There will be talk again beyond gardening, I promise, but looking back on my days lately means looking back on a whole lot of harvesting the summer garden and tending to newly planted fall crops. There are two gallons of beans to blanch and freeze today, and several pounds of tomatoes to roast from a friend who took pity on us and our blighty harvest.

Soon I'll write about other happenings. For now, there's a bit more garden chat to catch up on. 

Harvesting our planned crop of tomatoes is not happening (thank you so much for your support and advice about that), but everything else is holding pretty strong out there. I really can't complain. Especially knowing many of you have had a terribly dry summer and lost nearly everything in your gardens. 

The garden at our former house was shadier and smaller than the one we have now. So much shadier in fact that I spent a full day last summer taking pictures every hour to count the exact amount of sunlight I had. I turned out I had about two hours of direct sunlight. 

I was actually encouraged because in that garden I'd been able to grow certain sun-loving veggies quite well - green beans, cucumbers, and basil in addition to the obvious choices of greens, peas, cabbage and broccoli - all of which did just fine. Well, the cabbage never survived the pest stage. But everything else was good. 

Our final year in that home I was feeling bold and decided to put one tomato plant in the ground, just to see. I chose a crowd pleasing, quick to ripen variety (Sungold) and waited for the first plump fruit to appear. Even though I was secretly very doubtful. I only had two hours of sunlight after all. 

Well, ripen it did! Many times over!!

Sure, my plant would've had greater yield given more hours of sunlight, but I couldn't imagine a greater harvest from the beans and cucumbers. Both were quite prolific! So, a little lesson learned over in that shady garden - experiment, play around, try new things. Some sun-loving plants just might grow. 

With the decision not to plant tomatoes in our main garden next year, we began looking elsewhere on the property. Where we now live is certainly spacious enough, we have several acres here, but being nestled in the woods doesn't exactly leave too many sunny options. My parents built this home when I was five years old so there have been many, many summers spent here. I know this land well.

Funny thing though, there are huge trees in places that were open to the blue sky when I was a little girl. There is a spot on the property that has always been referred to as "the back field," and it truly was at one time; but now it is more of a field with a few large shade trees sprinkled throughout. Lovely for relaxing on a summer afternoon, not so perfect for a woman looking to grow tomato plants.

Yesterday was fore-casted to be clear skies and sunny all day. Just the right conditions to set the stove timer every sixty minutes, keep my camera close by, and count the hours of sunlight in the field.

I love this little exercise. It's one that I highly recommend if you're unsure of just how sunny a spot on your property is. Oh, please excuse ladder and the fence posts... there's always something "in progress" around here. ;)

Given that we are in the later weeks of summer, I'm comfortable adding an hour to yesterday's calculations to estimate number of sun filled hours during our peak growing season. To be honest, the amount of sunlight recorded yesterday was less than I expected. Bummer. Not exactly the 6-8 hours recommend for a vegetable garden. One huge ash tree is responsible for at least two hours of shade, if not more. Hmm... 

I'll plant anyway, even if it is an experiment of sorts. 

That is it for now. I've been writing this post all day long - between taking care of those green beans, roasting tomatoes, making egg salad, and being an adoring fan to Emily and Scout's training sessions. Now it's time to make a cup of my new tea and finish processing the Whole Food Kitchen registrations that have come in this week. (Thank you so much for such a warm reception by the way, it's going to be a wonderful class!)

Have a great weekend!

As I sit here writing this morning, the back half of my house is bathed in morning sunlight that seems brighter than it was just two weeks ago. The sun is lower in the sky, the gardens are seeing a few minutes less of it each day. 

This is the time of year I expected to be drowning in tomatoes, canning up quart after quart of delicious sauce for the long winter. After all, a girl who plants 48 tomato plants is not just looking to make salad. Well, there won't be any tomato sauce this year. Unless I want to bottle up a large helping of Late Blight.

Oh, it is a sad sight. It actually revealed itself a couple of weeks ago, the day my parents arrived for an almost two week visit. I was out in the garden doing my usual morning harvesting/weeding/lullaby singing, when I spotted a sorry little section on one plant. I knew exactly what I was seeing. I also knew I should deal with this in a swift and aggressive way (or so my research tells me). 

My parents were greeted and they settled in.  I called Adam at work to share the sad blight news. Then the day got busy... Emily was scheduled to be taken out with her friends for the evening... a meal needed to be prepared for my parents and soon to arrive sister... (Which by the way was vegan chili with cornbread, except I mistakenly used polenta instead of cornmeal! Ha! When will I ever label all my glass jars?)

First thing the following morning, I'll take care of the tomatoes then. 

Well, that was the day of my grandmother's wake. Pies needed to be made, as did more food for a house full of family. The day flew by. The next morning was the funeral, then the luncheon. We arrived home late afternoon and I finally headed straight out to the garden, plastic bag in hand, ready to take care of that one plant I had spotted... or maybe its neighbor too, at this point. 

Instead of removing one or two plants, I walked into this:

From a spot or two on one plant to this in just 48 hours. Goodness what a heart-sinking, awful feeling. Immediately my thoughts turned to the farmers we know - the folks that are actually doing this for a living. The men and women whose livelihood depends in part on beautiful heirloom tomatoes. I'm just a girl trying to make some tomato sauce, I'll survive. Heck, I can even take a drive up to the farm to see about getting a bushel or two for sauce making.

But farmers? Wow.

A friend of Adams farms a few hundred acres in the town next to ours, he isn't even growing tomatoes this year due to such terrible blight over the past few years. 

So, the work began of salvaging any fruit we could, and saying 'so long' to the dozens of plants we once knew as tiny seeds. We roasted and froze many jars. (We also made more pesto and blanched/froze a few quarts of beans, while we were in the kitchen.)

There will be summer tomatoes for the winter after all, just a bit less than we had originally hoped for.

My understanding is that next year we'll need to find a new spot on the property for our tomatoes to help avoid a recurrence, and so we will. 

I'm thinking behind the stone wall, where we've kept a casual garden overflow this season. We'll definitely need to fence it in though to keep the critters at bay. 

As it is now, that garden is an open invitation to raccoons (I'm guessing) who love perfectly ripe melon. What a disappointing sight!

Needless to say, we've been feeling a bit like these funny folks lately. (Language warning on that link.) But we will persevere. 

I do hope the animals leave this melon for us... I'm watching it closely, only a week or so to go before it's ready. After losing most of our tomato crop, I sure would love to taste some of our own homegrown melon this year. 

There's always next year to have better success with some things, and hopefully continued success with others. We'll try better fencing on the back garden, a little crop rotation, and perhaps more spacing between plants.

One thing we'll be sure to do the same is keep a sense of humor for our backyard homesteading dreams, and a sense of reverence for the farmers who risk everything to create a livelihood by way of feeding their communities. 

Also, we'll remember to always plant a fall garden. Because those emerging late summer seeds are just what is needed when certain things go 'wrong' with the summer garden. 

Well, that is the state of our garden at the moment. I best get going now, Emily just came in from a walk out back with Scout and told me the grapes look ready. I need to go take a peek... jelly and juice making may be calling soon!

My parents left late morning yesterday and I went straight to work on Whole Food Kitchen preparations. The registration details and class site are just about set but the day indeed ended before all was said and done. I do try to hold weekends as a separate time for family, so it looks like Monday morning will be when registration opens. 

While working yesterday, I realized how excited I am to have this workshop in autumn, my favorite time of year!

Thank you so much for your advice on Scout's carsickness. We learned so much and are going to pull together a regimen from your suggestions and see how it goes. I'll keep you posted!

Have a wonderful weekend, see you Monday. 

Today's post covers a rather unpleasant subject... (please come back in a few days for non-sicko musings). 

Poor guy. 

We've had Scout for almost two months now, and the first half of that time he was a happy travelling companion for us. Nearly every time we went somewhere in the car, Scout would come along. He loves to go places, whether it be hiking or people watching or running around the park meeting new dogs. He is a sweet and social little guy. 

But about four weeks ago everything changed. He started getting carsick every time we headed out, even if for a two mile drive downtown. We quickly devised a system to deal with him revisiting his lunch on the back seat (sorry for the details), but how long term can we do it this way? What bothers me the most is how awful and green he feels, it's so sad!

This weekend we took Scout to a lovely historical seaside town for a walk up and down Main Street and a run in the park. Once there, he worked the town, befriending bikers and English ladies alike with his cute puppy ways. But goodness the ride there was nothing short of a disaster. And when we got in the car to go to the other side of town, he was sick within sixty seconds of the car moving. 

Our vet simply suggested we give him Benedryl before car rides. I'm not very comfortable with that, especially considering we'd like to take him places a few times a week. So, I'm turning to you. Have you been here before? A carsick pup is new for us and we aren't sure if this is just the way it is, if he'll grow out of it, or if there is something specific we can do to help him. Why was he fine for several weeks and then all of a sudden carsick every time? Should we contact a behaviorist?

We are quickly approaching our prime hiking season and don't want him to miss out as we enjoy the crisp autumn air. I know he'd rather be on the trail than home alone. It's just getting him there that is a sad state of affairs. 

I know this is unusual subject matter for my blog, but I'm a little desperate. More importantly, Scout is very desperate. If you have any wisdom or resources to share on the subject, we would be so grateful. 

Up until yesterday we've been harvesting potatoes just a few at a time, still waiting for some final plants to die back. In the morning I headed out to plant fall seeds and took a look at the long row of Yukon Golds. They seemed to be as ready as they ever would. So I started digging... 

After the first dozen or so appeared, I couldn't help but giggle with each new golden beauty that revealed itself. You see, I do not think it a coincidence that the day after Memere passed away, and the day before my dad arrives, I dug twenty pounds of potatoes from the garden. It seems my northern Maine roots are shining down. What a gift.

My potatoes never did flower quite like the showy fields in Aroostook County, but I'm still so pleased with the harvest. Who knew potato digging could be so cathartic? 

(I bet you knew.)

This weekend we had our first adventure in pressure canning. It went pretty well (equipment wise), but we did have 2 out of 8 jars fail to seal. I've had 100% success using the water bath method over the years. Hmm... I thought the head space was fine, jars were hot and dry... must have been a bit off in one of those areas and not realized it. We'll try again. 

Aside from canning jams and applesauce, and various fruit butters, I really do prefer the freezer for putting by most fruits and vegetables. It tastes fresher to me that way. But, Irene and Alfred reminded us of the value of a shelf stable food supply. 

So, the pantry will be filled with some veggies and soups this year, but the freezer will see its fill as well. 

Aside from one or two slicing tomatoes, we've only harvested from our sungold plants so far - picking nearly a half gallon each day! On Friday the weather cooled a bit so it felt like a good time to roast a few trays. Sungolds of course are not nearly as meaty as a plum or other large tomato, so they really do roast down to almost nothing. I see them more as a condiment than a substantial dish. But to enjoy their concentrated summer flavor on pizza, tossed in pasta, combined with rice or quinoa, or a whole jar mixed into a pot of soup - oh, I do look forward to such winter days. 

Just a couple of jars into the freezer for now... more to come!

Yesterday I took a long look at our basil and realized it's time. No longer can I sit idly by just watching the basil grow. It was indeed pesto time. So, I harvested what I could, not making much of a dent in the row quite honestly, but still winding up with such a huge bundle to process. 

I love to make pesto for the freezer. It comes together so quickly, there's no cooking involved, and the house never smells better than pesto making time. (I'm sure I will retract that statement when it is applesauce making time.) For our family of three, I generally freeze pesto in four ounce canning jars, with a few eight ounce jars thrown in for company and holidays. 

There is still so much more to go, but this first batch reminded me just how yummy our pesto recipe is (if I may say so). It's vegan too! I'd love to share the recipe with you. 

Print Recipe -  Pesto Pasta with Slow Roasted Tomatoes

This recipe also serves as a preview for Whole Food Kitchen (registration for the fall session opens next week). For the most part, Whole Food Kitchen and 30 Day Vegan have separate recipes. There are a few crossovers though, some of my favorites - I just have to share them in both workshops. This pesto recipe is one of them. And a bonus, it comes with a recipe (method really) for slow roasted tomatoes. 

You can whip it up as recommended for a yummy pasta dinner, or you can make the two recipes separately with your garden harvest and freeze for winter enjoyment. 

After making all that pesto yesterday we had a wonderful dinner (summertime in a pot) of veggie noodles with pesto and sliced fresh sungold tomatoes. What a perfect meal. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I drafted this post yesterday, before I learned of some sad family news this morning. (Oh, those too early in the morning phone calls are never good.) My father's mother, our Memere, passed away in her sleep last night. She has been living with Alzheimer's Disease for many years now, and has been in a nursing home for some time as her mental decline required round the clock care. She was not ill (physically), her vitals were fine just last night. It was just her time. 

My mom, dad, and sister will be coming up from Florida to be with family. I'm worried about my dad travelling (even though he is doing really well).

Mom and Dad on their wedding day. Nineteen and Twenty years old. :)

I've yet to update how he is doing since the bone marrow transplant less than a month ago... in short, he is defying all medical logic with his resilience.

The doctors are kind of shrugging their shoulders. How well he took to the transplant and how quickly he recovered was not "the plan." He's been going to the gym (the gym!) for the past week or so. "Got to rebuild my strength, need to get up North and get on with life," he says.

Two weeks ago, when his hair started to fall out from the chemo, he gave himself a buzz cut and called it a day. But that's how my dad is. Take care of business and move on. 

I mention all of this here because this week I was scheduled to wrap up my ebook, Mealtime Salads, and release it along with Whole Food Kitchen registration opening next week. (I was going to offer a free copy to everyone that registered in the first few days.) Whole Food Kitchen is still going to open for enrollment next week, but I need to shelve the completion of this ebook right now. My house is about to welcome family for several days and that needs to be where my energy and focus lies. And after that, we'll be shifting right into the first few weeks of homeschool - and that is always such a busy and exciting time of transition. The near complete ebook will still be there ready and waiting when I can come back to it in a few weeks. However, you will still be able to "Bring a Friend" for the first week of Whole Food Kitchen registration. It's always wonderful to see friends sign up together. 

Okay, a little bit of cooking, a little bit of workshop talk, a little bit of family and life news to share. All as it should be, I suppose.

Wising you a lovely day friends, we'll talk soon. 

This place. 

This place that my father built, with the helping hands of many. This place that once was nothing more than a foundation, one that we would walk along the top of, pretending it was the yellow brick road. 

This place that is close to the hardware store where my father would buy us Cherry Italian Ice on those hot summer construction days. The hardware store that was owned by the father of the boy I would some day marry. 

This place is where my mom would soak beans and crochet and bake all of our bread. Where my dad would split wood and fix cars and sit in his green plaid lazy boy chair at the end of the day. But only at the end of the day, when all the work was done.

This place is where the room Emily calls her own, was mine as a child. The room that was bright yellow, then navy blue, then lavender, then hunter green. The room that still has a burn mark on the wood floor from an incense 'incident'. Aerosmith was playing when it happened. I was the age she is now.

This place with stone walls and "the back field." The field that was filled with tall grass and milkweed when we were kids. And sometimes, a vegetable garden.

This place that could tell you so much more. 

This place is home. 

(I don't think I've mentioned that yet. xo)

Since moving, we have found wonderful new places to explore and support. As a kid I would drive by this farm on my way to ballet class, which was held in the basement of the church just down the road. I never did take to ballet (I think it was the required precision and discipline - oh, but I love watching it), but this farm stand sure held my attention.

It was smaller at the time, perhaps just strawberries? Now they seem to have nearly everything that is typically grown in a proper New England garden. The selection rotates through the summer months as you would expect, but I especially love the variety of fruit that is offered! On the day I took these pictures, in addition to the fruits listed on the sign, there were also plums and pears. 

There seems to be a lot of land, but I get the sense the 'operation' is one that has grown slowly over decades, generations perhaps. There is not a whole lot of formality to this place. For instance, the first time I noticed they had peaches I asked if they did pick your own. The girl working the stand told me they aren't able to do that because the fruit trees are so scattered here and there across the acreage, they could never really direct people to "the orchard." It's more a gathering of peaches than a localized harvest. 

The farm is about a ten minute drive from our home, back roads the whole way. Kind of lovely to drive over once a week to round out our own garden. Did I mention all the fruit!!?

A small batch of refrigerator dill pickles made with the two pounds the farm had available over the weekend. 

We are growing pickling cucumbers in our garden, they're doing well but nothing quite to maturity yet. (I really did get some things in on the late side.) I thought it would be nice to round out our own slow harvest with a half bushel from the farm. Their cucumbers were a tad slow this year too, but were soon to be ready. I put in an order. 

Through a short series of events (that neither adult in this house is taking responsibility for - ahem), TWO half bushels of pickling cucumbers were ordered for our family. (Okay, so we may have been a little eager checking in with the farm and separately placed orders. Gah!)

Of course they understood our zealous ways and were not expecting us to purchase both boxes, but I saw it as an opportunity. Or a moment of craziness. 

Friends, a full bushel of cucumbers will make a lot of pickles... and relish... and... well, I don't know what else to do with them! Pickles and relish it is. Lots of it! 

If you have any suggestions about other recipes (something frozen perhaps?), please do share. I'd be so grateful. 

Meanwhile, Scout is allowed to snack freely on cucumbers while I wash jars and measure pickling spices... thank goodness the temperatures have dropped to the low 80s, perfect pickling weather! 

Our basement pantry is filling so quickly, I'll give you a tour soon. It's just a big shelf at the bottom of the stairs, but one that is lined with such summery delights.  

We have reached that dreamy place where full meals are coming from the garden. There is little that compares to the buttery bliss of a freshly dug red viking potato or the sweet snap of a carmen pepper. 

Our bush beans have really taken off now. The pole beans continue to be showy with their climbing, healthy leaves - but no beans yet. I'm hearing mixed stories from farmers and gardeners in our area, some sharing that everything is so early this year and their not sure if there will be anything left to bring to September markets. Others, like me, feel things are a tad late. We've had only one ripe tomato so far but I've been watching three million green sungolds on the vein for weeks now. I did notice a few of those starting to turn last night though, soon perhaps. 

The first potatoes have a bit of what appears to be black scurf. I thought we were doomed when I first saw this, but the inside is perfectly creamy white, and other potatoes were dug last night and don't seem to be as affected. We shall see. 

Potatoes feel like the 'meat' of the vegetable garden, I can't imagine a garden without them. We have three varitites growing, so far I've only peeked and snuck a few of these red viking. The others are not quite dying back yet. Next year, I'd really like to try sweet potatoes. Oh, yum!

(If anyone knows this to be anything other than black scurf, please do share your thoughts in the comments! Thanks.) 

This is my kind of food. A bowl of gently cooked "whatever's growing at the moment" - just until the potatoes are tender and the colorful additions brighten. Still crispy tender. 

To make this simple dish:

1. Pull out your favorite skillet and heat about a 1/2 inch of water over medium heat. Small diced potatoes are added in a single layer, water is salted with a bit of sea salt.
2. Cover the pot and let them cook for about five minutes, until tender. Remaining water is drained and potatoes move to a small bowl.
3. To the skillet add a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil (a bit of water may be used instead) and the remaining veggies, the heat is kept at medium. It only takes a couple of minutes to brighten and slightly tenderize the vegetables. 
4. Then the potatoes are added back in to combine, plus a pinch of black pepper and a tiny amount of sea salt to taste. An additional drizzle of oilve oil may be added when serving. 

If we had chickens (next Spring!), a poached egg would be lovely on top, or a piece of roasted salmon, but neither are necessary. An abundant bowl of vegetables, especially one with hearty, grounding root vegetables, is my idea of the perfect meal.  

For three years now, August has been a month of homeschool excitement and planning. I do touch on it briefly in the Spring, making a few notes as we close the school year, and finding inspiration almost daily in my inbox or mailbox from homeschool suppliers. Spring is the time for curriculum sales and homeschool conventions - I'll take advantage of one or two things, but August is when I really sit down and get to work. 

We have some pretty big changes coming this year. The first being that Emily is technically a high schooler (!!). It's amazing how quickly you can lose sight of labeling a persons grade level once they come home to school, but alas, a high schooler she is. I look forward to helping her get the most from her young adult years, identify another passion or two (or three), and expose her to life in the most meaningful way possible. 

The second piece of exciting change is that Adam will be shifting his professional work to part-time - as in, going to the office only two days a week part time! This is a huge step, one we've been preparing for very carefully. We are incredibly grateful that he is in a supportive work environment that can accommodate this. He will also be taking over some of the management details (and hopefully web development/maintenance) of my work. But most importantly, we are making this change because we think it will best support our homeschooling goals. Over this past year we have identified individual strengths as homeschool parents and have discovered that as a team, we compliment each other perfectly. Together, we can provide Emily with an optimal experience through her scholarly years. 

Adam is the intellectual, the cerebral force in this adult duo. Sure, I'm a smarty pants too, but the way his mind files away every fact and figure he's ever read or heard, ready to be retrieved, is a special gift indeed. This is also how Emily's mind works, a match made in heaven, those two. If I were to hire someone to walk alongside Emily as a guide/teacher throughout her education, it would be Adam. And he's free! (Well, not really, there is the not so small detail of giving up a partial salary...) To add to this, Adam is the fun guy. Just last night they spontaneously went out back to target shoot with the beebee guns while I heated up dinner. I do not think of these things. But I did have dinner and sliced watermelon waiting for them when they came inside, that is how my mind works. 

I am an organizer, a planner, a researcher. My strength lies in creativity, intuition and making things happen. It is second nature for me to feel out how a day should flow, how an environment should feel. I know where materials can be sourced and how to best balance (energetically speaking) the need for out of the house social meet-ups with quiet at home learning. 

We are a team, Adam and I. It is time to play out our most important adventure to date.

So here we are in our third year of homeschooling. The last two years have been exploratory in many ways. The first year was idyllic as Emily's best friend, who lived directly across the street from us, also homeschooled. It was a dreamy year. Her friend was in her eighth grade year at the time and her family's plan was for her to attend public high school the following year. We knew this would be a major shift in our routine (we missed her!) and that we would need to up our game when it came to making the right connections for Emily.

Last year was very transitional for us. Some of it planned, a lot of it unplanned. We moved, we helped my parents move, my father was diagnosed with cancer, my work increased, I entered school, we lost three of our beloved pets... oh my, life overflowed. There was more too, but that list seems like quite enough. 

It was a good year in many ways, but it wasn't the most satisfying for Emily. Though she understands perfectly well that this is just how life rolls sometimes, we are all hoping for a smoother experience this year (we can always hope).

There is nothing like the month of August to ignite a homeschool mama's inspiration. 

Emily has a close group of friends from her former school that she stays in touch with and sees on a near weekly (or twice weekly) basis. It's kind of amazing really, it was "just" elementary school for goodness sake, how can the friendships be so strong and lasting? But that is how this place was... like family. Still, most of those kids have gone off to various 'out of the house' schools, and Emily sometimes feels, well, a bit different. (Even though many said friends [and sports teammates] tell her, "I wish I could homeschool!")

It's okay to be different. Naturally, we give her the usual parenting pep talk, who wants to be like everyone else? Be you!! She gets that, of course, but she's also fourteen and just wants to fit in nicely with her friends. Slip under the radar if you will.

But what about meeting new friends? Friends that homeschool? We talked about not letting go of her current friends (goodness no, they are family!), but that it's okay to seek new connections - that she has room in her heart and life for more friends without giving up what she already has. And they can certainly all blend and get to know each other over time as well. It will be fun to have friends who can take field trips during the day, see a band at a coffee house or go to a Uconn game on a weeknight (because they don't have homework). 

This is all pretty obvious stuff to you and I, but to Emily, lets just say she was a little set in her ways for much of last year and wasn't actively looking to reach out to new people. But then she dug deep and realized she wanted to continue homeschooling, which also meant she needed to play a more active part in building this homeschool world of limitless possibility. In the Spring she reached out to other homeschool friends (who went to her former school for a short time) and together they dressed in sparkles, curled their hair, and went to their first formal dance. She had the time of her life. 

While at the dance Emily met some girls that she knows online (she maintains a small, private homeschool blogging world). What fun that was for them! A blogger meet-up, just like us adult bloggers do. ;)

Since the dance there have been many tweets, emails, and teen group invites. Yesterday we had a chance to meet up with these wonderful young ladies for the first monthly Teen Book Club, hosted and created by one of the girls. There was such an ease to this get together, for Emily and for me at the mama's table. It was just the spark we needed to get this year underway, one that I hope is filled with her continued effort to put herself out there and say yes to the freedom and possibility each day holds.  

She's growing up and owning her life more and more each day. She's expanding her tribe and feeling extremely inspired. What a gift to witness so much of that process throughout each day.

And this year, I'm so happy to have my best friend joining us for the ride.