Daisy Dream Flower Farm

Fall crafts

I love fall, it is my favorite season. I love wearing sweaters and boots, the leaves changing colors, drinking warm teas, making soup, and all the decorating for the holidays. I made a couple fall crafts that were really easy. First I made a new sign. I just buy the letters I want and spray paint them. This time I also bought some fake leaves and glued them to a cutout cardboard A. I love how it turned out. The next craft I did was making some flower arrangements. I cut down some of my shoots from my tall grasses for the base. Then I bought fake flowers for the fillers. Arranging them is so much fun. I also decorated my table with squash. I usually decorate with pumpkins but I thought this year I would do squash so that when I’m done displaying them, I can eat them!

Tomatoes

Tonight I decided it was time to do something with all my tomatoes. I filled a 5 gallon bucket with all the ripe ones. My husband and I made roasted and smoked tomato sauce. I had pans of tomatoes roasting in the oven, one on the grill, another on the smoker, and the leftover ones in a pot on the stove. I combined a few recipes but it was pretty simple. Onion, garlic, bay, oregano, and basil. I have never made sauce before but I was surprised that I only got 5 quarts out of about 20 pounds of tomatoes. I guess next year I will double the amount of tomato plants. But it turned out great. We had the leftover sauce with dinner, dipped focaccia bread in it. So goood!

Plums and birthday dinner

Yesterday I got about 7 pounds of italian plums from my friend. So today I made plum bbq sauce.

Today is also my husband’s birthday and he wanted ribs, so it was a perfect match. The recipe was really simple, I just adapted it for plums instead of peaches. I let it cook down for about 2 hours, then another hour on the smoker to add some smoky flavor. It turned out so good!! I also have had a bunch of dill leftover from making pickles, so it’s been in all my recipes this week. Today I made garlic dill potatoes and they are my new favorite way to make potatoes! I also harvested our lemon cucumbers and made a creamy salad with them, onions, and of course dill. What a great birthday dinner. For dessert we have cake pops. My son wanted chocolate and my husband wanted lemon, so I made both. Great day in the kitchen, hanging out with my loves ♥️

Ready for fall

Today I cleaned up the beds to get ready for fall. I picked our pumpkins the other day and put those out on the front porch. But the pumpkin patch was a mess. So got that all cleaned up. Cleaned up the flower bed, removed the old sunflowers and staked up the dahlias. I even found a new Bloom that was hidden under dead sunflowers and I must say it’s my favorite one so far, it’s so pretty!

Today I also planted all my starts. This time around I am using worm castings for compost when planting my starts. In the strawberry bed I planted green onions, cilantro, dill, and lots of lettuce. In the other bed I planted dragon carrots (they’re red), bok choy, and green beans. Not too much for a harvest but I’ve never had a fall garden so we will see how it goes.

Carrots and pickles

Today’s harvest was carrots from the garden. I also bought 12 pounds of cucumbers at Schuh Farms. I ran around to 4 different stores to find more canning jars. I finally found a store with some and I stocked up. Today I canned spicy dilly pickled carrots and spicy dill pickles. I even taught my husband how to can his own jar of pickles with one cucumber from the garden. All in all a good productive day.

Corn, corn, corn

Yesterday was the first day of school, my son is now in third grade. Since he is in the autism class, he gets to go in person for two days a week and virtual learning the rest of the week. So I decided I would get a job when he is in school, and for the weekends. I started work yesterday at a local farm, Schuh Farms. They sell all sorts of produce, fresh baked goodies, and even have cute house decor. We have gone there for years to buy our pumpkins ?

They also sell corn, fresh out of the fields. And what a good deal they have, 50 for $10! So of course I bought 50. Today my husband and I bbq’d them all, shucked them (after cooking), then took off the kernals. We ended up with 16 bags for the freezer. Not too bad for an afternoon ?

Cool little tool to take off the kernels

Moving on up

Today was a mixture of little things. I moved my green beans up to bigger pots. They seemed to grow to be huge overnight. I soaked the beans the other day and they are big enough to transplant less than a week later.

My husband hung up my garden sign on the shed today. I have had this sign for years, coming with me from house to house and it’s finally in it’s place. I love it. Today’s harvest was just what I have been craving, salsa. It’s so good when it’s right out of the garden! Also from the garden, a new Dahlia variety bloomed today and it is beautiful.

I also went to a couple garage sales and found some treasures. I bought an air plant at Skagit Valley Gardens a couple weeks ago and found the cutest little holder for it. I love how it turned out. Air plants are so easy to maintain, just soak it in water for 5-10 minutes every one to two weeks. Another great find was a pair of wooden lawn chairs, only $10 for the set! I see lots of nights by the fire in those? The last little thing I found was a cute poem. I think I’ll make some flower art with my son and display this poem next to it ?

Apple pie filling

Well it took 2 days but I’m finally done making apple pie filling. My mom helped me the other day and today I finished up. Total of 7 batches or 24 quarts, at 5 pounds a batch. And that is only HALF of my apple harvest! I gave about 30 pounds of apples away to friends. And I still have a drawer full in the fridge. I think I’ve processed about 75 pounds of apples between the apple pie filling and applesauce I’ve canned. I can’t imagine having more than 2 apple trees. But it’s been fun and it’s actually relaxing now that I have the rhythm down of how to can.

I also made some spicy dill pickles out of a couple cucumbers I harvested. I just added some garlic cloves and a jalapeno to the mix. Easy peasy ?

Potato harvest

Yesterday I harvested our potatoes. I waited as long as I could, and it was set to rain so it was time. I guess that I harvested about 25 pounds. I made mashed potatoes last night with the yukon golds, so yummy! Now I just have to wait for them to cure before I store them for the winter.

Mashed potatoes and zucchini fresh from the garden

More blackberries

Today we went out to the church park and picked more blackberries. This time I brought berry pickers with me! My husband and brother in law both picked massive bowls of berries. I had enough to make a double batch of blackberry jalapeno jam and a blackberry cobbler. I used jalapenos from the garden. Can’t wait to try the jam with some creamy brie on crackers tomorrow. Yum!