Typically summer is when I make potato salad since salads and summer kinda go hand in hand. But, this recipe is scrumptious any time of year. It’s especially handy after Easter when I’m trying to make use of the dozens of eggs we dyed.

Since we always have plenty of fresh eggs, this recipe calls for a few more than an ordinary potato salad. It reminds of a potato salad and egg salad mash up.

INGREDIENTS

• 20 red potatoes
• 1 cup dill pickles, diced
• 7 hard boiled eggs, or steam ’em like I do
• 2 tablespoons yellow or white onion, diced
• 3/4 cup mayonnaise, store bought or homemade
• 2 teaspoons mustard
• 3 tablespoons pickle juice
• 2 teaspoons parsley, minced
• sea salt or kosher salt
• pepper
• paprika

THE POTATOES

Scrub potatoes.

Peel them, if you feel like it. Some days I give them a rough peel, some times I don’t peel them at all.

Slice potatoes in half.

Boil until fork tender. For me, that’s usually right around 22 minutes.

Drain.

Smash the potatoes – ideally with a potato masher. Mine, however, has ran away never to return apparently, so I use a fork. You are not making mashed potatoes, so a rough smashing will do.

If you opted not to peel your potatoes, you might want to pick out some of the larger skin pieces. That’s what I do.

ADDING THE OTHER STUFF

While the potatoes are boiling, I prepare the other ingredients.

I mince parsley, preferably the fresh stuff from our garden.

I dice the onion and pickles. I prefer little pieces, so I dice them fairly fine.

I use an egg slicer to chop the eggs.

When the smashed potatoes are cooled slightly, I stir in the mayo, mustard, pickle juice, salt, pepper and paprika.

Next I fold in the eggs, pickles and onion.

The final step is mixing in the parsley.

This recipe makes about 7.5 cups of smashed potato salad.

ENJOY!

Find a fork and dig in. It’s delicious!

Save

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On my quest to find ways to use all the feed sacks, I came up with bags to grow herbs and greens.

Making them is very similar to sewing the tote bag. The differences are size and no handles.

This is a fairly easy sewing project. My biggest problem, as always, is using the feed sack as fabric. It is slippery and sometimes jams the needle in my sewing machine. Going slow seems to help.

CUTTING THE BAG FOR HEIGHT

Trim the top and bottom of the bag to 12″ high.

CUTTING THE WIDTH OF THE BAG

Using scissors, cut the back of the bag down the middle.

Fold the bag in half(ish), centering the front.

From the center line, measure over 14″ & cut.

ADDING EMBELLISHMENTS

These bags were meant to be placed in my kitchen window and/or front porch, so I wanted to add just a little something for a homey feel. I have quite the lace and ribbon stash, so I chose to use them for the added decor.

It is easiest to add the lace and ribbon while the bag is one flat piece of fabric. I prefer to sew on the pretty stuff prior to sewing the bag back together.

To hold the lace in place while sewing, I first used a bit of fabric glue. It wasn’t totally necessary, but, it did help.

I chose a medium width ribbon, so there was enough to fold over the top of the bag. This created a nice, finished look to the bag.

SEWING THE BAG BACK TOGETHER

Fold the bag in half, inside facing out. Sew along the open edge about 1/2″ in. I sew a double line for extra durability.

Arrange the bag, inside out, so the seam is in the middle of the back. This ensures that the design on the front of your bag is centered.

Sew along the bottom edge.

BOXED CORNERS

The boxed corners are tricky to figure out at first. But, once you figure out how to fold the bag, they’re a cinch.

First, fold/push the bottom of the bag at each side to create a corner. The corner you make lays flat, but don’t expect the rest of the bag to.

I prefer these herb bags to have a wide bottom, so I create a fairly large boxed corner. On each side of the pointy corner, measure and place a mark at 3.5″.

Draw a line connecting the marks.

Sew along the line. Again, I do a double stitch.

Trim off excess fabric.

Repeat on the other side.

Turn the bag so the pretty side is out.

A PEEK INSIDE THE BAG

When done, the inside of the bag should look similar to this:

THE BAG IS COMPLETE

FILLING THE BAG

I put about 2″ of gravel at the bottom of the bag to help with drainage.

Next, I added dirt & compost.

Finally, I added plants. I started plants from seed earlier in the season, so I used those in the bags. Some bags had herbs, some had lettuce & kale.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Circumstances changed things up a bit this year, so for the first time we hosted Thanksgiving at our house.

• My day before prep included making jello shots and shot glasses out of jolly ranchers.
FYI – I made Jack & coke jello shots for the first time. They were good! Instead of boiling water, I boiled coke. Instead of adding the cold water, I added Jack Daniels.

• Farmer John picked out a beautiful fall bouquet for the table.

• I ordered cloth napkins from Amazon. Each napkin is a different color. Love that! I added a sprig of rosemary to each place setting.

• Because our holiday included friends, as well as family, I printed fun photo props. I printed my own Friendsgiving set. I also ordered 2 sets themed from the sitcom Friends.

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• Georgia
• Betsy
• Farmer John is working on a hay shed. The building also holds the milking stand.
• Pink dawn viburnum blooming
• I finally bottled the calendula salve I made from our calendula flowers.
• I also bottled our homemade mint extract.
• There are crazy mushrooms growing in the yard.
• The Delaware chicks from this spring are starting to lay.
• The youngest chicks on the farm, a Cream Legbar and Olive Egger

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Years ago we acquired a 3 barrel garden fountain. I liked it, but we didn’t have a place for it. We finally have a patio and a nice place for a fountain. However, I wanted to try herb gardens on the patio and these unused barrels seemed perfect.

Two of the barrels just wasting space in the yard.

GETTING THE BARRELS READY FOR HERBS

The main purpose of the barrels was to grow herbs. But, I envisioned our new patio with lights, so the barrel install included posts for hanging lights.
Top Left: Metal posted cemented into an old plant container. The container is placed in the barrel.
Top Right: Gravel spread at the bottom of barrel for drainage.
Bottom Left: Barrel filled with dirt & compost.
Bottom Right: Tomato cage placed over the post and into the dirt to support climbing or vining plants.

THE HERBS

I started many of the herbs from seed. I also bought a few from a local nursery.

HERB BARREL

The herb barrel and surrounding pots include:
Basil – Siam Queen
Lemon Balm – Melissa officialnis
Marjoram – Golden
Oregano – Sicilian
Parsley – Italian Flat Leaf
Rosemary – Simplyherbs & Tuscan Blue
Sage – Salvia officinalis & Dwarf Green
Tarragon – French
Thyme – Dot Wells French

extras:
Morning Glory – just for a tall, pretty element
Cucumber – that I didn’t plant (on purpose anyway)

the label:
black paint on brick

My original plan was to create three herb barrels. Somewhere along the way I altered the plan. One barrel is primarily herbs. One of the others is a pizza themed barrel. And the third barrel has a taco theme.

PIZZA GARDEN

Basil – Dolce Fresca, Sweet (Ocimum basilicum),
Chives
Oregano – Sicilian
Tomato – Costoluto Genovese, Aunt Ruby’s, & Black Plum
Thyme – Dot Wells French

the label:
sharpie on broken terra cotta pot
Next to the label I added a love rock. I put the rock here mainly because it makes me happy. Plus, I love pizza. And Italy.

TACO GARDEN

Coriander – Santo (Coriandrum sativum)
Peppers – Ancho Tiburon, Jalepeno Conchos, Cayenne Ring of Fire, & Anaheim
Tarragon – MexicanTomato  – Black Plum

the label:
black paint on a rock
There is also a rock with a tomato label painted by a child in Farm Kid2’s class.

PATIO LIGHTS

Each of the barrels has a cemented post with lights hanging from it. I wanted lights that could withstand our windy, rainy weather. I ended up getting the ones from Costco. They’re quite heavy duty and weigh more than I imagined. This put more strain on the posts than I was anticipating.

Two of the posts handle the pull from the lights well enough to be left alone. But, one of the posts leaned more than we were comfortable with. The temporary solution for this summer was running a guy wire from the top of the post to a chunk of wood. It’s not fancy, but it’s working.

The lights. The herb/pizza/taco barrels. They all turned out awesome. I love it!

This set up really has worked perfectly. I’m using fresh herbs more than in previous years since they are right out the kitchen door. Also, for some unknown reason the deer are leaving the plants alone. Score!

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• Still love okra flowers!
• Okra, cherry tomatoes & Mexican sour gherkins are growing in the aquaponics system.
• The water in one of our ponds completely evaporated. So, I took advantage of it and troweled out much of the duck sludge. This was literally a crappy job. But, I’m so glad I did it.
• Basil growing next to an herb barrel.
• The ladies are continuing to lay well, so I’ve been making lots of hard boiled eggs.
• Awhile back I ordered hatching eggs. Things didn’t go as I had planned and only one black copper marans hatched. Not that it’s a few weeks old, I noticed it has a few white feathers. Ugh! This was a damned expensive chicken for it not even to be breeding stock.
• Zucchini has been blanched and frozen.
• The tomatoes have been transformed into sauce. One batch has Italian flavor. The other has Mexican.

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Already well in to Augsut and here’s what going on:

• Tilapia feeding time
• An Easter Egger has decided to sit on eggs in the goat house.
• There is a cucumber growing in the herb barrel that I didn’t plant. Weird. It’s doing well, so I’m leaving it.
• Farmer John made me a hall table out of an old closet door. I love it! It holds cookbooks and cookie cutters.
• White leghorns are one of my favorite breeds for egg laying. They don’t eat a ton, and not too much disrupts their laying.
• A deer and our goat, Sven, ate dinner together one evening. Neither one seemed bothered by the other.
• For the first time I harvested mint to make mint extract. It’s sitting nicely in the cupboard for awhile. Hopefully it turns out as good as my friend’s did.
• I’m also making calendula oil for the first time. I love the calendula flower and I’m excited to turn it into a salve or soap.
• Farmer John picked peaches at a local orchard and canned them. He would have liked to have canned more, but he ran out of time.

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The summer harvest season is here. All the time and effort is paying off in delicious ways.

MAIN GARDEN AREA

Squash. That pretty much sums up what we’re getting from the main garden right now.

In a separate bed, but still in the main garden, are more squash & pumpkins. I planted these later than the first batch, but I think we’ll still get to harvest them before the first frost.

There is a handful of other things in varying stages in the garden, as well.

Raspberries! At the beginning of July, the raspberries were quite plentiful. A couple times I went to the garden for other tasks and came back with a shirt full of raspberries because I just couldn’t resist. By the end of July, the raspberries are mostly gone, but we are still getting a few.

FRUIT TREES

The plums were green at the beginning of July. But, now almost a month later they are ripe and delicious.

We have one apple tree that is so full of apples the tree can’t support them. I will happily take this problem. Our fruit trees, in general, have not done well over the years. I’m thrilled we will have more than one or two apples to munch on.

AQUAPONICS & GREENHOUSE

The tomatoes, Mexican sour gherkins, and Asian eggplants have gone bonkers in the greenhouse.

HERBS

Much of last year’s sage in the main garden has already grown, flowered, and gone to seed. Farm Kid2 collected some of the seed.

The herb barrels are doing well. The parsley, especially, is growing almost faster than I can harvest and use or preserve. I didn’t tend to the cilantro well enough and much of it has flowered and gone to seed. So, I planted more and will hopefully stay more on top of harvesting it. I also planted more basil, since much of the basil didn’t transplant well.

I have never grown tarragon until now. I’ve decided I’m not a huge fan of the flavor. But, I do love its flowers.

In the herb barrels are also a couple non-herbs – tomatoes and peppers. At this time, the best growing pepper is called Ancho Tiburon.

BOUNTY

Bounty in these pics:
Lavender – Harvested. Hung to dry. And now placed in a jar waiting to become sachets or soap.
Red Tomatoes – Turned into marinara with onions from the garden and herbs from the patio herb barrels.
Yellow Cherry Tomatoes – Just for snacking
Mexican Sour Gherkins – Also, for snacking
Kale – Let’s be honest. I’m not a fan of kale. I fed it to the chickens. In exchange I collected their beautiful, scrumptious eggs.
Raspberries – Devoured
Parsley – This batch was used in potato salad and the rest was frozen in oil to use at another time.
Squash/Zucchini – The majority of the squash has been blanched and frozen. The larger one were given to the chickens. And, some were made into zoodles.
Calendula – Picked. Dried. Now sitting in grape seed oil. Later I will transform the calendula/grape seed oil into a salve.

What fresh items are you harvesting?

The post How Our Garden Grows – July 2016 appeared first on .

• We have reached the time when the squash goes wild. Squash, squash, and more squash. I blanched some and am freezing it for fall or winter. The chickens have also had their fair share of the larger ones.

• The plums are ripening. And, they are yummy!

• The herb barrels are full and beautiful. This is my first time growing parsley. It’s growing very well. Almost too well. I need to research recipes that include parsley.

• Back in March, we lost all but one of our ducks. She was then fenced in with the chickens. She was not impressed with this. Eventually, she ended up getting out and I didn’t have the heart to put her back. Lately, she’s been sitting on eggs. They aren’t fertile, but I hadn’t gotten around to taking them away. And sitting on eggs is what kept her safe from the predator(s) last time. Unfortunately, she is now missing and her eggs are gone…

• Our laying ladies are granting us with a lovely array of colorful eggs. My favorite right now is the dark brown Welsummer egg.

• Because we’re going through a lot of eggs these days, I crushed a bunch of the shells. Some I’m saving for a craft and others I sprinkled around our tomato plants.

• The olive eggers that hatched a couple weeks ago are growing quickly. I’m sure they aren’t, but they seem to be growing more quickly than our other hatches.

• It’s hatch day! About the same time the others were hatching another batch were set in an incubator. Those ones are starting to hatch. So far, we have 2.

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Every year at this time I have mixed thoughts about our flowerbeds. I love all the blooms. The flowers are beautiful. But, as a whole, the beds are very unkept and overgrown. It is impossible for me to keep up with the weeds and deadheading. Too many flowerbeds, too little time. I’m working on coming up with a solution to this dilemma. Unfortunately, the solution will take a lot of time and a complete overhaul of at least one flowerbed.

Here are the majority of plants blooming now, amongst all the crazy.

This is the time of year when the shasta daisies really show off – and we have a ton of them.

The lilies/day lilies are also taking over the flowerbeds.

Every year I throw new wild flower seed in the meadow hoping for a little variety. And, every year the same ol’ daisies and blanket flowers take over.

The weeds are in full swing right now.

Stinking Chamomile, or Anthemis cotula. I acutally don’t mind this weed, but it does stink.

Top left: White Clover
Bottom left: Canadian Thistle
Right: Lady’s Thumb, sometimes referred to as smartweed

Queen Anne’s Lace

The butterfly bushes just started blooming, but they seem to be fading quicker than I remember in the past.

Potentilla ‘Goldfinger’
I don’t love this plant. But, it’s hardy and is a reliable bloomer each summer.

The lavender in the Bird Village, Lavandula ‘Jennifer’,  is looking lovely.

There is a little section near the pond in the front yard that I enjoy. Purple lavender growing next to the pink flowers of what I believe is a Potenilla plant. Nearby is also yarrow in a darker shade of pink.

A few other random items in bloom. This year the nasturtiums are putting on a poor showing, which is a bummer. I love nasturtiums in my summer gardens.

Left: Mallow. It’s pretty. But, I don’t recommend it. It grows like crazy… in all the places you don’t want it.
Right: Hardy gladiola. I adore the chartreuse color.

Calendula

We struggle getting plants to bloom in Farm Kid 2’s flowerbed. It is a favorite place for our chickens to take dust baths. This year, though, we don’t have many free ranging chickens, so the wildflowers actually have a chance to show off. I love it.

Pansy’s and viola’s are looking great in the shade garden. This is another place we struggle keeping flowers alive due to the chickens, but not this year.

We also have flowering going on in our food garden – like this tomato.

Flowering in herb pots. This is the first time I have grown tarragon and I’m loving the golden flowers.

I have to make our flowerbeds a priority. In the winter, there isn’t a lot of interest, but in general they look ok. Everything is green and vibrant in the spring, which is my favorite. By mid summer, though, there is just too much going on for the flowerbeds to look nice. I like a cottage, informal look. But, I’ve been struggling with making it informal, without looking unkept.

With a lot of work, maybe next July’s bloom day will have the whole effect I’m going for, not just pretty flowers.

To enjoy more Bloom Day posts check out May Dreams Garden

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