Garlic Giveaway Winners!

Thank you to all who took the time to comment on my blog(s) for a chance to win some delicious Garlic!   There are 2 winners and they are ….

Real Life Farm Wife

I Read Do You?

Congratulations!!

Please send your mailing address to mailbox@therunninggarlic.com so I can mail out your package this Monday.   Thank you once again to everyone who commented.

We have been so busy packing and cleaning and doing the move thing it has been crazy!   I am excited but also sad to leave the home where are children grew up … so many memories.

Time for a new phase of our lives and many more memories ahead!

Moving the Garlic Giveaway Up!

We have changed our moving plans and will be heading out-of-town sooner than planned.   The internet provider where we are going can be unpredictable and I want to make sure I have the winners picked and the garlic mailed to them before we leave.   So with that the Garlic Giveaway winners will be picked August 12 and have 48 hrs. to contact me.   You can leave a comment on this post or the previous Garlic Giveaway post.   There is also a post at the Growing Phases Farm blog where you can leave an additional comment.   A total of two winners will be picked – one from each blog.

Thanks and Good Luck!

 

Sunflower Beauty

Add your photos to the Wordless Wednesday collection below and see more entries here.

Also don’t forget to comment on the Giveaway Post for your chance to win some Gourmet Garlic!

Another Gourmet Garlic Giveaway!

Last year I held a giveaway and one lucky winner won Gourmet Garlic from my harvest.   I decided this year I should do the same …

Garlic freshly grown in Illinois

All you have to do is leave a comment here or on Growing Phases Farm’s blog .  You can  leave a comment on both blogs – one winner from each will be picked and receive the Garlic as a gift to either use in your recipes, give as a gift or plant in your own garden.

Include your contact information (email address or website) so I can find you if you win.   If you rather not post your email you can send it privately to mailbox@therunninggarlic.com .   The winner will be announced and posted here on August 26, 2011 and will have 48 hrs. to contact me with their address for mailing otherwise a new winner will be selected.

Finally the Sungold Tomatoes are beginning to turn color and should be ready to EAT any day now … I can’t wait!   Also the Black-eyed Susan are in full bloom – they are biennial and bloom every other year – this is the year.
I have a few more pictures of happenings around the farm posted at Growing Phases Farm, so make sure to stop by and leave your comment for yet another chance to win the Gourmet Garlic…..best of luck to you!

Farm Name Selected

We have finally decided on a name for our place that carries meaning for us from our past, present and future business ideals.   Growing Phases Farm is our new name and although we haven’t  started officially doing business the name is in place!

 I have set up a Facebook page and another blog where I will be writing about happenings on the Farm and I am keeping my fingers crossed we can find a good internet connection here.   We are pretty remote and most carriers don’t reach us.

We were busy the last few weeks harvesting all the garlic and now this task is finally complete.   The 5 types of garlic grown this past season include Chrysalis Purple, Chesnok Red, Persian Star, Inchelium Red and Chet’s Italian.   The garlic will cure for a month before it is up for sale and many of the cloves will be saved for our planting for 2012 which will take place in October.   I also ordered 2 additional varieties – Music and Siberian, along with Lorz Italian and Broadleaf Czech to be started.   Overall, the growth and harvest went well, although much more organic compost needs to be added to the hard clay soil for better results.

The cucumbers have been plentiful allowing us to can enough to keep us pickle happy until next season.   I left the vines to grow a little longer since the chickens love cucumbers and will enjoy their refreshing taste on these hot, hot summer days!

I noticed more baby birds out and about and made sure to keep the feeders full for them.   If you sit and watch you can see the difference between the babies and the adults – besides the physical appearance, they are slower to move and they tend to observe what is going on around them.

Top picture is a baby House Wren – the nest is built behind a piece of wood we placed up against sliding glass doors.   The wood was picked up and placed there for no reason, but once the nest-building began – we didn’t dare move it.   The lower picture is a baby American Goldfinch watching the world go by.

Garlic past its prime

Some of the garlic I have from last season is starting to sprout and it makes sense since the garlic out in the ground is sprouting also.    It must sense that it’s time to grow!   At this point, the garlic is still very edible but it has lost its youthfulness and freshness.   I decided to dry some up in the Excalibur dehydrator and save it this way.   I will take it a step further and powder it for simple sprinkling into recipes.

This garlic press/slicer I found and purchased over the summer has been a true time saver!    Previous to buying it, I would cut each individual clove into slices and it did take forever.   Now I just pop the clove in the garlic slicer and presto …. nicely sliced garlic!

Patiently awaiting their time in the Excalibur

Here we have the garlic sprouting outside …

Planted in October to be harvested in July!

Make sure to add your recipe to Munchie Monday tomorrow.   I will be adding Garlic Herb Croutons … easy, easy!

My Gardening List for 2011

I finally started work on my Gardening List for the coming 2011 season.   Although I have notes and little reminders here and there, it’s time to pull it all together and get organized.

In previous years I have included my list on the above tab “Gardening” and will continue this year.   My biggest challenge when planning for the coming season is the fact that I am torn between two homes which are a travel distance of 5 hours apart.   I have learned over the past few years that you really have to be on location when gardening and if you are gone for several days in a row, you need to have someone look after all your plants.   This little tip hit hard last summer when I was gone for 2 weeks and the weather scorched out at 115 degrees and did a number on every little and big plant I had growing.   It was a painful experience and still very clear in my thoughts.   So as I look through my seeds, I have to first decide where I will be spending most of my time and if I do leave; will the plants survive.

The garlic was planted October, 2010 – 500 bulbs here up North and about 300 down South.   They are sleeping well underneath the huge layer of snow right now and will wake up as Spring approaches.   Mid-July I will be harvesting all the garlic and then it will cure (dry out) for about a month.   The 5 varieties growing this year are Chet’s Italian, Inchelium Red, Chrysalis Purple, Persian Star and Chesnok Red.

This year I intend to grow more Sunflowers.   They have always amazed me and I find them such a daunting yet graceful (in their own way) flower.   I have my seeds all ready and waiting the exciting season ahead … Chocolate Cherry Sunflower, Junior (good for containers), Cinnamon Sun, Autumn Beauty and I am trying the Edible Snack Seed Sunflower also.

I will be working on “the list” today and although I have my updated version posted, I still have to decide what to plant where and most importantly … Where am I going to be?

Will it be Munchie Monday or Menu Monday … that is the question!   The poll is still open for your vote !   Make sure to have your recipe ready for Monday … when the fun begins!!

Garlic Biscotti and Minestrone Soup

A perfect winter meal!   I have wanted to try a Garlic Biscotti for some time now and thought I would just fine chop the garlic and add to a recipe, but once I discovered this recipe using Roasted Garlic – I knew it was the way to go!

The recipe may need some adjustments since it didn’t rise as much as I had hoped … and I tasted the Rosemary flavor quite a bit and hardly any of the Garlic flavor.   So I will be tweaking the recipe next time around.

Roasting garlic takes about an hour and all you have to do is cut the top of the bulb off, drizzle with olive oil and cover.   Bake in the oven 45 minutes to an hour.   Your whole house will smell like “Garlic”!

The Minestrone Soup was perfect!   I love this soup and it has to be one of the easiest dinners to prepare.   Since the Garlic Biscotti only called for 2 large cloves of roasted garlic, I added the remainder of the bulb to the soup along with the rest of the ingredients.  It was quite delicious and with this soup you can add an assortment of vegetables – whatever  you happen to have on hand …. peas, green beans, cabbage.

I had intended to make a new recipe for dessert called Snowball Cookies, but instead I actually spent the afternoon outside shoveling Snow!   I didn’t pay attention to the weather this morning and had no idea we were in for this much snow … Surprise, Surprise!

Garden Goodies in the Winter

Preserving garden produce by means of canning is an excellent way to enjoy your garden during the cold winter months.   Along with this, another way to keep summer harvest coming is by dehydrating.   Here is a Post from a few months back showing my dehydrator doing a wonderful job drying garlic and tomatoes.   Now as a thick layer of snow covers the ground I can still enjoy the summer harvest!

Dried garlic, tomatoes and cayenne peppers – the peppers I simply let air dry and they can also be used in your crafty floral decorating.   The tomatoes are excellent and have a sweet flavor.   Having these ingredients within easy reach makes meal planning a little easier and quite a bit tastier!   I would definitely recommend an Excalibur Dehydrator for gift giving this Christmas or add to your own wish list.   Mine has paid for itself many times and is still cranking away drying more Chet’s Italian garlic which I will have listed in my shop selling in individual 2 oz. packettes some time this week.

I spotted this Spaghetti Bread recipe in an old recipe book, made some revisions and decided to bake up a loaf since I have the dried garlic and tomatoes ready for a recipe.   The dried garlic can easily be ground up in a blender (for coarse pieces) or a coffee grinder will powder the garlic for your own homemade garlic powder.   The bread does call for spaghetti as one of the actual ingredients so even though it sounds somewhat off the wall it actually tasted pretty good.   The dried tomatoes added the perfect taste.  A nice side bowl of marinara sauce for dipping and you have a totally unique appetizer, meal or even a gift!

HomeGrown Holidays and Giveaway

As each year passes I find myself growing, preserving and giving more Homegrown presents to family and friends and they Love them!  

The garlic harvest this year was excellent and gifts already have been given – fresh garlic, pickled scapes and garlic cloves … more garlic gifts will be given for Christmas.   I have only one more jar of the pickled garlic scapes left and those are mine … I really have enjoyed them and posted the recipe back when I discovered it.   In the Garden Online is the place I first learned about these wonderful garlic scapes and the blog writer, Colleen, also has a book out “Edible Gardening for the Midwest” which will be added to my Christmas wish list this year.

Since we are on the subject of Canning and books, I want to also mention “Canning & Preserving for Dummies”.   The author of this book, Amy, was actually the winner of the Garlic Giveaway I held not to long ago.   She hosts a blog over at The Farming Wife – check her out too!   I highly recommend both of these sources for your cooking and gardening interests!   Great gifts for others on your list too!

I made up labels to add to my canned goods this year in hopes of receiving the empty jars back.   Most people will forget (except my parents, they always return the jars) 🙂 and if they see this little reminder on the bottom of the jar when the goods are all finished up, odds are they will return the jar to you!

It’s has been a while since the Garlic Giveaway and since this is the week of giving thanks……. time to show appreciation to my friendly readers, I worked on some gift tags as a new giveaway this weekend.

These are actually stickers which were hand stamped – so you can peel off the back and place on your gift!

It is rather difficult to see the detail on the tags …. the stamped images are heat embossed which gives them a raised glossy look – pretty neat!   So leave a comment and the winner will be announced next Tuesday after the holiday and in time for adding to your holiday gifts.   Also the newest Linky starts today!!   The theme is Stocking Stuffers so make sure to head on over and add your listing – also on the same page I added a Linky to add your facebook fanpage.

Wishing Everyone a Safe, Fun and Enjoyable Thanksgiving!   Thanks All!