Carrots and Green Beans

This past week we harvested a handful of carrots that had started to crest up out of the soil. Antonio was intrigued, perhaps due to having seen the episode of Curious George where George grows and then later picks carrots.

Thursday evening Antonio, Julia Belén and I went out into the garden and decided it was time to really start picking the green beans. So I got out a bucket and Antonio started picking green beans and ended up picking 7.8 ounces worth of green beans. I grilled some of the green beans in Spanish olive oil and kosher salt, it came out delicious.

Butter Making

Sunday was a busy day in regards to our homesteading efforts, allbeit, not as much regarding the garden. I made butter out of a pint of store-bought cream for the first time Sunday, and stored it in our new butter bell. We had some on our homemade bread Sunday night, and it was really good, and it was nice having butter that is so soft and spreadable. Julia was busy sewing Sunday, and finished her first pajama pants that she is making for Antonio. I think that is such a great accomplishment, seeing the finished pants and know that Julia made them herself.

Oh, and on Friday Julia made some Artisan bread, that we all devoured later that evening, it was delicious.

Tomato, Basil, Cucumber, Feta Cheese and Bullhorn Pepper

The other night Julia made a dish with our homegrown Tumbling Toms, Genovese Basil, and our first Diva Cucumber. It was delicious.

And we harvested our first Bullhorn pepper of the season. A full 7 ounces.

Homesteading Activities

On our way back from our week long vacation in Tennessee we stopped at a local peach farm and bought a large basket of peaches. And upon getting home Julia started canning peaches, and made a batch of wheat bread. The jars are sporting the labels I designed for Julia as part of her birthday present. The image on the label is a picture of our lemon tree that I took.

And actually before we left she canned a batch of sauerkraut that she had been fermenting for about 3 and a half weeks.

Stolen Tomato

This past weekend I was looking forward to enjoying our first larger tomato (as so far all of the tomatoes harvested have been Tumbling Toms), and saw that one was close to ready while I was watering it in the morning. I figured I'd give it until the afternoon to ripen further. But lo and behold, when I went back to harvest it, someone had already cut it off the vine. So now I have been patrolling my tomatoes as a few more are close to being ready.

June Harvest Tally

Our monthly Harvest Tally for the month of June, not counting herbs (too lazy to weigh them) was 23.81 ounces. Doesn't seem like much, but at least it is a start, and we got to eat all the locally grown organic food, knowing that our sweat and effort went into growing it.