I've been sort of snowed under this week and completely forgot to post about what delicious veggies we received from the CSA this past week. It was the biggest delivery yet, with more garlic scapes, four heads of lettuce! (two butter, and two romaine), a bag of peas, a bunch of green onions, and a big bunch each of chard and kale. We've finished it all except the garlic scapes and the tops of the green onions, but those will keep for a while yet...While I'm at it I might as well post a few other pictures from this past weekend:
I had high hopes for my willow branch weaving skills, but apparently I need a bit more practice. The morning glory vines probably won't mind too much though! And it doesn't look too bad, from a distance.I gave in and bought several small cute iron trellis things for the peas in the
Big Garden. The peas were supposed to grow up the corn stalks but this isn't happening, because I planted them too far away from the corn!My herb garden is coming along - some sage and thyme so far, and some lavender there too. The parsley is in a different area, but I may move it over with these little guys:
And, with the help of my dad and brother, I now have a nice dark grey 1/2 inch steel plate in my solar cooker. It really made a difference, holding in all the heat from that nice free sunlight. The cooker is not yet perfect, but it is coming along. So today I made potatoes, carrots and garlic scapes roasted in olive oil, thyme and rosemary and they were about three quarters cooked after 5 hours in the on-and-off sunshine today. I put them in the
conventional oven for another half hour and then they were perfect! So I probably saved about 1 1/2 hours of electricity, which isn't bad.Oh, and I finally took the plunge and ordered a medium size deep freeze that was on sale. It is getting to be that time of the year where I will soon have a lot of produce to freeze and keep for the winter....
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Which freezer did you get? We've been thinking about it. For now, I'm going to try more canning before we take the plunge into a freezer, but in the end, we still may need the extra space.
Heather, I ordered the 10 cubic foot Whirlpool chest freezer from Sears, it's an Energy Star too. When I was looking at chest freezers in the appliance store, the 8.8 cf seemed too small, and the 12.8 seemed to big for our household of 2. Plus I'm not sure the 12.8 would have fit down our stairs and around the corner to our basement. I also wanted to make sure I could keep it full or mostly full for efficiency sake. So I ended up picking this one. I have a lot to learn about canning yet, so I went with the freezer first! That, and I also have no shelves to put any canned goods on - that is a project for the winter. I do still hope to can a thing or two this year, but not in mass quantities just yet...
If we do finally get one, it'll probably be that one. We were looking at smaller ones, but none of the smaller ones have an energy star rating. And of course the Sears brand is pretty reliable so that helps, Hubby wants to look at different refrigerators too. We have a side by side and I swear we lose so much space that way. Perhaps we can find a fridge/freezer combo with a little more freezer. Who knows. We learn as we go right? Once you get that freezer going, let me know how you like it.
a deep freeze will be so useful! the gardens look amazing-everything's growing! and i was glad to hear you were able to add the steel plate to the cooker. the dish looked yummy too....hope this week goes well for you!
Heather, ya, it seemed like the best value given my size/cost parameters. It's a Whirlpool though, not a Kenmore, but I think they are all made by the same company anyway. All my other appliances are Kenmore. I will let you know how it goes!
Thanks SA, the veggies were quite tasty! I just had the leftovers for my lunch. The addition of the steel plate made a really big difference - it got too hot to touch! Now I just have to cobble up a better solar collector and a proper removable lid. It's been quite fun, trying all this stuff out!
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