Month: September 2022

The days are getting shorter, there’s a chill in the air, the jeans/sweaters/boots are coming out, and the garden is slowly getting cleaned out… That can only mean one thing…. IT’S FALL Y’ALL!! In case you don’t know me, or haven’t read any of my previous blog posts, fall is my favorite season!! Although I love seeing all the new sprouts coming up in the garden in the spring, like seeing the garden all cleaned out in the fall. It is a feeling of accomplishment from all the hard work of planting, harvesting and putting up for the coming year.

While much of my garden is cleaned out already, I still have a few things in the garden. As long as they are going to continue to give me produce, I’m going to let them go until the frost kills them, and this week I was able to get quite a picking of veggies.

This year was my first time doing a second planting of peas, and I wasn’t sure how they would turn out planting them in the warm dirt…however, I got quite the picking yesterday! They seem to be doing great, and I still have quite few blossoms on the plants. Hopefully, that means I will have another picking or two left from them.

As worried as I was about the slow start to my tomatoes, even with the weather turning cold, my tomato plants are still producing. They are definitely slowing down, but I was still able to get a good picking from them. We are going to try canning homemade tomato soup with this batch.

In a previous post, I wrote how my pepper plants were looking great, but I was not getting any peppers…well, that has changed! I was able to pick poblano, jalapeno and a couple bell peppers! The kids have been asking for me to make jalapeno poppers, so this round of peppers will be turned into poppers and put in the freezer. I’m not sure what will be done with all the poblanos. I loved stuffed poblano peppers, so I may do that with some (although I think I’m the only one who will eat them). HAHAHA

My first picking of corn this year didn’t seem to do well. The stalks all stayed really short, and we only got a few ears of corn off of our 4 short rows. The rest of the corn got some kind of fungus. I planted corn a second time, and it seems to be doing a lot better! The stalks are taller than last time, and the ears of corn seem to be getting bigger than the first batch.

While I was in the mood to harvest some veggies, I took the opportunity to pick some herbs as well. I picked basil again, got it washed, dried out, and put in a jar to use through the rest of the year. Truth be told, I have been putting off cutting my rosemary. I hated the task of tying the rosemary and hanging it to dry. I don’t know why, it isn’t difficult. But I just dreaded that chore. However, I found a game changer!!! I don’t have a dehydrator, but I have been drying my parsley and basil in the oven, and after doing some searching, I found how to dry rosemary in the oven!! Why is it a game changer??? Hanging the rosemary to dry can take weeks to months to dry out (depending on weather and humidity), but drying it in the oven only takes 2 hours. I gave it a shot last night, and VICTORY! In my option, it works even better than hanging to dry. And, with all the drying of herbs last night, my house smelled amazing! Double win!

I hope everyone had a blessed start to the fall season! Dig out those sweaters/sweatshirts and boots…it’s time to get cozy with this crisp weather!! <3 I’d love to hear from you!! What is some of your favorite things to do with peppers? Have a blessed week!!!

Who’s excited for Thursday???? Anyone??? THIS GIRL!!!!!
Thursday, September 22, is the first day of Autumn!!! It’s my favorite season!!!

With summer coming to an end, and cooler weather soon upon us, there are still a lot of things happening on the homestead. Projects getting finished up, some projects getting started, and cleaning up the garden.

There have been a few projects around the homestead that I have been working on, and I can finally post pics of the finished products. About a month ago, Luke and I were talking about our garden and how, with its abundance, we are able to give to others. From that, we nonchalantly came up with a name for it….and it stuck! I painted some signs and hung them on the gates… Our garden is now named, Little Eden. I was reading some Bible verses about Eden, and the verse from Genesis 2:8 made me smile. It says “The Lord God plated a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there he placed the man whom He had formed”. Why did I smile…??? Because on our property, our garden is to the east! 🙂

Some other projects I have been working on, is a garbage can enclosure. I am so over the garbage cans being stored in the garage, and the bugs that accumulate around the trash cans, so I came up with the idea of making an enclosure out of pallet wood to house them outside. This way, the trash and its bugs can stay outside, and we don’t have to worry about the trash cans blowing away (which used to be a problem).

Another projects is the path to the duck house and chicken coop. I finally got the pavers laid the rest of the way, and was able to fill it with sawdust and lay the pallet boards. I was a little short of cut boards, so I still need to deconstruct some pallets to get the wood laid, but the sawdust is down and its looking better than just pavers and grass.
Sawdust played double duty this week on the homestead, and I was able to get some fresh sawdust on the garden paths. It’s an endless process, putting down sawdust in the garden, but it looks so good when its down.

We are still getting a LOT of tomatoes out of our garden. They were struggling in the beginning, but they have really made up for their slow start! This week, we canned 36 pints of stewed tomatoes!! It literally took all day! It’s so rewarding though, to know that this winter when we want to make chili, we can just go down to the basement and use the stewed tomatoes that came from our garden!

A couple weeks ago I posted about how we had a terrible case of squash bugs and vine borer, and I was honestly sick of looking at the dying and mangled plants in the garden. This past week, Wyatt and I spent some time cleaning it up. We removed all the vines, weeds, and rotten fruit/vegetables. While we were cleaning the rows out, we found that we have our first ever little (and I mean LITTLE) eggplant! Still not sure why those plants didn’t grow more….. But, the garden looks much better just having those items cleaned out. Now, the open rows are ready for me to winterize…but that’s a topic for another post.

And finally, Wyatt wanted to take on the planning and building of a small building for the cats. They are currently in a shed on our property, but with the hopes of putting a kennel in that spot, the shed will need to come down. This is the beginning of the cat house plan.

Summer is coming to a close, and autumn is in a few days. While things of summer may be dying off for the season, God assures us that to everything there is a season. The joys of summer may be coming to an end, but we now get to anticipate the joys of fall and all that comes with the next season… For me, that’s the cooler weather, sweaters and boots, bonfires, leaves turning colors, and THANKSGIVING!!!!. What is your favorite thing about fall?? Leave a comment, I’d love to know what others like about my favorite season! Have a blessed week!!!

It’s been a busy week here. My youngest started his 8th grade year (homeschooling), its tradeshow season (for my husbands’ work), soccer practice or games every night for my husband and second daughter, my oldest is in her senior year and she works from home in the evenings and we had a vehicle go out of commission due to a stone incident that broke the drivers side mirror and window. In addition to all that, I had a noodle making day, and we have had a constant flow of tomatoes from the garden. As soon as I can or freeze one batch, we get another picking of tomatoes that fills the table and counters.

All the tomatoes coming in from the garden are a blessing though. We will definitely have more than enough to get us through until next year. And with the abundance, we will be able to try to can some things that we have not attempted before. We are excited to try canning homemade tomato soup, tomatoes and diced chilis, and homemade tomato paste. The trick is going to be finding the time to get the canning done! LOL

While we are very thankful for how well our tomatoes are doing (although the kids would say they are sick of them), I have grown frustrated with some of the other items in the garden, and have started cleaning it out for the year already. One of the new rows of lettuce I planted was attacked by tiny black bugs, and it was just ruined, so I pulled the row. And my green beans were pretty much done. The leaves were turning brown and falling off….so I decided to pull them as well. They were not a total waste though, as our chickens were very thankful for the treat of fresh produce. The plan for this weekend, if we can find some time, is to further clean out the garden. Unfortunately, we had the worst case of squash bugs we have ever had, and they wiped out a lot of my garden. We were able to get a few cantaloupe before the plants were ruined. But the squash bugs decimated my watermelon, both pumpkin patches, the cucumbers, spaghetti squash and my zucchini plants. It’s quite frustrating…but my plan is to make this a learning experience, and do some research into what I can do as preventative measures for next year. Maybe I put something in the soil this fall to kill any eggs that are still there, or I mix something into the ground before I plant in the spring….or maybe I do both! LOL

But all is not lost. I still have my constant flow of tomatoes, my peas are growing, I have cabbages, a row of lettuce, and SO MANY peppers!!! In a few weeks, I’m going to have the same problem with peppers that I have now with my tomatoes! LOL It’s a good problem to have.

If you have some time to look at the website, I uploaded some family favorites in the “Recipes” tab. You will have to let me know if you give them a try, and what you thought of them! And since I uploaded some of my family favorite recipes, what are some recipes that are a family favorite at your house?? Leave a comment, I’d love to know! Hope you all have a blessed week!!!!

Welcome to September, everyone!!! This year is going SO FAST! There is still a lot going on around the homestead. With tomatoes coming off at a rate of….constantly….there’s been a lot of freezing and canning going on. Thankfully, having two kitchens, we are able to keep the canning and homestead products (noodles, bread, etc) to our homestead kitchen. But, having two kitchens, there is twice as many dishes and utensils to store, and we’ve come up with some creative storage solutions for some of our homestead items.

We love our homestead kitchen…pallet walls, open shelving, aluminum backsplash…it turned out great. Some creative storage solutions have had to be added though. We took some inspiration from Cracker Barrel (one of our kids’ favorite restaurants), and decided to take advantage of vertical wall storage. With some brackets, hooks, screws and nails, we hung some items on the walls.

I have been canning for years now, and that leads to quite the compilation of canning supplies. I have quite the collection of canners, and I utilize the space above the fridge for those. Also included in the canning supplies I have acquired are lots and LOTS of canning rings! Honestly, I find them super annoying to store. They have been stored in plastic bags, thrown in a drawer, twisted back on the jars after being emptied… I needed a new solution, and I have one. I took a curtain rod and threaded the bands on it. I like how it turned out…but much to my dismay, I may need to put up another one for the amount of bands that I have!

This last storage solution in our homestead kitchen allowed us to reuse a piece of furniture that has been repurposed several times, and is older than both Luke and I. My parents bought their previous house in 1988, and when they moved in they found this storage shelf in the basement. After some modifications and updating, my parents used it as a pantry. It eventually made it’s way back down to their basement for storage. When they decided to move, the shelves were offered to us. We used it for basement storage, and then garage storage…and then decided we could bring it back to life. After removing some wall paper, giving it a really good clean, and a fresh coat of paint, this shelving unit has been given a new life! It turned out great, and provides storage for pantry items, and gets items off our limited counter space.

Using creative storage/repurposing old items, we are able to keep the homestead kitchen clean and organized. What is a creative storage solution you have come up with? Or something you have refurbished for another use? I’d love to hear or see pictures of your creative storage solutions!! Take care and have a blessed week!!