I hope we start getting June weather any day now, since we are nearly 1/3 through the month!!

What a different June we are having this year, cool days, tons of rain and very little hot sunny weather that . In fact I think this is May weather, someone tell God that he is a month late this year and perhaps we’ll start getting the proper weather this week.

Either way the rain is great for the garden and the cool weather is great for the lettuce.  We took a trip to Texas last week so my gardening is a bit behind.  And I have to admit that my seed starting was less then stellar this year and I have had to reseed a few times.  I need a proper grow light because my seedlings grow long and they are looking for the sun and the stems stay thin and then the moment I forget to water them once they die.  So I finally put the last of them outside on the porch today but not in direct sunlight, let’s hope they survive this week until I can get them planted.

Everyone needs help sometimes

We finally got a guy that I think is a good and reliable worker to help with the property.  My ad read, “farm help, gardener and housekeeper.”  I wasn’t sure what exactly I would have him doing so I put down everything.  He mowed the back yard with the hand mower and wipper-snipped and trimmed everything in the back this weekend, it looks great.  Yesterday he helped clean the chickens and bunnies.  I hope he enjoys the work because he did a really good job and we really need the help.

The Garden

Here is the garden so far this year.  We added a new bed in the bottom left of this picture and another one right where the chicken coop is now.  We have 5 more to add.  We needed to give the chickens a fresh place to graze while we were in Texas so they were in the one in the lower left until today.  See how they just mowed it down.  And all of the chicken poop is really good fertilizer

Here is the garlic (the tall greens), the shorter greens in the top left are celery and the shorter grassy looking ones in the top middle and to the right are leeks and onions.

Here are my peas and beans.  The pole beans are supposed to be in the back but none of them seem to have sprouted.  The rest are going well and I will need a net soon to trellis them upwards.  I have lots of weeds in my garden and it constantly needs attention.

I had 4 pepper plants growing on the left, I think only two survived (victims of my seed starting) and the cauliflower is doing pretty good, they are on the right.

This is Strawberry Patch 1, I had wanted to move it to a larger location but that is taking a bit to build so we’ll settle with them here this year and see if I can move them next year. 

This is Strawberry Patch 2

So this was the second place that the chickens roosted and I hadn’t gotten around to planting in it yet.  But the weeds were coming back so I went to weed it so that I could plant my tomatoes here.  To my surprise I have a returned pumpkin patch, or maybe squash.  I had some pumpkins go to mush here so I think they have returned.

I planted some onions from seed and set here on the left (sets are the bigger green stems), then some radishes, maybe some other rooter, can’t think of it right now and then three varieties of lettuce.  These are doing really well, salad anyone???

Homemade Bread

Since we are reading more and more labels now to make sure we are actually eating healthy food, I have decided to start making bread again.  I make a great Egg Bread.

This is for a 2 lb. Egg Bread

1 TB Yeast
1 Cup Warm Water
1/3 Cup of Milk
2 TB Olive Oil
3 TBs Honey
2 Eggs (farm fresh)
4 Cups of Flour (organic)
1 Tsp Salt

This is the order that I put it into the bread maker so that the yeast is wet and warm and the honey is feeding it at the bottom. And the salt, which stops the yeast from growing is on top, away from the yeast. This gives the yeast time to rise. Usually my (2 lb. recipe) bread touches the top of the 3 lb. bread maker so I guess this method works.

I did a few alterations to the bread. I used organic whole wheat flour for 3 cups of the flour and spelt flour for the last cup. I often mix flours, maybe part whole wheat and part white or part spelt, arrowroot or other flour with white or whole wheat. One thing I also often add is Red River Cereal. I just pour some in, I actually have never measured it but it is probably 1/4 of a cup. This gives you some extra fibre and grains and makes a nice grainy loaf for sandwiches.

I bake it on the 2 lb. loaf setting and basic bread setting as well on my machine.

It goes very nicely with my Homemade Strawberry Jam from last summer.

Lets pray for nice sunny days and rain only on weekdays!!