2 posts in one day? I couldn't resist....

 I can sure tell when hubby is off work, it smells fantastic in this house...

I let him have a few leaves off the basil seedlings still under the lights.

Pizza before going into the oven...

One of the red sauce pizzas...

This one's mine!  My favorite is white pizza... with some home brewed ale of course!

So here's what Marley was up to while I was in the other room... she's claimed it, I think!

Home for the Holidays!

I am very excited! Sailor/Farmer/Husband's leave got approved and we are officially leaving Friday very early to head home to Minnesota for Thanksgiving! The kids are so excited and have already started packing as much unnecessary crap as they can fit into their little backpacks. I was hesitant to tell them for awhile since it was possible that hubby would be sent out somewhere, but the carrier left without him yesterday for a week, so I know that our plans won't be changed "courtesy of the Navy" now. (Knock on wood!) The trip is so long, but it always seems to go by more quickly near the holidays. We will leave at about 3-4 am and usually try to power through 1000 miles the first day from Virginia Beach to Janesville, WI - then that makes for a nice 2nd day of the trip. Wake up a little later, breakfast, then only 4-5 hours 'til home. I really love MN in the summertime, but the good thing about going this time of year is that we won't have bikes, kayak, etc on top of the car, makes for an easier ride! My mom is having a ton of family for dinner, so we should get to see just about everyone in the family. My dad's blues band has a tradition of playing a local bar the night before Thanksgiving so no doubt my mom will get "stuck" with the grandkids and dogs while we get some much needed time out and will get to really enjoy a night on the town with a trusted babysitter! It doesn't get any more trustworthy than your own mom, does it?!

As far as our storm goes, we have been cleaning up the past couple of days. We fared much better than some in our area. Our fence came down, lost some 2x4's off of our pergola and the kids' playset, and just general disarray and light flooding of the yard. The veggie beds seem to be fine (raised!) and believe it or not, I still have blooms on my azaleas, though the trees were stripped clean of their leaves, can't quite figure that one out. We have a massive container ship that actually washed ashore near us, they are trying to figure out how to tow it back to sea. We also lost ALOT of sand dunes near the ocean, and a couple of ocean fishing piers.

I designed some labels for the first time for our homebrew since we will be bringing plenty of that home to share at Thanksgiving. I can't seem to get a decent picture of the labels, so I'll spell it out...

on left: (named after our deceased rescue Bernese Mountain Dog!)

Pickett's

Recycled Dog Extra Pale Ale

woof - woof

renew - reuse

ADOPT!

on right:

Ludwig Family Homestead

Hophead

Double IPA

dry hopped suburban farm homebrew

We also mini-kegged a batch of Belgian Farmhouse Ale. This is the first time we have kegged so I am anxious to find out if "it took"! Guess we'll know soon enough! Good thing Leine's is plentiful back home to keep everyone happy if it turns out that it didn't carbonate well :)

I hope to post again before we leave but I will be trying to post as well from home if my mom will let me hijack her Mac for awhile.

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!

Note to Self : Buy more gloves!

I spent the day canning pickled jalapenos. I set out all my stuff and started scorching my pepper skins and realized I only have one glove left! Like a dummy I continued with only one glove for 4 lbs of jalapenos. This is by far the most labor intensive preserving that I do, and it is also the last batch I will do this year! The rest will have to be frozen or flung at passing cars. I can't even feel the keyboard my hands are burning so bad, 4 hours after finishing! Maybe I should have re-read my lessons learned post last month, lol! Oh well, it's done now, and I finally have enough to last for a winter of nachos at night after the kids go to bed. I let about half go to red and half green just for variety:

While watering this morning, I spotted several Black Swallowtail Caterpillars happily munching away on parsley and dill in the garden. No problems here, I plant oodles of these plus fennel and milkweed especially for them!

I had 100 bottles of beer on the wall...literally - last night! The brew wasn't quite ready to be bottled when Sailor/Husband left Sunday, so I had to do this myself. This is definitely a 2-person job, but then again, so is raising kids, lol..."Honey, where aaaarrrreeee yoooouuuuu???" When I was almost finished, I put the kids to work wrapping things up while I enjoyed a Belgian Ale from the last batch. Is this even legal, lol ???

I am hoping to post a little more frequently these days. It seems whenever Charlie's away, I get more done (no offense, dear!)! The kids and I get into a groove and I'm not busy trying to fill our days with plans just because "he's leaving again soon". Yesterday, I even got my desk cleaned up. I am usually meticulous with organization, etc. but lately I have been joking that my desk was "our mudroom"! I have had a piece of paper tacked to my fridge keeping track of my harvest and even finally got around to putting up a "harvest counter" on the blog! I see many of you have them and it seems like a great idea to have a constant reminder of my progress in the sustainability dept. Also on the "to do" list - a homebrew status for Sailor/Husband/Farmer: check! Soon I am hoping to get my slideshows to look a little better on the page. I haven't really had time to mess with that since the day I put them up. Seems I am finding all sorts of ways to avoid going outside in the garden, as this week we are actually having "normal" temps of 90+ and humidity.

I'll take the MN summer we have been having any day, I just want to know ahead of time so I can more appropriately select & date my plantings!

Tips for budding canners: Pickled Jalapenos and other Random Things...

Let me start by saying you will have to pick a recipe yourself: I have listed a few links below, and everyone has their "own recipe" when it comes to pickling! This is not an all-inclusive how-to post, but rather a "what the recipe doesn't tell you" post to be used in conjunction. I have had a few requests for a canning demo in my local meetup group, however - the logistics of this are near impossible due to the time involved and it's quite possible that members' ADD/ADHD may flare up during the process, making this not such a pleasant time for all, lol! So here is a basic "gimme pictures" chain of events in the pickling/canning process. For those who are canning gurus, you may look away now to prevent boredom from setting in - or, just keep on reading and laugh at my "lessons learned" from my past couple of years experience. From my little harvest you may say "why not just do refrigerator pickled jalapenos?"...well, because it is a CANNING post, (flaring up already, huh?)....and in a few weeks when I have 15 more lbs of peppers coming in as well as drowning in tomatoes - frankly, I won't have time to do this then! So sit back and have a laugh or get busy and pickle!

*** Before diving in, make sure to read my tips/lessons learned at the end of the post!

1. Harvest your goodies (or purchase from your CSA/Farm Market): here we have 2 lbs* of jalapenos, plus one rogue Pinot Noir Bell Pepper (just took that one to snack on!)

2. Gather your hardware: to include canning stockpot, jar tongs, lid magnet, funnel, jars, lids & caps, heat source* (if you have gas, you are in the "awesome category", if not, see tips below!)
3. Assemble your canning command center: gloves for handling jalapenos (trust me), if you wear glasses, put 'em on*, otherwise - go get some (trust me again!), freshly washed peppers, bowl for peppers, garbage bowl. Yes, I'm OCD with my prep areas, but it will go much more smoothly since you will soon have pepper oil soaked gloves on and won't be able to do much else once you start*!
4. Pickling Ingredients*: Vinegar, Pickling Salt, Sugar, Garlic* (or anything else your recipe calls for).
5. Now we're working: Get your gloves on, chop the tops off your peppers and remove the seeds. I found that an espresso spoon makes quick work of seed removal while not tearing up the peppers.
6. Skins Off! Lay your peppers on a cookie sheet and place under the broiler* and turn until they are evenly blistered on all sides and the skin looks loose. The more blistered, the easier it will be to remove skin! Throw your roasted peppers in a bowl and cover with a moist paper towel. Start removing the skin as soon as you are able to handle the heat...the hotter the peppers out of the broiler, the easier it is. There is a method to this, slide your thumb under the skin and around the pepper & it will slide off whole (takes some getting used to!)
7. Bring your vinegar, pickling salt, sugar, garlic cloves to a boil in a different pot, then simmer for 10 minutes. Remove garlic cloves and discard (or leave in if you like!). You will pack your skinned peppers into the jars and fill them minus headspace with the vinegar liquid. The exact ingredients and amounts will vary according to recipe, but the one I used is here, from Pick-Your-Own.org...they have gobs of info on their site and very easy instructions. The liquid part of the recipe and spices are where great pickled anythings are made and heirloom recipes are treasured!

8. Bring your canner full of water to a boil! This would be a good time to pour a homebrew and grab a good book if you have an electric stove!

If you don't have a homebrewed beverage, that's okay too. Grab your favorite store bought beverage and go outside to the garden. Plant your beverage in the soil, let it mellow for a minute or so, then enjoy! Here we have a Leinenkugel's planted with the lettuces...I try to buy local, but when a "back-home" beer shows up in my neck of the woods, I snatch it up...it's a known cure for MN homesickness.

9. Okay, your water is boiling. You are going to lower your jars w/lids & rings (follow recipe directions!) into the boiling water and process as directed (mine was 10 mins). When done, lift out jars and set somewhere to cool overnight. Cutting board, etc. I was lucky enough to hear the distinctive "pop" of my jars sealing as they cooled. It doesn't matter how long you have been canning, those sounds of the jars are always music to the ears! If you aren't around to hear the pop sounds, no worries - just push on the jars the next day when they have cooled. If they do not give, you're golden. If the lids "give" and pop up and down, they did not seal properly - all is not lost though - pop them in the fridge and they will keep for a couple of months as refrigerator pickles*.

This process is varied with ingredients and spices to include pickled anything! Cauliflower, Carrots, Cukes, you name it...just find a recipe and try it! If it's your first time try refrigerator pickled cukes & carrots...easy, no equipment needed, and super yummy. So easy, in fact, I didn't post about it! There are also low-salt recipes out there so don't let the salt thing stop you. It may seem like it to a beginner, but this is NOT rocket science! If you have fresh picked produce and maintain a clean work area the goodness will follow! If it doesn't work, so what? Just try again - hey folks we have a lifetime to master this, right?

***Tips/Lessons Learned:

1. Don't pay attention to the 2 lbs of peppers, more is better - this only made 2 pints! If that's all you want, read up on refrigerator pickling. They are yummy, keep for a few months, and no special canning equipment is needed.

2. Heat source: this must be where the term "You're cookin' with gas" came from. If you are, you have no worries. Electric Coil people are ok, just will take longer to boil. If you are like me and made the pre-canning days decision to go with the beautiful ceramic-top range...first, I'm sorry, I understand your pain, and you're in good company! Due to the nature of the ceramic top, the element is designed to kick on and off repeatedly to prevent the glass from getting cracked - this results in never reaching a boil with such a large volume of water. I decided to order a "Super Burner" 1300 watts online by reading the reviews, and nope...waited 2 hours, still no boil. There is only one solution: Outdoor Propane Burner! I didn't really want to can outside, but there is no other option. This thing is slick, boils within minutes, and can be used for many other things (like homebrewing!). If you already have a turkey fryer, fish setup, etc, you already have one of these burners. Save yourself the headache and use it!

3. Yep, I got a pepper seed flung into my eye last year...

4. L, I'll call you back...all I need is pepper oil gloves all over the telephone!

5. If you don't have any homegrown garlic, try and find a nearby gardener that does. Explain you are learning how to pickle and would like to know if they have any extra garlic...you will probably find yourself carrying it back using your shirt as a bucket. Gardeners are funny that way, we love to share our goodies, and are usually to blame for finding bags of unsolicited ding-dong-ditch produce at your door. We always seem to grow too much, especially of things like garlic, shallots and the like, I mean come on - who really needs 100 bulbs of garlic, lol??

6. If you live in the city, your best bet is WalMart for canning supplies - they have one aisle dedicated to them. If you are lucky, you live in an area that has feed stores like Southern States, Fleet Farm, etc...you will have no problems finding what you need there. (oh, how I miss those stores!)

7. There is a frypan and microwave method for skinning peppers also, but I have never done it.

8. Make sure you date your jars with a "use by" date if you did not get a seal and had to refrigerate them.

9. If you have kids, try to get rid of them for the day and have a good friend over to commiserate with. The process is time consuming, but could be turned into a good time with a friend. Thus far, I have never been able to do this, but I can imagine! If you want to save costs, share the price of the canner & accessories with a friend and take turns using it.

10. And the last tip is for my husband, reading this from afar... don't make a batch of homebrew and then go underway for a month and expect there to be any when you get back... just sayin'!

I hope this has inspired you to learn more or at least given you a laugh at my flinging pepper seeds in my eye. If you want to learn more or get some trusted recipes, 2 books I recommend are the standard "Ball Blue Book of Canning" (which is cheap, too!), or one titled "Preserving Summer's Bounty", which includes harvesting, freezing, canning, herb vinegars, drying, juicing, preserving, and cellaring. If you are lucky enough to have a computer or laptop set up in your kitchen - save your money and go to PickYourOwn.org, Ball, or your state may have a good extension service with online canning guidelines and how-to, such as the ones here in VA and my home state of Minnesota. Of course if you have access to family recipes, so much the better - as a matter of fact, grab a gardening grandma, anyone's gardening grandma...ply her with a favorite cocktail, and have paper and pen in hand when she spills the super secret Dill Pickle recipe! Just remember to arrange a safe ride home for her and leave a thank you note pinned to her shirt :) And Annie'sGranny, please don't take offense to that...in my "ultimate party guest list" - you are on it along with the likes of Bill Clinton, Paul "The Gardener Guy" James, Andrew Zimmern, and Vince "the Germans made it, it must be good" of Sham-Wow fame. (Does anyone else keep a mental list of people they would like to invite to "the perfect party"?) Have fun...

This is WAR!

Ok, so I fell of the organic wagon and broke out the Roundup. This bed is only a month old, several layers of cardboard, and 3-4 inches of mulch! Ugh, the nightmare that is Bermudagrass. As anyone that lives in the south can tell you, it's horrid stuff. I call it "bamboo grass", since it spreads by rhizomes underground and this chain-like crap above ground. The first pic is a closeup, the second pic is my border and how much of it I had to kill. At least I didn't use it near the veggies. And the worst part is that it will be back in just a week or so. Several treatments hopefully will do it. Expensive problem, though...will be trying a less expensive brand for the next round. I am on a self-imposed deadline of Thursday to be done weeding all of it, since today and tomorrow are only supposed to be in the 70's, which is incredible weather for this time of year to being doing hard chores.

On to better things...I pulled the shallots the other night! I am having to hang them inside since it is so humid most days outside I am afraid they might rot.

Here's Loch harvesting a carrot that he surely will not eat...

Loch & Finn posing with their harvest of carrots

I feel bad (kind of) that the first batch of homebrew that Sailor/Farmer/Husband made will not wait until he gets back for the first taste...I had to "test" it and make sure it was aging properly - it is :) !! It was absolutely fantastic and I wanted to open another tonight and "test it" again but I forgot to put one in the chiller, so I am settling for a glass of wine instead. Now we need to name it...

I am now officially the "crazy chick"... with bags all over my grape bunches! My son was watching me from his sandbox for a long while when I finally asked "What are you looking at, Loch?" (knowing the answer!), and he said "I'm not sure, Mom", followed by "are those lunch bags?", and finally "are you tired of packing sandwiches for my lunch?". Wow, I had been having a trying afternoon with the kids, but I could no longer contain my laughter at that point. Just when you think you can't take anymore headaches from kids, they come out with a gem and it makes you realize how awesome it is to be a parent.

I could go on and on about the garden chores this week, but if I don't quit now, I will not have any relax time catching up on the DVR tonight! By the way...any of you seen the new A & E show Obsessed? For a type A, anxiety ridden, OCD person such as myself, gotta say I love it!! Kind of fun to watch what might happen to me if I let myself slip over the edge :)

Men, Fish and Beer...

We were able to bottle the homebrew on Friday evening!  The kids find this whole project fascinating, and I realized that my boys are going to show up freshman year at college already knowing how to brew their own micro's....ooops!  I must admit it is alot of fun and actually is quite fascinating!  Now the freshly capped bottles have to age for about 4-6 weeks, which means I will get the first taste since Charlie will be out on the ship again next week for awhile!

The Chief Bottle Washer

Capping the bottles

This weekend we sort of played hooky from the garden duties.  I was looking at the calendar last week and noticed that even though Sailor/Husband/Father/Farmer doesn't go on deployment until this fall, he only has a total of 6 weeks home with us this summer since they are gone on "workups" (training) so often.  So, I figured the chores like building fence gates will still be there next week and we needed to just make a priority out of spending some time together doing things the kids enjoy.  We decided to take the kids fishing out in Back Bay and ended up eating at one of our favorite restaurants out there, the Blue Pete.  Next weekend I think we will go back out and take the canoe this time a little earlier in the day so the kids can have some better luck with the fish.

Fishing with Dad

Feeding the fish at Blue Pete's

Strawberry Shortcake with local berries, yum!

Other notable weekend happenings around the homestead:  

Pumpkin sprouting...this was neat since the seed case was still attached and the kids can better visualize what's happening!

One of our juvenile doves waiting patiently for mom to come back and feed her!

I am really hoping to get plenty of chores done during the weekdays this week so we can have a little fun again this weekend!  Now I am off to order more beans - this was the first time I planted them outside the raised beds and critters helped themselves to about half of the sprouts!

Don't forget the pumpkins, Mom!

It's a good thing I have kids, or nothing would get planted around here!  Yesterday, my son was perusing (ok, destroying) my new "Garden Manual" and he came across seed packets for pumpkins and wanted to know when they go into the ground.  "Well, I guess if we want pumpkins for Halloween we better get started!"  So it was off to start more seedlings even though truth be told, after the tomatoes and peppers, I don't want to see another seed flat for a good long while!  We planted a few of the classic orange jack-o-lanterns, a few white "Casper" pumpkins, birdhouse gourds, cucumbers and some flower seed.  If you ask Finn he will tell you "We planted pickles and birdhouses!"  Still no idea where the pumpkins will go.  I will probably plant them along the fence bed and just keep kicking the vines out of the yard each time I mow!

Aren't these seeds cute?  

And what the hay is this???  Where do I get to sit???  Apparently the term "Garden Dogs" was lost on them on the way to the living room.

We will be bottling our first batch of homebrew this weekend, and I spent 2 hours last night in front of the TV scraping labels off recycled beer bottles, scrubbing and sanitizing.  Hope Sailor/Farmer appreciates it.  No doubt he will actually notice my efforts this time, since it involves beer :)