Canning Jar Quandry.....and Garden and Dirty Diva Duckie Updates

Hello everyone! Today my laundry is being dried by the gracious sun and I am cleaning out the pantry. Ugh. It never ceases to amaze me how easily it gets out of hand. In the process I am taking inventory of my canning jars. I currently have amassed....

18 Quart Jars
29 Pint Jars
3 half-pint jars
A million saved glass jars that are for storage and refrigerator pickles, but not canning

So, how many canning jars does one need? I have no idea. How many do you have? Is it enough? Where is the best (best meaning cheapest) place to buy them? How many do I need? Can you tell me? How and where do you store yours when not in use?

I have been working on some "canning goals" and going through that fabulous Ball Canning book and picking out the recipes that I plan to use. I figure that is a start. Is that a start? Is that a good start?

My camera sucks cow butt so I have no pictures right now. But will soon!!

The garden....is overall doing very well. I do need to weed and plan to do that this evening. We used hay (straw?) mulch around everything. One and a half of those GINORMOUS round bales to be exact. So far so good.

Successes include....

Tomato seedlings
Pepper seedlings
Cucumbers
Popcorn
Sweet Corn
Zucchini
Squash
Radishes
Carrots (have just recently made their appearance! I was so excited!)
Beets
Potatoes
Pumpkins
Strawberries
Green Beans
Peas
Melons - I am leery about the seedlings, so I direct planted some as well.
Stevia is still in pots and doing well
Recently planted Dill in the garden and Rosemary in pots. Will wait a bit longer to plant some Cilantro because last year by the time we needed it it was bolted and spent. I do have a volunteer Cilantro coming up. I let it grow. Just in case we need some sooner.

Iffy Things....

Sweet Potatoes - some of the slips are growing so we'll have some
Onions - the dozen or so I got in the ground early and then waited on the rest because I thought the soil was too wet are actually doing very well. However, ones I planted later are so-so and not a lot are making it. Even the green onions are having issues.
Lettuces - Some are coming up, but I think they needed to be planted earlier and will try a fall crop and use the cold frame
Okra - I was inspired to plant a few (thanks Mrs. S!) but so far they aren't doing so well. I am going to try re-seeding to see if we can't get it going.
Watermelon - Looking puny. Remember I tried seedlings? I went ahead and direct seeded to see if those would do better.

Total Failures...I think due to planting late

Cabbage
Broccoli
Brussels Sprouts


The Dirty Diva's got a little rearranging. As I have said and anyone with ducks knows....they are THE messiest little things when it comes to water. Their set up had their food feeder and a 5 gallon waterer inside the duck house, with their pool outside, and we'd let them out in the mornings and they'd put themselves up in the evening and lock them in. Well, they were emptying that whole 5 gallons overnight, and a lot of it (most of it!) was ending up on the floor which is essentially dirt covered with straw. The problem is that it was stinking to high freakin' heaven, to the point that I couldn't even clean it out, hubby had to do it, because I was gagging horribly! It was also becoming a breeding ground for those annoying little gnats.

So we (meaning hubby...I watched!) got the inside scooped out and cleaned up and laid down a nice thick fresh layer of straw. It is now their sleeping quarters only. Their their food got moved outside next to their pool in their play yard. When they go to bed at night, we do not shut the coop door in case they need to eat or drink overnight. Do they eat or drink overnight? I have no clue. But I do know this is working out very well and they are doing just fine. We are thinking of ways to improve the inside of the coop so they can have a waterer in there. But this will do for now. I have contemplated cutting our flock in half. My original plan was 6 or 8, but to get this kind (Khaki Campbells) we had to order a minimum of 15. No way could I eat them, they are too sweet, but I could sell some. Hubby thinks we should just keep them all. We'll probably just keep them, we'll see. Sixteen ducks is A LOT of ducks.

We are thinking about moving the majority of the garden up to the yard next year in the spot where his grandparents always had their garden. Hubby brought home a gigantic roll of thick black felt that they use under bridges. If we do, I think we are going to lay it down to (hopefully) kill off the grass over the summer and then we will remove the felt and till in some leaves to compost over the winter. But then again we may just stick to what we have been doing and keep the garden on the edge of the soybean field. We go back and forth. There are advantages and disadvantages to both.

I also did another totally cool re-purpose! The kids have a swimming pool, you know those easy set pools with the blow up top ring and soft sides? 12 X 3 I think. They love it. Anyway, last year the black lab dog chewed up the chlorine floater thing. I looked at them at the store a week or so ago and they were a whopping $10! Saving money tends to get the wheels in my head going. So I decided to make my own. I used an empty 2 liter soda bottle with lid and a small sour cream container with lid. I tied a string tightly around the neck of the soda bottle. Then poked a bunch of holes in the sour cream container and tied the string in holes on each side. I wish my camera worked, I'd show you! I'm really proud of it. :) The chlorine tablets go in the sour cream container, lid goes on, and in the pool it goes. The sour cream container fills up with water and sinks, dissolving the tablets, and the pop bottle stays afloat to keep it floating around. I'm a freakin' genius! :) No, not really.....just a momma motivated to pinch pennies and squeeze George til he screams and who saves way too many empty containers. :) LOL Or maybe that makes me a Redneck? :)

Oh, I have been knitting too. More of those Knitted Babes. I knitted a newborn one for my daughter to go with her big girl, hope to get a picture up soon. And I knitted a big one for my niece's birthday and am going to knit her TWO newborns since her mom is pregnant with twins.

Well, I think I hear the pantry calling so off I go. I hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Mr. Tough Guy.....

My son is getting ready to turn 12! Officially a pre-teen....where does the time go? But he isn't afraid to sport an Eric Carl 'Hungry Little Caterpillar' tattoo - not as long as he is flexing his muscles anyway. :)

It has been a busy week! With school getting close to letting out for the summer, there is a lot going on. It has also been gorgeous out, with the exception of yesterday when we had a tornado warning. Luckily all is well and the worst of the storm passed to the north of us. Before the storm I did get some potatoes planted, again. I would say about half of what I planted the first go round came up and the rest rotted in the ground. I suspect we may have planted some a bit too deep. We also got the rest of the onion plants in the ground. I was disappointed to find that my white onion plants had all dried out the nothing. Darn it. The red ones were still good, so in they went. My sweet potato slips came yesterday too, so I got them planted. I also learned that I CAN GROW MY OWN SLIPS!!! Did you know you could do that? I had no clue!! Next year I will definitely do that. And my own onion plants. And my own seed potatoes (God willing!)

The beautiful pink azaleas I planted last year are officially dead. My parents came over earlier this week for a school program and mom brought me some of her extra daylillies, so I will replace them with those. My older two kids were both in the school program playing their instruments and my oldest daughter was in a small production of Grease and did awesome! They did two Grease songs and choreographed dance moves. She had a bit of a solo for the end of Summer Nights and she sang beautifully! She said she wasn't even nervous like she used to be before preforming...good for her!! :)

Youngest D was home from school today after climbing in bed with us at 1:30 in the morning with a slight fever. I couldn't get her to take any fever medicine, so I sponged her with a wash cloth. That drove her out of our bed and back into hers, she did not like being sponged! LOL :) She is doing better today. I hate to see her not feeling well, but it is about the only time she slows down enough to be a complete snuggle bunny.

I planted Zinnia, marigold, and mammoth sun flower seeds yesterday too. My tomato plants have blooms! And are still not in the ground. I was hoping to get them in yesterday but by the time hubby got home from work and disced, the storm came and we were off to the basement. We had 3o minutes notice before the storm hit, so we were able to baton down the hatches. I do look forward to having the raised beds next year - one of the big advantages is that they will be smaller and more manageable that the garden plot. Plus I will be able to cover for moisture control to get early spring stuff in when it needs to be. And less weeding. The list of positives goes on and on.

The Dirty Divas are still doing awesome!

And my camera is throwing a fit and only letting me have 7 pictures on it at a time. I am not sure what the problem is with the memory card. So I haven't been taking many pictures. I wish I was because this is the BEST time of year if you ask me! So much going on and everything is beautiful!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Seedling Update and Stevia Starting....

Seedlingville....has spread to several rooms now because I am running out of window space. We were going to get the greenhouse put where we want it and move things in today, but we are in for a hard freeze over the next few days, so they will be living inside a while longer. And let me ask you this, because hardening off really scares me! I am thinking that they will need to be hardened to even get use to the greenhouse. What do you think? A few hours a day in the greenhouse and build up to fulltime until planting? Or would they be ok to just leave in there fulltime straight from the house and then hardened off from the greenhouse? Do they even have to be hardened from the greenhouse? Help! I have no clue!

Tomatoes and onions...


More Tomatoes and Peppers...

Another of Tomatoes and Peppers....Plus the tall things with sticks are Moon Flowers - they are vining up the sticks already!

The cut off milk jugs each have 4 plants in them.

I started the Stevia seeds today. And this is my set up...

They seem to be a pain to start - packet said keep them warm, moist and watered from the bottom, covered, and under light for 24 hours a day until they sprout! Once they sprout the cover can come off, the heat pad can go bye-bye, and the light can be reduced to 14 hours per day.

What do you think? Will it work? Stay tuned......

My Onion Plan and A Quick Update...

This is what I am thinking for my onions. If you have any thoughts or suggestions or experiences, please chime in! I have never grown onions before and I can use all the help I can get! :)

This year I ordered onion plants and onion seed. I hope for the plants to make it to storage size to store for this winter, the seeds to make my own sets or plants (haven't decided yet - maybe both) for next year, and also to let some onions go to seed to collect the seeds for future sets & plants. In my head, this works out well but we'll have to see how it does in real life! I also have seeds for green onions to plant this year - if the rest of the onions go well and I have enough seed, I will probably use regular onion seed for green onion size onions in the future. Worst case scenario, I have to buy more seeds/plants next year. But I really hope to get into seed saving and buy as little as possible.

We have had a lot of rain and it has been crazy windy out! The cold frame is outside and did just fine with the rain and the wind. The green house is still in the shed, which I wish we had set it out and staked it down to see how it would have held up. This would have been a great dry run! (dry run...LOL!)

We haven't caught anymore mice. My youngest has made it her job to check the traps several times a day and she gets irritated if anyone else checks them. She also learned how to blow a bubble with bubble gum yesterday and spent 3 hours straight following me around wanting me to "LOOK MOM!!" at every attempt she made. :) I have pictures of her I will post. We did some celebrating for 3rd quarter grades...all three of my kids are doing excellent in school! They wish we'd pay them $25 per A...but we would be broke if we did that every quarter! My son is 11 and in 6th grade and he scored a 13+ on his reading level...that means he is reading beyond that of an average 12th grader at the end of the school year. Wow! His teacher also told me what they have been telling me since he was in 1st grade....he is the class clown. :) In a good way though...he doesn't get in trouble with his antics. He's funny at home too and always has been. I am very proud of all three of them for their hard work!!

Oh, and I learned how to purl over the weekend. So I can now cast on, knit, purl, and cast/bind off. I think I am getting close to trying a real knitting pattern!

That is it for now. Hope you have a great night!