Freezing and Putting Up

Yesterday we had a bunch of peaches that were starting to get soft, like too soft for eating.  I cut them up and peeled them and tossed them in a ziploc bag to freeze.  I plan to use these eventually to make peach jam.  I just don't have time right now.  So in the freezer they go.

I also cut and froze onions and red peppers too.  I will take some of these out to put in recipes, spaghetti sauces, and meat loaf.


Just a reminder that we can still salvage veggies and fruits that get a bit past their prime by freezing.

Grow an Avocado Plant

(Getty Images, pulled from iVilliage.com)

We love guacamole and I am going to be making it tonight as part of our dinner.  I will take the stone and plant it immediately and I will let you know how it grows.  It will be an indoor plant this winter and I will take it outside for the summer time. I love to slice avocado and put on my turkey sandwiches, salads and just eat plain.  I only buy them when they are $1 each or less though because they are so darn expensive.  With a tree we can have our own for free.  Yes it will take 3 years to get to maturity but it will be so worth the wait.  Yum!

Copied from avacado.org

Avocado Nutrition Information

Avocados provide nearly 20 essential nutrients, including fiber, potassium, Vitamin E, B-vitamins and folic acid. They also act as a "nutrient booster" by enabling the body to absorb more fat-soluble nutrients, such as alpha and beta-carotene and lutein, in foods that are eaten with the fruit. You can find detailed avocado nutrition information listed in our Avocado Nutrients section including all of the vitamins and minerals found in avocado.

Avocados and Cardiovascular Disease

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, but a healthy diet and exercise plan may help reduce your risk of developing the life-threatening illness.

The American Heart Association (AHA) Dietary Guidelines recommend a diet that has at least five servings of fruits and vegetables, contains up to 30% of calories from fats (primarily unsaturated) and is low in saturated fat, cholesterol, trans fats and sodium while being rich in potassium. Avocados can help you meet the AHA dietary guidelines because they have both monosaturated and polyunsaturated fat and contain potassium.

Have a great day!

In a mess of Chaos, fruits of our labors

Since we have decided to sell our home we have started telling people that we are selling.  We hope to find a buyer without a realtor and that way we and the buyer can save money in the process. We are praying for a simple sale.  But nothing comes simple.  We have learned that the hard way, on many occasions.

We have told our parents our plans.  They initially took the news well and didn't say anything in comment about our decisions.  HOWEVER, we have now started to get the side comments, suggestions, etc from them that tells us that they don't approve or accept our decisions.  It will pass.

This is a huge leap for us.  We have always followed the socially acceptable path and we have always done what is "responsibly" right.  We drop everything to help others, we keep a two income household.  We moved to the largest home we could buy at the time.  We have always sought the approval of our parents and if they didn't approve then we reconsidered our decisions, most often choosing to accept the path that they approved of.

This time it is a leap of faith.  A BIG LEAP.  A calculated leap but there is a bit of unknown in there that we need to rely on God to provide for us.  He will, I know it, because he is calling us to do this.  In the end I know we will be happier, more financially stable, and our kids will benefit from it too.  But it is still scary.

On to the chaos:  At this point in time, we are decluttering our home and preparing it for sale.  We have extra furnature that we need to do something with.  We have junk we need to get rid of and we have things that we need to pack away. So our house looks like it threw up its contents inside and we have a ton of liquor store boxes that line the walls, some ready to be packed and some already packed and ready to store.  Thankfully we have a place rent-free to store our things until our home sells.  Our goal is to have the house ready to go on the market in two weeks.  But right now we are living in chaos.  Not one room is ready to go.  Not one room is complete and packed.  Not one room doesn't look like a bomb hit it.  We are stepping over boxes, around boxes and it can be unnerving.

We have our goals but there are times it seems that I am the only one who is paying attention to them.  The bigger frustration is that for 7 hours a day I sit at work thinking about all the things I could be doing at home.  Oh the frustration!

On a good note, our garden is doing well this season and we are beginning to reap the fruits of our labors.  We harvested 5 zucchini yesterday and will be eating them this weekend.  There are many more that will be ready for harvest in the next week.  I am ready to plant another round of zucchini as well and just finished pulling up all the broccoli, cauliflower and lettuce that bolted this past week.  We have green tomatoes forming on our tomato plants and have a mess of spinach to harvest and freeze or eat.  It is so nice to see that my labor and hard work there is paying off.  This will help our grocery budget this month.  An unfortunate thing though is that all the fruit off our peach trees and apple trees are gone again.  We think the squirrels are eating them.  My middle child is beyond furious.  She was so ready for peaches from her own peach trees this year.

What Warm Weather We Are Having

For the next couple days our temps will be in the mid 60s to lower 70s!!  I got the itch to get in my garden boxes and start to weed and prepare them for planting.

To Do List:

1. Weed all beds (7 of them total)
2. Add fertilizer and other nutrients and turn the soil.
3. Add new soil/compost to the beds that need topping off.
4. Plan planting schedule and a chart where things will be planted.
5. Add planting schedule to the calendar so I don't forget. (LOL)

Here are a few places I go for assistance:

http://www.mysquarefootgarden.net/ - all around great information about this type of gardening.

My local extension office website - great for when to plant things

Google images (search for square foot garden) - I love looking at photos of other gardens

Do you garden?  I would love your ideas and tips.

How is your garden growing?

Mine is done - well pretty much done.  We are still getting a few random tomatoes off the vines.  There are plenty of green ones left to ripen.  Other than that, it is done!

This year I planted:
Lettuces
Carrots
beets
radishes
cucumbers
tomatoes
canteloupe
cabbage
cauliflower
broccoli
celery
basiil
thyme
lavender
zucchini
yellow squash
corn
strawberries
cilantro
green beans
watermelon

The corn did nothing. Cantaloupe and watermelon made fruit but they didn't taste or look right.  I think they cross pollinated with the cucumbers.  The watermelons were really little and ripened way too fast.  The cantaloupe had a bitter taste to it and didn't really taste like cantaloupe at all.  We had another banner year with squash and zucchini.  But we ate as much as we harvested.  So there was nothing to put away for winter.  The tomatoes did well and I now know not to waste my time on odd varieties.  I need to focus on the varieties that we love and not plant the rest.  Some turned out quite odd looking.  No one in my house at the green beans fresh.  I need to work on them.  The cilantro is a cooler climate plant and didn't do so well when the hot sun shined on it.  It shriveled up and died.  We had lots of lettuce and cucumbers and enjoyed them in our salads all summer long.  We harvested a ton of carrots but ended up not having a chance to clean and freeze them so they shriveled and died.  It was sad.  The beets didn't do much either, unfortunately.

Looking to next year, I need to be more on top of my garden.  I need to plant at the right times and then keep other plants from cross pollinating with others.  I am not sure our fruits are doing well at all and I might not plant them next year.

As for bugs and varmints, we did pretty well this year until late summer.  The bugs were manageable until the rabbits found our garden.  Oh and the squirrels.  the squirrels ate every single apple and peach off our trees.  We need to do some squirrel control next year.

At this point I am not thinking I will have a winter garden.  I will just wait until February and begin planting then for cole crops.  This winter though I am going to research better varieties of vegetables and look into installing a sort of "greenhouse" over some of my squares.

How is your garden growing?

You asked for it...

and here it is!!! We figure we have about 50 lbs of zucchini harvested so far, yes, so far!!

Zucchini zucchini

coming out my ears. We have just had our first harvest of zucchini from our garden. This year I haven't been as motivated as I have in the past years. We didn't go strawberry picking at all this year. I didn't can any strawberry jam. We have our garden but it is really on auto pilot now.

But we just got our first harvest and I know I have a bushel of zucchini!! I need to pull out my cheese grater and make some zucchini bread and then make some for the neighbors, then freeze some that is grated for bread later. I also need to pull up that recipe for the squash pickles and make relish again.... now where did I post that thing???

Whitney's Not Cooking Right Now.

Whitney isn't cooking right now. We had tacos out tonight. Last night we were at my grandfather's house and we got KFC. Saturday night I went out with two friends from college. (Bertucci's). Friday night, we had hot dogs at home.

I do have a funny story though. Tonight I was cleaning patty pan and my husband and I were cutting them up to freeze. He said the skins were a little tough and at first we thought it was because they were a couple days old from picking. But then I realized that they had crossed with the pumpkins in the garden and we had "pumpkin squash". This has happened before a year ago. My husband likes to grow pumpkins and he plants them near the squash. Last year it was the summer squash (yellow crookneck). They were yellow orange in color, big seeds inside, and a pumpkin smell to them. Some were bumpy. These patty pan squash had no outward appearance that would clue you in but the skins were very tough and the seeds were large and some had that trademark pumpkin smell. We tossed them all in the trash!

Note to self, next year don't plant pumpkins with the squash at all. We will buy our pumpkins from the local berry farm!