#thestudentfarmer

Today is attempt to get some sewing done day. After laundry, sweeping+mopping and dishes and little one lol.

So far, I've gotten an armpit tear repair in a t-shirt done and hemmed a onesie turned into a tank top for little one. Thought i had a bigger repair pile, to be honest. I was quite surprised it was so small.

Bonus sewing is a bit of some squares im making for another quilt. The block all put together will be about 10x10 inch (might be a little bigger, I forgot how big exactly.)

This one is made of odds n ends type of scraps. Mostly leftovers from other projects

I try hard not to keep too much of the too small for bigger stuff, but not what im looking for for other projects. Helps keep the pile and mess down. Also some of the pieces are from clothing I can't donate but has enough good fabric to keep out of the trash.

I got all my triangles sewn together (to make a 2 color square, these will be sewn together to make a large rectangle.)

I also got the center of 2 matching quilt blocks done. Plus the double mini squares (they will become 1 larger square of 4 minis)

Like this

The center

The end block will be like this

Hello and Good day~

Today is a quick garden update

Freeball patch,

Still looking pretty bare, if nothing comes up this week ill reseed it with some more of the 'everything goes" mix.

Next Is the tomato, pepper and squash row

The peppers havent grown much, though i did get a couple from the plant (pics further below!). The tomato 🍅 is flowering and fruiting!

Also towards us by the pipe I s a squash sprout, to be honest i thought the seeds got eaten or weren't gonna grow. We'll wait and see if more survive or make it.

One of the radish beds

Sprouting up good, ill likely thin out/harvest a few soon.

The radish bed thats gonna be for seed saving

There will be another post on them soon :)

Green onion & sunchoke bed

Jalapeños

The Chard are doing good, but need to be trimmed and the carrots have umbells in bloom now :D

Harvest of the peppers and 1 radish

These guys were nice and spicy! Hoping for more so I can make a special batch of chili bread soon 😋

Can't forget the hens gifts to us,

We've been getting a nice variety of cream, brown, speckled and greens recently. Im a bit bummed that the camera didnt pick up how nice the greens are!

Thats it for now,

Hello hello :)

Garden update today 😀

The free ball patch has been cleaned up and out of all the dead and dying

Looks very need now, I added 2 bhsofcompost an threwouta variety of random seeds. Good luck to the seeds! Ive left some flowers so I can get abitmore seed from them and some what I cutrentlybelueve us mullien starts (I want the leaves for herbal tea and for smoking purposes)

The tomato doesn't seem to be growing all that much, nor are the peppers. im hoping it's a plant issue, rather than bed issue.

Also direct seededsome zuchinni seeds here, though i have yet to see growth.

Some of the Easter egg rafishs are growing, ill likely be leaving most of them to go to seed toreplenish the bag that was lost.

Green onion still flowering throughout the garden

Corn and replanted area. I see 1 lil stalk starting 🥳

Thy grass grew back fast. If the corn cant or grows in Poorly i may do corn transplants with the next batch, just to see if I can.

The other batch of radish is flowering more and has started developing pods

Ill be collecting these pods. I am not yet sure what ill be replacing the radish with yet when the time comes.

Thr chard got a serious trim and bounced back fast!

I was hoping the trim would force more bolting,but it didn't yet. The chickens will continue to enjoy more chard once a week for awhile longer

A close up of one of the 2 chards which is getting ready to seed

Last but not least, the carrots.

Couple are getting ready to flower, if ive time i intend to going and thin out/harvest som of these carrots and just let a few go to flower and seed.

In addition i direct seeded some melons in oneif the beds and bush type beans in another.

Sadly the chayote squash is planted kicked the can, but one inside has sprouted by accident, so thy will be planted soon

Got some seeds started for transplants

Pear tomatos

Louffa

Watermelon

Tobacco

Zuchinni

Armenian cucumbers

Bird gourds

Okra

At the moment, as well ive slowly been getting the back garden into some sort of order. Updates to come when its a bit more ordered.

And i believe thats it for the current update

Thanks for stopping by :)

Hello 👋, today is a garden update

Now, as a heads up, the garden is weedy and messy. I took pictures before doing any weeding or cleanup. I was able to get into the garden afterward to clean up.

To start. The freeball patch,

I believe theres a bunch here thats died after going to seed. I will be collecting what seed I can but not until after the majority of the ladybugs have finished their hatch outs.

Most likely ill be tossing a random mix of food seeds this time round into the bed after clean up.

Tomato transplant added some peppers.

There's some peas and radish seed here.

Easter egg radish that im trying to get to go to seed for collection. There are a few that are flowering currently :)

These green onions are flowering! Im gonna let them finish then retrim them :)

Some corn, ill be reseeding the area with more corn. Further away is jalapeno transplants.

Closer is the Chard, im wanting it to go to seed but may end up pulling them if the seeds im gonna start if they grow faster. Further is more green onion

As below, plus a random suprise chard starting to flower.

Closeup of the green onion flowering

Carrots

From the weeding I got 2 big basket/buckets full of green stuff for the chickens. There was grass. Hollyhocks, greens from carrots. Chard leaves, some small sunflowers and an assortment of weeds.

Thats it for now :)

Ladybugs!

Ladybugs everywhere! Full grown, lady-gators and the pupation stage in between! Im sure somewhere even is the eggs, tho I haven't yet seen them.

Enjoys the pictures of all stages :D

And a pic of their food sources, aphids that went nuts when fhe dill and cilantro/ parsley started flowering.

This one's just some seeds coming in :)

Hello hello,

I got into the garden today and did some planting, weeding and soil amendment adding.

The free patch

There is a load of ladybugs activity, ill be making a seperate post to share that ❤️

I direct seeded some tomatos, and I think some lil sprouts are finally popping up, to hedge up a bit I did pick up 2 transplants and planted them.

Purchased and transplanted 2 peppers at the end of the row.

On the right side end is radishs.

Some green onions, that are getting ready to flower.

This bed has some sunchoke tubers as well, tho I dont expect to see much growth for a time.

Some more peppers (purchased and transplanted)

C9rn in the back there and some new soil added, once its settled a bit ill be planting more corn seed.

The left side,

Green onions and the self seeded chard (ive been pulling off and feeding the big leaves to the chickens)

In the right side,

Self seeded carrots and the peas

A self seeded nasturtium, I didnt know these could be trellised! Ive been letting these ones be for now, for the hummingbirds. I will be collecting the seeds once they start popping up as ive lost the bag I had for the prior grow and am not entirely sure where they went :/

I also planted some chayote fruit, with luck they will grow.

Some new onion bits got planted, tho im not sure they will grow as they were a bit soggy :/

Direct seeded Easter egg radish over a few beds as someone left the bag out, and they got wet. If any grow, I'll need to let them go to seed as ive no way to get more till next years seed event (if I can go)

Added soil to the back beds and laid out some new lines, soon as the soils leeched a few days ill be planting some strawberry roots, some loofah and im not sure yet.

Thats it for todays update :)

Hello hello 👋

Wanted to share some kitchen stuff ive been doing. My husband on occasion is able to get produce through work. (Stuff the buyer declines for various reasons and would get tossed otherwise)

Now, depending on how the produce looks, sometimes i just end up giving it to our chickens as free chicken feed. But if it looks good, I'll try to use it up in various ways.

This week they had sliced apples, we got 2 bags, but we dont eat a lot a fresh apples. But thats okay, because I know how to process them into different things 😊

This is what I started with. To be honest, i dont actually know how many pounds it is. I was sort of just winging it because originally, I was just going to cook them and turn the whole things into apple leather.

From raw

To cooked below. I added just a bit of water and lemon juice to keep them from scorching on the pans bottom. Medium heat for about mayby an hour- hour and a half. I did put a lid on it to help speed along the process.

Made the house smell very good! I was originally going to add pie spices, but decided not too.

There was water inside the pot, I poured it into a half gallon glass and diluted it to make apple juice. (Though i added a bit too much water, so its a little weaker than it should be.) I forgot to take a pic and it got drank quick! 😅

I used the blender to puree all the apples, saved a jar of apple sauce for snacking

Old peanut butter jars are awesome for fridge storing!

The fresh apple sauce/puree on the dehydrator trays

I did 2 trays as plain and realised i had a few bananas that needed to be used, so pureed them up with some of the apples and made 2 trays of appleXbanana fruit leather too.

The dried fruit leather, this one is the appleXbanana leather, the plain apple is a might lighter and not as sticky.

The remaining apple×banana mix i put in silicone molds and put in the freezer to make a chilly treat for later. Ill eventually get some sticks to make true Popsicles.

Thats it for now :)

I made cheese 🥳

Ive never done so before but had extra milk so figured id finally give it a go.

I went with a paneer style cheese, mostly because I had 1% milk and not whole milk (whoch is suggested for other cheeses)

I also didn't have rennet, just lemon juice.

Tbh, it was a lot easier than I expected it to be.

Milk in a thick bottom pan, at medium heat till rolling boil. Be sure to stir regulalry so it doesn't burn to the bottom of the pan. (I didn't have a lil burn on afterwords but I dont think that much altered the final product)

When it comes to a rolling boil, turn it off immediately. I left it on the burner. Add 2-3 tablespoons of lemon juice (or vinegar) gradually while gently stirring. The curds will start forming and this yellow-green liquid, called the whey will form. Once curds begin forming stop stirring and let sit 5-10 minutes.

Line a colander with cheesecloth or fabric that'll let liquid through. Pour the curds and whey through it. You can collect the whey (i did) for use elsewhere (such as baking, making pancakes, marinades. Jsut straight drinking).

Squeeze the liquid from the curdss/cloth and place in your mold.

For me it was a glass tupperware

I accidently took it out of the cloth early (its supposed to rest with a weight on top for a few hours) and put it in the container before it'd firmed up.

Cane out a bit chewy, but I was expecting that with its source milk being 1% milk. This is about maybe 12ish oz? Of cheese.

Ill be making cheese again! Next time tho I think im gonna add some greenonions or other herbs before forming it.