Dehydrated Garlic

Wow! It has been ages since I sat down to write something! I haven’t forgotten about it, as I have been taking pictures regularly and emailing them to myself so that I don’t forget! Or sometimes when I have a topic picked out, I realize I don’t have pictures! And what is the fun with no pictures? Personally, I find the pictures are the best part of reading a blog! So anyway, today I have a night home alone, now the children are in bed and I have time as well as energy to write!

Peeled and sliced, Notice the lines
in the one on the bottom left?

Today I am writing about dehydrating my own garlic spice, ever since we have started growing our own garlic I have been looking for new ways to process it, especially the small bulbs that we don’t want to sell, these small bulbs are always a ton of work! Anyway, there are some things that it is harder to use fresh garlic in, (meat balls, hamburger paddies, meat loaf, soups and sauces) so I still always bought garlic salt. Not anymore though! The first time I tasted my homemade stuff I decided I was never going to waste my money buying it again, homemade is sooo much stronger, and better tasting in general! You might ask if the variety of garlic makes a difference, I didn’t experiment with keeping the variety’s separate as I mostly am just trying to get rid of the small bulbs, as well as sometimes when we are harvesting a bulb gets sliced in half, but there are still a few good cloves on it, we had saved those as it just feels wrong throwing out a perfectly good garlic clove. Well I have found a few good uses for these and dehydrated garlic is one!

Ready to be baked! (excuse my dirty oven!)

Given how much work it is, I am not sure if it is cost effective, but the fact that I am getting natural garlic, and knowing how it is grown and processed means a lot to me. We are hopping to get an automatic garlic peeler some day, I do get teased about being one, as one day the garlic is still in its papers, and the next day its pealed! Anyway it’s a lot of work to peel all the little cloves, I am thinking to try just chopping the garlic up next time and once it is dry the papers should just come loose, so I might be able to separate it by pouring it into a different container in the wind. Its totally worth a try as the peeling is by far the most work!

After pealing I slice each clove up as it just makes it dry faster, once it is in the dehydrator it doesn’t really matter how long it takes, but I find for the little extra work it takes to slice it I might as well save the energy, and I LOVE the smell of fresh sliced garlic! Yes I know I am crazy, but honestly the only time that I do not like the smell of garlic is when its on someone’s breath, and the only people I get close enough, to actually notice is my husband and children so normally the smell doesn’t bother me at all.

Anyway back to the garlic. After it is sliced I pop it in the oven for about two hours at the lowest temp that my oven will go which is 170 Fahrenheit. This makes it dehydrate faster, also uncooked garlic is a lot stronger when cooked, as well as the smell stays on a persons breath a lot longer (hint* if garlic is cooked correctly you can rarely smell it on a persons breath, as well as the more you eat it the less likely a person will smell it) during the time that you are cooking it, your house will smell very strong, and not the fresh smell either, thankfully once you open the windows it goes away pretty fast. So once it is done cooking, I put it in my dehydrator, I cant tell you how hot I have it as I don’t know. My husband made me a huge dehydrator and we just have a little space heater in it, so I basically put it on full heat and full fan until it is done, which for me was two days. I just keep it drying until I cant squeeze or bend the biggest slices, and if I don’t have time to grind it I just keep it drying until I am ready. The last step is popping it into the blender! It makes a ton of noise so don’t do it when anyone is sleeping! I just put a little bit in at a time and then slowly added it as it was blending, otherwise it takes to long! I have a bunch of extra spice jars that I got from my sister in law and I just filled them all with garlic spice!

Though the peeling takes quite a bit of time, for the rest it is super simple! And I have nice healthy garlic salt!

Fermented Honey Garlic.

Peeling each individual piece is the most work!

I am so excited about my fermenting journey so far!! of course being that our family is so busy with garlic right now I had to try fermented garlic! after doing some searching I found a recipe that is right up my alley! my dad is a hobby bee farmer and some day I would like to have a bee hive of my own as well, so when I saw fermented honey garlic of course I had to try it!!! little did I know how much work it was going to be to peel the garlic! but so far it has been worth it!

Fermenting is actually super easy however, before I understood the process and how healthy it is for a person I would have thought leaving food on your kitchen counter and then eating it was like poisoning yourself! But when following the right protocol it changes from being bad for you to being super healthy!!! I imagine it as a probiotic super food! plus, honey is a super food as well as garlic, so I mean, what could go wrong, right?! So far nothing! when keeping the garlic whole it does take a bit longer for it to ferment. I haven’t tasted it yet, but it smells amazing, and the bit of honey that has bubbled over the side tastes awesome, it also looks super interesting and has turned into quite the conversation starter when people see it on my counter. So far the garlic is still floating in the honey and bubbles are still forming, both these things mean it is still actively fermenting. Around 5 weeks or when the garlic starts settling it has reached its ready to eat stage.

So know you are wondering how do I make the stuff? well, basically just peel garlic, add it to a jar until the jar is full, I shook mine down and added some smaller ones in between to get it as full as I could, then pour honey on top till it covers the garlic. Put the lid on quite lose so that it has room to bubble and store it on the shelf, 4-5 feet away from any other ferment you might have going on as you don’t want the ferments to blend, then let sit for 5 weeks or more. cloves can be eaten at anytime but to get a good ferment let sit for 4-6 weeks.

And one tip. Keep on a plate or in a bowl as it may leak! and honey is very sticky!

Another article I read advised to stir it once a day, however I did not do this as every other article I have read about fermenting advised against opening the lid of a ferment as you don’t want to introduce bad bacteria to it.

One more thing, if it forms mold please through out and try again. Some people say just scoop the mold off, so its up to you, I feel mold should not be able to grow in a healthy environment so if mold is growing the whole thing is probably bad, and its better safe than sorry.

Garlic. Garlic, Garlic!

Ok so this last month has been so busy! Partly because the garden is coming out, fresh fruit is finally ripe, so tons of canning. As well as the garlic harvest is done, which means cleaning and selling it starts! as well as school starting! I feel like this house has been a buzz of activity and its finally starting to slow down! We still have a bunch of stuff in the garden that needs to come out, as well as now starts fall cleaning! but in general I don’t wake up with my brain whirring or go to bed going through the list of stuff that I didn’t get done! to top it all off the field next door got harvested and we had a mouse family migrate to our house! well with the help of a bunch of mouse traps we got that taken care of in short order!

Through all the business I have been experimenting with some new to me ingredients, as well as new cooking styles, now I am so excited to share them with you! my sister came over and helped me figure out the technique of sour dough bread (I will share this with you next time) and now that has opened up the world of traditional cooking to me! I am hoping to experiment more with that this winter when I have more time. Right now I am also learning how to cook with garlic. This is an ingredient that we have always enjoyed eating, our family loves the rich flavor garlic adds to our dishes. Since we have started growing it I use it a lot more and try a few different things! the recipe I want to talk about to day is the extreme but it was delicious!

Well my dad has been growing garlic for years, just enough for himself and he grew most of our seed. Anyway, last fall when we where planting he sent me a recipe that took 40 cloves of garlic!! Well, i was curious what so much garlic would taste like in one pot so I told him next year we could have him over for supper and try it out! it was amazing! and, to top it off I made a delicious garlic dip for with the french fries. My brother and his girlfriend came as well which was kinda stressful because not everyone loves garlic! anyway here is the chicken recipe! I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Chicken with forty cloves garlic.

2 cups coarsely chopped yellow onions

2 large celery stalks coarsely chopped

Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper

3-4 lb of chicken

40 plump garlic cloves

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

¼ cup dry white wine

1/3 cup mixed fresh herbs (such as Tarragon, Thyme, lemon verbena, lovage, chervil, parsley, rosemary, lavender)

Preheat oven to 375*F . combine onions and celery in a 5 1/2 quart dutch oven, preferably cast iron. rub salt and pepper inside chicken and place bird over onion mixture. scatter garlic cloves around chicken. pour olive oil, white wine over chicken and garlic. season generously with more salt and pepper. place 2 TBSP herbs inside chicken. scatter remaining herbs over chicken and garlic cloves. cover pot tightly, first with heavy foil, and then with the lid. Roast chicken for 1 1/2 hours. chicken should be fork tender; it will not be browned. carve and serve.

Apple sauce

I LOVE this time of year!!! accept for the fact that I am living in what seems to be a constant state of over whelm and exhaustion! so much work to do! so much planning to get done! and cleaning! oh, and flies!!!! We have so many flies! I don’t know what to do about them! lately I spray konk every night after the kids are in bed, this does mean I have to vacuum every evening as well, but its a small price to pay for going with out flies till about 4 pm the next afternoon. Its as if they know its fall and while I am trying to store up food for our winter they are trying to find a home for winter! Cant say I blame them I guess! Anyway, this post is not about flies, though if you have a better way of getting rid of them than konk, or a fly swatter as there are just to many! then please share your tricks with me! Now we started by talking about apple sauce.

My mom has a huge crab apple tree, and though many people dont like using crab apples for apple sauce because you need to add sugar. We love the beautiful pink color that the apples give, As well as the many other benefits, free apples, usually extra help because mom loves helping out! This year both my sisters needed apple sauce as well and, given the size of moms tree she has enough apples for all three of us girls as well as a lady from our church that has been coming to mom for apples for many years. Anyway since we all needed sauce and we feel many hands make light labor we all decided to get together in moms big garage and make our apple sauce, we also made a bunch of juice, while everything is sticky we might as well just get all the apple stuff done at once hey?!

Talk about a crazy, exhausting, and enjoyable day! I feel like there is something special about getting together with my birth sisters, (our sister in laws have their own apples) at the house that we grew up in, spending the day making apple sauce for our winter stores! As kids we did this with mom, for mom, but now she doesn’t need apple sauce anymore, so we got to do it for ourselves. On big work days like this watching my mom with our children really brings to light the blessing God has given of seeing each generation to the next, I don’t really know how to describe it in words, but my heart feels full of thankfulness and joy! Anyway together we made about 100 jars of preserves!!! 75 jars of apple sauce, and 25 of juice, feels so go to see them all sealed and lined up on the shelves in our storage rooms!!!

My mom has a propane burner outside that we can have two large pans of apples on it at once. So when we had the first wheel barrow of apples picked, rinsed, and the ends taken of, we started the pans going and with the four of us it was pretty much go non stop, until we turned the burners off! Which we tried not to do because the starter didn’t work, we had to use a match and trying to get under a full pan at the burner, with a short match isn’t really my idea of fun!!! One of us was keeping the pans going while the other was cranking the sauce machine, and the other two where running after kids, making the juice and making sure all the jars where clean and had good seals! By the end of the day I think all of us where about ready to drop! Dad came and made us lunch which we ate outside, kinda helps contain the mess! The six children played so well together, which always makes things easier!!!

Mormon dinner

I am quite sure the first question I am going to get is ‘why is it named that?’ I honestly don’t know! This is a recipe from my grandma, my mom made it a lot when growing up and now I make it! This meal is as good with as without meat so maybe that’s why the chosen name? I couldn’t say! But this is an amazing, easy one pot meal using all the fresh veggies from the garden! Which also makes it super cheap! In our family we only eat this in the summer because the best veggies for it come right out of the garden and we are all quite avid gardeners! I love the smell of fresh tilled dirt in the spring, the anticipation of waiting for the seeds I have planted to come up! The reward of our hard work when harvest time comes, as well as the pure joy on my children’s face when they find out there are sweet juicy peas inside the stringy pod, or the thrill of hunting through the leaves and finding a forgotten zucchini or cucumber that is way over grown! (And through their excitement I am sitting here groaning inside myself wondering what I am going to do with the ‘daddy’ vegetable!)

This meal can be made so many different ways! This one I did not add potato’s to mainly because I forgot! As well as it seems like carrots are a bit later than peas so I ended up taking frozen peas. (But still from my garden!) There are a few vegetables that I don’t think would go well with this mix, such as tomatoes and peppers, but basically this is an ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ kinda meal! Which is also great for when you have little bits of this and that, that are just not getting used up!

To start chop up your onion, we like bigger chunks, but if you have picky eaters in the family you can do small chunks so they are hidden among the other tasty veggies. Fry them up in a bit of avocado oil, I just recently switched to avocado oil rather than olive oil as it can handle higher heats before the quality starts lowering, and I am well known for cooking on high! anyway as that fries, flatten and mince your garlic then add to the pan, fry on low. (you don’t want to over fry the garlic as it burns quickly.) normally I have my carrots, beans, zucchini, broccoli, peas and potatoes, or any other veggies you want added, chopped and ready to go. So once the garlic is in, with in a minute you can just add all the rest, then add 1 cup of meat stock, I have used both chicken and beef before, place the lid on and simmer for 30 min or until everything is cooked through. we enjoy meat with most of our warm meals so for this meal I normally put a sausage on top, (this still keeps it a 1 pot meal) then last minute slice it and mix it in, if you enjoy the sausage flavor mixed through the whole meal just slice it up and fry it at the same time as the onions.

Once the vegetables are all soft you will need a cream soup mix package, today I used a Cream of leak package as I accidentally bought this type instead of asparagus. It was delicious though so I will probably do it again! mix the soup package with cold water, about a cup and then add to the pan, this is normally around the time that I tell the family supper is ready as it sometimes takes our family a bit of time to get to the kitchen table and I like to eat our food hot! By the time the soup package has done its work and everything has thickened the family is ready to eat!

Mormon dinner

Recipe:

1 Onion

3 cloves garlic

1 cup chopped carrots

1 cup chopped green beans

1 cup chopped zucchini

1 cup peas

1 cup broccoli florets

1 cup soup stock

Salt, pepper and dill to taste

1 cream soup package

Champagne of milk

Ever heard of the champagne of milk? otherwise known as kefir. Years ago my mom made it but we didnt use it enough so she quit, since then I have learnt some of the health benefits, as well as talked with some friends who have made it. I have been keeping an eye open for my own kefir grains and finally my Aunt from Holland came over and happened to have some extra kefir grains that she was hoping to give to someone, with her. Thankfully she happened to mention it when I was visiting! I jumped at the chance to get some grains!

Thus started my journey with Kefir. The first night it went to long and ended up getting watery, we still drank it as its supposed to still be healthy but just a bit more sour. Then after doing some research I found out that you can ferment berries with it, after you take out the kefir grains, as a second fermenting, just to make it berry flavored. We had some raspberries from my mother in laws garden so tried it out, not only did it turn a beautiful pink color, it also tasted delicious. I do have to admit kefir is a bit of an acquired taste! and am not sure I have totally acquired the taste, but we don’t mind it in smoothies, and it is soo healthy!!!

Kefir has tons of pro-biotics, which is the first thing that intrigued me, I have a son that gets eczema in the winter, and gets diarrhea from the littlest things, (ironically I think we can accuse berries for this,) he is a super happy little boy, but certain foods he has an intolerance to. I have recently learnt that gut health has a lot to do with a persons (in)tolerance to different foods. Pro, as well as pre-biotics are essential to a persons gut health. putting the two together we are trying to get more pre, and pro-biotics into our family. Kefir is known to fight some type’s of cancer cells, boosts immunity (with three children under three it sometimes seems like we are always fighting a cold with one or more of us!) also helps with irritable bowel syndrome, if you do your own research you will find that probiotics help with a ton most of these symptoms as well. (which is mainly what kefir is) Sometimes I feel that we spend a lot of our money trying to find vitamins,minerals and probiotics in a pill shape, not realizing that by eating properly we could be saving a lot of money. Once I heard that vitamins just make expensive pee, though I don’t believe this completely I do wonder how much of the concentrated vitamins our bodies can actually absorb!

Now how to make the health drink! as you have guessed by now you first need kefir grains. You can by then dried on line, I am not sure if you start dry ones the same as wet ones, if you can find someone that has kefir grains this is easiest as well as cheap. Kefir grows, and breaks of into more little pieces. These pieces are great to eat, mix into smoothies or give away so someone else can enjoy the health benefits. Next you need milk, if you can get milk straight from the cow great! if not next best is organic. I myself use 2% so far and it works great. you also need two jars, I just use big mason jars.

You put the kefir grains in a jar, fill with milk, if you only have a small amount of grains it will either take longer to ferment or you can use a smaller jar, let sit on your counter, in the warmest spot. For us it is summer and we don’t have air conditioning, so I don’t think we have a warmer or cooler spot! It’s all just HOT. Let sit for 24 hours or until you see it separating, mix it up once or twice throughout that time. Pour the mixture through a sieve into a bowl, I sieve it back and forth a few times so that the kefir grains are totally rinsed off. The liquid is now “kefir” or champagne of milk, ready to drink if you want. If you want to ferment berries in it, add the berries to the jar, with the kefir (with out the grains) and let sit for another 4-6 hours. We enjoy ours cold, so I have mine that I take the grains out in the evening then we can drink it in the morning. I rinse my grains with cold water (never warm or hot) before adding them to the jar to re use, it gets rid of the curd like texture. Then you are ready for the next batch. We make a fresh batch every day, however if you find your family is not drinking it as fast as you are making it, you can store the grains in the fridge in a jar with just a little milk, for 3 days, if you still dont need it just change the milk and store in the fridge again. Should you go on holidays, just store it in a large jar of milk, it will last up to two weeks. The kefir grains grow of the sugar in the milk, this is the main reason you want to keep fairly fresh milk in the jar.

Left over Coffee

You know that last inch in the pot that gets thrown out every time because it either gets to strong or old or it’s not enough for anything? Well STOP throwing it out!!! The other day I was by my sister in law Janice and she unwittingly gave me an idea for the best summer drink ever! She was sitting at the kitchen island drinking something black. I thought maybe it was unfizzy coke because, well, I couldn’t imagine what else it was!!! Anyway she’s like ‘no, it’s just the leftover coffee.’ when ever she had extra coffee she would put it in the refrigerator to drink cold when she didn’t want to make fresh coffee. At first I thought ‘really?! Isn’t that gross?!’

Whipping cream is always a great addition

Well, the seed had been planted and I went home thinking. The next time I had left over coffee it went in the refrigerator to, of course it went bad. But then hot weather came and Randy decided he wanted to start drinking less coffee, but I really enjoy my coffee so my left-over coffee went in the refrigerator again! This time I was determined to use it! However, for some reason I don’t like cold, unsweetened coffee! I drink my hot coffee black but cold just needs additional condiments!!! I bought some java syrup and put a squirt in, that was good but I wasn’t satisfied yet. I froze some sweetened coffee in my ice cube tray, then I filled my cup with coffee cubes, and added cold coffee, I was much happier, but being a mom I usually drink my coffee colder then I ever would have dreamed of! So if I am drinking frozen coffee it better be good!!! I had some thick cream in the fridge, did you know when you add cream on top of ice cubes it slowly mixes with the coffee as it sinks and looks really cool? Well I didn’t, but just looking at my coffee that time made me feel all kinds of excitement, so of course I thought it tasted the best that way! Another weird thing about me and coffee is that when I drink my coffee hot I like it in a clay mug, (the more colourful, and weird shaped the better) but my cold coffee I like in a glass mug, preferably a mason jar! As a teenager I would often roll my eyes at my mom, as she didn’t enjoy drinking wine by her mom because her mom didn’t use wine glasses, because she thought wine is wine and tastes as good in a plastic cup as in a fancy glass! Well, now I understand my mom a bit better because I kinda agree! A drink tastes better depending on the cup it’s in!

Well, I have tried many different versions of iced coffee, such as making bullet proof coffee and freezing it into cubes, that didn’t turn out as the fat from the butter and coconut oil just floated to the top as it froze. Also just cold bullet proof doesn’t work good as it get flakes on top too. My usual go to is cold sweetened coffee, milk and an icecube, blend it all up in my bullet and pour into a glass. One thing I love about the bullet is the foam that comes on top! But my favourite is still the original recipe, of frozen coffee cubes, cold coffee, and a bit of heavy cream. It’s just I don’t always have coffee cubes as you use quite a bit, as well as I rarely have heavy cream in the house.

My Children try finish of all my last drops!

Oh, one other addition that I love, especially in the evening after a long hot day when Randy and I are sitting on the swing rehashing the day, is Kaluha! Which is another thing I normally don’t go for in hot coffee, is alcohol. In our family it is kinda traditional to have baileys or something in our coffee around Christmas time or when we are camping. I usually opt out just because I think its a waste of calories! (not that I am counting!) however in my cold coffee its AMAZING! if I don’t want to drink a whole glass of coffee I will also just drink Kaluha on coffee cubes. The coffee just adds a bit of zest to the Kaluha!

I would write up a recipe, but the truth is a person can make so many variations it’s really not worth it! If you are trying to go sugar free you can skip the java syrup, or if you like more or less ice, more, less or no milk/cream that’s also easy to do! I mean Janice just drank plain cold coffee and she totally enjoyed it! So basically do what you like and experiment.

Home made bread

Ok, some how this week has gotten away from me!!! I was planning on publishing this post on Tuesday, but some how today is Friday and it still isn’t posted!!! We are working on it now so and as you read through it hopefully I get some slack for my busy week! In my opinion nothing is better than fresh home made bread! I love the feel of the soft dough in my hands and the work of squeezing and shaping. I also love the smell! The scent of fresh rising yeast, then as you bake it YUMMM!

One great memory I have from my childhood was, when my mom decided it was a rainy day or that we needed a break from traditional school work, and she would say it was time to make bread. Usually she would call on one of her daughters to come help her mix ingredients, telling us when to touch the dough so she could teach us exactly how it was supposed to feel, I explain this more in the last paragraph. Then we would clean dishes to give it time to rise. (to this day it’s my worst part!) When it came to shaping sometimes we did buns, braid bread, pull apart bread, or regular loaves. I find in our house hold we eat more buns, so that’s what I made this week, anyway my mom would always try to teach us to shape our buns as round and smooth as we could. I have never been able to master the perfect bun that she was capable of putting on the tray. However sometimes I think maybe I didn’t try hard enough either because I LOVE eating irregular shape buns, I will always go for the oddest shape or the bun with the most scars on the top. I cant help but feel that we try so hard to live up to what is deemed “perfect” by society, not realizing that perfect is none existent. So lets just sit back and enjoy the imperfections of life.

Shaped buns ready for the second time rising.

Normally I don’t make much bread as Randy finds bread dry, I think it’s because he doesn’t put enough ‘stuff’ on it! However, that’s beside the point. My youngest in laws where coming ‘camping’ or tenting for 2 nights this week so I needed something easy and quick for meals! Excitedly I planned on making buns, not remembering how hot bread makes your house! Which, in the summer when we have no airco and it’s 30 degrees…. well not super smart but, oh well I got to enjoy making and eating fresh bread! Usually by the end of the day my house is as warm inside as outside anyway so Monday it just happened a little earlier than normal! And wow, was the bread worth it!

What is your favourite way of eating fresh bread? I think my favourite is hot with cheese wiz or cheddar cheese. My mom loves hot bread with sugar, I do to but I still think the cheeses win!

Before I give you the recipe I need to say bread is a lot about how it “feels”, often in a bread recipe you will see two numbers for the amount of flour you need to use, the reason for this is that it depends on what kind of flour you use as well as how warm the water that you use is. I usually use Robin Hood flour, and even though the recipe I am giving you says white flour, I used half whole wheat bread four and half rye flour. Normally when you use a heavier flour you will also need less. What my mom thought me is after everything is added to tether knead for 5-10 min (kinda depends how much time you have🤷‍♀️) then touch the dough with your fingers, if it’s quite sticky add more flour and if it’s only a little bit sticky then it’s good.

So for the recipe: Boys best buns

4 cups warm water

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp salt

1 TBSP vinegar

1/2 cup margarine, melted

1 egg

9-10 cups flour

1 TBSP instant yeast.

Boil the water, put in your mixing bowl, add frozen margarine (as it melts it cools the water to the correct temp) add sugar, salt, and vinegar. Set mixer on low till margarine is melted. Add egg, then half the flour. Add the yeast and mix for two minutes, then add flour one cup at a time, often I will add the last cup half a cup at a time, just to see if I need 9 or 10 cups. Once the dough is no longer sticking to the sides, and isn’t super sticky, knead for 5-10 min. Then let rise in a warm area till about double its size, 30-40 min, punch down, shape into balls, and place on a greased baking sheet. Let rise again till double in size. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 min. or till light brown (I always turn baking sheet around half way through for a more even cook) brush warm tips with butter

First Pea Harvest

Our first peas are here!!! Usually by the end of summer I am ready to be done with gardening! All the work, planting, watering, weeding, harvesting, and putting in the freezer or canning, just gets me exhausted by the end of the summer and I am ready for it all to be over. But the first pickings of everything is always such a fulfilling time!!! I only seeded one row this year. Normally I feel that peas are way more work than they are worth. But I love fresh peas, as well as watching the kids go hunting every time they are hungry.

Well yesterday as I was weeding I saw that there where a bunch of thick pea pods. First I thought it was only going to be a hand full so was reminding Tristen how to hunt for them (he figured it out last year already) well he was pretty excited! He doesn’t always pick the thick ones but what ever, it’s partly just the fun of eating from the garden! Anyway I got to picking and had two thirds of a gallon! Plus, the ones we all ate fresh while I was picking.

Well since taking these pictures I have come to the conclusion that my youngest son gets hives from uncooked peas, as this is the first time he has eaten more then one or two and about an hour after he had eaten them he got this red, hive like rash on his neck, back and sides, as well as around his belly button. It didn’t seem to bother him but kinda worried me! I gave him Benadryl, and the rash seemed to lighten up. This would be really to bad for him. hopefully he grows out of it! as there is nothing like the sweet treasures found in the long, round, green pea pod!

Now what to do with them?! It’s hardly enough to use as a veggie with a meal, but to much for a snack.

Freshly podded peas! so delicious!

Easy Garden Border

In the last post I was talking about all the work that goes on around this yard in the summer! Well one of the things we have been working on is a border around the garden. When we moved here we basically cultivated a strip of dirt on the edge of the lawn to make the garden, which does work great. However if there is a border its so much easier to keep the weeds out! This is our third year of living here and finally my husband got tired of it and decided to do something about it.

We where trying to find rail road ties as we thought that might be cheap, but after finding out used rail road ties are not cheap, and very hard to find, we voted for new wood. Though new wood isn’t cheap either, we wanted something, well off to Home Hardware we go! we ordered 2″x10″ and 2″x6″

We started by digging a deep trench 10 inches or so, around the garden where we wanted the border. Then placed the 2″x10″ vertically in the ditch, and screwed the 2″x6″ horizontally on top.

The main reason for having the 2×10 vertically in the ground is so that hopefully the board is lower than the weed roots and seeds so that we are building a barrier to stop the grass from spreading into the garden. Even though we love our lawn and try to keep it green and healthy, when it is growing into the garden we consider it a pest! Interesting how a plant is considered a weed mainly by where it is growing! Recently I learnt that the dandelion is not native to North America, it was brought here for its healing properties and looks. I still think the dandelion is beautiful but not when its in MY space! When its taking nutrients from the soil that I have cultivated for my plants! Ok, but we are getting off track. The reason for the 2×6 laying horizontally on the top of the 2×10 is because we want to have a clear distinction between the garden and lawn as well as this way we can mow right up to the border, and with the weed whipper we will be able to go under the board thereby hopefully keeping the grass from looking messy!

Since we have just put this in place this week we obviously do not know if it is going to work the way we want it to or not yet. I will have to let you know next spring. According to Randy we will be able to rototiller right up the to the edge of the wood which was my biggest worry! But since the board is 10 inches down it is to deep for the tines of the rototiller to get underneath so it shouldn’t cause any problems.

Our Old MacDonald Farm

Daily Life on Our Farm

Dehydrated Garlic

Fermented Honey Garlic.

Garlic. Garlic, Garlic!

Apple sauce

Mormon dinner

Champagne of milk

Left over Coffee

Home made bread

First Pea Harvest

Easy Garden Border