October 22, 2011

Well, I finally cleaned out the chicken coop and changed the bedding.  The girls were glad I did it too.  By girls I include my wife, who had asked me to do it.  She's been pretty much taking care of the hens since I went back to work.  I am away from the house when they need tending to. 

I really think I could have gotten more than 6 months out of the bedding if Fall hadn't arrived.  You see, we've kept them in their coop during the day far more often then when the weather was nice.  They tend to make a much bigger mess of the place when they're cooped up all day (pun intended).

Anyway, I got two wheelbarrows full of used bedding that went on top of my compost pile.  I should really mix it in with some greens to speed up the decomposition, but until I get some more Starbucks coffee grounds, the chicken manure will just have to suffice. 

I used up half a bale of pine shavings in the three nesting boxes and the coop.  My brother picked up a bale for me from the feed store the other day.  I was a bit disappointed that it was a national brand like you see in pet stores in small bricks.  In the past we've purchased local shavings from Washington, just like our organic feed from Bellingham.  The price was the same, but I just feel better using the local bedding.  This will work, but next time I stop in at the store, I'll talk to them to find out what happened to their local source.

Lastly, the chickens haven't been foraging much at all this past week.  The weather's been crappy, the arc is too heavy for my wife to move by herself and the grass just isn't growing.  I'm thinking they'll just be home-bodies this winter, using the area in front of the compost bins as a run whenever we bring them out.  There isn't much grass there anyway, and if they kill it, no biggie.  About the only non-feed they're getting are table scraps and the occasional pear that drops from the spent pear tree.  I won't eat the fruit, but they love it.  They'll get the over-spotted apples when I pick them also.  Boy I wish they liked morning glory! The rose garden is covered in them. /shrug

Enjoy your garden!

June 24, 2009

Thanks all for your comments.  As for the carrots, they were this year's first planting.  I was thinking back to what I had planted there last year to see if there could have been overwintered carrots there, and that's impossible.  Last year I had corn there.  Quite odd since they came from this year's seed too.  Unfortunately I'm not sure if they were bad Danvers or Purple Haze.  All I can say is there were a ton of them all together in the middle of the carrot patch.  My wife did me a favor and yanked them.  Here's another shot of the lot of them on top of the cole crop leaves destined for the compost bin.



There were about a dozen of them, all woody with thick 3 foot tall bushy stalks.  I didn't pay attention to what I planted where in the carrot patch, I figured if it was purple I'd know when I pulled them, which we have pulled one that tasted fine.  Well, enough about carrots.  What else do you give Rudolph at Christmas?  Yep, apples.

Last night I was at the Mariner's game in a suite for work.  They were loosing of course so I was chatting with the folks in the room and happened upon a gardening conversation.  A co-worker was talking about her apple orchard and her failed experiment at covering them with panty hoes booties.  Aparently it is too much work for a 20 foot tall tree, let alone a half-dozen of them.  So when it came up that I had a small tree with a dozen or so apples, she offered to give me her booties.  Tonight after watering the garden, the boys and I went out and covered some tiny apples.  We wouldn't have done it if we had a bigger tree or tons of apples, but a dozen is no big deal.



Little Owen proudly standing next to his apple tree.



They may be a bit big to cover, but better late than never.  The kids weren't a ton of help, but they sure had fun trying.  Owen for instance held the bag of booties (I have about 200 of them), and Logan put the booties over the apples.



Then, instead of using ties to close the ends, my co-worker suggested I just tie the ends together.  So I twisted the ends and simply tied them in a knot.  Not sure how well it will hold as the apples grow, but I'll check on them each time I water.



Don't they look silly?  Why do this, you ask?  Well, Western Washington is under a several decade-long Apple Maggot quarantine and we have a major Coddling Moth problem (did I mention Washington is the Apple capital of the world?).  How they found my little tree I have no idea, but last year before I picked off the tiny apples to let it grow, I found a couple of moths coddling.  I thought they were a dead leaf so I grabbed it to remove it... eww.  Anyway, I practiced organic pest control... I stomped on them, hehe.  Now I just hope I caught them before the moths found them.

Not only was I productive in the garden tonight, but the kids enjoyed themselves helping me.  Isn't life grand?!

May 26, 2009

Short post tonight as not much to report on, but I had to share.

First off, I was catching up on my blog reading/commenting and came across KitsapFG's blog from the other side of Puget Sound.  I got half-way through her to-do/done list and had to stop to head out to the garden.  I've been seeing holes in my broccoli leaves and she had sprayed with BT, so I thought I should do so.  Thanks KitsapFG! 

However, the big news.  I've got a environmental dilemma here.  I've been planting flowers and other plants to attract bees to my yard.  We don't have honey bees here and haven't for several years, so for us bumble bees do the lion's share of the pollinating, so I love seeing them whenever I can.  I can sit there and watch them on the blueberry bushes.  They bring a smile to my face.

Until now.  I was standing in my kitchen making dinner tonight when outside my kitchen window I saw two fat bumble bees sunning themselves on my siding in the rose garden.  I thought it odd that they wouldn't go home as it was getting close to sundown.  Then I saw a bee fly up into the corner of my garden area above the kitchen window.  Seconds later I saw three fly down from there.  Some quick math made me say some choice four letter words.  Thankfully the kids are at their grandparents tonight, hehe (the last few sentences were literary embellishments).  Needless to say it meant I had a bumble bee nest in my house.  Sure enough, I went out to the rose garden and saw the hole where they were coming out of.  GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Why couldn't they have made their nest in a tree where I could point it out to my sons and say not to shake the tree and make them mad!?  No, they had to make their home where they are not supposed to be.  Now I have to kill them.  I really don't want to kill them. 

Maybe I'll wait until fall when the growing season's over, hehe.  Grrrrr.

Not a happy day in my garden for sure, hope you enjoy yours!

May 9, 2009

Well, for the first time since I started this blog over a year ago, I don't quite feel like blogging tonight. There is too much going on and I'm feeling lazy.  However, I got a fair amount done today so the desire to share overwhelmed the desire to sit on my can and read a book.

Most of my gardening today either happened while I was playing tag in the sun with the kids.  You see, my wife wanted them out in the sun for 15 minutes to get their natural Vitamin D.  While I was out there, I couldn't help but be struck by the beauty of Owen's apple tree in bloom.

\

I've said it before but I sure hope this is a dwarf or semi-dwarf, because eventually it will shade out my prime extra growing space.  You can see the potato bins in the background.

Then, as we were heading out for errands, mostly to wrap up shopping for Mother's Day and visit the hospital where some good friends just had a baby (Welcome Joshua!), I stopped by the garden.  The temperature was pushing 70 in the shade in the garden area.  I've removed the bed thermometer and put it back up on top of the fireplace bricks under the eaves.  That way it's in shade and dry.  Anyway, I wanted to remove the plastic from my hoop covers so they didn't fry.  As it was, some of the broccoli looked a little toasty and some of the lettuce wilty.



What's worse is that for some reason, my Bloody Butcher tomato plant doesn't seem to be perking up after all that rain.



I sure hope I don't loose that bunch of tomatoes that was prime to grow before I transplanted them.

Anyway, before dinner I decided it was past time to plant my cantaloupe.  I got the seeds too late to get a crop to mature, but that doesn't mean I can wait forever to plant them this year.  So out I ran to position my final SWC.  This one's the 31 gallon kind and should fit three cantaloupe plants if I trellis them.  I knew I would place one half of the bin on a cedar tree stump, but the other end I didn't what I was going to do.  Thanfully there was a cool flat rock that was the perfect height to even out the SWC.  Here it is in it's final position.



Right after this I raced and dumped two bags of used potato bin Mel's Mix into the bin to fill it.  Unfortunately I don't have a shot of it because I was called in to dinner and didn't get back outside.

However, after the kids went to bed I pulled out of the fridge several packets of seeds to plant tomorrow morning.  I want to plant more carrots, spinach and radishes, though mostly I wanted to fill in the blanks on the peas.  I have no clue why I have such bad luck with peas and beans germinating in my garden.  It's wierd.  Maybe you're not supposed to soak them overnight?

Speaking of soaking, anyone know if I should soak the Minnesota Midget Cantaloupe seeds or not before planting?  I decided I would direct sow them since that's the safest method.  I have 5 seeds left from Judy and need 3 to grow so I can save seed for next year.  If only one matures, I have two spares, hehe.  Wish me luck.

Happy Mother's Day to all you mother's out there!

And enjoy your garden.

September 20, 2008

Well, it's this time of year that Seattle weather forecasters lose all respect they've earned throughout the year.  Today was partly cloudy with scattered showers.  What that meant for us was a light rain or drizzle the entire day and night.  So my grand plans were rained out, well partially.

I did get a chance to harvest plums.  My mother, father and aunt came out to help, though I was the one up in the tree most of the time.  I started out climbing the tree.  The branches spread out about waist high so it's an easy climb.  I cleared out the middle that way.  Then we used the ladder to get the rest of them.  At one point I was hanging out over the neighbor's fence, pulling down a heavily laden branch, using it to steady myself while I harvested the juicy plums. 

The rain was coming down hard by then and I was soaked. Every time you'd pull a plum water would shower down on you.  We were so "done" by the end that I didn't think to take pictures of the harvest. But we got 8 plastic shopping bags of plums, about what we got last year.  I didn't weigh them, but I'm fairly certain we got over 50 pounds. Maybe closer to 75. 

I gave a bag to my neighbors and kept about a dozen big juicy ones for my eldest to eat and the rest went off with my mother for juicing and freezing.  Some will be made into plum buckles and some will be halved and frozen for smoothies, but most of them were juiced and frozen for making jelly.  To celebrate I had PB&J sandwiches with plum jelly from last year.

We didn't get the blackberries harvested because everyone was soaked.  I really hoping that tomorrow is decent weather because rain or shine, I'm harvesting.  Next year's blackberry jelly is at stake, so those berries are coming down!  I'm not sure if I'll go out and hack a third of it down tomorrow.  It depends on the time and weather.  If you don't recall, my plan is to cut a third of the very mature wild himalayan bramble.  What I've read is that blackberry canes grow and spread out one year, fruit the second and are dead after that.  So I figure if I take out one third of the bramble each year, after a few years I'll be removing dead canes and harvesting only a third, but it will be low and productive.  Much better than climing a ladder and still not getting the poundage in the middle of a ten foot tall bramble.  Anyway, I seriously doubt it will be tomorrow that I get out there.  The late harvest this season has really thrown a wrench in that plan. 

I also moved the bags of potato dirt and coffee grounds behind the shed to store it for the winter.  I decided that the left over on the tarp will be used to augment the dirt under the sod when I plant my blueberry bushes compliments of SandyGoGreen from Freedomgardens.org.

Lastly, though I didn't harvest the green beans, my mother harvested 6 pounds of tomatoes!



Enjoy your garden!

September 15, 2008

Yesterday was busy from sun up, well beyond sundown, so I'll recap yesterday and then do a bit of a garden tour.

Sunday was supposed to be a full day at the Puyallup Fair with the whole family.  Unfortunately we didn't finish up at my father-in-law's on Saturday, so I started out early to get it done fast.  Thankfully we didn't do as much as we had planned, so by noon we were on the road.  It took us 4 hours to drive a half hour to Puyallup due to the incredible traffic. We would be stopped for 10 minutes without moving. 

When we finally arrived and found the family, the kids went off to play and I tried to find the gardening/farming section. I also wanted to see the chickens to compare them to SandyGoGreen's. Unfortunately, there were none.  The food wasn't even that good.  And the journey home was even worse, sitting in the parking lot for a half hour without moving.  Maybe the Snohomish County Fall Farm Festival will be better.  Not sure.

So anyway, back to my garden.  You've seen the the box-o-corn that I gave away. Well, I didn't have an opportunity to give away a handful of ears, because they were not developed yet.  Their silks were still white as snow. 



I have tried shaking the stalks around it to get some pollen to fall, and blew on the leaves to get some off of them, but I didn't see anything.  I may be too late for these last planted, slowest growing ears.  We shall see.  It would be good to see if they actually grow, if I can time the harvest right.  These ears may very well be the deciding factor as to whether or not I grow corn next year, or buy it from Eastern Washington at harvest time.  It does take up way too much space, even planted as close as I plant it.  It will also determine if cross pollination was the cause of the poor taste.  Either or both are possible.  Time will tell.

I also took the first pictures of my new blueberry bushes.  I described them to you last post, but here they are in a temporary spot waiting for me to dig up a spot for them.



Look good don't they?  And where do you ask, am I going to plant them?  Well, thanks to my Aunt, here is the perfect spot for them.



I figured it out generally that with a tight fit, one plant can go right on the outside edge of the kiddie pool, and the other in front of the downspout.  With luck it won't crowd the kids window, which will eventually be the office again when they move upstairs.  Unfortunately the rose will have to go, but it's damaged and has seen better days.  I may be able to salvage it, not sure, but it will need to move in a few years when those blueberry bushes grow.  By the way, about 10 feet to the left of this picture are the two existing blue berry bushes.  Perfect spot for bees to travel between the four plants.  I'm so happy that I'll have more blueberries!  They freeze up so well once we get tired of fresh ones.

Oh yeah, and speaking of bees going from plant to plant, here is one of the main reasons I had bees to pollinate my blueberries.  Look how HUGE this lavender's gotten!



Can you believe this is ONE plant!?!  My aunt says it is and I believe her.  So we'll hack it back this fall and let it grow again next year.  Of course the garlic is going right next to it between the lavender and blueberries while I've got room for it.  Someone I was talking to questioned the soil acidity for the blueberries vs. the garlic, but it's worth a try.  Besides, I localized pretty well the acidity for the blueberries.  It shouldn't transfer to the garlic too bad.  I plan on giving plenty of room since the blueberry plants have very shallow roots.

Continuing over on this side of the yard, Judy asked about my canteloupe that she gave me the seeds for.  Here is a good pic of the little guys hanging on.



If I thought I had enough season left to get a ton of production out of these puppies (they're growing well enough that I could if I hadn't planted so late), there'd be a trellis here and I'd have trained them to climb it.  Look at those tendrils reaching for anything.  You can't see the the flowers, but they're there. And even a tiny mellon or two that hopefully were hand pollinated sufficiently.  Only time will tell. And if this weather holds. It's been in the mid 70s which is perfect weather for these Minnesota Midgets!

And right next to them is my last potato bin.  The Butte's have the best shot for the 60 pound average production promised by Greg over at Irish Eyes.



Note that the middle is not holding up well.  I've watered but I think they're dying on their own accord.  They may not need the optional plastic hoop cover to extend the season for further fattening to 100 pounds.  Bake potatoes are nice, but my wife always says the huge ones are too big for her anyway.  I can always have two if necssary, hehe.

Lastly on that side of the yard, my aunt tasted the plums and said they're ready.  Too bad last weekend was too busy.  Maybe this weekend we can harvest plums and blackberries.



Ah, in a couple years, I can see my kids climbing this tree to pick plums for fun.  To be young again!

Enjoy your garden!

P.S.  That nifty number 1 on the Top 100 Gardening sites, well as much as I'd like it to be true, I can verify I'm still getting between 100 and 300 hits a day (thanks to my regulars I bore daily), and Judy claims similar numbers at her blog and her Ft2Garden.com site, so how we started getting 35,000 hits a day is beyond both of us.  We'll take the publicity it generates, but I expect they'll figure out the glitch soon and we'll drop back to the 2,000 or so hits a day we share. /shrug

August 31, 2008

Good day, good day.  The weather cooperated, though I didn't get much done in the garden.  I did dig around about a foot down into my yukon gold bed and didn't find anything.  I was afraid to dig too much so I gave up.  Whatever's in there will hold for a while so I'm going to let them cook a bit more.  I may even cover them to keep the rain from providing irrigation. 

But good news, I found flowers on my cantaloupe! Tomorrow they should be big enough to tell if they're male or female.  Of course they should be male first, followed by females a few weeks later.  But you can bet I'll be hand pollinating any female flower I find!



We also were hoping to pick some berries or maybe harvest some plums, but their not ready yet.  DoubleD's right when she says in years past we'd have harvested all there was to harvest by now.  Here's to hoping there will be plums and blackberries to harvest this year. Without it, there will be no PB&J sandwiches for a year, for my kids or I.  Yep, I regularly eat them for lunches or even dinners if I get home way late.  But I can't remember when I've had store-bought jam or jelly, and I'm not going to start now.

Speaking of preserving, we did harvest five more mini-cukes for pickling.  Then, for the larger ones, we cut them into fourths (wedges) and started the pickling process.  To begin with, we mixed up the pickling spices from a recipie found on the net and raiding my mother's and brother's spice racks.



The only things we're misisng here is Mace (whatever that is), and dill seed (we figured we had fresh).  Then we cut up the cucumbers...



The next step was to layer cucumbers, spices and dill.  But wait, I've got to show you my farmer's market dill find (thanks to my brother for calling me to tell me about it). It's so tall it took two pictures to get it all in, hehe.





That's right, they were 3 feet tall and my house smelled like dill even before I started marinading.  So here's one of the layers of pickles to be...



Note that we threw in six cloves of garlic from my brother's garden, then came the thick layer of fresh dill.  I had more than needed so I laid it on heavy. Why not?



So, now that mix is marinading in vinegar and that mess for the next 4 weeks in the garage with a plate weighed down to keep it submerged. It says it will have foaming and scum.  So in anticipation of that, my corn pot (I'm not needing that this season /sigh) is resting in a pastry/cookie sheet.  The mix smells great!  Much better on my wife than the bread and butters did.

We also would love to can some beans since I've got far too many to eat for all three of our families.  But all my mother's canning books say you need to use a pressure cooker to preserve any veggie without acid in it.  We don't have a pressure cooker. Anyone experienced with preserving know of a way to can beans or the like without a pressure cooker?  The last thing I need is MORE kitchen tools.

Anyway, in case you thought I just sat around eating bon bons the rest of the day, I also started making a loaf of no-kneed sourdough bread.  And my mother is pleased that her white flour starter is 90% ready for her to take home.  But since you're probably tired of the progression shots, here is the current finished product. 



It needs to sit under plastic for 18 hours.  Tomorrow morning I'll do the final proof and bake it!  I can't wait.  Tonight I thought of something. We've got that rosemary plant that's taking over our yard. I bet that would be great in sourdough bread.  The possibilities are endless.  Now if only I can bake it without my make-shift cloche breaking on me.

Also, I took a few more pics of my garden.  Enjoy...

Here are some tomatoes that are almost done...



And here is a funny S'shaped broccoli plant that grew leggy behind the cauliflower.  It's twin we harvested tonight and I essentially boiled it in the microwave along with some frozen corn for the rest of the family and it was very tasty!  Yay!  It may not be as healthy as lightly steaming it, but if I'm eating it, it's better than nothing.  Same will go for the beans thanks to the peanut gallery!



And here are Judy's marigolds.  Funny that my brother hadn't heard of marigolds as an amazing companion plant. But they're pretty also.  At least I think so.



However, if they're supposed to draw in bees to pollinate anything, it's not working. hehe\

Lastly, I've been hanging out at Freedomgardens.org with some new local and not-so-local garden buddies, most of whom are either existing or homesteaders in training, so I'm learning a ton.  Anyway, there was talk about clothes lines for drying laundry, and how they're hit and miss in the PNW where it can rain at a moment's notice.  Tough to get your clothes dry if they get wet.  Here's what we've done to dry almost all our shirts, pants and some other laundry.



It was a quick re-build after my father grabbed a hold of it to keep from falling off a ladder, ripping the old one from the ceiling.  It works. Cheap PVC desigend to fit a very small laundry room! 

Yeah, I know, this is a gardening blog, so why am I bothering with making bread, pickles and saving energy.  Tis the season for saving money and preserving what we grow. 

Hope you enjoy it!

August 30, 2008

Where has the year gone?  It's almost September. That's what everyone keeps saying at work.  I could say the same thing about my garden.  Where has the summer gone?  My plants echo that sentiment.  The weather turned back to a plesant 70 degrees, so I finally got the back yard mowed, but since the weather has been so awful, the grass hasn't grown much so it still didn't look so bad, except the few weeds I haven't had a chance to keep up with and the various varieties of grass that grow while the rest of my lawn didn't.  But now it looks good, and the front yard looks green again where the the city had messed up the natural grass that was drought resistant and stayed green year round without any water from me, fed by the high water table.  When you mess that up, you get brown grass.  Funny to see a swath where they took out the natural grass all down the street, it's all been brown when it used to be green.  Ah well, now the kids have sidewalks, so it's not all bad.

I digress. I also dug up my compost and fixed it with the grass clippings and kitchen compost and some more of my mom's shredded bills.  But to save you thinking I just recycled the countless pictures I took of the process I go through to fold and fluff my compost, here is a picture of the finished product, it's getting really huge, though the pile had shrunk by half since the last time I fluffed it.



Anyway, the cool weather has definitely helped my cool-weather crops.  My lettuce's sprouted, both seeds I put in each hole. I hate doing that but since the last planting didn't work I didn't want to take chances.  Now I have to catch a tiger by the toe and pull one.  I also have to do that considerably with my carrots after I sprinkled tons over the area where I got shoddy germination.  Now it seems everything germinated.  That's the upshot of the poor weather for you.  And the odd thing is that the cukes and tomatoes haven't seemed to be bothered by the cool weather. I think I've got a handful of new pickling cukes ready in the next few days. 

Speaking of that, we were rushing around all day so I didn't start my pickles marinating.  Tomorrow my mom's coming over and we're starting it out.  We're using her crock pot liner and she's bringing over the stuff for the pickling spices.  Seems you can buy them premade from McCormicks, but what's the fun in that?  Between our three families we should have most all the spices that go into it.  Anyway, my wife isn't  happy about making pickle chips or slices.  She likes the hole pickles.  I explained to her that we only have about a dozen or two pickles a season from these 6 plants. Did she want 24 pickles or a several pints of pickle chips because I let the cukes get much bigger than a regular pickle?  I'm not sure she's convinced, but tough.  I told her next year I may not do corn and then I could do tons of cucumber plants.

As for preserving the beans, alright folks, thanks for you comments. I will boil the heck out of them.  Hehe, I've got it in me that the less cooking the better the veggies are for you, but I'll try the boiling technique for the Blue Lake beans.  I guess some nutrition from actually eating them is better than none from not eating them at all.  I'm also going to preserve them so I can pull a pint from the cupboard rather than grabbing a can opener for Del Monte or Dole.

My mom also had me check to see if the blackberries were ready to harvest.  She, like me, has heard tons of people saying they've been harvesting for a month now.  But ours aren't ready. They don't get full full sun, but close.  I don't know what to think, and I sure hope they do eventually ripen. If not, that would NOT be good.  We rely on them for three families worth of blackberry jelly, which is a family favorite.  The irony was not lost on me that I have hardly ever tasted store-bought jams and jellies in my entire life.  We've always had home made.  So come on weather, come on blackberries!  At least the plums are almost ready. They're purple and big, just not squishy at all.  Close though.  So at least we'll have plum jelly. hehe Not the same.

I also want to install the brackets for my hoop covers.  You never know if this weekend will be our last good weather weekend of the year.  It would suck if it was, but I don't want to be setting it up in the freezing rain like last time.  I want to be able to throw up the covers all by myself in 5 minutes like I can the completed bed #1.

Lastly, for those of you that care about my sourdough starter.  Last night after I finished posting to my blog, I finished off the starter recipe!  And if you recall, I had dutifully been going through the steps of the recipe without hardly anything happening in the way of bubbles.  Still on Eric at Breadtopia's say so, I kept moving on.  So what made me know I'd arrived last night was this when I opened the margarine container to mix it for the last time that day...



Now THAT'S frothy!  And when I stirred it, there were bubbles like that throughout the mixture.  Not only that but it was as sticky as taffy, but came right off the spoon, exactly how it was supposed to.  So I decided to move on to the final step and transfer it to the final container...



Don't mind the fork, my 2 year old put it there, he calls them three horns (he loves the Land Before Time videos), or Cera (Sarah) who is the triceratops.  Funny huh? I thought you'd like that aside.  Well, I was pretty loopy by that wee hour of the morning so I went to bed.  The instructions say that after you transfer it wait an hour and the bubbles should be back.  Well I was asleep by then.  So this morning I took this picture and emailed it to my mom, who promptly wanted her starter, hehe.



So today I also pulled out a tablespoon of the starter and put it back into the margarine container.  This time I fed it with white flour since she didn't want my wheat variety.  According to Breadtopia, you can make a different variety simply by using a tablespoon of your wheat and feeding it exclusively with white or rye.  After twice daily feedings of 1/4th cup of white it'll be 99% white starter with no dicernable trace of wheat. 

Now I have to figure out what I'm going to use as a proofing basket when I make my no-kneed bread.  What a problem to have, huh?

Enjoy your garden!

August 29, 2008

Well, I took a look at my blog stats today, and it seems I've got a devoted group of under 150 that like my ramblings.  That's cool. I mostly started this to show new gardeners like myself that you can make 1,000 mistakes and still harvest exceptional veggies for your family.  Of course the competitive nature in me would love to see more folks reading my blog, but I'm not a political analyst (though I minored in politics), nor am I a sports columnist (though I watch the Seahawks), and I bet those blogs get tons more traffic.  Anyway, what I'm trying to say is if you like reading my blahg, thanks, it keeps me honest and I think more often than not it keeps me accountable to my garden, which is what's needed for a successful harvest.  Enjoy!

Well, tonight I went out to harvest some more cukes and check out the garden.  While I was out there I took a bunch of pics so I thought I'd share.  First, my cucumber plants are really taking off, which is odd for warm weather plants to grow so well in our crappy winter, I mean summer weather.  But look at these plants...



Notice the two pickles on the top left, and another growing on the top rightish. I attriblute those to my force pollination.  I regularly grab a male flower and tickle anything female, no matter if it's growing or open or closed or shriveled.  I figure it can't hurt.  And here is today's results... drum roll please...



Now those were the first harvest of my slicers, but boy don't they look yummy!  I'm not sure if they'd make good pickles if I sliced them thin?  I plan on slicing my dills using my mandolin for even 1/8 inch slices, maybe even chips.  I've got to do that tomorrow or the ones I picked a week+ ago will go soft on me.  We'll see, I may even pick a few more of those smallish ones that would make good baby dills whole.

Oh, and speaking of cucumbers, I had to comment over on GW tonight that it's funny how closely cantaloupe plants resemble cucumbers. I know they're both related, but they look and act identical until the fruit forms from a polinated female bud.  To show you just how close they look, here is a picture of my cantaloupe plants gamely trying to make a go of it this year.  I may have had a chance if Mother Nature hadn't decided to head south for the winter.  Who knew she was a snowbird...



Poor little cantaloupe, the've got their tendrils out searching for a trellis to climb and I refuse to break it out.  Let them sprawl all over between the two potato bins, or even climb the apple tree. Who cares, they're coming out after the first frost anyway, which I just learned yesterday from a great site, NOAA's Climate study website, which allows you to determine the probablility of the first fall frost or last spring frost down to your closest big city. For me it's Everett (though I hate using it since it's 15 miles north). For me I've got a 10% chance of frost on October 7, but a 90% chance by October 29. With those odds, I may even have a shot if we get some decent warmth between now and then... see my brother's prediction of an "Indian Summer".

Were to go next, ah yes, I mentoned potato bins.  Well, the Yukon Golds still look as lethargic as always, so I'm not sure if they're ready or not. Digging a potato is definitely in order this weekend.



Man that one was blurry, sorry, don't know what happened.  Anyway, either a coon sat on my russets again or they are dying too.  I think it's the crappy weather that's making them think it's October.  Doesn't matter, they've cooked in the ground long enough.  There better be tons of potatoes down there.



I know it's tough to tell, but that is much wimpier than they were last week, and all the flowers have fallen off!  That's a good sign.

Before I go back to my garden area, the plum tree also thinks it's fall, because the plums are ripening.  Look at the color on these...



And despite hundreds dropping to the ground and joining the compost pile, I've still go hundreds and hundreds on the tree. Best harvest in years. I'm sure it's the grass liberation and compost/mulching I did around the base.I wonder if I'd done it around the drip line like I read.  That'd look funny and bad, but I bet the tree would love it. The kids and I on the other hand would not enjoy the yard much though, so no dice.

Now back to the garden, and I'll start with the tomatoes.  They're ripening nicely, at least the Early Girls are, but the weight of the tomatoes are snapping vines and drooping them badly.  No mater how much I work them into the trellis they still fall down.



Ah well, I'm almost looking forward to ripping them out and hanging them upside down in the shed or garage to ripen over the winter months for fresh tomatoes.  Let's just hope the lettuce speeds up so I can enjoy a winter salad.

And look at this broccoli.  I think I'll ask my wife to make bake potato soup and I'll add the broccoli for a broccoli baked potato.  Sounds yummy.



You can't see it from the picture, or even if you're looking, but once this broccoli's harvested, there's another one hidden in it's shadow coming up right behind it.  Not bad.

Oh, and I saw DoubleD's wall of pole beans (Blue Lake), and I just had to share my own wall of Blue Lakes.  Well, maybe not a wall, but since it's covering the old door to the garage, maybe it's a door of pole beans, hehe.



I'd really love to harvest all the bush beans that have been hanging out for a month and the fresher pole beans and can them.  That way I can have green beans all winter and maybe I'll like the taste better if they're more like Del Monte.  I hate to say it but I like canned green beans better than fresh.  I know, sacrilege.  I'm afraid I'm like that for peas too, well frozen that is.  That's why I'm growing snap peas this fall only. I like them the best of snow or shelling.  Anyway, I'd like to can these this weekend if they're any good still.  Any ideas?

Lastly, I mentioned my corn being harvested too late. Well here's my corn bed. Still looks good, and there are some really full cobs. I will try them again, but I'm not holding out much hope.  Ah well. Live and learn (with 44 SF of garden space /sigh)



Well, the weekend's turned such that the weather's now supposed to be lower 60s and dry.  I'll take it!  The plants would rather it be warm but I'm good with no rain.  Maybe I'll even get my brackes up for my hoop covers. Wouldn't that be nice?

Enjoy your garden!

July 12, 2008

Ok, so I'm late posting this and it says it's the 13th.  Honestly, I just was out all afternoon and night and decided I really did have something to say today.  So here it is so I can hit the sack.





All I got done in the garden today was to hopefully fix my compost bins.  I had 2 big bags and one little bag of coffee grounds.  I started with the old bin and fluffed it. Not hard since I fluffed it last weekend.  It was warm, but not hot.  So after I fluffed it, I hollowed out the center by moving the center to the outter walls of the bin. 



Then I took one big bag of grounds and started sprinkling it on top of a thin layer of compost.  I wetted it all down and spread a few inches of compost over it.  Then I repeated the process with a thin layer of grounds, water and more compost until it looked like this.



It's very similar to lasagna soil building where you layer stuff on top of each other and it composts down into great soil.  That's what I'm trying to create here, beautiful humus with roughly a CN ratio of 12:1, which is essentially fertilizer per Steve Solomon. 

The whole process took about an hour for both bins. I'm hoping the old bin and new bin will both heat up above 140 and continue composting.  I really hope that the old bin will break down some of those wood chips.  I shouldn't have put them inside all at once.  Joe said I should have stored them in buckets and added them in layers a cup or two at a time.  I'm still seeing pockets of sawdust.  So I tried to move that and some more complete compost over to the new bed to help jumpstart the new bin.  I can't wait to test the temps tomorrow.

While I was out there I just had to take a picture of my plum tree. It really looks great after pruning it massively last year and adding the compost to the base.



And here is a representative cluster of plums growing!



It's tough to see but I counted five plums in this photo.  Not bad considering two years ago we got squat for harvest.  Funny that the only tree I didn't compost is the pear tree and thus far I see not one pear growing.  Drat since we love canned pears on cottage cheese.  I will definitely use some of that compost from my bins around the base of the pear tree (my bins come within 6 inches of the trunk so it's not far to carry it).

Finally, here is a great pic of my Butte potato bin now.  Look at the massive amounts of foliage!



The Yukon Gold bin isn't nearly as full, but not bad.

I just hope there are litterally hundreds of pounds of potatoes growing inside that space!

Tomorrow I hope to get my SWC fixed.  Gonna be fun.  Oh yeah, I'll end with this. We had another day over 86, so we are up to 4 or so. I'm trying to get us raised from an AHS zone 2 to a 3, hehe.

Enjoy your garden!