filling our pantry

It's been a busy summer around here as we've worked hard to fill our pantry and freezer with as much produce as possible! The left side is this year's produce, and the right what remains of last year's.

Here's what we've canned so far:

- rhubarb-strawberry jam

- blueberry jam

- pickled hot peppers

- pickled onions

- squash/onion relish

- mustard beans

- dilly beans

- bread and butter pickles

- pickled beets

- beet relish

- green beans

- marinara sauce

- corn salsa

- peaches

- sauerkraut

- grape jelly

And we've frozen:

- strawberries

- blueberries

- raspberries

- blueberry jam

- onions

- zucchini

- fajita packets (peppers & onions)

- corn

- pizza sauce

There's still so much left to do before the season's end, but it feels good to have all this food prepped for the upcoming winter!

This boy loves his corn.

Happiness is...enjoying a cob of corn on our screened in porch!

around here.

It's been a busy summer around here.  Here's a little re-cap... (click on the links for full posts)

Finished our chicken coop.
Our baby turned ONE!
Made a BIG announcement!
Spent the day at the lake with friends.
A video of Caleb's first year.
Celebrated our boy's first birthday with a party!
Got our first egg!!
Lots of growing going on in our garden.
Visited the Children's Museum while my friend Jess was in town.

Also, see our weekly "the 52 project" photos here.

2014 garden // mid July

This has been a slow season for our garden.  It's mid-July and we're getting a few cucumbers every day or two, a couple of peas, and a sparse amount of broccoli.  Raspberries have been pretty consistent for the past few weeks, but they're now dwindling. The weather has been incredibly mild the past two weeks which has basically stalled everything.   Though there is still a lot of green in our garden, we're practicing patience as there are lots and lots of flowers which mean those veggies are coming...we just don't know when! 

turnips

corn

tomatoes

peppers

cucumbers

cabbage

broccoli

green beans

volunteer sunflower & squash in compost

more volunteer squash in compost

golden raspberries

 ever-bearing strawberries

echinacea 

My birthday Gerber daisy has bloomed two times already this summer which has been a wonderful surprise as I've never been able to keep these beauties alive longer than a few weeks!

This has been a bit of a frustrating year for our garden.  We spent a lot of time planning this spring and started many of our plants from seed early in order to spread out our harvest.  Unfortunately, much of our planning has been useless as many of those early seedlings didn't make the transfer, or were eaten by the loads of robins on our property.  Because of this, we ended up direct-sowing much of our garden later than expected.  

I guess the lesson we've learned this year is that no matter how much you plan and prepare your garden, much of it is out of your hands!!

Here's hoping the weather warms up and our veggies start making an appearance on our dinner table!!!

2014 Garden // May

This year we thought it would be fun to take weekly photos of our garden to show the growth over the summer.  We set up a tripod in our bedroom and each Sunday morning, we snap a photo.  Nothing is staged, as you can see, but I think it's fun to see the progress over the past month that we've made in our growing garden.  I'm especially amazed at how quickly the leaves on the tree in the foreground appeared.  

May 4th 

May 11th 

 May 18th

May 25th

Hopefully we'll be able to keep this up over the summer, it's amazing to see just how quickly things grow and change.

2014 garden // early May

Lots of green and a few flowers in the garden.  Apples, raspberries, strawberries, onions, garlic, peas, asparagus, rhubarb, chives, cabbage, and broccoli.  

Isn't spring wonderful!?!

{You can check out this year's seed starting adventure here.}

2014 garden // starting seeds

Despite the bitter cold, and the never ending snow (we got another 7 inches dropped on us this past week!), we have already begun to start our 2014 garden.

Over the past few years we've tried a variety of seed starting processes, most of which have failed miserably, as you can see here, here, here, and here.

This year we're using soil blocks again. We tried soil blocks for the first time last year using one of these which allows us to make our own soil mixture.  Hopefully this year, we'll have more success as we're using heat mats and a fan to help with moisture.

So far we've started a few kinds of peppers, onions, and cabbage along with some lavender and parsley.  Over the next few weeks and months we'll continue to add to this list and hopefully by our frost-free date we'll be ready to plant lovely seedlings straight into our garden!

We're really looking forward to getting back outside and growing more in our garden this year!

you can pickle anything.

Okay, well maybe not.  But seriously, most vegetables can be pickled in one way or another.

We've been making pickled cucumbers by the pound over here and when I remembered that we had this book on the shelf, I got inspired to try a few more vegetables.

So far, in addition to cucumbers we've pickled onions, beets, green beans, carrots, and jalapenos.  Note: we were not fans of our pickled carrots.  Maybe we haven't found the right recipe.  Any suggestions?

I'm hoping to get ahold of some fresh cauliflower to pickle soon and if we have any extra bell peppers I"ll do up some of those as well.  Most we've canned and stored for winter, but a few we've done in the refrigerator to enjoy right away.

We've been sticking to simple recipes involving vinegar, sugar, and a variety of spices.  When you change up the amounts of each, or use a variety of kinds {ie. apple cider vinegar vs. white vinegar vs. wine vinegar} you get drastically different results.

Our current favorite is based on this recipe, with a some dill from the garden thrown in.  We've been eating these with every meal and replenishing with fresh cucumbers about every other day.  So good!