Good evening! We are busy with the county fair all week, but I thought if you had the time, you’d like to come visit my garden. Enjoy!
Homegrown Seasonings
After last year’s mini garlic harvest, I set apart two entire raised beds to plant garlic for the current year. In one bed I planted softneck garlic, which keeps well and is currently stored in a mesh bag in the basement. In the other, I planted hardneck garlic. They grew so beautifully through the winter snow, reaching their curly scapes upward in the spring.
I thought I’d share how I powdered my garlic for keeping. I got the directions from this great little book, which apparently is almost out of print, so buy it quick!
After I cut off the scapes (and chopped and sauteed them in butter YUM), I waited until most of the outer leaves were drying up. Then, I carefully dug up the bulbs; I counted 43. I kept them hung in the the barn for a good month to cure.
This is what I ended up with after cutting off the leaves and trimming the roots: nice, clean bulbs.
Then, I separated the cloves. This took some time, but I sort of just picked at it a bit at a time over the course of several days. That is how I do most projects; here 20 minutes, there 15. It works.
Taking the wrappers off of the cloves took the longest. I cut the tip of the top and bottom off each clove, and then my 7yo helped me peel all of them. They looked so great!
This next part was easy! I just sliced them all up in the food processor!
Into the dehydrator they went! I dried them for about 30 hours at 115 degrees. I knew they were done when they weren’t so “bendy” but more brittle.
Sifting was next. Instead of throwing the large particles back into the blender, I left it alone. Minced garlic, anyone?
So there you have it. One quart of powdered garlic, one quart of garlic chips ready to be powdered, and a small jar of minced. We put garlic onto just about everything, even plain ole cheese pizza (mmm…and with a dusting of fresh dried oregano, too!). Sometimes I will mix a little bit of powder with raw honey and put it on a wound with gauze and tape on top. It works great!
Now, if my chickens hadn’t dug up my onions, I would have done the same with them. Instead, I’ll probably *cheat* and buy some at the farmers market and give it a go. I really enjoy growing and using my own herbs and seasonings for my family.
In Her Own Time
Back in early spring I got some green bean starts from a neighbor, already vigorously growing in their peat pots. I remember being impressed by the head start, but wary of whether or not they would actually produce. Well, so far, I’ve gotten a handful of green beans and they are looking like they’re already spent. And this is how the plants look:
Not so well, as you can see. Bug eaten, and not very pretty either.
Now, on the other side of the rocky aisle, about two feet away, are the beans I planted from seed at the proper time. At this point I have a crazy amount of beans ripening on the plants. Plus they are all healthy and beautiful! I’m amazed at the difference!
_ I’ve been thinking of Ruby with this object lesson. She has down syndrome and is now 13 months old. The list of activities she cannot do is long, especially when I compare her to the other three babies of the same age that belong to friends of mine. But today, she creeped! She wiggled and squirmed and propelled herself forward to get the toy she wanted. This was a great milestone! She may not be sitting up yet, but I’ve learned that cross-crawling is more important, so I was thrilled to celebrate!
It just makes me wonder how much we push our children to learn things or to know things before they are ready for it. At the swimming pool last week I witnessed an angry and exasperated mother whose child would not enter into the water (and she had “wasted two months on this already”.) She belittled her child and walked off in a huff. I remember thinking that the wee child was being forced into a peat pot instead of growing roots in her own time. She just didn’t seem ready.
And I also think of how I push myself to learn *everything* all at once. I feel, and rightly so, obligated to know how to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, what books and curriculum to use for homeschooling, how to properly prepare meals and care for the health of our family, all (and I mean ALL) about down syndrome, etc, etc, ETC. It can be overwhelming because I want to know these things now! But I, too, need time to grow, time to learn, time to recover from the mistakes I make. I can’t just barrel through. I need patience and persistence and sometimes, just simple plodding forward.
Ruby will do things in her own time. And she has been a good teacher to me in this, that my other children will do the same. And so, by God’s grace, will I.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 He hath made everything beautiful in his time.
P.S. If you’d like a really great book on this topic to share with your own blessings, check out Ruby in Her Own Time (and isn’t that an appropriate title?)
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