Summer Harvest

Life here on the homestead has been busy, I have been planting our fall/winter garden here in the Northwest. We are getting a nice harvest from our spring/summer garden. Here is a nice sampling of our bounty! Wonderful Walla Walla Sweet Onions, swiss chard, beets and carrots. We are also harvesting broccoli, strawberries, Roma Beans and much more...Here is a picture with the beans added into the mix :)Roma Pole Beans are the best beans I have ever grown, they are flat instead of round, their flavor is sweet and crisp when eaten raw, they don't get strings which is so nice! And still taste great even when they get large. They can be steamed or mixed with potatoes for an excellent vegetable mix.

I have also been making Kombucha, here is my first batch, it tastes so good, I like it as much as Dave's GT Gingerade, which is my favorite.

Caroline the lady that I made the vest for sent me some recipes to try natural fermenting, I can't wait to get started on them, thanks Caroline!

Here is the vest I made for her husband with my handspun yarn.

So Here is my plan, I would like to sell shares in my garden, say $20.00 per week from say about Sept 15 - December for what ever the garden is producing, each person will get a box full of vegetables. I am growing broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, leeks, snap peas, beets and cabbage as well as lettuce and radishes for as long as they will grow here in the northwest. If anyone is interested let me know. I am starting out small so I only want a couple of people right now. I haven't ever used chemicals of any kind on my garden, all of the plants are grown from seed right here.

Send me an email or post here if you are interested, remember this is Oregon but if you are willing to pay postage I will gladly ship.

I would like to plant blueberries, cane-berries and more strawberries too so hopefully someday soon I will have berries available as well. If things go as I hope next spring I will do this again and hopefully be able to sell more shares each year.

I also would like to do a Saturday Market next spring. I would love to sell my Kombucha, bread and possibly pesto from my kitchen. Next fall my plan is to have garlic braids with bunches of herbs for sale. I have done this in the past and they are so pretty, you can just take a clove at a time off if you want and they keep for quite a while. I will get one made and take a picture for you to see, right now I need to locate some lavender to put in the braid.

Canning is on my list of to do items this week, I would like to can applesauce and peaches, as well as beans once they are producing enough, we are just getting started with bean harvesting here.

I just love growing and harvesting, I am so grateful to my grandmother and my friend Jackie for teaching me so many useful skills.

Canned Turnips from our garden:

Well once again I have left way too much time between posts, Graphic Design School has proven to be all too consuming,considering that I have to live 4 days a week at my folks house to be closer to school. I have decided to give that dream up for now, all I really want is to be able to stay home and work here growing food and putting it up, spinning, knitting and any other adventure I can find to do. All of this to say that I should be able to post on a regular basis now since I will be doing most of my schooling online or close to home.

It has been a pretty busy summer this fall at our place. I have planted some of our fall/winter seeds and have been harvesting the produce that is ready. Yesterday I picked a few bunches of herbs for drying and canned turnips. So far this morning I have made bread and am waiting to pop it in the oven. Then I will be out in the garden continuing my planting, weeding, harvesting, etc;

Everything looks good in the garden except our beans, I think part of the problem is that it has been unseasonably cool here in Oregon this summer, this is the second summer that has been pretty cloudy/foggy and cool. I wish some of you folks in the mid-west and east could have some of our cool weather and we could get a few days of warm summer weather, granted I don't want anything over 90 degrees and even that is pushing the envelope for me since we really only get 1 or 2 days of 90 degree weather here a year and then it is unbearably humid as well.


The ducks are doing pretty good, however we are down from 5 to 3. One got taken in the middle of the day and one got sick and died. We are putting them in a pet carrier at night for now but the plan is to build fencing around our garden for them to live in. We tried keeping them in the garden (which is what we got them for to eat slugs) but they ate all of our lettuce and a-lot of our potato plants. A friend of mine had recommended the Indian Runner Ducks to keep in the garden for slugs but she forgot to mention that they would eat most of our garden. I should have known but I trust her on garden advice, this is the only time her advice hasn't worked so well for us.

On my to do list for this summer is to master the making of Kombucha and naturally fermented pickles. Kombucha is a fizzy drink that is a pro-biotic, it is made with tea and fruit juice as well as the starter. It is great for detoxing your body and maintaining a balanced gut for proper digestion, besides I love the taste! Especially the ginger tea blend. I am thinking that this will help my hubby with his cancer. Naturally pickled vegetables have some of the same healthful benefits. No vinegar is used in this process, you let the vegetables naturally ferment. I will be starting this soon and will post pictures and update you on the process and outcome.
Herbs drying:
I don't have much in the way of herbs yet, the garden is only 2 years old, I need a-lot more than this!

Once I get the garden planted I will take pictures of that!

I know it has been a few weeks since my last post but life just got to hectic for a while. I had to finish finals which is now done and also we took off for a week of rest and relaxation and to celebrate the completion of my first year of school.

During all of this chaos and before our week away we had an unwanted visitor in the middle of the night that came in and killed all but one of our ducks, it was so devastating, what ever killed them did it for sport as they were lying dead on the pen floor, all but two, one was stuck in between their house and a board which saved it's life and another one was only partially left in the pen. We have kept our one lone duck indoors until we get her buddies,which we are picking up today. My daughter babysat her while we were gone and said that she followed the kids around the yard.

The garden is growing like crazy, it is amazing how fast things grow when you are away for a week. The grass has grown too, it looks like a jungle out there!

I also have been commissioned to spin enough fingering weight Bluefaced Leicester natural colored wool to hand knit a vest for a lady in Australia, this is very exciting for me and I have been busily at work spinning. I have most of the yarn spun now and have the two contrast colors chosen for the stripes on the neckline.

Here is a picture of the vintage vest I am knitting for her as well as the yarn:





The big ball of yarn is my handspun that will be the main color or shade, the other two are the contrast colors for the stripes, they are Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift in Emerald and White.

Well, we are off to get our new ducks this afternoon and then we will be working on fortifying their pen so we don't loose anyone again.

The Battle is On!

I have noticed the last few days that the Blue Jays are eating my Sluggo Slug bait. It is an all natural slug bait and not toxic to anything but slugs. The Blue Jays are having a feast, and this stuff is expensive so I am ready to do battle. Trying to keep the critters out of the garden is a frustrating challenge. I put bird netting over most everything that I have recently planted to keep the birds from either eating the seed or the slug bait or the seedlings. The Blue Jays also like to cut off my bean starts at the root when they first come up so bird netting has to be on that as well. For the slugs I have the slug bait which I have to apply often because of the rain. Soon however our cute little Indian Runner Ducks will be on guard eating the slugs for us. I can't wait, they are just now beginning to get their feathers. We ran out of duck food for them over the holiday weekend so hubby went out and picked up slugs for them. There is quite an abundance here on the Oregon Coast, even when it doesn't rain there is a-lot of dew so things are usually dripping wet this time of year unless the sun shines and dries it up. Slugs love a wet environment as we all know. I am still a slave to the computer doing math, however I am almost done, I will have taken my final by the end of next week. I am already making plans for my free week and a half, debating on whether to go to Central Oregon camping for a week or play with my spinning wheel, fiber and make soap. I am trying to get my Etsy shop to be a little more productive here. Trying to save up for the Spinning wheel of my dreams, the Schacht Matchless, what a nice wheel! I know it will help improve my finer yarn spinning. You can check out my Etsy Shop at: Well I am off to work on math and get this behind me once and for all.

Here is the recipe for making your own laundry soap that is not a detergent: 1(4lb. 12oz.) Box Borax 1(3lb.) container OxyClean 2(14.1oz.) Zote Soap or Fels Naptha (I used a food processor to shred it) 2(2.lb.) boxes of Baking Soda 1 Purex Crystals Fabric Softener (optional) Mix it up and use it in place of your regular laundry detergent. I am using about Okay, so now here are the supplements I am using to prevent migraines or headaches: 350 mg Fever Few 100 mg vitamin B2 500 mg magnesium I am taking this twice a day. If you notice a headache starting take your next dose right away. Allow some time for the Fever Few to build up in your system. This isn't a pain killer it is a preventative. I hope these recipes help someone out there! I appreciate having them :)

Today was a lovely day! I spent most of it in the garden. I planted the leeks,lettuce, spinach, swiss chard,re-planted beans that the slugs and birds ate. Now I have netting over them and Sluggo down for the slugs so that shouldn't happent again fertilized everything with blood-meal and fish fertilizer.Everything is going to grow like crazy now and the only planting left for now are tomatoes and bell peppers. They don't really grow here that well because it doesn't get hot enough but Dan is going to build me a cold frame out of some old windows we have stashed, I can't wait! The garden needs to be about 3 times this size if we are going to grow year round. We also have our Indian Runner Ducklings, 2 black and 2 blue, I believe.

Here are a few more pictures of the garden. :)