Tag: vegetables

A slight respite

Today dawned with a few clouds and a delightful 54 degrees f. The high today only aimed at 74. As I was up early, my garden jeans, an oversized worn out tee shirt, and garden boots were my early attire. The line trimmer fully charged and a pair of garden gloves were grabbed, and off to tackle the vegetable garden so it didn’t keep me in a funk. The paths were trimmed to bare earth where possible, the blueberry bed trimmed, some taller lambs quarters and amaranth pulled, the rest cut as close to the earth as the trimmer would cut. The burn barrel was going to be moved out of the way, but it has burned and rusted through the bottom, so the remaining ash in the bottom will have to be shovelled into big garbage bags and taken with the remains of the barrel to the dump. Maybe, once empty, it can be moved somewhere to continue using the vented sides on a bare spot until it totally gives up.

After the work with the trimmer, a hoe and hand weeding got most of the beds back in order. And some of the peppers were in better shape than I thought yesterday. After cleaning up and putting the battery for the line trimmer back on the charger, we left to do our daily walk and some errands. The nursery did not have any Jalapenos, but did have Anaheims, so we purchased a small flat of 4 plants. The big box hardware store did have nice potted Jalapenos in 6 inch pots, so two of them were purchased and the bird netting to cover and protect the grapes from the deer. They got all the leaves and grapes last year, this year I want them and plan on winning this battle.

Once back home, the garden clothes were put back on and the recharged line trimmer was used to beat down the stickweed about to overtake our mailbox and the grass around the culverts that we can’t get with the mower. A few other areas need trimming, but the battery only lasts about 30 minutes. Once it was back on the charger, the peppers we purchased were added to the garden. The two Jalapenos replaced two that were in the worst condition and the 4 Anaheims planted under the trellis that the peas are on. As the peas aren’t doing much, they will be pulled before the peppers need the vertical space. The rest of the hand weeding was done, and though the garden hasn’t proved very successful so far, it least I’m not still intimidated by the tasks that were needed and accomplished on this mild day.

Tomorrow, we are forcast for another mild day, so maybe some fence work, hanging the netting over the grapes, and putting up a bunny barrier around the peppers can happen in the early part of the day.

When the weather cooperates, it is a pleasure to get outdoors and work. Once it gets above 85, I don’t want to be outside, and have to force myself to get the daily walk in for my health.

June 15, 2026
The farm and a lack of energy/motivation

It is hot! Mid July hot. The garden this year is a total disaster. Something has eaten all of the corn shoots that were about 6 inches tall, the peas blew over and it got too hot too soon for them to produce. All of the peppers, hot and sweet have been eaten to a stub and the weeds are winning. Every ripening blueberry is damaged. When the rain comes, it comes in torrents with wind. The Smartweed, Cheesehead weed, and Creeping Charlie may soon be a solid mat.

I am hoping for green beans and tomatoes. We will check the nursery tomorrow for larger pepper plants and put mesh collars around them or a chicken wire fence inside the raised bed and hope that we get some peppers.

At this rate, my best option is to try to mow back the paths and try to weed the beds with anything growing in them. Maybe next year, pull all the metal raised beds, lay a thick layer of corregated cardboard, reset and refill the beds and add one or two more. And move the fence in to make a much smaller garden with rabbit fencing around it or around the inside edge of each raised bed, and just mow the upper part. The asparagus bed needs to be reworked anyway and reseting the garden will allow some crowns to be moved.

The pumpkins and gourds were planted out today as small plants, but there isn’t much hope for their success.

The deer are decimating the flower beds. We see them right up almost to the porch and rabbits by the dozens this year. A chipmunk or two are living in the rocks around the deck area and come up on the deck to dig into the pots of flowers growing there.

What used to be a pleasure, is now a chore. The herbs on the deck are doing well, even sharing them with the Black Swallowtail larvae that feasted there for a few days.

And the young hens are very generous now, providing many dozen a week. Daughter’s family gets their share, a dozen travelled to eldest son’s for our weekend, I am eating my share and there are still too many. A neighbor or someone at spinning may soon benefit from some if I can get my hands on a few cardboard cartons.

That is three day’s worth from our weekend away. Being young, the eggs are still on the small side and still getting a few with double yolks.

We are currently sitting under a severe thunderstorm watch. The one on Friday evening caused ruts in our driveway and the gravel state road off which we live. We need a couple of dry days for our hay man to come mow and bale the hay. And a couple of cooler days for me to try to regain some order to the garden.

June 14, 2026
How does your garden grow

Yesterday was a perfect day and the last Living History class group of the spring. They were a delightful group of about 50 second graders, well behaved, engaged, and even had some great questions. Summer time is hot to wear all of the frontier woman’s clothing, but I do miss doing the groups during the summer. Fall will bring fourth and sixth graders, and more of the surrounding counties are taking advantage of the offering of history as it applies to their SOL objectives.

Today the temperature begins an uptick to a few days of mid summer type weather with it reaching near or achieving 90 f before it returns to normal spingtime. It seemed like a good day to take the next step in garden planting for the season. After our usual Saturday morning breakfast out, Farmer’s Market purchases, and walk along the Huckleberry Trail, a pointed hoe and packets of seeds were carried out to the garden. The green beans were planted, the peppers staked, and a box that wasn’t in the vegetable plan this year, planted with mixed sunflowers and tithonia, and the adjacent area with Sweet Annie and Calendula. Since they were newly planted and no rain forcast for a few days, the sprinkler is on it now.

The blueberries need weeding, some paths week whacked and the three sister’s garden started. I also want some flax seed for the row of the flower box that isn’t planted yet.

The box with the flower seed in it is deteriorating and will removed at the end of the season, probably replaced with another metal box next spring. The very long one to the left of the peppers, peas, and newly planted beans if rotted so badly that it has become dangerous and local grandson is going to come over and help me cut it up, remove it from the garden and haul it to the dump. Under one of the apple trees is the remnant of a small chicken tractor that blew over about 4 or 5 years ago and he is also going to help finish deconstructing that to haul away so that mowing near the apple trees and chicken coop and pen is easier. Sure is nice having older teens/young adults that are willing to work for tuition money (or to just help grandmom out, but will be paid.)

May 16, 2026
It’s Been a While

Not to anything dire, just not wanting to keep posting the same routine.

It has been a hot, wet summer and the garden has suffered. Raccoons got every ear of corn and started on the tomatoes as they ripened. Green beans have been very prolific as were the cucumbers. The cucumber vines have now died off and were pulled from their trellis yesterday afternoon and the first planting of green beans also pulled as I had been away for 5 days and most of the ones on the plants were too large and soft to be desirable as we don’t like the “southern” way of cooking them with fat back until they are practically mush. The second planting has just begun to provide.

We set about on Monday to get the lawn mowed after lunch. I sent DH out to get gas for a fill up, thinking there was enough to start while he was gone, but I backed the riding mower out of the garage and it sputtered to a stop. Instead of sitting idly by, the bed of flowers by the east side of the garage was a weedy mess and the grass was hanging over into it, so much bending, stooping, and sitting on a step stool that sent me into an unplanned hard landing on the grass, and all the grass and lambs quarters were pulled, a new edge dug. He began to mow while I was doing that so the line trimmer was used to go around the house and over to the vegetable garden that had lambs quarters, wild amaranth, and horse nettles as tall as me that the line trimmer couldn’t handle. This is the result of hand weeding all of it and the orchard grass growing in the paths.

That pile is about 2.5 feet tall, what you see behind it is the same mess that is in the closed off chicken run that I can’t access until the fence is removed. I don’t know if it will compost as I had no means of chopping it up, so it is a stack of 5 to 6 feet long stalks mixed with mats of Creeping Charlie, Bermuda grass, Smart weed, and other unwanted greenery that had taken over the end of the garden not in use this summer. I’m thinking about trying to move the inner fence to cross just above the part of the garden in use and letting the chicken have at the rest. It will leave them unprotected from the hawks but that is a chance I am willing to take.

Yesterday a very early venture over to the garden to harvest beans and tomatoes and finish weeding a small section I never got to Monday, found all of the Tithonia and Sunflowers full of sleeping wild bees.

Yesterday afternoon, after a trip to the nursery, flats of spinach and Romaine lettuce seedling, a row of Little Gems lettuce seed, and three rows of turnips were planted in one of the empty raised beds. The one the first green beans were in will be reserved to plant garlic when it cools more.

The reason for my 5 day absence was to travel to Black Mountain, North Carolina for my favorite Art and Fiber Retreat. We meet at the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly. It was rejuvenating and a bit heartbreaking. The group is a wonderful mix of ladies that spin, knit, crochet, weave, and do other paper arts. The heartbreak was to see the damage caused by Helene and know that though they have worked hard to recover, only 40% occupancy is available still as they lost a couple of buildings and had damage to many others. The motel style lodge where we stay and where meals are prepared and served by the staff was the first to be repaired and reopened. Helene took out every power pole leading up to the buildings except for 3. It took them 4 weeks to get any power back. The creek that became a river down the west side, that damaged the old gym so badly it had to be torn down is now a gully 16 feet deep and washed through the woods taking out trees and rhododendron to now look like a dry river bed.

This is an area above the retreat that is up the mountain. All of their hiking trails in that area are impassable still and a lower priority than restoring the rest of the buildings.

Part of the repair is placing 14 foot arches where roads were to divert the flow, instead of smaller culverts that had always handled the creeks in the past. Also where two landslides sent mud into buildings, have new reinforced walls at the top and the slides seeded as they are now open meadows.

In addition to visiting with friends I see seldom, I finished a skein of yarn I had been spindle spinning, took a needle felting class and made two little pumpkins, and started wheel spinning 8 ounces of Coopworth and Alpaca roving purchased from a friend that raises the animals and dyes the wool before the mill processes it into roving. Also some knitting on a pair of fingerless mitts was done with the wool I purchased in Alaska in May, spun on spindles and plyed on spindles.

Now back home, my food consumption is focusing on smaller portions and healthier choices as we always have a snack table with too much sugar and fat on it, and though I did take a walk up as far as I could go up hill above the retreat one day, I consumed too much not so healthy snacks in addition to the three meals a day they provide. Now home, I have resumed my daily walks with DH of 2-2.5 miles. It has been so humid though, it feels like you are breathing fog.

We have a cooler week of so ahead, it should help make the walks more enjoyable. We see early Autumn in the air as the early turning leaves are coloring and some are already falling. Until I have something new, stay safe.

August 20, 2025
Small but generous

This year, the garden is small, only 5 metal raised beds that vary from 3×3′ to 3.5×5′ plus a small patch of corn and sunflowers and the bed of blueberry bushes. Oh and the asparagus bed that is now tall ferns putting nutrients in the roots for next year’s crop.

Yesterday in the heat, the first green beans were harvested, enough to freeze some and share some with daughter’s family. The cucumbers are producing faster than I can pickle them, but only one has gotten large enough to discard to the remaining 6 chickens. It is one of their favorite summer time treats.

The weeds had gotten tall in the paths and unused part of the garden again, so before it got hot this morning, the line trimmer was put to use and cleared the paths and near the pumpkins with some hand weeding around the bases of them. They are not being very successful competing with the weeds. Also this morning, the tomatoes were trimmed and tied to the trellis, more green beans, onions, cucumbers, and the volunteer potatoes were brought in.

The assistance of the local grandson has been requested and the chicken tunnel fence is going to be moved to allow them in the parts of the garden that don’t have the raised beds that are productive. They will enjoy the fresh greens, scratch the roots up and clean that area up. It will likely mean the loss of the pumpkins, but as I only use a couple a year to make pies, I can purchase them at the Farmer’s Market this fall.

The volunteer potatoes had pushed some to the surface and they had developed the green solanine, so those were replanted in the bed that had the peas and onions earlier, as we are still within the potato planting window here. The bed that had earlier grown the garlic was replanted with a second planting of green beans and as we are approaching bean beetle season, they will likely be covered in row cover as soon as they emerge. Often, the second planting is destroyed by the beetles before they can really produce.

I just finished reading “The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World” by Robin Kimmerer. An expansion of an essay she wrote on gift and service economy. We should all spend more time giving of our excess and our time and less of the consumer economy in which we live. I try with giving eggs and produce to family and friends, and time as a volunteer at the museum, but more could be given.

July 1, 2025
Let the Outings Begin

One week ago, right about now, we left Vienna, VA, grandson, son, daughter in law, and me. We have had grandson solo since Sunday afternoon. His daily routine here requires guitar practice, Kung Fu practice as he is missing those lessons this summer, a writing assignment and a math assignment as practice for weak skills and reinforcement for those skills that he does well. I supervise those practices first thing each morning right after breakfast unless the writing requires a library visit.

We told him that he would have some basic chores to do here at the house each day and for that, we would give him an allowance so that he has some spending money. He can earn extra money by going above and beyond his required chores. He is only 9, so nothing is too onerous or too difficult. We also told him that while he was here, we would do a series of outings and that with cooperation with his practices and chores, he could earn extra outings. Some of the outings planned can be repeated such as the county pool, batting cage, movie date with granddad. Others are ones that will only be done once, such as the one we did today. We drove to Roanoke, the nearest city, about an hour from home, leaving to be there at lunch time. The market square hosts a farmers market many days each week and we caught quite a number of farmers there today. On the market square, there is a hot dog counter and we though it doesn’t stand up to our favorite one from Virginia Beach, it was a delicious unhealthy lunch, followed with healthy purchases of fresh corn, tomatoes, potatoes and a watermelon. One stand had baked goods and we purchased a whole grain breakfast bread full of fruit, nuts, seeds and not too much real cane sugar.

After our lunch and the market we drove a few short blocks to the Virginia Transportation Museum. This was a fun adventure, bringing back many memories for me as I used to ride a Norfolk and Western train from Norfolk to Farmville to and from college. On display are locomotives, passenger cars, cabooses, old wagons, handpump firetrucks, and a trolley car. Inside the museum is a huge O gauge train set up, displays on bus transportation, train history, and air travel. It was a fun couple of hours spent with our grandson.

Back home, the last of the peas were harvested and the vines pulled for the chooks. The peas were shelled and cooked with the corn and some left over kabob beef and pork tenderloin for dinner. Once the clean up was done, some garden weeding and harvest of 76 heads of garlic, now drying for a day or two outside before the stems are clipped and they are moved to the wire shelves of the root cellar to finish drying.

That part of the bed will be cleaned up and planted with a second planting of bush beans within a day or two.

I love when the garden is producing and the local markets have produce that either we don’t grow or don’t have in ready in our garden yet.

I’m loving life on our mountain farm.

July 10, 2014
Another Comfort Day

When we went to bed last night it was snowing and the ground was lightly covered. It was around freezing outside and we had hope of rising this morning to our first real snowfall of the winter. Instead, we woke to bright sun, 17f (-8c) temperatures and 35 mph wind. The snow from last night was piled in neat dunes along the edges of each pass of the brush hog from the last mowing. It is now mid afternoon and the temperature has only edged up to 22f (-5.5c) and not expected to rise further today and the wind is still howling.

When I was a child, on especially cold winter days (I’m from Virginia Beach, so it was rarely this cold), my Mom would make Vegetable Soup. Her veggie soup had a soup bone in it and was made with canned veggies, but it was comfort food. I cook much differently than my mother did, using fresh or fresh frozen veggies and only grass finished, pasture raised meat. Hubby would rather have stew than soup, I prefer the soup. On this cold winter day, I decided that we could have the best of both with a pound of stew meat in the freezer, plenty of our homegrown peas, green beans and tomatoes in the freezer, potatoes, carrots,celery, onions and garlic in the root cellar or refrigerator and dried herbs in the spice drawer in the kitchen. The base for the soup as I make it and the stew are the same and from there I will diverge.

Vegetable Beef Soup

1 lb stew beef (or venison) lightly browned in a heavy stock pot with olive oil

1 large onion coarsely chopped

4 large cloves of garlic coarsely chopped

3 stalks celery with leaves, sliced about 1/4″ thick

1 Tbs dried basil

2 bay leaves

1 quart broth or water plus 2 cups water

1 c peas

2 c green beans cut in 1″ pieces

3 medium potatoes scrubbed and diced

2 carrots sliced

2 c crushed tomatoes

Saute the beef in olive oil til no outer surfaces are pink. Add onion and continue to saute until onion is translucent, add garlic and saute for about 2 minutes, add celery, basil and bay leaves and stir to coat. Add broth and water, bring to a boil and reduce heat to a low simmer for at least 2 hours. Add tomatoes, potatoes and carrots and cook until potatoes and carrots are nearly tender, add peas and beans until thawed and hot through. Serve with bread for a complete comfort dinner.

Before I met my husband (a long, long time ago), I was a non meat eater and owned several nutrition and cook books that have long since passed from my library. One of those cook books, The Vegetarian Epicure, I think, had a recipe for Herb and Onion Bread which became a favorite with my family. It is a quick bread that can be made easily in an afternoon. It doesn’t require kneading, though, I often stiffen it a bit and knead it anyway. It makes a lovely accompaniment to a soup or stew.

Herb and Onion Bread

1/2 c scalded milk cooled to warm

1 1/2 Tbs raw sugar

1 tsp salt

1 Tbs soft butter

1/2 c warm water

1 Tbs dry yeast

2 1/4 c flour

1/2 small onion minced

1 tsp crushed rosemary

1/2 tsp dill weed dry

Dissolve sugar, salt and butter in cooled milk. Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add milk mixture, flour, onion and herbs and stir vigorously with a heavy spoon until smooth. Cover bowl and allow to rise to triple bulk, about 45 minutes. Stir down and beat vigorously. Turn into a greased loaf pan and let stand 10 minutes in a warm draft free location. Bake @ 350f until done. (the recipe said 1 hour, however, I have never with any oven in any location I have lived been able to bake it more than about 45 minutes without it getting too brown and dry, just check it after about 45 minutes and decide).

Tonight we will both enjoy our own version of comfort food, as I will remove the meat and portion of the broth and add about half of the potatoes and carrots to it to cook then thicken for stew and add the other half of the potatoes and carrots along with the other vegetables to make my soup and we will both enjoy the bread. What better way to spend a cold windy afternoon than filling the house with the aromas of homemade soup and bread.

Life is indeed good on our mountain farm.

January 18, 2014