Saving Asparagus Seed

   I save asparagus seed more for learning a skill than anything.  There's something in me that loves to save the seed, plant it, and watch it grow.  If your goal is to start a nice patch of asparagus, you might want to buy 3 year old male crowns in the spring.  They are perennial, and will last many, many, years.  Asparagus seeds form on the female plants.  Female plants are thinner, and I think tougher when eating, than the males.  So really, a bed full of the male plants is your ideal, especially if you have limited space. 

     The seed that I am gathering from female plants is from our "wild" patch.  All along our old horse fence, at every t-post, there is a few asparagus plants growing -- planted by the birds.  If we never get a formal asparagus bed going, Rick and I would have plenty for ourselves.  But, I'd like to have enough to pick for our big family meals.

     Every year I look at the price of asparagus crowns and just can't get myself to buy them.  So, now what I do, is every year I plant a big pot of seeds that I grow all summer, just like they are some of my flowers, and then transplant them in the fall.  You have to wait 3 years to be able to harvest.  These will be an old variety now unknown -- as opposed to the new hybrid crowns you would buy.  There will be male and females.  Some people pull the females as weeds.  I won't.  I consider the berries excellent food for the chickens.  I will air dry them, and feed them over winter.





Pick the berries when they are red.






Squeeze out the seeds into some water and gently work them clean.






Air dry them well.  Then gently clean off any remaining pulp before storing.



      About 6 weeks before you want to plant them, put them in a  bag in the freezer for stratification. (a pretend winter)  I start them in organic potting soil, outside.  No need to start them in the house.  They grow easy!

Linked To: Farm Friend Friday
Linked To: Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop
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Lnked To:  Frugally Sustainable




.....dr momi

Need A Funny Caption

What's your caption for this week?







Last Week:

"Please Sir, may I have some more?!?"



This week's caption by Candi C over at:
Lazy J Bar C Farm

.....dr momi

Pig Wrestling

     Ok then, that was a learning experience.  If you think we fought with them and got them on the truck -- think again.  They are still here.  The closest we got was the front feet in the trailer.  Two young men came with a nice rig with a 1 1/2 foot step in.  The pig pen was downhill from the truck which made the step higher yet.  They "forgot" their piece of plywood for a ramp.  Well......I didn't have any around.  There was no way a bucket over the head and back them in would work with that high of a step.  I thought Pinky was going to die of heat stroke so I said, "how bout you come next Mon. with your equipment, and I move the cage to an uphill position from the truck by then."  They only pick-up on Monday's.  So, next Monday it is.

     And this has never happened in a very long time to me.  I grabbed my camera for pictures and the battery was dead.  Well, this has been an interesting morning.!!!!!

    




If they were this small we could have just picked them up :-)

.....dr momi

Sunday in Pictures

Asparagus berries.  I will be harvesting seed from them.



Remember my Mason Bee Hive Christmas present?
Some of the holes have been laid with eggs.  (they look
packed with mud)  It's a start!













I made sauerkraut this week.
About 8 heads of my homegrown organic cabbage fills my crock.
(I have finally learned how to spell sauerkraut without having to look it up! LOL)









My apple jelly on the left.  Mary's apple jelly on the right

....she took BEST OF SHOW with it!

She will not tell me what kind of apples or how she does it. (She says no with a twinkle in her eye :-)

I'm on a quest.  Anyone out there that knows what I need to do --  I need to hear from you!  :-)

(at least before next year's fair.)

My elderberry jam got first!





It was a good fair.
.....and now I'm pretty much "canned out".
Time to pack it all away.




 .....dr momi

Pig Sayings

      All of these "sayings" about pigs make perfect sense to me now that I've owned pigs.


     "Squealing like a pig."  I will never forget the ear splitting squeal those piglets let out when the guy who sold them to me picked them up by the hind legs to put in my crate.  It actually hurt my ears.

     "This place looks like a pig pen."  When the kids were growing up, many a bedroom looked "rooted up".

     "Smacking like a pig!"  Pigs really do smack.  .....but only because it tastes so good!  :-)

     "Eating like a pig."   Pigs like to eat fast before someone else gets it.  And, they eat, and eat, and eat.....

     "Dirty as a pig."  Pigs roll in the mud to keep cool and keep bugs off.  I remember Logan in the muddy sandbox saying to me, "Grandma, I'm just like the pigs.....I like mud."  :-) 

     "Sweating like a pig."  LOL, every time I would say "I'm sweating like a pig" this hot, hot, summer; my husband would remind me that pigs don't sweat!   And then there is.....
    
    "Sleeping like a pig."   My own coined term. (See Sleeping Like A Pig)   .....you know.  Like when kids won't get out of that bed for school, and end up falling back to sleep.  (Yes, my darling kid, you know who you are. :-)

    

       Having pigs for the first time has been a learning experience.  I'd do it again.  Monday is the day the pigs meet their destiny.  Not looking forward to fighting them onto the truck.  I'll let you know how it goes.



No worries.....he's eating overgrown cooked beets :-)


.....dr momi

Linked To: Farm Girl Friday
Linked To: Homestead Barn Hop

Grasshopper Wisdom



"Grandma, if you touch a grasshopper's butt
 with your finger it will hop."  ......grandson Logan today.

 .....dr momi

Linked To:  Celebrate With Us
Linked To:  Farm Photo Friday

Need a Funny Caption

.....because we all need to laugh a little. 

Because it seemed to be an extra hard one, I chose the two captions I got.  Thanks for playing girls! 

"Mom, I need my nose plug."

coined by Dicky Bird over at Dicky Birds Nest

....AND

"Wow! Next time they say to leave because

the hurricane is coming, I'm listening!

coined by labbie1 over at The Adventures of Garrett Squared

The picture is a manatee at Port Adventurus in Mexico.

What's your caption for this week?

I'm going to take captions until 9/13, so if you think of a

good one even a few days later, come back and post it!

.....dr momi

Pico de Gallo

     This is a favorite when the tomatoes are fresh.  We (as in the whole family) have it about 3 or 4 times when the garden is overflowing.

Pico de Gallo always reminds me of Mexico.
....ahhh sunning on the beach, watching the pelicans fly by,
sipping pina coladas (..er diet coke), someone else cookin' for me,....
...oh, OK I'm back.

Pico de Gallo
     (for a crowd)

20 roma tomatoes
1 lg, red onion
1 lg. jalapeno pepper
1 sm.banana pepper (feel free to mix 'n match peppers)
4 cloves of garlic
juice of 2 limes
2 TBL. olive oil
1 bunch of fresh cilantro
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper




Cut the stem off the tomatoes, slice them in half lengthwise,
"v" out the hard core, and then dice.






















Do the same with the pepper.  Take out the seeds and "pulpy stuff".
Don't touch your eyes with pepper juice hands....you'll be sorry :-)






















     Dice the onions and garlic.  Fine cut the cilantro.  Throw in the lime juice, oil, salt and pepper.






...and mix it all together

Enjoy!























     I forgot to take a picture of the final stir LOL!  I can easily make this my whole meal it tastes so good.  I get lots of questions about how you can can pico de gallo so it tastes just like it does fresh.  Aaahhh....not going to happen.  Eat the fresh when you have it.  Follow a tested recipe to can salsa, and that's what we eat in the winter.  When you are canning salsa, please don't add vegetables just because you like your salsa that way.  Vegetables (onions, peppers etc.) change how acid the recipe is.  If you are not following a tested recipe, it can quickly become unsafe to can.

.....dr momi

Linked to:  Women Living Well Wednesday
Linked to:  Simple Lives Thursday
Linked to:  Farm Friend Friday
Linked to:  Living Well Blog Hop

Sunday in Pictures



I do believe these are teeth prints!
O.K., since I got a first, I will give him a jerky treat :-)



Remember the maple sap wine?
It looks pretty, but got nothing at the fair.
The rest of it I'm going to let age and see what happens.
I think it was too young.

The elderberry wine got 1st!!



Speaking of elderberries, my "tame" bush is just about ripe.
Wild elderberries are ready to pick NOW.



The Coke display at our local Wal-Mart

Sprite and Mellow Yellow -- the perfect colors.

....oh, you did know that the Packers won the Super Bowl last year?
...... and you did know the football kick-off is in Green Bay this Thur.?
..... and did I ever tell you Green Bay is real close to me?

 Oh, by the way...I'm a Packer fan :-)



Pico de Gallo for supper tonight -- and venison loin on the grill, and baked potatoes.
Homemade vanilla ice cream and apple crisp for dessert.
I'll share the Pico de Gallo recipe tomorrow.

.....dr momi

It's A Miracle

     .....that Billy didn't eat my fair entry.  He had plenty of time to do it!

     I left my wine entries and dehydrated food entries in a bag on the floor...so I'd remember to take them.  Ya right.  I was gone about 2 hrs. before I remembered I left them.  I was pretty sure the dehydrated jerky had been devoured by Billy already, after all, he is a hunting dog.  That nose does work.  When I knew Rick was home for lunch I called, "so, did he wreck everything?"  "No, not at all, he just brought me a bag of dried oregano for my gift, but it wasn't punctured or anything!"

     It must be in his Golden Retriever blood to "retrieve" something when someone walks into the house.  It's usually a shoe.  He never chews it, just brings it as a "gift".  Turns out the bag of jerky was on the bed, (a place he is not allowed) not punctured either!  I'm sure he was just about ready to dig in when Rick came home......

 

 Linked to:  Farmgirl Friday   

.....dr momi