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Nice looking hubbard, Jamie! It'll be a real project to cut it up.
We ate grilled chicken breasts, steamed beets, and smashed potatoes.
Thanks for suggesting that, Mike; it's interesting to see all the choices available now. Back in the early 2000's, the use of greenhouse shade cloth by home gardeners was a new concept.
BakerAunt, a word of caution about bird netting for the blueberries. For about 25 years, we used tobacco netting; until it wasn't big enough to cover the row (10 plants, 50 ft row) and we couldn't find more to buy. So we tried bird netting (and also used it on our cherry trees). The holes in the netting are big enough to allow the netting to slip down over the berries - so the berries and some leaves get tangled/caught in the netting, with the berries on the outside, easy to be reached by the birds! We ended up getting greenhouse shade cloth through a local nursery. It was cut to our specifications (it comes 18 feet wide, and we bought 70ft), the edges were bound with heavy tape, and grommets put in every 10 feet so we could stake it to the ground. Then my husband built a simple structure, using metal fence posts topped with slats to drape the netting over. The bushes are now 6 ft tall, so is the supporting structure, and I can stand up under it to pick. The shade cloth we chose lets 70% of the sunlight through it, and is what nurseries commonly use over their greenhouses in summer to limit the sunshine. We put the shadecloth up just before the berries ripen (will do it this week) and take it down to store in the garden shed as soon as we have finished picking. It was expensive, but has been an excellent investment. If you don't have so many bushes, maybe you could look at a craft or fabric shop for some kind of netting, or tulle, or ?? If your only option is bird netting, I highly recommend some kind of structure to keep the netting off the bushes. I'll try to post a picture of ours this week.
Gardening is very discouraging this year. We are/were in a drought, for months. This past week, we had 3 days with temps of 89, followed by 4 days with temps of 90, followed by, so far, 2 days of constant rain, over 2 inches, and more predicted for tomorrow. I had lettuce, now beaten down by the rain, but think I can still harvest some. The beans are growing, 10-12 inches high, so should flower soon. The flowers we had on the tomatoes and peppers fell off with the heat, but more will grow. The weeds? Oh, yeah! they love it. But the gardener doesn't pull weeds in the heat or the rain. I'll try to get some photos next week.
Dinner was egg salad sandwiches, on the last loaf of bread in the house! Now I'll have to bake tomorrow, heat wave or not.
I've never heard of a jam maker, but will look that up. I rarely make jam, because my husband doesn't eat it and I don't need it. If I'm really wanting some jam or need it for a special recipe (like those Apricot Oatmeal Bars, made with any kind of jam), I'll make a batch of refrigerator jam, which is almost as good.
We had a wild thunderstorm with torrential rains pass through here about 4:00, but I was able to dry off the deck chairs so we could sit on the deck to enjoy the flowers and birds while grilling. We had boneless pork chops, roasted potatoes with Greek seasoning, and winter squash from the freezer.
Joan, I'm curious about "white acre peas". I lived in Savannah for two years, and don't recall seeing or eating or hearing of them. After looking it up on Google, I guess I've decided they are what I would call "green beans". They are not at all like our northern green peas, but they look more like green beans. How do you cook them?
Today I made a peach cobbler, after reading posts and sites by Joan, Swirth, Pioneer Woman, Tastes Better From Scratch, etc. I finally chose the "Quick and Easy Peach Cobbler submitted by Sheryle and posted here by BakerAunt. I selected this recipe because the intro states "It has more of a cake type crust instead of the more traditional biscuit." I did make a few changes. I cut the 1 stick of butter to 3/4 of a stick (and next time will try 1/2 a stick). I cut the 1 cup of sugar mixed with the peaches to 3/4 a cup, and it is plenty. I also baked it another 10 minutes because it just didn't seem to be cooked, and a knife inserted came out with wet crumbs on it. I figured it would absorb some of the apparently excess moisture (which it did!) but I'm trying to avoid a runny cobbler. This came out exactly the way we like it! It will be my go-to basic cobbler recipe from now on, just in time for blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries.
Joan's recipe is very similar, mostly just different proportions, but I decided against her recipe because I knew once my husband saw it, there would be none left for me!
We're looking temps in the 90s for the next 4 days, and only possible thunderstorms for rain. I'm watering the planters on the deck every day, and the garden and berries so they get at least an inch of rain each week. We did have 2 days of storms last week, and got 1.37 inches of water in 2 days; that surely helped a lot. The green, yellow, and purple beans are looking good, some sun scald on the leaves, but we're still a long way from eating beans. We do have flowers on the tomatoes, and tiny peppers started on those plants. And of course, we have plenty of spinach and lettuce. I'm hoping we get veggies before it snows!
Today I baked 2 loaves of oatmeal-buttermilk bread because the freezer was empty. There won't be much baking happening here for a while; my husband has declared he needs to lose the 10 pounds he has gained since last winter. However, I still have those peaches I bought a few days ago, and they are just begging for a cobbler topping. Okay, I guess he doesn't have to eat any of it, and I will be forced to eat it all by myself.
We had baked haddock, fries in the Breville oven air-fry mode, and a green salad.
I almost bought that book, BakerAunt. A good brownie might push me over that edge! I enjoy her blog and newsletter, and the foods she recommends are mostly already staples in my diet.
Joan, I thought I commented on your peach cobbler post; guess I wrote it but never submitted it? I love peaches, and have added them to my grocery list for shopping tomorrow. However, I'm going to double your recipe - otherwise, it won't be enough for us!! It sounds delicious and quick.
DH ate leftover 7 Layer Mexican salad, and I had a mixed greens salad with tomatoes, bell peppers, red onion, cukes, lots of herbs snipped on the deck, and pomegranite balsamic. We just had a wicked storm go through here, with more to pass through in the next 2 hours. It was 94* at 4:00, down to 70* now, and only in the 60s tomorrow.
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