July 2019 - Simply Me DIY

July 30, 2019July 29, 2019

Second Garden Update – Things Are Really Getting Big

Wow! This garden has a ton of tomatoes, but most are still green, some peppers, radishes, a few okra so far, and a hand full of yard long beans.

Sunny garden plot plants — My garden looking more to the east

The garden is growing and I’m a happy camper. Here’s a look at what the garden looks like now. You can see the differences in this post, my last garden update.

Sunny garden plot — My garden looking more to the north.

Let’s start with the tomatoes.

Pink brandywine tomato plant. — One of the Pink Brandywine tomato plant.

I have 7 pink brandywines, 1 mortgage lifter and 1 large cherry tomato and the roma in the compost pile.

The pink brandywines are late blooming, but they’re slowly catching up. There’s plenty of tomatoes starting, but they’re small and still green. They seem to be about a month behind where they should be, but they’re getting there, so it’s okay.

In due time I’ll be canning and/or drying tomatoes. More on making sauces and paste from dehydrated tomatoes later.

The mortgage lifter has a TON of tomatoes on it. They’re not getting near as big as they’re supposed to before blushing and turning red. But what they lack in size, they’re making up for in quantity.

Tomato plant full of tomatoes — Mortgage Lifter tomato plant

There are so many of them, the plant is covered.

The big cherry tomato isn’t over doing it, but it’s doing okay. Those are being real slow to turn too.

Cherry tomato plant with green tomatoes.

I’m getting 1-2 small tomatoes a day. So far that works. I’m just eating them as they come in almost.

Now the Peppers.

The peppers have made a come back. We had some really HOT weather in the last few weeks. Maybe that was it.

The peppers that were scrawny have begun to fill out and get more leaves.

Banana Peppers. — One of my 3 Banana peppers.

I have 2 plants that are producing really well now. I have several peppers on both of those plants.

Red Pepper with a bad spot. Maybe sunburned?

Then I have the 1 actual red pepper. It looks like it didn’t like the sun on it’s west side. Maybe sunburned?

The other plants have a lot of blooms on them and looks like they will explode here soon. I guess time will tell.

We’re really liking the banana peppers and I have 3 of those so I really hope they keep going.

The yellow pepper has blooms but I’ve not seen a baby on it yet. And then I have 1 more red pepper with a ton of peppers on it.

The 2 big ones are still green though, so I’m being patient.

Then we have the radishes.

You can see we’ve been picking the radishes.

Those are big and we’ve been using them like roasted potatoes. They’re so good that way, I just can’t get over that.

These radishes are really big. I’ve tried them raw a few times and I just really don’t like them that way. They have such a big bite, it’s just too much for me.

But when they’re roasted, they are just so good. A spicy potato is what it comes out like, we love them that way.

I have a ton more seeds for these, but I’m anxious to try different kinds next year.

The okra

The okra plants are so pretty. I’d grow them just to look at, if nothing else. I’ve only gotten 2 okra so far, but there are a few more coming on.

I’ve heard these were usually early to bloom. I haven’t seen that, but I attribute that to the rain and earlier temperatures. There are a lot of blooms just coming on.

I have yet to see a flower. They get to this bud stage and by the time I go back out to look again, the flower’s gone. That was just from morning to afternoon too.

Sometime this week we’ll fry them up. I really hope we like them, but if not, that’s okay. There’s plenty of family that like them.

The cantaloupe and pumpkins are coming along nicely.

We’ve had a major issue with squash bugs. I’ve sprayed neem oil, but that doesn’t get rid of them completely. I know you have to keep respraying, and I’ve tried to keep up with it.

I’ve learned to use a strong hose and cold water too. They really hate that.

They haven’t killed the plant yet. I’m kind of surprised how well it’s doing. It is time to spray again though. The thing about an organic spray is that it has to be done often.

We counted about 7 pumpkins, so far. Not sure what I’ll do with all of those. Most of them are pretty small, so I could probably cook several of them myself for pies, muffins and breads.

My daughter-in-law likes to make pumpkin soup and my grand-daughter loves it. Maybe she’ll like a couple.

I also saw I have several cantaloupe now too!!! That excites me. I love cantaloupe and this one was so good a few years ago. I’m dying to see what it will be like.

Hopefully they stagger themselves just right. One a week. Wouldn’t that be great.

The Chinese Yard Long Beans are beginning to come on.

I’ve picked a handful of these so far. I’ve been told you’re not supposed to boil these like you do regular beans. Just blanch them and then sautee or stir fry them.

We’ll I had to be different and try something new. I recently bought myself a fermenting kit. So I am making Dilly Beans.

I found a recipe using these kind of beans, with the Dilly Beans recipe, so I had to give it a try.

I’ve never tried pickled beans and it sounded good. We’ll see.

Out of the 7 plants we have, only a couple look like they are really growing well. I have one plant that has grown up the trellis and then started crawling sideways at the top.

Another one is almost to the top of the trellis and the rest are still pretty short. They’re almost all producing or have produced, so not sure what’s up there.

We’ll see if I want to keep growing these. I’m just not real sure about them yet.

The corn and carrots are still growing.

Both of these have a ways to go yet.

The corn has tassels on top now, so that was encouraging. They’re growing well too. Not sure how much longer that will take.

The carrots are growing well too. But they usually take a good amount of time, so I’m in no hurry to pick those either.

I’ve got a notebook I used when we planted everything that tells how many days to maturity and then I put dates to them all.

None of those dates have worked out this year. Everything is really late where maturity is concerned. So I’m not putting much stock into any of those dates.

I still want to plant a fall garden so I’ll have to go by the frost and maturity dates in getting that planted. I just hope the fall garden isn’t as late at producing as the spring and summer one or I’ll not get much.

I really believe that the 30 inches of rain we got and the really cool temps had a lot to do with what’s happening with my garden now.

I guess next year I’ll have something to compare to and we’ll see.

A random broccoli plant is still growing.

This plant has been here since the beginning, but it has barely been doing anything.

In the last several weeks, this thing has been going nuts, except there’s no broccoli head. But it sure does look pretty.

I hope you enjoy watching the garden grow as much as I do. We get a handful of things most days, and I’m happy with that, for now.

I’m learning something new every day is what’s most important to me right now. As long as I’m get anything out of the garden this year, I’m happy.

Next year will be another learning experience and will be even better. I hope.

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to subscribe, if you haven’t already.

Until next time –

Health, Wealth & Blessings ~ Tracey

July 23, 2019July 22, 2019

The Many Ways of Making Herbal Tea

So a week or so ago I told you about mixing your own herbal tea blends. You can find that here. Now, here’s something a little different.

When I first started making herbal tea, it felt very foreign to me. That seemed like an exotic kind of thing for this small town country girl. I never considered there was anything beyond the store bought tea bags.

These days I’ve discovered so many ways to prepare and steep your herbal tea, I have to actually decide on which one I’ll use each time.

The Different Methods I Use to Prepare My Herbal Tea

There are several different ways to hold your loose leaf herbal tea. Let’s go over a few.

Tea Bags

There’s a couple of different tea bags you can use. I use both of these and like them both for different reasons.

This one I get from Mountain Rose Herbs. I like this one because you can quickly make a bag of tea, just fold over the edge and pour your water over it.

I use this one at home a lot. It’s good for trying a new herbal tea blend and don’t want to make up a lot.

This is another one I like to use. I get them at Mountain Rose Herbs too. You can find them in different sizes all over Amazon, but I’m never really sure of the quality from places I don’t know.

herbal tea in tea bags — Iron close tea bags.

I like this one because they’re easy to prepare and have several bags pre-made and ready to take with you when you want. They’re just like regular tea bags, and easily portable because they seal.

Both of these tea bag types are compostable too, which is a plus for me since we compost everything possible.

Tea Balls

Tea balls are another way to steep your herbal teas. They come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. I have a few different styles and I use them both. I don’t have a specific purpose for either, just depends on my mood at the time.

Some tea balls have smaller screen sizes or holes which means some will leave small bits of leaf in the bottom of your cup and others won’t.

Handle spoon type tea ball. — This style is more like a spoon

I don’t mind little bits of tea leaf in the bottom of my cup, but that may be something you’ll want to consider when you decide on one.

Then there are a few other styles that I like.

A Couple Other Styles

A friend bought me this next style a long time ago. I love it. This one is a basket type thing you put your herbs in and set it in your cup and then pour your water directly over your herbs.

herbal tea straining basket — Herbal tea straining basket and holder.

This one works very well. It even comes with a little thing to set the tea basket in when you get ready to drink your tea.

Making herbal tea with a tea basket — A basket full of lavender and lemon balm tea.

This one is really good for using enough herbs to make several cups of tea.

And lastly, I have a steeping pot. I found it on sale at my local grocery store several years back and have been very happy with it.

Glass steeping pot — I found this at a local grocery store during a clearance sale. I love it.

It’s a thin clear glass pot, so after I pour my water over the herbs, I usually wrap it in a tea towel to keep it hot. I use this a lot more in the winter, cause I can drink a whole pot on a Sunday afternoon.

Brewing Your Tea

Teas or herbs with a high volitile oil content, or those that smell really good, need to be covered when you steep them. This will keep the properties of the herb from evaporating while the tea steeps.

A covered steeping tea blend. — Steeping herbal tea.

So if you’re making a tea using, say lavender, you’ll want to cover it while it steeps.

I’m sure there are several more ways to prepare your herbal tea. But these are the ones I use regularly.

I hope you see one you would like to try. Or maybe you saw a few that interest you. Even better.

Thanks for stopping by and reading about making herbal tea. Let me know what method you use or let me know which method you want to try. I’m curious.

Be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already. See you next week.

Until then –

Health, Wealth & Blessing ~ Tracey

July 16, 2019July 29, 2019

Berry Jam

I love berry jam. Don’t you? It goes good on everything, in my humble opinion.

This is where I found my berries.

Early this year I bought a few blueberry bushes because I eat a ton of blueberries. They’re my favorite.

My blueberry bush with berries. — One of my 3 blueberry bushes.

I’d always heard or read, can’t remember which for sure, that, like strawberries, it would take a year or so to start getting any berries.

Apparently, that’s not true. I was happy to see that these bushes were going to produce lots of berries. They didn’t produce a lot at one time, but as they matured, I harvested them and put them in the freezer.

Then one day I was out walking around the yard and found a mulberry tree. My husband had been hacking at it with a machete for quite a few years trying to kill it. Of course, we all know you can’t kill a mulberry tree, at least where I live. They grow like weeds.

Ripe mulberries in a bowl. — Mmmmmm mulberries.

There’s been a large mulberry tree on the property for years and I never got a berry from it. The birds ate them all before I could get to them. There’s always been purple bird poop on everything, every year.

But, this year, this tree, which is now a bush, continued to survive. And not only did it survive, it was covered in mulberries. Beautiful, ripe, purple berries, that tasted awesome. I couldn’t believe the birds hadn’t noticed this bush!!

So I started picking berries daily. I only got about 1/2 cup of a mix of the two at a time. I collected them, washed them and let them set out to dry overnight and then put them in jars in the freezer the next morning.

Me and My granddaughter discovered frozen berries make a great summer snack. Note to self for next year.

I decided when I got to 5-6 cups of berries I’d make some berry jam. It did’t take too long to collect about 5 cups. That seemed to be the magic number, because at about 5 cups both bushes finished their production.

I’m not complaining, I’m totally happy with what I got from them. Beside the 5 cups worth, I also got to eat some too.

Now it’s time to make some berry jam.

I found a non-pectin berry jam recipe on the Farmer’s Almanac web site. This is what I loosely followed. I’ve looked but I can’t seem to find the same recipe again to post a link.

I say loosely because that recipe used a different kind of berry and didn’t add lemon juice. I wasn’t sure about the acidity level of berries, so I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

Better Homes and Gardens Canning Book. — The canning book I used as a reference for this recipe.

This is one of the books I use for my canning.

I have several, but this happened to be the one I used.

It has a chart that lists the acidity levels for several different types of foods.

If the acidity level is high you can water bath can your jam for preservation instead of pressure canning.

But if the acidity levels are lower you need to use a pressure canner to be sure you kill any kind of nasty bug that may make you sick.

Acidity levels for different types of food. — Acidity levels from the book.

As you can see, lemons and limes are at the low end of the pH levels which you would expect, and the berries are kind of in the middle.

There probably wouldn’t have been a problem, but since I had lemon juice, I decided I’d go ahead and use it.

Since I had the time I still decided to not use the pectin.

All I had to do was cook it a little longer. Actually, I probably cooked it a bit too long, cause it’s really, REALLY thick. But I’m okay with that.

It’s the first time I’ve made jam without the pectin. I wanted to make sure it got thick enough. I’ll call it an experiment instead of a mistake.

So I started with the 5 cups of berries I had been picking and freezing over the past month or so. It was a mix of mulberries and blueberries.

Frozen berries beginning to cook down. — Cooking down my berries.

I poured them into a stock pot and heated them on low until the blueberries began to break and the mulberries got mushy.

Then I added the 3-3/4 cups of sugar. The recipe I found said 3/4 cup of sugar for every cup of berries. That seemed easy enough to remember and it’s less sugar than some of the recipes I’ve got for jam. I cooked this slow and stirred a lot so the sugar didn’t burn at the bottom. It won’t take long to melt.

Mashing cooked berries. — Mashing the berries as they cooked.

Cooking berry jam. — Cooking the berries.

Then I mashed them with a potato masher. You can mash these down as much as you want. I like the larger chunks so I didn’t worry too much about it. I knew the blueberries would cook down to pretty much juice, but the mulberries, which are sweeter, didn’t break down so much.

The recipe I read said without using the pectin you needed to cook it about 1/2 hour to 45 mins. I decided to go about mid way and cook them about 40 min on low. Next time I’ll probably just cook them about 25 min, maybe 30.

Make sure you stir a lot. I couldn’t get my burner down low enough, in my opinion, so stirred it almost constantly.

Now it’s time to can the berry jam.

Sterilizing canning jars. — this is an easy way to sterilize your jars. Put them over the water in your canner while you wait for it to come to a boil. I just put the lid on it and let it go.

I began by boiling water in the water bath canner. Then I put the jars in the canner while the water boiled to sterilize them.

Once the water boiled and the jars were sterilized, I filled each one.

Filling jars with berry jam. — Filling the canning jars.

While I fillied the jars, I boiled the canning lids. I’ve heard recently that that is a step that you don’t have to do anymore.

I’m not sure if there are new lids that don’t require boiling or if Ball just changed the rules. But since my lids are older, I’ll continue to boil them until it get new ones that read that it’s not necessary.

Cleaning the jar rim. — Make sure the rims of your jars are clean.

Once your finished filling the jars, you want to make sure the rims are clean. This will ensure there is nothing to obstruct the sealing process.

Then add the lids and rings. You don’t want to crank down the rings. Just finger tight. When you add them to the canner you want about an inch or 2 of water to cover your jars.

Jar of jam ready to be canned. — My canner has a rack in it. I set the jars on the rack and then I can just lower the rack into the boiling water.

I waited until the water was at a rolling boil, then I lowered the jars into the canner. You can add them sooner, but you don’t want to start your timer until your water is at a rolling boil.

Then I processed them in the boiling water for 15 min.

Now they’re done.

Now you can turn off the heat, and raise your rack.

The best part about this is hearing the lids seal. They’ll begin to ping one at a time. In my opinion, this is the best part. Makes me smile every time.

Now you just wait for them to cool and you have preserved berry jam.

I put one of them in the fridge without processing it, so I could have some berry jam to eat now. I wanted to try it out. Then I labeled the rest and put them in the pantry.

If you have the equipment canning your own jam is really easy. Do your research and be sure to follow the best safety rules when canning. They are listed in all the canning books. Don’t be afraid to it a try. It’s really not as scary as it sounds.

If you have canned your own jam, let me know what kind. I’d love to hear what you’ve been preserving. Add your pictures to the comments.

Be sure to subscribe and comment. I’d love to hear from you.

Until next time –

Health, Wealth & Blessings ~ Tracey

July 10, 2019July 10, 2019

We had a visitor in the garden last night.

As a rule we go outside and check the garden every night, just looking at plants, checking on any veggies that might be ready to harvest and to water if it’s necessary.

Last night we found this guy in the tomato patch. It’s the dreaded tomato horned worm. Now, that’s just not cool, at all.

Horned worm on a tomato leaf — Horned worm

So far we’ve only found 2 of these guys, but they were plump little dudes. It’s amazing how fast they can eat a tomato plant down to the nubs.

We’ve began searching for them regularly now. With any luck we won’t find anymore.

You gotta know where to look to find these horned worms.

Be sure to check your tomatoes regularly. They’re really hard to see. Their color matches the plant color perfectly and they are always on the underneath side of a leaf.

I find them by looking for where they’ve eaten. You can see here where he had eaten the end of the stem. Those sort of stick out to me.

I found the exact type of same eaten off stem right next to the last one I found.

When I was a kid, part of my summer garden chores at home was to pick off tomato worms, and I did it well. Dad would give me an old tin can and put about an inch of gas in it.

Then I’d use a stick and knock the worms off into the gas. We always had chickens and I’ve often wondered since, why he just didn’t feed them to the chickens.

We’ve heard that you they glow when you search for them at night with a black light. We’ve decided that’s something we’re going to have to try. That would certainly make finding them much easier.

How do you get rid of tomato horned worms? Let me know in the comments below. I’m sure there are plenty of people who would like to hear your answer to that one.

Until next time – Health, Wealth & Blessing ~ Tracey

July 9, 2019July 9, 2019

A Growing Garden Update

So here’s a garden update.

We’ve continued to have more rain than usual and in some cases I think it caused a little bit of problems. But with the warmer weather we’ve been having it’s not been too bad and things are beginning to get big.

A Garden Overview.

Let’s look at all the goodies and how well they’re growing. You’ll also note that the weeds and wheat are growing pretty well too.

An overview of the garden. — This picture was taken on 6/30. It’s amazing how fast this garden is growing.

You can go back and look at the garden in my first garden post here. This will give you an idea of how much everything has grown.

Here are the various tomatoes I’ve got planted in the garden.

Pink Brandywine

The Pink Brandywines I have planted are now tied to the trellis and they are actually growing in and around the trellis. I’ve even got some fruit growing, although in this picture you really can see them.

Mortgage Lifters

The Mortgage Lifters seem to be growing the best. I’ve been trying to keep it pruned, but it grows almost faster than I can keep up.

I’m really hoping to get a good sized mess of tomatoes canned this year. We are completely out of home canned tomatoes from our last crop a few years ago. I miss having them around the house.

A mortgage lifter tomato plant with tomatoes growing in my garden. — Look at all those tomatoes.

Mortgage lifter plant with tomatoes growing in my garden — Here’s another batch off the same plant.

Cherry Tomatoes

Large cherry tomato plant growing in my garden — My Large Cherry Tomato plant

There’s about 3 bunches of these cherry tomatoes on the plant. I don’t think you can see them all, but trust me they are there. Can’t wait for these either.

We’ll just put these in a bowl on the counter and eat them like snacks. I’m really hoping to get enough to dry them too.

The Surprise Compost Tomato

A roma type tomato plant growing in my compost pile — They look like a roma type tomato to me.

Now here’s the big surprise. Remember the tomato plant I found in the compost pile with the squash plant. Well, I think I’ve determined what kind of tomato it is and I’m real excited about it. This thing is COVERED in blooms and there are a LOT of small fruit on the plant. I’m so excited.

It looks like we are going to a huge crop of these. Since the roma type are usually a lot more meaty than your regular slicing tomato, I’m really hoping to have enough to make some good tomato sauces.

What you see here is just a small amount of what is really there. YAY!!!

It’s the small things that make me happy.

The Peppers

Next up we have some peppers. There’s really not a lot to show here so I’ve only included the one picture .

A Bell pepper plant growing in my garden — This is the bell pepper that almost wasn’t. Something ate this plant down to the stalk. Now it’s the best looking pepper I have.

We’ve gotten 2 banana peppers so far, but it looks like there’s only going to be, maybe, one more. The 2 we got were really good. We tasted the first one raw and the 2nd one we grilled with some pork chops we had for supper. It was was so good.

I’m not sure what happened here with the peppers, but that’s something we’ll have to work on to figure out. We really would like to have a lot more of the banana peppers.

We still have about 3 bell pepper plants growing, 1 with an actual pepper and the other 2 have a few blooms. I’m anxious to see what they do.

The baby radishes aren’t babies anymore, and you can see the carrots now.

My radishes aren’t babies anymore. I actually pulled one and grilled it with our pork chops along with the 1 remaining banana pepper. These radishes are going to be huge.

A row each of radishes and carrots growing in my garden. — Radishes and carrots.

One thing you’ll note when you look at this picture is the radishes in the back are way bigger than the ones nearer to the front of the picture. The only thing we can figure out is the amount of water that they got during that real wet period (called May). We think the ones at the back drained faster than the smaller ones up front. It’s just a guess, but there’s really no other differences.

We’re happy to say you can actually see the carrots now. They need to be thinned, and we’ll get to that, but we’ll give them just a bit more time.

My husband LOVES his carrots and doesn’t want to pull too many. I’ll let him do those honors.

Okra

Remember the tiny okra plants from before. Well they aren’t so tiny anymore.

These are about a foot tall now. I just can’t wait to see the blooms. Okra has such pretty flowers when they bloom.

The burgundy ones have gotten redder so they’re really pretty now too.

The Chinese yard long beans are growing!!

The tiny little Chinese Yard Long Beans have grown. They’re now beginning to grow up the trellis. A few of them have a tentacle reaching up about 4 feet.

Chinese Yard Long Beans growing in my garden — Here are the beans climbing up the trellis.

I only had to tie one. It just kept reaching the opposite direction from the trellis. The rest found the trellis all by themselves.

The compost squash.

And remember that squash that was growing in the compost pile? Holy Smokes, I had to give up my compost pile for the year. It’s taken over. I’m also noticing there’s more than one kind of squash in that mass of plants.

So far I’ve found 3 fruit and none of them look alike.

This is the one we transplanted from the compost pile into the garden.

Looks like a pumpkin pie pumpkin growing in my garden. — Looks like small pie type pumpkin to me.

This fruit I found near the front side of the compost pile.

A young type of squash growing in the compost pile. — This one is about 4-5 inches in size right now.

And this one is growing on the outside of the back side of the compost pile.

A type of squash growing outside the compost pile. — This one is just a touch smaller than a soccer ball.

I’m having a terrible time with squash bugs too. I’d never seen those nasty little things before this year. They can decimate a plant pretty quick from what I’m seeing too.

Even with the squash bugs, this plant is taking over.

Large squash plant growing out of the compost pile. — The squash plant coming out the back side of the compost pile.

Large squash plant — The front of the compost pile. This thing is reaching out in all directions.

I’ve been mixing Neem oil and spraying the plant. I’m hoping to just hold them off as long as possible. I can’t get into the plant in the compost pile well enough to spray it completely so I think that’s going to be a problem in getting rid of them.

Lots of Weeds And Wheat In the Garden

The one thing you will note is that the wheat and weeds are growing rather well. We mulched with straw, so the wheat is growing like crazy. Since wheat is an annual, we’re not too worried about that as long as we don’t let it head.

The weeds are another story. We’ve been working at weeding and I’m going to have to get my Cobra Head in there and get some work done. It’s just too much for hand pulling.

We just got back from 3 days out of town and in those 3 days, everything exploded. We have a lot to do now.

What’s Next

I still want to plant some more for late summer and some other stuff for fall, so we still have a lot to do to get the other side of this garden ready. We’ll be using a weed barrier on the new parts of the garden, that I didn’t have when we started this side of the garden.

I’m interested to see how much easier it is to take care of with the weed barrier down.

Lessons Learned

One thing we learned with this garden is to not give up on a plant that doesn’t look good. A few of the plants I thought were toast, have come back to look really great and begin to produce.

I’m sure there will be more lessons. Like I said, this is an experiment, so I’m excited to learn a ton of lessons for next year.

Let me know what you planted in your garden and how it’s going. Leave a comment or a picture below. If you have any good advise, I’m all ears too.

Until Next Time – Health, Wealth & Blessings ~ Tracey