Category: Preserving

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Evening rounds

Back in the AC shelling purple hulled pink-eyed cowpea. The not quite dry ones maybe look a little pink on eyes??
They do have magnificently purple hulls.
These two cowpea pods are still working on getting that consistent purple.
I think this is the “fluttermill” seed pod beginning to develop on the Missouri fluttermill primrose.
Lacinato kale is getting a bit overshadowed by the Fordham giant Swiss chard. We’ll have to have a salad to help it out.
One marigold! Unfortunately it’s orange in the yellow section?? I thought the mix looked mostly yellow so hopefully at a distance we can pretend it’s golden. 🤣
Big banana spider on the north side of tomatoes.
A slightly smaller one on the south side.
Last night when I mowed the yard, I put the grass trimmings on the rainbow beds as a mulch. Hopefully that keeps the plants happier. You can see Judy’s yellow iris looking lovely in front.
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Wednesday harvest and other friends

A lot of blue lake green beans.
Several tomato varieties are ripening.
UF garden gem was fine but all of the UF “W” at a similar color rotted and molded. Perhaps they don’t like the endless rain? I will watch more closely for ripening now too.
The Chef tied all the onions up for storage.
The mini bell peppers are more mini than I expected.
Corbaci peppers. I think the three little ones aren’t ready, but their plant died.
A mini bell pepper plant died too, in the same way, a rotting brown at the base.
This mushroom looks like it should be named lemon chiffon something.
Weighing the dried garlic.
Pseudothyris sp. moth resting on strawberry leaf.
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Yesterday’s stuff

The Chef got three jars of dehydrated onion stems/leaves from our harvest of granex bulb onions. The bulbs are still drying in the hall.
My hat is irresistible to Gram.
He tries to eat the string and tulle until I get fed up and put it up.
Fleabane in full bloom!
Photography is boring for dog.
Dill starting to bloom.
Elderberry is thriving.
Full view. It’s just one plant!
A tiny bee on Gaillardia pulchella.
A young (?) lynx spider eats a house fly while sitting on coreopsis.
Coneflowers are going strong.
I need to look up the name of this skipper, which is sitting on a dayflower leaf.
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Harvesting onions and hilling potatoes

6 kg of yellow granex onions.
4.5 kg white granex onions.
Briar smiles over the bounty. The Chef is going to chop and dehydrate the stems/leaves for green onions. About 1.6 kg of green onion from both varieties.
Put the last tub of city compost on the potatoes to “hill” them so they put out more roots. All the bags are fully opened up now.
Zucchini begins.
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Cilantro: 359 g

I’ve been meaning for several weeks to harvest, blanch, and freeze some cilantro.

After blanching, I balled it up to squeeze out water, though I left a few flat with stems too. Last year I only froze it, no blanching, and it was only good to mix in stuff. When it thawed out it was gross looking. Maybe this will help a little. Plus, now that I’ve cut all the plants back, hopefully that will delay bolting a little longer. Plants in the backyard are starting to flower so I’m just letting them go to seed.
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A garden dinner in winter

Wes cooked up a very nice dinner with garden harvest storage and some ground venison courtesy of Paula!

Black tepary beans soaking this morning.
The food! Ground venison from Texas with achiote spice I brought back from Colombia a few years ago, corn, black tepary beans from our garden flour tortillas from scratch, and salsa verde from our garden tomatillos.