garden

Digging Sod

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140721 New Garden

I have been thinking about expanding this garden for a couple of years now.  I blame the weather for my lack of commitment to the project.  It’s been too hot during the window I have every summer to move things around.

An opportunity presented itself in the past week or so that has pushed me to do this.  A lifetime gardening mentor is dismantling her perennial gardens and I am the recipient of a lot of her plants.  This is a mixed blessing.  I’ve written before about how I feel about plants in my garden that come from friends and family, they hold a special place in my heart.  For the most part perennials last more than a lifetime, that’s the reason you often see flowers blooming in odd places.  They are very often in spots where homes once existed that are long gone. I have many, many plants that I can tell you came from people I love.  Friendship gardening.

The difficulty in this particular gardening adventure is that I have been visiting Mabel’s gardens for decades.  They were spectacular in design and there were always new and unusual plants in them.  I learned a lot about the gardening of perennials from her.  There are many reasons why she has decided to dismantle her gardens but for me to go there and dig plants out of it seems so wrong to me.  They are part of how I think of her and it seems so sad to me to know that I will not be visiting an amazing array of plantings and have the narrative to go with it.  And it’s not that I visited often but it was just knowing it was there.

At the same time I will be taking a piece of her for my yard.  My sister and I walked her gardens over the weekend with her and she made a mental list of who was taking what.  There were tips on how to dig up certain things and where they might go.  There was also the excitement of having practically a ready-made garden for the moving.

Then comes the hard work.  I have been digging out the sod for a couple of days.  I finished yesterday early in the morning and have been thinking about other spots that should be dug up.  Plants will be moved in the next week or two to various spots around the house, some love sun, some shade. It has also forced me to do things that I haven’t done in the past.  I had to remove the forks from the tractor and put on the bucket – I’ve been shown once but never actually did it. As you can see that was a success.

All in all this project has given me perspective on my physical capabilities.  It’s easy to say I’m too old and out of shape to be digging this much space by hand but honestly it feels so good doing it.  Pace yourself I keep saying, stay hydrated my brain reminds me.  Focus remains a bit of a problem, I want to dig up all sorts of places and know that I could get myself into some trouble with the amount I’ve taken on.

I came in for another large glass of water the other day and my father said, “You know this place once had the most beautiful gardens in town”.  That, my friends, is something to aspire to.

If You Feed Them They Will Come

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140512 OrioleSurprisingly their favorite food is grape jelly.  He’s perched on a bowl of it.  So beautiful.

 

 

Despite The Freezing Temps Spring Really Is Here

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140303 CliviaI always know when spring is here – the Clivia blooms.  I would recommend this plant to anyone who truly believes they cannot grow anything – this plant thrives on total neglect.  Before writing this post I did a little research and read all about how to get your Clivia to blossom.  Cold temperature, no water, timing – yeah, I do none of that except forget to water it for most of the winter.  That and never, ever repot the thing.  This is the lazy man’s ultimate plant.

It sits on a table on the north side of the house.  I still think it blossoms when the days get longer, that’s all it’s waiting for.  It’s been in hibernation for the winter, like me, that’s probably why it’s not watered during that period.  It’s always the middle of February that I start to notice the days are getting longer and I give it a drink figuring it will notice too.  Like clockwork those orange blossoms open up the beginning of March – it knows.  That’s the beauty of having houseplants, they tell you spring is coming well before you think it is.  You see that new growth where there has been nothing for months.  The plants begin to demand your attention, they are telling you the seasons are changing.

Garden Dreaming

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The Weeds Are WinningThis is the time of year when the grand garden dreams begin.  It has been bitter cold out and I’m sad to say the only outdoor adventures I have had in the past month is taking the dogs out twice a day. The snowshoes are waiting in the shed for another good snowstorm.

Like every project I have I start with truly unrealistic plans and then pare them down as the time grows shorter.  The list of seeds is pretty long this year with the hope that the spring weather will be decent and my plants will get a better start.  I plan to start everything at home rather than buying starts anywhere, including my onions.  In years past I just bought onion sets but last year I was unable to get Walla Wallas and was disappointed, this year I won’t leave it to chance.

There has been so much in the news lately about GMOs that I’ve decided this is the only way to go for me.  I can’t source anything anymore, you just have no idea where anything comes from and can’t trust what you’re told for the most part.  I never thought I would have to work so hard at knowing where my food came from.

I am fortunate to have grown up in a family that always had a large vegetable garden. We canned, froze or otherwise put by most of the food we ate.  We always grew our own beef, had chickens for a spell and raised a couple of pigs one time.  Having my food source close to me is nothing new but now there seems to be more of an urgency to it.  I thought it was just me being a little paranoid but having talked to a couple of medical professionals who are seeing more cancers in much younger people I’m thinking I’m not being over cautious.  When someone tells me they know of a 26 year old with breast cancer my first thought is their diet.  We have had decades now where our protein sources are laced with hormones and antibiotics all in the name of increasing production.  The same goes for our GMO crops.  Corn is in everything – every thing.  Even if you are trying to do right by your family if you are not reading labels (and reading into them) you simply don’t know what you are getting anymore.

So the grand plan is to plant a large variety in quantities that will get me through to the next harvest. Things that will keep in a root cellar, are good canned or dehydrated. In reading over the long seed list it would seem that my experiment for this growing season will be Dinosaur Kale and a savoyed cabbage.  Spinach will be in the mix as well.  I’ve grown it before but haven’t in a few years so it made the list.  The garlic and asparagus are in the ground both of them are experiments in themselves albeit really long term ones.

This weekend I will spend some time sitting by the wood stove, drinking coffee,  plotting out my garden space and ticking off the seed list to see what stays and what goes.  I will also do a viability test on some of the seed I have just to see what I really need.  I’ll try to sprout some of my popcorn as well because that was one experiment that worked particularly well.

Planning that Garden Years in Advance

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131013 Garlic Planting

 

Sunday morning I was able to till the soil on the south side of the garage and plant my garlic. This was pretty much my entire crop from this year. It’s a hard necked variety called Music that performed very well. When all was said and done I planted 70 bulbs. Next year we should have enough to eat for the winter and spring plus the same amount to plant the following year.

Gardening is such a long term process. You always have to think years down the line and plan, plan, plan. “The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray” is every farmer’s adage so we plan for the unexpected as well.

My garden has begun to expand with more permanent plantings. Raspberries and asparagus are the newest members. Blueberries, rhubarb and pears have been there awhile. I still have another year before I will be eating the asparagus but once the patch comes in it will be amazing. My raspberries have had two years of not doing so well and I am beginning to think I should move them to another spot, maybe in the back forty. They will have just as much sun but the soil won’t dry out as much. It’s worth a shot, they certainly aren’t happy where they are.

Growing your own food is both wonderful and anxiety producing. You worry about your plants. You wonder if your timing is right for planting, for harvesting.  Every year is different. I used to think that once I had 10 years under my belt I would be able to relax but that is not the case. Too warm, too cold, too wet, too dry, sheesh. I keep records from year to year – garden layout, planting time, harvest time. I review it during the winter and try to plan but you never know. So all we can do is hope for the best.

Fall is Here

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130915 (1)See that weed infested mess in the foreground – it’s gone!  We pulled up the stakes and mowed it with the lawnmower.  Yes, that is how weedy it was.  As a matter of fact it looks like the rest of the lawn.  I’m sad that garden season is over but I’m not sad to see that garden gone.   Bill started building a fire pit in the middle of it for the upcoming Harvest party.  I figure if nothing else the center of the garden will be weed free next year.

End of Year Garden Assessment

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130915 (1)I took this photograph yesterday morning overlooking the best garden of weeds I have ever had.  I have had a vegetable garden for a good ten years now and this has to be the worst one yet. Fortunately the rest of the view is pretty nice.

For some reason in my mind it is the first week of October (I even tore off the September page of the calendar on Saturday and didn’t realize it until Sunday).  It may be the weeds or my confused state but I decided to dismantle most of the garden this past weekend.  I had Cherry Belle radishes the size of beets – over 5 feet tall and gone to seed (which was interesting since I had never done that).  I had a total of two beets the size of radishes.

130915 (2)I really began by pulling up all of my popcorn.  It had been raining the past week a good deal and I thought I should probably get it out of the ground.  I laid all of the stalks in my garden wagon thinking I would keep the ears on the stalks to dry further.  This was Tom Thumb popcorn, an heirloom variety developed in New Hampshire.  It was bred to do well in a short season.  It only grows 3 feet tall and is quite cute.  It did well.  Sunday I decided to pull all of the ears off of the stocks, peel back the husks and let them dry further.  They are supposed to dry to a 14% moisture content.  I’m not sure how you’re supposed to figure that out but most people just try popping a few kernels every so often during the drying period to see when they pop.  Works for me.  Did I mention that none of these ears is more than 4 inches long?  Most are in the 3 inch category – hence the name Tom Thumb. 

130915 (3)I then pulled what carrots I had.  I had planted two varieties – the old standby Danvers and Atomic Red.  Another rather disappointing harvest.  This is all I had – a total of 6 pints when it was all said and done.  When I saw them scrubbed up in the bowl I was glad I had planted both, they look great together.  I canned them with a brown sugar glaze.  I had heard a review from my sister that this was the only way to go.  Well, when you only have 6 pints you have to make a choice,  I went with sweet.

The rest of the potatoes were dug on Saturday and left out in the sun until yesterday afternoon.  Not a particularly good year for them either.  We had a lot of rain and the earth really compacted around them.  The potatoes are delicious, the yield was just not there (that and the fact that we ate fully half of them as new potatoes).

130915 (4)Then there is the matter of tomatoes.  The vines in the garden have been brown without leaves for a couple of weeks.  The yellow cherries just kept coming – we are at a loss to understand why.  This tomato is extremely prolific.  The bonus is it takes them a long, long time to rot.  Another interesting thing is they drop off of the vine as soon as they begin to turn yellow so rather than pick them off of the plant you end up picking them off of the ground.  I was pulling the stakes up that were holding the plants and these tomatoes were everywhere.  Not being one to let good food go to waste I picked them up and canned them with 4 red tomatoes that were the only ones left.  I ended the tomato season with an additional 6 pints of beautiful golden sauce.

I planted a total of seven eggplants – they produced 4 fruit.  They were delicious but I’m not sure if it was this particular year’s weather or my growing season is just too short.  The plants are blossoming like crazy right now but I know there won’t be enough time before we have a frost.  I feel a little bad pulling them up but I’m not going to weed around them.

The asparagus looks great. The bed will be cleaned out, mulched and  some edging will be put in this fall.  The rutabagas are just okay this year, they will stay in the ground until a couple of frosts hit, then I will pull them.  They are smaller than usual.  The rest of the garden will be tilled in the next week or so (because I can’t look at the crabgrass any more).

We have scoped out a new area for the garden.  This will involve outside help for excavation and some fill but it holds the promise of being a better location long term.  We have some mature maples along the south end of where the garden presently is and that is the one tree we are loathe to cut down.  I figure the way the crabgrass grew in this year it would take about a month to turn the present garden into lawn since most of the lawn is crabgrass anyway.

 

 

 

 

Can All You Can

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I posted a photo of my canyon of canned goods the other day and some comments surprised me.  I grew up canning.  My mother canned – a lot.  We had a large garden and what she didn’t can she froze.  Everything was done with a hot water bath so there were hours spent in front of that stove or in a hot kitchen, it takes a long time to process things with a hot water bath.  She used the WWII volume of the Ball Blue Book.  I still have it but these days almost everything I do is with a pressure canner.  It saves me time, water, energy and sweat.  I am also able to can pretty much anything safely.

This time of year the concentration is on fruit with tomatoes included.  Last week I canned tomatoes, peaches and made apricot butter as well as a few jars of dill pickles.  This week will be a repeat.  I really need about 50 pints of tomatoes to last me until next summer, I’d prefer to have more but tomatoes aren’t as easy to come by this summer due to a blight that seems to have effected everyone everywhere.

The peaches are beautiful this year and I had a really great canning experience this past weekend.  I love it when everything goes smoothly.  I don’t want to fight to peel those peaches.  I read somewhere to make sure the water was at a rolling boil and to dunk only a few peaches at a time for 30 seconds then into the ice bath.  Worked like a charm.  I also made sure my fruit was at room temperature before I started.  Canning fruit at home also allows you to control the amount of sugar that is used in processing.  That’s important to me, I don’t like things really sweet, I want to taste the fruit.

Our pear tree is loaded with fruit this year – I fear for its branches.  The apple trees are the same.  I will probably make a few pints of pie filling from the apples just to see if I can make it work to my satisfaction.  The pears won’t even ripen until after Thanksgiving and I will can those in chunks like I did the peaches.

There is nothing like the taste of home canned food, especially in winter.  I know exactly what is in every jar, there are no preservatives, no additives, no GMO’s.  It’s real food.  There is also the feeling of food security which is certainly what food preservation is all about.  Having enough to eat until the next harvest comes in.  Plant enough to eat now and put by enough to get you to next summer.  We live in a world where everything is immediate.  It takes very little time to empty out a grocery store, they are restocked every day.  I don’t ever want to worry about where my next meal is coming from or not having food to feed my family.  I’m sure that comes from growing up when food security may have been a concern.  I just remember this time of year the shelves were stocked and you had choices.

130824 Canning CanyonI know when I look at this my mind is set a little more at ease.  I have good food, I took the time to make it right and now all that is left is the eating.

Tomato Thief

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130825 Buddy (2)

 

I have a few combination pots of herbs that have (had) cherry tomato plants in them.  I have had tomato blight this year in a big way so the tomatoes are on some very sad looking vines.

Years ago, when I had only one dog, it was a little schnauzer named Holly.  She was completely food obsessed. Each year I planted a pot of cherry tomatoes in my back yard in Enfield so I would pick one for her every time we went out.  She loved it and her first stop in the yard was that pot.  Buddy came along and she showed him the trick.  Years have gone by and I no longer have tomatoes in Enfield.

Buddy is getting on in years and we think he has a little dementia (which dogs actually do get).  This is what we saw him doing Sunday night.  He was picking the tomatoes off of the vines in the pots in the yard.  He’s hard of hearing so was unaware of me being behind him with the camera, he was totally concentrating on eating tomatoes.

130825 Buddy (1)We all had a little chuckle about this finding it interesting that so many years have passed since he actually did this.

The day was beautiful and we cooked and ate outdoors.  As we were sitting down to eat Bill looked over to the garden where Buddy was showing Chester the ropes in tomato eating in my tomato patch.  One yell and Chester made a beeline out of the place he knows he’s not supposed to be.  Buddy?  He had to have at least one more before he left.

 

Good Food

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IMAG0795

My kids call me the doomer.  I try to tell them that I just like to be prepared.  I never want to worry about where my next meal is coming from.  In doing so I have learned to garden in good weather and bad.  This year is one of those years where some things are doing much better than expected while others are an unmitigated disaster.  Every year I seem to say to Bill, “If we had to survive on this year’s garden we would starve to death by February”.  Even though I’m getting better at my gardening and adding more and more perennial beds and plants to the ever changing array of food that I grow I know that it would never be enough for a family to survive on until the next crop comes in.

The main reason I really grow a garden is there is nothing like the taste of a warm cucumber just picked, or that summer tomato.  The real revelation came to me when I grew potatoes for the first time a couple of years ago.  Potatoes freshly dug scream “POTATO” when you eat them.  Something happens to produce the minute it is harvested – the taste begins to wane. There are only two things I grow that improve once picked – pears and long pie pumpkins.

Last weekend we made a spectacular meal of things we have grown (or in the case of the steak watched grow).  These are the meals that are memorable, the ones I like to share with friends and family.  I want them to know their food can be so much better. There is such satisfaction in knowing you started the seeds and nurtured your food.  That there are no chemicals involved in any of the food we ate.  The beef was fed grass and hay from one property, no hormones, antibiotics.  It grew up in fresh air and sunshine.  It tastes like BEEF, not the homogenized red meat you find wrapped in plastic and styrofoam at the grocery store.  There is a huge difference.

The garden surplus I will continue to can to use in the winter months.  Peaches and apricots are next on the list and I will continue with tomatoes.  Even with processing the taste of  home canned fruit of any kind is a revelation in the winter.  The first bite brings you back to summer.  That is what makes all the work of preserving your harvest in the summer worthwhile.