Garlic & Potato Harvest and Frugal Accomplishments

Joining in with Brandy for last week's Frugal Accomplishments.  I made yogurt and kefir.  Picked blackberries and mulberries.  Got books and movies from the library.  I made good progress on my quilt at my stepmoms.  It is 1 1/2 hours of driving each way, but I figure the gas is no more than having a private tutor for the day would cost :o)  I really enjoy her company, and there's no figure you can put on that.  I went through my closet, moved around the summer and winter clothes, and put a pile aside for the thrift store.  Most of the pile was uniforms.  I retired from nursing several years ago, and only do massage 2 or 3 days a month, so it was beyond time to purge.  I'm saving apricot seeds from organic apricots bought at Trader Joes.  I'll try planting these.

SO and I harvested our garlic and most of our potatoes.  The garlic was placed in my new carport to dry.  One end of the potato row looked like it was still growing, so we left those for a bit longer.  I harvested a handful of chocolate mint, which I put in with coffee grounds to make iced coffee.  Harvested lambs quarter, and M readied them for me to freeze.  Froze 2 bags.  I harvested a large basket of Kentucky Colonel spearmint.  I made a simple syrup with this, to use in mint tea or mint lemonade.  Harvested purslane and basil for pesto.  Made pesto with these and our garlic, which we all liked.  I'm happy to find a good use for the purslane, as it's so weedy in the garden.  Another recipe for a salad I tried some time ago was not very good.

Did laundry with homemade soap, and hung it on the line.  I found our tub leaking quite a bit from the faucet while SO was not home, so collected water in a bowl and added it to the washer while doing laundry, filled the dog bowl and used it to steam the lambs quarter.  We finally got some much needed rain, somewhere around 2 inches in the past few days.  Our rain gauge has sprung a slow leak.  Ours registered around 1 1/2 inches, but our neighbor across the road said we got 2 inches, before the last rain.  The same neighbor gave us 2 cucumbers, and I prepared Asian cucumbers with them.  Our first cucumber is almost ready to pick.  SO bush hogged a piece of our land that I used to pick blackberries on.  I will see if they are still there, or if too much has grown up around them.

I found some new, double pane arched windows on Craigslist at a good price, and purchased them for my workspace.  I dehydrated all but 3 heads of last years garlic.  I've been intending to do this for several years, and am happy to finally have done it.  There was still a good amount that needed to be composted, but there's a nice jar of garlic ready to be powdered.  I've gotten Krups coffee grinders at the thrift store when I see them.  The one we're using now has a cracked lid, which will be demoted to the garlic grinder, and another in better condition will become the coffee grinder.  I've started noticing fruit flies, which is typical during the warmer months here, and put vinegar with water in a jar with a drop of soap.  This has significantly cut their numbers.  Eggs are abundant these days.  I've made egg salad, and cut one up for the pups to add to their dinner.   I read a tip I'd not seen before, about making homemade pectin with lemon seeds.  I'm definitely going to try that.  Happy Summer!