Country Living Skills

We saw one of the male praying mantises again today, and it has grown quite a bit ! We think it grew so fat on our Japanese beetles for they have disappeared completely out of our garden already. Well, have a look at the pictures if you like… I rotated two of them, and you know what, these insects look rather otherworldly if you rotate the picture.

The canning season has begun, quite obviously… We started this year with hot peppers in oil, about 6 pints of them. We used green chili peppers, Hungarian Wax peppers, and a few Romance and Bell Peppers too. Here is the recipe:

HOT PEPPERS IN OIL

Mix and boil together:

• 1/2 water and
• 1/2 vinegar
• 1/4 cup salt

As for the amount of water and vinegar, you need enough to cover the amount of peppers you have.

Cut peppers into rings, and it helps a lot to wear gloves when cutting up the hot varieties. Put the pepper rings in a large sauce pan or a Turkey roaster. When the mixture boils, it over the peppers, and let the peppers stand in the liquid for 24 hours.

The next day, drain well, but do not rinse. Put the peppers in canning jars, squeeze surplus liquid out, tamp peppers down and layer with garlic, oregano and basil. Then add oil to rim, and insert a wooden spoon handle between peppers and jar to release trapped air, moving the spoon around the jar. Add more oil if needed. We used olive oil fro one half of our jars and vegetable oil for the other.

The peppers will keep without processing. Enjoy

We are using this book a lot… Maybe you will find it useful too if you are new to the whole homesteading business or are just looking for something that sums up everything you need to know in times such as these…

We just wanted to share a picture from our garden

Via: iStockAnalyst .com

Water thoroughly and deeply

Watering can be the biggest task in August particularly if the weather gets hot. Vegetable gardens, most flowering plants and the lawn all need about 1 inch of water every week to keep them green and looking nice. Be sure to water thoroughly and deeply each time. When possible, do your watering in the morning or early afternoon so the soil has a chance to warm up before the cooler evening hours set in. Deep watering will induce the plant’s roots to grow deeper, where they are less likely to dry out. The added benefit is deep roots anchor the plant into the ground better. Light, surface watering actually wastes water, because the water never actually reaches the root zone of the plant, and the moisture rapidly evaporates from the top inch of soil. The best way to tell if your plants are receiving enough water is to take a trowel or shovel and dig down a few inches. The soil should be moist at least 3 or 4 inches deep to ensure that the water is reaching the root zone of the plants. Of course, if you planted drought-resistant plants in your garden, you won’t have to water as often, but the principal of deep watering still applies.

Gathering herbs

As your herbs mature, gather them for drying regularly. Harvesting once per week is ideal. Keep your basil deadheaded. For most herbs, a well-drained soil will give the most flavor and scent. Do you know the difference between a herb and a spice? A herb is from the foliage of a plant, while spices are from the seeds, bark or other parts of a plant; some plants supply both herbs and spices.

Fruit care

Strawberries should be thinned out before fall. Remove all but two or three runners from your main plants for abundant, large fruits. If you have diseases on your fruit trees, get rid of the affected fruit. Don’t let them sit under your tree as sources of infection for next year.

Finding late bloomers

Mid- to late-summer blooming trees can be hard to find if you move beyond crape myrtles. Some shrubby plants work well when pruned into small trees at providing height and later season interest. The old stand-by, PeeGee hydrangea with its large white snowballs makes a showy and distinctive small tree if trained upright when young. Butterfly bush can also be trained to a single trunk and grown as a tree. Look for vigorous-growing larger varieties such as Opera rather than the more compact Nanho forms.