Summer Fun

In between the heat waves I'm doing my best to enjoy summer. It's been unbearably hot for the 'normal' person, so toss in the fact that I'm 30 weeks pregnant, and well... it's been hot.

Luckily, Nathan's been pretty understanding about the whole thing (as much as a two-and-a-half-year old can be), and we have a young whipper snapper of a babysitter who doesn't think twice about taking him out in that sauna on my work days.

On those few average-temperatured days we:

...enjoyed watermelon.

...kept an eye on a the first ripening tomato -- I picked it yesterday, well after this photo was taken.

...ran around the yard to get a little someone's energy out before dinner.

...stopped to pick a weed...

...and watched some butterflies.

As much as I don't want it to be, this summer feels like it's a bust and I'm already thinking about what next summer will be like when we have two littles and our standard three-member family has already been four for a while. 

Collecting and Saving Seeds from the Garden

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Somehow, collecting seeds from my garden produce has become an afterthought, even after all these years of gardening.  I don’t know how many tomatoes I enjoyed this summer before I froze in my tracks—I’d forgotten to collect seeds from my own delicious tomatoes!
 

I ended up throwing away the moldy ones.  How did I let that happen?

But I remembered earlier this week, and saved a few overripe Sun Gold cherry tomatoes to use for seeds.  (Bigger tomatoes don’t need to be sacrificed for the cause, but these are so tiny that there’s no point in scraping out seeds and trying to salvage the flesh for eating.)

I love saving seeds as a way to be resourceful and self-sufficient and keep heirloom varieties alive (even if the seed companies are doing it, too).  Someday when we’re homesteading on our own farm (and now while we do what we can on this farm) I’d rather not rely on seed companies for all of my seeds.  Plus, if there’s a variety I really love, like this one, I’m guaranteed to get the same great flavor from its offspring.  It’s so fun—and easy—to save your own seeds.  It just takes a little fermentation.

Here’s my no-frills method for collecting and saving seeds from my garden:

Tomatoes

1. Start with ripe (or slightly overripe) tomatoes.  Scrape the seeds out of the tomatoes’ cavities and into a small bowl, juice, goop and all.  For these cherry tomatoes, I just squeezed the tomatoes until they popped open and all the seeds and goo came out.  Remember to separate your tomatoes by variety first!

 

2. Add a few drops of water, or a bit more if you have a lot of tomatoes.  I’ve found that adding too much water will slow or prevent fermentation.  Leave the bowl uncovered in a warmish place, like a windowsill or countertop.  This will allow mold spores in the air to enter the container and start the fermentation process.  Fermentation breaks down the seed’s gel casing, allowing it to germinate in your garden next year.

3. After about 24 hours, cover the container (I used plastic wrap) and let it sit another 24 hours or so.  You can swirl the seeds around every so often to keep them coated or just totally ignore them.  I’ve tried both methods and they both work.

  

4. After about 48 hours or so, uncover, swirl and rinse seeds in a fine sieve.  Rinse several times and press them lightly against the sieve to make sure the gel casing is gone and the goop’s been washed away.

5. Lay seeds on a clean tea towel or paper towel and press to dry.  Transfer to a paper plate, separate seeds as best as you can and leave to completely air dry – a few days to a week, depending on how crowded your plates are.  Don't forget to label your varieties.

6. Store completely dry seeds in glass jars or paper envelopes for planting next year.  Sometimes I use plastic sandwich bags and rip off the label from my plate and stick it inside.

Squash, pumpkins, gourds and more

I’ve successfully saved seeds from winter squash, pumpkins and gourds just by separating seeds from the goop inside, rinsing them well and drying before storing. 

If you’re hungry, toast some in the oven with butter and salt them when they come out.  Delicious and free!  Quite resourceful and homesteading-like.

Butterfly Inspiration and New in My Shop

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My butterfly bushes are among my favorite plantings for a very obvious reason.

Those last two are hydrangeas, but who's keeping track?  These beautiful butterlifes are exactly why I'm so excited for a trade I made with a friend on Friday -- a truckload of rocks I had been using as garden edging for three baby butterfly bushes she dug up from her yard.  They're a really great light purple variety that gets much taller than the varieties I already have.

The best part, these butterflies have served as my inspiration for my newest addition to my Etsy shop, a set of Butterflies in Flight note cards.  (Click on the photos to go right to the listing.)



I love how the pretty patterned papers coordinate with each other and how some of the butterflies hover above their cards.

Some other note cards currently in my shop (new last week -- I hadn't announced them yet!).



Birds & Owls Note Cards





 Happy Thanksgiving Cards

Autumn Blessings Note Cards

If you like what you see I hope you'll pop over to my shop and take a closer look!  Enjoy your holiday weekend and be safe, my friends!

On My Nature Table

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I’ve been admiring the touches of summer in my house all season long—along with my little nature table area by the patio door—and as summer draws to a close, I just realized that I’d never shared any of it here.

I love decorating for the seasons and surrounding myself with things and colors I like to look at, especially things that remind me of nature.  My seasonal decorating is minimalist in summer—after all, we should be spending lots of time outdoors, right?—and I take a less-is-more approach.  I felt like I made a bigger impact with less, and the few things I do have out have made me really happy to see.

Fresh flowers from the garden are everywhere—on the window sill above the kitchen sink, my nature table, the baker’s rack, the family room mantle, the dining room table and the kitchen island, if there’s room. I save honey jars to use as little vases and made my own leaf decoupage vases, too.

That’s not real basil on the right—it’s made of wool!  For a closer look on how I needle felted the leaves and knitted I-cord stems, go here.  I love saving ordinary household things for crafts, like the wrapper from store bought basil (before mine was big enough to harvest).  I never know when an idea is going to strike!  I purchased the window stars from Harvest Moon by Hand.

I had to move my nature table to higher ground when Nathan became mobile—it’s now on top of a small bookshelf by my patio door.  I took this picture (above) while it was still very sparse—I’d since added a lot more shells and rocks and thought I had taken more recent photos (sorry about that; anticlimactic, I know).  I love how the shells look so casually placed (you’ll have to take my word for it!)—it almost looks natural. 

The knitted wool vegetables are from the book Amigurumi Knits: Patterns for 20 Cute Mini Knits and are made from leftover Knit Picks Swish Worsted Superwash from Nathan’s sailboat sweater (Ravelry link).  The little plate is one of my favorite things that I made in my pottery class last spring.  My other favorite thing is this ceramic nameplate I made in my pottery class, featuring our family name:

I think it’s the best thing I added to my kitchen this summer.  I love it because it’s our family name.  And I love how the glaze sits in the letters so nicely and is so beautifully shiny.  I wish the photo could convey exactly what it’s like in person—the layering of the glaze colors makes a great, old-timey effect that I’m having trouble describing.  You just have to see it!

It’s giving me all kinds of ideas for personalized pieces I want to make when my pottery class starts up again this fall.  Fall, oh how I can’t wait for it to get here!  This time I’ll showcase my nature table and seasonal decorating much earlier in the season.  Promise.

P.S.  I shouldn't forget the steady stream of veggies from my garden.  And I love that they're still coming!

Surviving with Zucchini and Herb Fritters

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We survived hurricane Irene with zucchini in all forms…well, zucchini bread and zucchini fritters.  On Friday night, well before the hurricane reached us in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Nathan and I were in the garden harvesting a bunch of zucchini, tomatoes and cucumbers (yes, they keep coming!).  I also did a better job of tying up my tomato plants—I hadn’t realized how gangly they’d become and just how many tomatoes I have yet to enjoy this summer and fall.  (Yeah!!!)  The plum variety I’m growing is very productive.  I can’t put my hands on the variety just now (did I really throw out those empty seed packets?!) but it’s Johnny’s Seeds’ replacement for San Marzano; those are the ones I usually grow.

Anyway, back to the zucchini.  On Saturday morning while Nathan ate his first breakfast, I got to work baking his second breakfast—a recipe for zucchini bread that turns two cups of grated zucchini into two golden loaves of deliciousness.  The recipe was given to me by a friend, so before I post it I need to figure out where it came from.  I’m not interested in being sued by Ms. Crocker, thankyouverymuch.  It’s very good, although a little oily for my taste.  (It takes a whole cup of vegetable oil!)  Maybe I’ll just develop my own recipe someday instead.

Then we had zucchini and herb fritters for lunch.  Oh. My. God.  I remember thinking that fried zucchini, recipe here, was my favorite way to make zucchini, but I was dead wrong.  Clearly I’d forgotten how ridiculously good these things are!  This recipe takes two medium-sized zucchini, a few eggs, breadcrumbs and whatever herbs you have growing in your garden and turns them into the best damn thing you’ve ever tasted.  And I’m including expensively delicious cuts of meat and crab legs when I say that.  Just look at them!

Fritters reheat well after a stay in the fridge, and I imagine they can be eaten cold.  And since I made all of these zucchini treats under the guise of hurricane preparedness, this was a bonus.  They freeze and reheat well, too.  Hurricane update is after recipe.

Without further ado, the recipe:

Zucchini and Herb Fritters

Serves 3-4 very hungry people, 4+ moderately hungry people

Ingredients:

2 medium-sized zucchini, grated (about 2 pounds)

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup seasoned breadcrumbs

1 clove garlic, crushed

salt and pepper to taste

olive oil for frying

Fresh Herbs:

chives, about 1 tablespoons, snipped

basil, about 2 tablespoons, chopped

mint, about 1 teaspoon, minced

Notes: You can use larger quantities of herbs if you have a less finicky husband than I. Also, you can omit the mint if your husband is finicky, like mine.  It’s important to fry these in olive oil (rather than a spray, like Pam) in order to get the edges crispy and the bonus flavor it imparts.  This is a great recipe for zucchini that you’ve let get a little too large (oops!) and seedy—just grate the outsides and not the seedy center.

Grate the zucchini and spread it out on a clean tea towel; press between two tea towels to get out some of the moisture.

Mix the rest of the ingredients and fresh herbs in a large bowl to form a dry batter. Add zucchini to batter and mix well—you’ll have to really get in there with your hands to get an even consistency.  You want a thick batter that holds together well.

Heat a small amount of olive oil in a large pan on medium-high.  Place quarter-cup scoops of batter into the hot oil and press them down slightly for uniform thickness and cooking time.  Brown on one side, flip and repeat.  Make sure they’re cooked in the center—they’ll still be moist inside thanks to the moisture in the zucchini.  You’ll probably need to add more oil to the pan in between batches.  And you just may have to test one or two while you’re cooking them!

Enjoy!

P.S. – I’m surprised and happy that we made it through the storm unscathed—we barely had any hurricane damage here.  Our power was only out for about an hour or two, and we had one tree come down that was already half dead, so no big loss.  However, many people nearby experienced terrible flooding and will be without electricity until Wednesday.  My thoughts are with them as they piece their lives back together.

Here are some pictures of local flooding in my area, taken by the newspaper.

Here are some photos taken by my friend Sara in my home state, New Jersey.  She walked all the way up to the Raritan River, which flooded onto Route 206 and just about everywhere else around it.

These amazing photos from all around the East coast caught my eye, too.

Summer’s Home Stretch, Looking to Fall

I love summer just as much as any other outdoors-loving gardener, so I’m just going to come out and say it.  I’m glad summer’s almost over.  And I only feel a small twinge of guilt for saying so.  My garden’s still producing lots of red tomatoes and the zucchini are still doing well…but the demands on a caretaker’s wife in summer are wearing on me, and I’m afraid I’m burning out.  I feel this way every year starting in mid August, but this is the worst case I’ve had yet.  Maybe it’s because Nathan’s crazy toddlerhood is wearing me out and I could use a little help.  Maybe it’s because I’m tired of doing everything myself, by myself, and feeling like a single parent most of the time.

Or maybe it’s because I’m tired of having no family life and interrupted family dinners, or nonexistent ones.  Or maybe I’m sick of seeing my husband dote on someone else’s family while ours feels neglected on the back burner, without a support system nearby. 

It’s hard to describe this feeling—it’s more than just burnout from physical tasks.  There’s an emotional component that can leave me feeling depressed, overwhelmed, lonely, mentally exhausted and almost physically sick—and sometimes wishing for a different kind of life.  One where I don’t have to share my husband with anyone outside of our family.

The straw fields are my favorite view in early summer; by late August they signal that fall is near.  Thank God!

Goodbye, Summer, I am counting down the days.  For, after Labor Day, I’ll get my husband back, and Nathan will have his father back, and we can feel whole again.  And maybe I’ll get to rest a bit.  I’m hoping we can take a mini-vacation to the beach; we haven’t been away together in three years, and Nathan’s never had a family vacation.

Summer is just a few months out of the year; I don’t know how military families do it for years at a time while husbands (and wives!) fight abroad.  Maybe the noble cause does something to offset the strain on the family.  Or maybe the built-in support system and benefits help to make a difference.  It’s quite possible that military wives (and husbands) are stronger—and less whiny—than I am.

I’m looking forward to the extra quality family time outdoors this fall and establishing a new and better rhythm.  Cool, crisp air and low humidity.  The brilliantly colored leaves—and the earthy smell of brown ones.  Collecting acorns, seed pods and whatever else we find that strikes us.

The last two weeks are always the hardest to get through.  But knowing we’re in the home stretch certainly helps.  The farm will be beautiful this fall.  Even if the fields, well, aren't.

The Great Outdoors ~ In the Garden

~ If you took photos outdoors that you love this week, join in and post a link in the comments!  I'm replacing {this moment} with The Great Outdoors while the weather is warm and we’re spending so much time outside. ~

In between lots of rain, we spent the afternoon in the garden.  I love how the color of Nathan's New York City taxi cab shirt matches my Black-Eyed Susans.  I hadn't realized that they were taxi-cab yellow!

He sniffed a flower and was well-behaved for a time...

Until he started ripping pieces off a squash leaf...

And tried to rip out a flower.

See that guilty face?  He knew it was wrong, but didn't seem to care all that much at the time.

I thought it was cute when he sniffed a squash leaf.

Then we sang while he filled his trike up with toys.

And checked for bugs in his bug-holding container.  (There were none.)

We admired that day's varvest, a few plum tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and a zucchini, which we had for dinner tonight.

After trying two cherry tomatoes and not liking them, he tried to stuff one into my mouth.  I gladly accepted, but only after getting this shot.  I give him credit for trying tomatoes twice -- I think he wants to like them.

As soon as we came inside, Dada whisked him back out for a walk and to talk business while I made dinner in peace and quiet.

That look totally asks, "Aren't you coming with us?"  He is so attached.  "No, Boo Boo, I'm going to stay home and make dinner now."  And he was fine with that.  And I enjoyed a few minutes alone that afternoon.

Do you like how there's purple loosestrife growing through a warped board in our porch?  I thought so.  Good thing, 'cause this is how we roll.