A Family Affair

The fruits of summers bring a lot of work.

The week before school started, I tried to roast Anaheim peppers. They are a great  pepper. In the garden the plants are prolific producers. They have just a bit of bite for the faint of heart (me) when it comes to heat in favorite recipes. I've put them with scrambled eggs, in stir frys, any dish that calls for green pepper.

My first try at roasting pepper. I put them on the gas grill

Some are pretty charred, to say the least.

 Next, I put them in a zip lock to steam for a few minutes so that the peeling will come off more easily. HA.

A big mess. I did peel them and managed to save a few for freezing. My friend who runs a small restaurant told me how she does her peppers. She puts them in a bowl of cold water for a few minutes then puts them on the grill. She says the skins will just pop off. I'll try that next time. Do you have any suggestions?

Next, I froze the jalapeno peppers. My friend just pops them in the freezer bag whole. For her restaurant's salsa, she boils the jalapenos first. That's about all she would say about her salsa. Secret recipe, you know. Any good salsa recipes out there?

Tomatoes were next. Here they are in the hot water bath to loosen to peel. You can see the peeling begin to crack. After about 2 minutes or until the peeling splits, I put the tomatoes in an ice water bath to peel them. I put them in the blender and made pulpy juice which I froze. I had two varieties, yellow tomatoes and red beef master, that I processed separately.

Beef Master and a coupe of heirloom tomatoes that were really hard to peel.

Nicely pureed in the blender

I laid the pulp on a flat surface so that the puree would freeze nice and flat.

Next: Pears and Peaches. I had a half a bushel of each. The pears were work intensive. They have to be peeled and cored.

The girls came to help. Actually, Jennifer enjoys working in the kitchen. The pears were work intensive-Jen pealed, I cored..

Baby Nathan hauled nut shells around the counter top. His brother Jacob spent the day hanging out with  grandpa doing guy stuff.

(She's gonna hate this photo) And Heather, not so crazy about kitchen duties, helped out immensely by shampooing my carpet. I must mention, too, that she brought me a carload of transplants from her garden: meadow rue, Jerusalem Artichoke, prim rose,  couple of spruce seedlings, and an Endless Summer blue hydrangea that I am going to try my best not kill. Thank You Heather.

The fruits of our labor.

Flower of the Week

New to the garden, Gladiolas, a favorite. Mine didn't too well--they grew pretty crooked--. I picked them so that I could enjoy them in the house. Remember how popular they used to be in formal arrangements? They are so much fun to grow and really beautiful, too.

Teddy Bear Sunflower, A Beautiful Giant

Teddy's last portrait. It really is an impressive flower with its multiple flower heads. I didn't realize that it would have multiple flower heads. As I said before, I planted six seeds, with only one germinating. Can you imagine an entire row of these beauties?

Back to work tomorrow. Next weekend we will have two more boxes of peaches to can. Please share some of your favorite ways that you preserve your bountiful harvest, especially salsas. I want to can salsa and pickle relish, too.  Hope you all have a good week.

Back to the Routine

It's late, bedtime actually. Tomorrow classes for fall semester begin at the University of Northern Colorado. It is such a cliche to ask "Where did the summer go?" But go it did. I am beginning my 17th year teaching  3 of sections freshman composition and 1 section of introduction to literature. I will teach from 8 AM until 2:30 PM Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with two classes in the morning and two in the afternoon. Then I will tutor in the Writing Center Monday and Wednesday from 2:30-3:30. I will have Thursdays off--days to grade papers and clean house.  I love my work with 18 year olds. They are amazing young people and I do learn from them, too.

Summer ends and finally the new kid in the garden blooms, the teddy bear sunflower. I planted 6 seeds with only one that germinated and grew to rather glorious maturity. It will be quite interesting next summer to see any hybrids emerge from cross pollinating with Teddy.

 Teddy's face is the brightest yellow.

 It takes a couple of days for Teddy's face to acquire its characteristic fuzzy look. I was quite surprised to see that the Teddy Bear Sunflower has multiple heads to one stalk.

 Next year I will plant Teddy out in the garden--a safe distance for the coral fence to keep Sun Dance from snacking on it.

Standing tall along side the wild hybrid sunflowers, Teddy's bright sunny face smiles boldly.

Teddy was the only sunflower that I planted this year, but look at this beauty. It grew only a few feet from Teddy towering above the Black Eyed Susans at about 12 feet high. A single headed sunflower perfectly formed, bright and sunny towers over the garden.

I have been obsessed with taking photos of the sunflowers. In days to come I'll pick through the best of them and share them with you, but it's bed time. I've got a long day tomorrow. Have a good week, everyone.

Everyone Loves A Mystery

Who has been eating the sunflowers?

 

And the hollyhocks?

"Not I," said the Flicker. I prefer my sunflower seeds with peanut butter.

"Not I," said the woodpecker, "I prefer gourmet."

 "Not I," said the house finch, "I like thistle."

 "Not I," said Lucy. "Are you kidding, why eat sunflowers when you can eat cookie dough?"

"Not I," said Ellie, "I don't like sunflower seeds."

 "Not I," said Jacob, "but I bet I can find out who did--for a fee."

"Not I," said Nathan (as he robbed the chicken coop).

 "Not I," said Max.

 "Not I," said Granny Bear, 'it's tea time."

 "Nor I," said Raggedy Ann, "I like cake."

 "Not I," said the scared little cotton tail.

 "Not I," said the toad, "strictly bugs for me."

 "Can't you see I'm taking a nap" growled Mo

 "Not I, said Holly, "I'm getting ready for a party."

 "Not I," said the little white hen

 "Not I," said the big fat hen.

 "Not I," said the horse.

 "Really?" smirked the horse.

"Catch me if you can," he laughed

Mystery solved.

In a Pickle

The garden has begun to really produce, so the question arises "What do to with the abundance of produce?" My mother and hubby's grandmother used to slice cucumbers in a bowl, cover them with vinegar and water, salt, pepper, and maybe add a bit of onion. The dish would sit on the counter where we could snack on the vinegar treat all day.

I went a bit further. Inspired by a new canning jar that I bought at my favorite kitchen gadget store in Fort Collins, I looked up recipes on the web on refrigerator pickles, then made up my own: equal amounts of white distilled vinegar and water, a handful of dill from the garden that I let grow wildly uncontrolled, a few garlic cloves, onion, mustard seed, salt, and pepper.

 I sliced two medium sized cucumbers, leaving the skin on. Since we don't use any pesticides or fertilizers other than the time released fertilizer we use when we plant the seedlings, I wash the cucumbers well before I slice them. I pack in the dill and garlic then the cucumbers and onions. I add the seasonings to the liquid and pour the brine over the cucumbers.

 This jar has a rubber seal, insuring a tight seal. I don't think that this liter jar would be suitable for hot water canning, but for fresh, long lasting refrigerator pickles it is perfect. We have polished off this first batch, so I added more cucumbers to the brine last night. I'll use the brine twice before I replace it.

You could add red pepper seeds for a dash of color or any other spice or herb.  I let the cucumbers marinate for about a week, shaking the jar daily to make sure all of the flavors blend throughout the jar.  This type of pickling is quick, easy, tasty, and preserves the excess. I don't think you need a fancy jar, any container with a tight lid will work. It's just fun to have an inspirational piece to get one motivated. For Kelly at My Garden Diary, this might be a very good way to use your cucumbers that tend to be a bit bitter. 

Happy Anniversary

On another note, I have been pondering the last few days how to celebrate the Garden Spot's first anniversary. Thinking it was in September, I totally missed it. I launched my blog August 5, 2010. None the less, I have had a blast. With the snarkiness (is that really a word?) on Face Book, I spend much more time posting here. My blogger friends are a warm, gracious, funny, interesting, inspirational group. I love them all. I have a small following, 39, but a great following. I've made friends in England, France, Ireland, Croatia, Australia, Mexico, Holland, and all around the United States. Generally I post Sunday night and most often only once a week. Before I go to bed every night, I read my followers' posts, trying to leave witty, funny, interesting, encouraging posts, depending on the need, but sometimes I think my posts are dumb, and sometimes I just can't think of any thing smart to say, but I always read. In honor of my Fab 39, I have figured out how to display all of the blogs that I follow on my home page. I hope doing so helps to increase your traffic.

Finally, one week of summer left. Classes at the University of Northern Colorado begin Aug 22. Next week I will be attending meetings, classes, shopping for school clothes, cleaning house--actually, I am going to try to find a house cleaner to help out--cleaning my office, and psyching myself up to go back to work. Actually, I have just the best students: college freshmen, 18 year olds just taking on the world by themselves for the first time Can't believe that the summer has gone so quickly.  

Happy Blogging to All and thank you for your wonderful comments and support.

And the Winner is. . .

I moved to Ault ( population 1500 or so)  in the fall of 1970 to begin my first teaching job. Fresh out of college, I was eager to meet my first students. I was very young, looking back--23 years old. I has hired to teach English and speech and I coached the speech team, directed the school plays, loving every moment, but it all ended in three years. I did meet my husband, a local farm kid and the rest is history. We raised our family here. Our children are the 4th generation to go through Highland school system, The Ault Fall Festival has been a tradition for decades. When Jen was in 4-H, too help raise money for their Washington Focus trip, we sold hundreds of burritos at the Fall Festival for several years, so I got a little burned out and when she was done with 4-H, I quite avoided the Fall Festival. But now that the girls have their families and have moved away, they like to come home to the small town celebration. When they were little, the girls would take flowers from the garden to enter in the flower show, so last year I decided to take a few things over to be judged. Just for the heck of it. The egg plant won grand champion in the Senior division.

The Parade: Ault: Weld County's Oasis

I took dozens of photos, so I thought a collage would tell the story of day: The VFW always opens the parade with our veterans; there are always a lot of horses, cheerleaders, old cars, tractors, floats with kids throwing candy, old machinery, oh and my family on the other side of the street. In the center is the old school house where I began my teaching career--my classroom was in the basement, lower left. One school superintendent wanted to raze the building, but the community fought fought back, saving the building. It has been declared an historical building and with the help of grants it was restored to its original glory and today houses the middle-schoolers. After the parade, everyone heads to the old gym--where dad and his daughters played basketball, volley ball, and had gym classes. This year the entries were slim. Some years are like that. There is always a spectacular quilt display; these quits are not entered in the competition. If they were, Lady Bug wouldn't stand a chance.

And the Results are:



My entries: The Cosmos: one blue, one red. The sun flowers: one blue one, one red. Stargazer Lily: blue. The egg plant, grand champion. Cucumbers, red. Green pepper,  blue. My beautiful stargazer was bedazzled by a beautiful hibiscus. There were only two quilts entered in competition. The lady bug came in second. The brown quilt won grand champion and rightfully so. It's corners met perfectly.

For each first place ribbon, the winners were awarded a bag of sugar. Ault is a farming community and for generations sugar beets were the cash crop that keep farms alive. Today while sugar beets are still grown here, corn seems to be the main crop. For decades my in laws raised sugar beets for Great Western Sugar, so sugar is an appropriate award generously donated by Great Western Sugar.

We had egg plant for supper. The head gardener didn't care for it.

Sunday, the Ault fire department, an all volunteer fire and rescue unit, serves pancakes for breakfast and gives kids a ride on the big fire truck:

Jacob loves the adventure; little brother Nathan is not so sure. When I asked his mom if he liked his ride (he is a child of few words--well, he is only 2 only has a few words), she said he was more excited to get to feed the chickens.

Shorty


But the real winner of this story is Shorty. After all the excitement of the Fall Festival, we went to our other daughter's house to celebrate little Lucy's 3rd birthday. When we got home at dusk, we were milling around the front of the house. We noticed a man walking down the road calling "Shorty." My husband went out to the road to talk to him. He had one of his antique machines on display; he no doubt was from out of town too. Fireworks wore exploded to announce the beginning of the dance in the park. His little shelty Shorty got so scared that he wiggled out of his harness and ran away. My heart ached for the guy. He had lost his dog. Scared dogs run and run and sometimes are never found.

Sunday morning we headed for breakfast and as we drove past the school just down the street from our drive way, I saw a little shelty pacing the school yard fence. The little guy was in the school yard; he had probably spent the night there in the safety of chain link fence. We immediately drove over to the the old machinery display. Participants were packing up. Was Shorty's "dad" still there? I asked a man if he knew who had lost his dog and told we had seen the dog.

Short and his owner were reunited. We stuck around just long enough to make sure that the reunion was a happy one, and indeed it was.  I just could not imagine having to leave town leaving my little dog behind.

My grandmother was a nationally accredited flower show judge. She used to help me create little flower arrangements to enter in the Lakewood (Colorado)  Garden Club flower show. I wish I knew more, grew more, did more with flowers. It's just fun. I think, however,  I would drive myself crazy if I nurtured, pampered, and fused over trying to grow the prefect flower to win a silly old ribbon. Knowing my luck it would get hailed on and ruined. It's just fun to put yourself out there, to participate, to have fun. Next year you should pick your very best bloom and enter it  in your local fair--just for the heck of it.

I think I will plant my gladiolas earlier next year. There weren't any glads on display.

Adrenaline Rush

The Ault Fall Festival is this week end. Standard small town stuff: a parade consisting of tractors, politicians, horses, and cheerleaders; old (antique) farm machinery display; games in the park for the children; lawn mower races; Sunday pancake breakfast at the fire house; and an arts/crafts fair in the old gym at the high school. So I gathered up a few flowers and vegetables and my lady bug quilt to enter them in the small town competition. Entering such a competition is always a bit of an adrenaline rush. I have no illusions for there are amazing quilters and gardeners who submit their best work every year. Now I am not quilter. My daughter who is an amazing seamstress decided that I should make a quilt some years back. I finally got the quilt top quilted this spring. When I told Jen that I was taking flowers over to the gym, she said that I should enter the quilt, so I did. I had seen one in Cold Water Creek Catalog and deciding that it was far too expensive to buy, I designed my own quilt and with help of my daughter got it pieced together.

There really isn't much in the garden. The cucumbers are producing like crazy, the egg plants seem to be doing well, but the bell peppers are struggling, the tomatoes are quite slow this year, but here are my entries. Last year the egg plant took reserve champion. An egg plant of all things.

Gardening in Colorado has been challenging this year.We had no moisture all winter, then all of our normal rain fall for the year came in May (7 inches), making getting the garden started hard.
We didn't get a lot of things planted that I normally plant and everything else seems to be coming on later.

It's late in the summer now, so some of the flowers are on the down side of blooming. Grasshoppers have invaded, and it has been hot and dry. But there are a few beauties left to choose from: the stargazer lily, new to the garden this year. I planted three that I ordered for White Flower Farms last fall. This one is the first to bloom. I was so excited to see it opening up yesterday. Cosmos: dad always called them weeds, but I love their simple little blooms. So do the bees and butterflies. The sunflower certainly is nothing to brag about because it is one the wild ones that come up every year on their own. Last year mine came in second. I happened to run into the judge who said it was a tough decision between the sunflower and the grand champ. I don't remember what won the grand champion, but it was a deserving award. I'd have been embarrassed for my wild sunflower to win. Finally, a day lily. I don't even know if day lilies hold up once they have been cut. This one was a new bloomer this year too.  It has been in the garden for awhile. My husband ordered it from Oakes Day Lilies catalog and we had sorta forgotten it about. The color does not really show up in the photo. It is a creamy yellow with a blush of pink around the edges.

So later today I will wander over to the gym--we are just a short walk away-- to see the show's results. If nothing else, having my name on a few entries at the little fair lets people I never see any more know that I as still around.

Which Came First? The Egg or the Nest?

 Last spring we (I say "we," but it was actually hubby who did all of the work and planning) bought a dozen baby chicks, converted the storage shed to a chicken coop, bought a chain link dog run on craigslist. com, and then we waited for our first egg. . . and waited . . . and. . . . I had been telling the chicken master that he needed to get his nesting boxes built or he'd go out to the hen house one day and find eggs all over. He came in the house the other evening and asked me to go with him---and to bring my camera. The nesting boxes had been installed and then he showed me the little brown egg. Indeed when he went to install the nesting boxes, there in the sawdust was this little brown pullet egg.

He fluffed the nests with hay (he says chickens like hay)

and today there was a second egg. 

And then there were two

The hens bring a lot of interest to The Garden Spot. It's fun just to sit and watch them peck and scratch in the dirt and the hay and to listen to them cluck and chatter. Even the dog likes to watch them, though he goes into his bird dog behavior and tries to flush them as though he were out in the field hunting pheasants. 

But not all is right in the Garden Spot

We have some very sick tomatoes. While some are quite healthy and producing, 4 are quite ill. I finally convinced the gardener to pull the worst one out. In doing a bit of research, I 'd say that they have some sort of fungus due perhaps to too much rain? Too much heat? Not disease resistant? Who knows. What a disappointment. The tomato plants were all doing so well this year and now these sick ones. 

And these murderous creatures are back. I wrote about them last year. They are called assassin bugs. They sit on flower heads waiting for unsuspecting bees and butterflies to land on the flower seeking a quick bite; instead, they are bitten by the assassin, injected with venom and killed. While there are not as many as there were last year, I so hoping that they wouldn't return. 

What better way to end the day with God's Promise.