Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Baking day? And another garden update

You guys!  I rearranged my freezer and now there's even less room.  Yikes!  How did that happen?  Usually when I rearrange I find more room. Now I really don't have room for stocking the freezer with quick and healthy snack and meal options.  And I already purchased ingredients and thawed out my eggs for today's planned baking day.

Yes, you heard me, I thawed my eggs. Wanna make something of it?  And then I found more eggs in the fridge (Hubby told me we were out, and I believed him).

If I hadn't had to find those frozen eggs, I wouldn't have taken everything out of the freezer, and if I hadn't taken everything out of the freezer, I wouldn't have had to put it all back in, and if I hadn't had to put it all back in, I would still have room for the baked goods that I was planning on making today.  Someone needs to start eating that fish before I decide to kick it out and dedicate its space to granola bars.

Blessed beyond measure.  That's what I am.  I'll make another attempt at the freezer later today, and I'll keep you posted.  In the meantime, this development has left me without firm plans for the day.  Hmm.  Whatever shall I do?

How about a garden update?

Three of my pumpkins are turning orange.  So exciting.  I think I'm supposed to wait until the vines die to harvest, but I'm not sure.  Must research.


The spaghetti squashes are probably pretty close to ripe as well, since they showed up about the same time as the pumpkins.  Just a few days ago, I noticed a new spaghetti squash.  Not sure if this one has enough time to ripen, but we'll let it try its best.  It's grown 6 inches in 2 days, so...

This is the honeydew melon that was gnawed upon.  It's still growing, and it looks like the rind will just scar in those gnawed parts, leaving the inside to develop into sweet green melon goodness.  This is still my biggest melon, and therefore my best chance at eating melon that I've grown, so I'm just going to let it grow.


Speaking of melons, I finally spotted a female watermelon flower yesterday and promptly pollinated it.  Yay!  So now there's at least a chance of getting fruit.  I have a long (20 years+) history of not-successfully-growing watermelon.  I'd like to break that streak.

I picked a couple of cucumbers, and a couple more are almost ready.  It's looking like, if I do turn them into pickles, it's going to be one jar at a time.  Not ideal, but we're not really big pickle eaters anyway, so it's all good.

I have another zucchini.  It cracks me up how this poor plant only produces one zucchini at a time.  It's just doing what it can do in less than ideal circumstances (which is all any of us can do.  Lessons from a tomato-crowded zucchini plant).

This is what I mean when I say I'm glad that at least some of my produce will turn a color other than green when it matures.  The tomato plants are so lush and thick--the only way I know there are actually fruits in there is when I see a bit of red amid the green.


I've been harvesting a couple tomatoes here and there, but not near enough to justify canning.  My favorite brother in law's favorite mama, KD, told me that she just peels, cores, and freezes her tomatoes until she gets enough for a canner load, so I thought I would try that as well.

Which brings us back to the full freezer issue.  Blessed.  So abundantly blessed.

What are you up to today?

2 comments:

  1. Hey! Love your blog and enjoy reading about your garden adventures. We are thanking God for some rain last night, so that I am NOT spending my day watering here. I had a funny thing happen with the bean teepee this year. Turns out, purple beans are bush beans and do not climb up the teepee. Oops. Still learning. I planted the green ones later, once I realized my mistake and we will see if they beat the first frost. Anyway - how do you freeze eggs!?!

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    Replies
    1. Oh no! Well, did they at least taste good? :)

      First, *why* I freeze eggs: when I was taking care of chickens, we had way more eggs than we could use in a reasonable amount of time. I froze them to spread out the bounty. You could definitely do the same if you come across a great deal on eggs.

      To freeze eggs I crack one into each well of a muffin tin, scramble the yolk a bit, and put 'em in the freezer. Once frozen, pop them out into a freezer bag. Thaw in the fridge and use for baking or scrambled egg applications. I also freeze egg whites in ice cube trays.

      Let me know if you try it!

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