Garden Notes: August 2025

  Rainfall

• 3rd: 0.12"
• 4th: 1.53"
• 5th: 0.58"
• 6th: 0.23"
• 11th: 0.69"
• 12th: 0.98"
• 13th: 0.07"
• 14th: 0.25"
• 15th: 0.38"
• 16th: 0.97"
• 20th: 0.03"
• 28th: 0.17"
• 21st: 0.5"
• 22nd: 0.02"
• 23rd: 0.03"
• 24th: 0.32"
• 25th: 0.01"
• 31st: 0.29"
• Total: 7.17 inches

 Temperature

• range of nighttime lows: 55 to 72°F (13 to 22.2°C)
• range of daytime highs: 65 to 92°F (18.3 to 33.3°C)

Weather Notes

• The first was our hottest day, but then rain came and cooled things off for the rest of the month. It was humid, though, so it still felt pretty warm. 
• It was nice to have only one super hot month this year instead of our usual two.

Garden Notes

• The summer glut of produce to pick and preserve has wound down. 
• Fall planting has started.
• As has seed collecting.
• After each bed is harvested and seeds collected, I'll clean it up and tuck it in for winter.

Planted

• daikons
• lettuce
• turnips

Harvested

• okra
• lambs quarter
• slicing tomatoes
• cherry tomatoes
• pears
• apples
• beets
• parsley
• oregano
• basil
• rosemary
• buckwheat
• asparagus
• elderberries
• bell peppers
• walking onions
• muscadines
• green beans

Preserved

• pear sauce, canned
• tomato sauce, canned
• pear vinegar
• basil, dehydrated
• parsley, dehydrated
• elderberries, frozen
• muscadines, frozen

Photos

Okra, Clemson and Jing

Sweet basil

Pears

Pear vinegar

Odd tomato

Late summer asparagus

Muscadine grapes

1st green bean of the season. I don't know why they're so late!

Green bell peppers

Green peppers, sweet potato vines, and cherry tomatoes in the African keyhole garden

If you look closely at the previous photo you can probably spot
the stained glass dragonfly. It was made by our neighbor.

So, August has been a transition month in good ways, from too hot to tolerably hot, from too dry to plentiful rain, and from busy harvest to winding down the garden. How about you? What's your August been like?

Garden Notes: August 2025 © August 2025

by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com

Irish Soda Bread: Experiments With the Recipe

Last St. Patrick' Day, I made Irish Brown Bread, a type of Irish Soda Bread. I had never made it before and found it easy, quick, and quite good. It was crumbly in texture, but the flavor was nice. Nice enough to experiment with.

The Irish Soda Bread recipe that I used for my St. Pat's dinner was the simplest and most traditional recipe I could find. This is because one of my study projects this year is trying to find recipes that are as historically authentic as possible. Part of my objective is to find simple techniques and ways to combine and cook the foods we have available to us. The next step is to see how I can adapt them. 

Basic Irish Soda Bread Recipe

Photo from St. Patrick's Day Dinner

• 4 cups flour (mix of wheat and white as desired, I used 50/50)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1¾ cups buttermilk (I used kefir)

Mix until ingredients are combined (over kneading will toughen the dough). Shape into a round, score a cross on top, and bake at 375°F (190°C) for 35-40 minutes. For a soft crust, wrap the hot bread in a tea towel while it cools.

Experiment #1

Summary: halved the recipe and added 1 duck egg and 1/4 cup less liquid. Baked in my smaller bread pans.

Egg salad on Irish soda bread and kimchi slaw with raisins.

Recipe

• 2 cups flour (50/50 whole wheat and white)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 duck egg
• 3/4 cup kefir

Mix until dough is workable but sticky. Pat into medium size bread pan and bake at 375°F (190°C) for 30 minutes. Cool in baking pan with damp towel over top.

Experiment #2

Summary: Went for a larger loaf using the original amounts of flour. Replaced 1/2 cup of liquid in original recipe with 2 duck eggs. Substituted part of the flour with oatmeal flour because it seems to be added to a lot of modern Irish soda bread recipes.

Recipe

• 3.5 cups flour (50/50 whole wheat & white)
• 1/2 C oatmeal flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 2 duck eggs
• 1 cup kefir
• 1/4 cup milk

Mix dough until kneadable but sticky. Shape and put in large bread pan. Bake at 375°F (190°C) for 1 hour. Leave in pan and cover with damp kitchen towel to cool. 

Experiment #3

Summary: Similar to experiment #2, but I added butter. I didn't have duck eggs so I used chicken eggs. I also didn't have much kefir so I used whey for the full 1.25 cups liquid.

Recipe

• 3.5 cups flour (50/50 whole wheat & white)
• 1/2 C oatmeal flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 2 (chicken) eggs
• 1/4 cup softened butter
• 1.25 cups whey

Mix all ingredients until dough is sticky but workable. Pat into medium size bread pan and bake at 375°F (190°C) for 30 minutes. Cool in baking pan covered with a damp towel.

What did we think?

• All were good and we'd eat any of them again.
• The soda bread texture is different from whole wheat yeast bread but they all sliced nicely.
• My preferred recipe is #3 because the flavor was the best. I'm sure this is because of the butter, which will also likely help keep the loaf from drying out as quickly.

So, I'm calling this a very successful experiment. The best part is having a loaf bread recipe that can be made fairly quickly and with simple ingredients. If I ever run out of yeast, we can still have our toast and sandwiches. 

Irish Soda Bread: Experiments With the Recipe 

 © 2025 by Leighat https://www.5acresandadream.com

Nacho Salad

For summer meals I do as little cooking as possible. That means dinner salads are often on the menu. This one is a take-off on taco salads, but rather than buy taco salad shells, we just use tortilla chips. I lay out the prepared ingredients, and everyone builds theirs to taste. It's an easy to make summer favorite.

Nacho Salad

• Ground meat or leftover chicken seasoned with taco seasoning (I brown mine with chopped onions and bell peppers.)
• Chili beans
• Chopped lettuce
• Grated cheese 
• Chopped tomatoes
• Chopped avocado
• Tortilla chips
• Sauce: mine is ricotta cheese blended with salsa to taste

Start with the chips as the bottom layer and add ingredients to taste. Top with sauce and enjoy!

Recipe notes:

• Obviously you can use any ingredients you want, these are just our favorites. 
• For the sauce, sour cream or cream cheese could be substituted for the ricotta cheese. I use it because I make it from the leftover whey every time I make my goat milk cheeses. 

Nacho Salad © 2025 by Leigh

at https://www.5acresandadream.com

A New Adjustable Frame for the Solar Panels

This has been a year of maintenance and repair projects. Some of it has been pretty routine, like repairing fencing and repainting the barn. Other things have been more challenging, such as building a new frame for our solar panel array. 

Here's the original set-up.

Photo from 2019, when the system was first up and running.

The original panel frame was hinged at the top so we could
adjust the angle of the array depending on the time of year.

Close-up of hinges

You can see more photos of our original setup in this post, Adjusting Our Solar Panels. Being able to adjust them to the angle of the sun has really helped us get the most out of them. 

But. The posts were home-milled and not treated, so eventually they rotted out. No surprise there. In replacing them, Dan decided to try something a little different. One thing he wanted to address was how heavy the frame + array was. So after installing sturdier posts, he made a lighter weight frame. 

Instead of hinges, the frame swivels on a metal pipe.

He also used a different configuration for the panels.

Front

This puts more weight above the pivot point, so that it isn't so bottom heavy. This helps make the frame angle easier to adjust. 

Back

To hold the frame in place, Dan used slotted strut
channels and a steel dowel pounded into the frame.

Here it is adjusted for July. 

And of course, somebody had to claim it . . .

Katy

A New Adjustable Frame for the Solar Panels

© 2025 by Leigh at https://www.5acresandadream.com