Gardening – Cathy At Home on the River

The Carrot Harvest

The deer around here have discovered my gardens, and have been nibbling on things. They especially like carrot tops, and have been pulling some of the carrots up with the tops, sooooo, I decided that I needed to harvest the carrots. This year, I grew the greens on the south side of the house, soContinue reading “The Carrot Harvest”

Fall Gardening

It is the time of the year when I have to clear out the summer vegetables, and get to work on my fall and winter garden. I’ve actually been working on it for a while, but I have been remiss in posting about it. A couple weeks ago, my brother and his family were inContinue reading “Fall Gardening”

Summer Gardening

As I mentioned in my last gardening post, our garden has been super productive this year. I’m sure that I have harvested well over 100 lbs of produce–tons of kale; 60+ heads of romaine lettuce; bunches of arugula; about 10 lbs of potatoes; 20+ lbs of cucumber; and the tomatoes are going to outpace everything.Continue reading “Summer Gardening”

Push to Finish Potting Shed

Well, I thought that we were going to leave things as they were in the potting shed when I gave you an update on the garden, but I was WRONG. My husband wanted to get it finished and off of his list of things to do, and he didn’t want to move the manufactured stoneContinue reading “Push to Finish Potting Shed”

Spring Gardening–Shitakes

So in the EARLY spring of 2023, my husband innoculated some sweet gum logs with shitake spores. We forced them to fruit last fall by soaking them in our big wagon filled with water. We did the same thing again this spring, and were aided by TONS of rain this spring. Here are some photosContinue reading “Spring Gardening–Shitakes”

Making Mushrooms

My husband bought me a Shitake mushroom “log” for Christmas 2023. It was a really neat gift and I loved it. So for Valentine’s day 2024, he did a bunch of research and bought the stuff to innoculate a bunch of logs–and this post is about harvesting Shitake mushrooms from those logs: https://cathyathomeontheriver.com/2024/09/22/fall-garden-update-shitake-edition/ I amContinue reading “Making Mushrooms”

Shitake Harvest

We harvested SO MANY mushrooms and we used a bunch, but there were too many for us to use before they went bad. I estimate that we picked a total of about 7 lbs. So, I cut the stems off of all the mushrooms. I borrowed my mom’s dehydrator, and I dehydrated the mushroom. IContinue reading “Shitake Harvest”

Homemade Tomato and Red Pepper Bisque

Given the weather around the country today, this seems an appropriate recipe to share with you…. Ingredients: 3 tbsp olive oil 2 large onions, diced 3 carrots, peeled and sliced 8 cloves of garlic, minced 56 oz. canned tomatoes (I used some that I canned last summer) 1 cup chopped roasted red pepper 1 quartContinue reading “Homemade Tomato and Red Pepper Bisque”

Fall Garden Update–Shitake Edition

So in the EARLY spring of 2023, my husband cut down a sweet gum tree and bucked it into six logs that were about 4′ long or so. He drilled a bunch of holes in each log and we innoculated them with shitake spores–they are pegs that you pound into the hole, and the coverContinue reading “Fall Garden Update–Shitake Edition”

Bright and Cheerful Table

My zinnias are going absolutely crazy and providing great cover for my sweet potato vines. There are TONS of yellow and orange zinnias in the mix, so I created this table to use them. I found a pale yellow Southern Living brand flower arranging container (the lid has holes in it to hold the stems)Continue reading “Bright and Cheerful Table”