New from old(er)

On November 19, 2015November 19, 2015 By talkeetnagirlIn GrowLeave a comment

Lots of blowing snow today. Instead of driving the highway into Wasilla to work, I preferred to live another day. Staying home and will make up the day later.

An update on the carrot soaps I made a few weeks ago. All INCREDIBLE soap! So luscious on the skin. But… batch three had lather just a bit more yellow than I wanted. (batch three below)

So, even though I loved the striking look of this soap, I decided to rebatch it. Rebatching soap involves shredding or grating it and melting down to add more ingredients or use in another soap. Since I wanted to tone down the yellow, I added the shredded soap to a new batch of luxurious plain soap. Then the whole shebang sat in the crockpot to soften and meld together. Still very beautiful, just different. Annatto seed and carrots are what give it this beautiful color. I like it better now!

Lovely taters!

On October 10, 2015October 11, 2015 By talkeetnagirlIn GrowLeave a comment

I wanted to share some of the beautiful potatoes we grew this year. (I read The Martian and we saw the movie yesterday. I’ll never think of potatoes again without thinking of Mark Watney!)

For breakfast this morning. From the left, Yukon Gold and German Butterball, Peanut (in the middle), top right is Cherry Red, and lower right is Party.

Here they are cut (with All Blue on the left and Magic Molly (purple, almost black). Peanut at the top, Party have the pink streaks, German Butterball lower right, Yukon Gold lower left, All Blue left, and the purple-black in the center is Magic Molly.

Soon to be sauteed with sweet onions and eggs. Deelicious!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Wrong

On August 10, 2012 By talkeetnagirlIn GrowLeave a comment

This should be a bed of beautiful carrots. Jake, the dog, thought so too. So he dug them up and ate them.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Growth

On August 6, 2012 By talkeetnagirlIn GrowLeave a comment

Serviceberry, 8/6/12 — Ripening Serviceberries near Talkeetna, Alaska

Peas can be vicious and aggressive (but lovely and tasty)…

On June 28, 2012June 28, 2012 By talkeetnagirlIn GrowLeave a comment

June17, 2012 We are building pea frames right now. 2 x 4’s for a frame, fully 8 foot tall. 2 x 4 across the top and synthetic twine for the peas to climb. Love peas, these being Sugarsnap. (In the pic below, on the right are SugarAnn, slightly shorter vines that bear a bit sooner. These were also planted about two weeks later.) Edible and wonderful and sweet at any stage of growing. (Horses and dogs think so too) But they get very TALL, as you must know if you’ve grown them before. Easily 10′ – 12′ so they need a monster trellis.

Last year we built what we thought would be a good sturdy trellis, but no. As they climbed up, over and started back up, their weight collapsed the trellis. Not this year! (I hope) Sometimes, we feel like Bill Murray against the gopher (the peas!) in Caddyshack.

Transplanted more red raspberries today. They are Latham and do really well here. My new raspberry bed is a long mound of compost with added bonemeal to the compost. The transplants are watered in with an Alaska fishmeal (5-0-0) watering.

If you aren’t composting, I recommend it. It really does plants good and holds moisture perfectly.

Big day for us. Curt seeded the back (future pasture) land. Now we are praying for rain to get our seed off and growing. Our second choice is dragging hose out and setting up irrigation. That’s our afternoon project.