July 1, 2011

Man, I feel like this is just another chicken post one after another.  No, it's not a chicken post, but for a while there that's all I had to talk about.  Now it's yet another strawberry post.

Yes, we've been regularly going out to our strawberry/blueberry patch to harvest that day's ready-to-eat strawberries, but today was not about our patch.  A good friend of ours of about 5 years invited us and the boys to go strawberry picking at an organic farm out in Monroe.  Since we really didn't need a flat of strawberries ourselves (the boys have had their fill from the Costco flat we got a few weeks ago and our own harvest), we asked my mother along.  What we really want this year is home made strawberry jam, and this year, we envisioned having it made from fresh-picked organic strawberries!

It was a beautiful 75 degree day with the sun shining and the kids had a ball.  They haven't seen their friends much this year because they're in different schools.  So they played and ate more than they picked, but that's most of the fun of U-pick farms.

Meanwhile, we were serious berry pickers.  Of course I had to sample the merchandise, but mostly I only ate the ones that came off the stem without the top in place.

In the end we left tired and sated, with 18 pounds of organic strawberries.  At my mother's house we proceeded to take the tops off, wash and cut the berries, then sorted them into 6 cup bags.  All in all, we got 5 batches of jam making material, which will deliver 20 pints of jam as needed, fresh frozen for optimum taste.  My mouth is watering just typing this.  Sorry there were no shots of the strawberries, I didn't think of it before we started topping them, then it was so messy that I didn't dare touch anything.

For now, the only evidence of our work is a quart zip lock bag full of the best of the bunch for fresh eating, along with 3 cups of strawberry tops that the girls LOVE!  I had given about 3 cups to my brother as well so he can see just how much chickens like strawberry tops.  The majority of mine are in the fridge for use over time. 

I hope you can enjoy some freshly picked strawberries this season, they're like nothing you'll find in any store, or even at a farmer's market as they lose taste the moment they're picked.

Enjoy your garden!

April 5, 2011

So, to give equal time to both my gardening and animal husbandry obsessions, this post will be about plants rather than chicks.

Despite the rain, mixed with heavy rain mixed with light showers over the past week, I found time to make it out to the garden.  Mostly I was out there to plant what NEEDED to be planted out.  However, I couldn't help but admire the growth (albeit slow) of my initial salad green plantings.  I definitely can start harvesting outer leaves of these for salads.  That said, we prefer to wait until more items are ready to go into our salads, like radishes, carrots and the like.

During a break in the weather, I took some time to augment my tiny bed #3 with compost, and plant a mixture of Savoy Bloomsdale Spinach (from Laura) and my traditional Space spinach (from Territorial). Given the size of the seeds, and wetness of my compost, I didn't even bury them, but rather used the board trick I got from Laura.  No clue if this will work or not, but it is worth a try.  I mean, who has a supply of dry sifted compost on hand to sprinkle 1/8" deep over a bed, hehe?

I also did something similar to several varieties of carrots to replenish our supply.  The ones that overwintered are very hairy and need to be pealed to eat.  Speaking of which, it is about time to harvest them so they don't go to seed.  Thoughts on what to do with carrots you need to peal to eat?  Hmm?

Anyway, now to what I actually went out there to do.  In the back of bed #4, I augmented the soil with a kitty-litter-bucket of compost.

And with my hand trowel, I worked the compost into the soil a bit, chopping up tons of worms in the process.  Poor little guys. This back portion of my only bed without a trellis will be the home of my initial plantings of broccoli and cauliflower. 

This season I'm planting more cauliflower than broccoli, as my wife likes it better, but I am planting a ton of it to freeze for the off season.  My goal is to add it to mashed potatoes, saute it with bread crumbs, use it in stir frys, etc. Don't these seedlings look good?

That taken care of, it was time to turn to my flat of succession salad greens.  First to be planted were my green wave mustard green experiment.  I'm sure long-term readers recall my fascination with mustard greens, leading back to my trying one from a local CSA.  The rainbow colored wavy leaves had a nice mustard bite to them, and would be perfect to add to our salads since I don't like to use dressing for home grown salads.  Unable to find the variety I knew I liked, I have settled for this variety from Territorial.  I went with two plants to see how it grew and if I'd like it.  They germinated well, but were slow growing under lights.  I wonder if they'll take off in the ground?

Then, as the rain began to pick up, I raced to get rid of the rest of my salad green seedlings.  It was very easy to peal apart the soil blocks from their neighbors and throw them in a shallow hole, pressing the compost in around them.  For the seedlings that were growing in the wrecked soil blocks, I did my best to plant them in straight compost.  It doesn't look pretty, but I'm hoping it all grows in nicely as spring moves into high gear.

Oh, I forgot, I also filled in the row of green onions above the salad greens, and filled in radishes where I could find space.  I still remember the first year I planted radishes.  The package said 22 days, so I was expecting to eat radishes every month.  Wrong!  The first planting took 5 weeks to germinate and mature.  It wasn't until my late spring succession planting that I got anywhere near the 22 days it published.  Deceptive advertising, ROFL.

So, now my garden is coming along nicely.  I still have space in the back of Bed #1 (above) and in the front of Bed #4 when I remove the carrots.  Not sure what I'll plant in those places.  Maybe some beets and a squash plant or two, both for roasting.  My brother introduced us to them last fall and I wanted to grow a limited number of each to try my hand at adding variety to our veggie diet.  As I've said many times over on NW Edible, I wish I could cook half as good as the former chef, now stay-at-home mom and urban homesteader Erika.  /sigh

Enjoy your garden!

May 20, 2009

Boy am I tired... /sigh too much time playing Farm Town on Facebook with my wife.  I should have known my addictive personality would latch onto it. Thankfully though my youngest and I did some real gardening before hand.  Actually I got a ton accomplished in about an hour outside with my son.  He sure had fun too. He misses his brother when he stays the night over at Nana's on Wednesdays. 

Let's see, when I got home I knew I wanted to plant the cukes I had over-grown in the house.   Their roots were sticking out from the soil blocks all over the place.  I was thinking on the bus that my cukes are way behind everyone around here, and I want them to be ready at the same time my brother's are so we can have a pickling party.  I hate making pickles alone. 

I'm not holding out much hope for them, although they do look pretty.



Yeah, all the rest of the ones I planted out died, or maybe got munche, not sure.  Anyway, I currently have a dozen or so seeds soaking overnight to direct sow in the morning.  It worked last year and nothing else has worked this year, so it's how it's going to be.

After these three were planted in bed #1 with some compost worked in before hand, it was time to take care of the peas in bed #4.  They've done much better than the ones in bed #3 because I had a cold frame over them for several weeks.  They're about 4 to 5 inches high right now and so it was time to build my trellis.  I'm using the old 2x2 one with twine laced between screws at 6 inch intervals that I used unsuccessfully this fall.  The peas in bed #3 will have the benefit of my 7x15 trellis. 



The 2x2s are just untreated pine, so they're slowly rotting away, and the twine is rotting too so it breaks easily.  You can't see it but I had to tie it back together multiple times.  Let's hope it doesn't break before the peas die back and I harvest some seeds from what we don't eat.  I would hate to have to do some emergency surgery on the trellis. Hehe.  You can't see it but a couple are starting to be trained to grab the bottom string.  Also, the re-seeding I did is showing good germination after soaking them overnight.

At the front of that bed is a mixture of Mokum and Purple Haze carrots.  They've come up well, but I'm a bit nervous.  I'm hoping that the foliage is radically different between the two varieties.  Not that I care which is which, I would love for the kids to be surprised when they harvest them, purple or orange, you never know, hehe.  What I am worried about is that I may have a bad weed infestation all of a sudden, since the stems are nothing like carrots are supposed to look.



Insane isn't it?  Looks like blades of grass.  Very odd.  I know I composted grass and some of it didn't compost all the way before I spread it over the garden, but it shouldn't have viable grass seed in it, should it?  I don't want to pull any carrots before they're even close to being ready.  Thoughts?

Of  course between the carrots and peas in bed #4 are my yukon gold potatoes that I showed you a sprout yesterday.  Well, made my way over to the other end of the yard where my Butte's are in my bins.  They were getting close to needing to be covered before the rain storms hit two days ago.  I admit I hadn't been out to check on them in the thunder storms.  Look what I found.



Oh my how you've grown, hehe.  Seriously, this is potentially VERY bad.  Those stems are way more than 4 inches tall. I may have missed the opportunity to grow potatoes this season.  If they think they're stems instead of roots, the game's over before it starts.  I could build up 5 more boards and fill it with more dirt than I have on hand, only to get potatoes in the bottom six inches just like they were early varieities.  I really don't want that to happen because I didn't want to go out in the pouring rain and lightning to carefully add dirt by the handfulls around each plant. 

Hoping for the best I did just that today when the weather was sunny and in the low 60s.



Here's my little helper who insisted on helping me drag 3 bags of Mel's Mix over to the bins.  He then helped spot the worms that had miraculously appeared inside sealed bags of Mel's Mix.  There were a surprising number.  Anyway, it's almost time to add another board.  I was getting hungry at this point and still had another bin to do, so I didn't do it. I will have to add a board before I hill anymore, which should be in a day or two.

The other bin was even taller than the first.  That one I absoultely needed to add a board.  It took a ton of dirt to fill in the blank spots and hill the plants, but here it is finished.



Yay! I finally have my second board.  My buddy Judy is close to harvesting her bins, but such is life in the "other" 8b (I hope you got Patti's newsletter and read our joint articles on the zone issue!).  Anyway, I'm excited even if I don't get squat from them.  If so, a painful lesson learned.

Well, that's it for tonight. Hope you enjoy your garden!

January 8, 2008

I wasn't certain I was going to have anything to talk about in a post tonight, but thanks to all the comments, I figure I'll post some comments in response.  So this will be my second tomato post.  Kind of fitting since I'm still not certain on what my slicer is going to be.

Dan, you're right, Bloody Butcher is comparable to Early Girl with about a 2-3 inch fruit.  Definitely not the optimal slicer, but it worked for me last year, so I could make do.  Besides, hehe CarolynP is kind enough to offer me seeds.  Can't beat free for an experiment.  Of course that's not the reason I'd grow them if I find something better.

I too think Brandywine is a good slicer to grow.  Unfortunately I value DoubleD's experience and would rather have small tomatoes all season than burgers when the weather's waning.  Legend was recommended by DoubleD a while back.  It's a decent sized early variety.  Unfortunately it's a determinate, so not good for my needs.  That said, I think I convinced my brother to grow it, so hopefully it will compliment my sauce tomato for making salsa.

That said, DoubleD likes romas for canning, that seems odd to me due to their size and moisture content.  Then again, CarolynP mentioned to me that paste tomatoes taste bad, not something I want to use for salsa.  I don't know anyone that grows Heinz, but it sounds like a good variety for my salsa contribution.  Such tough choices when there are SO many tomatoes to choose from and only 4 slots open in my garden.

That said, I happened on the EarthTainer (TM) videos on Tomatofest's site, and I like how they linked together the cages and secured them to the reservoir to firm up the cage system.  I can easily see how they could be used without trellises if you had a compact determinate, but even if I go through the trouble of modifying my SWCs (Self Watering Containers) to be more like the EarthTainer (TM), I think I'll use the trellis, at least for my indeterminates.  Hmm, while I am composing this, it dawned on me that if I built a THIRD (fourth really since I have to make one for my cantaloupe) SWC, I could put it somewhere else in my yard and grow two more plants.  If I did that, I know I would do a Legend and another Heinz.  That would give me two Heinz and a Legend for canning, and maybe even for slicing if I staggered the planting a bit.  Of course, I probably have to remind folks that I am the only one in my immediate family that likes tomatoes.  So although I know I can offload some to my family, my brother will be doing the same and we're sure to inundate them with generosity, hehe.

Anyway, back to tomatoes (I'll think on the potential for further expansion later).  Thanks to Dan again for the suggestion of checking out Tomatofest.  I know Judy likes them, but I was glad to hear they're heirloom vendors on the west coast.  That makes me interested.  So I went there.  I must say I was not pleased.  It's a pet peeve of mine, but anytime you are describing a tomato variety, you must include days to maturity and whether it is a determinate or indeterminate.  Tomatofest was horrible at that.  Shame on them.  For instance, I was particularly interested in the Sunset Red Horizon that Dan suggested.  It's all well and good that it came over (illegally) from Russia back in '99 and was named for Sunset Magazine because it's so good.  Great.  But what does that tell me about the TOMATO!  If I can't answer those two simple questions about a variety, it's not on my list.  Ok, rant over, and eventually I navigated to find that Sunset days to maturity is 72, compared to 60 days for Bloody butcher.  Of course I could easily start it earlier inside and let it grow more inside before hardening off after the last frost.  Drat, more dilemmas. So, it's safe to say Brandywine is out.  But Sunset is a possibility, because two weeks isn't horrible to wait.  Ouch, I just noticed you have to buy $15 worth of seeds from Tomatofest.  Even if I get my Legend from them instead of Territorial, that's not enough. Hmm, maybe I go searching for an alternative source for Sunset...

Now to Cynthia's comment.  I'm glad that I could answer your questions, but I don't even know exactly what I'll be growing in my SWCs this year.  All I know is that I'll grow at least two SWC's worth (a far cry from the dozens that Judy grows or the dozen or so EG's growing... what's with Alabamans and their tomatoes?).  Two cherry varieties, likely Black Cherry from CarolynP and Yellow Pear from Judy (thanks you two!), and two larger varieties, likely Heinz 2653 from Territorial for a determinate sauce tomato and the dilemma tomato slicer I've been vacillating over for two days (Sunset and Bloody Butcher getting the most thought now), hehe. Oh and I MAY add a Legend to the mix if I decide to add a third bin.  Oooh, here's an idea, do both Sunset and Bloody butcher with Legend and only do one Hinez,  hehe. I can be so greedy sometimes.  Where would I stick them all and what would I do with them when they all start maturing.  I know, canning party!  Oh yeah, and Cynthia, I'm not so nuts over catalogs since I've limited myself to reading Territorial and maybe Baker Creek for pleasure reading, but I got bug-eyed over Tomatofest's options for cool weather climates.  SHEESH, who knew there were so many varieties.

Sorry for all my ramblings, but writing this post made me think about everything folks have said compared to what I'm trying to accomplish.

So much for not having anything to say huh?  Well, tomorrow I get off work early, so I may stop by Lowes and check out lights, bulbs, PVC and maybe SWC construction materials.  Guess that's all for now folks.

Thanks for commenting and by all means, continue to help me decide.  I love gardeners and their generocity of time, experience and even seeds!  Thank you and enjoy your garden!

October 14, 2008

Well, today was the first day that I went to work in the dark and came home in the dark.  At least I left work in the light, it just got dark on the bus ride home.  But today was a crisp clear fall day, meaning that tonight will be very cold indeed with no cloud cover to hold the heat in.  Mid 30s they say.  That's very very close to freezing.  Of course I don't feel like going out and covering my final bed, especially since it's only got frost tollerant plants in it (well, not the marigolds, but they've outlived their usefullness anyway hehe).  I may go out and water under the hoop covers when I take the garbage out, but otherwise this has been a no-garden day.  Too cold now.  Brrr.

However, when I got home I wanted nothing more than to hug my kids and crack open a chilled jar of salsa and chips.  So, while the kids had dinner, I had appetizers.  Much to my chagrin, the salsa had NO bite, no kick, and not much in the way of lingering heat.  I don't think we did anything wrong.  I did heat it to a simmer, store it in the fridge overnight and re-heat to a simmer before canning.  I don't think that had anything to do with it.  More likely, we just needed to add twice to three times the peppers.  Maybe even a habanero or two for some real kick.  We didn't think we needed to because when we tasted it initially it was hot.  Not too hot, but just right.  Goldilocks would have been proud.

So, next time we'll do it with more heat.  At least the taste of this salsa is amazing.  Far better with home-grown tomatoes and garlic.  I'm really debating about growing a determinate tomato or two for bigger harvest. 

Well, that's all I can think of for tonight.  Enjoy your garden.

October 13, 2008

Well, DoubleD suggested that I take the day and relax.  It's been quite a while since I did that, and it will be quite a while before I get a chance to do so again.  So today I stayed inside, played with the kids and went on errands with the family. 

About the only thing I did outside was to finish dismantling the potato bin and once they dried out from the early morning rain, I put them away in the shed.



In a perfect world I would have labled them, but I'll just grab two of each length whenever I need to add a layer.  I love this storage place because it's up over the rest of the shed stuff on an old door the former owner used as a big shelf.  The boards fit perfectly and I can even stick stuff on top of it.  Not bad at all.  I can't wait to find time to organize the shed better. I know I fit things better in it.

I also took the time to can the salsa.  I didn't find anything good in the way of definitive proof of whether or not I could can salsa in a water bath or not, so I went with my mother's experience doing it years ago.  So I re-boiled the previously sterilized pint jars and lids and brought the salsa back to a simmer on the stove.  Once the jars were boiled, I removed them and immediately added the salsa using a ladle and a funnel.  In total I got 4 and 3/4 pints of salsa out of the batch...



Then it was time to clean up the edges, put the lids on and secure the rings.  Finally, back in the water bath for 15 minutes.  Here is a pic of the jars waiting to pop after their sealing bath.



Don't they look grand!?!  They're not as thick as I'm used to, but it's perfect how I like it.  See I don't like onions and such whole.  I don't mind the taste blended up, so that's what I did.  The only chunks in there are my tomatoes diced up and the cilantro coursely chopped. 

Hehe on one of our errands today I bought a bag of tortilla chips just to have with salsa.  Oh, and of the five jars, my brother got one pint, my mother got the partial pint and I have one in the fridge cooling down for chips and the other two in the pantry.  One will go with me to the guy's night out the "girls" set up for the husbands after all their nights out.  The other will go to the family that finishes their jar the fastest... likely my folks since they were planning on having tacos tonight just to use the salsa.  Hehe.  And my father called the salsa mild and me a wimp... bah!

Well, I'm well relaxed and content with where my garden and yard is leading into the week and helping my folks move.  About the only thing I need to do still is bundle a bunch of my corn stalks together and set up a display with the cheap scarecrow we picked up today.  My neighbor always has a festive yard and they don't even have kids.  I'm not one to keep up with the Jones' but the kids deserve some festivity!  Of course I can always do it in the dark on our covered porch.  And the kids are going to a pumpkin patch this week with their school.  Maybe they'll pick one up to round our our display!  Sounds like fun.

Enjoy your garden!

October 12, 2008

Well, not sure where the day went.  I feel like I got a ton accomplished, my arms are sore, my back is sore, my legs are sore, all sure signs of a fine day's work.  Then why is this going to be such a short post with so few pics?  Wired.

Even before we were done with our Sunday pancakes, my dad was over to get a jump on fixing the compost bin.  Thinking back on it as I write, we spent $100 on the cover and $15 for the bins... ironic huh?  Anyway, I have to say that Home Depot really disappointed me today.  They've been talking up how they've lowered prices and are working to help out with everyone's projects in this troubling economy, you know a real push to top Lowes.  Since I've never had much affinity toward Lowes (they're just closer to my house), I thought I'd give Home Depot the business today.  Unfortunately, they didn't have what we needed.  And what they did have was WAY more expensive than Lowes.  Grrr. So we wasted the gas to get there and back.  Insane.

Anyway, we used 2x2s to throw together a simple box frame over the bins.  Then we installed the corregated fiberglass on top of the frame.  If you recall from yesterday the lid bowed in the middle.  Well today, after a few hours work, tada!



Notice now we have support in the middle of the bins.  That was the problem before.  We also removed the 4x4 and the 2x4 that provided the slope. Instead, we allowed the slope of the land provide the run-off.  I notice you can't see it in the picture above, but there is a definite slope.  Time and rain will tell, but I'm hopeful.  Worst case, we can put back the 4x4 and a 2x4 to increase the slope if need be. 

The other cool part is the lid is easily raised by just me.  And the 1x3 that I used to make the frame level in the middle works very well as a brace to hold it up.



While we were working, we were using the full yard waste container as a work table.  Unfortunately it stank to high heaven of rotting grass.  Good incentive to finish the project so I could add it to the compost. 



Unfortunately it still smelled strong and icky after I started mixing in the existing compost with the fresh clippings.  And notice all the leaves that got mowed up into it also?  Who'd have figured it would be too N rich?  Water didn't help, mixing in existing compost didn't help, so I ran in and shredded a kitchen-compost bucket full of newspaper.  I dumped that in the middle and mixed it in with the rest.  It was only in there a short while and the smell went away. Whew, I was out of solutions for compost smells, hehe.

After that, I started dismantling the potato bin.  By the way, thanks for your comments. I'm feeling better about my harvest now. So, I got most of it pieced out when I realized I ran out of time and had to get ready for the party.  When my aunt got there she graciously brought her loppers and went out and gave the rose bush a buzz cut.  We got a nice centerpiece for the table and I've got a ton of roses to put in the yard waste container.  I don't compost them myself because the stems don't break down hardly at all.  Let Cedar Grove worry about the tough stuff.

At the party, we were talking about the salsa, and my mother insisted that we could water bath can the salsa.  Apparently she canned 25 quarts of salsa in a water bath years ago.  I'm confused.  She's going to research it a bit tonight, but insists that it'll work without a pressure canner.  If I do it, I think I'll still keep it in the fridge and use it sooner rather than later.

Speaking of canning, here is a generational pic of the pickles I've made, with the newest (last to eat) in the foreground...



Looking back at my to-do list, what I didn't get done was cover my last bed with plastic (though I did find it and it goes up easily... oh and the weather's been great so why bother?), buy a rhodie (I'm not even sure it's the season to be buying and planting rhodies), and I didn't gut the corn bed and figure out the fall/halloween decorations.  All in all, not a bad weekend...

Well I hope you all had a fun and productive weekend in your garden.  I, being a banker, get tomorrow off, so I plan on getting much of my to-do list done tomorrow.  Enjoy your garden!

October 11, 2008

Busy day and I'm feeling it.  It's late but I wanted to get out a post or two.  Not sure, let's see how it goes.

Today started late, but it was a beautiful, though slightly chilly day.  I used the sun to dry the grass to allow me to mow, maybe for the last time this year.  It didn't take long, but I've got a yard-waste container full of clippings waiting to be dumped into my bin when I get the top off.  I held off doing the compost bins today because I wanted the sunny day for tater harvesting and drying.  That didn't stop me from prolonging the harvest to try to level out the low-side wall of the compost bin. 



Unfortunately it had a root under it that I couldn't remove, part of the pear tree right next to it.  Drat.  Guess I'll have to figure out a better way to remove the sag in the corregated fiberglass.



The mowing aside, my eldest and I were excited as could be about harvesting the potatoes I planted in March.  Would I get the 60 pounds that the contributor to the article said was the average?  Or maybe even over 100 like his former employee that kept the potatoes growing under a hoop cover into December?  Or would I find a few pounds at the bottom like the Yukon Golds, despite the late season Butte variety.  What would we find?




I got the front of the bin removed easily enough, but I had to leave it to go run some errands with the family.



It took longer than I thought it would, but using our hands, my son and I removed all the dirt from the bin, harvesting as we went along.



What we found was a mix of decent sized potatoes and small ones.  Nothing particularly baking worthy, at least not by commercial standards.  But my wife likes a smaller potato anyway and I should cut back.  So, for the moment you've all been waiting for, here is the great potato harvest of 2008!



We harvested everything, small to tiny.  Still guessing the poundage?  Well here it is from another angle to help...



And the winner is.... EG!!!!  He guessed 30 pounds and the total was a lowly 25 pounds.  Still 25 times what I started with, but nothing to write home about.  I was kind of disappointed because I didn't get much in the way of mid-level production from the bin, and only tiny potatoes at the top.  I think the reason for it was that I got lazy and the jungle was allowed to grow without being burried to the neck in quicksand.  That's got to happen next year to keep the plant thinking it's a root, not a stem.

So while my harvest was drying, I turned to the dirt.  I didn't want to leave it overnight for fear of a shower to drench it.  So I sent my wife out again to get more free fertilizer.  She returned with 7 bags of Starbuck's finest...



So the two of us dumped the bags and who could break up the cakes the fastest.  He won of course.



I was happy that I'd replenished the soil for next year to do something with it.  Maybe I'll give it to my brother to fill his new beds he's going to build.  Not sure.  Still don't think I'll use it for potatoes again, even re-fertilized.  The brown gold mixed in, I added the left over peat moss from the blueberry transplanting.  Again, we played who could break up the chunks the fastest.  Drat, he keeps winning.



See him here getting a head start, hehe.  Well after that was mixed, I broke out the bags I'd stored for just such an occasion.  Filling them was a two adult job that my son tried valiantly to help with.  In the end, we'd filled 10 bags of fertilized Mel's mix for use next spring.



In the end we resorted to double-bagging contractor trash bags.  Then, exhausted, I wheel barrowed them over to the side of my shed and put them with the rest of the bags from the Yukon bin, stored under the tiny eave for moderate rain protection.



Then it was inside the house to store the dried potatoes for the winter.



Maybe it was a good thing I only got 25 pounds, because I filled my last banker's box to the brim with shredded paper and potatoes.  The small ones however, went into a separate box for storage til spring to be used as next year's seed.



I stored more than I need, but you never know, I may do some in my beds if I've got room.  DoubleD has got a great tutorial on her site about how to do it right.  She harvested today, I bet she got far more harvest than I did.

After that was done, my brother came over to make pickles and salsa.  The pickles took the longest, but we got 8 more quarts put up.  While we were waiting for water to boil, we were chatting.  Where he bought the dill and salasa supplies, he saw something interesting.  Home-canned pickles fresh from Skagit Valley.  The price?  $5 per pint!!!  Hehe, we figured we're into our pickles $20 for 20 QUARTS and 8 pints.  What a steal! 

I didn't take any pictures of the pickles, since you've seen us pickling at my brother's house a while back.  I did want to chronicle the salsa process though.  First we blackened two red peppers directly on the gas burner and wrapped them in saran wrap to melt the skin off.  Then we chopped up an onion, several cloves of garlic, 2 cerano chillies and two chipotle chillies and blended them with about 30 of my brother's tiny cherry tomatoes.  Boy was it fun to see my new Blendtec in action for something other than smoothies.



Then the base was set to simmer on the stove as we diced up my 20 tomatoes and some cilantro.



As we added the diced tomatoes for chunkiness and cilantro for flavoring. We brought it to a simmer for 10 minutes.



Stirring regularly to keep it from sticking, and allowing the flavors to meld.



As I write, it's cooling on the stove.  It's too late to can it tonight, so I'll put it in the fridge to allow the flavors to meld further.  I had no idea that this salasa can't be canned for storage.  Apparently it doesn't have enough aciditity with tomatoes and a splash of vinager for taste to allow it to be water bath canned.  Grrr, we so need a pressure canner.

So I'm going to wrap up a long and productive day by putting the salsa in the garage fridge over night.  Tomorrow is another day and I've got a lot to do and a party to go to for my mother's birthday.

I hope you enjoyed your garden today and maybe next year my harvest will be something to brag about.

October 10, 2008

Quick post because I'm utterly exhausted and my eyes won't stay open.  Long week, way too busy and the market is making me crazy.  Just remember, you only lose money in the stock market if you sell.  So buy low and sell high.  Duh!

Tonight I was going to go to my brother's and pickle some cucumbers.  I went over there after work and we got everything ready, only to realize we didn't have fresh dill.  The store where we got it last time was out so we ended up talking for a few hours and I went home.  The new plan is to hunt down dill and do it tomorrow night. 

In addition, we are going to use the 20 or so tomatoes that ripened all at once rather than slowly over the winter like they're supposed to.  I've wanted to make salsa, so I'm also going to buy some onions and chillies and peppers tomorrow so we can make salsa and can it.  I can't wait!

Well, short post because I need to be well rested for a long and hopefully very productive weekend.  The weather's going to be better tomorrow then Sunday, so you know what that means... POTATOES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Stay tuned for the post of the year tomorrow (late after the canning session).  If I weren't so tired I'd be wide awake with excitement.  Wish me luck or post poundage guesses from my 1 pound of russetts. hehe.  Darn, I should have done that last week.  Day late and a dollar short I guess.

Enjoy your garden!

September 26, 2008

Well, it's the end of a very very stressful week in the financial markets.  For the sake of not trying to steal DoubleD's words, I'll be brief.  But it's important for folks to know that we are in the midst of the deepest financial crisis in the history of the United States.  Some would say we are nowhere near as bad as the Great Depression, but if we did not have the FDIC, there would be the run on the banks that caused the run on the stock market which collapsed the economy.   Instead, we've had the federal government buying companies (AIG), brokering sales (Bear Sterns, WAMU) and incurring $5+ Trillion of debt with the take-over and guaranty of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  These are historic times, just not in a good way.  It is likely that the turnaround will not occur until mid 2010, possibly later in Seattle due to the loss of 40,000 jobs and vacating of close to 2 million square feet of office space when WAMU is melded into JP Morgan. 

All the more reason to save your money, pinch your pennies, and above all, grow as much of your own food as you can.  That said, tonight I harvested 6 pounds of green beans from my garden.  Likely the last hurrah for the year.





So I methodically clipped and cut these six pounds of beans while I caught up on some TiVo.  An hour later and presto!



Boy is that a ton of green beans.  Some nice frantic work to blanch and ice-bath, dry and spread out on pans for freezing.  Another relaxing tv show later and tada!



Four pounds of green beans ready to be cooked up for dinner.  Of course, I haven't tried the ones I froze before.  I sure hope we like them, cause I've got roughtly 6 pounds of frozen green beans to feed my family this winter and spring.  Boy do I hope we like them.  Because prices of fresh produce are going through the roof.  Did I mention that I de-stressed major tonight.  Bonus!

While I was out there I snapped a few pics of my garden to share.  Not much of it's good news.



The tomato plants are looking very sickly.  I'm not sure if I'm not watering it enough (problem with SWC's is they don't water themselves in the rain), or maybe it's supposed to happen.  Not sure, but I'm hoping the remaining tomatoes ripen.



Similarly, my cucumber plants are dying from the bottom up.  The good news is that I'm still finding cukes growing in this weather.  Boggles the mind doesn't it?



The corn is still growing too.  It wasn't there when I harvested before so I'm hopeful that it's going to turn out ok.  If not, it's only a handful of ears to compost.

I'll end the tour with pest problems.  One is an old nemisis and the other is new.



Yep, that's a formerly healthy spinach leaf infested with leaf miners.  It's in a totally different bed from my old spinach planting and it's 8 months later.  So I'm guessing it's in the dirt.  Grrr.  I guess another thing on my list is to spray Spinosad natural biological warfare.  Parasites for bugs.  How cool is that?



What you can't see is formerly perfectly healthy cauliflower leaves.  About two weeks ago I found a few nibbles.  I didn't think much of it, because Steve Solomon's book said the healthier the seedling the more resistant it is to disease and infestation.  I figured it's my healthiest cauliflower seedling so I'd be fine.  Now I'm not sure it will survive.  Grrr.  Spinosad for these too I guess.

So, tomorrow starts a very busy but mostly enjoyable weekend.  The weather's going to be great, in the mid 60s to low 70s and dry.  It's going to be extra busy because on top of the huge list of things to do, I've been tasked to help my father-in-law to roof his new shed.  I'm hoping it'll only take a few hours if he's all ready when I get there.  As it is I'm going to be fighting light doing all of the work myself in the yard.  The folks won't be able to help this weekend.  Now I'll know a bit how EG feels. At least it will be very non-stressful, or stressful in a different / fun way.

Enjoy your garden, and grow tons!