One of the great things about home canning is spending time together and building memories as well as a surplus of goods for the winter.  While coring, peeling, and cutting up apples today, I looked at the blossom end of one of the apples.  It brought back a fond memory I have of my dad, placating a young boy that had a tremendous case of arachnophobia.

“Daddy, there’s a spider in my apple!”  That was my belief.  When you are a child, the blossom end seems to be about an inch in diameter with a bunch of fuzzy legs.

“No, son, that’s just the end that the blossom was on.”  Being a child with an intense fear of spiders, he cut out the ‘spider’ and I ate my apple.

I think I might have been nine or so when I was big enough to realize that it wasn’t a spider and having the chance to see apples on a tree, from bloom to mature fruit was a great source of letting go.  As far as the arachnophobia, let’s just say if we keep our distance, spiders and I get along just fine.

I’m happy to report that we have lots of spider-free apples canned and frozen.  Next up, apple sauce and apple butter!

Do you have a story about a food that might have put you off or even scared the bejesus out of you?  Maybe that cauliflower looks a little too much like a brain?  Feel free to share, after all, it’s memories of the past that sometimes make memories for the future.

As the month draws to a close I look back at all that has been accomplished and can’t do anything but smile. Sure, I would have loved to have grown a bigger garden with more veggies and a wider variety of herbs but I don’t know many folks who don’t say that regardless of the season they’ve had.

The time has come to pull up the beloved heirloom tomato plants and get the beds ready for some fall carrots, parsnips and greens. We will also be planning the layout of the gardens for 2012 so that we can get a jump on tilling and amending in plenty of time.  Just because the gardens are waning doesn’t mean that things will be slowing down here on the MEG homestead, quite the contrary! Now is the time we get to look back on what we’ve done, and what we want to do.

Cooler weather brings with it the opportunity to do a lot of outdoor projects that the oppressive summer heat made unbearable.  Construction and craft projects will be happening on the homestead throughout the fall and winter months right up until time to get those seeds started in preparation for spring 2012.  There will be new raised beds and new permanent beds put in place as well as challenges to keep us thinking and growing.

What Did We Learn?

John & I were so busy this month that we didn’t spend as much time here as we’d have liked, but we did manage to share several great recipes including:

• Homemade Apple Bread
• Homemade Iced/Frozen Coffee
• Perfect Dried Pinto Beans

We also taught you how to save heirloom tomato seed for planting next year, as well as a great idea for using the tomato peels you might otherwise discard.

Looking Ahead to September

In the coming month there are some great posts and new videos planned including tips for how to overwinter your favorite herbs, how to plan your garden for next year (and why you need to do it now), plus more great recipes and ideas that will help you live a simpler, more natural life without the need to wear patchouli and tie dyed t-shirts.

Thanks for reading!

It happened while we were in the throes of canning the first tomatoes of the season.  That part won’t surprise anyone who has ever had a completely kickass idea at the most inopportune time possible much like the funny quip you know you’re doomed to forget because you can’t find a pen.

We looked at the compost bowl full of tomato skins that had just been liberated from their innards and wondered aloud if there was a way to make them useful rather than just tossing them into the compost tumbler. 

That’s when the wheels started turning and an idea was born. We were going to turn tomato peels into tomato paste!

The idea isn’t as crazy as you might think, but because genius is oft misunderstood, I ask only that you read on to see just how amazing it really is.

We started with a bowl full of tomato peels (see photo above) that had just been removed after a 60 second dunk in boiling water.

HINT: If you are canning tomatoes, use a sharp knife to cut an X through the skin on the base of the tomato. The skin will slide right off after blanching.

Then we placed the peels skin side down evenly on the trays of a dehydrator, turned it on and let the magic happen until the skins were completely dry.

The dried tomato skins take on a beautiful hue that reminded me of the tissue paper flowers I made in grade school.  They are beautiful and quite fragile.

Thankfully I had no intention of keeping them intact so I peeled them away from the trays and collected the dehydrated tomato peel in a container to prepare for the next step in the process. What’s the next step, you ask? Don’t get ahead of me, I’m trying to tell a story here.

When I crumbled the dried peels, they started to resemble fish food flakes which doesn’t really mean anything other than I thought it was pretty cool. Don’t judge me.

When all of the tomato peels were collected from the dehydrator they were ready for the final stage of this journey in which I pulverized them into an aromatic and colorful powder using the trusty Magic Bullet. I could have used my beloved Vita-Mix, but there wasn’t enough to warrant getting out such a large piece of equipment.

A quick whirr in the Bullet was all it took to transform these tomato peels into something that you wouldn’t recognize at all.

From the looks of things, this experimental idea is going to do what we had hoped, but there is only one way to be absolutely sure.  I measured out a teaspoon of my tomato powder into a ramekin and added an equal amount of water. When I stirred the mixture together well, I was left with exactly what I’d thought I would have.

Now I have a secret weapon in my cupboard. I can make tomato paste on the fly in any amount I need without having to open a can that I might not be able to use all of. We have used the entire tomato and created something useful and money-saving in the process. For those curious about the flavor, it tastes exactly like tomato paste and because it is dehydrated, it is completely shelf stable.

In the future we plan to use the idea to make seasoning mixes as well.  We will follow the same process stopping short of creating a powder.  By leaving the dried tomato in tiny flakes we can then mix them with sea salt, basil, dehydrated onion, garlic, and a host of other goodies to create one of a kind flavor mixes that will be ready in a shake.

"I went into the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

Henry David Thoreau, Walden

In another of those difficult but necessary transitional phases of my life I am faced with the task of transforming a large 2.5 acre plot on a rural farm into a living, working garden space.  When the project began it was going to exist solely as a garden but now I am looking on this project as more of a whole life change.

The farm is a beautiful rural spot, out of the way and yet easily accessible from the Interstate.  It is quiet, wooded and idyllic.  In other words, it is everything I have dreamed of in a home and a homestead.  With that in mind  I am in the process of deciding whether or not I will be making the garden my little homestead in the woods.  I would like to turn it into a lifestyle experiment in which I can finally walk in the footsteps of my literary and life muse, Henry David Thoreau.

Plants and animals I am good at.  People, not so much.  I can grow a garden like nobody’s business but I have never been the best at cultivating and nurturing a personal relationship.  Perhaps for me, living deeply is more about studying and putting my energy on building that relationship with My Earth Garden, this land on which I live.  No worries, I don’t have any intention of becoming a cave dwelling hermit or of writing manifestos from a barebones shack.

Coyote tracks in the new garden 6/7/11

Aside from the horses and donkeys already at home on the farm, I have discovered fresh coyote tracks as well. While they aren’t a concern for the larger animals, they are a consideration for the future when I plan to bring in chickens.  Having a small home and daily human presence on the garden site will help to keep the coyotes at bay, though other measures may be employed if necessary.

I have a lot of aspects to consider should this be the path I choose to follow, but all indicators point toward my dream garden becoming my dream homestead.  If and when that happens, you will all be welcome to enjoy the journey with me.

It was about 3 years ago I made the first of many interesting finds here. Something I had loved for years fresh, mostly just from package to mouth, but occasionally in a pie.  While walking up the hill behind the house I stumbled across a patch of beautiful green leaves and thought to myself, “Hey, these would be great shrubs. Wonder if they would survive in the direct sun.”

Little did I know that when I would go back up to collect them some 3 weeks later I would find berries on them. Edible berries. Okay, so at first I wasn’t sure if they were edible and I popped 3 or 4 in my mouth, tasted the sweetness, then thought, “God. I hope those weren’t poisonous.”

I quickly disposed of the rest of them and checked my vitals. I am still breathing to this day and now I know I will have fresh wild blueberries and huckleberries (yeah, they’re an actual fruit) to harvest soon.

Michael helped identify the plants I was unsure about for years and now I will have berries for pies, canning and of course the odd smoothie is not out of the question either. Seeing the beautiful bell-shaped blooms on the bushes just feet from the house confirmed that those are truly the same berries I paid $8 a gallon to pick from someone’s farm a few miles away.

Now with time and a little patience, berry pickin’ time is just around the corner.  I say, “Bring on the blues.”

At the risk of being accused of OCD, I share these diagrams of the new garden beds planted here on the homestead.  Fresh on the heels of being called sexy by Ecosalon.com, I guess I felt the need to prove that I’m more gardener than sexy.  When the beds are all finished, these diagrams will be complemented with photographs that will join them in the garden notebook for this season. (I’ll talk more about garden notebooks soon.)

Three rows of bush beans and two rows of Clemson Spineless Okra are virtually maintenance free once they are established.  They were started from seed on 5/2/11.  The Black Beauty Eggplant seedlings as well as the tomato seedlings were started indoors on the homestead in March.  The “? Tomato” was a volunteer seedling that started in a leftover bin of peat moss, so it won’t be identifiable until there are some tomatoes on it.

This herb bed is absolutely gorgeous. It is a combination of some of the most aromatic and beautiful herbs around.  We’ve already used basil and parsley!

This is one of two tomato beds, this one including tomatillos and wayward bell pepper and dill plants.  The Homestead 24 tomatoes as well as the San Marzano heirloom came from our recent trip to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens Spring Plant Sale.  The rest were started from my personal seed collection.

The second tomato bed was actually planted first.  It includes seven tomato seedlings that were all started from seed here on the homestead.  The banana peppers were also started here.  The mini bell pepper was a purchase from the Birmingham Botanical Gardens Spring Plant Sale, and it is already producing!

Here’s the rundown of what has been planted since the last update:

• 5 Boston Pickling Cucumbers
• 5 Yellow Straight Neck Summer Squash
• Sunflowers
• 3 Large Red Cherry Heirloom Tomatoes
• 4 tomatillos
• 4 Aunt Ruby’s German Green Heirloom Tomatoes
• 3 Livingston Golden Queen Heirloom Tomatoes
• 3 Black Sea Man Heirloom Tomatoes
• 4 Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter Heirloom Tomatoes
• 2 Grandpa’s Cock’s Plume Heirloom Tomatoes
• 1 ? Tomato
• 2 Black Beauty Eggplant
• 2 Brussels Sprouts
• 5’ Cowpeas / Purple Hulls
• 5’ Mangetout Oregon Sugar Pod
• 6 Zucchini
• 2 rows of Clemson Spineless Okra
• 12 Romano Bush Beans

Sometimes life on the homestead isn’t about the homestead at all. Sometimes, it’s just about surviving.

Almost like “The Alabama Experiment,” day to day living can reek havoc on plans, time and each other. I work for a national retail chain and where I do have the benefit of time off, being salaried means that it’s not necessarily when I want it.

For the next 3 to 6 weeks I will be working 6 days per week and probably 10 hours per day. In this time, most of what I call “Day to Day Living,” will be neglected. The past few weeks of the food challenge will be replaced with a true food challenge: “What will I eat?” I will not have time to prepare meals and hindsight being 20/20, I wish we had made more food during the challenge and plated them for MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) use.

Not only will the diet be lacking, but the lawn care and garden will be slightly neglected. I am counting on good old mother nature to bring the heavy dew and light rains to keep things green, and with any luck, the grass won’t become a jungle before it gets mowed. Then the issues of laundry and house keeping…made a fresh batch of homemade laundry detergent Friday night, but when will I wash my clothes?

Its not always about what things we plan and the future we plan for, it is about the obstacles and hurdles. The ones that make us stronger, the ones that make you just want to give up, but you don’t. You rely on the important people in your life to see you through, your family, your friends, your partner. You reach out that hand, the one that you hate to hold out, and simply say, “Help.”

Our weekend was Friday and Saturday this week as John had to work this morning.  Still, we managed to accomplish a lot despite a significant weather setback.

Friday

On a stormy Friday we visited the annual Birmingham Botanical Garden Spring Plant Sale and couldn’t help but to avail ourselves of some of the mind boggling selection of plants available there.  From native plants to heirloom tomatoes, herbs to shrubs (and tons of great roses), they were there and we got quite a few great additions for the homestead. I also had the opportunity to meet Chris VanCleave, The Redneck Rosarian and though we didn’t have much time to chat I’m sure we’ll see each other again before long.

Friday night we availed ourselves of fresh, local catfish dinner while on a visit to see John’s family before returning home in the midst of a tornado watch.

Saturday

Saturday morning started bright and early.  The weather could not have been more of a stark contrast to the day before with cool breezes and sunny skies welcoming us.  John manned the tiller as we prepared the beds for the previous day’s purchases along with a few of the seedlings we’d started at home.

By day’s end, a dozen tomato seedlings have been planted:

• Homestead 24 (3)
• San Marzano (1)
• Red Star (1)
• Mortgage Lifter (2)
• Black Sea Man (1)
• Aunt Ruby’s German Green (1)
• Livingston (1)
• Large Red Cherry (1)
• Grandpa’s Cock’s Plume (1)

In addition, several pepper plants were placed, along with a dizzying array of herbs that include:

• Thyme
• Greek Oregano
• Red Rubin Basil
• Lemongrass
• Italian Parsley
• Mrs Burns Lemon Basil
• Garden Sage
• Mammoth Dill
• Common Sage
• Peppermint
• Kentucky Colonel Spearmint

A gorgeous gardenia, an oleander and a transplanted cedar also found new homes.  By evening we were ready to have dinner and relax with a movie when John had an idea about the raised beds.  The photo at the start of this post is what resulted from that quick brainstorming session and neither of us could be any more pleased with our new stair-stepped raised beds.  When filled and amended they will add great and attractive growing space to the homestead.

We still have a lot to plant but as our available time (there’s no such thing as “free” time) decreases we are really happy with days like this.

This weekend was a particularly productive one.  With the recent purchase of a new tiller we are in a better position to make the most of the ground we have and to make shorter work of creating usable soil.  That came in particularly handy when we chose the area for the large tomato bed that will be ready to plant at the same time that the seedlings will be ready for their new home.

We also transplanted a neglected arborvitae and the peach tree that John mentioned in his post before setting our sites on building another raised bed.  As you can see by the clay and rock that surrounds the bed, the area was not very forgiving.

After the bed was built and filled lasagna-style with leaves, rotting trees, moss and soil, we began placing the onions sets purchased for $.99/lb last weekend while we were in Virginia.

The sets filled half of the 32 square foot bed leaving plenty of room for other things to share the space.

Before dark we checked in on the first raised beds and noticed that there were enough turnip greens for a nice complement to last night’s smoked chicken.

After John got in from work this afternoon we went out to get a few bags of manure / humus as the compost isn’t ready for use yet and we need to amend some soil in preparation for the planting of all the seedlings we’ve started.  Little did I know that it would lead to a particularly sensitive moment for me when every soil and amendment product sold at our first destination was a Scott’s product or one that is owned by Scott’s.

I almost choked on the words when I said “let’s just get it”. John is the king of giving in to my various psychoses when it comes to gardening and homesteading and he never complains.  For some reason the realization that it was difficult to find basic necessities like cow shit that didn’t go against what I stand for made me overly sensitive in that moment and my knee-jerk options were to give in or stand in the middle of a parking lot with tears in my eyes.  Thankfully, John did as he commonly does and spoke up as the singular voice of reason.

We left the store.

Just a mile away we found another retailer that carries a brand that is produced and bagged right here in Alabama.  We grabbed a few bags and headed for home with the knowledge of where any such future purchases will be made.

Potential crisis averted.

I did something many long years ago that to my surprise is celebrating it’s 15th year of life. What’s more, it wasn’t the first time.  I guess I could say “oops I grew it again” and hopefully won’t have Britney knocking down my door for copyright infringement.

It started when I threw out something that was no good to me. While visiting family in Northern Alabama I went across the street to a vacant lot and picked the most beautiful, huge persimmons. I quickly ate one only to find that the taste was not for me but when my dad said we could make jam or jelly from them, they came home with us anyway.

After a couple of weeks in the fridge I decided they may as well be food for the local wildlife and tossed them outside without thinking about it again.  That was 28 years ago and the persimmon tree in the back yard is a constant reminder of how sometimes all we have to do is get out of nature’s way and watch things happen.

If you saw the spot you would ask yourself how anything could grow there, but it did grow and throughout the property there are other examples of how squirrels, birds, wind and other forces helped a dozen or more trees start; things that I didn’t want became things that I now adore. That leads me to my pride and joy.

About 15 years ago, I threw out a peach pit. I didn’t give it much thought, just tossing it out in the yard after eating the sweet fruit. When I saw it later and stepped on it, I knew I’d lodged it into the earth but never expected a tree to be born from that same deficient soil as the persimmon.  A 3 foot tall peach tree grew, never upward but always to the left and to the right.  I produced beautiful blooms and small fruit that never reached maturity, so I have yet to consume a single bite of fruit from the tree.

This weekend, Michael and I gave it a chance to become what it could have and should have been when we moved the peach tree to a new and more ideal environment on the other side of the property. We dug the small root ball and carefully placed it, giving it a healthy drink as I said a small prayer for it. It looks as though I have buried deer antlers at this point, but with love and nourishment from good soil, I hope to see it have one good year, before it’s life ends. The average life expectancy for a peach tree is about 15-20 years.

Funny thing is, it’s just like that with family and relationships. You nurture and give it what it takes to grow and it can bear fruit for a lifetime.  Even after it is gone it remains and is still part of me as it has given to me what I needed to survive and grow.

There’s a lesson to be learned here. The only thing anything takes to be a fruitful productive part of your life – plants, children & loved ones alike -  is the right environment to grow.  Given the right conditions even years of neglect will slowly vanish. They will grow toward the sun being a positive part of your home’s ecosystem.