Friday, July 17, 2015

mid-july update

we have been having beautiful summer days - sunny and blue with just enough rain for our gardens!


here is the site of my new outdoor kitchen!


jambaloney has been working on it, his contract, and a million other things. he's such a hard worker!

the peas are coming up gangbusters and the trellis that jambaloney built is working wonders for them!


we froze a ton of peas last year and then realized that we didn't really care for frozen peas. lesson learned. this year we will just eat them off the vine, something we love to do, and add them to salads and stirfries during the season. we are really becoming seasonal eaters.

check out these hungarian hot wax peppers! my man is going to have a ton of home-made pickled peppers this year!


these are the thai hot chili peppers - covered in flowers and peppers!


we have learned that to grow peppers in our northern clime we must have a greenhouse! here's a cayenne pepper plant with peppers and flowers!


and look at all the big bombs!


the basil is going crazy!


i love the tags that you see in the pic that jambaloney made for me from extra siding that the previous owner left here. i like to make hearts on all of the tags so that the plants will know that i love them.

here's a bonkers dill plant going to seed and flower. we have been using dill in just about everything and his flower heads will be used for pickling soon - i can't wait to start pickling!


woohoo! not only tomatoe flowers on all of our 80+some odd plants - but little tiny baby tomatoes too! woohoo!


more baby tomatoes - i love them sooooo much!


and broccoli heads!


we've never had broccoli heads this soon in the season!

and potatoe flowers - right on!


here's some fancy baby english roses that the previous owner of Framboise Manor planted.


and baby grapes - i think this will be the year that we finally get some grapes!


here's my new perennial herb garden - it has chamomile, mint, sage, rosemary, lemon balm, bee balm, chives and borage.


here it is again from the other side.


smoked mackeral.


nothing else needs to be said except that this stuff tastes so good and puts smoked salmon to shame. which is good - because we're not allowed to catch salmon here. but we're allowed to catch as much mackeral as we want. really - this stuff is sooo good. we've been snacking on it for the past 2 days - deelish!

here's some tiny wild strawberries that grow all along our road to the river. they are tiny but super sweet! we pick them when we walk down to the river.


we've been going to the river and having dips this past few weeks.


can't stay down too long because the deer and horse flies are miserable at the river at this time of year. but we get bitten to death in order to have our walk and a dip - the river is lovely this year.

well, that's the update for mid-july. we'll be going on sunday to meet our little puppy Katiyja for the first time - we're very excited. and then next weekend will be deadly - we have chase the ace on friday and then our community centre dance on saturday - woohoo! we'll be dead tired on sunday for sure!

hope all is well with all of you. i'm off to catch up on blogs now.

27 comments:

  1. I hate Deer flies but Wood Strawberries are always a nice find and know they are around.

    So I hafta ask. Will you be cooking naked in your outdoor kitchen?

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    1. dear sweet thunderbolt of zeus! of course i'll be cooking naked in the outdoor kitchen! what part of i hate wearing clothes are you not getting???

      remember the time i was cooking hamburger on the stove and the UPS guy knocked on the door? he said he was sorry to jamie like 9 million times! bahahahahah!

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    2. Well the UPS guy would have prolly got more of an eyeful if you had the outdoor kitchen LMAO.

      I couldn't blame the guy. If I was in that situation I too would be more worried about the "Husband" being upset than anything else :)

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  2. The plants & veggies all look great! I'm w/PP I hate deer flies, they leave welts on me for weeks after being bitten.

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    1. DFW - my right hand is swollen to twice it's size right now. i had a blackfly bite on it yesterday, got another last night, a mosquitoe bite on it last night, then today another black fly bite, a deer fly bite and then a horse fly bit - all in the exact same spot! i can't trust myself to pick anything up with that hand because it is so swollen and numb! it's crazy!

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  3. Lots and lots and lots of peppers :)

    Looking good k & j - love the heart shaped perinnial herb garden.

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    1. P.S. if you can get hold of an aloe plant breaking off a small piece and rubbing the fleshy side on the bite / sting may help...

      Any aloes in Canada?

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    2. Dani - i just realized that i didn't post and pics of the piquante and chili pepper plants that i planted from your seeds - i'll remedy that tomorrow!

      and yes - we can grow aloes in canada, most certainly in the southern parts of canada, but up here, they would have to be indoor plants and they do poorly and struggle which is why i never grow them.

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  4. Well, you sure have a lot going on there. And you always have such good things to eat. I just made some frozen chicken out of a box , put it in the microwave. It was not very good.

    I wait with some anticipation the completion of the outdoor kitchen. That's a good idea, I could use one here in summer when my wife wants to cook and fills up the house with humidity and heat.

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    1. Harry - you have to start thinking of food as your medicine. once you think of it that way it will change the way you eat. we can solve and prevent a lot of illnesses by thinking of what we consume as medicine - that is my philosophy regarding food.

      and jam has big plans for the outdoor kitchen...which i will help with but he will do the majority of the work. it is for storage, firstly, and then secondly, it is for canning and smoking in the summer and cooking. because of the way our little house was built, our kitchen stays fairly cool in the summer - even on the hottest days. so i hate heating up the kitchen by canning or cooking. the outdoor kitchen will solve that for us.

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  5. I miss smoked mackerel and other fish that was plentiful when I lived up north. Down here in Iowa, I can't find the stuff. I'm heading up north here in a few weeks and obtaining smoked fish is high on my list!

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    1. oh Ed - this mackeral was caught last year, vaccuum-sealed and put in the freezer. we were not expecting much of it but neither one of us can go 20 minutes without going and getting another piece. we have been wrapping little pieces in pita bread with nothing else on it and moaning and groaning about how good it is. it is really that delicious!!! still loving my pen and using it for all of my garden notes. makes me feel fancy when i'm covered in bug bites - bahahahah!

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  6. Your gardening adventure looks like a great success, Kymber. Have you ever tried canning peas? Some day if I grow enough I will try it. This year the peas never made it out of the ground with all of the rain.

    Fern

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    1. thanks Fern - your garden, despite all of the rain, looks awesome too! but that's because you are working so hard to maintain it! i have never tried canning peas before and i didn't mention that we have a pile of shelling peas - those we like to freeze and if we get enough i would like to can them. but the snow peas and sugar peas that we froze - we just weren't crazy for. so those we will just eat in season. we have been enjoying yours and Frank's latest posts - keep up the good work!

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  7. Your garden looks great! I have seen your comments on several of the blogs I read, you have a talent for words. :O). I think that is a true gift.

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  8. Wow, what a haul. Could you dehydrate or can the peas vs freezing them.????????

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  9. Sweet Kymber,

    I see the outline of what will eventually be your outdoor kitchen. I'm so excited for you. BDM is going to create a basic outdoor kitchen (one of these days, lol) that will be removable, so when we move out of this place we can take it with us. You probably noticed the gas oven in one of my recent posts about dehydrating onions. That's a practically new oven and stove given to us from some friends who decided they didn't want an oven in their RV. We lucked out with getting this for FREE!!!! Anyway, enough about us.....let me get back to your kitchen. Are you going to make it with walls, or will it be a totally outdoor type kitchen?

    Look at all those yummy hot peppers!!! You'll have enough peppers this year to last you for several years girlie. Will you be dehydrating these peppers and making powder with any of them?

    Wooohooo look at those tomatoes and grapes, you're going to have all kinds of stuff to put away in your pantry this year.

    English roses, I wonder if they grow here because we had a beautiful tree with red flowers that looked like roses until the gas company dug through our property and they cut it down :-(
    Are those the roses you're picking to make your water?
    I can already see you making healthy foods, and medicinal things with all your amazing herbs.

    Give your sweet pup a scratch behind her ears when you see her.
    Sending hugs and love to you and Jam.
    Sandy

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  10. Nice Can't wait to watch that kitchen develop. harvesting!! I don't know what deer flies are, guess we don't have them down here. Sounds like I should consider that lucky, ha.

    Can't wait to watch your outdoor kitchen develop! Take lots of pictures. And remember, you can takes pics while naked, no one will ever know...haha!!

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  11. My plan is to have an outdoor cooking area as well but it's some way off at the moment. I need to knock down and rebuild a wall first and add lots of drainage under it.
    As for horse flies we have some her and this year they're a bugger - I've been bit so many times and they normally leave me alone!
    Are those the pepper plants you over wintered? Yours must be two months ahead of mine!

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  12. I just love the rambles through your garden and food you take us on.....and yes I am hungry now after seeing the smoked makerel! Bless you both

    Fiona

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  13. Yay Peppers! And I have never had smoked mackeral but anything smoked has got to be good.

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  14. Kymber, your garden is doing so well, the peppers are excellent, puts ours to shame. Not to mention smoked mackerel, that sounds delicious. It's so lovely to hear you guys enjoying your walks and a dip, keep up all the hard work.

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  15. Your garden is beautiful! This is a terrible garden year for me. First so much rain things drowned, then honest to goodness the deer came and ate the tops of every single tomato plant I planted. They ate all my beans, I am just so sad. I will have to buy tomatoes to can
    I love the idea of an outdoor kitchen! Give your new puppy a belly rub from me!
    Hugs to you both

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  16. one of my favourite dinners

    http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1659/braised-lettuce-with-peas

    I had it in France years ago and loved it. make it now myself. yum

    Garden looks ace

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  17. Wow everything looks so impressive to me, who can't grow a thing! Do you spend nearly all day outside? All that fresh air must be good for you!

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  18. Everything looks great! So glad your garden is doing well. Do you smoke the fish yourself? Looking forward to seeing the kitchen as it progresses!

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  19. Kymber, I just had a can of Dinty Moore stew for my lunch. I was too tired to heat it so I just ate it out of the can. I thought about the wonderful meals you make for J....... :- (

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