You can plant them with roses too ( garlic love roses ) companion planting. ? so i read in a book.
:)
AZgrammie your very welcome glad to help, she is the one to look for if you ever need any info on gardening IMHO :)
March on the Homestead
Thanks everyone for the garlic info!! :D
Always! Mine did not work out so well. :)
AZ... you need different kinds of cultures for different kinds of cheeses. I'm going to try making my own chevre and "Fresh French Style". =0) Just like different yogurts have different tastes, same with cheese. We also got a sweeter yogurt to use as our starter; the one we had was too tangy for our taste.
Did you rinse your curds after adding the vinegar? Sometimes that can help when one gets a leeetle carried away with the vinegar. =0)
Jay
No, never thought about rinsing them! Next time . . .
In the Little House books, they made vinegar from apple cores.
I haven't read those books; one of these days. =0) Did they extract a juice from them first?
You can also make pectin from saved peels and cores. We've got bags and bags we've saved in the freezer from drying apples last fall, but we haven't gotten around to making the pectin yet. We're going to make jalapeno jelly with it. =0)
We got a couple of inches of snow in the last 24 hours! YEAH!!! I got the oats down in time. And right now the forecast is for a 60% chance of wetness next weekend. Sure hope so; the timing would be great for the oats. Hopefully I can get the second acre seeded and harrowed before the next round of wet. I'm just so tickled I was actually able to use Levi to harrow... it's our first step to really using the donks for serious farm work. He only tried to lay down once, and worked hard enough to break a sweat... that's a rare thing in a donkey. LOL Against their religion and all. =0)
I'm going to start my herbs today; some of the flowers I started are beginning to come up--stock and hollyhock. I'm especially excited about the hollyhock. It's called Peaches and Cream and it's a lovely apricot pink and white double. I want to put it in front of the bedroom window.
Blessings all,
Jay
If I ever get any apples, I'll start saving the peels & cores for pectin. Never heard of that, but then there is lots I haven't heard of. Is the process in Carla Emory's book? (I found one at a garage sale and love it.) I still don't know how to can, either, but I've made lots of jams & marmalade. If I ever get any vegetables, then I will learn how to can!
No sign of my Mason bees, I hope they are only sleeping, not dead, because the apricot trees & cherry bush are blooming now. No honeybees last year at all, but in previous years there were scads of them. Guess the hive blight or whatever got the honeybees. So I ordered the Mason bees and hope they will get their little bodies out there and get to work.
Lucky you, 2" of snow. All we got was lots of clouds, and a little rain. Bright & sunny today, need to get my little body out there and get to work. 8^)
Azgrammie isn't it a shame about the honey bee's :(
i have bee's hatching in our wood work her in our house and i find them on the windows. I let them out but i think they die ? :(
i have heard of them mason bee's .A apple orchard has them and uses them down the road from us. works well for him
There is a big move in our community to have bee hives. There is a local bee society and they hold meetings and have demonstrations and information booths at local events.
Lots of people here grow fruit trees, especially apple trees, and many of them are beginning to get bee hives for their orchards.
I have read about the beehive blight (or whatever they called it) but of course don't remember what I read. 8^( I just know that 3 or 4 years ago I couldn't keep honeybees away from my hummingbird feeder, and that one day i heard a roar getting louder and louder and looked up, and witnessed a huge swarm of bees on their way to a new home. At the time, I hoped their new home would be far away, but "be careful what you wish for, you might get it." I also had to call a beekeeper to come out and remove a hive from beneath an antique trailer I planned to restore. Had to pay him but at least he gave me a quart of honey. 8^)
Last year all of my baby fruit trees bloomed and were beautiful, but no bees. So no fruit. I swore I wouldn't let this happen again and ordered some Mason bees, but they are either still sleeping or dead. My chickens got loose and nibbled at the paperwhite narcissus which just started to bloom (they said "ptoooey") so I took some of the flowers and tucked them next to the bee tubes. Wake up and smell the flowers, bees!
Who was it in one of the Dave's Garden forums who said "I want patience and I want it now!"
LOL.... me too!!!
I love that... wake up and smell the flowers! So true for all of us, eh?
Besides the mason bees... and I will be following your experience avidly, as I have been thinking of them... I have been seeing where some orchards are using bumble bees. Never thought of them as much in the way of pollinating, but just another Duh! moment for me. =0)
I've had a few honey bees show up in the house, but I think they are just spring scout bees, checking to see if anything's up yet. I imagine they go back to the hive and tell everyone to just keep sleeping, or whatever it is that a bee does in winter.
We read about the pectin from apple peels in The Jam Lady's cookbook. That's a great book for anyone into jams, jellies, conserves, etc. No matter how new or old one is to jelly and jam, she has some great info and tempting recipes. We were finally able to get the perfect set to our chokecherry jelly thanks to her!
Have you made prickly pear jelly yet? That's just the tastiest stuff.... I love the syrup over my pancakes, too.
chokecherry jelly?? That sounds soooo yummy!!! Are they a type of cherry??
Yes, they are. They are a tiny tart wild cherry that makes a great jelly, very popular around here. One doesn't really like to eat them straight off the bush, they have quite a pucker to them. But once you add the sugar for jelly... oh, it's heaven, pure heaven. =0)
Prickly pear jelly is made from cactus fruit and tastes like a cross between pears and bubble gum to me. You have to pick the fruit with tongs, then I like to roll the fruit around in a bed of hot coals to scorch the tiny spines off and bring up the sweetness. Or you could roast them a bit over the fire in like a vegetable bar-b-que basket or something. Each fruit is mostly seeds, but there's a rim of pulp around them and that's what you make the syrup and jelly from. It's been awhile since I've done it. Each year I think this year, but then the chokecherries come on and time gets away from us. Maybe THIS year! =0)
Boy, I thought I was creative using my extra green tomatoes in jam!! I want to try some of those "exotic" jellies and jams!!! :D
I'm sure you've got some interesting wild fruits in your area... can't wait to hear what! Maybe next fall we can do a jam and jelly swap?
Oh yes, that sounds great!!! I will hunt up some different fruit, so I dont look duh! hehehe I'm on it!
Having killed 4 or 5 blueberry bushes in the past several years, I finally got it through my head that I can't keep blueberries alive in my alkaline soil no matter how much acid I add, so I ordered a couple of berry bushes called Saskatoon berries (haven't arrived yet). Research convinces me that they are actually "serviceberries". Wonder what kind of jam they will make?
Tay, I think service berries are a native to somewhere on this continent. I think it is proounced "sarvis berry". I probably paid too much for them, if they grow wild, but they aren't growing around here. Yet. 8^)
Since I dont have time to can can I buy some local goodies and swap with you????? I really like home made items, but since it is spring, dont spend too much time in the house...
I dont grow my own unfortunately either. I buy them at the market. I do like to can. I make all my own salsa, pickles, relish, jams, and apple sauce....I enjoy it. I end up giving some to family as well. Those berries sound interesting. Let me know what they taste like. Sweet, tart? mmmm good.
Road Trip to Sewin's house..... WOW salsa, is that hard?
No actually its really easy.
I blanch tomatoes and peel them, dice peppers, onions, vinegar, cilantro, and various other spices that I can’t remember right now, cook it down a bit and ladle into hot canning jars. Process 15 or so minutes. Not hard at all. My DH luvs it though. So do his friends. :D
Well that cant be that hard, when you get a chance, can you D-mail the recipie so me and Billy can try it some time?
Is the vinegar for the canning process?
Just catching up... computer was on the fritz several weeks. Jay, things are lookin' good!
Thanks for the kind words about my garlic articles. Like Jay, I uncovered mine early, but it was deliberate. I had put down straw last fall, and it was FULL of seed heads. I wanted it up, having learned the hard way how it germinates and chokes out my garlic. Anyway, I took a shot of my garlic before I re-mulched with leaves. The bed to the left is shallots.
sewincircle, you should plant garlic outside, in the fall. You are barely half a zone colder than I am here in the mountains. They need a time to establish roots before winter. They will green up a bit in the fall, and die down. That's okay. Mulch them well and wait. Uncover when the danger of hard freezes is past, they will stand a little frost. Hardneck garlics should do well for you.
Your garlic looks great! I was counting mine yesterday and I found 115 sprouts. I was worried that 5" of snow that covered them was going to do them all in but it doesn't seem to have bothered them at all. The little toes I planted were very, very small. Not as big as a pencil eraser so it will likely be a while before my plamnts are as big as yours.
Since I planted last fall, when will they be ready to pull?
When half of the tops turn yellow and start to fall over...
Will it be in the fall? It seems like I remember reading somewhere that garlic takes a year to grow.
It seems like mine were ready to harvest in August last year. I suppose it depends a lot on the total summer weather.
Thanks. I imagine I will have to thin a lot of mine out. Any suggestions on doing that? Some of them are less than 2" apart. I'm sure I planted a couple thousand.
LOL, like garlic, do ya? I'd pull one that is too close maybe in late May to see how they are growing. If they aren't bulbing much, it will be easy to pull them. What's the soil like?
Thanks darius. I will wait and try again in the fall. I was going to just give up, but now I think I am going to try again.
Miss Jester, I will type out my recipie and Dmail it to you. The vinegar is added to the tomatoes. Its all part of the recipie. Its really easy. Many people make salsa that you dont cook. I have always done it this way. ;)
It's a mix of top soil and composted horse manure and sawdust. Everything seems to love it.
So nice and loose? Great! I hope mine do better this year with all the work on the bed. Last year some came close to rotting in this heavy clay, and all were small because they couldn't expand much against the clay.
Learnin' lots about garlic, yeah! I just have a couple dozen, didn't want to get too carried away til I got some success. =0)
We started putting up the high tunnel today, driving the ground posts in. Went pretty well, except for one post that went in too far and now for the life of us we can't get it backed out... dug down around it and poured water in the hole. Will try with board bolted on and car jack to lever it up in the morning. Broke a bolt trying that tonight before water soak. Talk about CLAY!!! sheesh.
Dinner,,,,
Jay
Got up at the crack of dawn to lift that ground post. The water soak really helped; we were able to ease the post out just enough. =0) 24* out there this morning... the water in the hole hadn't completely soaked in and there was a thin crust of ice on it, so naturally I dropped the wrench into it while securing the bolt. Ugh. Take the glove off and fish around in the freezing water to find the wrench. Brrrr... but the rest of the plan went fine and the transit level is on its way back to the rental store.
Now the next twist. The arches are screwed together on the ground and that needs to be done on a flat surface. Er... ah... hmmm, not much flat around here. Too many gophers and doggie earth moving, grass hillocks and path ruts. Looks like today will be spent making a flat surface.
Jay
You can RENT a transit level? How wonderful! (not around here, though) I used to have one, when I was Builder, never figured I'd want to have one for a farmstead... sigh.
Sue, order garlic early-to-mid summer for fall shipment and planting. They run out of varieties fast.