Rainy Day Garden Gab

The wind blew away most of my seed markers.

Welcome to rain-apocalypse 2012

at least that is how the weather team on T.V. is treating it.   It’s  been raining here for a little over 12 hours.  Storming, wind howling, thunder booming, lightning flashing, big, cold drops of rain falling.

Since we just planted the garden, this is a blessing and a curse.   Water is great, a good soaking rain is great.

Puddles, not so much.

Yesterday we had high wind, crazy wind.  Crazy blowing away most of my seed markers wind.  This year the garden will be a little but of a surprise…. I can not remember where I planted everything. Ha!

Seeds are all about snorkeling, right?

Clearly we have some high and low areas....

Below the garden is a swamp....

My swamp.

These strawberries are survivors from last summer. They laugh at the water, they are already planning strawberry-topia 2

The raised bed is protected from much of the rain. The cats and birds are another story though.

There is no real update on my Grandmother, she is still hospitalized, they believe the mental confusion is due to a slight bladder infection.  She is fighting her treatment.  She keeps removing her I.V.

If you’re a prayer sort of person, I’d appreciate your prayers for her.

Totally Tardy 7 Links….

Over a month ago, Andrea of From the Bookshelf gifted the 7 links challenge to me. Heh! I’m quite tardy to the 7 links party. Sorry about that Andrea!

I’ve been writing posts on A Dash of Domestic since March. 6 months, 197 (now 198) posts, so many new friends.

According to the rules of the challenge I am supposed to list 1 post for each of the following categories and then pass this challenge on to 5 people.

Seven posts…

1. Most Beautiful Post: My Red tortilla chicken soup, the red tortillas are so pretty.

2. Most Popular Post: My most popular (via views) Canning Apple pie filling

One word? Yum!

3. Most Controversial Post: I don’t think I have any controversial posts.

Instead…enjoy this funny picture my husband took.

Never turn your back on a little red duck!

4. The Most Helpful Post: How to convert a recipe to/from a slow cooker.

5. Post that was surprisingly successful: Things I should not say, according to my teen. (This post has the most comments)

6. Post that did not get the attention it deserved: My homemade Cranberry sauce. This cranberry sauce is requested by family and friends all. the. time.

7. Post you are most proud of: The Evolution of a Domestic Engineer, the article is only partly on my blog. The full article is here. I wrote it for Women Worth Knowing.

It was both overwhelming and fun to look through all my content to find the perfect articles for this post!

Now to tag 5 other foodie bloggers.

I am trying to tag bloggers who (hopefully) have not had a chance to participate in the 7 links challenge yet.

She cooks, He eats

Family of Foodies

Paul of Sons of Thunder *who gave me a Versatile Blogger award! Thanks very much!*

Savory Simple

Sweet Caroline’s Cooking

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

Garden Gab…the end is near.

The MyBlogSpark giveaway has ended. The winner was comment #18

“Good Cooks :

Your banana bread looks very yummy, Thanks Jamie, I would like to try it with oatmeal raisin cookie.”

Say hello to Samah on her blog, Good Cooks.

I will have another giveaway soon, because giveaways are fun!

Anyhoo……Happy Friday my friends. It has been a few weeks since I have updated you on my garden.

See all my earlier Garden Gab posts here.

I’m afraid my gardening is winding down. My raised garden box is sinking-sideways into the earth. The super hot, relentlessly dry summer, combined with water restrictions created large cracks in my backyard. Don’t worry, my house foundation is perfectly fine thanks to soaker hoses.

I tried to show the crazy lean in a picture. I’m not sure I did it justice.

I swear, I'm holding the camera straight. Notice the lean?

Pardon my grass, it needs to be mowed. So, hopefully you can see…my raised garden bed is sinking. My husband is working on my expanded garden space, but it won’t be ready for Fall planting so, I’m probably done gardening until the Spring.

I cut the okra down. Since my garden is sinking I have been removing the plants. The only plants left in the raised garden? The (unexpectedly) hot peppers. The royal purple bean plants. The purple hull peas. And, of course, Strawberrytopia.

The royal purple bean plants are very small still, they flower but have not produced any beans.

The mint plant is still doing well. It has not taken over the side garden. I believe the heat probably stunted its growth.

The carrots are still small-ish, I think maybe I planted them too close together?

Now for the really exciting part. The purple hull peas? Growing lovely little peas. The pea pods start out looking like strange monster claws.

Rawr.....monster claws

The monster claws grow longer and wider, the peas within grow and swell the pods. Then they look like this…

They grow peas that look like this…

There are not enough peas for a meal yet, but I’m very excited about the purple hull peas! They are the only reason that I have not completely gutted the garden box yet.

How is your garden growing? Are you planting this fall?

Don’t forget that Allie and I will have a new set of canning posts for you on Monday. We would LOVE IT if you would link up with us!

Have a super weekend!

My three squashes and the end of summer

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  Here in the United States and Canada, today is a holiday.  It’s Labor Day.

If you’re not from the United States or Canada, here’s a little info on the holiday. This info is via Wikipedia and Answers.com

Labor Day.

The first Monday in September, observed as a holiday in the United States and Canada in honor of working people.

Traditionally, Labor Day is celebrated by most Americans as the symbolic end of the summer.

In high society, Labor Day is (or was) considered the last day of the year when it is fashionable for women to wear white.

I’m not sure if September will mark an end to the dog days of summer, but it’s supposed to be the end of summer.

 

  That also means, the end or near the end of summer squash, so Friday when I went to the Farmer’s Market I picked up a few varieties of squash.

 

The yellow/green squash are over sized 8-ball squash I think. Think zucchini squash.

The green pumpkin shaped squash is Kabocha squash.  Allie at Forgotten Beast  blogged about this squash last week.  It is a winter squash, not a summer squash.

The white squash are Pattypan squash. Funny little things aren’t they?

Here is a cool resource page for squash.

 

I hope you have a wonderful day!  I’m off to swim and enjoy the holiday!

Garden Gab weeks 22 and 23….and freezer jam

So, it’s hot…Yep a shocker I know!  Last week, instead of Garden Gab on Friday I posted a whole wheat chocolate cake recipe.  I know, the cake was lovely, but it felt strange after 21 weeks of garden posts to not have one last week.  So, to correct that and make myself feel better….This week I have pictures for you from the last two weeks.  It rained here on Thursday, just enough to wet the ground and make it nice and slick to drive on. Heh!  Oh, I’m not being nice, I am sure the rain we got helped the ground a lot, but we’ve been so parched for so long…the rain yesterday was really just a few drops in a really dry bucket.

Without further ado…. my garden pictures.

        

         

         

    

My okra is still blooming beautifully.  The carrots are still very small, but they are still growing.

The royal purple beans are beginning to grow bean pods!  They are a beautiful color, but I was unable to get a good picture of them.  The purple hulls are simply fighting to stay alive.  Poor things!

The strawberries are still in expansion mode, stretching out their little green arms for more and more space.

My poor zucchini plants are still so tiny,  but they are trying to bud.   So tiny, so cute, my little zucchini plants.  I doubt I will get anything fruit from them, but I am not opposed to allowing them to try.

Now on to the freezer jam.

Freezer jam is so easy…so easy. Seriously.  So. Very. Easy.

This freezer jam requires no cooking and very few ingredients.   I have made this jam with fresh strawberries and with frozen strawberries.

It works best with fresh strawberries. The last batch I made was with frozen strawberries, this batch was made with fresh strawberries.

Here’s what you need.  This recipe is adapted from a Ball canning recipe. It was found in the Ball Blue Book of Canning.

• 6 cups of mushed, smashed, crushed strawberries (fresh or frozen)

    

• 1 1/2 cups of sugar
• 5 TBSP of Ball instant Pectin

The instructions……

• mix the sugar and Pectin together
•  add sugar mixture to the strawberries

•  stir constantly for 3 minutes

• Fill freezer jars (I used the Ball brand plastic jars and 2 freezer safe glass jars)
•  place the lid on the jars
•  Let the jam “set” for 30 minutes on the counter top

• label and freeze         OR
• gobble it up now, pour it on ice cream, roll around in it, have toast for every meal with gobs and gobs of jelly. 
• OR…(what I did) place all but 1 in the freezer. They will “keep” in the fridge for 3 weeks (yeah, like they will last that long), they will keep in the freezer for up to a year.

Enjoy

                   

Don’t forget that Monday Allie of Forgotten Beast and I will be posting canning recipes again and we will also have a Canning Link-up!  We want you to link up your canning posts with ours! Get your canning posts ready (new or previously posted recipes) and join us Monday!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Kids ~VS~ Veggies…

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! We had a very nice weekend. School starts today. This is bittersweet. While I am glad to have a little time to myself to chill out, shop or clean…I will miss them. A lot. Since I’ve got kiddo on the brain, I have a kid-centric post for you today.

Do you have picky people to feed? Do you struggle to get your family to eat veggies? I do.

When my son was 5 or 6 he was so averse to eating any green vegetable he would gag, choke, and flail. He told me all green things were evil.

Fun times at dinner.

Ah. Fun times.

He’s 13 now, and while he usually no longer flails he still is not fond of many veggies. A recent gagging episode with rainbow chard reminded me of the not so good old days.

Despite the picture below, Veggies are NOT evil.

Well, except for Brussel-Sprouts. They are pure evil. Little green balls of evil.

Here are a few things I have done to get my kids to try new veggies…….

• Try to get the kids involved in the veggie choices. I have found that kids are more likely to eat something if they helped pick it out.
• Have the kids help in the cooking process. Just like allowing them to help pick the veggies, allowing them to help in the cooking process will sometimes make them more willing to eat the veggies.
• Introduce the veggies in an unexpected way. The first time my kids tried black-eyed peas was in Texas Caviar. They still are not super fond of eating black-eyed peas unless they are in Texas Caviar, but they will give it a try now. They frequently ask for Texas Caviar and will gobble it up any time I make it.
• Offer a few options, ask them to try a little of each. We have found that they are more open-minded about trying new things when there is a veggie they like on the table too.

A few things that you probably NEVER want to do…….

• Never force your child to eat an entire serving of a veggie that they do not like. It’s frustrating for you both and I have found that they are less open about new veggies if you force one on them.
• Never use a veggie as a punishment threat. Okay, this sounds funny, but I did this.

Picture this, I’m at the grocery store with two wild-things. They are running amuck. I (in the past) have been guilty of picking up a can of beets and telling them if they do not behave the beets are coming home with us. To be a main dinner feature. Yep, I did that. More than once. *sigh* So, it’s no surprise that it has been hard to get my kids to eat beets. You know, because I made them seem like a punishment.

So, don’t make veggies a punishment. Learn from my mistakes. Ha!

How do you get your kids to eat veggies?

Sweet Carrot Pickles

I’m sad to report that the giant carrots seem to be all gone now.  For two weekly visits in a row (last week and this week), I have been unable to find the giant carrots at the Farmer’s Market.   My son thinks they are freaks of nature, he has not been enjoying the über carrots.

What do teens know about carrots?

I really like them, one carrot is usually more than enough for a veggie side. Plus,  I like them thinly sliced and dipped into ranch dressing.   That might be a southern thing though, we like most things dipped in ranch.  If you can deep fry it first, we’re even happier.

Have you ever had a fried pickle?  They are The. Bomb. (dot) Com.

Anyhoo,  from my last large carrot buy I’ve got 2 giant carrots left.  One I plan to shred for carrot-raisin salad.  The other one I’ve diced and I am making sweet carrot pickles.

These sweet, crisp little beauties are wonderful to snack on and great as a side dish.

This recipe is adapted from a recipe in the book “Urban Pantry” by Amy Pennington       *I am so loving this book*

Sweet Carrot Refrigerator Pickles

• 4 carrots (or 1 giant carrot) peeled and then diced or thinly sliced.
• 1-1/2 cups of apple cider vinegar
• 1 cup of water
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• 1 tsp ginger
• 1 bulb onion, thinly sliced
• 1 tsp orange peel
• 1 tsp celery seed
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Place carrots in a non-reactive bowl or a glass canning jar.  Set aside.

In a sauce pan, heat all the ingredients except the carrots over a medium heat until simmering.

       

Once the brine is almost boiling, remove it from the stove and pour the brine over the carrots.

Allow to set on the counter until the mixture is cool, stirring occasionally.

Serve the carrots in the brine. Or refrigerate for up to 3 weeks.

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Pardon my freaky bright pictures.  The lighting was off.

Garden Gab, week 21….a cool down, a loss and a nursery rhyme

Mary Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row,
And pretty maids all in a row.

That’s how the nursery rhyme goes, however I was disturbed when I looked up the meaning of the rhyme. It’s about Queen Mary, torture and executions.

While torture would accurately describe the weather here in Texas the last month or so, it does not really describe gardening at all does it?

Or maybe it does.

No, No, No…..I love gardening. I love the beautiful green plants. I love planting a seed and watching it grow into a beautiful plant. I love knowing I am growing things that help to feed my family and friends.

Bugs and heat be damned, I love gardening.

Anyhoo.

My garden is doing well……..

The okra is blooming and blooming. I’ve got tons of little okra-ettes.

The new bean plants are doing very well, green and blooming and lovely.

My mint is surviving the heat.

The carrots are still growing.

I lost my green pepper plant to the extreme heat, but the Hot peppers are doing well.

Strawberrytopia is still expanding. I think the strawberries would be happy to take over the entire raised garden! They don’t produce many strawberries, but they sure do spread quickly.

The squash seedlings are still surviving the heat. I failed to take a picture of them though.

Speaking of heat, it got cooler Thursday. The wind blew. It felt nicer outside.

It smelled like rain.

Best. Smell. Ever.

It did not rain, but it was noticeably cooler. The 102+ degree heat we’ve been experiencing is brutal, so any coolness is exciting to me.

How is your garden growing?

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. I’ll be back on Monday!

Garden Gab Week 20…Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot!

The weather here is HOT, that’s not a shocker or a secret.

Today is the 35th day in a row that the temperature is expected to hit 100 deg F or higher.  Today is expected to be 107 deg F.   In fact my entire 7 day outlook is 100 deg F or higher.  Meh.

The heat is a melt-y kind of heat, it’s not easy to be outside for very long.

My sister-in-love and her sons baked cookies and melted crayons in their car.  Fun right? They used the windshield to magnify the sun.  They also tried frying an egg on the sidewalk.

The yards are really suffering.  Most of the yards in my neighborhood are partly crispy and dying , we  just can not keep them watered well enough to help them survive.   The ground is cracking, my fence posts are wobbly (which is quite distressing), my yard is green only in stripes.  I am focusing my watering efforts around my home’s foundation, my driveway, and of course my garden areas.

It’s crazy.

My neighbor’s driveway cracked in half!  I kid you not!

Picture proof!

Oh noes! Cracked driveway...not cool.

Isn’t that shocking?  I can tell you,  it’s been a topic on much conversation in my neighborhood.  Many people have begun to water not only their foundations, but now…also their driveways.  I was already watering my driveway (whew!), but I have stepped it up.

Shocking!

You know what else is a shocker, the funky bell peppers have turned lovely shades of yellow and red.

Guess what folks, they’re hot!

Like supa-dupa spicy hot,  like oh heck “where’s my drink?!” hot.  Hot. 

My neighbors, family and friends who like hot peppers are in luck this summer…I’m going to be spreading these hot beauties around.  I canned the first batch and gave them to my neighbor over the weekend.

Hello hot stuff....

The okra is still loving the heat.  Here are a few pictures of the okra flowers, they’re so pretty.

     

My royal purple beans are starting to bloom…YAY!

         

My late season squash seedlings are doing very well.  They are surviving the heat much better than I expected.

    

Strawberrytopia is still in expansion mode, the heat is really not halting their progress.

The mint is still holding it’s own.

I forgot to take a picture of the carrots, but they are still doing well.  They’re still small, but they’re hanging on.

How is your garden doing?

See you Monday!

Garden Gab week 19 ~ Food for my family

I’ve been negative lately about the heat. I need to work on that. Gardening makes me happy. It provides food for my family and friends. It relieves stress, and it’s my “thing”.

I’m 19 weeks in to gardening this season. 19 weeks seems like a lot, but in gardening it’s very little time.

My carrots are still growing, but they are carrot-ey and taste pretty darn good. They’re just not very big yet.

My okra is growing so well. Really, really well. I clipped these pieces of okra on Thursday.

I gifted it to my sweet neighbor Becky.

I got a cute little onion from my garden! It’s not really little, but it sure is cute. I added it to the fresh salsa I made on Thursday.

Here are my garden pictures.

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I won’t have any posts over the weekend. I hope you have a wonderful weekend full of great food and wonderful fun. See you Monday.

Please leave me a comment and let me know how your garden is doing this week.