A planting I shall go...

Back in early April, I started my garden by planting seeds. Since it's cool outside with warm weather soon to be on its way, I planted the following seeds: spinach, lettuce, carrot, squash, cucumbers and onions.

Here is the garden growing as of Mother's Day.....

Carrot Forest

Cucumbers, pickles will be in our future. 

spinach

onions with a few left over carrots growing.

So the first weekend after Derby, which is a standard event that marks planting your garden in Louisville. Because everyone knows up until then it could be sunny, rainy or even snowy. With that date in mind, I took a vacation day the Monday after Mother's day just to plant my garden.

The day before JP helped me take the compost out of our two bins. It was nice to see that rich black soil that we made from our food scrapes, leaves, grass and chicken coop straw. There was enough to fill the potato bed high and add some to each of the other raised beds to be worked into the soil. With joint effort we got this done rather quickly.

I woke up just as if it was another work day, went through my routine. Dropped little bit off at day care and stopped on the way home for a jog. By 9 a.m. I was dressed in a tank top, overalls and boots. Wheel barrel, shovels and garden plan out and ready to go. It took several trips to get all the plants down to the garden.

Reviewing the garden layout, I got all the plants next to their raised bed. I made sure to rotate plants into different beds. Here are the beds after hours of work, joyful work.

Pepper plants I purchase from the farmers market, half of mine seeds did not sprout.

Here are some of my pepper plants, small compared to the others I purchased. 

Tomatoes

More tomato plants!!

So after all was said and done, I planted 50+ tomato plants including cherry, yellow pear, roma, early girl, beefy and heirloom, 30+ pepper plants including bell pepper and banana, 9 squash/zucchini. It was  a wonderfully cool slightly breezy day, with the sunny popping in and out. I also planted a bed of potatoes.

Now I just need to keep it de-weeded, watered and growing. This is going to be our best garden yet, can't wait to see all that it produces.

Here's whats growing in my herb garden...

Basil

Oregano

First Strawberry

Thyme

Less then an week later.... this is what I saw, my greenbeans sprouted

Homemade Veggie Stock

So having a liquid stock in the pantry is a must for home cooked meals. And my step daughter has stopped eating chickens, because we have some, so chicken stock doesn't get used a lot around this house. 


But I came across this magical idea one day on a blog. To save your leftover veggies, keep them in a bag in the freezer and use them to make veggie stock....of course why didn't I think of this??? Leftover veggies refers to the onion skin, tops and bottoms, broccoli stalk, carrot skins or ends, celery, etc. This gives my veggie scraps and extra purpose before heading to the compost.

So I collect the leftovers over a period of time until my gallon ziplock bag is full. 


Then you dump all the veggies into a crockpot, I then add a potato that I've cut up. To top off the mixture I throw in some fresh herbs from the garden, usually thyme, rosemary and parsley. Then fill the crockpot up with water. 

Put the lid on and set on low. Now I do this first thing in the morning before work and let it cook all day.

When I come home, I have veggie stock waiting for me. 

I then scoop out the big pieces and place in a bowl for the compost. 

Then I use a mesh strainer to catch the rest.

Scoop the broth into your containers, chinese takeout soup containers are great and large yogurt containers. Isn't it pretty, this time the color is very amber. However the color varies depending on the veggies being used.


I then let them cool to room temperature and pop them in the freezer. To thaw, set out in the morning or run hot water around the outside edges, then plop the veggie stock cylinder into saucepan and heat up.


Hope you enjoy this great tip on getting more out of your veggies before they hit the compost bin.