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Homemade "Coffee"

My Instagram post that inspired me to write about our fig leaf-sumac tea was actually the one I wrote about making okra coffee. That spurred a lively discussion on IG, so I thought I should definitely do a blog about it as well! So...

We make coffee from our okra! The best name I've gotten so far is a toss-up between okra-joe, and [cup of] joe-kra – I lean towards the second, partly because the short version (joe-kra) gives a sense of it not actually being coffee :-)

Homemade "Lemon Green" Tea

Hi Folks,

The End of the Garlic!

in

So I keep saying I’ve been busy making soap, and it’s certainly true, but actually the real time-sucking activity recently has been dealing with the last of the year’s garlic crop.  

Habaneros Everywhere!

in

The theme this week is habaneros - we planted 2 habanero plants in the hoophouse this spring, and I forgot just how prolific they are.  We are harvesting at least 15 peppers every two days, and that really piles up!  I canned over 3 dozen jars early this week, and another 1.5 dozen this week.  We'll easily have a year or two's-worth of hot sauce :)  I don't actually like really hot food, but habaneros are just so beautiful, I love growing them simply for the color!  I only do it every few years...

Planting Season

This last weekend was our blackberry winter, the last cold snap of th spring that usually hits right when the blackberries are blooming.  We got down in the mid-30's a couple of nights, with frost in the low areas, but the garden looks fine.  It's been so warm, we already planted tomatoes and peppers, since blackberry winter often stays above freezing, and we lucked out.  We had a WWOOFer for about 3 weeks, until last Tuesday, so the gardens and hoop house are in good shape.

Yum!

in

This will be a really quick post (I'm typing one-handed while nursing), but if a picture is worth a thousand words then this is a ~1050-word essay :)  This is why we garden organically - not just so that our children can eat organic produce, but because (despite our best efforts) they will eat an organic garden :)

Spring Already?!

Wow!  It's only the end of February, and it really seems like spring is here.  It was 75* yesterday - although today is supposed to be only 44*, with a low of 24* - and then a low back up to 52* in just another couple of days!  This time of year gets a lot of gardeners here in trouble - it's so tempting to plant everything when it's this beautiful so early, and then it freezes a week later.  And a week after that... and maybe one more in early May!

News Roundup

Well, I did it again, it;s been a month and more since I posted.  It turns out a new baby, starting homeschool, and all the regular farm business don't allow much time for anything else, especially something as "frivolous" as writing!  So - Ewan's nursing, looks to be in it for the long haul, so I'll give this a shot...

I'll try to sum up the last month in one post.  I'd like to say I'll come back soon and expound on something or another, but to be honest, I doubt that, so I'll do what I can now.

Harvest Season

in

It's that time of the year - the garden is finally producing all those vegetables we've been longing for the rest of the spring and summer.  The tomatoes and okra and bell peppers have been coming in heavily for at least a month now (I'm so happy for the okra, it's been at least three years since I had any), and the cantaloupes and watermelons just started ripening in the last couple weeks.  Caleb and a couple of different sets of helpers (meal-bringers, and my parents) got the Painted Mountain Indian flour corn harvested.

Newest Arrival

I've just got a quick update today, on a few things.