Today my Under Gardener (that would be Papa Pea . . . and a darn good Under Gardener he is!) and I spent the whole day working in the garden.
I had noticed two green peppers that were rotting on the plants so I decided it was time to harvest all of them. Having done that, the plants were pulled and went into a compost pile. Takes care of another raised bed for the year.
I brought in the above pictured cabbage to use in making another batch of fermented veggies. Isn't it perfect? Eight pounds, two ounces. Whadda whopper! (The green peppers are no peewees either.)
Still have beets, carrots, potatoes and more cabbage in the garden (along with the two beds of salad greens, kale and Swiss chard). Our weather has remained insanely mild for this time of the year hovering between the high 40s and 50s each day (yes, it really is relative, Carolyn, my friend!) with not much lower temps than the 40s at night so we've not been able to cool our root cellar down enough to be good storage yet for all this produce. Still no hard frost here.
We worked on getting some lovely compost (looks like black dirt) spread on raised beds and parts of the field garden. We cut all the pumpkins (still partially green, darn) and Red Kuri squash from the vines and put the vines in the compost. Removed the downed corn stalks and put them in a pile next to the strawberries and will use them to cover the berry plants for the winter as soon as we have a couple of hard frosts. Tied up all the new growth raspberry canes that had escaped the trellises so they wouldn't get smashed down by snowfall and broken.
Now I'm 'bout done in and have no idea what to put on the table for dinner. How about toast? No. A couple of pears? Uh-uh. Green pepper slices and dip? Nope. (Finished the dip at lunch.) A fried egg? Nada. (Had that for breakfast.) Oh, well. Wish me luck.
24 comments:
Wow you have been busy ! We do our own birds also not my favorite thing either, but love the taste. We also did a pig this year for the this time.
Good to see you are still getting produce, looks like you won't need me to send you any beans.
Michelle - Yep, those old geriatric girls have a wonderful taste when stewed long and slow!
I keep thinking about raising some pork for ourselves. It's been on my mind a lot lately. Did you butcher your pig yourself? If so, what about the ham and bacon? Did you do the curing on that also?
Tombstone Livestock - Nope, don't send beans. Apples would be nice though as we're getting piddling little from our trees this year. ;o)
We're in for our frost frost tonite. A cold front blew in with some rain and wind. Feels like early winter...
Thanks for reminding me to place my organic chicken order for the freezer. We can't have chickens in our town unfortunately but I can buy organic chicken. Sounds like your place is almost ready for winter.
Stuff peppers with chicken parmesan? mmm sounds good to me.That's what I'd fix lol.
Nancy po - Writing this Monday morning . . . just down into the low/mid 40s here last night. You're getting the cold weather when it should be us!
Sparkless - Still more to do . . . isn't there always? But we're getting close. Now go place that chicken order!
Amanda Pope - Sounds WONDERFUL! But way too much effort on my part last night! Hubby made himself a blueberry smoothie and I had a bowl of popcorn with nutritional yeast on it. It was good and satisfying!
Wow, that garden bounty looks great. Our garden is completely done. Sad, but true. We do love our chickens too. We use a butcher about an hour away, as Hubby works too many hours for us to do that job here.
Kristina - Oh, I would gladly send our chickens to a butcher, but there's not one within (sensible) driving distance from us. (Your husband DOES work many, many hours in a week's time, doesn't he?)
Oh, heck. And I was going to ship you a basket-ball-sized cabbage! It sounds as if the country is rather topsy-turvy. We have your cold, wet weather down here. I desperately need to clean out the beds, but the weather won't let me!
Mama Pea, (sorry I deleted first comment because my fingers typed terribly......let's try this again).
Beautiful looking peppers and cabbage you have there.
Your temperatures have been mild and you have more items growing in your garden how awesome is that? I'm so..... jealous because I've put my garden to bed for the winter weeks ago.
Make some oatmeal for dinner...............every now and then we do oatmeal or cream of wheat for dinner with fruit on the side.
Susan - We're in for rain this week, too, but at least our temps are staying away from freezing. I will have to find SOMETHING productive to do inside when I can't get more clean-up done in the garden.
P.S. Please do not ship cabbage. That would be like leaving zucchini on my doorstep!
Sandy - Now why didn't I think of oatmeal for dinner last night? That would have been perfect! Because we do sometimes have breakfast for dinner, I thought of pancakes or waffles but that seems like too much trouble. Now you've got me thinking about oatmeal so that's what I'm going to make for breakfast tomorrow morning!
I shudder to think I used to use wyler's chicken boullion cubes---and thought it was good. Oh my--how we change!!
My "go-to" dinner after a busy busy day is scrambled eggs. My mom did that when we were growing up. That, or pancakes and sausage. Funny how breakfast is so good, no matter what time of day.
Sue - There probably was a day when Wyler's chicken boullion cubes WERE better, but I shudder to think of what kind of chicken is used to make it today!
Yep, breakfast for dinner is often served at our house . . . and does taste good, no matter what time of day.
Oh, I know what you mean about that smell! I hated that and no matter how much Mama tried to teach me to butcher a chicken, I couldn't do it because of the smell. She finally gave up, thank goodness.
We're having warmer than normal weather too, but I think that's about to change.
when you butcher do you pluck or skin? I have never tried it but am going to try my hand at it. Do you know of a good learning source if you don't know of anyone who does this.
Florida Farm Girl - Our forecast keeps threatening a hard frost but it never seems to happen. I have a feeling once our "mild" weather does change, we will all be into winter with a bang!
Sherry - We pluck our birds. The birds we cull are all old so I stew them for the (then) tender boned meat and broth. Although we don't eat the skin, I think it adds so much flavor to the broth . . . and probably meat, too. I'm sure there are several good videos on the Internet to study to learn butchering.
The veggies look amazing! And I agree about the smell of butchering. Even growing up with it, if we butcher animals, the last thing I want for dinner is meat that day lol
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