Signs of the Season

I've been busy getting things ready for gardening season- I can't wait!

Starting tomatoes, peppers and ground cherries indoors- they're almost ready to move outside!

Anxious to try these ground cherries- sort of a cross between a tomatillo and a gooseberry

 

The "farm"- almost ready for a new growing season!

I've also been filling up the HazelTweed shop with lots of new goodies...

Lemonade. Acorn Earrings

Lot of 3 Vintage Patons Patterns- Make your own toys

Instant Stash- Lot of 4 Jaeger Monte Cristo Vintage Yarn

And doing a bit of spinning here and there...

Sweet Pea. Handspun hand dyed Merino Art Yarn

 

Honeycomb. Handspun, Hand Carded Art Yarn

All in all, I'm pretty happy that it's finally spring, and so is Sol!

Fall Abundance

We have been fortunate enough to enjoy a long, wonderful fall this year.
Our tomato harvest was the best on record, and we recently harvested our potatoes:

 

There's also a few onions in there too :)

We didn't buy 'seed' potatoes; instead used some of the sprouting potatoes in our pantry- and it seemed to work just fine.  We grew mostly yellow yukon gold, and there were a few red in there too.  Some of them unfortunately turned green- but we'll stick those in the ground now and see if they'll sprout next year.  (green potatoes are apparently toxic)

The flowers and other vegetation in our yard is slowly dying off for winter- but certain plants have become more beautiful in the past couple weeks:

 Chinese Lanterns

the bees love these purple flowers (no idea what they're called)- one of the last plants to pollinate!

marigolds after our first killing frost, Oct 17.

 

The beautiful changing colors of the virginia creeper

I dug into my stash of buffalo wool recently and made this season's first pair of mitts:

My hands are chronically cold, so I think these will be perfect for all the dog walking we'll be doing this winter.  The wool is so lofty and thick, its like a blanket for your hands :)

I think I'll be making more too, its an enjoyable quick pattern.

The dog days of autumn

How can it almost be the end of September already?
I admit, I've been absent from my blog as of late... day job (of recent: huge weekend-long arts festival) and harvest time have been keeping me busy.  But with the sudden onset of fall's chillier weather (and lack of a real summer) I've eagerly gotten back into my fiber stash, knitting needles and crochet hooks. 

One of the dog cowls Sol modeled made it into an etsy finds post & email last week- so I've been busy designing and making more.  I listed 2 more recently:

And I have a dog wear section in my shop now.

I have also been making human things lately, too:

And have been busy spinning up a huge-ish custom order of my pearls yarn:

Harvest wise, I have made lots of walnut cranberry zucchini bread, pickled bean salad, marinated zucchini with garlic and herbs, apple juice/cider, and I am currently waiting for our 15 gallons of tomatoes to ripen so I can can (yes you read can twice) some salsa, including the jalapenos, onions and herbs we grew!  I'll also be blanching and freezing chard, peeling and chopping apples for the freezer, digging up the herbs and potting them inside, and I'll leave the root vegetables in the ground a little longer to sweeten up.

Oh and I musn't forget about this humungous spaghetti squash I found in the squash jungle last weekend: 

Sol is there for scale!
I'm slowly working my way through it, sawing it apart and baking chunks, mashing them and freezing.  For such a large size, it is still full of flavor and is wonderful with some butter, herbs and s&p.

Eatin' Weeds

My edible weeds article got published on Etsy this past monday!

I've been going on about purslane ever since I found out it was edible.  We have sooo much of it in our garden!  It's a pretty darned amazin' plant if you ask me.  A bugger weed to have in your garden, of course.  When I weed, I usually let the weeds dry out on the sidewalk for a few hours before I get rid of them.  Purslane sat there for 3 days and it still looked juicy!

It was really rewarding to read all the comments people left on the article.  Many people said they had been pulling lots of purslane but never realized it was edible.  Others were familiar with it and told stories of their families eating it.
I also received some really yummy sounding recipe ideas including:

I usually saute it with garlic (gotta use fresh garlic), chopped onions and tomatoes (plus salt and pepper) with either cubed chicken breasts, ground pork/beef, but my fave with it is sardines (with tomato sauce, not the mackerel ones). I know that not everybody is a fan of sardines. I've seen on magazines & other TV shows where they simply blanch it and include on their salads, while some put purslane in stew - I already tried that. I served it on top of rice... Yum yum! Just thinking of it makes me hungry. I better grab some now on our backyard, we have a lot of them in the garden

One of my all time favorites! After cleaning the leaves, I mix them with plain yogurt, add a little garlic, salt and chili pepper. It makes a refreshing summer salad! You can also cook purslane any way you prepare spinach. I just LOVE it :)

Here in Cyprus it is eaten raw in salads. I never thought of cooking it tho! I got lots of this "weed" growing in my garden.

We make purselane pickles from ours! Try it, you'll like it.
Crunchy and delicious.

In Turkey it is also considered a veggie. Besides in stews we eat it raw mixed with thick biological yoghourt, fresh garlic, salt and olive oil. Leave it a couple hours like that to get the flavours mixed well and ieat it with fresh bread, delicious! :)

Purslane is also a great addition to soups, thickens it up a bit!

Thanks everyone, for all your comments.  It was pretty exciting to not only have my article published, but get so much positive feedback and know that people have been inspired to try it themselves!

Do you have a favorite edible weed?  How do you eat yours?

Update: New Growth in Sight

As we finally get some heat after all that rain, things are growing steadily around here...

• As you may notice, I now have a new web address for this site:  www.offthehooks.net
  I thought it was about time!  If you are a follower, things should automatically re-direct, but if not, please add the new address to your reader!

• I reached 200 sales in my shop last week!

• We're eating fresh rainbow chard, strawberries, zucchini, onions, lettuce and herbs from our backyard farm (After over 5 years of intensive backyard gardening, am now calling it a farm- and maybe that way we will actually get a 'real' farm sooner!).  The potatoes are doing awesome, the pumpkins and squash are starting to crawl, and the pole beans have almost reached the top of their tipis, and the apple tree is bowing from all the weight! 

• I did a little re-design for the Trans-Canada Etsy Team blog- kinda spiffy, huh?!

• Lots and lots and lots of new fleeces are sitting in my studio.  Natural merinos, colored merinos and local coopworth are just waiting for me to comb, spin and card them into something soft and squooshy! I sold out of my first batch of pearls undyed merino yarn within 12 hours of listing it.  But more coming soon- and it's the softest, silkiest merino I've worked with yet.  Just perfect for makin' baby stuff.

•  I've started listing art batts in the shop too; me and Mrs. Madewell have gotten re-acquainted and she is producing some lovely stuff.  These are super fun to spin or felt.  

Spooky Candy

I can't believe Halloween is almost here- I have no idea where October has gone!  We haven't really had a fall here, we had a wonderfully warm September, and then before the leaves could turn gorgeous yellows (we don't get too many other colors here), everything froze while it was still green and fell off the trees!!! (although the lilacs outside our house still have living green leaves on them- figure that one out!)  And beleive it or not, I'm still trying to find ways to use up tomatoes!  I've been canning and boiling and freezing like a mad woman!  But having too many homegrown tomatoes is not such a bad thing.  I guess you could call our tomatoes the candy of the garden.

Now, speaking of candy, I wanted to say that I am in the etsy voter again, this time it's themed around candy, specifically "Which Candy item gives you a sugar high?"  My candy hand-painted, corespun merino is currently in 6th place!!

I'd sure appreciate your vote, come check out all the lovely items here.

And also speaking of voting and Halloween, the TransCanada Etsy team is having another one of our fun fun monthly challenges!  Rhonda from myhandboundbooks is hosting this months Halloween theme.  Come check out all the spooky entries over at our team blog and vote for your favorite, and win yourself a cute little halloween gift courtesy of myhandbound books:

Feeling Dandy about fresh food

I'm feeling kind of sad that the weather has suddenly turned cold. If I don't close the windows at night, its so chilly in the morning I have to turn on the oven just to warm up! I've been spending lots of time in the Kitchen, trying to preserve the abundance of food I know I'll be missing in the middle of winter. So far I have made some strawberry+rhubarb, Apricot, and Raspberry jams:

Blanched & froze rainbow chard & kale, made a huge jar of super-yummy bean salad, hubby and friends made a huge batch of apple wine, and we spent a whole night collecting wild saskatoon berries, sour cherries, and wild hazelnuts (below):

Finding the hazelnuts made me so happy- I didn't know for sure that they were hazelnuts but I had a hunch, and luckily it was correct! The ones shown above were collected in late July, we went back about 3 weeks later and there were barely any left; as they ripen & mature, the squirrels raid the forest. The amount of shells I found on the ground was evidence of this phenomenon. But I can't wait till have time to roast & eat the ones I did collect- what a treat!

We have about 40 tomato plants, most of them were planted by my hubby from seed back in March. Some of them were "volunteer" plants that must have sprouted from seeds in the compost heap- oh, how I *love* volunteers! Below is a shot of some of the "tomato bushes", as I like to call them, and some of their fruits. It's been such a cold summer that the tomatoes are only now starting to ripen :(



And lastly (for now), also somewhat garden related, I'm even sad about seeing the dandelions die this fall. I wanted to mention my Dandelion handspun, handpainted yarn is in this week's Etsy Voter. There are some lovely yarns chosen, so please go take a look, and if you feel inclined, please give my dandelion yarn some love! Also exciting: dandelion is off to Holland for my very first international order!!! So pleased that someone there loved it enough to order it!

July is on it's way!

July is just around the corner!! (now, when will the nice weather come??)
Two important dates are coming up:

• Tommorow (July1st, Canada Day!) is the last day to participate in the TransCanada Etsy Team Roadtrip (click for info)! When you make a purchase in one of the participating shops, you get one ballot for each $10.00 you spend! This gets you into our two draws; one for an amazing gift pack worth approximately $350.00 with over 20 items, all from the participating artists. You'll also be entered into the draw for the all-canadian recycled rag-rug, woven with cut-up upcycled t-shirts sent in to our weaver, fiveforty. This one is worth approximately $240!!! (check out the TransCanada link above for pics)
  

Thursday, July 2 is the last day to get in on my current discount for my blog readers! Receive 20% off in my shop when you quote "craftyash" in the notes to seller. I will refund the difference via paypal, or you can wait for a revised invoice.
*This discount doesn't apply to items that are already part of a separate sale.





Oh, and did I mention my garden? I'm hoping for a hot July so my little tomatoes will get bigger and turn red! Here's a little peek at some of our heirloom Tigerella tomatoes... yum!!

Hope everyone has a lovely holiday- whether's it's Canada Day, Independence Day, or another Summer holiday!

Tomato Flowers, Overflowing Compost, Vegetarian Goodness, and Springtime Skeinlets

I had such an excellent time this past weekend. It was around 20 lovely degrees, and honey and I got tons of stuff done in and around the house. I finished painting our kitchen, which was half painted for the last month or so (between getting a bit of a cold, and the stiffness I felt doing the first half, I was doing some major procrastination!) It is just plain and simple white now, which highlights some of the artwork I hung up, and all our lovely plants.

Meanwhile, my honey was working his butt off outside, getting our garden ready. He's also been doing lots of seed starting indoors, and we discovered that some of our tomatoes already have flowers coming!!!

I am not sure this is a good or bad thing, as it's going to be a while before we can plant them outside. We also discovered that our compost heap was getting so big that it was actually caving in the side of our shed and moving it off it's base... (here is what it looked like after some of the compost was removed)

Oops! Luckily the thing is on it's way out, thanks in part to our neighbourhood squirrel who has burrowed and hides his stash under the subfloor; (and who coincidentally lives in the abandoned stove/oven inside).

It was nice enough to have dinner outside, so I made a lovely vegetarian dinner- baked brown rice and red lentils with tomato, basil, thyme, and white cheddar, as well as a lovely spring salad with some shaved zucchini (one of my fave ways to eat raw zucchini), spinach, and orange peppers, and some crisp pickled asparagus on the side. Topped off with some lovely brown ale. We had received this beautiful set of dishes for Christmas, and I hadn't opened the box until this weekend:

I call them my foodie dishes, now I can pretend I'm up there with my fave chefs Jamie Oliver & Michael Smith (small confession- in the winter while I craft, I'm usually tuned into the food network). aaanndd to finish off... we had strawberry pudding- i didn't get a pic cos we ate it too fast- but I think I discovered how to make a really good pudding- I'll have to share the recipe sometime. We love going to Indian Buffets sometimes for the mango custard. I've realised I'm not a very good baker, but I think I can make a pretty good pudding.

Oh, and somehow I did manage to spin up some little skeinlets (my term for small skeins of yarn) out of some bright bits of fleece I had hanging around just asking to be spun up. They are just 2 small skeins, perfect for some embellishing or a small project:

Here's to great, sunshine-filled, productive, but fun-filled weekends!!!