The Green Thumb Mama

09/08/2026

Our wood cookstove is one of my most precious possessions. Every spring, when we stop using it, it becomes an extension of my kitchen counter space. It holds my dehydrator and a variety of other things during the growing season. It gets dusty too. But now that the mornings are quite nippy, it's time to get it cleaned and ready to burn.

This year it really needed a good chimney clean, as well as vacuuming out the inside. It's good to have some ash around the oven as it acts like an insulator. However, it can get really full and after 3 years, it was time to clear out all the ash.

Then comes my favorite part and one I LOVE to do - polish and shine. I use a woodstove polish to bring the surface of the stove nice and black again. It looks so beautiful when it's all shiny and ready to use! I just love this cookstove.

09/06/2026

Saturday was a day of random tasks. It was a very cool day, which I love. I don't like working in the heat. The butternut squash is massive this year. Last year they were all small and puny. I am pleased with this year's harvest. There's a lot out there still just ripening on the vine. Butternut squashes will be diced and frozen for soups this winter.

Our mammoth sunflower heads are coming in. I'm letting them finish drying on the porch. After we take the seeds out, we will roast and salt these for delicious snacking.

We also spent some time chopping firewood. Last year we didn't quite get all the firewood chopped and so it's our goal to get both piles chopped and stacked before winter. It's a big task, but we all pitch in. Little Bit gets to listen to her favorite Fleetwood Mac songs on her noise canceling headphones as she helps stack the wood we chop. She's a really good helper.

09/05/2026

It is now kimchi time! I am so excited to be making this from ingredients I grew in my garden! This is sort of a Korean style, but I don't have carrot and radish in it. I got it from a Korean cookbook my daughter gave me one year. Ingredients from my garden were the cabbage (my Napa didn't even grow this year, so I used regular cabbage), onion, garlic and red pepper flakes. The other ingredients from the store were glutenous rice flour, sugar, salt, ginger, and fish sauce.

The cabbage soaked in salt for about 2 hours, then rinsed. I made a paste with the rice flour, water and sugar. Let it cool to room temperature. Then added the minced onion, garlic, and ginger to the cooled paste. Then I added the fish sauce and the red pepper flakes. Tossed it into a a bowl with the rinsed cabbage and mixed it all together. It went into a jar to ferment. This is going to be SO SPICY and I am very happy with that!

09/04/2026

My cayenne peppers are rolling in and I have plans for them! This first batch (it was bigger than this) was dehydrated, then pulverized in my blender to make red pepper flakes. I have another batch that's going to be turned into knock-off Franks Red Hot Sauce.

I'm kind of in a canning-from-my-garden lull as I wait for the next round of harvest to come in, so I turn to preparing my pantry for the winter months. I wait until Azure Standard has a sale on their organic dried beans, then I buy in bulk amounts. I will can the dried beans so I have beans ready to add to soups and chili. I've tried a number of ways to can dried beans, and have found the one that gives me the result I prefer. I soak the beans overnight (usually 1 lb at a time because I like to small batch can), then in the morning, rinse, cover with fresh cold water, bring to a boil. I boil for exactly one minute, then drain and rinse. I do not fill my jars tightly. These beans are not done cooking and will need space to expand. I put the beans in the jars, cover with clean boiling water, then pressure can for 40 minutes. at 15 psi (My electric canner only gives me 10 lb and 15 lb weights, so I go with 15 for my elevation of 2400 ft.) This method creates nicely cooked, not mushy, beans for any recipe I have.

09/01/2026

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09/01/2026

Scenes from my garden today. Happy September! My thoughts turn toward finishing the canning. And it's coming to an end quite soon, actually. This is a terrific tomato year. They really love where they are planted and the Roma's are HUGE. Carrots, parsnips, and turnips are getting big and won't be harvested for a while. All that's left is a few pantry staples. Tomato sauce will be canned in a couple months. As well as tomato soup base. I wanna stock up on canning dried beans. Jam is all done. I will continue to can meats and bone broth throughout the fall.

09/01/2026

Our crop of cantaloupe was FABULOUS! Juicy, sweet, and so delicious! We've sold quite a bit, and we are eating it with great joy! Today I decided to try something new: cantaloupe jam. I got the recipe here -----> https://www.canningandcookingiastyle.com/recipe/cantaloupe-jam/

14 cups ended up being 3 whole cantaloupe. It was cubed, cooked, mashed, and simmered until it became this fragrant, dark brown, almost jeweled color. I swiped a spoonful for my mouth and WOW! It's so yummy.

I canned this for 15 minutes in my steam canner, per my elevation. I am really looking forward to breaking this open in the winter on toast, biscuits, and even as a topping for ice cream!

08/30/2026

It's "Ooops, they looked more red than that on the vine" season. ;)

08/27/2026

Operation clean out freezer is still in effect. So that meant I needed to make some jam from fruit I harvested last summer and frankly forgot about.

This is strawberry with some rhubarb in it. I had only 1 lb of rhubarb and 5.5 lbs of strawberries. I used a 1:1 ratio of fruit to sugar, adding to it all a tablespoon of lemon juice per lb of fruit. Cooked it down.

I had these cute little jars from purchasing tomato paste over the past year. They have pop tops and are reusable (side eye). However, I discovered they are smaller than my canning funnel, so I had to get my super small ladle to fill them. It was an oopy goopy mess, but jars were cleaned up and put in my steam canner for 15 minutes.

I now have more room in my vegetable/fruit freezer for produce from the garden and that makes me happy. We have turkeys about to be processed in November and a half cow on it's way. I need my meat freezers NOT filled with veggies.

08/26/2026

Last batch of sauerkraut beings today. This is just a plain flavor. Just cabbage.

My tomatoes are coming in little by little. I am thankful I have freezer space right now. I personally do not like to cook and cook and cook tomatoes for sauce or soup. I'm also really busy preserving vegetables and fruits that need immediate attention. Tomatoes don't need my attention right now, so they can go in the freezer.

So, a hack I learned is to freeze them first. This causes the tomatoes to release all their water when they thaw. I can pour off the water, and cook the pulp and skins for a much shorter period of time. I have a variety of tomato here that I am freezing just for tomato soup. My Romas will be frozen for tomato sauce. All of which will be made and canned in the coming months.