The rain which came the other day lasted for only a brief period of time. The sun returned and it got very hot and humid, I think we broke some heat records for this time of year, but now it’s getting to be fall like weather again. It’s cooling off yet still very sunny and warm during the day.

The leaves have been turning since August, but now it’s really pronounced. This is not going to be a good leaf peeping season because it’s just too dry. The other day I was on Route 9 heading out to Keene and saw a riverbed completely dry. Not good.

The stream which runs near our well has been dry for months. I went down the other day and saw just trickles of water and very small pools. I called the town and the state — talked with 7 people over a week period — and was told there is nothing we can do except to monitor it. I have to find out if we have a dug well or an artesian. If the former, we’re screwed; if the latter, we’re still screwed, just not as bad. I have to run down to the town hall later this week to see if I can get a copy of the permits the builder (should’ve) procured from the town and the state. From there I’ll know my next step.

The garden is pretty much done. I have two pumpkins I have to pull out of there, and still a bunch of tomatoes. I also, weirdly, have cucumbers. They are not anywhere near being ripe, so I don’t think I can pick them, so they may be lost to the frost. The cabbage is doing well, but still hasn’t closed up yet (it’s getting there) so I’ll leave that in until the middle of the month.

It’s finally raining here which is fab! We are so dry, we need the water so badly, but I don’t think it’s going to last. What we need is a week of grey, rainy weather. I don’t think such will take us out of this drought, but it would be a substantial help. Especially to my well stream which has gone dry.

Yesterday was spent in the kitchen. First I made green salsa, then cut up an eggplant, breaded it, fried it, and put it in our new (to us) freezer. Then I cooked the blue hubbard squash, scooped out the orange part and froze that so Wolf can make a pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving.

On a semi-related note, we got the 1/2 pig and put that into the freezer. We’re splitting it with Michelle and Scott, so we’re keeping 1/4 of it. It’s not as much as we thought. Actually, the 1/2 pig isn’t as much as we thought. Next year we’ll get a half pig for ourselves. So to fill up the freezer, we’re going to get a bunch of chickens and chicken pieces. I have to call the chicken lady and see if she’ll give us a bulk rate if I order 10 whole chickens and a bunch of thighs, breasts, and wings.

Yea, so I’m totally not a vegetarian now.

Onto the recipes

Green salsa
5 cups chopped tomatillos (green tomatoes are ok also)
1- 1 1/2 cups seeded, chopped long green chilies
4 cups chopped onions
1 cup bottled lemon or lime juice
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tablespoon cumin
3 table spoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon salt (I skipped this)
1 teaspoon black pepper

Yield: 5 pints or so

Remove the dry outer husks from tomatillos; wash thoroughly. They do NOT need to be peeled or seeded.
The skin of long green chiles may be tough and can be removed by heating the peppers. Usually when peppers are finely chopped, they do not need to be skinned. If you chose to peel chilies, slit each pepper along the side to allow steam to escape. Peel using one of two methods:

1. Oven or broiler method to blister skins: place chiles in hot oven 400* or broiler for 6 to 8 minutes until skins blister.
2. Range-top method: Cover hot burner (gas or electric) with heavy wire mesh. Place peppers on burner for several minutes until skins blister.
3. To peel: after blistering skins, place peppers in a pan and cover with a damp cloth. Cool several minutes. Slip skins off, Discard seeds and chop. Wear gloves so you don’t get the oils on your skin.

The jalapeño peppers do not need to be peeled, but seeds should be removed.
Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan and stir frequently over high heat until mixture begins to boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally [I had to add water because my green tomatoes were very dry. Just don't add too much water]. ladle hot into clean, hot pint jars, leaving 1/2 inch head space. Remove air bubbles and adjust head space as needed.
Heat jars in water bath for 15 minutes (0-1000 feet), 20 minutes (1001-6000 feet), or 25 minutes (above 6000 feet).

NOTE: Do not alter the proportions of vegetables to acid because the tomatoes might make the salsa unsafe to eat. And DO NOT substitute vinegar for the lemon juice.

Fried Eggplant
2 eggs
Milk
Breadcrumbs
Olive Oil

Cut eggplant into slices, about a 1/4-1/2 inch thick.
Beat eggs with a little milk (I use soy milk)
Put breadcrumbs on a plate

Blue Hubbard Squash
Cut squash in half, clean, and rub exposed flesh with oil by rubbing it onto your hands then spreading it onto the flesh (I used sesame oil) and bake, skin side UP, for 45 minutes in a 400* oven. Take squash out, let cool, then scrape flesh into a container and freeze.

Taking a page out of Christy’s book, I’m going to give an overview of the plants I grew this summer and how well they did.

Starting in bed one, I planted a few rows of French Fingerling potatoes. These did really well. I got lots of small potatoes, and still have some as a matter of fact, that were sweet and tender. We plan on putting some in next year, however we’re going to plant them in some sort of bucket to make it easier to hill the soil around the plant.

In the same bed I planted purple cabbage. I’ve not yet harvested it because its not formed balls yet, but I can see they want to. I can also see spiders love to make webs and nests in the cabbage so eating it will be interesting. I’ve pulled a couple leaves off of one plant and ate them; they were quite good. I would like to plant cabbage again next year, but the spider thing is an obstacle.

The last seeds in the first bed were New Zealand spinach. It grew green, thick, waxy leaves and was quite good. It gave us many seeds so I won’t have to buy them again and I can share them in the seed exchange. The leaves were tasty and still there are some plants out there for me to pull from. Did well in the hot hot sun and the cool fog (which is what today is like). Definitely likes the cool foggy weather better.

In bed two I planted a row of Napoli Tomatoes. I’m on the fence about these tomatoes. They flowered, budded, and gave us nice plants, but they don’t want to ripen. I have picked a bunch, but there are way more which are still green. I plan on making green salsa with them later today.

As for the tomato itself, they have a thick outer rim, with large gaps between the seeds and the side of the fruit. They are pretty dry tomatoes and for some reason the seed area inside the tomato is often black. I’m not sure I will plant these tomatoes again next year.

The same bed has a bunch of peas, but I only got a few off the plants. Next year I will have to plant the peas in a better place. Next the peas I put in some turnips. The turnips did ok. If I placed the seeds in the ground better, the turnips wouldn’t've been so crowded and actually could’ve grown, nor would they have crowded out the peas. We decided not to plant turnips next year because we don’t really like the taste of them.

After I took out the turnips and peas, I planted Gherkin cucumbers in bed two. The plants grew well, gave us lots of small flowers, and we even have some small cucumbers growing, but they are very spikey and I’m not sure they will be ready to harvest before the frost. They will have to be planted earlier next year and next to a trellis because they took over the whole bed and even sent shoots out past the fence. Will be a prolific grower in the right circumstances.

In bed three I put in a row of carrots, but only got one or two due to the rain washing the seed away about two days after they were put into the ground. This is the second year I got only one small carrot. This is a grave disappointment because we eat a lot of carrots here and I wanted to grow our own. I will attempt to do so next year, but if it doesn’t work, I’ll give it up.

Bed three also had some peppers put in (bell, tabasco, jalapeño). I got one pepper from one plant (don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t hot so the plant may have been mislabeled). The tabasco and jalapeño didn’t do anything. The bell gave me one pepper, which fell off when I touched it. There are two more smaller peppers out there now, but they have not gotten red (still green). There was a pause in its growing cycle because the weather went from hot to cold back to hot again. I will have to pull the peppers before the frost comes any day now.

The zucchini in the same bed did fantastic. I had forgotten I put yellow summer squash in that bed too, however I didn’t get any (which is why I forgot). I don’t know if the zucchini cross pollinated or what, but I got a ton of it. Next year we’ll dedicate a whole bed to zucchini so I can grow more of it.

In bed four I put in two different types of beans: purple bush and green pole. The purple did ok, but I realized after they grew the bean was purple/black and the outside of the casing was a greenish pink. I took the beans out of the shell and dried them. Very yummy in our burritos so I’ll probably plant more of them next year. The green beans did very well, as a matter of fact I’m still picking off the vine, but Wolf won’t eat them so I won’t plant them again next year. I just can’t eat that many green beans!

Also in that bed I planted a couple pumpkin and speghatti squash. I got three pumpkins and three squashes so if I plant more seed next year I’ll get more of each. I won’t plant that many speghitti squash seeds because Wolf didn’t like it so much but I did. So long as I don’t get inundated with them, it’ll be fine.

In bed four I planted pickling cukes which did fab. I’ll plant more seed next year and give them a trelace to crawl up. I got many cukes which I made into pickles and which Wolf ate in salads. In the same bed I planted yellow and red grape tomatoes which have done phenomenal. Just about every day I pull off some more ripe fruit. I seeded a bunch of them so I can grow them next year. They were sweet and juicy, each one a nice mouthful.

Also in that bed is another type of tomato, the one Gayle and Gene gave me. I don’t know what it is, but because I planted it so late, I only got a couple fruit off it. Right now they are red, but not red enough. They are bigger than a golf ball, but smaller than a baseball. I will seed the those for next year.

In buckets I planted turnips (didn’t do well) and onions. THe mistake I made with the onions was putting too much seed into the soil, haphazardly. I should’ve only put a couple seeds in the bucket to get nice onions. Right now there are one or two small onions in there, and the rest will be good scallions to cook with. I will plant onion again, just in a bed not a bucket. Also in buckets is catnip and basil. The catnip did fine until Harley found it, however its reserrected itself from the grave and has given me more. Right not its flowered and I’ll have to go in there and pull it all out. I’ll try again next year. The basil did well until it was eaten by some bug. I don’t know what found it so appetizing, but whomever enjoyed it consumed almost all of it. Once I started pinching the buds, however, it really came back. I pulled most of it last weekend to dry out. It’s growing again, but with the impending frost, I won’t get much.

that’s all I can think of off the top of my head.

A few weeks back I posted that I was seeking a Reclaiming teacher. It would seem this is not the path for me. There have been many obstacles thrown in my path. I don’t know if these obstacles are telling me Reclaiming isn’t for me for if it means I have to work harder to attain those goals, but it feels much more like the latter.

The woman who agreed to teach me lives three hours away and wanted an amount of money I could not afford. She also wanted me to travel to Ontario on occasion. While travel to a foreign country sounds awesome, I cannot afford to do so, nor can I justify the amount of gas it’ll take to drive there. Flying is just too cost prohibitive.

I wallowed in self pity for a while, then thought I’d try another track by joining Covenant of the Goddess but their joining rules are very complex. At this time there is no way I can join because I cannot meet their requirements. Again I wallowed in self-pity and got pretty frustrated and annoyed. From the ashes of my desires, an offer from DME who said she would teach me long distance. I agreed.

I had hoped for live person training, but apparently that is not my fate. Regardless of the method of training, I am very pleased to be finally on the path of Witch and herbalist.

I just planted nine tulip bulbs of orange, white, and yellow. Here’s to hoping no one digs them up to eat them.

I have crocus bulbs to plant too. I’m waiting, but I forget why.

The way the seed swap was done last year was I compiled a list of participants, which I printed up and put into the envelopes with the seeds I had left over. I sent the package to the first name on the list, let that person take what they wanted, who also put seeds to share in the package, and then sent it to the next person and so on. It seemed to work pretty well.

That’s the way I was planning on doing it this year, but I’m open to suggestions.

This year I’m going to insist on heirloom seeds. It’s becoming more and more important to me to make sure our gardens aren’t contaminated with GM-yuck. You can put seeds in from plants you grew (I’ll put in some tomato seeds, pumpkin, etc) and packaged seeds from companies we trust. Personally, I use Victory Seeds, High Mowing, and Fedco, but if you have a good, organic seed company you trust, definitely put those in there too.

I figure we’ll send seeds out in October. Unless you think I should do it before hand…?

Give me your thoughts.

Thus far, those who have signed up are:

Me (obviously)
Phelan
Farm Mom
Peppylady
Christy

Feel free to post on your blog about the seed swap. I would love to get more people to participate. Just make sure they comment here so I can email them and get a snail mail address.