Egg Crazy and Sallie Lund Bread

Well, since today is the day before Easter, and we have YET to decorate eggs, I am doing some major baking.

"Baking? Why?" You might ask...well, I will tell you!

When I was a child my mom stumbled upon a craft for confetti filled eggs. You have to hollow out the egg...(or blow) out the inside of the egg. Most years, we put a decent size hole in one end of the egg & pour out the innards. Making a hole big enough to put the confetti inside once empty.
We then decorate the eggs as usual. And when dry, fill with confetti and paste a piece of tissue paper over the hole.

Then on Easter Sunday we have an egg fight. We throw eggs at each other and smash them on heads etc and a good time is had by all. (if you want to have an egg fight-be sure your confetti is biodegradable)
Since I didn't start early saving eggs like I typically try to do, I need to get 2 dozen eggs ready for my children to dye. So today I chose to make some Sally Lund bread, because it takes 6 eggs in the recipe. So I've doubled the recipe. That gets me 12 eggs. We got 5 eggs saved before today, so I MAY make 1 more batch. It does freeze well, so no worries about anything going bad.

I think I will be making Sallie Lund bread more regularly when my chickens start producing eggs.

So for those of you interested, or those who have chickens and occasionally have more eggs than you can handle I will share the recipe.
I got this recipe from my grandma who makes this bread regularly. I do not know the source of where she got the recipe though...

Sally Lund Bread
 Makes 2 loafs

Preheat oven to 325 Farenheit

1 stick of butter
6 TBSP sugar
6 eggs beaten
2 cups milk
1 tsp salt
6 tsp baking powder
4 cups all purpose flour. sifted.


Cream the sugar & Butter, add the salt, and milk. Sift in flour and baking powder.

Bake at 325 for 30-35 min.

*If you use self rising flour omit the salt & baking powder.


Today I tried using whole wheat white flour in this recipe, and I ALMOST forgot the milk...so It looks a little crazy now, it took twice as long as it should have to bake through AND it didn't rise as nicely as it usually does, making it more dense than I am used to, the flavor is still good though & I know we'll eat it anyway. Typically this bread turns out to be nice, light an eggy.
So with my results today I would HIGHLY recommend sticking with the all purpose white flour, or self rising flour.

 

Seeds Seeds and More Seeds

I have been itching to get out in the garden, so after I got my homework done, I went out, weeding one of my raised beds and planted my 19 strawberry plants that I bought.(it was supposed to be 20, so either I planted 2 in one hole, or they shorted me 1...Oh well)
I've never bought strawberries like this before, they were bare root plants. In the past I've purchased live plants. I sincerely hope they grow. The package says "guaranteed to grow." Well, time will only tell. I'm sure you have purchased things in the past that say they are guaranteed to do something they don't.I will let you know if they work out or not.
I also spent some time on Facebook today...BIG shock I know! lol Most of my readers are from my Facebook friends list so far! :)
One of the facebook pages that I have liked is called Grow Food, Not Lawns and on this super interesting page was a post from Seeds Now advertising their Spring/Summer Seed Bank. The Spring and Summer Seed Bank is basically a box set of 20 kinds of seeds that they sell. But as I navigated around their site I thought their seed prices were VERY reasonable. Especially considering they are organic seeds.
 SO, I bought seeds for "Rattlesnake" beans (approx. 75 seeds) , "Easter egg" radishes (120 seeds) , beets (45 seeds), basil (120 seeds) , dill (100 seeds), romaine lettuce (135seeds), celery (200 seeds), cabbage (50seeds), swiss chard (100 seeds), spinach (350 seeds), and alfalfa sprouts (8000 seeds)...(I intend to start growing my own sprouts too)

That is approximately 9295 seeds ALL for under $20 (INCLUDING the S&H) Now that's what I call a DEAL!

Now I need to get the material to build more raised beds to grow all this stuff in! And I will share the adventrue of building these things with you! I will also have to learn how to grow some of these things, as I have never tried before, so I hope you will join me in my adventures!

Chickens take 2

So Monday night my bad bad doggies, in their curiosity ended up knocking the roof off of our dog-house sized interim chicken coop that I moved the chicks into on Saturday afternoon. And their doggie instincts kicked in...killing all 8 of my 5 week old buff Brahmas.

Look at these faces though! Could you stay mad forever? Nah! Me either! 

The poor babies! :(

Having already spent more than $150 on lumber to build a new coop, we decided to go back to the Tractor Supply store for more chicks. They had just received a new shipment of chicks, but no more Brahmas. :(

So this time we picked out some "red pullets" they look to be no more than maybe 5 days old to me. The sign said they could be either Rhode Island Red or New Hampshire Red chicks.
This time around the interim coop is NOT going to be used & they will stay inside until the new (dog-proof) coop is ready.

               

Snow Snow and More Snow = Procrastination

According to my local seed store owner, I need to get my potatoes planted on Friday this week. I am very good at procrastination (as in right now I SHOULD be doing research for a speech. lol) But in this instance, I do not have the containers to plant my potatoes in, or the soil, NOR have I even prepped the seed potatoes to be planted.
Add to all my procrastination, we just got about 4 inches of snow last night! SNOW! I am so tired of snow! The chicks have made it through 2 cold winter-like nights in their interim chicken coop, so I feel good about that work I did on Saturday. Now they have plenty of room to run around and grow stronger. I had also planned on planting 20 strawberry plants on Saturday, but with the weather forecasting snow, and my 2 nephews here for the day, I decided to wait.
We didn't even get the new coop started! This weekend was a fairly lazy weekend in the garden! I can't wait for the weather to warm up some more!

                   

So I decided to continue my research on planting potatoes in the containers, and I came up with this video in my search. He gives a lot of good information on planting potatoes in containers. It correlates with a lot of the reading I've done on the subject and I also learned that you shouldn't re-use the dirt from year to year, or plant anything else in your potato soil, just in case of potato blight or any other problems...Enjoy the video while I go procrastinate some more about everything else! :)

                   

Keeping the Green Thumb Busy...Re-potting Orchids

Until the weather warms up, and I can really start getting busy building more raised beds, and planting my garden, I will keep myself busy with planning, and my inside plants.

Many of you may already know, that I have a slight obsession with orchids. I currently have 12 orchid plants, of 3 different varieties.

Phalaenopsis

Oncidium

And Vanilla

All of these are MY plants that I have taken care of. One of  my vanilla orchids, pictured above in the yellow pot is now almost 12 inches tall now. And I have a Phalaenopsis that I bought for $1.00 on clearance at the grocery store after it had stopped blooming, that is growing a WILD new bloom stalk! I am excited to see what color the flowers are, and just how crazy it is going to go! 

The new bloom stalk on this 

orchid has 3 branches forming on it

I have had various plants bloom for me all winter, making me all the more eager for warm weather! I also went to the local conservatory to look at their orchid display, and it took everything I had to  leave with only pictures, and not buy another orchid plant in the gift shop! I am kind of running out of places to put them!

Yesterday I re-potted two of my phalaenopsis orchids...one is showing signs of dehydration (wrinkled leathery looking leaves) and the other looked like it was climbing out of the dirt with its new roots starting to grow. So I decided it was time to look at their roots and make sure all was OK...

How do you re-pot an orchid? Well, I will tell you what I do..

To prepare to re-pot my orchid-I recommend a nice clean spot on your counter...I occasionally put down a towel too, my bag of Orchid potting mix. A clean sink, trash can nearby, and this is VERY important...CLEAN scissors. As I trim the roots to the plant, clean scissors are a MUST. You do not want to get any contaminants into the root system, as these are your plants lifeline. And I try to only trim off dead or decaying roots, as if there are injured roots, the plant will try to concentrate on them instead of the rest of the plant. Remember:

Healthy roots = healthy plants

I run all of my scissors through the dishwasher on a regular basis.

Before re-potting a newly purchased plant
in the liner pot. I dislke the pots that orchids
come in from the store. I prefer ceramic orchid pots

Now, I begin by removing the plant from its pot and dispose of the dirt.  Notice in the picture how bound up the roots are? And in this particular case, there was standing water in the pot. This is a BAD thing. I've read plenty about caring for my orchids, and I know that they like well drained soil. Now-I use pots that do NOT have drain holes, so I am very careful not to water too often or too much. Don't worry-I an not a perfect person-I have gone back the next day to check my plants for any standing water in the base of the pot & occasionally, I have had to turn it over & drain it.

Notice the black shriveled roots?
These are not healthy roots.

After I gently remove the dirt from the roots, I inspect them for any rotting roots. I tend to run the cold water slowly in my sink & gently trim away any roots that look unhealthy. This particular plant, had quite a few that I trimmed under the running water until I only had healthy roots remaining. When I first got my orchids, I had read something about trimming any roots that were longer than 6-8" long, and occasionally I still do that, but apparently that is not a common practice, because as I continue to read about orchid care, I do not see anyone recommending this practice.

After I removed the dead and dying roots, this is what was
left. Be very gentle not to break the healthy roots.

Now I take my clean pot, and clean root orchid and I place a little bit of the soil into the bottom of the pot and hold the plant in place in the pot. I then gently pour the dirt over the top of the plant, tap the pot on the counter to allow the dirt to sift itself through the roots and settle gently, but not too tightly around them. Once that is done I water the plant again, not too much as it has probably already gained enough water for the day from trimming the roots under running water, just enough to help moisten the soil & if any settling occurs, add a little more soil to the top. The plant is now re-potted. Occasionally after a few waters, I will need to add a bit more dirt, but that is ok.

To me-this plant looks MUCH more
comfortable than it was before.

Now to water, and wait for the next bloom stalk to grow.

      

Chicken Fever

Some of you may know that I recently dove back into the raising of backyard chickens. I had chickens a few years ago, but sadly, I only had 2 and a predator had gotten to them and killed them :(

After that we decided that, to get new chickens, we would have to build a new coop. Our last coop was designed by us, and we used only material we had on hand, and in hindsight, it wasn't the best of ideas.
This time around we are going to build a coop that comes with a plan. (I will share this with you when we get it started) We'd been discussing getting more chickens, because we miss them & we really miss fresh eggs. There is nothing like a fresh egg! But we sort of bought them on a whim, having walked into the local Tractor Supply store & they were having their chick days, and next thing we knew we were coming home with 8 Buff Brahma chicks...ideally we would have built the coop BEFORE we bought them, but we didn't (seems like we like to be strapped for time on projects, or they don't get finished.

We've had the chicks for about 3 weeks now, and they've been living in a guinea pig cage. Unfortunately they are growing SO fast that they are already cramped for space, and the new coop isn't even started yet. What are we to do? They are starting to want to fight each other?! Well, we still have the old coop (one of the few times our laziness has paid off) So yesterday I said to my hubby, what if we transition them into the old coop? It's bigger than the cage, even if its not big enough for them when their full grown?" He agreed, and I asked him to move the coop closer to the house, since they are so young, and our yard keeps turning into a swamp. Now the coop is right up by the porch, and I have to clean it!

Once we got the coop up by the house and open it up, we see a little nest in the corner...some wild critter had made its home inside...(I hope it's an old nest) so now I feel that I have to clean the coop even better, because we don't know what's been living in there & I don't want my babies to get sick.
So, now here it is spring, still freezing outside and a snow storm coming tomorrow and I have to clean and disinfect a chicken coop...hope it dries, and move the babies in so they are nice and warm before it gets too bad out...I have a LOT of work to do today! So I better get started! I will let you know how it goes! :)



6:26pm...Update.
I have gotten the coop all nice and clean and moved the chicks in. They now have plenty of space without stepping on each others toes. I was a little concerned that they would get too cold out there with only 1 heat lamp, so before I moved them, I did a test. I hooked up the light and put the thermometer directly under it where the chicks may stay. After a while I went back to check and the thermometer read 100 degrees, when its 40 outside. That result leaves me confidant that when the temperature drops at night, they can cuddle a little under the light and not get too cold.

Here is a picture of them in their intermediate home. They will live here until the permanent coop is done.

Shopping for Pots, and a Little Surprise

Today, it is still cold outside, but the sun is shining. So I, still being ever so eager for spring, went shopping for a couple more large terra-cotta pots to put on my  back porch. I bought 2 more 26" pots, and was tempted to get a third, but I decided to wait for 2 reasons...

1. To see if I have a NEED for another pot,
   and
2. Wait for another 40% off coupon to use toward the purchase. (I got 40% off of 1 of the 2 I bought today, so that was nice!) 

While I was unloading my car and placing the new pots on the porch, I also decided to check on my winter sown plants to see if there was any change since I'd started them.

Here are my winter sown planters. I honestly do not know if they will work or not, any growth at all will be a success in my book since it was my first year, AND I was late starting...But since winter seems to be hanging around, that may not be an issue.




So I stood there and took the lids off of every one of those little cloudy containers, and peeked inside them. I must have looked rather silly, but for me, I was engrossed in the activity. I was starting to be discouraged, seeing no change in most containers, save 3, the collard greens...

In all 3 of my containers with the collards in them, I saw this! HOW EXCITING! I feel like spring is just around the corner, even if the weatherman IS tracking another winter storm for this weekend!

         

Eager to Plant...Peas, and Potatoes

Last week, I read something in one of the blogs I subscribe to, one hundred dollars a month, about planting growing peas from start to finish. I learned what I had done wrong in the past when it came to planting peas. It turns out that peas are a cold weather crop. So my planting them in May, resulted in poor results in the past. So I decided to give them a try again this year!

I have also planted potatoes in the past, with minimal success. And since Mavis on one hundred dollars a month has ambitiously purchased 90 pounds of seed potatoes to plant this year, I feel inspired to try it again. I will be growing my 'taters in containers...Trash cans to be specific.

So I was out wandering the local Walmart last week and I was feeling VERY tempted to buy seed potatoes. A 5lb bag of seed potatoes can produce about 25lbs of potatoes. We have a local store here in my town that is only open during planting time, and I had wondered if they were in fact open yet, so I put my Walmart 'taters back and risked a drive by on the seed store, and to my joy they were already open!

I love visiting my local seed store. For a small shop they have a lot of good things. And it is always good to support your local businesses. I love talking to the ladies that work there, I always learn new things! She told me that here in central Ohio, we plant peas on St. Patrick's Day...Well, that was only a couple of days away, so I bought a 1/4 pound of little marvel pea seeds and a 1/4 pound of sugar snap peas to plant in some of my extra large terra cotta pots that I have on my porch. And on St Patrick's day I went out and planted my pea seeds about  1" deep and 2" apart. In these large pots, I have tomato cages in both pots for the peas to climb on, in case I got peas of the climbing variety, but I believe these are both bush plants. I actually got quite a few holes planted. I hope they work out this year! I will let you know of course!

        

For my potatoes, I was told to plant them on Good Friday. So I still have time to collect my planting supplies. I like to buy a little each week and spread out my spending. At the seed store I also bought 5lbs each of 2 kinds of potatoes. White and red Potatoes. I plan on buying about 4 big plastic trash cans to grow them in. I will cut out the bottom, so when it comes to harvesting, I won't have to dig, just dump the containers and let the potatoes fall out! OR I will be building a container to grow them in, as I am leery of the plastic...I haven't decided. Either way, when I DO plant them next week, I will take step-by-step pictures to show you what I've decided.
I did research a few years ago about growing potatoes in containers. Instead of re-writing all the instructions now, I will give you a link to a site with very good instructions. If interested click here to learn about growing potatoes in containers.

       

Hurry Up Spring!

Even though it is technically spring, it seems like winter is never going to leave and I am getting a SERIOUS case of cabin fever. So much so, that I bought a bunch of seeds and a bag of dirt in Feburary to try my hand at winter sowing my garden this year. IF it works out for me, I'll already have some tomato, bean, cucumber, zucchini, watermelon, and many more plants started for the season!

A few years ago, my hubby had a customer tell him about a website that she used to plant her seeds in the winter. The web site offers tips on how to sew your seeds in the winter, what to sew, seed exchanges, and a lot more! So if I've peaked your interest go visit them at http://www.wintersown.org to expand on what I will tell you!

Basically to winter sow your seeds you need a "greenhouse" container to plant in, the most common one I've seen on the site are milk jugs that are cut open on a hinge, so you can add dirt, plant your seeds, then tape the container closed. Make sure you have put drainage holes in the bottom, and in the lids to allow some moisture to gain entry into the containers to water the plants.

Once planted and closed remember to label what you planted in the container. You can then place them outdoors, away from your pets, or where they may blow away, but where the sun can reach them. Do not worry about them getting covered in snow. it is necessary for cold stratification of the seeds.

Here is a blog that gives you step-by-step instructions to do this yourself if you're interested. A garden for the house.

I have very few milk jugs that I planted in, but I had a TON of water bottles. On all the blog sites, I have not seen anything about using the small bottles to plant in, but I just HAD to try it! So if it doesn't work, I'm only out about $10 or so, for dirt and seeds, so I'm not too worried about it! I was a little late putting out my seeds, as a lot of people recommend sowing your seeds on the winter solstice, but since it was so cold here I didn't think a month would matter all that much! And shortly after I made up all my containers we got a LOVELY snow storm. I will let you know how/if they turn out!

"What can can I sow in my containers for winter sowing?" you may ask...Well I did too. Here is where I went to find out! garden web.com

SO, HURRY UP SPRING WEATHER! We are itching to start our gardens!
Until then....research and houseplants will have to keep me busy!
Happy Gardening!

          

Introductions

Hello! My name is Kim. I have many interests that keep me busy, including crochet, gardening, cooking, baking,photography, and more recently canning. I have started this blog to share with you some things I have learned, or am currently in the process of learning, in regards to my gardening and canning hobbies.

As we all know, the economy isn't what it used to be, and some of us are struggling financially. Since I moved into this house 8 years ago, I have always had a summer vegetable garden. I have tried many things, some with success, others without. This year, I am going to try to step things up a notch, and work toward an urban homestead type environment on my property. Now, I do live in a town, but my lot is ALMOST a half an acre. (This includes the house) I have found many blog sites that are inspiring me to move forward with this plan, as well as many pages on Facebook as well, and once I get permission-I will share these with you.

In the past my big summer crops have been tomato and zucchini.  These are my most common success stories. Last year my 4 Better Boy tomato plants gave me enough tomatoes to provide me with approximately 40 pints of stewed tomatoes when I canned them. My zucchini did not make it last year, as it was the first time I tried to grow them in a container. In past years, I have had zucchinis the size of footballs in diameter, and maybe 12-18 inches in length, now I've heard that letting them get that large suffers the flavor, but I have no complaints. AND Zucchini that size provide plenty of shredded zucchini to use in zucchini bread, and nice large seeds to use next year.

As this blog continues I will share with you MY progress in my garden, including building raised beds in which to grow the plants in. I will share new things I learn, either from reading, or trial and error. And in general, share my love for gardening.

I hope you will enjoy following me in my gardening adventures!

Here are a few books that I am currently reading to further educate myself on my current project. I highly recommend them!