Squash Carving

This year we decided not to buy pumpkins, but to use what we had growing in the garden for our jack-o-lantern carving fun. We have a bucket full of jack-be-little pumpkins that the kids have been painting and carving and decorating with. Annika used one of them as her tiny jack-o-lantern.

It was a little small to get a spoon or hand in to scoop out the seeds, but luckily the chickens were around to lend a hand, or beak...

Cohen and Lakin let the Kamo Kamo squashes get very mature in the garden. Kamo Kamo's are like a summer squash when they are picked young, but as they get mature the begin to turn orange and become more like a winter squash. I love the look of them!

Cale's monster pumpkin plant put out a few more flowers after his big ones were picked. One of the pumpkins ended up sitting in a fence and grew itself stuck, so he destroyed it....But the other turned into a nice sized pumpkin to carve.

Here they are, all lit up!

September Wrap-Up

September seemed to fly by this year. Summer was left behind and the leaves are starting to change little by little. Here's a recap of September around our house.

This month started all about the fair. I shared the kids' entries, but I never shared the results. We took a trip the the fair one afternoon to check out animals and exhibits....and yes, to check out how their entries did.

We picked up their exhibits and their ribbons a few weeks ago. They did well! And are excited about next year- and about the checks they will receive in the mail next month. Just to give you an idea- the blue ribbons pay $10, red ribbons pay $6 and white pay $4. So yes, they will get a pretty good paycheck!

We ate watermelon. Lots of watermelon. These are Rylan's Orangeglo. They are very pretty and sweet too.

Rylan saved up his money again. This time he was saving for a self propelled lawn mower. He talked Cohen into helping to pay for the last little bit, so they share the mower. It's win-win since they seem to love to mow and Paul doesn't have a lot of spare time to do it!
 

And we ate more watermelon.  I think we've eaten one a day for most of the month. Half for lunch and half for snack.

We took a trip to the Beaver Lake Bird Sanctuary. We only saw a couple birds- my crew isn't exactly patient or quiet enough for bird watching- but we saw a few blue herons. And a muskrat, turtles, fish and this caterpillar.

We have been harvesting just a few of our sweet potatoes. So far it looks like it will be a good harvest. The garden is winding down- still peppers, okra, eggplant and beans and a few late planted summer squash plants.

We went apple picking for the local food bank. The orchard donates over 100,000 lbs of apples every year- they just need help with picking!

 

This Saturday was National Hunting and Fishing Day, so we drove down to the Center for Wildlife Education in Brevard. 

They had archery, bb gun target practice, fly fishing instruction and casting practice.

We have family visiting this week. Tonight we cooked out- burgers, hot dogs and s'mores around fire. The perfect end to the month!
 

And if you haven't been over on The Free Range Life, head over there to read the following articles:

• How to Make a Quick Shelter Out of Pallets
• 6 Quick and Easy Pallet Projects for the Homestead
• Soil Nutrient Deficiencies and How to Fix Them
• How to Preserve Eggplant
• The Many Uses and Benefits of Oregano

And that is it for our September! Did you do anything fun this month?

Life and Garden via Instagram

From the top, L to R:

1. Produce basket from our nightly harvests 2. Making fresh rainbow salsa
3. Refrigerator pickles 4. Eggplant Crisp
5. Cohen's Red Mini Bell Pepper 6. Cale's huge pumpkins
7. Making garden veggie soup  8. Cale's favorite place to be

{Goat Milk} Vanilla Bean Ice Cream with Cajeta Swirl

I am waiting on new cultures to arrive before I can make more cheese and we were getting a little overrun with milk. Yesterday I made a half a gallon of yogurt and used another half gallon of milk to make cajeta in the crock pot. We have made dulce de leche in the crock pot before using store bought condensed milk, but I wanted to try it with with our fresh goat milk.

It took all day to cook down, but it is so, so good. It tasted a little like a mix between caramel and butterscotch.

To Make Cajeta:

1/2 gallon goat milk
2 cups sugar
Seeds of 1 vanilla bean
dash of cinnamon/ 1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp baking soda dissolved in 1 T water

You can make this on the stovetop (quicker, but more hands-on) or in the crock pot (much longer, but does not require constant attention). I went with the crock pot so I didn't have to stand and stir for hours.

Place the milk, vanilla, cinnamon and sugar in the crock pot and turn on to high. Stir every so often until the milk is hot and sugar is dissolved. Stir in the baking soda water. Continue cooking on high stirring every so often. I just stirred as I came into the kitchen, maybe once an hour or so. Keep the lid off since the goal is for the milk to reduce and caramelize. It took about 12 hours to thicken up to the consistency I wanted (like a sauce/topping) if you want it thicker just cook a little longer.

And this morning Annika and I made vanilla bean ice cream to go with our cajeta. Sometimes I make the more involved ice cream by making a custard with eggs, milk and sugar but today I went the simple route.

To Make Vanilla Bean Ice Cream (raw):

2 cups raw goat milk
1 cup goat milk yogurt
3/4 cup sugar
Seeds of 1 vanilla bean

Whisk all of this together and pour into a 1.5 qt ice cream maker and mix as the machine instructs. The key here is to have 3 cups of liquid. You can use a combination of heavy cream, whole milk, skim milk etc. The lower the fat the less creamy the ice cream will be. I choose 2 cups of whole, raw goat's milk and 1 cup of yogurt this time to see how the yogurt affected the consistency.

We also swirled about 1/2 cup of our cajeta into the ice cream just as it finished processing.

It wasn't quite all the way frozen by lunch time....but it was still really good!

Garden 2013: Finally Planting

 Planted:

80 tomatoes,  20 heirloom varieties
20 peppers, 8  heirloom varieties
15 eggplants, 4 varieties

300 peas, 3 varities
Kale, lettuce, chard, spinach, broccoli and cauliflower (all but the kale are doing rather poorly at the moment)
radishes and carrots planted in straw bales

 Herbs: Sage, Oregano, Lavender, Thyme, Wormwood, Curry, Rosemary, Calendula and 7 different varieties of basil
Flowers: Cosmos, Zinnias, Marigold, Sunflowers and a few different wildflowers

We stayed in the garden most of the day yesterday, and with this addition I was able to get a lot done. Annika (and the boys) played in the sand ALL day in the shade of the old apple tree. 

The first tomato....on one of the plants I started back in February.

On Growing Garden Peas

You can now find this post on my other site, The Free Range Life. Here is the link to How to Grow Peas.

Starting Brassicas Early

 Brassicas are plants that belong to the mustard family- Broccoli, Cauliflower, Kale, Cabbage, and Brussels Sprouts are a few belonging in this group. They are a cool weather crop, which means they are usually the first and last thing planted in the garden. They can handle frost and are usually planted about 4 weeks before the last frost in the spring or 6 weeks or so before your first fall frost.

I like to get a head start by planting them indoors 4-6 weeks before I plan on planting them outside. They can be directly sown in the garden too, and I will more than likely plant a few more like that to extend the harvest, but in the past we've had a lot of issues with the cabbage moth caterpillar and I have found that the earlier I get the plants started the more harvest I will get before the bugs do too much damage. Getting started early also means you get a good harvest before warm weather hits and the plant bolts (forming the seed stalk).

We have a good 120 seedlings popping up in the seed trays now. Some are starting to sprout their true leaves. Since all of these plants belong to the same family, their seeds and seedlings look nearly identical (with the exception of the purple cabbage). So be sure to label them in some way in order to tell them apart.

Annika takes the job of watering very seriously. Sometimes a little too seriously and we have to pry the spray bottle from her hands in order to stop her from drowning anything! But do make sure the soil stays moist and water at least once a day. Around here we get so excited about the little green sprouts we check more than once a day just to make sure (and watch them grow!)

Have you ever started Bassicas from seed? What is your experience with them?


This post is linked to the Homestead Barn Hop , The Ultimate Gardening Link Up, and  The Creative HomeAcre Hop