It has been a busy summer here at Exotic Gardening Farms and Wildlife Habitat. The flower garden is not looking good due to lack of rain and my lack of time for weeding. I do see lots of rose hips forming however and am anxious to pick them to make jelly as well as other items once the first frost hits them. I also noticed hops on my vine and am waiting on those to be ready to pick.

Today I will finish dehydrating some grapes for raisins. I still have oranges, grapefruit, apples, tomatoes and pears to can. I will make more applesauce and juice from the apples. The tomaotes will yield more tomato sauce and tomato juice. I have plenty of plain pears so may make some more cinnamon ones or look for a new recipe. The citrus I will juice and use the peel to make zest and candy. I just found out the white part of the citrus has medicinal value and so I will save some of it to dehydrate. Jon said to just add it to any food to gain the medicinal value.

I have some oregano oil that I used a sun distillation method on that looks like it is ready to preserve for winter usage. I am thinking of using it in some of the lye soap I made.

Today the soap will be ready to come out of the first mold, be cut and begin curing. Later, when the canning season settles down, I will hand mill the soap and add herbs, color and fragrance. Once my molds are free again I will make a second batch of lye soap. It should be a nice soap when it is done. At this stage it has lard, olive oil and cocoa butter in it.

Soon it will be time to get Leonardo sheared. I am really looking forward to my first kid mohair. It should spin up into a nice batch of yarn that I can use to make something or the other with. With winter just around the corner I am looking forward to some time off from yard work so I can begin spinning and weaving again. They say for everything there is a season and that is beginning to make sense the longer I live here.

So far here is a list of what is canned and stored for winter. While I would like to see more vegetables such as green beans and corn on the list I don’t think this is a bad start at all. I have 280 packages of food so far. My goal was 1500 packages. The weather has not been real cooperative and the corn and green beans did not do well. I had planned to can 100 pints of corn, 100 pints of green beans and freeze 100 packages of brussell sprouts (which have not come in yet) and 100 packages of sugar snap peas. If I fall short this year, there is always next year.

2 Pints Strawberry Juice

1 Half Pint Strawberry Juice

6 Half Pints Rose Jelly

2 Half Pints Rose Honey

2 packages of 2 pound mix of Honey Wheat Bread

2 packages of 1 1/2 pounds mix Honey Wheat Bread

1 package of Orange Sugar Cookies

4 packages of Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Cookies

5 packages of Dinner Rolls

1 package of Honey Spice Cookies

One and a Half Pints 1 Chicken BrothQuarts 3 Chicken BrothPints 14 StrawberriesHalf Pints 1 StrawberriesPints 1 SpinachHalf pound 5 Sugar Snap PeasOne and a Half Pints 3 Grape JuicePints 8 Grape JuicePints 1 CarrotsPints 1 Grape Jelly4 Ounce Jars 14 Grape JellyPints 13 Tomato JuiceOne and a Half Pints 4 Tomato Juice4 Ounce Jars 7 Lemon Balm and Lemon Verbena Jelly6 Ounce Jars 1 Lemon Balm and Lemon Verbena JellyHalf Pints 3 Mixed Herb Vinegar4 Ounce Jars 9 Mixed Herb VinegarPints 1 Black Stem PeppermintPints 2 SageQuarts 1 Lavender Flowers

Quarts 1 Chocolate Mint

Pints 1 Lime BalmQuarts 1 RosemaryQuarts 2 TarragonPints 1 TarragonQuarts 1 RaisinsPints 1 OreganoQuarts 2 CherriesHalf Pints 1 CherriesQuarts 1 Dill WeedQuarts 3 Passion Fruit MojitoHalf Gallons 3 Dehydrated Potatoes12 ounce 2 Roasted Garlic Italian VinaigretteHalf Pints 4 Raspberry Syrup30 ounce 1 Strawberry JamPints 1 Honey Cinnamon Pecan PeachesOne and a Half Pints 2 Honey Cinnamon Pecan PeachesQuarts 1 Honey Cinnamon Pecan Peach Sauce

Orange Marmalade

Berry Preserve

8.5 ounce 1 Pineapple, Banana and Passion Fruit Jam8.5 ounce 1 Pineapple, Banana and Orange JamHalf Pints 2 Cherry JuiceQuarts 7 Green BeansPints 5 Green BeansOne and a Half Pints 1 Tomato Sauce4 ounces 1 Tomato SaucePints 4 Seasoned Tomato SauceQuarts 1 Seasoned Tomato SauceQuarts 38 PotatoesQuarts 1 Apple JuicePints 2 Cinnamon Red Hot ApplesPints 4 Cinnamon Apple SaucePints 11 Apple Pie FillingPints 1 Lemon BalmPints 1 Caraway

Bell PeppersPints 1 Banana PeppersQuarts 2 Raspberry LeavesQuarts 2 SpearmintQuarts 1 Black CuminQuarts 1 Dill SeedQuarts 1 Orange PeelPints 1 Passion Fruit PeelQuarts 1 Ancho Chili PodsQuarts 1 CamomileHalf Pints 6 Raspberry Vinegar4 ounces 1 Raspberry VinegarCup 1 Raspberry and Mulberry VinegarHalf Pints 1 Raspberry and Mulberry VinegarPints 14 PearsPints 9 Cinnamon PearsPints 8 Pear JuiceQuarts 1 Pear JuicePints 8 Cucumber Mix (Dill Pickles)Pints 4 Jon’s Armenian Cucumbers

Liters 6 Pomegranite Juice

Sheri