The Professional Domestic

My Gardening and Preserving Goals 2017

Each year I try to garden with a goal in mind. My goal is always to produce and preserve as much food as we need to get us through the winter and to help me spend as little as possible at the grocery store.

Last year I had some pretty lofty goals and fell completely flat on my face. It was a horrible growing season in 2016. Heat and drought took it’s toll on the garden and a late frost killed all of the blossoms on the fruit trees. I have never seen anything like it really.

I revisited my goals from last year and chopped some of the harder to reach goals out.

Here is a list of my family’s 2017 Gardening and Preserving Goals.

Herbs:

Garlic
Chives
Aloe Vera
Dill
Artemisia
Calendula
Chamomile
Cilantro
Purple Cone Flower (Echinacea)
Sweet Woodruff
Lavender
Lemon Balm
Mint
Catnip
Basil
Oregano
Parsley
Anise
Rosemary
Sage
Dandelion
Thyme
Nasturtium
Valerian

Crops:

Asparagus
Strawberries
Raspberries
Blackberries
Cherries Sweet
Cherries Sour
Pears
Peaches
Grapes
Rhubarb
Sweet Peppers
Banana Peppers
Eggplant
Onions
Shallots
Snap Bean Bush – Purple, yellow and green
Snap Bean Pole
Peas
Spinach
Lettuce
Cabbage
Swiss Chard
Beets
Radish
Carrots
Cucumbers
Pumpkins
Gourds
Winter Squash
Zucchini
Yellow Squash
Cantaloupes
Water Melon
Sunflowers
Tomatoes
Celery
Broccoli
Potatoes
Yellow Tomatoes
Paste Tomatoes

Preserving:

Strawberry Jam
Grape Jelly
Black Raspberry Jam
Red Raspberry Jam
Peach Jam
Pear Jelly
Apple Jelly
Honeyed Yellow Tomato Butter
Canned Cherries in Syrup
Canned Cherry Pie Filling Sweet
Canned Cherry Pie Filling Sour
Basil Banana Pepper Jelly
Apple Sauce
Grape Juice
Pear Juice
Tart Cherry Juice
Pickled Beets
Canned Beets
Vegetable Stock
Vegetable Soup
Tomato Sauce
Blackberry, Red Raspberry, Peach, Cherry Cordials
Chili Sauce (Two different kinds)
Bread and Butter Pickles
Frozen Corn
Frozen Peppers
Frozen Beet Greens/Chard
Red Root Relish
Lemon Sage Wine Mustard
Dilly Deans
Pickled Hot Peppers
Sweet Crisp Pickles
Crushed Tomatoes
Whole Tomatoes Packed in Water
Canned Green Beans
Frozen Peas
Frozen Winter Squash and some stored whole
Chili
Stuffed Hot Peppers
Stuffed Sweet Peppers

So far, we are already doing mighty fine with our 2017 gardening goals and we have had plenty of rain too. Yippee!

This last weekend we added 3 more raised veggie beds which brings my planting area to about 200 sq. ft. of space to work with. Yippee! Thank you Mr. Ripley for working so hard. (He said it was my Mother’s Day present).

To date we have planted carrots, peas, radish, and lettuce but much more will be planted by the end of this week.

How will I keep track of all of this? My journal. And lists. LOTS of lists. Should be interesting! Wish me luck and I will keep you updated. -MM

SAL Project Peacock #3

Boy 3 weeks goes by fast! Time for another SAL (Stitch A Long) post. Mr. Peacock now has a name, Salvador (Sal for short) I think Avis suggested the name so thank you Avis!

At this point, progress on Sal’s tail is slow going and giving me a bit of an eye twitch.

Here is Sal three weeks ago.

And here is Sal now.

Not bad considering I have been busy with Easter and gardening and a sick child all week.

I did have to rip out part of the tree trunk on the right side if you notice from the last photo. I was off by one row. Most times I will work around a mistake but I just couldn’t get it to line up correctly so I ripped part of it out. What a pain!

We will see where I am in another three weeks.

Please check out the other SAL member’s blogs by clicking on the links below. They are doing some fantastic work! If you are interested in joining the group please contact Avis who is the very first link.
Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, LucyAnn, Kate, Jess, Sue, Constanze, Debbierose, Christina, Susan, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Helen, Steph, Linda, Catherine, Wendy, Mary Margaret, Timothy

What is Evil’s Role In All of This?

This post isn’t the kind of post I would normally write for my blog but I have been thinking a lot about accountability lately.

I am a Christian, certainly not a perfect one, but I try to do the right thing by others. Lately, however I have been blaming God for my financial situation and in general whatever doesn’t go right in my world.

Why, I ask Him, don’t I have enough money to pay my bills at the end of the week? Why did the toilet clog? Why am I so angry at someone and constantly think about it every minute of the day? Why am I exhausted? yada, yada, yada…

Then a thought comes into my head. Why the hell am I blaming God for all of this? It’s the Devil that’s tempting me. He’s the one that puts that tempting new dress in my view. Buy me! “You would look fabulous in this dress my darling.” “It’s only $50 and you have a 25% off coupon…buy iiiittt.” Then the dress goes on the credit card and not to debt. Not God’s fault. Nope.

We blame God. A LOT.

Ok, so you don’t believe in God and the Devil. That’s fine. Let me put it another way for you. You believe in Good and Evil right? The guy on the white horse dressed in white and the guy on the black horse dressed in black? Optimus Prime and Megatron?

Can you imagine saying to Optimus Prime after he just saved the world from Megatron. “What the heck OP, you just broke my garage and my bank account is empty and my toilet exploded because of you!” I bet Optimus Prime would be standing there with his tractor trailer mouth wide open saying, really?? I just saved you from the big, bad Megatron and your blaming me for your bank account being empty?”

At the beginning of the movie the Incredibles, Mr. Incredible says. “I feel like the maid; I just cleaned up this mess. Can we keep it clean for ten minutes?” I bet that’s how God feels. We make a mess of our lives and God cleans it up only for us to mess it up again.

We have to start thinking what is the Devil’s role or Evil’s role in all of our problems. And don’t forget Evil is not ugly. You wouldn’t think of buying that dress from an ugly, old, hunched over troll would you? That may sound funny but it’s true. Evil is beautiful and alluring. Remember that. Even if you don’t believe in God and the Devil, Good and Evil are still undebatably real. We even pay good money to watch them in the theater.

We have a choice. It’s up to us what we want to do with our lives. How we want to live. Ultimately it’s ourselves we have to blame for the situation we are in. God gives us free will. Darth Vader tries all the time to get us to come to the Dark Side. For me the Force is stronger. -MM

Easter Fun

Easter and Spring are such fun when it comes to crafts and baking. I love bright spring colors of greens, blues, yellows, pinks and lavenders after the dark colors of winter like reds, blacks, navy and grays.

Even though Doug is 15 he still likes to craft (once in a while) so I bring out the pot and we make homemade play dough. Ever make it yourself? It’s super easy and inexpensive. Really…I wouldn’t lie to ya.

Here’s the recipe:

1 Cup All Purpose Flour

1/4 Cup Salt

2 Tbsp Cream of Tartar

1 Tbsp Vegetable Oil

1 Cup Water

Food Coloring

Mix the flour, salt, and cream of tartar together in a medium sized saucepan to combine. Add water, oil and food coloring to it. Turn on the heat to medium and stir. It will get harder to stir and it will act like it is sticking to the bottom of the pot. Just keep stirring and scraping until the liquid is all gone and what’s left is a sticky mass of dough. It will not be neat but dump the ball out onto a floured surface and knead it a few times to get the remainder of any wetness out. It will be HOT so knead carefully not to burn your hands. You will have to soak the pan for a few minutes to clean it but it will be so worth it!

IMG_20170408_211449_850
Repeat as much as you like to get as many colors as you want. It makes a pound of play dough each batch (yes I weighed it) which is about 4 times what you get in those little plastic containers of the real stuff. Plus who knows what goes into the stuff you buy at the store.

Doug and I played with our homemade dough for 2 hours on Saturday night. We had a blast!

Store the dough in the fridge. It will last a few months or until the point where you get sick of it rolling around in there and you finally throw it out. 🙂

We also love to color eggs. Hey it’s not just for little guys ya know!

One thing I don’t do is boil them first. That may seem weird but as long as the eggs are not cracked I die them raw. I love to dye dozens of eggs but I can’t eat 5 dozen hard boiled eggs in a week. I like eggs, but not THAT much.

If we dye them raw I can have the pleasure of using the eggs for a month long and enjoy the pretty colors each time I bake something. See what I mean?

The eggs in the photo below are dyed brown eggs. You can use the same egg dying kits that you typically use for white eggs for brown eggs too. I like the rich colors better with the brown eggs.

eggs

I make cutout cookies for Easter, which are almost as fun as Christmas cutouts but without the added stress Christmas and the holidays bring. See, aren’t they super cute?

easter cutouts

Now that I have a teenager I don’t have a need for fun paper crafts and cotton ball bunny tails but maybe grand kids some day right?

What kinds of crafts do you do for Easter? Have a wonderful and blessed week and Easter Holiday. -MM

Weeks 3 and 4 Pop Bottles Meet Disaster

Mr. Gray is in trouble. BIG trouble. We have 2 kittens we adopted in October of this last year. I was seriously worried about my seedlings getting damaged by the cats since it is an open space in our basement that I grow my plants in. Our beloved cat Bernie, who died suddenly this fall was completely trained to not go near the “kids”.

Oh yes, it happened in the middle of the night, a crash in the basement and a scampering of feet tearing down the hallway past our bedroom door. I knew what the sound was and I just sighed and fell back asleep. I would survey the damage in the morning.

Sure enough Mr. Gray, yes I know it was him, dumped the whole rack of shelves. Nine pop bottles were scattered across the floor in all sorts of disarray. I didn’t have time to do anything with them because I needed to get to the bakery. I would work on the mess when I got home.

The Culprit (Good Thing He is Super Cute!)

Nothing, unfortunately was salvageable. The second set of shelving was still upright so I hadn’t lost everything, but the basil, lemon balm, cilantro, onions, catnip, and others were crushed.

Today I did get 28 pepper plants and 4 watermelon plants transplanted into their own, larger spaces. They are doing well and hopefully Mr. Gray will not get into any more mischief with these guys. Now if we could just get some sun here in Western NY that would really, really help. -MM

Project Peacock SAL Update 2

It’s been three weeks since my last post on my Peacock friend and also since I joined a lovely group of ladies (and gentleman :)) in their Stitch-A-Long Group (SAL).

I have gotten a lot done mostly on its tail feathers but also some on the side branches.

Here is a photo of the last time I posted:
peacock sal 1

And here is a photo of what I have completed as of yesterday:

The top has not changed so I concentrated on showing you the bottom. I still don’t know if this peacock is a boy or girl. Aren’t the boys the pretty ones and the girls the plain ones so they don’t draw attention from predators? I need some help on this.

See you in three weeks!

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, LucyAnn, Kate, Jess, Sue, Constanze, Debbierose, Christina, Susan, Kathy, Margaret, Cindy, Helen, Steph, Linda, Catherine, Wendy, Mary Margaret, Timothy

Dandelion Jelly-You Gotta Try It!

Last season I decided to try making dandelion jelly. I read people’s comments on how good it was and many of them said they would be making a double batch next year. So I figured, what the heck, why not?

I love trying things made from foraging. We don’t spray our yard (though my husband hates dandelions) and sitting in a grassy field of yellow flowers sounded heavenly.

Making the jelly is pretty simple. Certainly easier than making grape jelly.

What you need to do is go out and pick lots of dandelion flowers about 10 cups or so. Just the flowers. No stems or leaves and no flowers that have gone to seed. You need the yellow petals only which I used a pair of kitchen scissors to cut off from their green base. Just a straight cut right across. It’s ok if you have some green bits of leaf in there too but not too much. You will need 4 cups of petals.

Put the cut off petals in a large bowl and cover the petals with boiling water. Cover the bowl and let it sit overnight in the fridge. You are basically making a dandelion tea and while in the fridge the petals will steep and draw the color and flavor of the dandelion out. This tea is very nutrient rich and you can drink it if you like, but I prefer the strong taste be turned into a sweet, mild jelly.

The next day strain the petal “soup” through clean cheesecloth over another bowl and save the liquid and discard the dandelion petals. What you will have left is dandelion tea which is what is used to make the jelly. You will need 3 cups of the tea. If the liquid doesn’t measure 3 cups, add enough water to the tea to bring it up to the 3 cups needed.

Pour the tea into a heavy bottom pot and add one package of powdered pectin and 2 Tbsp of lemon juice to it. Bring the mixture to a full rolling boil, stirring frequently, then add 4-1/2 cups of granulated white sugar to it. Stir to dissolve the sugar and once again bring everything up to a full rolling boil that cannot be knocked down when stirring it. Skim off any foam. In the photo below you can see the pectin is setting up nicely in the jelly and it’s ready to can up.

Pour the hot jelly, leaving a 1/2 inch of head space, into hot sterilized jars and with hot sterilized lids, screw the bands on. I processed them for about 10 minutes in a boiling water bath.

After the jars have cooled, label and store in a cool pantry. How pretty are these? I love the golden color!

You might ask what dandelion jelly tastes like? Honey. Seriously, I think it tastes like honey. It’s very mild and a tiny bit earthy but I love this jelly and the main ingredient, the dandelions are FREE! I will be making a double, maybe even a triple batch of this golden goodness this year.

It will be a couple of months before the weather in western, NY will be warm enough for dandelions to bloom, but when they do you will see me sitting out there in the yard collecting them. Hope you try it! -MM

Here are the ingredients in recipe form again.

3 Cups dandelion tea

4 1/2 Cups sugar

2 Tbsp. lemon juice

1 box powdered pectin

Combine dandelion tea, lemon juice and pectin into a large saucepan. Bring to a boil. Add your sugar and bring back to a boil. Remove from heat and fill jars. Process 10 minutes in a boiling hot water bath. Cool, label and enjoy on a slice of homemade bread!

Week 1-2 Pop Bottle Garden

Journal entry I drew of my raspberry patch covered in snow

It has been a heck of a few weeks since I started the seeds for our 2017 garden. Here in Western, NY we had 80+ mile an hour winds which knocked our power out for well over 24 hours and closed school for two days. Then less than a week later we had a two day blizzard that closed schools again for two days and brought our lives to a grinding halt while we waited it out. Crazy weather I tell ya!

However, while all that crazy weather was going on outside, my little pop bottle garden and its contents were snug and warm and working away for me.

This year I planted peppers, both sweet and hot, celery, cilantro, dill, watermelon, basil, 3 kinds of onions, catnip and lemon balm. The only thing I have not gotten in yet are the tomatoes and I am getting a little nervous about it but I will get them started don’t worry.

Below are a couple of photos of what has been happening inside the bottles these past two weeks. Pretty cool huh? See you next week with another update! -MM

My First SAL (Stitch-A-Long) Post

I came across a group of bloggers here on WordPress who are part of a Stitch-A-Long group of stitchers. A SAL is a group designed to help motivate and encourage us to finish projects one at a time. How many of us have multiple projects, unfinished sitting in a drawer? This group is a great way to motivate everyone to get one project done at a time and I was so impressed by all of their work that I decided to inquire about joining them. To my delight I was accepted into the group so now I write my first SAL post! Thank you ladies for letting me join!

My last post on my peacock cross-stitch project was on weeks 1-3. This photo is week 4. It may seem like I am almost done but the entire plume on Miss Peacock has yet to be worked on. Wait until you see how big it is. Yikes! That will take me a while especially with spring gardening in my future.