That Apple Pie and The Gourds

The apple pies that I made were totally out of this world delicious!  I baked up two using the frozen apple pie filling I made a few weeks back and I plan to freeze up some more while all the apples are in season!

  Yum!

I brought in some gourds while we were down south and even though I read you can leave them on the vine during the winter to dry, I felt better bringing them in to dry on a rack (I am worried about the critters snacking on the gourds before they are fully dry).

 Drying on a rack

The wire rack will allow air to circulate around the gourds as they dry.  They will take several months and mold will form on some and it simply needs to be washed off with a sponge and water.  These gourds will dry nicely. 

On the other hand ……. When we arrived at our other home we realized frost had hit and it hit hard!  My cousin said at least 3 times while we were away and I had no idea it would; rather early this year.  So the gourds I had growing here … well, I brought them in and fashioned them around the fireplace for decoration.

Not all of them will hardened up and be ready to craft on – the ones that weren’t done growing will rot and be unusable.  When the frost hit they were not all at the stage where they were done growing.  If they had finished this process the next process of curing would begin.  Curing is the time where the gourd hardens up and this takes several months – the gourds will lose all color and become light tan.

Fun with Mini Gourds!

The gourds that I have from this year need several months to dry out before I can craft with them, but I have some mini gourds left from last year that I finally figured out how to decorate them.  These are warty gourds and that’s what was throwing me off with the design, but I decided to use the warts (bumps) as the item to decorate the gourd – you will see what I mean …

 Dried mini gourds

First I painted the gourds with orange paint all over …

 Then I sponge painted a coating of brown over this so they would look more realistic …

 Do this step gently since the orange paint may come off in spots if worked on too roughly – I touched it up with the q-tip after.  Let this all dry for a few hours and then design your pumpkins!

   BOO!

I also experimented with some pressed flowers – glued them “gently” on the gourd since the flowers are very thin.  Pressing flowers is simple – I put them in pages of phone books and weighted them down.  After a few weeks they were dry and ready to use.

The gourds in the backyard garden are progressing right along – Grow Grow Gourds!

Garden Ramblings

I am very hopeful I will have a great harvest of baby gourds since they seem to be growing right along despite the dry, clay soil down south.  I have resigned myself to the fact that many of the other plantings out in the field will not make it…am I disappointed?  sure, but that’s what experimenting is all about and how would I know if I didn’t try.  You are probably wondering what I am rambling on about – well, we purchased land down south and the climate, soil and whole weather scene down there is different from what I am used to (5 hrs. in distance makes a dramatic difference!)  So the beans, corn, grains and squash need a different location next year and I think in the meantime I will do some seroius work on that soil; plant buckwheat as a cover crop  for one.  Look at the cute little gourds that don’t mind the tough conditions …

 

I learned some major differences about the various gourds and even hand pollinated a few of the night flowering apple gourds – night blooming types have white flowers while the day blooming have the yellow flowers … it’s all very interesting! 

I have the tomatoes planted closer to the house and I used black plastic under the plants when I first put them in the ground.  I should have removed this after the plants were thriving since I didn’t realize it would fry the poor leaves.  The black plastic gets extremely hot and does a good job killing the grass and weeds underneath but unless it is covered on top, it will cook what is growing above as well.  Removed the plastic and collected some great tomatoes with hopes of more to come…

 Italian Heirloom (which are huge!) and Fox Cherry Tomato (which are a big for a cherry tomato).  Both taste very good and the Trophy tomato was also ready, but the best tomato, much to my surprise since it doesn’t look like much, is the Cherokee Purple ……. the flavor is outstanding!

 Cherokee Purple

The Anise Hyssop is thriving (remember the cookies I made recently) and the Blackhart Barley is looking good – brought some in to dry and instead of hanging to dry I set them in a vase and will let them dry up that way (no water).  I can look at the pretty arrangement as they dry.

 Anise hyssop and barley

Check out this guy …. Frankie, the hound dog – passed out after a long day running, swimming and making sure the big horse flies were put in their place!

Happenings in the Garden

Eariler this week I posted this picture of my first watermelon on Twitter –

 Moon and Stars watermelon

I am pretty anxious to cut open and taste, but I must wait patiently for the right time.  There are smaller melons that have started also – this first one here seems to just have taken off!  I did spot a small Apple gourd growing also – any gourders out there??  Along with the apple gourd I have a few bottle gourd vines planted, but they did get a later start so hopefully we will have some results.  The tiny ornamental gourds are flowering up and I snapped a shot of a round gourd growing …

 Apple gourd starting to grow

 Ornamental gourd

These Italian Heirloom tomatoes are getting quite large and still green; haven’t had my first red tomato yet.  Once I do though they will be non-stop!

 Italian Heirloom tomatoes

Basil is producing very well and I plan to make some sauce later today and see what other basil recipes I can find – basil cookies, basil bread??  Cucumbers are ready and I would have had a great load of beans (yellow wax and red swan) but it seems a wise little bunny has found my garden out back and has dined rather well on the plants.  He has chewed down whole plants and eaten most of the beans.  Hopefully, we can catch him in the trap and have some beans this year.  The deer have found my corn and since I did have it planted out in the field (first year experimenting) I dug up and moved some of the corn closer to the house – I hope it makes the move and the deer stay away.  Rosie our hen is laying an egg about every other day – we had an omelet with 3 of her eggs … delicious!  The eggs are smaller in size than your regular store bought egg, but they should get bigger as she gets older.

 Fresh chicken eggs

I did have a little time to work on the quilt I am making for my daughter and I did realize it won’t be complete by the time she leaves for college (1 month) so it may end up a Christmas gift!