Onion Harvest

My garden is a work in progress and is an every day learning experience for me. I've been keeping an eye on my onions and figured that surely they should be ready to come out soon. The tops had toppled over and some of the onions were up on the ground. This is my very first onion crop so I had no clue on when they should be ready. Well, I found out that once the tops do topple over (and mine were all on the ground) that is the time to harvest. Look at what I got! My very first onion harvest ever!

The basket is full of onions! Some are the size of a softball!

Being new to the harvest part of gardening, I rigged up this drying screen with Huny's compost screen. I ended up with 28 onions.

Did I mention that I don't like onions? I like onion flavor, but I do not like to bite into an onion. I'm trying to learn to like them, but it is something I need to keep working on.

I cook with onions all the time, but always leave them in large enough pieces so that I can see them in my food.

Here's a recipe that you might like if you're into onions:

1 small to medium onion, sliced

1 cucumber, sliced

1/4 c (or to taste) of Italian Dressing

salt and pepper to taste

herb of choice (I used Marjoram.)

Mix all together and let set in the refrigerator for an hour. Serve as a side salad with your evening meal or with some crackers for a light lunch.

It's Friday night and...

I'm making Strawberry Jam! I am one wild, and crazy lady!

A few weeks ago I went to The Bailey’s Berry Patch to learn how to can, preserve, pickle, dry and freeze fresh fruit and vegetables.

The day was filled with learning, cooking and tasting. I learned how to freeze my fruits and vegetables the right and safe way. I learned how to dry fruits and make my own roll ups and I learned how to make jams.

I tasted fresh made salsa and watched it being canned with the boiling waterbath method. The salsa was excellent. I got to bring a pint of it home and enjoyed it with chips, guacamole and fajitas.

I haven't attempted the waterbath yet, but I have made jam.

My huny loves to eat blackberry anything. Do you know how much a small jar of blackberry jam costs? Jeez!

Although the initial cost was high because I had to buy the freezer jars, in the end the total cost was much lower than buying blackberry jam in the store, and even less than buying organic blackberry jam in the local organic grocery store. I spent about $4.00 for the jars, $1.50 for the fruit pectin, and $1.50 for 5 fresh blackberry tubs.

For the strawberry jam I made tonight, all I had to buy was the strawberries, which ended up at $1.50 a quart for 3 quarts (although I used 2 1/4) for the four cups the recipe calls for and $1.50 for the fruit pectin.

I ended up with 6-8oz jars of blackberry jam and 5-8oz jars of strawberry jam.

We are eating blackberry jam on toast, ice cream, bagels with cream cheese and in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

I can hardly wait to have the strawberries on bagels. Yum!

Learning how to use what I grow to provide for my family gives me a feeling of goodness in my heart. I'm glad that I can borrow the Earth to grow foods that my family loves and will eat. I am being patient with myself and with the garden and am learning as I go. Every step of this journey in the garden has been a wonderful adventure for me. I encourage you to take a step, no matter how small, to get in the dirt and grow something good for your soul. If it's a vegetable, sit and enjoy the taste of what you grew in your garden. If it's a flower, sit and enjoy the beauty and bloom and enjoy the simple pleasure of watching birds and butterflies enjoy it as well.

Before you know it, you'll be making your own jam and enjoying it with your morning bagel and cup of coffee.

Rain!

Rain, rain!

This picture and below is the west side of the house.

This is the backyard. The far corner is where we have pumpkins growing.

The little garden up against the fence is where we have the zucchni.

Against the side is where we have peppers, onions, strawberries and lettuce.

We have had so much rain lately and even though it makes for a soggy yard the rain is appreciated. In a few weeks we will be checking the sky for clouds and hoping for rain. Unfortunately, sometimes once the rain stops in the spring, we don’t see it for a long, long time. I’m not going to complain, but in the meantime we get small lakes in the yard.

This is the east side of the backyard. That's the compost pile in the back corner. The bed next to that is where we have tomatoes, cucumbers, and beans.

All of this standing water started after homes were developed behind our yard. We will be working on something this summer in order to get this water to drain, but we're not sure what yet.

So far though, the plants have been taking all this water and standing water in stride and are coming along just fine!

Kentucky Derby

I have to admit I am not much into sports. I can sit and watch and have fun, but I really have no idea what is going on. I even had a Super Bowl party with a bunch of girlfriends and not a one of us knew what was going on (kinda - we're not complete dodo birds). But we hollered and whooped and had a good ole time and that is still one of the best parties I ever had. I remember one of the teams was the Seattle Seahawks. I don't think they won.

And then my Huny walked into my life. The man is a sports junkie. If I let him he would watch sports channels all day, every day.

Now I sit and watch every sport there is on TV. I am now hooked on NASCAR ( go Carl Edwards - yoohoo). I watch football, I watch baseball, basketball, GOLF (omg). I sit and watch tv and listen to Huny tell me all kinds of statistics, names, places, who's who and who knows what else and I say, Yes, Dear. (Just don't ask me to repeat any of this because I have NO IDEA, what he is talking about.)

So being the dutiful wife and, okay, now I do kinda get into the sports thing (even though I still have no clue), I watched the Kentucky Derby. Getting into the spirt of the thing, I threw on my cowboy horse shirt, dug out my favorite straw cowboy hat and searched high and low for the trim and feathers to make it into a hat worthy of the Kentucky Derby.

When Huny got home from work he started searching for his BB gun. Never mind that he doesn't even own one. HaHa.

I gave him my appropriate Derby nose and asked him if he wanted me to fix him a hat too. Well, he said no way.

Hmmph.

In lieu of the Mint Julip, I plucked a sprig of spearmint sat back and enjoyed the show with my trigger happy Huny.

I hope you had a wonderful day today as well!

The latest flu...

Everytime we turn around there is something out there that is out to get us. It's either some type of flu bug or something that we are told we shouldn't eat or drink because it gives us cancer.

I feel for the familes that have been affected by this latest flu bug. Loved ones have died and that is sadness.

Familes and communities have been affected in other ways as well. Schools are closed putting an extra burden on the parents that have to find some way to have their children cared for during the day while they are at work. Most parents can't take the time off to be at home because this job is all they have to keep their family above water. Businesses are losing their livelihood because no one is going there to shop or eat. Families are confined to their homes. I heard this morning about a father that took his children to the gym at a Marine base and was turned away - not because he or his children were or had been ill, but because his children attended a school where three children had confirmed cases of the flu.

Events across the nation are being cancelled. Most of these events have vendors that to most of them an event is another avenue of how to sell their product and make a living. All of this adds to an already troubled economy. In my community the opening day of Lewisville Farmers' Market and the Cinco de Mayo event was cancelled.

And then today, I heard that the whole thing was blown out of proportion. That yes, it is a bad thing that is happening, it is just not the big, badness that it was made out to be.

Whether that is true or not, I don't know. I don't know what the answer is or what the right action to take is.

Like you, I don't want my family to become affected by this flu or any other flu, or sickness, or anything. But I also don't want to confine my family and be afraid of living life.

Like our grandmother and mother said, wash you hands. Be careful. Be aware.

And as we say in Texas, don't be afraid to take the bull by horns. (Just be sure you wash your hands afterwards!)