left in the garden. Hubby, this batch should keep until you get home so you will get a taste!

Also managed to chop and freeze bell pepper strips, blanch and freeze the yard-long beans, and get to the music shop for a violin repair! And now that I have managed to blog, I feel somewhat better.

Any of you having these late-summer doldrums? My garden is a mess, bugs and wilt and something is eating my tomatoes, and it is still to hot to enjoy any chores, and too hot to plant anything for fall... and on and on... what's the cure?!

I was not abducted by aliens!

Whew, it's been awhile! I will start by showing you the kids' costumes for Halloween! I am happy they chose to be "scary" and not some random cartoon character this year!

Loch recovered from the Swine Flu quickly and I managed to keep everyone else in the house healthy throughout the ordeal! Although my hands permanently smell like the bleach solution I had resorted to carrying on a holster of sorts, lol.

Our Harvest Party was a screaming success, with over 17 kids and their parents in attendance. It was a great time, and a good mix of people. I had invited my online garden club, some kids from the boys' classes at school, neighbors, and personal friends. I was nervous about mixing all those strangers, but every one seemed to enjoy conversing and meeting new people, and they kids stayed so busy we hardly noticed them, except for the noise! They had plenty to do, painting pumpkins and gourds, lining up for Sailor/Farmer/Husband and his friend to give "tattoos", roasting marshmallows, and creating general mayhem. The adults were able to be involved in "grownup talk" so much so that I commented to my husband that he should fire up a real tattoo gun just to see how long it would take the parents to notice the whirring sound coming from the deck, lol. But that's the sick sense of humor that I have, luckily it is shared by a least a couple of my friends. I sadly did not get any photos that turned out well from the party, and I really regret not taking photos of the aftermath on Sunday morning cleanup. There were forks and spoons in the bushes, plastic cockroaches that started the evening embedded in ice cubes were later floating in a bowl of punch, pieces of childrens costumes strewn all over the yard, wet potato chips to clean up (we got a thunderstorm that night too!) and just quite a wonderful mess in general!

I had a couple of harvest pictures the past week or so, nothing spectacular. Below are the 3, yes, that's 3 carrots I pulled. I might add that these are the only 3, lol! I had every intention of doing the paper mat carrot thingie so eloquently explained by Annie's Granny... but alas, lazy girl took over and I didn't do it and this is all I have to show for it:
I can still plant carrots here, so I WILL do the paper & glue thing next week. Really.... I WILL!

My lettuces are all going gangbusters now with all you want to pick every day. There is assorted mesclun, lettuces, oriental greens, Swiss Chard and spinach. Also a head of broccoli was harvested one day the past week. Worms everywhere, ugh! I think no more broccoli plantings for me - it's pretty hard to get a kid to eat it when there are worms crawling out of it!

Here's your weekly dose of garden humor! Oh, how pretty the forgotten broccoli plant is, look at all the pretty flowers, lol! Kind of takes the "Master" right outta the Master Gardener, huh? Hey, I've been busy studying about the plant, not taking care of it!!! Anyway, it's gone now... pretty cabbage moths and all, lol!

I did make a pretty good salad the other night - with the addition of some pansies I ALMOST got the kids to try it. Almost, but not quite... although they were thoroughly fascinated as my Sailor/Farmer/Husband and I ate them!

A random pic from class this week... potted weeds! Our "Weed Professor" (yes, that got a snicker from the class even though we are all "grownups" now) brought in about 50 different weeds for an identification class. It was kind of funny to see them all potted up in a cultivation status!

Here is Finnegan brewing up a batch of Homebrew the night of the Vikings/Packers game. Even though we are far away, we had to honor the day with a batch of Saint Paul/ Summit Ave Extra Pale Ale clone recipe. I actually designed some labels for our brews that should arrive any day now. I could print them at home but honestly the extra expense online is worth it when the cost of ink cartridges and pain in the butt factor is figured in.

Lastly, today was the day! Our class of Master Gardener trainees graduated this morning! I am now officially a Master Gardener Intern. I am really looking forward to getting involved in some neat projects in the future. I highly recommend this program for those of you whose states/extension services offer it. I learned so much, and the speakers that the Virginia Tech Univ/Extension Service people brought in were top-notch. I met so many wonderful people and enjoyed it so much, I was a little sad to see the classroom phase end. I know that I will get the chance to work with them in the future, so it's exciting as well and I look forward to it.

A funny note to end on: When I got home today from graduation, I brought home a clump of Maximillian Sunflower one of my classmates had divided to share (thanks Amy!). I walk in excited about graduating and at the same time holding basically a ball of mud - I tell my husband "look what I got!" You should have seen the look I got. (I could see he was thinking "should I let this slide?", "should I look excited?", "should I have her committed?"). Later, I show Lochlann my mud clump and told him it was a "Major Award" and he flatly said... "that class doesn't sound like too much fun to me". Whatever, I LOVE my mud clump and can't wait to sink it into the ground tomorrow!