Garden Notes: November 2022

Rainfall 

• 5th-6th: 0.25"
• 10th-11th: 1.8" (Nicole)
• 15th: 0.7"
• 25th: 0.05"
• 27th: 0.75"
• 30th: 2.3"
• Total: 5.85 inches

Temperature

• range of nighttime lows: 28-66°F (-2-19°C)
• range of daytime high: 44-80°F (7-26.6°C)

Weather Notes:

• It's flannel bed sheet weather!
• My garden work schedule has changed, now, to doing indoor work in the morning and outdoor work in the afternoon. 

Harvesting and eating

Even though October's frost killed off the summer garden, the cherry tomatoes and pole beans growing on the porch trellis survived. I reckon that's because they are somewhat protected by the eaves of the front porch. They extended our summer harvest for about three more weeks and were very welcome!

summer garden remnants on the front porch trellis

cherry tomatoes, fresh pole beans, and some dry for seed

Of the fall garden, we're getting daikons and greens to go with the last of those cherry tomatoes. 

November salad: cherry tomatoes, feta cheese, and greens
(kale, collards, chickweed, dandelion, turnip, and daikon)

Chopped fresh greens make a nice addition to my frozen leftovers soup.

Before our mid-November freeze I still got a few red raspberries every couple of days.

I added them to the others in the freezer. Sometime this winter I'll make raspberry jelly. After the hard freeze, I cut back the canes for better production next year.

The other thing I harvested was buckwheat.

Mostly seed, but leaves and stems too.

It grew as part of a cover crop mix Dan planted for soil building. Most of it will be for seed, but I'll see about processing some too, for groats and flour.

I'm still working on last summer's wheat.

Winnowing wheat with a box fan.

Last year we got the wheat done in July, but this year July was flooded with figs, pears, and tomatoes, so I didn't have time then. Dan got most of the threshing done, so I'm winnowing as we need flour.

Chicken winnowing clean-up crew

Of the green slicing tomatoes I picked before the frost, we ate the last one right before Thanksgiving.

There's nothing like homegrown tomatoes

Growing

Wheat patch

Garden bed with lettuce, kale, and garlic. The
cattle panel is to keep critters from digging!

Garden bed of daikons. 

African keyhole garden with various young greens.

Planting

It's really too late to plant, but I poked a bunch of fava beans into the garden swale berm and sprinkled the bare spots in the hugelkultur with turnip seeds. Likely, they'll be an early spring crop.

Parting Shot

Our blueberry bush in late autumn color.

I reckon that's it for my November 2022 garden notes. How about you? 

Garden Notes: November 2022 © Nov. 2022

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

Garden Notes: August 2022

 Rainfall

• 1st: 0.35"
• 3rd: 0.125"
• 4th: 1"
• 7th: 0.8"
• 11th: 0.9"
• 17th: 0.1"
• 19th: 0.5"
• 21st: 0.7"
• 26th: 0.1"
• Total: 4.575"

Temperature

• nighttime range: 68-75°F (20-24°C)
• daytime range: 78-94°F (25.5-34.5°C)

No complaints about August weather. We had good rainfall and generally cooler daily temperatures than July. We only saw 90s during the first and last weeks of the month. On the other hand, the higher humidity meant that it felt just as bad as the 90s! What really helps is when it gets down to below 70°F (21°C) at night because we can cool the house down, making it more tolerable during the day.

State of the garden

All I can say is, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Everything is overgrown and runaway so that it looks a mess. But almost everything in it is useful!

Here we have cherry tomatoes, watermelon, mangels, horseradish,
celery, lambs quarter, sweet potatoes, raspberries, cowpeas, landrace 
brassicas, morning glory, a couple of carrots, and a potato plant or two.

Hoophouse: The living shade you see is hopniss, cherry tomatoes, and morning glories.

Also a volunteer winter squash, cultivated grape, and Chinese yams.

My largest sweet potato squash so far.

Inside the hoophouse are winter squash, Malabar spinach, violets,
strawberries (back right bed) and cultivated burdock (back left bed.)

Hugelkultur: winter squash, turtle beans, cherry tomatoes,
chicory, clover, morning glories, lambs quarter, & sunchokes.

Hugelkultur closeup featuring squash and chicory.

African keyhole garden: sweet potatoes and a survivor kale.
The porch trellis is growing green beans and cherry tomatoes.

I planted kale in the keyhole bed about a year ago. This is one of
two plants that survived both our cold winter and hot summer.

Picking and Preserving

Bucket full of cherry tomatoes, a few okra, and one lone pepper.

The cherry tomatoes are still going gangbusters. I got bored with making and canning pizza sauce, so I'm switching to tomato juice and ketchup.

The cucumbers are done, so our salads, now, are cherry tomatoes and kale.

Tomato, kale, and black olive salad
with homemade ricotta ranch dressing.

The okra hasn't been very productive. 

Okra is a member of the hibiscus family.

I don't plant a lot, just enough to have oven-fried okra a couple times a week during growing season, with a little extra to freeze for a side dish during winter. It hasn't produced that much, although it's making a better effort now that our daily highs aren't so scorching and we're getting a little more rain.

August is fig month, and these are the largest figs we've ever seen on our trees.

They aren't all this size, but it's amazing to find them. Can't take any credit, though, because the fig trees are pretty much on their own! They are next to the goat barn, so perhaps they're getting some rich rain runoff.

Breakfast: fresh figs on peanut butter granola with
kefir. Sometimes we swap the figs for diced pears.

There were lots to can.

And dessert!

Fresh fig cake with vanilla goat milk ice cream.

Pear harvest started in late July. The heaviest harvest was a couple weeks ago.

Bucket of pears.

One year, I spent days in the kitchen canning chunked pears, but Dan wasn't very enthusiastic about them. So now, I just make pear sauce. It's easier and faster to do, and we both like it.

Cinnamon pear sauce.

As pear picking slows and the pearsauce jars fill, I switch to drying them. Ditto for figs.

 

The cores and peels are being made into vinegar.

Elderberry harvest starts in late August.

First of the elderberries.

I used the first of them to flavor my canned figs and pearsauce. I also freeze them for jelly making this winter, and will make a couple batches of elderberry wine. This year I want to try an elderberry pear wine. I've experimented with adding other fruits for subtle flavor (of which some are more likable than others).

And a few parting shots.

Buckwheat planted as a cover crop in my newest swale bed.
Only a few plants came up, so this will be my seed crop.

Marigolds and a winter squash blossom.

Our first Orange Glo watermelon of the summer.

I picked the watermelon just the other day. They were planted late, and only after my cantaloupe plants all died. I'm not sure what happened to them. They were doing well until our hot dry spell. I watered them faithfully, but they weren't happy and that was that. The watermelons have done much better and we're just starting to enjoy them.

So there are the pictures to go along with my Summer Mantra blog post. I liked hearing about what you all have been up to in your gardens, so keep the comments coming. 😀

Garden Notes: August 2022 © August 2022

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

Scrapple Fail = Livermush Success?

Dan grew up eating scrapple, but I had never heard of it until we took our first trip to Pennsylvania together. We stopped at a quaint country restaurant for breakfast, and he ordered some for me. Good stuff.

What is scrapple? The basic idea is to make a flour and meal mush, add seasoning and finely ground cooked meats, and pour into molds. The mush solidifies when cool (as cooked cereals are wont to do) so that it can be sliced and fried in butter, lard, or drippings until crispy brown. Serve with maple syrup, applesauce, or buttered grits and you've got a winner.

After we got home I kept my eye out at the grocery stores and would buy it when I could find it. It's not easy to find here in the South where livermush is much more common.

Now, I'd never heard of livermush either, but have come to decide that livermush is the southern equivalent to scrapple. The main differences are that scrapple uses a variety of meat parts and may or may not contain liver. Livermush always contains liver, usually head meat, and uses all corn meal. Scrapple uses flour (often buckwheat) and may or may not include corn meal.  (If you use cooked steel cut oats, it's called "goetta".) For Dan, the only option is scrapple, so when we processed our two young pigs earlier this year, I saved the heads, tongues, and organ meats for making scrapple.

What was difficult was choosing a specific recipe. There must be hundreds of scrapple recipes. While they are basically the same, there are many variations in ingredients and proportions. Which one would taste like what we're used to? I figured if I it wasn't absolutely perfect this year, there is always next year!

So here's somewhat of a recipe, written down mostly for my own record keeping. I did not set out to have these particular amounts, this is just what I ended up with. To cook the meat:

• 2 pig heads (pigs were six months old)
• tongues, livers, hearts, and kidneys
• 1 medium onion, chunked
• 3 celery stalks
• enough filtered water to almost fill a gallon pot

I simmered the heads until the meat was tender, then removed them and deboned the meat. The organ meats were cooked separately in the same broth. The only thing I had to prepare were the kidneys. These were split lengthwise and the white vein removed. Once cooked everything was removed and allowed to cool. The onion and celery were feed to the chickens. I ended up with three quarts of broth. Cooled meat went through the grinder and I ended up with two pounds.

My old meat grinder is smaller and slow, so I bought a new one.
Much faster! For scrapple, the meats are cooked before grinding.

To make the mush:

• 3 qt broth - reserve about 2 cups cold
• 1.5 cup cornmeal
• 0.5 cup buckwheat flour
• 1 tbsp ground sage
• 1 tbsp ground thyme
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp ground rosemary
• 1.5 tbsp salt

First I mixed the flour, corn meal, and seasoning in the cold 2 cups of broth. Doing this made a smooth paste and eliminated lumps when adding it to the simmering broth. When the broth came to a simmer I added the meal paste. I was to simmer until thick and then add the ground meats. Most recipes said it would take about half an hour, but mine was much slower to thicken. It may have been the corn meal. One recipe stated that different brands recommend different amounts when making a cooked corn meal cereal. I used our home grown corn for my meal, so I had only trial and error on which to go.

Once the cereal was thick, the ground meats were stirred in and brought to a simmer again. Joy of Cooking instructed to pour it into bread pans that had been rinsed in cold water. Not sure why, but I did it anyway!

I had enough to fill three small bread pans.

One Sunday morning I took the first one out of the pan and tried to slice it. Observation number one was that it wasn't actually sliceable; it was too soft. I made a mental note to add either more cornmeal next time, or less liquid next time. Instead I formed it into patties and fried it.

It's really tasty fried in sausage or bacon grease.

The verdict? Well, the first tasting was good, but it didn't taste like scrapple. In hindsight I should have used less liver because that was the predominant flavor. Instead of scrapple I figured I had made livermush. It was disappointing on the one hand but delicious on the other.

Because it made so much I had to freeze the rest of it. Scrapple and livermush can be frozen, although it's not recommended. This is because it tends to retain water when it thaws, making it somewhat water logged. I squeeze out the excess water when I form the patties and the rest steams out during cooking. The other trick to good scrapple (or livermush), is to not flip it until the first side is crispy brown. That helps prevent it from falling apart.

I have to say that subsequent servings weren't so strongly liver tasting, so it's possible I didn't thoroughly mix the mush. Either way we like it (although Dan still likes scrapple better). In fact the other night it tasted exactly like the scrapple we've been used to. We had it with creamed hard-cooked eggs on toast (pictured at the top of the post). For an authentic Southern breakfast serve it with scrambled eggs and buttered grits.

Scrapple Fail = Livermush Success? © May 2016 

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

Garden 2012: Pretty Was Last Year

I love a pretty garden: neat, trim, weedless, well cared for, loads of blooming and interesting plants, inviting, storybook-like, etc., However, that takes a lot of work and this year, I've had a lot of gardening challenges, obstacles, challenges to deal with. This year I'm just trying to get by.

Time was one problem, which is no surprise because of our kitchen remodel. In retrospect, I probably should have foregone a garden this year. Most of our house repair and remodel projects are reserved for winter months, when it's too wet and cold to do anything outside. But, when you don't have a floor or a sink, you press on no matter what time of year it is. No regrets about doing that. ;)

Weather too has been a problem. We usually have a drought-like dry spell every summer. This year, in addition to a very wet spring which delayed planting, we've had a very wet July (9 inches), and August has started off the same (6.65 inches so far). August has also had cooler temperatures, which are welcome, but that means the ground isn't drying out as fast. Going to pick tomatoes has meant walking on paths squishy with mud. It's also why my tomato cages fell over....

Staked & caged tomatoes fell over due to rain & wind

They looked better after being retied...

The empty bed in the above photo was where I planted an experimental patch of beardless barley. Obviously it didn't make it. Disappointing, but I'll try again next year.

Knee highs as tomato ties

For tomato ties, my stepmom turned me on to strips cut from pantyhose or knee highs. Not that I wear them anymore LOL, (does anybody?) They're strong and don't cut into the plants.

I used my volunteer broom corn here for the stakes.


I have to say I'm pleased with this year's variety, Amish Paste.

Amish Paste tomatoes in all shapes & sizes

Prolific and tasty for both fresh eating and sauce, I think I have a new favorite. Canned pizza sauce is my preservation priority. After that I'd like to can more tomato and okra gumbo. I made it with chicken last year and with rice it made the tastiest lunch! This year I'd like to try it with chevon, but that will depend on how much okra I get...

Late planted okra in front, 4 o'clocks in the back

Like everything else, I was late getting it planted. Still, it usually produces too much, so hopefully I can get enough for a batch or two of gumbo. Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind canning more pickled okra too. Once it starts producing, it will continue until first frost, usually around the middle of October for us.

My other (and perpetual) problem, is wire grass.

Wiregrass taking over my strawberry bed &
spreading to the cucumbers & bush beans.

Wiregrass is another name for Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon) aka couch grass. It's promoted in the US as a cover crop, and for pasture, hay, lawn, sports turf, and erosion control. Gardeners don't like nor want it, and nobody seems to have much success in permanently getting rid of it. "Respectable" cultivars include costal bermuda and the tiftons, all sold as hay around here. Actually the goats will eat it, a bite here and there. Unfortunately it chokes everything else out and spreads where it isn't wanted. Plus being prostrate, it's not easy to cut with a scythe for hay.

We've found that smothering works the best. Not just a 6 to 12 inch layer of mulch, but several layers of cardboard or a 4 foot tall pile of leaves, sticks, and branches. For now, I covered one empty bed with a tarp, and mulched the aisle with feedbags and leaves. I tried to weed and mulch the bed, but if it can find even a smidge of light, it grows.

A month or so after weeding and tarping. The covered wiregrass is
still under control. What I weeded grew right back.

Honestly, this stuff has me so discouraged that I hardly have the heart to battle it. It's everywhere and is taking over everything. Cardboard works best for the the aisles and even lasts awhile.

Main path in cardboard mulch (mostly)

Dan's objection to cardboard mulch is that it looks, well, ugly. Still, it does the trick and lasts for the season. The next year, it starts to look unkempt ....

Remnants of 2011's cardboard mulch.

Some things are looking good however, like my sweet potatoes...

2 beds of Vardaman sweet potatoes

These are Vardamans. I grew them last year and was very pleased with how well they stored in the pantry. My problem with them this year has been deer. These have been the deers' snack of choice this year. In fact they almost wiped out one bed. To try to save the harvest, Dan made me a scaredeer...

My scaredeer. Get it? A scarecrow for deer? 

The deer come out of the woods at night, right up this path. Happily our scaredeer has worked and the sweet potatoes have recovered. I just have to remember to move it every couple of days so the deer don't get used to seeing it.

Last year their snack of choice was buckwheat.

A bed of volunteer buckwheat, blooming

I didn't mind them eating this so much and considered it a distraction from things I wanted to harvest. They ate it down to nothing but it reseeded anyway and I have a bedfull of volunteer buckwheat.

I know this has been a long post but I've had two months to catch up on. And now it's time to start planting the fall garden. Amazing how quickly the summer has flown by, isn't it?

Garden 2012: Pretty Was Last Year © August 2012
by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/