This Year's Garden so far...........

Has anyone started their gardens yet? I have started my gardening this year. I have only planted seeds indoors.

I have planted Rudker tomatoe seeds in a planter inside the house. The seeds have sprouted and I now need to transplant them in their own seperate containers. I think I will do that later on today.

There is a lot of grass that came up with the tomatoes.

Every year I usally buy Rudker tomatoe plants, but I heard that this year, in my area, Rudker tomatoe plants will be difficult to find. I saved the seeds from the rudker plants I had last year, so I didn't have to buy any tomatoe seeds this year. Rudker tomatoe seeds can not be found in stores in this area. If I was going to buy some, I would have to order them online.

For Christmas, from my granny, I got a Chia Gourmet Herb Growing kit. The kit came with different kinds of herb seeds, four terra cotta pots, and four Chia sponges for planting the seeds in. I was so happy to get this gift!

Last night, I planted Parsley and Oregano in the Chia herb kit. I still have two pots to plant in, but I have not decided what to plant in them yet. Oregano is an herb a use very often. I put Oregano on my homemade garlic bread. I use Parsley often too. I like to make Parsley potatoes and I use Parsley in my homemade vegetable dip. I will have to share that recipe sometime.
It will be so nice to have fresh herbs growing right in my kitchen!

The pots are covered with plastic wrap incase you were wondering what the clear stuff was.

My family and I were going to plant the potatoes a week or two ago, I am sure glad that we didn't! We have had cold weather and lots of rain. The potatoes would have just rotted in the ground if we would have planted them. The rain has stopped and the ground is starting to dry up. When the ground gets a bit dryer, which will probably be in a few days, we will plant the potatoes.

I planted Chamomile seeds in a planter the other day. After I got them all planted, I left the planter on the porch steps so the seeds could be in the sun. A few hours later, I looked outside and I saw dirt all over the step and a dug-out spot in the planter. I am guessing my brother's dog made that mess. I was upset when I first saw it, but now I am over it. I guess those things tend to happen when a puppy is around. Oh well.......

Below is a picture of it. The picture doesn't show the much of the damage the dog made.

In a month or two, it will be time to plant green beans and corn. We let some of the corn and beans go to seeds and we saved the seeds. We will not have to buy corn or bean seeds this year.

This is just an update of what's going in the garden.

Thank you for reading my blog. Please come back to my blog again!

-Belle-

Please visit my store - http://www.homesteaderbelle.blogspot.com/

Pecan Tarts

My Granny's birthday was this month. For her birthday, I made Pecan Tarts. She loved them! The recipe for the tarts is below.

Pecan Tarts

First, make the pie dough. I use a double-crust pie dough recipe.

It seems like the double-crust recipe I use makes just enough dough for the amount of pecan filling.

Pie dough recipe

2 cups of All-purpose Flour

1 Teaspoon of Salt

2/3 cup of Shotening

6 -7 Tablespoons of cold Water

In a mixing bowl, stir together flour and salt. Cut in the shortening till pieces are the size of small peas. Sprinkle two to three tablespoons of the cold water over mixture. Stir and cut the mixture. Add as much more of the cold water as needed.

Form the dough in a ball and put on a floured surface.

Roll the dough out to the thickness of 1/8 - 1/4 inch.

Lay the tart pan face - down on the dough and cut around it 1/4 inch away from the pan.

Press the piece of cut dough into the tart pan. Apply enough pressure to the dough so that the dough will stay in place inside of the tart pan.

After all of the tart pans have pie dough they can be filled with the pecan tart filling.

Pecan Tart Filling

1 cup of Light Corn Syrup

3 Large Eggs

2 Tablespoons of Butter (not margarine)

1 teaspoon of Pure Vanilla Extract

2 cups of Pecan Halves

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees farenheit. In a mixing bowl, mix together using a spoon corn syrup, eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla. Stir in pecans. Pour pecan tart filling into tart pans.
Put all of the tart pans onto a baking sheet. Bake in the oven for 50 - 60 minutes or until the center surface of tart can be lighty pressed against and the surface will spring back.
Cool tarts on a wire rack.

I love to make tarts! When I am at thrift shops and yard sales, I look for tart pans. I recently went to a thrift shop that was out of town and I found seven new tart pans at $0.25 each. I was so excited to find them and to add them to my collection.

Belle

Please visit my store - http://www.homesteaderbelle.blogspot.com/
You can email me @ homesteaderbelle@yahoo.com/