Mushroom hunting and country living

Already pickung chanterelle mushrooms in the woods

We foraged these today from the woods

Chanterelle mushrooms are found in july, but this rain and abnormal heat has brought them on a couple weeks ahead of usual picking times. I always found these on the edge of woods and property lines behind people's houses. Here is a reference if you want to mushroom hunt for these delicacies.

For more reference photos to find your own, use the search tool on this blog by typing in chanterelle mushrooms, or use the tags "wild edibles", "foraging", "chanterelles" and "mushroom identification" where I've shown these in video too.

I fried them with a little oil, salt and pepper over rice 

Rain flooding the garden but helping the berries

The rain has been constant here in northern Kentucky To the point it's flooding one of the gardens and the corn is laying over. At the same time, the rain is bringing on more blueberries and early blackberries.

Picked these this morning too 

Overall the rain is good for most things, especially the potatoes in the grow bags that are done flowering. I worry though the potatoes in the ground are getting drenched.

Potatoes fell over from the hard rain 

The beans are making the garden look like a jungle 

The rain has made it in impossible to hoe out the weeds 

The corn fell over from the hard rain too 

The squash like the extra rain for sure 

Tomatoes getting tall 

As the rain sets in at the beginning of summer, the flowers are showing themselves beautifully too.

Making pickles & admiring the rustic aesthetic of the garden

Garlic cloves, dill seed, mustard seed, and peppercorns with the pickles 

Melons and tomatoes 

Cucumbers and beans 

Besides the flowers, everything in the garden was started with seed I planted 

All the tomatoes were started from seed and the basil too 

I can't believe I started these peppers from seed, most the time I never have luck 

Garden harvests & gardens tours (videos)

Oh-so many things are fruiting in the garden. The berries, cucumbers, and squash everyday. Here are the blueberry harvests so far this week...

I'm fighting all the animals and insects in the meantime too. The beetles are ripping into the grape vines, cherries, plums, peaches, and the nectarines. So today I sprinkled all spice, nutmeg, chili powder and bkack pepper and everything I could. We'll see if this is effective.

The pears aren't bothered surprisingly. But the birds are finding their way in through cracks in the netting to eat blueberries.

Anyway...I'll post the video tours of the gardens below...

3 sisters garden, potato grow bags, and bucket tomatoes:

Home orchard and permaculture garden of melons, cukes, squash, peas, tomatoes and peppers. Everything in the gardens besides the potatoes were all started from seed.

Here is the video of the hardy kiwis as well. Last week I made a trellis arbor out of an old swing set that I recycled.

Pea soup recipe for dinner + blueberries from the garden

The bird netting is working since I was able to pick a lot of blueberries. I enjoyed them as a little snack today and I'll put some in my morning smoothie tomorrow.

It's great to pick a variety of garden food throughout the day for different meals, and it makes me proud.

I picked lettuce for garden wraps with other veggies and homemade guacomole in a flour tortilla. 

Later, I then picked a bunch of peas from the garden to make a soup.

For pea soup, shell them and boil them in water first. Cut up onions and carrots and add to the boiling soup. Continue adding water or veggie stock. If using water, you may want to add salt, pepper, garlic, or other herbs, but it's not necessary if using the stock. With the fresh peas, I had to boil them in water for an hour to get them soft to chew, and even then they could have been boiled longer. I added nutritional yeast and a little oil too.

Bird netting for blueberries & recycled arbor for Hardy Kiwi plants

I have been doing several different projects this week. First, I made a arbor out of an old swing set for the hardy kiwi plants to trellis. It took hardly any time to put it together by myself so I don't know why I had been putting it off for years. You can watch my mini video of them on my youtube channel.

Then I noticed birds eating at the blueberries so I covered the fruiting plants with netting. Six of the 10 blueberries are older and have a lot of fruit so I focused on covering them. I was annoyed because the netting ended up costing 52$ to only cover the six plants. 

But I digress...also this week I rolled down large rocks from the woods to use in the cob house. They were the size of boulders so I feel like my arms are dislocated or torn from my body. 

This week I also noticed my turtle buddy isn't leaving and it's completely planted itself in my watermelon patch. I remember a tarpin I took care of for months after it was stuck in our well; and the tarpins that come back to my garden, and I wonder if it's the same one...but who knows...

I've got a turtle buddy living full time in the garden

Made this arbor trellis for the hardy kiwis with an old swing set 

Put together bird netting for the blueberries