Root Cellar

With the harvest of our garden finished, here'a a photo of our stored food for the winter in our root cellar. A root cellar is one of the oldest and easiest ways to preserve fresh fruits and vegetables through the winter months in cold storage.  Our root cellar is an underground room used for preserving fruits and vegetables for several weeks or months. Shown hanging are cabbage and in the bags are potatoes, all root vegetables. Good eating this winter!

Got Milkweed for Honeybees?

The milkweed is the host plant  for the monarch butterfly but milkweed is also a favorite bee plant. I was amazed to see honeybees, bumblebees, and butterflies all enjoying the nectar from the milkweed plants.

Harvesting Sugar Pie Pumpkins

Let’s make a pumpkin pie! This is my second year growing sugar pie pumpkins and I'm expecting a bountiful harvest. I gathered my ripened sugar pie pumpkins from my pumpkin patch but have 24 pumpkins and more still on the vine that haven’t ripened. I can't wait to make pies, cakes, breads, etc. with these beauties! 

Last Apple Picking

The summer has flown by and fall is in the air. Picked the last of the Wolf River apples from the top of the tree. Even the Black Swallowtail butterfly with tattered wings stops to enjoy the last fruits of the season. I think the poem After Apple-Picking by Robert Frost and Genesis 1:29 sums it up.

After Apple-Picking by Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree 
Toward heaven still, 
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill 
Beside it, and there may be two or three 
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. 
But I am done with apple-picking now...

Then God Said, "I now give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the entire earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.
Genesis 1:29

Baked Summer Squash

With an abundance of summer squash and zucchini in my garden this year, I wanted to to use them differently other than a cassorole or frying. This recipe worked perfectly and was very tastey.

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds summer squash (zucchini and yellow squash)
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/3 cup bread crumbs
• 1/2 teaspoon flaked salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Remove the stem ends and slice the squash cross-wise in 1/4-inch thick rounds. 
2. Toss with the olive oil.
3. In a small bowl, combine the bread crumbs, Parmesan, salt, and pepper. 
4. Arrange the squash rounds in a 9x12-inch rectangular baking dish, or 10-inch pie plate. 
5. Sprinkle the bread crumb mixture over.
6. Cover the baking dish with foil and bake in the oven for 30 minutes. 
7. Remove foil and bake another five minutes until the top is bubbling and crispy.