It's at the end for 2023

As much as I enjoy having a garden, I'm not sad that the 2023 garden is all but finished. By this time of the season, it's more work than fun, but even then it's not hard work. It's merely persistent work. 

All things considered, such as heat, smoke, and not a lot of rain, the plants produced. I was extremely disappointed in the tomatoes due to a screwing I got from Ferry Morse seeds - read about that here - but even cherry tomatoes can be used for sauce.  Any tomato can be used for sauce. The variant is in how long you need to simmer the fruit to cook the water out. The plan was to make ketchup, but I made pizza sauce instead. I think with this last harvest and what is in the freezer, I can make another batch of pizza sauce and be good on that for a few years. 

The cucumbers produced well. I ran a couple of batches through the Harvest Right freeze dryer to preserve them, and I canned one batch of cucumber-pepper relish. 

Cucumber pepper relish

This year, I planted green beans for the first time ever. My grandfather always planted a type of pole bean, or climbing runner bean, but I chose the Contender bush variety. They did well and we had fresh beans for our table. Next year, I hope to expand a bit.

Sugar snap peas. I love 'em! He hates them. I've used up all the seed so they're off the 2024 garden plan. So are watermelon and cantaloupe. The melons were a bust. The ONE watermelon that formed wasn't edible. 

I am, apparently, a good grower of cabbage. We love fresh coleslaw, so cabbage is on the list for 2024. I'll stagger starting the seeds so I hopefully get a staggered harvest, and I'll go for a smaller number of heads. Coleslaw is great, but not every day for a month. 

The green bell peppers were an afterthought. I found a few seeds and planted them late, but there are pepper strips in the freezer again. I'm not sure the Great Stuff variety is the one for my garden. 

The Brussels sprouts were about 80% bust. Sprouts formed on two out of seven plants. I do have some seeds left so I'll give it one last try in 2024. Brussels, and cauliflower which died at transplant, are likely going to end up being off the plan for good after 2024, but we'll see.

Only one thing remains - butternut squash. This is the first time I tried this one and the results surprised me. There are ten butternuts growing but not yet ready to harvest. I'm watching for the stems to turn brown to pick them. Once they're all in, I'll process them to use for soup and pie filling. Butternut squash makes a sweet "pumpkin" pie. Just puree it and use the same as pumpkin puree. The flavor isn't that different.

Over the course of the next week, all the tomato plants will come out except for an experiment I'm trying that I saw on a Living Traditions video. The basil needs to be harvested and dried, and the calendula seeds will be ready to store. 

The bees are still prolifically working the tall Cracker Jack marigolds which has made me reconsider them for next year. I'm gathering those seeds and will cast them about the property. What grows in 2024 will grow, and I'll harvest those seeds to spread again. Doing this should develop a strain of plant that thrives in my micro-climate to keep the bees happy. The more bees the merrier! I'll plant a much shorter variety of marigolds in the garden. 

The year 2024 will bring its own successes and failures. I can dream, plan, and implement, but in the end, the garden does what the garden does. 

The Lady of the Hideaway

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, gardening, bees, pollinators, vegetables, flowers, herbs, cabbage, butternut squash, saving seeds Great Stuff peppers, Straight Eight cucumbers, rural living, country lifestyle, a writer's life, home food preservation, freeze dryer

Purple peppers - surprise!

I grew bell peppers and jalapeno peppers in my 2021 garden, and I had a bumper crop! Just a few weeks ago I pulled out a couple of small bags from the freezer to make Hot Pepper Jelly and there is plenty of peppers left. I'm probably going to freeze-dry them before the summer is over to make room in the freezer.

When I planned my 2022 garden, I had no plans to grow peppers. Then I was out shopping and saw a seed packet of mixed bell peppers for a dollar, and because growing peppers is fun, I got the seeds. 

Fast forward until today and one of those "mixed" pepper plants has purple peppers. Now that is cool!

I certainly didn't expect anything other than green peppers. I thought there'd be enough to have two rounds of stuffed peppers and that would be good for this year. But you know what? I really like these little purple bells. They look really cool chopped up in potato salad. Next year, purple peppers are part of the garden plan. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor (The Hideaway)

Holly Tree Manor, The Hideaway, gardening, purple peppers, vegetables, grow your own food, simple country pleasures, rural lifestyle, container gardening, garden planning

Strange bedfellows

The Second Amendment provides a mechanism for the people to overthrow the government by allowing the common man to own and use firearms. The right to bears arms, as it's stated. 

I'm someone who likes to eat food that I've preserved because I know exactly what is in the jar (and it's NOT chemical preservatives). 

So here we are at the beginning of the summer of 2021 and I can't buy ammo or canning jar lids. Now if that's not the strangest combination of shortages, I don't know what is. What's even stranger is that Blogger REFUSED to load a picture I'd titled "ammo."  

Ah, but is it really strange? I do not think so. You can call me crazy but I really think the "little guy" is under attack from all sides. 

Blogger also refused to upload the picture of canning jar lids at first. I had to do a screen snip. What the hell is so dangerous about canning lids? 

I'm getting very suspicious about some of these shortages. I live in the country and we have copperhead snakes for neighbors. I need bullets. And as for not uploading a picture of a bullet, I don't think a PICTURE can harm anyone. People are fucking nuts these days. The gun doesn't pull its own trigger.

As for the jar lids, it makes no sense at all that I can purchase all the jars I want (the jars come with lids and rings) but I can't get just the lids. I have jars. MASON JARS don't even need to be recycled! Just wash and re-use. Is it a problem that I want to can fresh veggies, make and can homemade salsa, and cowboy candy? Boy, that's a subversive activity. 

This is why we country folk turn into preppers and even hoarders. Manufacturers have no clue as to what is really important to us. We don't need no stinkin' diamond rings, Ubers, or meal delivery. We need everyday items like canning jar lids. 

I think we're all being played by the government and the people pulling the strings behind the government. They're setting us up for something big. 

Just saying. You know...while I'm still free to say it... 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor

The first seeds of 2021 are planted

 

Yesterday was a busy day here on the manor. Saturdays are frequently filled with bits and pieces, drips and drabs of chores, and other small items that need attention. Most Saturdays it's a shared half-hour over a cup of coffee and we set off in our own directions for a few hours. I had one thing on my "must do" list and that was plant pepper seeds. 

There was a more pressing item, however, and I did see to that as soon as I had on shoes. We had to replace the sump pump this past week and the discharge hose needed to be secured, something I didn't do the other night. Because it was night. Like after ten o'clock. Why do these things always wait until after dark to go bad? We had a replacement pump on hand, but could it not have waited until the weekend to die? Nooooo. Anyway, I securely zip-tied the discharge hose and moved on to playing in the dirt. 

It's been a good many years since I tried to have more than a pot or two of tomatoes. Last year I had some small success with tomatoes, peppers, and a cucumber vine, enough so that I'm expanding this year. I have seeds for peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, pumpkin, and watermelon, as well as a few herbs which I plant every year. Basil is a wonderful plant to have on the patio. 

I found some small seed starter trays that have a dial in the lid to help humidity escape. They seem like a good idea for me since I've had issues with damping-off in previous years. Each planter has twelve sections. I planted bell pepper seeds dried from last year, Ring Leader jalapeno, Biker Billy hot peppers, and Great Stuff sweet peppers. I hope the mix of Ring Leader and Biker Billy will make some awesome cowboy candy. If, of course, the usual curse of being able to grow peppers was truly broken last summer. We shall see.

I also have a new celery re-grow started. In just a day it's sending up a bit of new growth. It will join the other three re-grown stalks in the greenhouse in about two weeks. 

The plan for today is to plant the basil and dill seeds in cherry red pots that I'll keep in the sunroom for the next several weeks. Once the sprouts are of a size to have good leaves, I'll transfer them to the greenhouse for a few more weeks, and then it will be time to set them on the patio to enjoy and harvest.

Also on the agenda is to put together three more racks/trellises to support growing veggie plants this summer. I'd also like to get the snowblower off the John Deere 1023, and my grow bags filled with a soil mix. Things go so much smoother when you stay ahead of what needs done. 

Spring is an exciting time on the manor. We know we won't accomplish everything in one weekend, but sometimes we try. Stay tuned. 

The Lady of Holly Tree Manor