Christmas Salad

Our freshly picked salad greens from the garden, just in time for Christmas dinner!

I feel like I am learning so much about how we can best use every resource we have here at Pecan Bluff. Gardening year-round lets us have something fresh and wonderful to eat from the earth every single day of the year if we plan and work well. This is so much fun!

Giving Thanks ~ The Happy Gardener and His Happy Helpers

This afternoon I took a break from making brine for our green bean pickles (yum!) and stepped out on the porch into the cool fall air. As is often the case, the Happy Gardener (aka DaddyDon) was working in the sunshine out in the big garden with one of his best gardening buddies, R. I just love seeing my kiddos pitching in and learning to love the land.

In the late autumn around here we are finishing up the last of our good fall veggies and planting winter crops like cabbages, broccoli, onions, and lettuces. I don't know which garden season is my favorite here in the south~ it works out great because just about the time we get good and tired of squash, the first frost of the season kills it and we get to move on to the salad greens. Or when we are up to our ears in watermelons they finish up and the tasty fall green beans come on strong.  When the summer weather gets too hot for anything else, the okra and peppers and zucchini are just hitting their stride. We may not get to have a white Christmas very often, but we sure can grow awesome veggies.

Today I am very, very thankful that my dear Daddy loves to garden, and more importantly, that he is teaching my children all the secrets he knows. We eat mighty well here at Pecan Bluff because of his vision and planning and all his hard work. And we are thankful that Gram pitches in wherever he needs her. The pictures below show just a fraction of the fun and bounty we get from our big ol' gardens through the year. What a blessing.

adapted from

The Garden Song

by David Mallett, sung by John Denver

Inch by inch, row by row

Gonna make this garden grow

All it takes is a rake and a hoe

And a piece of fertile ground

Inch by inch, row by row

Please bless these seeds I sow

Please warm them from below

'Till the rain comes tumbling down.

Pulling weeds and pickin' stones

Man is made of dreams and bones

Feel the need to grown my own

'Cause the time is close at hand.

Grain for grain, sun and rain,

Find my way in nature's chain

Tune my body and my brain

To the music from the land.

Plant your rows straight and long,

Temper them with a prayer and a song.

Mother earth will make you strong

If you give her love and care.

An old crow watching hungrily

From his perch in yonder tree.

And in my garden I'm as free

As that feathered thief up there.

Inch by inch, row by row

Gonna make this garden grow

All it takes is a rake and a hoe

And a piece of fertile ground

Inch by inch, row by row

Please bless these seeds I sow

Please warm them from below

Till the rain comes tumblin' down.

Pitching In

We had three generations shelling black-eyed peas

The boys picked our first crop of Champanelle grapes! So exciting, and yum!

Southern Summertime Suppers

We've enjoyed filling our table with so much goodness fresh from the garden this season. The potatoes have been a hit every way I've made them. HW loves the tomatoes so much that he runs through the kitchen several times a day, grabs a couple and pops them in his mouth on the go. And the okra ~ wow! Normally, I never fry foods. But during okra season we just have to have some platters of this crispy southern goodness on the table, so I pull out the frying pan. It's truly worth the mess of frying just to see Baby S ask for "More kokra, puh-leeeeease!" The black-eyed peas have been very productive, too, even in this terrible heat wave we are having. We eat all we can, then fill the freezer with peas ~ we already have 11 quarts vacuum packed and stashed away for the winter! We are so thankful for all these goodies and for the chance it gives our children to learn about how God sends us our food. They are really looking forward to the melons and pumpkins next!

We eat this crispy okra like popcorn.

We've had some big beautiful reds, lots of grape tomatoes, plus these luscious little yellow pear tomatoes.
 They make a gorgeous salad with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar drizzled on top. 

The black-eyed peas thrive in this heat, with a batch ready to pick every two days!

Our first cantaloupe! It was gone in minutes. 

Breathless

This spring has left me breathless, not only with the beauty of green growing things and beautiful blooms, but also because we have a lot going on and things are so busy here at Pecan Bluff. I have tons of pictures to share that show some of what we've been up to, so those are coming up soon.

The gardens are truly amazing this year. We've been very dry and windy all spring, but everything is still looking great with some extra special care from the busy gardeners. We are so excited about all the goodies growing in the two gardens ~ that's right, we've got two big gardens this year! So, so exciting!  We now have lots of room for all those huge vining plants that seem to eat up garden space as they grow, and that is such a blessing.

We are still enjoying broccoli, asparagus and onions, while hoping for great crops from our potatoes, corn, onions, tomatoes, peppers, peas, green beans, squash, pumpkins, and melons. And I'm sure I forgot something ~ they are really big gardens! The lush green plants look absolutely beautiful right now.

While we eat breakfast each morning we watch curious crows visiting the gardens looking for something good to eat. I guess some scarecrows will be needed pretty soon to keep those pesky crows at bay. Sounds like a fun project for the kids!

Starting Off Right

It's a little odd to be thinking of the summer fruit season right now. But, after our year-long experiment, we realize that this Eat What You Grow plan is an everyday sort of thing ~ we always have to be planning ahead and setting ourselves up for success. For example, last year we pruned the fruit trees later than we should have, and though the trees truly needed that shaping up, we had to take off most of the blooms when we pruned. So this year we were determined to start the fruit season off right, by pruning all the trees right on time in January while everything is dormant and resting. And we did it!

Actually, Mike pruned the blackberries right after they bloomed late in the summer, and that was exactly right on time for blackberries. Then yesterday, he and I pruned the pears, apples, and peaches (bless his heart, he did most of the pruning and I stood back and pointed to limbs we wanted removed.) It was cold and windy, and pruning is always a big job here in the land of Canaan because things grow so huge here. But I know that work will pay off when the trees start to bloom and then set fruit on their new shapes. We are hoping for a productive year, and it feels great that we're off to a good start!

First Cantaloupe of the Season

It was a monster, and it was good!

Eat What You Grow - Fruits of Our Labors

In the past few weeks we've picked lots of peaches, along with lots of worms. Ick. I spent about three days processing peaches, and for all my efforts I had one peach pie, one peach cobbler, and 5 pints of peach jam, plus buckets full of scraps for the chickens. Oh, and I forgot the extra varicose veins I'm enjoying after that peach pitting marathon. I decided that if we don't keep up the spraying schedule perfectly next spring to keep the bugs at bay, then next summer I'm giving all the peaches to the chickens and letting them find the worms.

The blackberries were outstanding. Huge and luscious, and sweet! The kids enjoyed just running outside and picking and eating them sun-warmed, straight from the bush. Blackberries have no insect problems, and since the bushes are thornless they are so much fun to pick. We harvested about a quart per day, every day for about 2 weeks. They were so delicious fresh that we didn't bother to make anything out of them ~ we just popped them in our mouths. Perfect.

Next year we'd like to do a better job of pruning all the fruit trees and the blackberry bushes. A perfectly implemented spray schedule for the peaches is a must. And we would really like to have about 5 big blackberry bushes, instead of the one we have. Blackberries grow so well here, and are low maintenance, and the kids all love them. 

One little apple tree made two tight little apples. I couldn't tell if they were ripe or not so I picked one this week. The kids ate it fine and it tasted good, but it was a touch green. We'll leave the other lone apple on the tree for a while longer. The loads of pears are breaking the branches of the tree, but hanging on there. We hope to be harvesting pears just about the time everything else around here croaks from the heat~ at the end of August. 

This has been such a great learning experience for all of us. We are looking forward to the fall, when our southern garden will have it's best season of all! 

Eat What You Grow - Early Summer Meal Plan

HW's lunch

This is what most of our meals look like lately at Pecan Bluff since we took up this challenge. Yummy. He is having fresh blackberries, Granny's cucumbers, fresh zucchini, and fresh peaches. Plus a thick piece of homemade bread with sliced tomatoes and bubbly, melted swiss cheese topped with fresh basil. No, I don't make my own swiss cheese. And I don't plan to start.

But the rest of that plate full of wholesome food?

 It's

           all

                     us.

                                              Yippeeeee!

Country Spa Treatment

When I need a little break (and when do I not?), I step outside by myself, pinch off a frilly branch of this luscious lavender plant in the herb garden. I close my eyes and inhale. Lovely. I just imagine that I'm being pampered in a clean, quiet spa full of adults who never argue with each other or spill things. Ahhhh.

But then, the spell is broken when I must open my eyes to check the ground nearby, because I simply cannot forget that at the base of this pretty purple plant I found this guy lurking. I guess it's not exactly a true spa moment, but I'll take what I can get.