Hazelnuts and Frugal Accomplishments

I'm happy to be joining in with Frugal Accomplishments.  I harvested corn, removed the kernels and froze 2 bags.  Harvested our onions, which were very skimpy, a bit over one lb.  Some had rotted in the garden, and about half had rotten spots, so I cut the good pieces of those to dehydrate.  I canned salsa using our tomatoes, volunteer ground cherries, cow horn and sweet red peppers we had grown in past years, garlic, parsley and oregano, plus onions and spices that were bought.   I made a squash dish, which also used our tomatoes, corn and onions.

I prepared a homegrown meal, which J cooked on the grill.  There was okra, corn on the cob, beets with rosemary, and a zucchini, tomato, onion, garlic, & thyme combo which also had storebought romano and a portobella in it.  It was a delightful summertime meal.  I made a caprese salad with our tomatoes and basil.  Made yogurt and kefir.  Dehydrated squash., and beet skins for dyeing fabric.  Canned tomatoes.  I've had a lingering cold since last weekend that left, and then came back.  I made a cough syrup by cutting up 1/2 lemon, covering it with 1/2 cup raw honey in a pint jar.  I brought a cup of water to a boil, turned it off, added a handful of thyme leaves, and quickly covered it to keep in the essential oils. Once it had mostly cooled, I added the strained thyme tea to the honey and stirred.  I've taken a tbs of it as needed.  It should last a month or so in the fridge.

J & I harvested squash from several vines that had died- spaghetti squash, hopi grey, butternut and others I've forgotten the name of.  I started several cherry & grape tomatoes this year, including some Sweet Millions that were my Mom's seeds.  I throw some of these tomatoes in with the larger ones when I'm canning, and we eat them fresh, but there were lots coming in, so J came up with the idea to try juicing them with the new juicer.  I added in some of the smaller paste tomatoes, and did that.  This time, I just steamed them, and it is a thin juice, not like store bought tomato juice.  I'm thinking it would be best added to soups, or possibly vegetable dishes.  For a thicker juice, you can blend the remaining pulp and add it into the juice.  I think I'll try that next time.

We had some nice rain this week, so I replanted some of the fall vegetables that didn't come up with the first planting... more kale, spinach, 2 types of collards (one that J's grandfather grew, and Morris Heading), and a patch of mixed winter greens.  It's too late to plant more rutabagas.  Hopefully, I will get a handful of them this year from what did germinate.  That vegetable has been a real challenge for me.  I still want to replant beets and carrots, and get some cabbage and broccoli plants.  In the winter I had filled TP tubes with dryer lint and a bit of candle wax.  As I had a good amount of these, I've been tearing up TP tubes and tissue boxes and adding it to the compost bucket.  A good portion of the year, it's mostly kitchen scraps that go into the compost bin, so more browns are always welcome.  I cut a bouquet for the house, using zinnias, forsythia limbs that needed cutting back as filler, autumn clematis, and beauty berry.

okra, squash, pawpaws & hazelnuts!

This is a portion of Sunday's harvest.  The bowl, in front and center, is what I'm most excited about... hazelnuts!  This is our first good harvest.  Well, you really could say it's our first harvest, unless you've been reading here long enough to remember this post.  I gathered carrot and orlaya seeds.  A few kale seeds and lots of my mixed winter greens have sprouted in the garden.  At our ladies homesteading group this week, I was gifted several yarrow seedlings, and some sunflower seeds that have yellow and rust flowers.  I planted the yarrow, and fertilized them with nettle tea.

Once I removed the husks, there was just a bit over one cup of hazelnuts in the shells.  There are more on the shrub, not a lot, but some. These are what were on the ground, or shaken off.  My Mom made the best gelato using hazelnuts.  I think I may have just enough to make it.