Now That’s A Tomato!

July 31, 2014

I picked my first batch of tomatoes for canning on Tuesday evening.  As I picked the different kinds of tomatoes (Amish Paste, Mr. Stripey, Mortgage Lifter, Pink Brandywine and our own “Mystery”), I brushed against the leaves and was blessed with that strong, sweet tomato plant scent that is every gardener’s favorite aroma.  Not that I consider myself a true gardener…I just plop seeds and plants into the dirt and they somehow grow into lovely edible jewels. 

The “Mortgage Lifter” tomatoes that we are growing this year seem to be doing well.  I picked one last night and it was huge!  Although not completely ripe, I was afraid to leave it on the vine for fear it would split.  It measures six inches across and over three inches tall!  We will probably save this one for seeds to plant next year.  We’ve been saving seeds from our Mortgage Lifters for the past few years and they never disappoint.  We ordered the original seeds from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in Mineral, Virginia.  This is a great small company that offers heirloom seeds that are well-suited to the growing environment in the Mid-Atlantic States.  They also offer hard-to-find seeds that you can’t find at the big box stores, such as the Asparagus Beans that I was bragging about a few posts ago.

My first batch of tomatoes for the year will be made into salsa.  Charming loves the stuff and will eat almost a pint with one taco salad.  That’s why I’m canning this batch in quarts.  Otherwise, I would waste a lot of time running to the basement to grab another jar of salsa.  For salsa, I use the Mrs. Wage’s method.  I don’t care for growing cilantro nor do I care for eating it.  Therefore, as far as salsa is concerned, I’ll leave the spices to the professionals.  It’s quick, easy, gluten-free and Charming likes the taste.  That’s an all around winner for me!

Although I do not really like salsa, I do find it to be palatable in casseroles.  I make a “Mexican Casserole” that is layers of corn tortillas, grated cheddar cheese, and a mixture of canned chicken (boneless chicken thighs that I can myself), rice, salsa, and a gluten-free substitute for condensed cream of chicken soup that I concoct myself.  Charming loves this casserole and will ask me to make it on special occasions like his birthday.  Neither I nor Mrs. Wage can ask for a higher compliment than that!

Oh…one of my readers brought it to my attention that, using Internet Explorer to access my blog, she is unable to “see” my e-mail address and unable to access the “Comment” section.  (For some reason it is visible to those who use Google Chrome as their web browser, but for not Internet Explorer.)  My e-mail address for this blog is virginiarealblog@gmail.com if you should want to comment or contact me.  I’m sorry for this technology glitch.

This "Mortgage Lifter" heirloom tomato measures six inches across
and over three inches tall.  I placed it beside these quart cans of beans
(that I canned Tuesday night) to give you a sense of the tomato's size.

My...or, rather, Mrs. Wage's...salsa.

Canning the salsa.

Seeds of Progress…

July 28, 2014

My onion seeds are ripening and I’ve started harvesting them to save for next year.  This year, we planted yellow onions, white onions, and some large “bunching” onions (bunching onions are attached at the bulb…you may get three or more onions in a bunch). We pulled up the onions and they are now hanging under the porch roof of our garage/storage shed.  (We let the onions hang to “cure” for several weeks because we plan to store them for later use…not sure if everybody does this, but my family always did it so I do it, too. )

Onion seeds can be saved by letting a few of your onions develop flower “heads” (little puff balls of white flowers at the top of the plant).  We let these plants grow until the tops fall over and then pull the onions up and cut the seed head off.  We put the seed heads on a tray and let them sit in a location that is dry and has good ventilation.  After a couple of weeks, a lot of the seeds will have fallen out onto the tray.  To be sure to as many of the seeds as possible, I simply tap the seed head against the tray and watch the shower of large black seeds fall onto the tray.  We try to save as many seeds as possible as the germination rate for onion seeds is fairly low.  While it is easier to just buy onion “sets” (tiny little onions that someone else has started from seed) and just stick them in the ground to grow, we get personal satisfaction from beating the odds and coaxing the onions to grow from our seed.  When you live the simple life, you learn to take great pleasure in life’s little triumphs.

On another topic, one of the big hurdles in our kitchen renovation has been cleared, due to Charming’s creative and engineering mind!  When we moved into our “run-down ranch,” we inherited a cabinet from the previous owners.  The cabinet wasn’t in good shape, but it did have a white enamel top on it…like the ones that the old Hoosier cabinets have.  (My Momma had a Hoosier-type cabinet when I was little and she used to roll the most amazing pie dough on that cabinet top.)  Shortly after we moved into this house, Charming was loading the cabinet onto the truck to take to the landfill when I yelled…“STOP!”  Not surprisingly, Charming has developed a healthy fear of my deep and abiding affection for all things old.  However, he patiently asked me what in the world I wanted with the cabinet.  “Not the cabinet,” I replied.  “Just the top.  We’re going to use it in our future kitchen renovation.”  Poor Charming!  I remember that his shoulders actually slumped when I said that.  Bless his little heart; he removed the top and stored it in the basement where it has been these many years. 

So, when Charming decided to make cabinets for the new part of our kitchen from scratch, I saw my opportunity.  I started planting the seeds (with my gardening experience, I’ve gotten good at planting seeds…ha, ha!) first by saying, “I wonder how that enamel top would look on part of the new countertop.”  Then when we were discussing the cost of the renovation, I slipped in the comment, “Well, you know if we used that enamel top on part of the counter, we could save the cost of about four feet of countertop.”  After strategically planting seeds like this as often as possible, he started to formulate plans to make the top work with the new kitchen counter’s design. 

He cut wood strips and fitted them to the underside of the enamel top and then added more strips to the cabinet…all the while mumbling something about counter-sinking screws, adding shims, and needing stronger wood glue.  Before I knew it, he was lugging the enamel top up the basement stairs and fitting it on top of the cabinet.  After positioning it into place, he seemed surprised that his plan actually worked, but finally he said something about being “proud of himself”.  I have to say that I’m proud of him, too.

Even though the progress on this project is very slow, I know that the kitchen renovation will eventually look “AWESOME!”  I’m just hoping the enamel countertop will help me to make amazing pie dough like my Momma’s!

A previous picture of our garden...You can see our "bunching onions" on top, left
of this photo.  The white seed heads on top of the onion plant contains the seeds
for next year.

These are the seed heads that have been drying for a couple of weeks.
The picture shows me tapping the seed head against the tray to release
more seeds.

With Charming's ingenuity, a plain enamel top from an old cabinet
becomes a functional part of our new counter top.  The cabinets above
will house my baking supplies, while the cabinets below will have metal
pull-out shelves that will corral my mixer, mixing bowls, and baking pans.
The counter top also gives the kitchen the "retro" look that I love.
YAY!

Is It Asparagus or Is It A Bean?

July 24, 2014

Usually we don’t have very good luck growing green beans.  We plant them in the spring, the plants come up, and the bean bugs take over soon afterwards.  However, this year our beans are doing great.  I like to attribute it to me quitting my job, which has allowed me to concentrate on growing food, creating craft projects (which I see as a real “need”), and keeping the house clean enough so that the health department doesn’t declare it unfit for human occupation.

Last year we ordered some beans called Asparagus Beans from a company called Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.  (This is a great company, by the way, as they offer many heirloom seeds, which is what Charming and I prefer to grow.  Their seeds are from the same stock as what our ancestors grew in their gardens…long before Monsanto and DuPont started fiddling with the genetic make-up of American seeds.)  As I recall from the description in the catalog, the beans actually originated in Asia and although they look like green beans they are really more closely related to cowpeas.  They are often referred to as “yard long” beans.  Not surprisingly, last year’s crop did not do as well as we’d hoped.  We harvested just enough to save for seed to use for this year. 

Not expecting much from the seeds that we had saved, but not willing to give up on them, we planted them again this spring.  Well, they grew up their trellis in no time and are producing like gangbusters.  Either last year's plants adjusted to our planting environment or our more diligent work on the garden paid off.  I’m not sure how long the beans would get if we left to grow, but I generally pick them when they are less than two feet long.  So far, they have been resistant to bugs with very few spots or blemishes on them.  After picking them, I mix them in with our Kentucky Wonder pole beans and cook them.  We really like the taste of them.  I have frozen about eight 1-pound bags of them and, barring unexpected extreme weather, expect to get at least that much more to freeze.

I’m already saving some of the beans for seed stock for next year.  Not only are these beans good to eat, they are a curiosity for neighbors and family members.  I guess the old adage that, “bigger is better” holds true in the case of these beans.

You can see the beans growing in the middle
and lower left quadrant of this photo.

Here I'm holding six or so of the beans.  They usually
grow nice and straight, with very few imperfections.

This picture really shows how nice the beans are...
straight, almost perfect, and lots of them.

As you can tell by the tape measure, a few of these beans
have reached the 2-foot mark.  Doesn't take many to make a meal.

Mountain Girl Pearls...

July 21, 2014

I’m the kind of person who likes to be productive for as many (awake) hours of the day as possible.  Maybe it’s because I am a “Type A” personality.  Maybe it’s because I grew up in a family where the saying “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop” was ranked right up there with the Ten Commandments.  I don’t know, but what really matters is that I believe that God only gives us so many hours on this Earth and I want to make the most of every minute.  I like to think I do this by channeling my creative energy into making things that are useful; things that could quite possibly make it into the next generation or even into the next century.  I love anything that can stand up to the wear and tear of daily life like braided rugs, quilts, knitted items, stained glass, etc. and actually improve with age.  I tend to gravitate toward making things that are durable as well as functional…and it gives me a tremendous amount of self-satisfaction if those items are pretty as well.

Recently, I crocheted some necklaces that I affectionately call, “Mountain Girl Pearls”.  So far, I’ve made them in pale blue, off-white, mint green, red, and am currently working on one that is pink.  The base of the necklace is crocheted with scallops on the bottom edge.  I sew matching colors (or not matching colors) of buttons of varying sizes onto the scallops.  The necklace fastens with another button that fits through a crocheted opening.  My first off-white necklace turned out to be fairly attractive.  Then I envisioned what a red one might look like.  After that one was finished, I thought about using paler colors and they turned out nicely as well.  Before I knew it, I had a collection of six necklaces and was churning them out rather quickly as I moved through the thread colors that the craft store had available. 

I came up with the name “Mountain Girl Pearls” because, in times past, most mountain women saved everything they possibly could.  This included fabric, zippers and buttons from worn out or outgrown clothing.  Buttons were a precious commodity to mountain women.  I recall when I was young that my Momma and my Granny both had “button boxes”.  After I grew up and moved into my own place, I started my own button collection.  I have buttons that I’ve removed from the wool clothing used to make my braided rugs, buttons purchased at yard sales and thrift shops for almost nothing, and buttons that I’ve bought from the clearance bins at fabric stores.  My collection has, over the years, somehow morphed from one small container to one jar and two good-sized tins of buttons.  I will probably never use all of these buttons in my lifetime.  However, I hope that they will eventually fall into the hands of someone who will treasure them just as much as I do, and as my mother did, and as my grandmother did.

For now, I’m content with recycling some of my precious buttons and turning them into sweet little necklaces.  (Charming says that I need to consider parting with these and selling them on etsy.com or some other venue…at the rate I’m churning them out, I think he fears that if I die first he’ll be stuck with a dresser drawer full of ‘em!  I'm trying to convince him to think of them as an "inheritance" not a "burden".)

My button stash...about a half-gallon in the jar and the other
two containers are full to the top of beautiful buttons in every color of
the rainbow.

Six completed necklaces.

All six necklaces...laid out for better viewing.

The original "Mountain Girl" (me!) modeling my Mountain Girl Pearls.
(Hmmm...could that be a new wrinkle on my turkey neck?????)

Compost Tea, Anyone?

July 17, 2014

This year we had a little “volunteer” tomato plant that grew up right beside our compost tumbler.  (For those of you who don’t recognize the gardening term “volunteer,” it means that the plant was not intentionally planted and it grew from seed that either fell to the ground, was dropped by a bird, or made its way into the soil by some other means.)  Our compost tumbler sits on two rubber mats that used to be in our dog kennel.  Since Max spends almost no time in the kennel now that Charming and I no longer have jobs outside the home, we moved the mats under the compost tumblers in an effort to keep weeds from growing in that area.  

Getting back to the volunteer tomato plant…Volunteer plants are usually pretty hardy as they made it, against the odds, to germination.  We could have dug this one up and re-planted it in a better location; however, it grew right smack dab in the teensy weensy crack between the compost tumbler mat and the garden bed that butts up against the mat.  What are the odds?  I tried to pull it up to transplant, but its root system is firmly in the ground and it wouldn’t budge. 

Anyhow, we decided to let it grow…and grow it did!  It is now up to my waist and interferes with the little latch that releases the left side of the compost tumbler that allows the tumbler to spin and aerate the compost.  So I decided to take the compost out of the left compost tumbler and put it in the garden bed where I grew snow peas this spring.  (I pulled up my snow pea plants over the weekend and got a bunch of leftover snow peas for seeds…but that, in itself, is a subject for another blog post.)

This morning I took the not-quite-ready compost and dug it into the now vacant garden bed.  I shoveled the compost out of the tumbler and into our ancient green wheelbarrow.  After dumping the dark brown stuff onto the garden bed, I used a hoe to mix it in with the already loosened soil.  After I leveled it off, I drenched the entire bed with water from our rain barrels and will let that soak in until this evening when I will take our handy-dandy post hole digger and make “wells” in the garden bed for our final group of tomato seedlings.  I’ll add egg shells and a tiny bit of cow pooty to the holes for the plants.  In addition to the compost, this should give them a great start on their growing adventure.

We have fifteen tomato seedlings that I’ve been nursing along since spring.  They have held up like little troopers, just waiting to get their chance to stretch their roots into the warm, dark dirt.  I’m anxious to see if, due to the added compost, the poor little things will do as well as the ones we planted in the spring.  Will keep you updated on their progress as well as the progress of the show off growing beside the compost tumbler!

Not-quite-ready compost in our compost tumbler.

The "show off" volunteer tomato plant that grew in the crack
between the rubber mat that the compost tumbler sits on and the
cinder block that outlines one of our garden beds.
(It is a beautiful specimen...though I'm not yet sure of what variety.)

The garden bed after I threw the compost onto it.  (Awww...
note my trusty garden buddy at the top of the picture.)

The garden bed after I mixed in the compost...

The garden bed after watering.  The water will soak into the
bed and be ready for planting left over tomato seedlings this
evening.  Yay!

Occasionally Life Stinks…

July 14, 2014

The majority of time, I’d say life is pretty good.  Things go bouncing along with no problems or issues.  Then there are times like this past weekend.  Charming and I attended a birthday party for my Aunt Kat on Saturday afternoon.  The party was great.  We brushed elbows with lots of people, lots of food, and spent lots of time of catching up with family members that we hadn’t seen in a while. 

Since my aunt and I live in the same neighborhood, several of her closest neighbors attended the birthday party as well.  During the party, as I was busily chatting with some of my family, I heard snippets of conversations that Charming was having with neighbors.  My ears caught the words “skunk” and “babies” and “last night”.  Hmmmmm…now any conversation with all three of those words in the same sentence cannot be a good thing, but I let them go through one ear and out the other as I was heavily into my own conversation.

Yesterday, Charming refreshed my memory about the conversations that he’d had with the neighbors at the part.  Apparently, several different neighbors had told him during several different conversations that a family of skunks has moved into our neighborhood.  The skunks (a Momma and two babies…apparently she’s a single mother since no other adult skunk was observed) had been seen two or three times during the night-time hours.  During one sighting, the mother and babes were seen on someone’s carport. 

Well, Charming let Max The Wonder Dog out into the yard last night to take care of business before bedtime.  We normally stand at the door and wait for Max to do his thing and then he comes directly back into the house.  Well, Charming stepped away from the door to walk into his office to get something.  I (sitting in my recliner) was working on a crochet project when I got a whiff of something that smelled like a combination of coffee and burning rubber.  Oh, nooooooooooooo!

I threw my crochet project into the air and shouted to Charming, “I smell a skunk!!!!”  He came charging out of his office, flew out the door and into the yard yelling for Max.  I followed meekly, dreading what I would see and hear.  At this point, Charming has our beautiful 81-pound lab mix by the collar, wrestling him toward the house.  Max can be a powerhouse when he has a small animal in his so-called sight.  (He has very poor eyesight.)  He will race across our yard in an attempt to catch rabbits, squirrels, or cats, but then will come to a screeching halt and just sniff them.  (We have a chain-link fence that allows for a quick get away by the small animals as they scamper under the fence.  We also have an enormous stacked woodpile that is up off the ground that offers safety to the little critters.)  Max has never harmed an animal…it’s the thrill of the chase that he absolutely loves.

But I’m getting off topic.  On his way to the bathroom, dragging Max unceremoniously behind him, Charming muttered, “I think he got hit with skunk spray.”  As soon as Charming moved back the shower curtain, Max jumped into the tub.  Not only does he like a bath, I think he actually knew that he smelled awful.  I quickly ran to get the dish detergent, as I remembered that was part of a “recipe” given to me by our vet years ago.  Having owned several dogs in my lifetime (and at least two of them had the experience of being sprayed by a skunk), I have to say that this recipe works better than anything I have tried.

This morning, Max is looking a little sheepish from his late-night experience, but he surely smells a lot better.

De-Skunking Recipe

1 quart hydrogen peroxide

1 teaspoon mild dish washing detergent (like Ivory or something clear)

¼ cup baking soda

NOTE:  It’s best to use this recipe outside near the garden hose, if the incident occurs during the daylight hours.  If it happens at night, then you have no real choice but to stink up your house…just dump the dog straight into the tub, without letting him stop anywhere on his way to the bathtub.

Immediately after mixing the ingredients together, use a sponge to dab the solution onto the dog’s fur while his fur is still dry.  (Skunk spray is somewhat oily so you want the dish detergent to break this oil down before you rinse it away with water.)  Be sure to go heavy on the solution around the dog’s neck, ears, and snout…avoid the dog’s eyes…you can wash around the eyes with plain water.  (Dogs are curious and usually stick their silly faces right up to the skunk so most of it ends up in the head area.) 

Leave the solution on the dog for 5 – 10 minutes and then rinse thoroughly. 

This recipe should get rid of most of smell, which makes it much easier to continue to love and be close to your dog.

This was Max on Saturday with a Happy Birthday
message for Aunt Kat.

This is Max this morning after the skunk incident.  

Later, today...Max with his head on the "step-down" that leads
to my office area.  My poor stinky baby is laying low today.

Relish the Bountiful Harvest…

July 10, 2014

Charming and I are not particularly wild about cucumbers.  However, we had one “volunteer” cucumber plant that came up where we had planted them last year.  This little plant is quite a performer.  We’ve already pulled about ten cucumbers off of this plant.  Each cucumber has been at least a foot long.  We used some of them in our salads, but it would be difficult for the two of us to eat this many cucumbers.

Last year I canned more dill pickles than we will probably ever eat, so I definitely did not want to add more of the same.  So I grabbed my trusty “Ball Blue Book of Preserving” to see if there was anything else I could make with the excess cucumbers. 

Aha!  Sweet pickle relish on Page 52!  I routinely buy sweet relish to mix in with tuna.  (I must have some natural aversion to mayonnaise, as it has made me physically ill every time I’ve ever eaten it so I don’t purchase, make, or even look at mayonnaise.)  Sweet relish is a great alternative to jazz up tuna. 

So I set out to make the relish.  After a couple hours of chopping the cucumbers, onion, and green/yellow/orange peppers, I had the makings for the relish.  I added the required amount of salt and waited the two hours called for in the recipe.  Then I drained, rinsed, and drained the mixture to get rid of some of the salt.  I heated mustard seed, celery seed, vinegar and lots of sugar in a large pot and brought it to a boil.  I then dumped in the cucumber mixture and simmered it for ten minutes.  After that, it was just a matter of packing it into the clean, warmed jars, capping the jars with lids, tightening the bands and then processing the batch in a boiling-water canner for ten minutes. 

Voila!  I had seven pints of home made relish!  I couldn’t resist the urge to try some of this yesterday in my lunch-time tuna.  I fully expected it to be inferior to the name brand that I normally purchase.  However, to my surprise this stuff was great!  I think it’s even better than the relish I used to buy from the supermarket.  Note that I say, “used to buy”.  The final product is definitely worth growing the cucumbers and spending a couple of hours chopping the vegetables.  From now on, I fully intend to plant cucumbers every year so that I can make enough of this tasty stuff to last me throughout the rest of my life!  

These are not the actual vegetables I used to make my relish.  Originally, I
had six cucumbers of this size that I grew in my garden.  Unfortunately,
I had forgotten to put the SD card back  in my camera after I finished my last post.
Since I can't find the cable that connects my camera to my computer,
the picture is floating around somewhere inside my camera never to
be seen in all it's glory.

The, however, is the actual picture of my relish as it sits in a salt bath
prior to canning.  The camera does not really do justice to the beautiful
greens and reds of the cucumbers and peppers.

Seven pints of absolutely wonderful sweet relish!

All Kinds of Beauty…

July 7, 2014

While pulling a few weeds out of my herb garden this weekend, I noticed that my dill plant has produced the most beautiful “heads” I have seen anywhere.  As with most things that grow in the garden, I just love dill.  It’s a beautiful plant.  It is tall and graceful…two things that I always longed to be.  (I got the tall part, but I’m a little short on graceful these days.  Then again, getting 50% of what you want is not really such a bad deal.)  The dill plant somewhat resembles Queen Anne’s Lace with its lacy broad flower heads.

In addition to dill being lovely to look at, it also has some other functional uses.  As you probably know, dill is used to make the dill pickles which taste so good with hamburgers.  Some people, me included, put the flower heads into the jar with the cucumbers prior to canning then.  A jar of pickles with the dill flower placed just perfectly in the jar looks ever so lovely sitting on a shelf or a picnic table. 

Another way I use dill is to plant it next to my zucchini squash.  This is supposed to help keep the dreaded Squash Vine Borer at bay.  Almost any gardener will tell you of the heartbreak they feel when one day they have perfectly lovely squash plants and then they enter their garden one morning to find the squash plants have collapsed during the night…that’s the work of the Squash Vine Borer.  (By the way, it also helps to plant your squash plants later in the season to help deter those little buggers…I presume that the reason planting them later in the season helps is because they’re too busy munching on your neighbors’ full-grown plants to bother with yours.)  I can say that…so far…this combination has worked well for me, although my two squash plants do look a bit out of place growing in my herb garden.  However, I’m a firm believer in the “whatever works” method of gardening.

If you are growing dill in your garden or a container, you can save the seeds for next year by cutting a few of the flower stalks and tying them together.  I hang them in my outside shed in an area that doesn’t get direct light.  You can tie a paper bag around the flower heads (with holes punched in the sides of the bag) to catch the seeds.  Sometimes I get lazy, though, and just drop the flower heads onto a plate and set it on a bookcase in Charming’s office.  Both of these seed saving methods have worked for me.  Be sure the seeds are completely dry, though, before storing them in an airtight container…such as a small glass jar. 

In my herb garden, dill will sometimes “self seed”.  If I get really, really lazy and don’t collect the flower heads for seed saving during the summer then, in the fall, the seeds will dry and drop to the ground where they will germinate the following spring.  Trouble is…they might end up one to ten feet from where you had your original plants.  So, if you decide to let your dill self-seed, you need to be on the look out for it in the spring.  You definitely don’t want to till it under or accidentally pull it up when you’re preparing next year’s herb garden.

Dill flowers.  A true work of art by nature...

...that gets transformed into another work of art by human hands...

...and a little reminder to myself of where these works of art come from.

A bonus picture of my sweet boy doing what he loves most...
chasing and catching the water from the garden hose!  (He's actually
in mid-air as he catches the blast from the hose.)