Peas!!

Yay!! Yesterday when I was out in the garden I noticed that the peas looked mighty close to being ready to start picking. So I checked a pea - and ate the contents! - and they were ready.

The weather has been nice with random thunderstorms throughout the day and night the past couple days, and today was no exception. This morning it was raining with occasional lightening, so I didn't want to go into my garden which is full of metal! Mid-morning the rain stopped and I went out and picked. It is a major, major jungle out there! Most of the pea vines are probably 6' tall, and the rows intertwined with each other. But they are doing well and I praise the Lord!

It took me about 1.75 hrs. to pick, but I did come in several times because I had bread rising and baking.


Susannah was fascinated with the peas! After lunch I planned to shell them right away, and after thinking about it a moment I knew it would be more stressful for both of us if I tried to do it anywhere but on the floor. So I sat on the floor and shelled peas, tossing the empty pods into a pile - on the floor *gasp* - and Susannah had fun playing with the full and empty pods. Once I had one bucket emptied the empty pods went into a bucket.

Susannah was very happy watching and occasionally would shell a pod or two. I would open the pod and pull the 2 halves apart, and she would pick off each pea and drop it into my bowl one at a time. It took me about 1 1/4 hrs. to shell them all, and when we were done we picked all the
empty pods up off the floor.

Picking peas is not for beauty pageant contestants.
I did brush my hair this morning!

In the end we had about 1 1/2 quarts. Enough for a meal and I'll either share some or freeze them.
Yum :)

Simple Woman's Daybook - May 16, 2011

For today, Monday, May 16, 2011

I am thinking... a family in our church has been weighing heavy on my heart yesterday and today - they lost a husband/dad/granddad 2 weeks ago.

I am thankful for... my husband! All the rain we've gotten and are supposed to get. Our church family. The Word and our pastor's expository preaching.

From my kitchen... Pancakes. With butter. And powdered sugar. And strawberries!! Taste-bud heaven! Later today I must make bread, and hope to make Monster Cookies (Daniel's request).

I am reading... last week I read "Light From Heaven", by Christmas Carol Kauffman. Based on a true story, it was not the most easy book to read, but it was encouraging to read about the life of such a godly woman who taught her children to love the Lord amidst their trials.

I am hoping... to finish Spring Cleaning the "Master Bedroom" (Ha! Such a grand name for our tiny space!) This Spring Cleaning may end up being "Spring and All Summer Cleaning", but I am enjoying the results even if it's taking me a while.

I am hearing... the birds :) Yesterday while Susannah was eating breakfast she heard a bird who was singing quite loudly. She got her "what is that?!" look on her face. The bird was sitting on the electric line outside the window so I was able to show her the bird - and she was pretty fascinated by it until it flew away :)

A few plans for the week... Probably same old, same old. I need to work in the garden, but it may be amid mud. I have tomato plants and cucumber plants that I need to get in. Oh! And if all works out, maybe this week will be the week that Daniel gets home from work early and can watch Susannah while I go do some desperately needed shopping! That has been a "plan" for several weeks now :)

A picture...

What I saw one afternoon when I heard some noise
and turned around from washing dishes.
Susannah is a Daddy's girl because I detest! Dr. Pepper!

I Figured It Out

I figured out how other people (moms) have so much time. Time to do all the things that I think "dude, hoooow do you do all that and still have a clean house, clean clothes, clean car, clean kids... and stay sane?"

They buy all or almost all of their food ready to use (canned or frozen).
They buy all of their bread.
They buy all of their sandwich meat already cooked and sliced.
They use the dryer.
They probably even have a clothes folder and just haven't told me about it...
Since they buy all of their food (including bread) they probably don't make the enormous messes in their kitchens like I do.
They probably put eeeeeeverything in their dishwasher. I'm picky.

Since they buy all of their food they can just come home from the store, put all the cans, boxes and bags in the cupboards, frige and freezer and VIOLA! A million hours already saved! No need to spend several hours in the garden planting, weeding or picking. No hours upon hours spent peeling, shelling, blanching, canning or freezing.

I bet if I logged every minute that I spend doing something that I could just "go buy" the finished product instead, I'd have more available time, too!

Please know that this isn't a rant or a rave or a "I'm better than you" or a "woe is me" or any such thing. I'm just thinkin' out loud. This is also very much my perspective from the outside :)

**I know this could generate alot of comments on how I am wrong - I'm open to friendly discussion, but please let's keep it fun and friendly! I'm not looking to start a war!**

P.S. After reading this, Amy wrote an amazing post over on her blog. You gotta go check it out.

The Growing Garden

*Lots of pictures ahead!*

What's growing in the garden is doing great! My bean seeds that I planted (which would be 3 double rows along the far right edge of the garden in the picture below) didn't come up. I'll have to replant :(

Except for the peas, the garden still doesn't look like much, but hopefully in another month that'll change! In this picture is all my peppers, squash, zucchini, eggplant and space for corn or cucumbers.

The bottom part of the garden, with a trusty wandering through cat. This part doesn't look like much either. But believe me, I'm gonna fill it up!

My peas! They have grown considerably since my last post. A few stalks are even as tall as the fence! Yippee! Since my last update, I did side-dress each row with 5-10-10 fertilizer and gray lime. I've also been watering regularly with a Miracle Grow water-er. I wouldn't normally use the Miracle Grow watering system, but I am really counting on this year's garden to give us as much as it can.

The pea vines are blooming beautifully :)

And even making pea pods :) I think I will be very busy in a few more weeks picking and shelling peas! Oh yummy! No more store-bought peas, I hope!

The tomato plants are doing well. The broccoli and cauliflower that survived are looking good, too. I'm not sure why some of the plants croaked. I still have the majority if my tomato plants (Amish Paste) to put out yet. I need to get that done very soon.

Of my little rows of beets, spinach and lettuce, only the Summer Heat Tolerant Head Lettuce is growing. I'm not sure what happened to the other stuff, but it did not grow. I may try replanting with the rows going the other way - I think having them vertical to the "usual" way might've caused the dirt to wash when I watered.

Last evening I had a few hours of daylight left (I'd been gone all day helping a friend on bedrest), and I saw that it was supposed to rain alot last night, so I put it in high gear and did some planting. I planted 11 more peppers (Golden California Wonder), 10 Eggplant, 6 squash and 4 zucchini. I'm not sure that starting them indoors was a good idea. They got VERY leggy before I got them in the ground and today they are all laying over. 2 of the squash plants snapped off, even though I buried them deep. I think I'll just poke some seeds in the dirt and see what happens.

These are my pepper plants. They've grown quite a bit, too. Some of them don't look very good, but hopefully they'll pull through and produce enough for us and maybe some to share.

One thing I'm possibly behind on is getting corn in the ground. It seems like everyone else has corn in and I don't. I'm always afraid of getting it in too soon and it not growing (it likes warm dirt), and another thing is that until this year I had to wait until the peas came out. I still don't have enough room for all my corn this year WITH the peas, so some of it will have to wait for the peas to come out.

This year I'm also adding lime to each row/hole when I plant. I'm hoping the plants will like that and bear well. It's been such a struggle to get very much and very good produce from our garden previous years, and I'm really trying this year to get a good crop of everything.

Oh - remember how I had Daniel add 2 more tiller rows (big tiller) to the garden? He said our garden is now the same size (sq. ft.) as our house will be when the addition is finished!


This post is linked to Phoebe's Frugal Gardening 101 series over at her blog, Getting Freedom.