garden's coming in

Despite the heat, our garden is starting to show some real success and we (Lisa) have been canning a bunch over the last week or so and we have quite a bit of stuff in the fridge in need of canning.  Our potatoes came in and were pretty much of a disapointment. we made the mistake of buying some pretty ratty potatoes for m a local feed and seed rather than our usual source. The result was a smallish group of potatoes that weren't much good for storing or freezing as we usually do. So instead, Lisa canned them which will make them very useful this coming winter.

We will buy some potatoes from our farmers market to fill in the gaps until we can get the garden on a firmer footing.

Our green beans have done very well and most have ended up in jars in the pantry and on or dinner plate as well.  Tomatoes are really coming along. originally, we were worried that we would have a problem with blossom end rot because a few of the early fruit were so afflicted. Not so and we have a wonderful selection of the small cherry tomatoes, some Amish paste and romas for sauce and our favorite Cherokee purple for just plain eating. We have a large pot in the garage fridge filled with tomato puree which will soon become the first of many spaghetti sauce jars to fill the pantry.

vegetable soup- perfect for a cold winter day.

If you see a pattern here its the theme of filling the pantry.  It is such a satisfying feeling to look at those shelves and watch them slowly fill.  It is really a sense of accomplishment that we are providing so much of our own food and we know where it came from and that it wasn't covered with a bunch of pesticides or genetically modified by Monsanto.

Of course, this blog post would not be complete  without a picture of our latest livestock challenge. One of our hens has become very broody and only wanted to sit on a nest even if there weren't any eggs in it.  She stop laying eggs herself and would race back to the nest boxes at every chance she got and was down right moody.  Thanks to google and a couple of our favorite websites, we found that you have to isolate them from the flock and prevent them from getting to the nest for a couple of days.  In fact, the more uncomfortable the better.  I borrowed a bird cage from work and installed her in solitary confinement in the coop for two days.

solitary confinement

This really seemed to be the cure as she has given up the notion of setting on a bunch of eggs that will never hatch and is back to being a responsible member of our chicken community.