Welcome to Lizzy Lane Farm

Charlie Brown the Chestnut Tree

It’s busy around here and many of the little things are left undone, the raking we started to clean the fall’s leaves off the garden and lawn have all blown back on worse than they were, there are many trees and broken branches from the winter ice storms that need to be cut up and hauled away, beds need to be mulched with composted manure and turned, the blackberries need staking again and the list can go on. I have had to learn to look the other way lately and do what I can get done and leave the rest. Priorities you know.

Every so often the smallest things make me the happiest. This year’s gardening is full of happiness for me. The new little green house is growing beautiful little plants, and I can hope for the bountiful harvest they will provide us for the coming year to fill our pantry. I repotted some of the tomatoes that were leggy and falling over, watered them well with a seaweed fertilizer. In a few days they will look much better as they start new roots along to stem in the dirt. I have more than I will need but they will come in handy for trading later in the season.

The peppers are doing very well. I had to reseed several flats of them with new seeds as the first set from saved seeds several years old did not germinate.  Oh’ well you will never know if you don’t try.

One of the biggest is Charlie Brown, the Chestnut tree I started from a nut/seed last year. It grew well and when fall came I knew that bringing it in the house was the wrong thing for it, so I buried the pot and covered it with leaves and said goodby until spring. We had a winter of no snow cover so I feared the worse for Charlie, those winter winds can be a killer.  But look he’s back and doing good as ever.

It’s also raining again today and this makes me very happy. The horses are loving it too…The chickens not so much they haven’t come out of their house all morning.

What’s happening in your garden that is making you happy these days?

Storing your dried herbs in canning jars and Free Lid Labels

Fresh organic herbs are one of the happiest things I can do for myself and my family. From choosing what varieties to grow, growing them, harvesting them, drying them and storing them. It’s an adventure I look forward to every year.

They can turn that same of baked noodle recipe that is a staple from our pantry menu into many exciting dinners… how with the use of herb of course! Say we want a spicy Mexican dinner, herbs and spices can do that and next week we want more of a traditional home cooked turkey I can do that too with my dried herbs. Same recipe to use our pantry ingredients but its the flavor that changes.

The storage of them is the key to keeping them fresh I think. While I have had some jars of herb for many years the fresh flavor does lessen over time and that doesn’t mean they aren’t any good, you just use a bit more for the flavor you want. I read all the time that after a year you should toss them out, hog wash! As long as they are still dry and haven’t been infested with insects, mold or other nastiest they are still very usable.

I store my herbs mostly in my antique blue bail top Ball Mason jars, remember the ones with the bail wire and the rubber rings? Yep, those are the ones. I like them because while they don’t block much light they do block some and every little bit helps. I happen to be in love with them and while they can’t be used for canning much any more they have a lot of life left in them. I also use old cookie tins, remember when you could actually get cookies in a tin and not a plastic bag? Check the yard sales, thrift shops and even ask your friends to save tins for you. They are perfect for storage of dry goods.

I store my bulk herbs are inside a dark wooden cupboard down in the cellar where its cool and the humidity is always just right thanks to the de-humidifier in the summer and the humidifier in the winter. I have smaller containers in the kitchen where I can get to them for cooking daily.

Herbs to have the longest shelf live possible need to be kept dry, well sealed and stored in a cool dark area. The cupboard above the stove is not the place!

As I’m sure you know I have been selling fresh dried herbs over at our Farm Store at Etsy. Recently I have had quite a few questions about storage for the herbs. My answer is how I store them, then the next question is where can I get the labels for the lids! 

 I had a few minutes of free time and have been wanting to make a few new canning jar lid labels. Here are the newest ones and you can find more free lid labels for both the regular mouth and wide mouth jars.  These fit between the screw band and the flat lid.  To save these or any of the others, simply right click on the image and choose save as to save it to your computer. You can print them at 100% scale one at a time or use a photo editing program to place many on the same sheet of paper and then print. Enjoy!

IF you are using them for sealed jars. These labels go on AFTER you have processed your jars, allowed them to cool, wiped them down and they are ready for storage in the pantry.  I thought I would mention this as one lady asked me how I kept the paper labels from disintegrating in the canner….woops!

For jars not canned and being used for storage simply lay the flat lid on the jar, add the label and screw down the band. Everything from nuts, chocolate chips, flour, spices and herbs can be stored well with out canning them. IF you are trying to store food such as fresh veggies, sauces, soups, meats they MUST BE CANNED following an approved recipe.

As Promised it’s Raining!

I don’t often get very excited about rain when I have yard work to do. But this rain is different, we need it very badly. We have had no snow cover all winter to speak of and so far this spring very little if any rain. The garden beds are bone dry dust at this point.  The chickens are loving them to dust bathe in. Glad I can make them happy. Outside fires have been banned for several weeks and wild brush fires have been reported. We don’t often have brush fires in these parts.

I’m not worried about our water supply, we have an artesian well that pumps out more than 60 gallons a minute. We also have a hand dug well that is currently full to the top.  But I do worry about other’s wells, I would hate to see them have to buy tankers of water to put in their wells. Water troubles are almost unheard of in these parts of the woods.

Anyway I traded that rake in and stayed away from that attack rose bush and took out my shiny bright red Kitchen Aid mixer and put it to good use today. Daisy and I baked 2 loaves of pound cake.  Pound cake has been on my mind the past couple of weeks with the abundance of fresh eggs I have, 14 or so a day now. My old stand by recipe has shown up missing so I went looking on line for another recipe. To my surprise my friend Mitchel has recently posted his recipe for pound cake and it is WONDERFUL, a breeze to make and did I mention yummy with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. If you need the recipe to use up a few (8 eggs!) eggs this is a perfect one to try, you will not be disappointed with it. We ate one with dinner and the other was put in the freezer. I will do this again soon to stock up on baked breads in the freezer. They will be handy later in the summer when it’s too hot to turn on the oven and fresh strawberries are ready to pick in the garden.

I also put up another batch of Red Beet Pickled Eggs for snacking on this week. Over the weekend I will can up a batch of regular pickled eggs for the pantry. They are yummy in potato salad, tuna salad and for a side dish. I know – I know…many will tell you canning pickled eggs at home is unsafe and there is no approved method to do this if you don’t keep them refrigerated. I do it, have always done it and will continue to can pickled eggs.

And I had another treat today, Dick took me shopping for a new skirt and blouse. We have several Lodge functions soon and he wanted me to have something new to wear. You all know how well I like clothes shopping…not….but I found a nice organic cotton skirt and blouse that will do nicely.

We also stopped at the new feed store and I picked out 10 pounds of Yukon Gold seed potatoes. Being able to pick out your own is something new for me, usually the only way to get seed potatoes is to order them on line or purchase them from a local farmer. Well these are local and it was good to pick out just the ones I want. I always feel cheated when seed potatoes arrive in the mail and they are huge with only a single eye on them. Happens more often than not. I picked the smaller ones with several eyes that can be cut into chunks and still leave a good amount of potato with it. I feel it was a good, no a VERY good deal at 69 cents a pound. On line a single pound is $10 plus shipping. Think I will go back tomorrow for another variety, I didn’t want to push my luck with Dick, he hates standing around while I look and make up my mind what I am getting. We had already worked our way through 3 clothing stores, and he didn’t say a word about it or the feed store. He is sweet.

This will also give me the chance to look over the fencing supplies there. I would like a few cattle panels for the garden.

The attach Rogusa Rose last summer

Lastly I finished up a new batch of laundry soap and finished up the laundry for the week. So how did you weekend go? Hope it was a good one.

 

 

Raking

 

So I was out raking the leaves that have blown back into the front lawn and the perennial flower bed along the stone wall on Monday. What I time I was having too…giggling to myself at Daisy playing in the bone dry empty veggie raised bed and I turned around to continue raking and bam walked right into the rugosa rose bush that is now taller than I am. Not a good thing, this bush is a pricker monster, not the big thorns but the fine little I can barely see them thorns. Dozens of them in my cheek, arm, leg and then my fingers when I tried to unstick the monster from me.

Ouch, I headed to the front step to sit down pull prickers out and a wasp flew up my pant leg and stung me! What a fun time…indeed!

Well today is Saturday and I have suffered all week with prickers festering in me I can’t see to get out and hurt for something so tiny. My ankle so swollen I can’t find my ankle, red swollen, burning and itchy wasp sting.

 

I did manage to get a few of the bigger pepper seedling transplanted and back in the new indoor greenhouse. I like it very much. I have for the past couple of years been wanting one I have seen on line but couldn’t bring myself to pay the hefty shipping on it. Our local feed store has just opened up a new store close by and I just had to check it out. YES, just like the one in Concord, I LOVE but only visit a few times a year because I hate driving that far. So the little greenhouse came home with me. I soon discovered I still needed extra light in there and priced some of the little under the counter led ones I have seen. Not in my budget this year and still I needed lights. An idea came to me or should I say the light went on… my sister gave Daisy a few strings of the old style Christmas light. You know the big electric sucking ones. Well I strung them up in the greenhouse and they are working like a charm! They will do until I get the ones I really want.

So far I have started several varieties of green peppers, it is my mission this year to grow decent peppers. Ours have grown but not in the quantities I need to last until next season. They are Chocolate Beauty, a dark chocolate colored sweet pepper, King of the North, and Bull Nose sweet peppers. For hot peppers I am trying Georgia Flame, simply because it has a short growing season and I like the name, it reminds me of my Father whom lived in Georgia and I always looked forward to a trip to see him. I guess I am missing him more than usual lately. (I also have my eye out for another Teasing Georgia , own root Austin Rose.)

 

My hope is to purchase a small portable outside pop-up hoop house to grow the peppers in. From what I have been reading peppers do very well in hoop houses. I would like to build a large hoop house but again its not in the budget this year. Also the hoop house I have my eye on can be taken down in the fall and stored away until next year….And I don’t think I have the time on my LONG to-do-gardening-list this year, yet want peppers.

Do I dare finish up the raking today? The weather forcast calls for rain…na’ think I will build a puzzle or two with Daisy and bake a few cookies. That sounds safer that the wild front door yard and an untamed Rugosa.