Wordless Wednesday….Father and Daughter

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Momzoo

Harvesting Carrots

Posted on August 31, 2010 by Momzoo

Saturday we harvested the carrots.

Harvesting carrots is one of the fun gardening jobs.

The kids love to pull carrots.

Storing a carrot is very simple. They are a “root cellar” vegetable, meaning they will stay good and fresh as long as they are stored correctly. I keep mine in plastic bags in an old refrigerator in my garage, I keep the temperature in the refrigerator at about 50 degrees, and they will stay fresh that way for months. You can also keep them in a cold basement room or a root cellar, if you are lucky enough to have a root cellar. When storing fresh carrots cut off the green top, leaving a half to a quarter inch of the top on. If you don’t cut the tops the carrot will wither, same thing will happen if you cut into the root.

If you don’t have a place to store carrots at that temperature, you can blanch and freeze them, or can them (using a pressure canner).

We harvested 50 pounds of carrots, along with the 23 pounds already harvested gives us a total of 73 pounds of carrots this season. They were grown in 16 square feet of garden on my little quarter acre of land.

Yay for suburban farming!

Smelly Pickle Jars

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Momzoo

I am a bit of a collector

of glass jars.

I know, kinda strange, but I love glass jars in all sorts of shapes and sizes. I have been known to purchase a product, not for the food inside, but for the shape of the glass jar.

I use my glass jars for storing all sorts of dry goods: beans, rice, special grains, flours and herbs. Some jars I use to store milk, yogurt, cream and butter.

Of all the jars I have collected, I think I have more pickle jars than anything else. They are a good size for storing all sorts of things. The only problem with pickle jars is that they retain the pickle smell. Nothing ruins a good cup of chamomile tea faster that the smell and taste of pickles.

The smell comes from the lid of the jar.

The inside of the lids are lined with plastic and rubber, to help keep the lid from rusting and to maintain the seal on the jar. The pickle smell gets into the plastic and is almost impossible to wash out.

But, there is a way….

All you need is the special odor fighting power of Baking Soda and a plastic bag.

Place washed lids in a plastic bag with some Baking Soda and let sit for a few days. Then wash. Now you have clean smelling, virtually free, storage containers!

When a Chicken Gets Out

Posted on August 26, 2010 by Momzoo

A few days ago while my girls were doing their chores, feeding the chickens and gathering eggs, one of my little hens got out. We tried to catch the darn thing, but she was too quick and hid herself really well. I told my girls not to worry, we would just leave her alone and since chickens are a homing bird (they like to roost in the same spot every night) she would come back to the coop, find a place to roost and sleep. Once she was asleep we could pick her up easily and put her back in the coop.

Well…..

I kinda forgot she was out there.

The next evening, when my girls went to do their chores they found our little run away hen clucking around. She must have really missed her friends, when Punk #1 opened the door to the coop she shuffled right in, happy to cluck away with the other hens.

Then we found this:

Drying Herbs

Posted on August 21, 2010 by Momzoo

This year I grew several herbs in our yard. The nice thing about herbs, is that they are beautiful to look at (for the most part) and can be tucked into general landscaping. Here are a few of the herbs that I have planted.

Chamomile

Lemon Balm

(aka Sweet Melissa)

Sage

Mint

Parsley

I also have a few other things not pictured: Chives, Comfrey, Yarrow, Lavender, Basil, Roses (yes…roses, a medicinal herb)

Today I harvested several of my herbs and prepared them for drying. They will be stored in old pickle jars in my pantry for those cold winter days, when fresh herbs aren’t available.

For herbs that don’t have long stems that are easy to gather and dry in bundles I use paper sacks. First I rinse everything very well in cold water and they them drip dry. Then I clip the leaves (sage happens to be what I am working on in these pictures) from the stems. Then I simply put them in a paper sack. Do not pack them in tightly, there needs to be air around the leaves, or they will rot instead of dry. Then I just sit them on my counter top, a couple times a day, when I think of it, I give the bag a shake, to keep things light and fluffy, so the air will circulate.

I use the bag method for: sage, parsley, chamomile, basil, and rose petals.

For other herbs, I do the hanging-upside-down method.

I am hanging Lemon Balm in these pictures.

First just gather up the stems and tie the ends together in a bunch. Make sure they are tied really tight, the plants will lose volume as they dry and will fall out of the bundle while they are hanging if they aren’t tied tightly enough.