Random garden photos

Broccoli floret

Corn getting tall, it's about 10 inches tall now
Yarrow flower, purple flowers behind are self heal

top of Brussel sprout plant
flowering chives with lettuce behind
stink bug
Blueberries starting to redden
My garden assistant, taking care of a grasshopper

your trash, my treasure

Now as I drive around I look for wood, we need it for the soon to be chicken coop, as well as borders for plantings and such. Having Monday's off is the perfect opportunity to check to see what the neighbors have cleared out over the weekend. I have already picked up a lattice plant support, which I'm not sure what I'll plant under it, but I'll figure something out.
Since I live an improv lifestyle and go with the flow, I find and I can create. These boards, plywood, landscape timber and cement rounds will come in handy in something. It's just so much better finding this stuff as someones trash, then to have to buy it. There is always more that I can get, but I choose to limit myself, so I don't end up too pack ratty. Which that is pretty easy to do. So I get what I can, leave what I can't and regret what I should have, and move on with what I take.

more garden progress:

I got all the self heal and Yarrow out of the planter box, and it has been transplanted in front of the bushes, since it will spread and is a nice ground cover with little purple flowers, I thought it would be nice under the bushes as well. I lined it with newspapers and mulch to keep the weeds and grass at bay, hopefully.


Freddy cat helping me scope out the front area. I added some decorative grass, mulch and the lemon balm, because it was in the same planter box as the yarrow and self heal, and I plan to use that box for a nursery for tomato seedlings.
same area, different angle. The dirt area around the sago palm has flower seeds planted, Naturtium, Celosia, Marigold, Cosmos, and Tithonia all summer, annuals that are drought resistant.

behind the squash I have planted cucumbers, I have wire fencing to make some supports for them to grow up onto.

This is a crepe myrtle that has some transplanted yarrow at the bottom of it. And the Corn to the right. The pile of mulch just doesn't seem to get much smaller... what's freaking me out is that I keep considering another load! The backyard better watch out!

Homemade pasteurized grapefruit juice

We received a huge box of grapefruits from a neighbor and I started squeezing them for juice, as there was NO way we could ever eat them all before they went bad.

I decided to pasteurize the juice so it would have a longer shelf life in the fridge, giving that Mike and I would be the only ones drinking it. Liam participated in the process, and I talked to him about the reasons for pasteurizing juice and milk, as well as the temperatures needed for killing off bacteria, especially since our process wasn't the most sanitary, nor were the fruit, I decided it was a necessary step.

The first part was calibrating the thermometer, I showed Liam how to check for proper temperature reading, as well as why it was necessary. To calibrate, fill a cup with ice, and water, and check the temp... it should register at 32 degrees, F. If not, the thermometer needs adjusting. A quick turn of the bolt on the back, got it to 32F.

I made a simple syrup of sugar, honey and water to go into the very sour grapefruit juice.
Into the pot... it's nice to have such a large stainless steel cooking pot!checking the temp, slowly rising.Checking every few minutes during the cooking to get the juice to the temp of 165... I went ahead and raised it to 18oF for a quick kill. A temp of 165 held for 15 seconds generally suffices for basic pasteurization.

I wanted it to cool as fast as possible as well, so Ice was put in a bag to basically "ice bath" the juice. I went through two bags of ice till it was close to 50F, then it is cool enough for the fridge.
We got a good gallon and a half of juice
A full bucket of compostable grapefruit remnants
And just a few grapefruit left for eating, the box was full to the top when we started.
Many thanks go out to Louis Pasteur for coming up with this process. It has increased the shelf life of milk, and many other items, as well as decreasing the possibility of food borne illnesses occurring through bacteria growth. A great scientist, who's method we imitated in our own kitchen.