Zucchini candy

   I made zucchini candy last week and it was a hit at home & work here is how you can do it. You can finally use that giant zucchini you didn't know what to do with!

You take big zucchini and peel and seed it, cut the rest into strips about an inch wide and 2 or 3 inches long about 1/4 inch thick. Other sizes work but these did best. Then pour 2 packets of koolaid (generic is fine) with 2 1/2 cups sugar & 3 cups water  over your zucchini and 3 cups of water (I added more because my pot was full of zucchini and it was fine) bring to a boil. Simmer 20 minutes until zucchini is translucent and filled with color ( I did purple and it was ugly) attain off koolaid (you can use the same juice for another batch) put in the dehydrator over night and you don't want them crunchy, more gummy worm like. I put a half cup sugar and a teaspoon of citric acid in the grinder until it was fine and when the candy came out I tossed it in the mixture. It makes it like candy but also stops it from sticking together.

Beans!

They are ready and I am canning. The beans I grew this year were both green and yellow and they look so lovely in their jars!

They have onions, baby potatoes I grew in buckets and bins from kitchen scraps and a small piece of bacon in each jar. We have already eaten 2 jars and my finicky husband loves them!

I just can't wait to can more as they ripen. Monday I will get to the next batch.

They are perfect with a jar of pork loin or chicken breast I have canned. It's a quick, easy meal that takes a minute to prepare!!!

The Lazy Gardener.

   I probably should have called this blog "THE LAZY GARDENER" I am a lazy gardener, I am always trying to find shortcuts and examples that prove gardening is for everyone even limited mobility and young.

    I always feel my garden motivates me. But I've noticed this year I spend far less time at it than I did last year, which made me glad I went smaller, but it makes it more difficult to "get lost" in my happy place.

    I have about 50 tomato plants and beans, beets, lettuce, herbs, peppers, stubborn cucumbers, squash, grapes carrots etc but they don't need me for much, they just do what they do. 

   It's that time of the season where you just wait.

   I keep looking out expecting to see signs my garden needs me, but it is doing ok on its own for the most part, especially after the recent pruning. 

   Last week I went out and pruned my tomatoes, I was plagued with nasty yellow leaves and spots that looked like early blight. I also sprayed them with Daconil which really helped. 

   I know a lot of people don't believe in pruning but I always seem to do it no matter how I promise myself I won't. 

   I never suggest others do what I do or the way I do because I figure you will eventually find your own way. I don't sucker my plants as most "old style" gardeners do, that is a tried and true, totally acceptable method, I just don't.

   If you find something that works in your garden I am confident you will continue it. That's how people find their own way of doing things in their gardens.  

   I am always looking for simplicity and a way to make it more effortless because as my arthritis progresses and I become less able with age to do certain thing I know I won't love gardening any less.              

   When I'm able to retire from employment I want to still be able to do this thing I love. So I spend time now finding ways to simplify and make it easier. It's not all laziness, it's actually planing for the future! Because just because I like gardening doesn't mean I like back aches! 

Sometimes things work out.

   Our family mad a trip about to pick fresh blueberries if you weeks ago, and I canned several pints of blueberries, and blueberry pie filling. It turned out that my blueberry pie filling was actually blueberry syrup. And even though it wasn't what I planned, it was completely useful and delicious! And will not be going to waste. (Truth be told I make loads more pancakes than pies and it's so much more likely to be used this way.)

Dehydrator liners on the cheap!

I wanted to share this: you can buy these plastic canvas sheets at your local hobby store for about $.49 each and they come in various sizes, gauges, and colors. They make excellent non stick, liners for your dehydrator and go straight in the dishwasher. They stop the loss of products that shrink and fall through the trays.

Blueberry picking and canning.

   I ordered a new canner and it arrived all shiny and ready to make the world, or at least my kitchen a better place.

Since my garden hadn't given up any goods yet I had to find something to can!

   My family went to a blueberry farm this week and picked 12 pounds if blueberries in about a half hour (well I was at it 45 minutes because I looked down and realized the basket was lacking because I somehow ate a goodly portion of them! So I took a few extra minutes to make up my share!) 

   It ended up costing $35 dollars for all the berries. Which I have only used about half of so far. 

   We started with this:

And ended up with 18 jars in the canner:

I made blueberry/peach pie filling and canned blueberries and grape and blueberry juice. ( the plain white grape juice was just icky and watery but the mixed one with blueberries was pretty tasty.

   I love the new canner and will be canning the remaining berries tomorrow.

Bucket potatoes from kitchen scraps.

   I have heard so many people say you can't grow potatoes from store bought potatoes because. They spray sprout inhibitor on them, which I really thought had to be wrong because those little suckers sprout in my kitchen before I can use a whole bag typically!

   So I threw some in a few buckets and bins I had and didn't put any effort into them at all. I didn't water or fertilize them but since most of the green was gone on them I decided to see how they did today. I have one bin that still has green on it so I will leave it until August, like you are supposed to.

   It's not really an impressive harvest until you consider I never spent any money or time on these. They were just going to be trash or compost.

These are going to be paired with green beans and canned. (If they last that long because I love baby potatoes!) 

Fruitful garden and cutting update.

   Two weeks ago I posted about taking cuttings and I must post new pictures of just how marvelous they are doing in just two weeks!

That have really loved the nice hot days we have finally been having here in Ohio after weeks of rain.

   I also was able to get my first tomatoes and zucchini from my garden.

Cucumbers are still playing hard to get though. I won't be planning for any this year. However the squash I planted with them have taken off like gangbusters! 

So much so I had to give them something more to climb! With a bit of repurposing I think this will do the trick! 

I'm looking forward to beans but for now they are pretty small and they were pretty curly yesterday so in making more of an effort to water them so they will fill out and straighten.

I should have a pile of them by Monday. I hope there's enough to start canning them.

I hope to have more updates on the beans and. Canning of the beans next week.

A video on dehydrating garden products and more.

   I have been dehydrating for several years and wanted to share this video:

( the chicken is saved but it really never rehydrated well, was not suitable for much, but I should have tried powdering it to use in stews and pot pies.)

http://youtu.be/XB2K8ssh1xU

A video on no dig garden beds.

I have had great luck with these no dig beds and wanted to share the video on how to make them. 

   They are so easy and here is the video link:

http://youtu.be/u3MRYOra_mA

A video on vanilla beans

I wanted to share a video about vanilla beans. 

I'm pretty new at doing videos so be patient, I hope you find it helpful.

Here is the link:

http://youtu.be/kxPpNVOu-Cg

I Have Fruit!!!

Today is a great gardening day because every gardener loves to see their work progress and little fruits , even green ones give us then "sticktoitiveness" we need to commune working diligently. 

   I love to see progress, especially when I got such a late start this year.

    When I came home from vacation my garden, which I labored intensely over , and grew plants from seeds etc, had died do to neglect. (My garden tender never watered it once in 24 days!).

   Non gardeners do not understand the amount of work and time that goes into it, because he thought he had put as much work into it as I had because he helped me twice in the garden.... He helped move some dirt to beds and plant some plants and was a great helper but had no ide of the work that was done when he was absent. The germination and buying seeds from several countries, and building beds etc.

   Guess who my garden helpers are this year? And he is learning a lot. But most of all he isn't hating it. (Except for mosquitoes, we all hate them, and they love him!)

   I think he is turning into a great gardener and he is going to feel so wonderful when he sees these beauties.

Taking cuttings

   I admit it, I'm a pruner. Maybe more of a butcher If you ever say the green I leave behind for the compost pile. But the rain has been really constant here and the plants were showing signs of fungus and blight so it was a necessary evil. I do it anyway because I don't need branches and excessive foliage that don't grow buds. But sometimes while staking or trimming it becomes by accident, or necessity , good branches get broken or cut. I try to make them useful, I put them either in a bucket of water or dip the tip in rooting compound and put them in the ground or a pot. The ones I put in the ground always seem to look droopy. The ones I root in water seem to do better. Here are the ones I have recently done and you can definitely tell the ones that had roots from the ones that didn't, the droopy ones have been in for 4 days and haven't died but they look like its a struggle, but they will probably make it ok.

It's a very thrifty way to extend your garden, and it's nice to have extra plants to produce more fruit. These are a bit late in starting but if they get a nice start they can still produce. I plan on moving some to large pots to go in my greenhouse this year and hope they can go for en extended growing season if I keep the frost off. But eventually they will stop because here in Ohio the temps will drop and tomatoes like it above 70.

Late start in garden

   I actually thought I had it beat this year, my habit of always running behind I mean. 

   I had just about everything in the ground by May 21st because we were leaving on vacation. I had arranged for my oldest son, almost 24 to water it while we were away for 24 days. Everything peachy right?

I started my beds.

 I planted my seedlings I grew from seeds, a lot of which I ordered from far away countries and were very rare, others my regular favorites like lettuce, peppers and beans Etc.

But when I returned home from our epic vacation across the YSA I found it had not been watered at all. And sadly most was dead or dying.

   Which left me starting over in the middle of JUNE!

   Now in less than 30 days I am pretty happy with the progress even with very little sunshine in the last month. I have to admit the nearly constant rain has really helped my garden.

Even my grapes are doing well.

These are my quickie pallet beds I threw together when I started running out of space.

I was able to replace most of my lost plants with a lot of volunteer plants I wasn't even aware of from last year's gardens. This year I went much smaller and hadn't checked out the neighboring lots I was using last year. But I was able to come up with DOZENS if tomato plants!!! I was able to buy cucumber plants, and my green beans have grown very fast. My peppers survived but did need nursed along. From June 16 to July 11th I managed to pull a garden together after all, and I really feel hopeful now. I can't wait to see what I can harvest because I have very little idea of what sort of tomatoes I ended up with! So this will be my surprise garden I guess.