Cherries !!!

I DID NOT GROW THESE beautiful tasty cherries.  I wish I had a tree, but unfortunately we do not.  A kind co-worker offered to let us finish cleaning off his tree and I swear we got a couple hundred dollars worth off the tree.  I am so into planting a cherry tree now.  :)

I do not know how many pounds we picked, I just know it was a lot and after all my canning efforts, we still had 11 lbs for fresh eating!

23 quarts.  Makes my food storage happy!  Yummy yummy!!

My Garden

I have a tiny tiny lot.  I suppose it is large compared to someobdy in a town home or condo ...  but for a stand alone house, it's small.  Not even 1/5 of an acre and the house is huge at 3600 sq ft.  So if you can imagine, there is not much yard left.

Some people think I have such a huge garden, but the fact is ....it is only 240 sq feet.  It is only even that big, this year after we put in 2 more beds.  We have 6 4x8 beds and 3 2x8 beds.  In this space I have been able to grow 19 tomato plants (we lost one), 1 bell pepper, 32 ft of beets, 56 ft of carrots, 40 ft of bush beans (if you compared it to row plantings), 1 watermelon vine, 3 cucumber vines, 2 zucchini, 1 yellow crook neck and 2 smaller melon vines like honey dew.  In my beds I have also added the permanent plants of lavendar, dill, Rhubarb, pot marigold and chives...I think I may have to replant the chives.

I have some border beds...what others use as flower beds, and in them I have planted various herbs and edibles.  I have mint, marjoram, poppy, thyme, and pineapple sage.  We have a planting of raspberries above a retaining wall and a grape vine that frames a window.  We have planted peach, apple and choke cherry trees.  I have plans to plant more herbs and edibles.

My point in this posting is ...  no matter the size of your yard or garden.  You can grow SOMETHING.  Only have a small decorative flower bed??  Thyme is a beautiful plant which produces green or green/yellow foliage and purple flowers.  Mint, Sage and Chives are just green foliage and if you interplant them with flowering bulbs for color can make a low maintenance and beautiful border or bed.

South facing window?  Hang a pot w/ cherry tomatoes.  Small patio or porch?  Plant stands with anything can be nice.  Cucumbers and tomatoes can make good container vines while peppers and eggplant and almost any herb make pretty upright plants.











Don't judge me.  I was too lazy to roll up the hose for the picture.  :)  We have the auto water system working now so no more hose except when starting new seeds.

I love my poppies.  They grew and bloomed!  Last year, they grew and died.  :)   This bed is about 2 feet deep and runs the length of my front porch.  I have room for a few bush/trees here and plan on planting currant bushes.  The poppies are planted to border the currant bushes I will plant next spring.  I love red flowers, they are my FAVORITE!

Mexican Chicken

So I got this recipe at church ..... I don't even know how long ago.  I finally decided to make it last sunday, only to realize that ....between the time church gets out and my hubby leaves for his evening meetings  I DID NOT have 2 1/2 hours like the recipe called for.  I was about to set it aside for another day, when I was inspired to make it out of food storage instead!

Food Storage is so wonderful.  While some things take longer to prepare (dry beans, grinding wheat for bread, etc) other things more than make up for it, like canned meat.   I bottle my own meat, but have a small amount of store bought stuff that I bought to build up my supply in between finding fresh/frozen chicken on sale.  I can't wait for the store bought stuff to be gone...it's not as good as the home canned.  I buy whatever chicken I am choosing to work with (breast/whole/bones/boneless etc..) when it goes on sale and bottle it up in either 1/2 pints or pints.

So....this isn't the exact recipe I got...it's my food storage version of it.  It was very very tasty!

MEXICAN CHICKEN

2 12.5 oz cans of Chicken Chunks (1 1/2 pnt) w/broth

1 pint  Crushed Tomatoes w/juice

1 can Diced Green Chili's

2 Tbs Minced Onion, dry

2-3 Tbs Taco Seasoning

Pour all the ingredients into a pot with their broths and juices.  Break the chicken chunks into shreds and mix all the dry into the broth.  Simmer until enough liquid is absorbed/evaporated to make it a good consistency for tacos or burritos.

I made this into burritos, using 1 1/2 c. dry rice, which I cooked, and opening 1 can of olives and 1 can of beans (kidney or black)  Letting everybody make their burritos and adding a vegetable as a side dish, this recipe will easily feed 6-8 people.  We topped ours with cheese and sour cream since it's not a desperate food storage time yet.  :)  Might as well enjoy it while we can, right?

This would make a great chicken taco salad with tortilla chips and lettuce or a delicious taco. 

I must confess, I completely forgot to take pictures the night I made it, so these pictures are of my leftovers the next day when I warmed them up and served them for lunch.  :)    I think they were tastier the second day!