Category Archives: Square Food Garden

Monday Menu Post

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This weekend, we cooked and celebrated Kendall’s birthday!  The month of June was very busy and I don’t feel like I was able to even start with preservation and preparation for next school year. But that is going to change this week!  I am back on track with meal planning and preparation.

Breakfast- Saturday- Bacon, sausage and pancakes,   Sunday-Cracker Barrel.  Monday- Tuesday, Wednesday, – find it (breakfast burritos, muffins, oatmeal, omelets cereal and milk, French toast sticks, sausage, pop-tarts, and eggs). Thursday- my plan is to make Dutch Boy pancakes. Friday- Baked oatmeal with hopefully preparation of at least 12 dry mixes.
Lunch- Saturday-Chicken salad and spinach dip.   Sunday- Left-over pizza  Monday- left-overs Tuesday, -Wednesday, Thursday- Leftovers or wraps
Dinner- Saturday-Pizza from Dominos Sunday-Kendall’s party Monday- Red Robin for Kendall’s birthday.      Tuesday-Pasta Salad (left-over) Wednesday-Baked Spaghetti with one in the freezer   Thursday- 4th of July – probably hamburgers and hot dogs  Friday- Left-over baked ziti.

Gardening Update

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As you probably realize I got very little behind last week.  So my plan for this week is to catch up to the point that I am only spending about 15 minutes a day in the garden.  The first thing I wanted to tackle was the blue berries.

I ended up spending over an hour between harvesting and weeding the beds this morning (Monday).  I was rewarded with

I have frozen most of these. But the kids told me they have also really been enjoying eating them fresh off the bushes.

Every Bit Challenge
1. Half a gallon of blueberries frozen.
2  One extra meal in the freezer for next year. I also made two additional meals for this week as well.
3. I was able to make some sautéed zucchini and squash for dinner as well as I added 3 more bags of squash casserole mix to the freezer.

Not a lot but hey EVERY BIT COUNTS!

 

Sunday Garden Update

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I had actually debated even doing an update this week, but my excitement changed my mind. We have blueberries!  And I mean I have frozen at over a pint, and we still have some for fresh eating!

In the ugggh department, we are in a battle with the squash bugs already!  I have killed at least 10 and we have thrown every single egg I could find into the chickens,   The other thing we are doing to coffee water.

I spent some time pruning tomatoes, and we are starting to see some small tomatoes. I am so very hopeful for a huge tomato harvest this year.  The pepper plants are growing and we have eaten the one and only pepper we have. I am hoping for lots more in the coming weeks.  We have green bean plants in three separate locations with several blossoms. The cucumber plants are different. Some are growing, others just appear to have stopped. I am losing hope but will continue to wait. .

Every Bit Counts Challenge
Last week was really busy and I have been struggling just to keep up.  But I was able to add a couple of things.
I cooked and froze 3 bags for squash casseroles.
I made and canned a couple of pints of strawberry syrup.
We have at least 4 gallon bags of frozen strawberries.
1 pint of frozen blueberries.

Thursday Thoughts

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One of the big things happening this summer is home repair and renovation. Because I am available during the day to watch and move things, it makes sense for most of this to occur in the summer. We started a line of credit this Spring to help make this easier and more efficient.   So far we have painted the hall bathroom and hallway and installed a new shower rod. We have purchased a new cabinet and faucet with a plan to install this week.  A new toilet will be installed when the floor is replaced.  The floor in the hall, dining room, kitchen and laundry room is scheduled to be replaced on June 18th.  The goal is to repaint the kitchen and dining room prior to the flooring just for convenience sake.  We already have the paint for this but I don’t think it will happen this weekend. We also have received a quote to have our shower room fixed and expanded. This is likely going to occur in June as well. We will be having our old deck replaced as well.   We have scheduled to have the septic tank pumped on June 20th.  The next item on the list is to replace the front door.   I am not sure if there is anything else we will tackle as this is most of our “dream” items.  Except for a “garage” on the front.

I have been focused on slowly starting to build back up our freezers and pantries. I am trying to complete one item a day.  Sunday- frozen bananas (another 3#), Monday- beef broth (15 quarts and 3 pints), Tuesday and Wednesday- survived life.  My goal is to get a gallon or more of strawberries frozen tonight.
We are starting to get some squash from the garden as well. It is always a good side dish but I would also like to get some bags of squash casserole in the freezer or better, yet I will have to see if I can them!
The summer count down is officially 11 days but I have 9 workdays left!

Garden Update

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We have reached the point of the summer garden that is both scary and nice. Everything has sprouted and is growing well for the most part.  So, we wait until we started getting fruit.  It is scary because who knows what harvest we will get.  But I am hopeful that we will get a huge harvest.

Overview of the entire garden from the back!

We have two beds of cantaloupes and one bed of watermelon. They are growing but it seems so slow to me.

We have lots of squash they are very small but tasty.

Zucchini is growing and we have one zucchini growing!

Tomatoes are growing with a couple of blossoms but no fruit yet.

This bed needs something. I am going to try fertilizer this week The plants are hanging on just barely.

We do have some wild flowers growing!

Big Batch Cooking- Hamburger

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We were able to pick up the whole cow that I had ordered on Friday evening. This was 350 pounds of meat at $8.00 a pound.  It filled our entire chest freezer!  The plan was to spend Saturday, processing as much of this meat as possible.

I am proud and grateful to say that we have accomplished this task, with the following results:
21# of canned shelf stable ground beef. These are in pint jars so approximately 1# per jar.
4 meals of Sloppy Joes canned in addition to our lunch for Saturday as well.
30 Salisbury steaks cooked and vacuum sealed in the freezer.
30 Cheddar Bacon Hamburger patties
38 Regular plain Hamburger patties!

For a total of 123 meal proteins ready for use!

Matt even started the day by cooking a big batch of French toast that we were able to freeze left-overs for future breakfast!

I am exhausted but happy with the results!

Five Things Friday

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1. I officially have 3 weeks left of work. However, this is my last 5-day week as I have other things happening that require time away from work during these last three weeks.
2. Every Bit Counts- as school winds down, I am starting to work toward a total restock of our pantries and freezer.  This week, I decided to attempt one item a day.  Tuesday- gallon of Strawberries, Wednesday- 10# of mashed potatoes Thursday- 3 # of bananas frozen for smoothies.
3. We are planning to pick up our cow tomorrow.  It is 350# of meat. I am hoping to get around 100# processed this weekend.  I will keep you posted.
4. May is the most expensive month for us. We have car insurance, pool fees on top of end of the year expenses.  We also added Kendall’s birthday party to this year. I am happy to say. We have survived the month and covered all the expenses.
5. Chicken Drama- Wednesday this week, the door did not open. Lily was going to feed at 2pm and let them out.  We have been monitoring and it has not missed again so who knows what is up.   Then on Thursday evening, a dog that we have not seen before was at the chicken coop and growling at the back corner. “Lucky” the rooster managed to get all the hens in the coop before anything went wrong.  We are also struggling with keeping the coop dry with all the excess rain we have been having.

 

Sunday Garden Update

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Warning 20 pictures to view!

We have been enjoying a couple or 5 snap peas on a daily basis! This are so good and tender that they never last long!

Our squash plants are alive and thriving!  We were able to use these three small but delicious squash as part of our dinner.  I did buy these starts and will plan to seed save for next year!

These are zucchini plants they don’t have blossoms yet, but they are beautiful.

We have approximately 100 green bean plants that are at different stages but are looking great.

Peppers are looking great with small peppers on the one bell pepper plant I purchased!  The pimento plants also have a small start.  Most of our pepper starts have survived and hopefully will get larger soon.

The tomatoes are now way over the beds in just a week. The Cherokee purple and roma tomato have blooms!

This is our fail.  Both the cherry tomato plant and the pepper plant that I put in this bed are basically dead. I purchased another cherry tomato plant on Saturday so I hope it will survive!

The cucumbers are at very different stages but they are growing and green!

We did add mulch to our blueberry bed which is looking very promising especially this one!

Current view of the back garden area!

 

Garden Update

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I am so excited to post this update!  We have had almost a solid week of rain with more expected in the coming week. Tomato’s have taken off! They have officially peeked over the top of their beds!

Wildflowers are going in front of the tomatoes.

We have about 10 baby squash, we are diligently attempting to keep the squash bugs away. We are using coffee spray and trying this cloth as a barrier. Three zucchini plants have survived not flowers yet!

24 cucumber plants have sprouted from seed with an additional 2 self seeding and I moved to be with the others!

Peppers do not like rain but these plants have started to bouncy back. This weekend we found Ashe County Pimento plants and have plant those in a different bed. We also went back and plant 7 more wax pepper seeds.

We have two containers of cantaloupe plants from the seeds we saved last year!

Five watermelon plants are hanging on as well!

This bed is in front of the house, it currently has 4 broccoli plants, snap peas, a cherry tomato, a pepper and basil has finally spouted!

Cherokee purple tomatoes and another cherry tomato.  One wax man pepper and we planted alot more!

Finally the green stalk is blooming!

 

5 Things Friday- Summer is Coming

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  1. I officially have 5 weeks left to finish out the school year!  I will have one holiday and two other days that I will be off during that time.  I can do it. Lily is starting her new summer semester next week.  Kendall has three weeks and a week of exams. Zach has 4 weeks.  Kendall and Zach will both be heading to camp during my last week of work.
  2. I have alot of things I want to get accomplished during the summer including re-stocking our freezer and pantries if needed. I purchased 50# of flour today to get the process started. I am hoping that by spreading out the expense we can maintain and even lower our grocery budget for the year.
  3. We plan to purchase and receive a whole cow in two weeks. This means that I have been spending some time trying to clean out and re-arrange our freezers.  Currently our chest freezer is unplugged. I am working on the freezers in the house as well as continuing to eat food from the freezer in the building. We wil be having steaks for dinner tomorrow just for that reason.
  4. I brought out a whole chicken last week. I cooked it on Thursday and even Lily said it was some of the best she has eaten.  I decided to start our stock up this weekend. I cooked chicken stock in my roaster oven Thursday night. I have been working on pressure canning it this evening. We will end up with 5 quarts and 25 pints of chicken stock!
  5. We will be having the floor measured in the kitchen and dining room this weekend. This has led to us cleaning the canning closet, kitchen pantry and most of the laundry room!   Organized stuff makes me happy!