Becoming a Lady...

 

 

Yesterday, evening, I went out to take a little breather after a busy day. Pasta party, meets weekends, art sessions, and a playdate a lll crunched up into few hors we were all engaged in something. During my quick outside trip to make sure chickens have clean water and wanting to give them kale ribs. I peaked inside to find out one of my chickens have becomed a lady! 

Yes, just that, I think peanut has begun to lay eggs. They were all in a some kind of a conversation and I felt like I was in the middle of it. But only downside of it was I couldn't understand what they were ranting about. 

Being super excited I rushed inside to grab the camera and asking Nigel to find the answer to my riddle. I head outside to snap few pictures. It was a super exciting I even had to share it with my neighbor who was heading inside after a long day of work. I quickly took the egg out and and pluck few other garden crops and headed inside to finish the rest of the evening which was pack with activities to the brim!

Peach Preserve with Almonds and Lemon Thyme...

Eastern Peaches were on sale not as low as last year, but it is a good reason for me to can few pounds. Now that I am a bit confidence canner, I am experimenting few new canning recipes. I have few small bushes of thyme growing in my vegetable garden this year comparing to last year. I am very thankful that I have an abundance of herbs this year. You can find few varieties of thyme I have German, English, and Lemon. Out of all I have developed a keen interest on lemon thyme and loved it, it has a subtle lemon flavor and an aroma which is heavenly to make sauces. 

I used about 8-10 cups peeled,pitted, and diced peaches
1 cup silvered almonds
6 cups sugar
2 lemons zested and juiced 
3 teaspoons of lemon thyme leaves 

Place everything in the pan except the thyme and almonds cook until jab cook about 15 to 20 minutes depending on your stove temperature. Add lemon thyme and silvered almonds and continue to cook for about another 5 to 6 minutes. 

If the peaches have not broken use an immersion blender to break pieces at this point. I did not add any pectin solely decided to depend on lemons. 

Have your canning gear ready and start the process to can. Boil the jar for about 10 to15 minutes and turn off the stove and let the cans sit in the water for about 5 minutes.

 Next take them out place them on a dry towel and you will hear the lovely popping sounds of your cans.  Check them after a day and store them in nice cold and dry place and enjoy them.

I took one for camping and had it on a lightly toasted English muffin with some tea and it was heaven. Every one enjoyed the peach jam! I hope I can save some for long winter!

I followed Liana Krissoff's and Marisa McClellan recepies but did some twisting to use all fruits. 

It is the season...

August has been a busy month for me, canning is in its hike. I have been a bit adventurous with few pickles and chutneys. We love our garden tomato jam, which I follow from food in jars by Marisa. Marisa’s recipe has been really good and we love it. The spices give enough heat and the sweetness from honey gives the right balance to this sauce. I have already canned 10 lbs so far, and that is a lot of canning during the month of August. 

Our tomatoes are a bit rambunctious this year, but no stakes which is a new innovation. However, next year I will be spacing them and staking them to get a better air flow among the plants. This year it was a total mess on the other hand it was a leaning experience. I was also lucky enough to have few  tomato plants in my compost which started to grow. I love those unexpected plants. Last year it was our luck to have a butternut squash. I was not gifted this year with such bounty but our compost has become the gold mine for us. A little bit of compost to vegetable beds goes a long way. I am planning to share some of my tomatoes this month with few friends. 

I noticed few tomatoes had begun to ripen inside the garden blocks which gives them a funny shape. Nature does a wonderful job, to adapt to its environment. We had few funny looking tomatoes this year. My favorite is the yellow tomatoes adds a wonderful taste to cucumber salad.

What a re- union could do to an avid Gardner...

Went to a re - union in Canada, met friends from school, lead to open a FB page which lead to spent too much time finding friends...

Then it leads not to water my garden, being excused of tired of traveling, but truly spending time on internet...

Next we had over riped tomatoes which did not get picked for dinner...

The Melon cucumber was a blast didn't get photographed on a daily basis... too much time on FB finding friends...

 Parsley went to bloom and so did the Dill...

Dear Chickens

Our young chickens get handle a lot by my little Nicolette, she adores them as she name them with her friends name. Over time she has change few names, I guess she has observed them and name them according to their character. Which makes me laugh when I listen to her rattles. She some times treat them as her friends. 

Very recently I was on the hammock outside dosing off, and It was a beautiful day. I could hear little Nicolette being so upset and telling one of the chickens “This is your home why can’t you go to your home, please let me help you to get to your home”

I woke up, sure enough one chicken is roaming in the garden enjoying the chase and Nicolette was crying. She was asks not to take them out and if she does she is responsible to get them back in their coop. 

I did helped her te get the young chiken back inside the coop and wiped her tears. She was happy, the lesson here is she understood that it is better to take them out if some is watching her. Mainly we do not have a fence around our yard. These chickens bring so much fun to our yard we love them dearly. 

Raised beds are going to get a generous amount of compost from our compost pile. I am very excited it worked I had my doubts on this project because we have been adding our kitchen scraps diligently everyday, but I did not see anything happening. I wanted it to be split and move bit further to the front, and this is what I got when I got home from a class. It was a fun day!

Now that the compost is already turned it is time to add it to vegetable beds. I am not totally done working  with this. We have few more things to add around this box. We totally love our compost area.  I know we had to limit items we add to it, because of the space issues and had to haul some to the dump such as clippings and leaves in the fall but not any more! 

Now that we have chicken we get to add more to the compost and our soil can be enriched with compost. Some areas in our yard can use compost seriously. 

Few Spots that Caught My Eye

Whenever I take a stroll in our yard there are few spots that really caught my eye depending on what is growing. In early spring I love the beautiful faces of pansies and violas merging through other plants. 

Gardening and Keeping Up!

I cannot fully enjoy my garden, yet until the school is out. I love working in my yard digging and planting. I can see my children has developed a love of gardening. Nicolette is always fascinated with seeds, worms, dirt, and butterflies. Whenever I step outside for a minute to get a break from inside work I can hear the buzzing of  busy bees. 

This year we are already enjoying fresh salads and arugula with much love. We have planted few tomato plants, cucumber, eggplant, peppers, and a wonderful collection of herbs!

However, I have few plans for the garden along the fence line. First of all it needs a great deal of weeding and mulching. I did not order mulch this year! Mulching could be painful sometimes. Perhaps adding few annuals will bring that charm to the perennial beds. I have develop a new love towards Irises this year. I saw a great combinations this past spring in Washington DC, Iris, Peonies, and Hostas. 

Few flowers made to the raise beds to attract hard working bees for pollination hopefully we will get few pounds of tomatoes for canning this year!

Speaking of canning I still have left few from last year which needs to be consumed! If we get enough cucumber it will be nice to try few picking recipes. 

The gardening has been incorporating into our daily routines little by little this season, and we have been getting many plants into beds. We have four different types of tomatoes already growing with peppers. Herbs such as basil, parsley, sage, thyme, and fennel are spreading their roots. Some are finding permanent spots to come year after year. I surely hopes to see a consistent supply of herbs this year. 

Moths and earth worms are settling in the garden with comfort. Fire pit is always burning when we work in our yard and it is truly a beautiful place to spend time already fading spring. Annuals with colors are planted around the garden hopefully they will keep blooming through out summer.