Homesteader Weekend: Concord Grape Jelly

Guess what I did today??  I canned for the very first time!!  One of the things I've always wanted to learn is to put up food properly especially via canning.  So far, I'm fabulous with freezing, which I have to say is still my favorite way to put up food.  Right now, I have two giant bags of Chinese long beans, a bag of rapini, tomato sauce, cherry tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, a Swiss chard/mustard green stir fry mix, and basil all packed in my freezer for the winter.  I love freezing but it was time to venture into hot process canning.  I just didn't think I would be making concord grape jelly.

Fall In The Garden

The weather is changing here!! It seems a little early compared to last year, but I welcome it.  I've been trying to clean up my psycho garden.  I've chopped down a lot of my squash plants and finally pulled out my melon plants.  All but one tomato plant have been pulled out.

Labor Day Weekend: My Psycho Garden + If You Grow It, They Will Come

Happy Labor Day Weekend!!  Here's what's happening in the garden:

MADNESS!!!

The garden has turned wild, crazy, out-of-control!!  This weekend and probably the rest of the week will probably be my clean up/prep-for-the-fall week.

Perilla Kimchi

I LOVE perilla!!  It's great when eating grilled pork belly saam!! Mmmmm....pork belly. Instead of using lettuce to wrap the pork belly, I just use straight perilla. This year, I grew way too much, which isn't that hard. I recently killed 3 of 7  plants because I was picking tons of perilla on a daily basis.  I ended up with a ginormous bag...

Napa Kimchi with Fish Sauce

Early in the summer, I was able to grow three decent napa cabbages. They were really chewed up by slugs but decent regardless so I decided to make kimchi.  And do it the old fashioned way.  :-P 

I used a recipe found here: Maangchi. 

Desert King Watermelon

This season, I grew a yellow fleshed heirloom watermelon called Desert King.  I had very high hopes since I don't care for the typical red fleshed varieties. I'm not a big watermelon eater especially the conventional variety that's sold in grocery stores because of the strong watermelon flavor.  This year, I was a bit disappointed.

August 2013: Garden Update + Hugelkultur

It's AUGUST!!  AUGUST! This summer is really going by fast!  I've been trying to get all my fall crops in before Sept.  I sowed mustard seeds and lettuce seeds but of course, it's become a buffet for my slug population.  Thankfully, some have survived and sprouted but I ended up having to sow more seeds, which sadly were eaten within a day.  So, I decided to start mustard seeds indoors using wet paper towels!!

This is the komatsuna.  They germinated in a day and this pic is from today, DAY 2.  I'll be able to set these guys out tomorrow morning.  The Korean mustard is being started using the moist paper towel method, too.  Apparently, carrot seeds can also be germinated this way if germination is an issue.  I've never had a problem with carrots but it's good to know!