Early Fall in the Pecos Wilderness

Whatever you're doing, I hope you're enjoying 
a fantastic fall day!!!

Garden Happiness(es)

So many tomatoes still on the vine!!!  Yellows and greens and ...

...gorgeous reds!

The ladies do love their Scratch!

Lemon cuke, Brandywines and Pole Beans

Love really is all around...

This is the only one of it's kind in our yard...

...but the Morning Glories have officially taken over everything I've let them!

Our potatoes are still very much alive.  Do I wait for them to die back or do I cut their stalks and hurry up the process??? Decisions, decisions!

Super late Honeysuckle

Mika did not understand why there was food in that basket!

Beautiful Blue Corn

Happy gardening!!!

Bee Stings & Balloon Faces

So...apparently I'm allergic to bee stings.  How allergic?  Well, the kind of allergic that swells up your face so you look like a balloon and makes the doctor give you an EpiPen "just in case you go into anaphylactic shock next time".  Awesome.

I'll spare you the horrifying pictures of my face (which was swollen yesterday and twice as swollen today...the sting happened on Sunday), but let's just say that it was so bad today that I was afraid, if I stayed at work today, I would scare the children upon their arrival to our after school program.  So instead, I'm sitting at home (heavily medicated on some heavy duty antihistamines) drinking some hot tea.

Cheers!

Harvest Monday

Happy Monday everyone!

Well, with Fall officially upon us, I am feeling extremely grateful for each evening that passes without the gift of frost!  Not sure how much longer we will squeek by, but I'll tip-toe as long as I have to :-)

This week brought us the excitement of our very first bell pepper and some long lost carrots (they were lost in the Tomato Jungle) as well as the last Honey Boat Squash.

I didn't get a picture of it, but I had a helper in the garden this week, too.  My helper is a 6-year old whirlwind of energy and she helped me harvest a ton of tomatoes and then promptly ate most of what we harvested (luckily, she let me weigh most of it before she inhaled tomato after tomato)!  She is scheduled to help us with our upcoming potato harvest and I hope to catch her in the act in at least one photo :-)

Alright...here are some pics of the official harvests of the week...

This weeks totals:

Tomatoes =  5 pounds 13 ounces

Beans (pole) = 3 ounces

Butternut Squash = 14 ounces

Bell Pepper = 4 ounces

Basil = 2 ounces

Jalapenos = 2 ounces

Carrots = 11 ounces

Lemon Cucumber = 2 pounds 5 ounces 

Honey Boat Delicata Squash = 4 ounces

Blue Corn = 12 ounces

Apples = 1 pound 5 ounces

TOTAL OF 12 pounds 11 ounces!!!

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne at daphnesdandelions.  Check out what she's harvesting, as well as what many, many others are harvesting!

HAPPY HARVESTING!!!

Hope you all have a fantastic day!

The Liebster Blog Award

Thank you so much Jody for giving my blog the Liebster award!!!  

The Liebster is awarded to spotlight up and coming bloggers who currently have less than 200 followers.


 "Liebster" is a German word meaning dear, sweet, kind, nice, good, beloved, lovely, kindly, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome. What a gift to be awarded with such kindness!

Now for the rules:
1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Have faith that your followers will spread the love to other bloggers.
5. And most of all - have fun!

Now for my five picks, in no particular order...


Animal-Friendly Eating - I recently found Kelli's blog and absolutely love it!  She lives in South Jersey and blogs about her garden, recipes, the CSA she is a part of, crafts, her community garden and tons of other fantastic topics!


Food Farm Health - Another new-to-me, fantastic blog in which Shanon talks about growing her own food, food allergies (and healings), agriculture (present and past), putting food by (I am completely jealous of her 2011 Food Storage Tally...WoW) and shares tons of recipes!


Soul Flower Farm - Located in the East Bay area in California, this blog is about incorporating biodynamic farming methods and permaculture design in order to be self sustaining. They have goats, chickens, bees and the best quiche recipe EVER!


Little Blog in the Big Woods - I want to be like GreenPa when I grow in these ways... 1) I long to live in a cozy home in the woods.  Deep in the woods.  2) I want a self composting toilet (yep, I said that) that is attached to our home (as long as it does NOT stink) deep in the woods  3) I want to get our electricity from the sun  4) I want to heat our home with wood in the winter  5) I want to do it all for 30+ years!!!  Yes, I said that, too :-)


Mistress Beek - Chantal lives in Albuquerque (about 50 miles from here) and keeps bees.  7 hives of bees to be exact.  She's been keeping bees a few years longer than we have and so I've been enjoying learning a bit from her while on this journey.




I really hope you'll take a minute to visit my fellow bloggers! 


Cheers!

Garden Happiness(es)

Little pretties.

Little kale.

Little zucchini.
(This guys a little late, and one of two showing up so late.  We'll see if we have enough time between now and the first frost for him to actually mature.)

Little ground cover popping up.

Little (inedible) corn, with one (huge) kernal.

Whatever you're doing this week, I hope it is bringing you happiness.

Canning Fool!

It's official.  I've become addicted to canning.  Everything I see now...fruit, vegetable, whatever... I wonder if I can stick it in a hot water bath and save it for later.  It's a problem.   There truly are not enough hours in the day.

Pickled beets

Bread & butter pickles along side a yellow taxi & roma tomato combo

Harvest Monday

Happy Monday everyone!

This is try #2...something funny happened on the way to posting this today...everything I wrote turned out in weird Computer-Speak once posted!  I am hopeful this time will be better!

Anyhow...I was out of town most of last week attending Orientation at Prescott College (hi-ho, hi-ho, it's back to school I go).  Thankfully, Tool Lady did all the harvesting, weight tracking, and picture taking!

The garden is continuing to wind down and things are starting to die back.  There are still lots of tomatoes coming in (Italian Heirloom, Brandywines, Romas, Big Boys, tons of cherries and even a few Yellow Taxis...still!) and a few more winter squash ripening up on their vines!  I am patiently awaiting the day when we can break into our potato containers and assess the (hopeful) bounty!  Until then, I think things will continue to just trickle in.

You know it's a good apple when it's already half gone before it even makes it through the front door!

Beautiful blue corn!

Why are heirloom tomato bottom so funny looking?

Acorn, honey boat delicata and butternut squash.  

This weeks totals:

Tomatoes = 6 pounds 

Bush Beans = 8 ounces

Butternut Squash = 2 pounds 2 ounces

Acorn Squash = 2 pounds 9 ounces

Summer (regular ol') Squash = 8 ounces

Honey Boat Delicata Squash = 4 ounces

Blue Corn = 3 pounds 1 ounce

Apples = 2 pounds 14 ounces

TOTAL OF 12 pounds 4 ounces!!!

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne at daphnesdandelions.  Check out what she's harvesting, as well as what many, many others are harvesting!

HAPPY HARVESTING!!!

Hope you all have a fantastic day!

The Little Things

Last weekend, Tool Lady and I went to new (to us) Flea Market where she spotted this little stand with the most beautiful baskets!  I just couldn't resist!  

Isn't it just gorgeous?!  I look forward to years of this basket helping me carry loads of home grown veggies!

The Little Things is my way of taking a moment to 

slow down, acknowledge and appreciate...well...

the little things!

Hatch Green Chile

What do you do in New Mexico in September?

Well, unless you're insane, you buy Hatch chile in bulk (by the sack full) and have the nice people you buy it from roast it (while you're waiting, someone might even treat you to the juiciest freshly sliced peach you've ever eaten).

Then, you bring it home, let it steam for a few hours (in the bag it's been transported in), peel it, rinse it, chop it up, bag it and put it in the freezer (we have a deep freezer that holds other yumminess, too, but was specifically purchased for our chile stash).

We generally buy and freeze about 100 pounds each fall, so we still need to purchase and process 2 more sacks.  

The process, while a bit tiring, makes for delicious chile year round and saves us well over $150 over store bought, pre-packaged chile (which is usually pretty gross, anyway).  Yay for Hatch!!!

Harvest Monday

Happy Monday everyone!

First off, we've broken the 100 pound mark!!!  WooHoo!!!

OK...now that I've done my Happy Dance, we can get down to business ;-)

This weeks highlights include:

• The first butternut squash
• Actual Blue Corn
• The second wave of Roma Tomatoes
• The first Italian Heirloom!
• A mini CSA-type box of goodies for Brother
• The first (and possibly the only) pie pumpkin
• An accidental apple harvest
• My lovely new harvest basket!

Blue corn!!!

The first Butternut of the year!

Lemon cukes and jalapenos and squash, oh my!

The mini CSA for Brother :-)

Beans and tomatoes, the Rock Stars of the garden this year.  No doubt.

The accidental apples.  They fell off the tree while we were attempting to espalier...

Sweet little pie pumpkin in the bottom of my new basket!

This weeks totals:

Tomatoes = 6 pounds 15 ounces

Bush Beans = 2 pounds 10 ounces

Lemon Cucumber = 1 pound 

Jalapenos = 2 ounces

Butternut Squash = 2 pounds 5 ounces

Acorn Squash = 1 pound

Summer (regular ol') Squash = 7 ounces

Pie Pumpkin = 1 pound 7 ounces

Blue Corn = 9 ounces

Apples = 1 pound 13 ounces

TOTAL OF 18 pounds 4 ounces!!!

This brings our total this year to a tad over 106 pounds of home grown yumminess!!!

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne at daphnesdandelions.  Check out what she's harvesting, as well as what many, many others are harvesting!

HAPPY HARVESTING!!!

Hope you all have a fantastic day!