And the preserving begins!

Today I did my first batch of freezing – broccoli! Considering I have 45 odd broccoli plants, there was surprisingly little from them – but the heads weren’t getting any bigger and were in fact starting to flower, so I cut them all off and blanched and froze most of them (reserving a small bit for tonights dinner – I’m planning on doing a roast chicken:), probably amounting to 1-2 bags once they’re bagged (I freeze everything on a cookie sheet first so I can pull out only how much I need).

I also noticed that the local You Pick strawberry field is opening up (they were open on thursday, apparently closed today, but open tommorrow…), so I’m planning on going and picking strawberries tommorrow for the first time. Not sure how many bags of strawberries I’ll want for this year – I know I started out with 12 last year, but I also had some from my co-op, and they’re all gone… and Andros is getting bigger and eating more, so I might shoot for 15 or so.

Everything else in the garden is looking good – my peas are starting to flower, and so are a few of the bigger tomatoes, so with luck we’ll be eating fresh peas & tomatoes here shortly. I finished planting everything on Tuesday when my mom came down – she brought me another 8 basil plants, which went beside my tomatillos and then the rest of the bed and end of the cucumbers were planted in beans. My first bed of beans has started to sprout up and are looking pretty good. Though I should probably plant another little row of carrots & radishes!!

Also on Tuesday, we moved our chickens’ fence around the garden, and just let them go free. They seem to be doing pretty good, though they are scratching an awful lot around our blueberries, so we’re not sure they’ll be free for much longer… Of course, the other option is to put chicken wire around the blueberries and go from there.  We also just orderd 3 new grape vines – Reliance seedless, which are supposed to be pretty hardy and disease resistant. Hopefully they come soon and do well and next year we start having seedless grapes!! 😀

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Weddings, chickens and food, hurrah!!

Well, its been a while since I posted, but lots has happend. I finally got my car back which is wonderful. We drove up to Wisconsin for Kevin’s Dad’s wedding… spent around 24 hours in the car, and about 30 hours actually *IN* WI. Not exactly the most fun weekend I’ve ever been on, but it wasn’t bad. Mostly just very expensive – $4/gallon gas is *not* conducive for traveling!!

On Monday when we got back, I called to find out where on earth our poultry fencing was to be told that it still hadn’t shipped! But, then somehow they got it shipped out that day, and it finally came today. Minus the electrifier. Ugh. The fence itself seems very nice though – super easy to set up, move around, adjust etc. I really can’t wait to let them out tommorrow and let them just run around for the first time outside! They about bum rushed me out the gate this morning when I went out to feed and water them. Hopefully the charger will come tommorrow…

On the gardening front, last night I stayed home from Tae Kwon Do and got a whole bunch of peppers planted (like… 24ish??), which was good cause’ tis definetly ‘that time of year’ to get stuff planted, you know? Also got three zucchini plants planted too… that’ll be wonderful. I’m gonna have zuccini comin’ outta my ears! I can’t wait to eat zucchini bread for breakfast every morning again!! 😀 😀 Might just have to figure out a way to preserve it for teh winter too… though I haven’t a clue how to!!

Then, today, I got some tomatoes planted – 23 to be exact. Plus the two we planted a couple weeks ago… I think we have space for about that many yet… so if its nice tommorrow maybe I’ll run over to Skipper’s and see about getting some more 😀 I’d also like to get some more peppers yet, but maybe I’m crazy. We’ll see.

For dinner tonight I made “Piglet DH’s Lentil Curry” from this thread on Mothering.com’s forums. It was *wonderful*! I made my own ‘chili past’ by soaking chili caribe in warm water for a few minutes, then blending it up and mixing in some chili powder to make it extra thick, and Thai Kitchen Red Curry Paste. I’ll definetly be making it again sometime, though I think I’ll try draining the lentils before adding everything else to them – by the time enough of the water had evaporated, they were totally mushy. But still very tasty!!

Tommorrow is Fra Diavolo Shrimp, which is one of our favorites. Its soo good and easy to make, especially with fettucini/linguini noodles. I think I have enough but I might make them fresh, haven’t quite decided. I love my pasta rolling machine – its soo easy to use, and really quite fun. We’ll see.